Black Magic Bayou (3 page)

He did a quick check of my purse, making sure I wasn’t carrying anything unseemly, then handed it back. He looked as if he was about to say something.

“Thanks,” I said before he could try to ramble off my title, which was also listed.

Detective Perry took me into a small, poorly lit room with a table and two chairs at the back of the bar. “Gimme a minute,” he said, and left the room.

I took a seat, and Perry returned a moment later with a third chair. There was a lingering aroma of wolf in the air. I could smell the familiar odor of pack as soon as I came through the door, telling me my boys were being held somewhere nearby.

“Your conversation won’t be recorded, but it’s a requirement I stay in the room with you. The same lawyer-client privileges don’t extend to pack, so if they incriminate themselves here, I can take it as a confession, okay?”

“Noted.” I also took this to mean my pack mates hadn’t yet said anything to prove their guilt. For that matter, thanks to the scant details Mags had offered me, I honestly didn’t know why they were in lock-up beyond that they were in a fight. The coroner’s van out front already had me assuming the worst.

Perry left again, and when he came back, he had two young men with him. I didn’t know Mason and Emmett well, but I was familiar with them. I’d only been Alpha for two short months, and in that time I’d met every werewolf in and around New Orleans. Forty-eight in total, and they were all my responsibility. It had taken me three weeks and a lot of flashcard quizzing from Mags to remember everyone’s name and family connections, but it was all worth it to be able to greet my people personally when I saw them.

“Emmett.” I nodded to the lanky, sandy-haired man who had turned twenty-two only three weeks ago. He was sporting a good amount of stubble, and his hair was in a state of disarray. His shirt was stained with a fair amount of dry blood, but he didn’t look injured, which gave me pause. Mason sat down next, shorter and bulkier, all stocky muscle and dark hair. He had a wild, unsettled appearance about him, like being locked up for a couple hours was starting to get to him.

Wolves didn’t do well in captivity. I’d spent some time in a jail cell myself once, so I knew how he felt. This situation was actually a vast improvement over the tiny room I’d been locked up in. Mason didn’t see himself as lucky, though. He was feeling trapped, which was apparent in his darting, red-rimmed eyes. Right now it was my job to make sure they maintained their cool while they were in custody, or things were going to go from bad to worse right quick.

Once they were seated, neither of them looked directly at me.

Not good.

“So who’s going to be the first to tell me what happened?” I asked.

They shifted nervously until Emmett locked eyes with Detective Perry, giving him a silent, pleading stare. That one look said it all. Emmett and Mason didn’t want to be the ones to break the news to me. They were willing to let a complete outsider do it for them.

Extra
bad news.

I turned to Perry and squinted, waiting for some kind of answer. “What are they being charged with, Detective?”

He waved a hand emphatically. “No charges yet, Miss McQueen.”

Guess we weren’t using first names anymore. Which meant this was more serious than I’d anticipated. Goody. “Why were they arrested?”

Mason spoke this time. “There was a fight, Genie. Some guys got in our face. You know how it can get.”

There was a reason my uncle maintained a bar on his own property in St. Francisville. Liquor and emotions were an explosive cocktail that almost never ended favorably.

I could picture the scene without much effort. A bunch of rowdy drunks throwing slurs at my wolves, and the boys responding with anger. No werewolf in history had yet learned to turn the other cheek when being confronted. Standing down against weaker creatures wasn’t in our nature.

“What. Happened?”

Now it was Emmett’s turn, but he continued to stare at the table as he spoke. “There was a fight.” Mason had already told me this much. So had Mags.

“And?”

“And when it was over, someone was dead.”

“Elaborate.” Even though I’d expected this on some level, my blood still went cold the second the words were out of Emmett’s mouth.

I’d heard him just fine, but I was hoping I’d misunderstood.

“Someone ended up dead.”

He was being extra careful with his phrasing, and he glanced over at Detective Perry after he said it, as if to confirm he hadn’t been misheard. He wasn’t saying
we killed someone
.

