Kelley Armstrong - Bitten

Conversation stopped when I entered. I set up the tray on an end table and started pouring coffee like a perfect hostess.

"Oh, I don't drink tea," Morgan said, eyeing the silver coffeepot as if it might bite.

"It's coffee," Jeremy said with a self-effacing smile. "You'll have to excuse us. We don't have many guests, so Elena has to use the teapot."

O'Neil leaned forward to take his coffee from me. "Elena. That's a pretty name."

"It's Russian, isn't it?" Morgan said, eyes narrowing.

"Could be," I said, smiling brightly. "Cream and sugar?"

"Three sugars. I didn't see your husband around. Is he sleeping in?"

I spilled scalding coffee on my hand and bit back a yelp. So Clay's marital fabrication had worked its way up the rumor chain to the police chief. Wonderful, just wonderful. Common sense told me I should play along. After all, Bear Valley wasn't the kind of place that tolerated a woman romping naked in the woods with a man other than her husband. Actually, they probably didn't tolerate naked-forest-romping much at all, but that wasn't the point.The point was that this "placating the locals" was going too far. It was one thing to let them into our house, to tolerate their gawking, and to let them think we couldn't tell a teapot from a coffeepot, but to officially confirm the rumor that I was married to Clay? Branding me forever in Bear Valley as Clay's wife? Uh-uh. A girl's got to have limits.

"Yes, he's sleeping in," Jeremy said before I could speak. "Elena's always up early to get his breakfast ready."

I shot him a glare to say he'd pay for that. He pretended not to notice, but I could see the glimmer of laughter in his eyes. I dumped five sugars in his coffee. He'd have to drink it. After all, it would be impolite not to partake of social beverages with his visitors.

"Like I said," Morgan began. "I apologize for coming to see you folks so early in the morning, but I thought you'd want to know. Mike Braxton wasn't killed on your property. Coroner's one hundred percent certain on that. Somebody killed him elsewhere and dumped him on your land."

"Somebody?" Jeremy said. "Do you mean a person, not an animal?"

"Well, I'd still say it was an animal, but one of the human variety. Doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense to us. The other two were definitely animal kills, but the coroner says Mike's throat was slashed with a knife, not teeth."

"What about the paw prints?" I hated to ask, but we had to know what the police were thinking.

"We figure they're fake. Whoever planted the body stamped them into the ground to make it look like another dog kill. Guy made a mistake, though. They were too big. That was the tip-off. Dogs don't get that big. Well, my son says there's some kind of dog, a mastiff or something, that might leave a print like that, but we don't have any of those around here. Our hounds and shepherds don't grow that big, no matter how much we feed them. You'll recall I said yesterday that Mike left a message with someone saying he was coming here. Turns out, he left it with the fellow's wife, who now says she thought Mike sounded 'funny,' not like himself, but she figured maybe it was a bad phone connection. Seems fair to assume Mike didn't leave the message at all. Whoever killed him must have left it to make sure we hightailed it out to your place and found the body. Put all that together and I'm damned-sorry, ma'am-darned sure we've got a human killer."

"So we don't have wild dogs in our forest," Jeremy said. "That's a relief, though I can't say I prefer the idea of a human killer on the loose. Do you have any leads?"

"We're working on it. Likely someone Mike knew. Mike was a great guy and all but-" Morgan paused, as if thinking twice before speaking ill of the dead. "We've all got our problems, don't we? Enemies and such." Another pause. A slow sip of coffee. "How about you folks? Any idea why someone would dump Mike's body on your property?"

"No," Jeremy said, his voice unruffled but firm. "I was wondering about that myself."

"You haven't made any enemies in town? Maybe had a falling out with someone?"

Jeremy gave a small smile. "As I'm sure you're aware, we aren't the most sociable bunch in Granton County. We don't have enough contact with any of our neighbors to have a falling out with them. Either the killer thought blaming it on the 'outsiders' would divert attention from himself or he had no intention of involving us at all and simply thought this was a good place to dump the body."

"You're sure there's no one you folks have pissed off?" Morgan said, leaning forward. "Maybe someone who thinks you owe him money? Maybe a jealous husband"-Morgan shot a look at me-"or wife?"

"No and no. We don't gamble or do any business in credit. As for the other, I'm certain no one has ever seen me prowling the local singles bars, and Elena and Clayton have neither the inclination nor the energy to seek extramarital excitement. Bear Valley is a small town. If there were any rumors about us, you'd be asking more pointed questions."

Morgan didn't answer. Instead, he stared at Jeremy for two full minutes. Maybe this tactic worked on sixteen-year-old vandalism suspects, but it wasn't about to break down a fifty-one-year-old Pack Alpha. Jeremy just stared back, his expression calm and open.

After a few minutes, Jeremy said, "I'm sorry you had to make the drive out here two days in a row, but I appreciate you coming this morning to tell us."

Jeremy laid aside his mug and shifted to the edge of his seat. When Morgan and O'Neil didn't take the hint, he stood and said, "If that's everything…"

"We'll want to search the property some more," Morgan said at last.

"By all means."

"We may want to question your guests."

Morgan conducted another minute-long stare down. When Jeremy didn't so much as blink, he heaved himself to his feet.

"A killer dumped that body on your property," he said. "If I were you, I'd be trying damned hard to think of who might have done it and I'd be calling us if you come up with any answers."

"I wouldn't hesitate," Jeremy said. "I hope whoever dumped Mr. Braxton's body here hadn't any grudge against us, but if he did, I wouldn't want to ignore it and wait for his next move. No one here has any desire to tangle with a killer. We're more than happy to let the police do that."

Morgan grunted and swigged the last of his coffee.

"Anything else?" Jeremy asked.

"I wouldn't be hiking in those woods for a while."

"We've already stopped," Jeremy said. "But thank you for the warning. Elena, would you see our guests to the door?"

I did. Neither cop said a word to me, beyond Morgan's gruff good-bye. Obviously, as a female, I wasn't worth questioning.

After the police left, we realized Clay, Nick, and Antonio were gone. Had it been just Clay or even Clay and Nick, we would have worried. Since Antonio had gone with them, though, we knew they weren't planning any impromptu revenge in Bear Valley.

The police had been gone barely ten minutes when the Mercedes turned into the drive. Nick hopped out from the passenger side. I didn't notice who was driving, my attention being consumed by the sight of the large paper bag in Nick's hand. Breakfast. Not exactly hot and steaming after the drive from the highway diner, but I was too hungry to care.

Fifteen minutes later, the bag was empty, its contents reduced to the ghosts of crumbs and grease marks on plates scattered across the sunroom table. After the meal, Jeremy explained what the police had said. I kept expecting Clay to say something, proclaim his proven innocence and wait for me to apologize. He didn't. He listened to Jeremy, then helped Antonio clear the kitchen table while I escaped to the study, ostensibly to read the newspaper they'd brought back from town.