Sun Broken (The Wild Hunt #11) - Yasmine Galenorn Page 0,13
He was the tiger shifter, right?”
Angel consulted the files. “Right, Mendin Casey. He was a tiger shifter and he was single. All right. I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“Okay.” I let out a sigh. “I better get back to my desk. Viktor and I have to head out and check out the list of names. Don’t forget you’ll be going to Marilee’s alone.”
She nodded. “Yeah. But I need you to drive me home. On the way to work this morning, my car blew something, pouring smoke out from under the hood. They still haven’t pinpointed the problem, so I’ll have to take a taxi over to Marilee’s. And before I go, I need to pick up some things from the house.” She paused. “What do you think Morgana wants to talk to you about? I don’t envy you there.”
“Oh, it’s not so bad,” I said, smiling. “She’s actually pretty cool, for a goddess. Besides, I’m dating her son. She likes me…I think. Or…I hope.”
Chapter Four
Our first stop was Mendin Casey’s house. Mendin had been the tiger shifter, and he lived alone in a small two-story brick house on Kinnear Place in the Queen Anne District. We parked on the street, gazing up at the house, which sat at the top of a sloping yard. A series of concrete steps—probably twenty of them—led to the bottom of the porch, where another flight led to the front door. The yard was impeccably landscaped with tidy ferns, and the lavender and juniper bushes were neatly trimmed.
As we sat in the car, I frowned. Entering a dead man’s house always felt so odd. Especially when the person had lived alone. It was like there was this sudden interruption to life as we knew it. There were always reminders that the deceased had been in the middle of something, and the house always felt heavy with unfinished energy.
“I guess we should go in. The landlady said she’d be waiting for us.” I glanced at my watch. We couldn’t put it off much longer.
“You sure your timing is accurate? You break watches.”
It was true—watches broke around me, but Marilee had taught me a dampening spell so that I didn’t leak so much energy.
“No, I think we’re on time. Let’s go.” I stepped out of the car and smoothed back my hair. I was about as presentable as I was going to look today, and that was the best I could do.
We headed up the front steps. They were steep and cracked, with moss growing between the breaks in the concrete.
“So he was renting the place. I wonder who took care of the yard, Mendin or his landlady,” I said as we headed toward the porch steps. Above the porch was a balcony that opened into what probably was a master bedroom. The brick looked clean, which meant that it had been power washed during the year to blast off the ever-present mold and mildew that permeated the area.
“By the landlady’s tone on the phone, my guess is that Mendin took care of it. She said that nobody has contacted her about his belongings, so I told her we’d send someone to box them up after we look through them. We can keep them while we search for any next of kin. But Mendin was a loner, so I’m not sure how much luck we’ll have there.”
The landlady was waiting for us. As we reached the top of the stairs, the door opened. She introduced herself as Leela, and she was younger than I had expected, though I wasn’t sure why I had expected an elderly woman. But the woman standing in front of us looked to be in her forties, and she was thin, with skin that looked like she had lived a hard life. She had wrinkles around her lips in that manner that only smokers get, and she was wearing an old pair of jeans with holes in the knees, and an olive green tank top. Her hair was flame red, curling down to her shoulders.
We showed her our identification and she let us in. Mendin had died in this house, and the blood had saturated the carpet. I blinked, staring at the mess. The house needed a hazmat team. I didn’t want to touch anything.
Viktor gave me a quick look and I shook my head. I wasn’t about to inflict this on the team Viktor had hired to pack up Mendin’s possessions. “We can’t do much about his belongings until you