was wearing a hoodie, so I can tell you the size of his arms and his back, but that’s about it.”
“I took a shot of his car,” Tiffany told me, showing us the blurry picture, “but it was parked at a bad angle, and then he tore out of here.”
“No idea of the plate number, even a partial?” Wade queried hopefully.
She shook her head. “No, I’m so sorry. That’s why I take pictures of everything; my memory is total crap.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I soothed her. “Remy has several exterior security cameras, so hopefully one of them caught something.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” she apprised me. “As far as I know, they’re all for show—at least that’s what he told me—except the one at the front door.”
At least maybe we’d see someone on that.
Wade and I questioned the Morenos, the neighbors on the right, next, and while they had a lot to say about Remy’s parties—the dozens and dozens of people who came and went at all hours, and that it was not right he should have orgies in his house—they couldn’t help with much more. They’d been downstairs in their theater room, and Mr. Moreno liked watching his movies loud.
“He’s not having orgies.” Mrs. Hurley, Remy’s neighbor to the left, contradicted the Morenos. “That’s not it.”
“What is it?” I asked her.
Both of them, Mr. and Mrs. Hurley, looked at me, then at Wade, and back to me.
I turned to my partner. “Could you give us a moment?”
He shot me a scowl but walked away, and I turned back to them.
“Omegas,” Mrs. Hurley announced, stepping in close to slip her hand around my wrist as she laid out the story for me. It was a lupine’s instinct to touch, we needed to make physical contact, and I knew at first scent, of course, they were wolves, an alpha and a beta. “I know them when I see them,” she assured me. “And smell them.”
Except, it appeared, where I was concerned. I guessed she believed I was a beta like herself. In my experience, when you expected something, it was what you saw. “You’re a hundred percent sure?”
“Absolutely,” she said, glancing at her husband.
“I stopped one of them,” he admitted, shaking his head. “Tiny little thing I thought had to be barely legal, but he showed me his ID, and he was twenty. I told him it wasn’t right that he was there, in Mr. Talmadge’s home, unescorted, and I threatened to inform Remy’s cyne, but he begged me not to. He said that Mr. Talmadge was a blessing because, for a minimal fee, he was helping to put omegas into les fausses chaleurs before the gatherings to make them more likely to draw a mate.”
In short, Remy Talmadge was paid to arouse them.
It was a horrible practice. I’d heard of it being done, les fausses chaleurs, or fake heat, mock heat, but I’d never met an omega who felt they had to use it. I was friends with omegas like Linden and Bridget, who were genetically blessed, and others from rich, powerful families who could afford the latest couture, who had every advantage by way of stylists and entire teams of hair and makeup artists. But for those less fortunate, those families who had three or four omegas and couldn’t possibly afford to provide for them long-term, it wasn’t enough to hope to find a suitable alpha to buy their contracts. They had to do everything possible, exhaust every advantage, to snag one. Being put into a fake heat would greatly improve their chances of making a match.
Omegas would allow a willing alpha to arouse them so they were no longer in control of their own pheromones, drowning potential suitors in the lush scent of sex. From what I understood, it didn’t last long, three hours tops, but that could be just enough time to get the job done. An unsuspecting, younger, more vulnerable alpha would offer for their contract before they were even aware they’d been duped. It wouldn’t work on stronger, older alphas, but those weren’t who the omegas were after. Most alphas, like my brother, wanted to find their mate when they were young. They were expected to settle down, have children quickly so they could turn their attention to running businesses and heading their families. Alphas who went into their thirties unmated were normally cynes from families of exorbitant, old money wealth, and could breed at their leisure. Those alphas were rare, powerful, and did not