Lawful Mates - Liam Kingsley Page 0,10

on some level that if anyone could handle a situation like this, it was me.

I focused on the contents of the file as my father quietly gave the senator platitudes and assurances that he would never see the inside of a prison. It was going to be tough. But I could do it.

Finally, I got to the end of the file, to the information that had been gathered so far against Senator Bates. A private investigation agency had been used, which must be why it had stayed out of the media so far. I scanned the details, but when I got to the bottom of the page, I froze.

No way. No fucking way. My heart hammered, and blood roared in my ears.

Because the name of the PI investigating Bates was none other than Easton Moore.

4

Easton

I dragged my hands over my face and stifled a yawn. Coffee. I needed more coffee. I’d been up late last night working on my latest case and had been back at it early this morning. Actually, I’d been working like a dog for the past two weeks, and it was starting to wear on me. At least it was Friday, and I had the weekend to look forward to. Some much-needed downtime was all I had on my agenda.

But right then… I needed to get my head in the game and make some progress on this assignment. It was pretty complicated, more so than many of the others I’d taken on since I opened my private investigation company. And it had the potential to be extremely high-profile, especially if what I was starting to suspect was true.

I stood from my desk and went over to brew a fresh pot of coffee, mulling over things as they currently stood.

It had all started the day Milo Tanner’s mother showed up in my office two weeks ago, eyes red-rimmed and hands shaking, looking like she hadn’t slept in days. She had been so distraught when telling me that her son had been missing for days. And the worst part was that the cops weren’t doing a damn thing about it. That really pissed me off because serving the community and upholding justice were as ingrained in the Moore family as much as being shifters defined our lives.

Apparently, her husband, Senator Bates, who had a questionable reputation at best, wanted to keep everything out of the media since he was up for re-election in the coming year.

As I scooped coffee grounds into the machine, I recalled the way she’d looked almost afraid as she’d whispered those details to me. Then she’d quickly asked me about my confidentiality policy. It made me angry all over again just thinking about it. She was obviously afraid of her husband. That had been enough for me to take on the case.

But I hadn’t expected to find what I had. Because the more I investigated, the more it appeared that Bates had something to do with the disappearance of his stepson.

Milo Tanner was a young shifter who had just turned twenty-one. He belonged to the Blackwater Pack like me, though I’d never met him personally. According to Mrs. Bates, her husband was trying to play it off like Milo had run away. But she also said that Milo would never do that. He was a happy guy. He and his stepfather may have clashed over things in the past, but not to the point that Milo would leave home over it.

Still, Senator Bates was insisting that was the situation. The fact that he wanted to keep it out of the media, that he wasn’t doing everything in his power to find his missing stepson proved something was off here. And I was determined to get to the bottom of it. I had a hunch the senator was at the center of everything, and my hunches hadn’t been wrong yet.

While the coffee brewed, I walked back to my desk and picked up the case file again. It said a lot that the senator’s wife didn’t believe what her own husband was saying. She’d hired me on the spot as soon as I agreed to help her. All that mattered to her at this point was that I find her son and discover the truth of what happened to him.

I’d kept everything on the down-low the past couple of weeks, though. Involving more people than necessary was a surefire way to throw a wrench in my investigation. And with Bates trying to keep it from the