I wanted to ask. I
needed
to know. They were mine, my responsibility. Whatever they did fell on my shoulders. If they had killed someone—intentionally or not—this was going to be a disaster of epic proportions.

It sank in, then, why the reporters weren’t here yet, and no charges had been laid. Perry and the rest of the force didn’t want to deal with the three-ring media circus this would become if the press got wind of what had happened here. As of right now, no one in the outside world knew werewolves were connected to this death.

I prayed I might be able to keep it that way.

Mentally I was already creating a list of requirements. A lawyer, obviously. Callum had several on retainer, so it shouldn’t be hard to call one up. The problem was they would immediately tell Callum the situation. Not in a way that would break confidentiality. More like, “Hello, Mr. McQueen, your niece has requested our services in New Orleans.”

Then I’d be the one stuck explaining the nitty-gritty.

Sucks to be me.

The boys had to get a lawyer because I needed
someone
who could speak to them privately without the cops listening in.

“Ask for council,” I said between gritted teeth. I’d been gripping the table so hard there were impressions of my fingers pressed into the wooden surface.

Mason looked confused, but Emmett got the message loud and clear. He cleared his throat and said, “I’d like a lawyer, please.”

Detective Perry gave me an exhausted, unimpressed glare. Clearly he’d been hoping I might make them slip up or that when they saw me, the boys would confess on the spot. I’d liked Perry right up until that moment.

Sure, he had a job to do. But protecting these idiots was my
life
.

“All right.” He pushed himself off the wall by the door, and I slipped a business card out of my wallet, holding it up for him.

In the meantime I stared at Emmett and Mason in absolute silence. Neither of them looked up.

It was a far cry from my first meeting with them a month ago. I’d been making the rounds to formally introduce myself to the local pack, and sat down with these two, both sons of prominent, long-lineage Southern pack members. Their parents knew my uncle well. The guys had grown up knowing Ben, but not me.

They respected Ben.

I wasn’t what they wanted or expected in an Alpha, and they let it show during our first encounter, where they’d sneered and fake-bowed and refused to use my title.

Now they were terrified and couldn’t meet my gaze.

Funny how things change when you know you need your Alpha if you’re going to survive.

They sure respected my authority now.

I could have made this easier on them, could have told them things would be all right and I’d protect them. But I didn’t. I waited in silence, staring at them, watching as they sank lower and lower on their chairs, beads of sweat dampening their foreheads.

There were leaders who showed compassion and had a reputation for kindness. Desmond Alvarez, King of the Eastern pack, was well known for being an affable and friendly ruler.

I hadn’t been raised by that kind of king.

Callum was cool, calculating, and merciless. He did what needed to be done, and by God his people respected him for it. He’d never been challenged in the entire duration of his reign.

If I was going to be a leader, I needed to be respected. And I couldn’t be respected if my people thought I was a pushover.

No more Miss Nice Wolf.

This cold front, of course, was largely bullshit. Inside I was desperate to offer them words of comfort. Hell, Mason looked so uneasy I wanted to hug the poor bastard. And once I got this mess sorted, I swore to myself I would do something to show them I wasn’t a total monster. But for right now, and especially in front of Detective Perry, I needed to prove I had this under control. I
had
to be in charge of the situation. And I couldn’t do that while also mothering them.

“Do you mind if I make a call?” I asked Perry.

Since I’d been able to bring my purse into the bar, I still had my phone on me. I was actually kind of surprised they let me hang on to it, but I guess if lawyers could bring in briefcases, I was allowed to have my lip gloss.

Really, they were holding werewolves. There was nothing in my purse stronger than the natural abilities of the men across the table, and everyone here knew it.

Perry nodded but didn’t ask if I wanted privacy. Guess there was no way I’d be getting alone time with Emmett and Mason until after their lawyer arrived.

As I went to dial, I noticed a missed-call notification.

I hadn’t felt the phone buzz, but I
had
been a little preoccupied.

