held up her blistered hands, which were angry from the intense heat she had shoved them into over and over while she panned for clues. “There are no bone fragments. No teeth. No nothing.”
“The average house fire burns at one to two thousand degrees,” Bishop said from the hallway. “Your average practitioner would be lucky to pack that much heat, and it’s doubtful they could do it without help from a coven or an artifact.” He paused to let that sink in. “There were remains at the bar. There were none at Michelle’s.”
A tremble started in Hadley’s calves and climbed up her body until she vibrated with the stirrings of dangerous hope.
“For comparison,” Bishop continued without entering, “a crematorium burns bodies at fourteen to eighteen hundred degrees. There are always bits left. Always. Splintered bone, melted dental amalgam, jewelry, phones, other electronics people keep on their person at all times.”
“You’re saying none of those things were found,” Hadley said slowly, staring at the damage to Remy’s hands. “Does that mean…?” She swallowed hard. “Why was no one there?”
What Hadley was saying finally struck Midas through his protective haze, and he should have gotten it sooner. The restaurant had staff. Cooks, waitstaff, a hostess, among others. Yet no remains were found?
“We don’t know that yet, kid.”
Appearing to digest that, she stared toward the door. “Why are you still in the hallway?”
“Your man threatened to eat my face earlier, so I figured better safe than dinner.”
She cranked her head toward him. “Midas?”
“Last week, he blew you up,” he reasoned. “Last night, he tranquilized you.”
“You’re lucky Midas didn’t rip out your throat,” his mother said from behind him. “I would have.”
“Midas.” Hadley gentled her voice. “You can’t murder everyone who hurts me.”
Eyebrows climbing, he kept his mouth shut because she was wrong, but he didn’t want to tell her so.
Releasing Remy, she walked into his arms and mashed her face into his chest. “I can hear you thinking murder thoughts.”
“I’ll try to think quieter.”
A laugh huffed into his shirt, and her fingers tightened around him. “What does this mean?”
The weight of what she asked pressed down on him until he ought to have sunk through their floor into the lobby.
“I don’t want you to get your hopes up and then get hurt all over again.” He buried his face in her hair. “But I don’t want you to lose all hope either.”
“That’s a fine line to walk.” She tipped her head back, her chin on his chest. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“We’re here to help.” Linus eased forward. “We’ll do whatever we can to locate those responsible.”
As protective as Hadley was of her city and her role in it, Midas expected her to pass on the offer.
“Okay.” She turned a grateful expression on Linus. “I think…” She glanced at Grier. “I would like that.”
“You’re in charge.” Linus returned his hands to his pockets. “What do you want us to do?”
Pulling away from Midas, Hadley wrapped herself in the mantle of potentate and summarized the past few days for everyone. The longer she spoke, the further she distanced herself from the role of grieving sister. It worried Midas, how well she compartmentalized, but there would be time to mourn later. He would make sure of it. Nothing good would come from letting wounds like this fester.
“Do you have any idea who the inside man might be?” Grier chewed on her thumbnail. “Or woman?”
“None.” Hadley took Midas’s hand and held on tight. “An enforcer makes the most sense, but we don’t have concrete evidence pointing toward any one person.”
“The OPA is clear,” Bishop added gently. “I tested each person myself. The leak isn’t at our office.”
“I’m sorry.” Showing none of the relief she must have felt at having her team cleared, Hadley turned her head toward his mother. “This means the coven has taken another pack member.”
“We all knew it was possible,” she said tiredly. “We’ve suspected it before, and here we are again.”
“I don’t grasp the finer nuances of the alpha/pack bond,” Linus admitted to Tisdale, “but can you sense anything through your connection to the others?”
“I would have hunted them down myself,” she replied on a gusted breath, “if that were possible.”
“Their scent might give them away.” Midas thought of Krista, the teen girl the coven had taken from their pack to lure the others away with the drug Faete. “Fresh skins smell like black magic.”
“Old skins have no scent at all,” his mother countered. “And I suspect that’s what we’re facing.”
“I