pocket, unlocked the door, and then showed Alex into the first holding cell. He took a seat on the wooden bench that was suspended from the wall as I closed and locked the cell door behind him. I leaned against the desk just outside the cell and studied him. I wasn’t sure why, but I sincerely hoped he wasn’t guilty of murder.
“Speaking of looks and how they can be deceiving…” I picked up a stray pencil on the desktop and began drumming it against my lower lip.
“You’re wondering if Donovan was really my brother because we look nothing alike,” he interrupted as he leaned over, his elbows propped on his knees. He ran his hands down the back of his head and sighed audibly. Then he glanced up again and smiled at me.
“Yes,” I answered as I stopped playing with the pencil and gave him the full weight of my frown because this mind-reading stuff was really getting on my nerves. “The body we found in the snow was that of a Native American.”
“Inuit.”
“Right, but you’re clearly Caucasian.”
“Yep, I’ve been affectionately referred to as a cracker more times than I can remember,” he admitted with a slow smile.
“So there’s a disconnect.”
Alex shrugged. “Easy-enough answer,” he said as his smile widened. “I was adopted.”
“Adopted? So, you aren’t related by blood to the victim?”
“No, I’m not, but that doesn’t make him any less my brother,” he announced firmly, as if annoyed I was suggesting anything else.
“Well, according to biology, it would.”
“Biology?” he laughed and then shook his head as if biology had no business in this conversation. The laugh died on his lips and he faced me almost stoically. “I grew up with Donovan. He might not have been related to me by blood, but he was related to me by soul and by pack.”
“By pack?” I asked as I studied him. “Strange way of describing your… family?”
“You’ll find, Chief Elodie, that the strange way predominates here.”
“Chief is fine,” I corrected him in a brisk tone of voice. “And, yes, I have noticed that strange things seem to be going on in this town. I was hoping you might have an explanation for me.”
He shrugged. “Maybe I do.”
When he didn’t say anything more, I jumped off the desktop and approached him. “I want to know what the deal is with your brother and what happened to him.”
“He was stabbed.”
“And you didn’t do it?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know, but I’m hoping you’ll be able to find out,” he answered as we both eyed one another narrowly. “Next question.”
“If John Doe really is your brother and I followed him into the playground, where the hell did he disappear to?”
Alex stood up and approached the cell bars, wrapping his hands around them as he brought his face as close to mine as the bars would allow. “You already know the answer to that question.”
“What if I don’t believe it?”
“There’s no other rational explanation.”
I laughed without mirth. “Rational explanation? Nothing about this is rational!”
Alex held my gaze, all the while wearing a poker face. “You already know the truth, Chief. Your missing John Doe was the same as the wolf that appeared in the creek, the very same one that nearly attacked you.”
Chapter Fourteen
I’d had enough.
Enough of wolves and walking corpses and crazy talk. Enough of Alex’s long eyelashes and his mind reading. And enough of this stupid little town in this stupid oversized state with its stupid, stupid musk oxes.
“Oxen.”
I paused, my back still to him. “What?”
“They’re called musk oxen,” Alex said, his voice echoing merrily from within the cell. “And that was quite a tirade. I’m impressed.”
“Oh, piss off!”
“Such language, Chief.”
“I need a drink.” My stomach growled again, as if on cue.
“And you need something to eat. You haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.”
I glared at him.
“I haven’t eaten either,” he continued with a shrug. “You planning on feeding me in here?”
“I wasn’t.”
“Well, how long are you planning on holding me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Look, Chief, you’re hungry, I’m hungry. And the only other person in this station is asleep in the broom closet at the end of the hall.” It figured. “What if I give you my word I won’t try to run off and I’ll answer all your questions, then can we get something to eat?”
“No.”
“Come on, Miguel vouched for me. You know I’m a bounty hunter and I have a special interest in getting to the bottom of this case, considering it involves my brother…”
“So what?”
“So your stomach has been growling for the last