Chapter318: Investigation
Sinir
As Cora sits on the bed with her sister, I meet my brother’s eyes above her head and nod towards the
door. He nods as well, agreeing. He ces a hand on Cora’s shoulder and gives her a little squeeze
before heading to the door.
E turns towards me as I stand up, grabbing my phone and heading to the closet, but I speak to her
mind–to–mind to let her know that everything’s fine as I quickly pull on some casual clothes. Take care
of Cora, I say to E, trying to send warmth and support along with my words. We’re just going to go
talk downstairs with the team.
E nods to me, with a little smile, and then when I meet Roger at the door we walk out together,
closing it behind us.
As soon as the door is shut, we’re instantly in motion. “We need more information,” Roger says, striding
for the stairs. “And we need a drawing of this man, if we can convince Cora to speak to a sketch artist –
it could be incredibly helpful –
”
“That shouldn’t be difficult,” I agree as the two of us hurry down the stairs to my office, where a team of
investigators worked through the night on the case. “I’ll have a trained sketch artiste by as soon as
possible – I’m sure Cora willply –” I pull my phone from my pocket and start looking through my
contacts.
“Someone should contact Hank,” Roger murmurs, striding into the office and moving behind the, desk.
“To let him know that she won’t be in to work anytime soon – we need her here –“
―
I pause, a little, in my search for someone who can contact a reliable and discreet sketch artist to look
at Roger and raise an eyebrow at him. “Didn’t think you’d be showing such concern for Dr. Hank
anytime soon,” I murmur.
Roger shoots me a dirty nce. “It’s strictly professional,” he murmurs, sorting through some papers on
the desk and handing them off to the investigators to properly file. “And afterst night, he knows
something is up –”
“Does he?” I ask, looking at Roger fully now. “Hank was therest night? At Cora’s?”
”
Roger sighs, cing both hands evenly on the desk and then lifting his head to meet my eyes. Can we
not?” he asks, impatient. “Can we not do this, during a crisis regarding your child’s safety?”
I nod, but I can’t keep the smirk off my face as I do so. Honestly, I could use a little distraction from
waiting for someone to bust into my house to steal my child, and teasing Roger about Cora seems like
just the thing. But I can tell that he’s perturbed, so I leave it alone. For now.
“It seems to me,” I say after a moment, crossing my arms and thinking aloud. “That the best clue we
have so far is the ck robes. Cora said that several times – the man was consistently dressed like
one of the Goddess‘ dedicated priests, but in ck robes. That has got to be a clue we can follow up.”
“I agree,” Roger says, grabbing aptop and pulling it close to him, “Don’t you have somece where
you can start with that?” he asks passively, already sitting down and starting to type.
was a fraud, and that her wolf was dormant?”
“Adolpho,” I confirm, nodding and making a mental note to contact him after I find the sketch artist. “We
were in touch with him yesterday in case he hade across anything useful in the past few months –
but now that we have new information, I’ll ask again.”
“Good,” Roger confirms, still searching.
“What are you looking for?” I ask, working to peer over his shoulder.
“There’s an archive,” Roger murmurs, still searching. “With some…rare books. On the subject of the
history of shifter religion.” He shrugs and turns theputer to me so that I can see a very old, very
basic website that includes a description of some archaic holdings. “It’s about five hours
away – if Adolphoes up with nothing, then perhaps we can contact the people here. It’s a closed–
stack collection but,” he shrugs, “I’m sure you can pull some strings. Get us in to see what they’ve got.”
“What’s the point of this?” I ask, leaning over theputer and scrolling through the options. Roger
wants to go to a library? Now?
“It’s the mostplete collection of its kind,” he replies. “Hundreds of years of shifter religious history. If
anyone’s going to have an answer about the priest in the ck robes, I have a feeling it
will be them.”
“Good,” I say, standing up straight and nodding, looking back to my phone to again chase down that
sketch artist. “You’ll go tonight. Take Cora.”
“What?!”
“After she is done with the sketch artist,” I continue, looking up to meet his eyes seriously. “You’ll take
her to this library with you.”
“Why?” Roger growls and I raise my eyebrows at his defiance of mymand. Roger sighs, his teeth
gritted, clearly frustrated. I’m curious about this. Why does he suddenly not want to go with Cora? “I
mean, what is Cora going to add to the investigation? Why can’t she stay here with you, where she’s
safe?”
“Cora gave us a very vague description,” I reply, turning my attention back to the phone. “But that.
doesn’t mean she doesn’t remember more details. It just means she didn’t tell us about them in the
moment because she didn’t think they were important, or because she’s upset. If youe across a
detail that matches her memory in the archive, it will be important to have her there to confirm it.”
Roger sits back in his chair, nodding. I work hard to keep the smirk to my face as I see how disgruntled
he is at the assignment.
“Unless,” I say casually. “You’d prefer I sent Hank along with her, on the mission…he’s clever enough.
Probably a good researcher, to get out of med school with such a good ranking –”
“Its fine,” Roger snaps, and as I steal a nce at my brother I see that he’s ring at me, knowing
precisely what it is that I’m implying. “Cora and I will go tonight. It will be fine.“/
“I’ll set up the transport,” I say casually, pressing a contact on my phone and striding out of the
Belonging ? N?velDram/a.Org.
see Cora and Eing down the stairs, the baby in E’s arms, presumably heading for the kitchen.
“All right?” I ask, and they both nod to me. Someone answers the phone in my hand, but I hang up
quickly, knowing I can call back. “Cora,” I say, as shees to the bottom of the stairs. She turns her
head up to me and I quickly exin the situation, how we want her to work with a sketch artist and then
apany Roger to the archive, E stands by her sister, her eyebrows raised at the second
proposal.
“Dominic,” she says, looking between her sister and I, worried. “Are you sure it’s…wise? To send Cora
off? Shouldn’t we keep her at home?”
I open my mouth to deny that, but E gives me a little nudge down our bond, urging me to let this y
out.
“You can’t keep me here, E,” Cora says, frowning at her sister and crossing her arms defiantly.” If I
wasn’t going to go to this archive, then I would certainly be going to work.”
“What?” E breathes, her shock a little too prominent, her eyebrows a little too high. She sends
another pulse down our bond to me then, a troublesome, wicked little thing. I work hard to keep the
smirk from my face. “No, Cora,” she gasps, “you have to stay here, with me, where you’re safe –
“No way in hell, E,” Cora counters, frowning at her sister angrily. “You can’t keep me locked up here
”
“But for your safety!” E cries out. Just until we figure out who’s behind this and make sure it’s okay to
leave the house!”
“Tell Roger I’ll be ready,” Cora orders me, rolling her eyes and striding into the kitchen away from her
sister, her mind made up.
“Cora!” E cries after her, her voice all worry, but as the kitchen door swings shut behind Cora E
turns to me with a grin. “She’d never have agreed to go so easily if we didn’t threaten imprisonment,”
she whispers.
“Well done, trouble,” I say, raising my hand up, palm out E gives me a quick high–five, grinning
towards the kitchen. Iugh and quickly giver her a kiss on the head, raising my phone back again and
starting to make that call.
I’m interrupted, though, by my mate’s soft hand on my arm. “She’ll be safe?” E asks softly when I
turn to her. “With Roger?”
“I’ll send guards,” I say with a little shrug. “But E…I’m starting to get the feeling that Roger…”
She nods, understanding me. “Would protect her with his life,” she finishes. I give her a sad little smile,
knowing that it’splicated between them, but still somehow knowing…
…that on some level?
It’s notplicated. Not at all.