From Scratch_An M/M Paranormal Romance Mystery Read online

Bryson shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.” Something about that theory didn’t sit right with Bryson either. “The stomach wounds are the mark of someone pissed off. Rage.”

  Bryson studied his fingernails without touching him. He didn’t see any obvious signs of DNA evidence being under the guy’s nails, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t any there. “Did you get stabbed in the chest before or after taking so many in the stomach?” That was the question only the victim and the killer could answer. He’d have to wait for the autopsy to come back to get it answered.

  “I didn’t see him come into the bar at all, but I was in the back with Lake for a few minutes. Renfield has video surveillance of everyone outside the orgy rooms. We should check them out.”

  Mom sighed. “It’s going to be a long damn night.”

  “I’ll stay and help.”

  ****

  Even inside the building, away from all that death, the smell of blood cloyed at his nostrils, refusing to leave. It had to be worse for Brannon because he had to live with the vision in his mind. At least Lake didn't have to see it.

  It must have been a bad sight because Brannon sat in the same chair as Lake. It was a very tight fit, and Brannon ended up sitting mostly on Lake's lap.

  Neither one of them spoke. It was as if the dead body stole their thoughts, occupying them for itself until they couldn’t even get words past their throat muscles.

  A part of Lake felt selfish for only sharing some of the horrors with Brannon. The thought was completely irrational, but it still clung like a disease until it took hold of his conscience, whispering negativity in his ear about being a bad friend.

  "You can talk about it. If you want." Lake didn't want to listen, but the offer was out there all nice and sweet, deceptive in its simplicity.

  "I don't." Brannon's head rested against Lakes, and he turned into him until he was almost sitting sideways on Lake's lap. Thankfully, Brannon was smaller in stature like most bat shifters.

  Lake put his arm around Brannon, trying to provide as much support as he could muster.

  "I've never seen a dead person before." Brannon's voice shook as if the words turned into a caged beast, escaping all on their own without Brannon's consent.

  Lake didn't speak for fear that his words would break them both open.

  "He smelled like a bat shifter. He didn't even look like a real person. Why would someone kill him like that? Like so violently, ya know."

  The door to the office opened. Lake smelled vanilla. Someone else was with him, though. The other person's footsteps were closer together than Bryson's which told Lake the person was smaller in stature.

  "Hello, I'm the sheriff in Fountain. I have a few questions for you both if you don't mind." The voice was female, and, despite the kindness of her words, she had an unmistakable air of authority that radiated off her in thick waves.

  A chair scraped across the floor. The sound made him wince because it was loud to his oversensitive ears. Thankfully, it didn't last long. The air displaced in front of them and then settled as either the sheriff or Bryson sat down.

  The sheriff's voice sounded closer than before and met his ears from an even level which told Lake she was the one who pulled the chair over to them and sat down in it.

  "Can I get your names?"

  "Lake Truman and Brannon Walker." Brannon shifted on his lap to face her as he spoke. "I'm Brannon. I saw the body."

  "Did you see anyone else?"

  "No."

  "No one in the parking lot?"

  "No."

  She moved closer to them and made a sound in her throat like a hum. "You met your mate?"

  She meant that for Lake, so he nodded. "Yes. Earlier in the club."

  "So you didn't actually see anything."

  "No. But I smelled the blood as soon as we went outside. And bat shifters."

  "Okay. So where's your mate? Was he with you?"

  Lake felt heat climb up his neck to his cheeks. "No."

  "Why is that?" A pen scraped against paper and Lake could tell she asked that as she wrote something down.

  Bryson cleared his throat from somewhere behind the sheriff. Lake thought he might be near the door but wasn't positive. If not for the vanilla scent, Lake would have forgotten he was in the room. "I'm his mate, mom."

  Mom? Oh well, the situation suddenly turned even more awkward.

  Lake had an urge to run as fast as he could back home. Witnessing a murder would keep that from happening, though.

