himself break the eye contact before she saw too much. “It’s not looking good for Shane, is it?”
“Seems a slam dunk. Door locked from the inside. A man who died where he fell. Another man found unconscious nearby with the murder weapon.”
Kenji’s skin prickled. “Then why don’t you sound convinced?”
Chapter 3
Garnet forcibly relaxed her jaw when a tension ache alerted her to how tightly she’d clenched it. “Shane is a sweet, kind man,” she told Kenji. “If this had been the other way around, I’d have believed it, but Shane stabbing Russ?” She felt her hair stick rubbing against the hood of the coveralls as she shook her head.
“Russ was a hothead?”
“No, he was just . . . rigid. That’s the word.” Garnet didn’t want to speak ill of the dead, but she needed to fill Kenji in on the context around this entire inexplicable scene. “He taught high-level math. University stuff. I often got the feeling he would’ve liked to arrange people like he did his math equations—all neat and tidy and contained.”
“Born that way?”
“No, not like what you’re thinking.” Garnet would’ve understood a mind that simply functioned differently, accepted it. “Russ chose to look down on others and to consider himself above most of his packmates. And, after Athena left him, he chose to be bitter and to stew in his anger rather than accepting the comfort offered by friends and family.” None of that meant he’d deserved to be murdered.
No one deserved to have his or her life stolen.
She lifted her hand to pinch her nose between two fingers, dropped it when she remembered she was wearing gloves. “Damn it, Kenji. Shane is a good man, and he’s really good for Athena.”
“Nothing’s set in stone yet.” Kenji’s voice was tempered and his vision obviously clear for being unclouded by personal connections. “No use worrying about it until you know for sure.”
It was exactly the advice she needed at that moment.
Nodding, she said, “Let’s walk through the rest of the apartment, take the samples we need. We’ll check DNA everywhere, in case we’re wrong and someone else was here.”
They’d just finished the detail-oriented task when the door opened to reveal Lorenzo. “Am I okay to come in, examine the body?” the healer asked, his gaze lingering first on Garnet then on Kenji.
She knew what he was doing: checking on their emotional and mental well-being. That was part of his role in SnowDancer because, as had become apparent during the Territorial Wars of the eighteenth century, a messed-up dominant at the helm could wreck the equilibrium of hundreds, possibly thousands. Lara played the same role in the Sierra Nevada den, had the authority to overrule even Hawke when it came to their alpha’s physical, mental, or emotional health.
“Yes.” Garnet pulled down her mask, pushed off the hood. “We’ve recorded and sampled everything.” Waiting until Lorenzo was inside, she asked him to check if Russ had a head wound.
“Let me see.” Gently lifting their fallen packmate’s head, the healer said, “No blood below.” He ran his gloved fingers over Russ’s scalp, taking his time and covering every inch of the skull. “No obvious contusions, though I can’t absolutely confirm until I have him on the autopsy table.”
Frustration gnawed at Garnet. If Russ hadn’t been knocked out, why hadn’t he tried to get help? All he’d have had to do was crawl a few feet to the door, bang on it. “Shane?” He was the only one who might have the answers.
“Unconscious.”
“Would Russ’s wound have been immediately fatal?” Kenji asked, his thoughts no doubt mirroring hers.
Lorenzo bent over the chest wound, the silver in his hair a genetic trait that had little to do with his age. “I’ll do a full examination once I get him out of here,” he said after a minute, “but, given the type of blade, I have a suspicion the knife might’ve hit the thoracic aorta. That could’ve had an instant effect, depending on the severity of the transection.”
Lorenzo indicated the wound. “There’s too little blood for a fatal stabbing, unless the blood has collected in the chest cavity.” He leaned in closer, seeming to be paying particular attention to Russ’s neck. “The position of the body makes that hard to confirm with a hundred percent certainty on a surface examination, but I’ll know as soon as I open him up on the autopsy table.”
Kenji, his own hood pushed back, mask down, folded his arms. “Cut to the aorta sounds like a precision hit.” His green