Murder in Misery (Spook Squad) - By Ashley K. Broome Page 0,24

close enough to a person they’re bound to take notice of you and that’s exactly what she wanted to happen.

It wasn’t long before Mason shifted in his seat uncomfortably after he scented her. He turned to look at Keegan before he gave up with trying not to look to obvious and turned completely towards her. “What’s a necromancer doing around these parts?”

Keegan pulled her badge off her belt and slid it over the counter to where he could see it. Mason started to stand but Keegan laid a hand on his wrist. “I’m Detective Keegan Morne. We can sit here and talk or you can deal with the boys from homicide. Believe me when I tell you it’s better to deal with SIU than it is to deal with them.”

“Damn it.” Mason growled out before he sat back down.

“I take it you know what this is going to be about?” Keegan murmured her thanks as Tommy slid a glass of water towards her. “So where were you three nights ago?”

Mason licked his lips before he started tearing a paper napkin up into tiny pieces. “I spent the night with Tiegs Holderman.”

“You didn’t go out anywhere with her? Stayed in?”

Mason pieced up his beer and took a gulp. “We spent the night at her studio.

“I didn’t do anything to them. You’ve got to know that. Cody and Alice are dead, Conner…” Mason rubbed a hand across his forehead. His shoulders tensed up and his hand shook as he reached out to take a sip of his beer. When Keegan finally looked up to meet his eye, she saw tears shimmering against the deep amber eyes. “I can’t even think about what happened to Connor without feeling sick.”

“I don’t get it.” Keegan narrowed her eyes at the wolf before her.

Mason cleared his throat and looked up to meet Keegan’s suspicious eyes. “You don’t get what?”

“Almost everyone that my squad has spoken with said you and the Barrs didn’t get along. It has even been mentioned that you think people of mixed heritage shouldn’t be part of the world. So why are you sitting here about to cry about their passing?” Ignoring the more positive stance Mason Mills had taken on recently Keegan went for the uncomfortable topics. If he got riled up maybe she would get some kind of information out of him he wouldn’t have otherwise parted with.

“Everyone makes mistakes at some point in their lives, Detective. I was young and stupid when I got that reputation. After awhile, I learned that it was the best way for me to keep going was to keep up with the pretense. People will leave you alone if they think you’re nuts. I let them believe whatever the hell they wanted to believe because I didn’t need people snooping around in my business. I let them think whatever they would like to think about me and look where that’s gotten me. As for Cody and Alice? It took one run in with that man, a few years ago, to set me straight. He might be a human but he grew up in a mixed family and knew how to get the upper hand on a wolf. After a while of really understanding how stupid I was, he and Alice, they taught me what it meant to see others for who they truly were not just to see their bloodlines. You’re blood doesn’t determine who you are. You do and it took a long time for someone to actually teach me that.”

Keegan tilted her head in thought before summoning up the courage to ask the next question. “So him breaking your nose and arm, that was because of what? That’s not rough housing while you’re drunk. It takes a lot of force to actually break a shifter’s bones. Especially, if the person doing said damage is a human. He would have been hurt also.”

Mason shook his head in amusement. “You have to remember that I was drunk at the time. Do you know how much liquor I had to actually drink in order to get drunk?”

“Quite a bit I assume.” Keegan nodded.

“Well I was drunk enough that the brain to mouth filter characteristic that is phenomenal during my sober hours was nonexistent. I didn’t much care what anyone thought or did to me at the time.”

“What did you say to make him so mad?” Keegan asked curiously before biting into her own sandwich. With each bite she tried to process all the information that she