  The sheriff's chair squeaked just slightly as she turned as if meeting Bryson's gaze. Whatever conversation took place between them was a silent one for several very long seconds and then she asked a pointed question. "Did you reject him, Bryson?"

  Lake said, "yes," at the same time Bryson said, "not exactly."

  "I'll talk to you later when I don't have a dead body to investigate."

  "I have a question for Lake." Bryson's footfalls ate up the distance between them. The air in front of him displace and a big hand held onto his own. Bryson's fingers were cold from being outside. "Besides the blood, what else did you smell?"

  The question had Lake reliving the experience. He closed his eyes as he laced their fingers together. "Your scent as I walked out the door. That's overwhelming. Makes me..." Yeah, maybe he shouldn't say that in front of the guy's mother. "Anyway, your scent mingled with the blood until we got farther away from the door."

  "What else? Think hard, baby."

  "Shifters."

  "What kind?"

  "Well, bat shifters mostly. I think a couple of wolves are around because they smell like pine and that scent was in the bar. Not really outside, though. I know what wolves smell like because one of my dads has a wolf shifter friend. She comes to visit a couple of times a year."

  "What about closer to the body?"

  "Bat shifters. The...the, um, body. His blood smelled like bats but also different. Sharper maybe. Like...someone who's pregnant. Or he touched someone who was pregnant."

  Brannon cursed under his breath. "Your other senses much be overcompensating for the lack of sight. I didn't smell pregnancy."

  "But you're able?" The sheriff asked that question.

  "Well, yeah, but usually the person is showing by then. It's a subtle smell."

  "You're sure?" The sheriff asked even as Bryson stood, letting go of his hand. The loss of his touch left his stomach aching.

  Lake cleared the lump out of his throat and nodded. "Fairly sure."

  "That could be the motivating factor. With the wounds in the stomach area and the way the killer mutilated the body, I'd say it wasn't premeditated." Bryson sounded more like a cop than his mother.

  "Thanks, honey." The sheriff must have made her way to the door because Lake could hear her footsteps before the door opened. "Bryson has my information if either of you think of anything else."

  Lake sighed. "You may want to give me your card, ma'am."

  Bryson cursed under his breath but didn’t say anything aloud.

  A small rectangular piece of paper pressed into his hand, and he closed his fist around it.

  "Come for dinner sometime soon, Lake."

  "Thanks for the invitation, ma'am."

  She leaned down and kissed Lake on the cheek. She smelled like vanilla and roses with the scent of honeysuckle which seemed to be the way all bat shifters smelled. Lake would bet she had a shifter mate, which made sense considering she was a human sheriff in a shifter town.

  She moved away from him and stepped to the door again.

  There was a silence that grew uncomfortable for several seconds, and then Bryson said, "Don't start, Mother."

  The sheriff never said a word as the door clicked shut.

  Lake could hear her footsteps in the hallway outside.

  Feet shuffled on the linoleum, and then Bryson said, "I'll be in touch."

  Somehow Lake serious doubted that. "We're free to leave, then?"

  "Yes. Just give me a second, and I’ll escort you home.”

  “No need.” Lake held his chin up, trying for a strength he didn’t fully feel.

  “Someone got killed, Lake. There is a need.”

  “Brannon is taking me home.”

  As if that were his cue, Brannon stood and pulled Lake up with him.

  Brannon opened the door for them, and they walked down the hallway.

  "I don't want to go home. No way am I ready to explain the night to the dads." And coming home blind wasn't an option. Papa would hunt Bryson down and threaten him. He might have Papa thrown in jail.

  "Okay. We can get a hotel room for a night if you want."

  "Thanks, Brannon."

  There was a third set of footsteps behind him along with that vanilla scent.

  CHAPTER SIX

  It always left Bryson feeling nostalgic whenever he walked into the sheriff’s building. The building was older with a cell in the main room. The whole place reminded Bryson of the western television shows Clover liked to watch. He needed a cowboy hat and a six-shooter strapped to his hip before he truly fit in, and so did everyone else who entered. A long, leather coat would top off the look.

