stuff, but then what didn’t the KM have covered? They hadn’t stayed a secret society for so many years by being unprepared.
“What happened after you heard her moaning?”
He’d staked the fringe and cleaned up the ashes as quickly as he could. “I saw her lying there. Looked like she’d been run through a shredder. I was surprised she was still alive.” He shifted, blew out a breath. “I yelled for help, but no one came.” He hadn’t yelled for help because he knew there was none. Plus the smell of blood had already drawn new fringe. “I held her. She died in my arms.” At that point, the fringe had been curious, but not a threat since the girl was no longer a viable meal.
“And that’s how you got her blood all over you?”
“Yes.” They’d searched him for weapons. Since Argent had yet to show with his replacement crossbow, all they’d found on him was a titanium stake and his halm, which they’d thought was just a length of pipe. Most people in Little Havana carried a lot more than that.
“Then what?”
“I went into that bodega and they called nine-one-one. The rest you know.”
“You touch or move anything else around the scene? We gonna find your prints on anything you want to tell us about now?”
“No, I know better than that.” Maybe a street person had seen the gold and stripped her flesh trying to harvest it.
“What were you doing in this part of town?”
There was no good reason to be in Little Havana unless you lived here. Clearly the cop was trying to trip him up. “I told you, passing through on my way home.” Half a dozen new fringe lingered in the gathering crowd like circling sharks. They came and went, sniffing around, figuring out the blood wasn’t from a live source and disappearing again.
“Do you know the victim? Ever seen her around here before?” Red and blue LED police lights illuminated the sheet now covering her.
“Never seen her before.” But he knew what she was. The brunette roots of the platinum hair and simple signum, what was left of them, anyway, pegged her as one of Dominic’s fake comarré. One of many things the officer probably had no clue about. Another was that the vampires in the crowd had now doubled in number. Things were getting ugly in this city. He’d seen more othernaturals openly mingling with humans than ever before. Any day now, humans were going to stop pretending they weren’t seeing things and figure out the world around them had become a very different place. The night of Halloween would be the end of the innocence if it didn’t happen before that.
Another officer ushered a vaguely familiar woman under the crime scene tape and through the milling forensics team. A man, clearly her bodyguard, judging by the loosely concealed piece, dark suit with matching shades, and general protection vibe, accompanied her. Wolf-shifter by the looks of him. Creek inhaled. Too many othernaturals in the crowd to make a positive ID.
The officer escorted her to the body and pulled the sheet back enough to uncover the dead girl’s face. The woman went pale beneath her sleek, brunette bob and heavily lined eyes. Her mouth opened in shock, then she snapped it closed, swallowed as she regained her composure, and nodded. Pain bracketed her eyes. She said something normal human ears wouldn’t have heard from this distance. “That’s her.”
Creek tipped his head toward the woman. “Who is that?”
The officer looked up from moving his stylus across his e-tablet screen. “The mayor. Delores Diaz-White. Don’t you watch TV?”
“Don’t own one.” Ugly didn’t begin to describe what was about to go down in this city. Creek cursed softly.
“You can say that again.” The officer’s head went back down to focus on his notes. “Don’t leave town. Chances are a hundred percent we’re going to need you again for questioning.”
Creek jerked his head in response, but his eyes were on the mayor. She spoke to the officer who’d led her to the body, her gun-toting muscle scanning the crowd like he expected trouble. Creek had planned to head out again on patrol, but stopping by Seven to let Dominic know about his comarré might not be a bad idea. Maybe the anathema could give him a heads-up on who might have had a beef with the girl. An angry customer, maybe, or a heavy-handed boyfriend.
The mayor’s bodyguard stopped his constant scanning and faced Creek. Because of the man’s dark shades,