Chapter 183

POV Sarah

We met in Zane’s office, though Dr. Hayes couldn’t make it, and Ambassador Torrin was busy doing something ambassadors did. Claude’s face was alone on his screen.

“I looked up the report,” Travis told Zane. “But then, I suppose you recognized the autopsy number.”

“I did.” He looked at me. “Olivia.”

“Oh.”

He nodded. “She was young, healthy, and strong. I memorized that report looking for errors, for explanation, but it was thorough and consistent.”

“She died in childbirth, right?” Wilson asked. “I’m sorry, but I wasn’t in the territory at the time.”

“Chloe was an easy birth, but then Grace got tangled in her cord. The doctors couldn’t stop Olivia’s bleeding. We almost lost Grace as well.

“I had strictly vetted everyone in the delivery room, and I could feel their desperation to save her and Grace. But I remember I was pretty numb for a while afterward. I may have missed something.”

“You were deep in grief, and as I recall Grace was two months in the hospital before you could bring her home,” Travis said. “But like you, I read through the report a dozen times, and there’s nothing wrong with it.”

“Perhaps it’s not what’s in the report,” Rucker said, “but what isn’t.”

I nodded.

“You buried her, right?” Rucker asked.

“Yes. You’re thinking we should take another look at her body.”

“If it’s not too upsetting for you.”

“What’s upsetting is that Scott knows something here and is playing another one of his games. I’d have him dragged to the police station and questioned, but he’ll never talk until he’s ready, and he knows how to use his status.”

“His status?” Shotz asked.

“He’s my younger, beta brother, and while he’s not above the law, he has enough social status to file a half-dozen nuisance suits for harassment and call a press conference or two. When we do question him, we’ll need to have a lot more information than we do at present.”

“I’ll get the exhumation paperwork started,” Travis said, and I nodded.

“What did you find out about those usernames?” Zane asked Ted, who looked up from her laptop but kept typing.

“In addition to the ones Scott mentioned, I’ve seen several other usernames being used in tandem, sometimes only once or twice, sometimes a great deal with informed bios and other signs of being a genuine user. The goals of these posts are obvious: drag Sarah’s name through the mud and advance a number of conspiracy theories, the most popular of which now is that Sarah is an alpha wolf in disguise. Her blue eyes are evidently a give-away.”

“Then it’s not much of a disguise,” I muttered.

“I doubt we’ll ever see that rumor die,” Whitfield said, “it’s got too many appealing factors. It reassures wolves that humans aren’t their equal, it explains the Luna Temple’s approval, and it thrills all the shippers.”

“The who?” Travis asked.

“The people who support a romantic relationship between Alpha Zane and Sarah,” Wilson said.

“Please don’t tell me there’s fanfic,” I said.

“Of course there’s fanfic.”

“How lovely.” I shook my head. “Actually, Ted, I did notice something with those names.”

“Hit me.”

“The usernames have very different, very consistent personalities. S supports that I’m a wolf and keeps suggesting I should mate a wolf. MyHelperz is vulgar, swears a lot, and never offers anything of substance. And so on.

“The names that Scott didn’t mention, they change their tones and show different sides of their personalities, but, well, here’s Allisstoopid.” I read on my phone, “Every wolf in on it has a 2 incher, and then there’s, She can teach me the ways of human love whenever she likes, and then, Being crude is pretty much why most of us on our the internet.” It’s like a bot that’s been programed for innuendo without quite the crudeness of MyHelperz.

“But then I noticed JaneDayviellers, who usually acts like she admires me and hints that we’re friends in real life, has twice now screwed up and posted something in the style of MyHelperz.”

“So we’ve probably got one or a few people acting like many different people,” Ted said and nodded. “Yes, that tracks.” She recited some web-speak that I couldn’t follow, though Wilson and Whitfield nodded along. Basically, the names she was following had IP addresses that kept changing.

I noticed Delia seemed distracted by something on her phone, and when there was a lull, I asked her about it.

“I think we’ve got a legit lead on the GHB derivative they used on the slaves,” she said. “It hasn’t really gotten traffic in Cavendish Territory, but it’s big in Orleans Territory and other high-tourism areas.”

“Oh, not that goddess-awful Zombietween?” Claude groaned from his screen.

“Got it in one,” Delia said. “The doses we were given are much higher than you’d want for a rave, which threw people off, but it’s definitely the same drug.”

“It’s easily manufactured, well, as long as you have a lab,” Claude said. “Mother’s told me it’s hard to trace and cheap to buy.”

“We have samples of the sodium oxybate we took from the house that night,” Travis said. “We’ll run it through Raman spectroscopy and see what traces we can find.

“The homemade stuff typically uses dexyclipoade to extract the sodium,” Delia said.

“Text that to me?”

“You just want me to spell it for you.”

“Yes.”

A few us chuckled, and after checking the time, Zane said, “I believe the final order of business is finding our informant.”

“Rucker and I are on that,” Travis said. “We’re tracing the photo and recreating that night to see just who was standing where. The photo wasn’t edited, as far as we can tell, and it wasn’t taken over by the firetruck.”

“The angle on the shed is telling,” Rucker said. “We should have some candidates soon.”

“The most alarming point is that this person has seen, or at least claims to have seen, Chloe’s sketch for her carving. That means it’s someone who has access to the villa, not just the grounds,” Travis said.

“She usually works on it in my office, and I keep the French doors open most of the time,” I said, imagining it. “Someone may have spied with a telephoto lens.”

“Good point.” Travis made a note, and Zane asked if anyone else had something before we adjourned.

“In point of fact, we do,” Travis said. “I’m pleased to share that Alicia and I have mated.”

“Congratulations!” I said with a broad smile. Other echoed the sentiment, and Zane stood and shook their hands.

“We’ll have our confirmation ceremony when this is over,” Rucker—that is, Alicia, said as I shook her hand.

Inside, I confess I was both thrilled for them and seething with jealousy. It was so easy for them: meet, like, love, and mate. No dream sharing and impossible boundaries.

Zane met my gaze briefly, and I knew he was feeling the same. Still, he called for champagne, and we drank to the happy couple. When the bubbly burned me on the way down, I kept it to myself.