  He felt naked without his shoulder holster and badge most of the time, but especially inside the building. He'd take his mom up on that deputy job right away if she mentioned it again.

  The cop DNA strand floated through his blood. The sense of fulfillment crept inside him, making a home, with just one step inside a police station. It seemed any would do, not just the bigger one he had occupied for six years.

  Fountain was the quintessential small town so things like murder didn't happen on a regular basis and, those few times it did, the investigation led them down a very predictable road.

  Most of the time it had to do with domestic violence
or drugs.

  The murder from last night wouldn't be so straightforward. And, as much as Bryson wanted to take his time to process the way his life took a one-eighty turn, it looked like he wouldn't get that on any front. Not with Lake on his mind so constantly and his mom needing his expertise.

  There were two desks in the main part of the building. The only desk occupied had papers stacked on top of a file folder and a mug with pens sticking out of it.

  A picture of the crime scene, with the victim’s lifeless eyes and bloody mid-section, sat on top of all the rest of the papers. Lance sat hunched over the picture, studying it. He had on his brown deputy’s uniform.

  He turned and met Bryson's gaze. He nodded by way of greeting and turned back to the picture. "Don't even know how I'm supposed to interpret this."

  Bryson understood that Lance and his mother were out of their depths.

  Bryson stepped up behind Lance and braced himself with a hand on the chair’s back, bending at the waist, leaning over the older man's shoulder. He pointed to the knife wounds in the victim’s stomach. "So the coroner's report will tell you that the victim was repeatedly stabbed, although it’s too early to say if the wounds were what killed him.” He pointed to the wound over his heart. “Not sure which came first. That one or the stomach wounds.”

  "Right. One suggests anger."

  "Yep. Definitely a crime of passion, not greed."

  Lance nodded. "Makes sense."

  "He wasn’t transported to the side of the alley. It was his place of death.” Bryson pointed to dark red spots on the ground beside the victim. “The ground is saturated with too much blood for the site to be a dumping spot.”

  "Batshit Crazy's has orgy rooms inside so why go outside to the side of the building for sex. If it was about sex, I mean." Lance’s eyebrows drew together.

  “His clothes are on, which doesn’t mean someone didn’t put them on post-mortem but they don’t look disheveled.”

  Bryson straightened and walked over to the empty desk. The chair behind it had wheels and was one of those office ones although the thing was almost as old as he was and had a crack in the leather or vinyl or whatever it was. He pulled the chair next to Lance and sat down. "So here's what we know. The vic was outside, around the back of the building with at least one other person."

  "Yeah, but why?"

  Bryson pointed to the way the victim’s legs were all bent. "The stabbing started while he was standing. There’s no sign of a struggle in the vegetation around him, so maybe the perp took the vic by surprise."

  "So the victim knew his killer."

  "Most likely."

  Lance put the picture on his desk, turning it over, so it wasn't visible to anyone walking by it, and stood. "Guess I gotta talk to the vic’s family members."

  Bryson moved his chair back and also stood. "You mind waiting for me. I’d like to go with you, but I have to talk to Mom first.” Bryson nodded toward her closed office door. “Is she here?"

  "Yeah." Lance closed the manila file folder. He handed it to Bryson. "Mind taking that to her?"

  Bryson took it without a word and turned to go into his mother's office.

  "Hey, Bryson." Bryson turned with a hand enclosed around the knob. "Thanks for walking me through that photo."

  "Sure, man." Bryson smiled. At one point in his pubescence, he had had a crush on Lance and some of the reason why came to him in the form of a smile. Since Bryson's teen years, his tastes had changed some. He had moved away from tall dark-haired deputies to little blond, blue-eyed cheaters and moved on from there to a little African American bat shifter.

  Bryson knocked on the office door. When his mother told him to come in, Bryson entered.

  Mom never even looked up from her paperwork. She did give him a mumbled greeting, though. "Hey."

  "Hey." Bryson kept the file folder in his hand as he sat down. "Came by to see if you needed my help."

