Chapter Chapter 318: Investigation

Sinclair 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 places a hand on Cora’s shoulder and gives her a little squeeze before heading to the door.

Ella 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 Ella, trying to send warmth and support along with my words. We’re just going to go talk downstairs with the team.

Ella 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 artist come by as soon as possible – I’m sure Cora will comply –” 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 glance. “It’s strictly professional,” he murmurs, sorting through some papers on the desk and handing them off to the investigators to properly file. “And after last night, he knows something is up –”

“Does he?” I ask, looking at Roger fully now. “Hank was there last night? At Cora’s?”

”

Roger sighs, placing 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 black robes. Cora said that several times – the man was consistently dressed like one of the Goddess‘ dedicated priests, but in black robes. That has got to be a clue we can follow up.”

“I agree,” Roger says, grabbing a laptop and pulling it close to him, “Don’t you have someplace 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 had come 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 the computer 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 Adolpho comes 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 the computer and scrolling through the options. Roger wants to go to a library?

Now?

“It’s the most complete 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 black 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 my command. 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 you come 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 glance at my brother I see that he’s glaring 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 see Cora and Ella coming down the stairs, the baby in Ella’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 she comes to the bottom of the stairs. She turns her head up to me and I quickly explain the situation, how we want her to work with a sketch artist and then accompany Roger to the archive, Ella 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 Ella gives me a little nudge down our bond, urging me to let this play out.

“You can’t keep me here, Ella,” 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?” Ella 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, Ella,” Cora counters, frowning at her sister angrily. “You can’t keep me locked up here ”

“But for your safety!” Ella 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!” Ella cries after her, her voice all worry, but as the kitchen door swings shut behind Cora Ella 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 Ella gives me a quick high–five, grinning towards the kitchen. I laugh 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?” Ella asks softly when I turn to her. “With Roger?”

“I’ll send guards,” I say with a little shrug. “But Ella...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’s complicated between them, but still somehow knowing...

...that on some level?

It’s not complicated. Not at all.