When I saw who had called me, my heart gave a nervous stutter, and a familiar knot of guilt tightened my stomach.

Cash.

Cash Naquin, my one-time boyfriend, and someone I had thought I might spend the rest of my life with. How had that only been a few months ago? That was before my role in the pack changed.

Before Wilder.

Funny how you can think you have your whole life sorted out and someone can show up and prove just how wrong you are.

I’d done my best to ignore the way Wilder made me feel, but as it turns out that’s not something you can shut down. Even now I was struggling with it because it didn’t feel right to leap directly into bed with Wilder after having such a long-term commitment to Cash.

It was important to me that Wilder mattered. I didn’t want him to be my rebound fling. I needed to know he was in it for the long haul before I got attached.

Hell, I needed to know
I
was in it for the long haul before things got too deep.

McQueen women weren’t exactly renowned for being content with one man.

Not that I was destined to be like my mother, who hadn’t even told me who my father was before she died. Well…before my sister killed her.

Our family dynamic was complicated to say the least.

But for Cash to be calling me was strange. We’d never been
friends
. We were a couple, and we were in love, and then we were nothing. Since the split I hadn’t heard from him and hadn’t expected to again.

So why was he calling around eight in the morning on a weekday?

My guts clenched once more, this time with worry over his family. He and I had been together long enough I’d met the whole Naquin clan and still thought of them fondly. The whole loud, opinionated lot of them. What if something had happened to his mother? His younger brother?

The mystery would have to wait a while longer, because I couldn’t call him back right this second.

I had a dead body to deal with.

And I had to be the one to tell Callum about it before the lawyers beat me to it.

I keyed in the number for my uncle’s office line and prayed for voicemail. He picked up before it was through the second ring. Go figure he was already up and working. He’d probably been at his desk since five. I wasn’t sure the man ever actually slept.

I was starting to understand why.

“Speak.”

“Uncle Callum, it’s Genie.”

“I know. I said
speak
.”

Ever the stirring conversationalist, my uncle.

“We’ve got a bit of a situation down here.”

Silence.

I chewed the inside of my cheek, waiting for him to say something, but when no further words came, I went on. “Two of my wolves were involved in a scuffle. Someone…a human someone, that is, was killed. Died.”

He cleared his throat, and even that small sound was loaded with irritation. “Do you have everything in hand?”

“Right now? Yes.”

“Good.” He hung up.

I stared at the phone, the call ended sign flashing at me.

Anger and annoyance chased away any traces of guilt I might have still felt. I’d done my job and told Callum what was happening. He couldn’t lord it over me later on, accusing me of hiding things or being dishonest. At this point it was the best I could hope for.

I dropped the phone on the table in disgust, so totally loathing this situation I wanted to scream. This morning my biggest concern had been distracting the neighbors with my too-hot suitor.

I should have stayed in bed.

Emmett and Mason had heard everything, of course. It was hard to keep a phone conversation private from a werewolf. Our senses were too keen. But Detective Perry, at least, was still oblivious to my uncle’s abrupt conversation ending. As far as he knew I was in total control.

So that’s what I would be.

I fixed Emmett and Mason with a stern glare and pointed at each of them in turn. “Neither of you says a word to anyone until I’m back, is that understood? Not one damn word.”

They nodded silently, and I pushed back my chair and approached Perry, trying to give off an air of absolute confidence. “While we’re waiting for the lawyer, I’d like to see the body, please.”

“Excuse me?”

“The coroner’s van is still here, so I know you haven’t cleared the crime scene yet. I want to see the body.”

“Now, Miss McQueen, I know the law has given you certain privileges, but that doesn’t mean you get to have total control over a crime scene. It doesn’t work like that.”

I squared my shoulders, took a deep breath, and when I spoke again, I tried to be polite but commanding. “Detective Perry, if my werewolves have killed someone, there is a very serious punishment to go along with that crime. But I will
not
take just anyone’s word about their guilt. Show me the body. I won’t touch it, I won’t mess up your crime scene, I need to see it for myself.”