Chapter 19

“I’m a grouchy cop who deals with drug dealers, junkies, and sex workers all day long. I’m probably quite hard to date. So maybe we both don’t know what we’re doing. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.” Seth shrugs.

“I like the way you think. Come on, let’s go play cop.” Holden grins.

“You’replaying cop. But no telling anyone you’re a cop. Just say you’re helping with a case,” Seth says, and then they both get out of the car.

They walk over to the club, and Seth buzzes the intercom, explains who he is, why he’s there, and someone lets them in. They walk into the club, which is in the process of being cleaned. Seth finds clubs always look so different in the day time than they did the night—not that he goes clubbing often. He’s more likely to be in a club for work.

“Hello, I’m the manager, Lee,” a man says, walking over. He’s shorter than both of them, wearing a black suit with a red tie. He’s white, but he’s blond, so for now Seth rules him out as the man Dawn saw.

Seth explains what happened at the club last night, showing his badge and asks if he can see the security footage, and if the club has had any problems with drugs, anyone reacting like Dawn had.

“Cassidy, go get all of last night’s security footage,” Lee says to one of the bar staff, who quickly heads off.

“We have some problems with drugs. No more than any other club, I’d expect. We don’t allow dealing, but it happens. I don’t think I’ve heard of any drug that makes the person who takes it bleed.” Lee shakes his head.

“Can we talk to your staff?” Seth asks.

“Go ahead.” Lee waves them off, and Seth and Holden go to each person working there, asking them what they know about shifter drugs, and if they’d seen an average-looking man in a gray shirt.

“That sounds like this guy, Ed,” one of the bartenders says, a pretty Latina girl called Rose.

“Ed?” Seth asks.

“I think his surname is Jones. Boring guy, average name. Rude as hell.” Rose rolls her eyes.

“Rude how?” Holden asks, remembering what Dawn had said.

“He won’t let me serve him.” Rose sighs.

“Why?” Holden asks. He’s been good at talking to people so far, professional despite his personal involvement in the case.

“Because I’m a shifter,” Rose says, turning her wrist over to show the raven tattoo on the inside of her wrist.

“Cool tat. Raven shifter?” Holden asks.

“Yeah. He asked about my tattoo. When I said why I had it, he changed. Suddenly couldn’t get far enough away from me.” Rose frowns.

“Me and my sister got paw prints last week. We’re coyote shifters. The detective is a werewolf,” Holden explains, and Seth sees Rose relax. As a bird shifter, she wouldn’t have a stronger sense of smell, so wouldn’t know that she was talking to other shifters.

“Was he just rude?” Seth asks.

“No. He told my boss he shouldn’t hire my kind. And he asked everyone who works here if they were a shifter. He wouldn’t have anything to do with you if you weren’t human. He’s been thrown out for fighting with people when he’s found out they were shifters. He has a real problem with our kind.” Rose sighs.

“Thank you. If he comes back in, can you call me?” Seth asks, handing over his card.

“Of course. Is he dangerous?” Rose asks, sounding worried.

“He might be. So don’t confront him. Just call me right away. And inform security that he’s here,” Seth instructs.

They leave after that, with a thumb drive full of footage of the night before.

“I want to drop this off at the station. And I want to run searches on all the Ed Joneses in the area, see if we get lucky and he has a record. And I want to get a rookie digging into the life of the kid who died, see if he could have met Ed Jones anywhere,” Seth says in a rush.

“If it is this guy, he wasn’t trying…It probably wasn’t a date rape drug gone wrong. He was probably trying to kill Dawn,” Holden says softly.

“Yeah, these could be hate crimes. They wouldn’t be the first. But I’ll be tearing the officers who ignored this a new one for not looking into it. I’m going to the station. Do you want to come with me, or do you want to go back to the hospital?” Seth asks.

“I’ll go back once we have a picture to show Dawn. Once we get something from the video of the guy at the club. I’ll come with you,” Holden says firmly.