“And Adam’s office,” Declan said, crossing his arms. “What the hell could they be looking for?”
“Evidence,” Micah said flatly. “Everyone knows the jig is up, that Adam was murdered.”
“The police have gone through here?” I asked, seeing the usually neat piles of paper in disarray.
Mason nodded. “They took some paperwork away, but I’ve got copies of everything. It was mainly financial records, in case money was a motivating factor.”
“All right then…” I paused, looking at it, everything Dad had been working on before he died, and felt that familiar ache in my chest. But I pushed it to one side. I’d grieve when his murderer was in the ground, just like he was. “I guess we work out what’s here, put it in order, and then see if we can find anything someone would be willing to break into the house for.”
The idea was thin, ridiculous, but when I looked around at the guys, I was glad to see a chorus of nods. If someone questioned… If they pointed out… I needed this right now and the guys were ready to help, and that’s all I needed to focus on right now. I picked up the closest mass of paper and started flicking through it.
“This is hopeless,” I said, hours later, settling back in the chair. It wasn’t entirely, since we’d developed a cohesive filing system for Dad’s paperwork. Invoices, bills, notifications, all filed by subject. We’d wrangled most of his documents into an orderly set of piles, but what had we learned?
“It occurs to me,” Lorcan said, “that anything an intruder would come looking for in the middle of the night wouldn’t just be sitting on his desktop. If it was problematic, incriminated someone, your dad wouldn’t have left it out in the open.”
“Agreed,” Declan said, dropping his bunch of paperwork into a pile. “I didn’t want to say anything.” His eyes flicked up to meet mine. “I was hoping you would. We need to go through Adam’s desk. His computer, his phone, but yeah, his desk.”
I eyed the massive piece of furniture, but only Declan and Mase knew what it meant to me. As a kid, I’d pretended it was a castle, a barricade, the wall that kept the unspecified hordes out. Now? I smoothed my hand over the desktop, then dared to let my fingers trail down to the many little carvings all over it.
“Is there some sort of significance here I’m not getting?” Zack asked, getting to his feet and looking the desk over.
“The desk has a lot of hidden compartments. It stays with the Spehr family, but the exact layout of the drawers is passed on from alpha to alpha,” Mason replied, watching my fingers shift, pressing down on carvings when I found the right spots. “Paige knows some of them. She was obsessed with finding them all as a kid.”
“I’m pretty sure I know where they all are,” I said, dropping down under the desktop.
“You don’t.” My head bobbed up, peering over the top of the desk. “You showed me all of the ones you found, and your father…” Mase shrugged. “He showed me the rest.”
Me, Declan, Micah, we all stared at Mason, because we were the ones that knew what that signified.
“He meant for you to take over,” Declan said.
“It was an insurance policy, nothing more,” he replied, but we didn’t believe him for a second.
His hands followed mine over the desk, pressing some carvings so that small drawers popped out, then in combinations I couldn’t even follow to produce others. When he stepped back, we moved forward, removing everything we could find, from bundles of old photos, what looked like the original deed to the town, to a well aged bottle of Scotch, about half finished. But there, amongst a dried flower kept pressed between sheets of tissue paper that smelled of the garden and woman, underneath a faded ribbon and next to an old locket, was a flash drive, its crisp, plasticky, brightness incongruous against everything else.
“What the…? Declan said, peering at it.
“Data the alpha kept locked away?” Micah asked in a low growl. “Seems like we might have found what they were looking for.”
But before we could examine the smoking gun, Mason’s phone rang.
“Mason. Yep. You fucking serious? Kip knows not to take any notice, right? Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ll be out in a sec, just keep her where she is.”
Mason was not happy when he ended the call, frowning as he looked at me.
“Your aunt’s decided she’s sick of waiting and has hired the local locksmith to try and get inside the gate. Kip’s in a dither because he doesn’t want to say no to a Spehr, but as he was the one who changed the locks and combinations for us in the first place…”
“Fine, I’ll see her.” I grabbed the flash drive and shoved it in my pocket, nodding to the rest to put everything away. My teeth ground down as we cleared the table away, making it presentable.
“See her in here,” Lorcan said, sidling close. “Bringing a potential criminal back to the scene of the crime? Bit of a time-honoured tactic.”
“You can take in her scent, read her heart rate,” Declan said. “Not saying it’s her, but you’d at least be able to rule her out.”
“Why would she want to attack you though?” Micah asked.
Why would anyone, wasn’t that the question?
I could tell my aunt was pissed before she even came through the door, her nostrils flaring. She walked in with a face like a smacked arse, something that didn’t improve when she sat down.
“Take a seat, Nance,” I said wryly.
“Aunt Nancy,” she corrected.
“What brings you to the alpha residence, Aunt Nancy?” I parroted back, matching her tone.
“What brings me…? The town is in an uproar. Adam’s body is to be exhumed by the coroner! Disturbed after he’d been laid to rest. There’s allegations being thrown
