heard he was stuck up in the infirmary of the men’s ward with a tube down his throat because someone decided to crush his wind pipe.”
The door slid open with a heavy clank and the guards placed shackles back on her ankles before leading her from the room and back towards the cells. Keegan stood up and stared after the woman. The words they exchanged might be enough for a judge to grant her a warrant for Bryton’s arrest. She knew one thing, Bryton Anderson knew what was going on with these murders and had been leading SIU and homicide on a wild goose chase. That was stopping tonight. From here on out he was the focus.
Matt was sitting in the empty chair beside her desk when Keegan got back from the penitentiary. He was waiting with a folder in his hands and a grim look on his face. A look that said something had gone wrong for them.
“Please tell me that isn’t a complaint?” Keegan started as she dropped into her chair and set her bag in the bottom drawer of her desk. Matt dropped it on Keegan’s desk before he leaned over a file bin and flipping the pages to what he wanted to show her. “The bite marks weren’t a match to Ethan Newton’s.”
“That’s not the worst news is it?” Keegan compared the pictures and internally felt a victory for her suspicions. The first time she had approached Bryton, Ethan had been sitting next to him in the coffee house.
“The word is,” Matt licked his lips, “Ethan is tight with Bryton. Not in the traditional bro way if you understand what I’m saying but he isn’t the only one. Cassidy got the low down from the woman who runs the coffee shop, Lane Smithson. Apparently the mornings after full moons things get interesting in The Jumping Bean. Bryton is picky with who he shows his affections to or who sees him sharing said affections but there are two people who get the most attention.”
“Ethan Newton and who else?”
“A woman named Elaine Phillips.” Matt rolled his lips together and watched Keegan’s reaction. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped a fraction. “Except lately, she hadn’t been too found of the attention she had been getting. She had a fiancé and even if most shifters are handsy with each other she didn’t want the alpha in the prowl touching her the way he was.”
Keegan let out a heavy sigh. “How long has it been obvious she didn’t want him around her?”
“Four months but he wasn’t letting her go without a fight apparently.” Matt shrugged.
“It could explain why the victims allowed their killer to get so close to them.” Leeroy’s voice broke into their conversation. Keegan looked up to see him still focused on the paper work in front of him and pen scribbling furiously across the paper but he continued talking. “If he was their alpha they wouldn’t have any other choice but to trust that he hadn’t meant them any harm. Even if he broke into their homes they wouldn’t be thinking the worst of him. They would be thinking that he was there to help them.”
“Exactly,” Melinda agreed. “If my alpha showed up in my house I’d be thinking someone was going to hurt me and he was here to help me. No matter that he broke into my house. I wouldn’t be thinking he was there to hurt me. It’s instinctive to just trust your alpha because you’re supposed to be able to.”
Keegan scrunched up her nose trying to make sure Matt understood what they were trying to get across, “He’s their alpha. He’s not supposed to attack them. They might be shocked he broke into their homes but he would know when they were home – most pack or prowl-mates know each other that intimately.” Keegan added for Matt’s benefit. “So when the Barr’s found him in their house what were they supposed to think? That he was there to hurt them? No. Once they realized that the reason he was there was for harm, they didn’t have much time to react. On the other hand, we have reason to believe that Elaine knew she was in trouble the moment she set eyes on the intruder. Whichever form they approached her in. She would have instantly been on edge seeing Bryton at her place. She wasn’t submitting to him like he wanted her to.”
“What about her fiancé? The leopard who we believe to have crashed