  "Could use it."

  "I figured."

  "You talked to Lance just now?"

  "Yep. I’m going with him to talk to the vic’s family. Just need you to deputize me, so it’s all legit."

  Mom looked up at him. "Are you doing this job with me for good, then?"

  “I have too, don’t I?” It was more than just her needing him. At least for him, it was anyway.

  “Nope. You don’t.”

  Bryson met her gaze across a field of silence. They were similar in the stubbornness. As much as Bryson didn’t want to answer the question any further than he already had, she’d win the war of silence. She always did.

  Some of the tension left Bryson's shoulders. "A murderer is walking free, in the same town as my mate." Just the thought made his stomach churned with nausea.

  "He's your mate, honey. It’s natural to be protective."

  "I know." Bryson leaned forward and put the file on the edge of Mom's desk. "I mean I can't stop thinking about him in general. Worrying about him. He's blind for one."

  His mother chuckled. "Worrying about your mate is what’s motivating you to take the deputy position, but it’s not what’s bothering you. Tell me what is."

  "The fact that I just got out of a relationship."

  "No. You just moved back home. Your relationship was shit for months."

  Try more than a year. "Yeah. But it still feels like going from one relationship to another."

  "So you think you need a rebound fuck in between?" Rowena sat back in her chair, rocking gently.

  "Damn, Mom." Bryson shook his head. "Of course not. I'm not Renfield." Bryson had never been into going from one fuck to another. At least, not in his adult life. When he was a teenager, he might have explored his own sexuality and that involved fucking for fucking’s sake, but not since then.

  "So what then?"

  "I don't know. Maybe I'm pissed that the whole mate bond thing is forcing me into another relationship."

  "Forced, huh? I don't see anyone threatening torture here, Bry."

  Bryson sighed. "You know what I mean."

  "Yeah. You've always needed to do things in your own time."

  "Right. And I can't with this situation."

  Rowena shrugged. "Like I said. No one's forcing you. You can do what you want."

  "Meanwhile my mate is blind and vulnerable. And there’s a killer running around town."

  Rowena smiled. "Look. We're talking about shifters here. You know they do things differently. Mating is an integral part of their culture. And not only that, but it's probably in their damn DNA. They look at romantic relationships differently. They trust the mating bond and what it means. It's less about forming a love connection."

  “I know all that. But practical knowledge of shifter culture is different than getting immersed in it head first.” In theory, it was easier to bond and get it done, but that came with emotions Bryson just wasn't ready to feel. And by the gods, he'd like to know the little things about Lake first. Like how he took his coffee and what his favorite damn color was if he had one. Bryson needed that whole process before the physical shit happened.

  And at the same time, he could see how none of that would matter. Hell, he was already falling over that edge as if Lake put a spell on him. The giving over to it felt like a foreign entity crawled around in his brain and changed his chemistry.

  “I’m still in love with Alan.”

  Rowena gave him a knowing looking. “Were you ever in love with him or was it what he represented? Marriage, house, kids. All that shit?"

  “Shit.” He ran a hand down his face. “I don’t know. Guess it’s something to think about.”

  “Yep.” Rowena stood and walked across the room to a tall wooden cabinet with double doors. She opened the right side and pulled out a badge, handing it over.

  Bryson took it, putting it in the pocket of his coat. The heavy metal held a familiarity that felt right.

  His life took one step back around. Good or bad, there it was. The weight of it in his pocket.

  She pulled out a gun snug in its holster and handed it to him. That too was a small step to the right.

  “I’ll get a uniform too you after you give your brother notice. Best not to leave him a bartender short.”

  “Yeah. I was just gonna mention that.”

  Bryson let Lance take the lead as he was the one in the uniform. The victim’s parents lived in an old house that needed a paint job, and a window fixed on the upper level. Clearly, they didn’t have a lot of disposable income.They maintained the property, though. Someone had mowed the lawn recently. They kept the garden in front of the house clean and free of weeds, as well.