Page 24 of Hide From Me

“Yeah, kid. Give me a hug. Just less bounce in it this time.”

As Zeiden bent down to wrap me in for the best bear hug of my life, I swear I heard a growl. I looked over Zeiden’s shoulder and saw Cas with a dark expression and a twitch in his jaw.

“Hey, Cas. I didn’t know you were bringing everyone by to see me work.”

He grumbled something, but Zeiden was already releasing me.

“Don’t get too close or he bites,” Zeiden said loud enough it wasn’t for my benefit.

“Fuck off, Zeid. I already said she was off limits.”

I glowered at Cas.

“Off limits? What the hell? They were my friends too.”

His boots thudded and crunched over whatever the hell was on this floor.

“Yeah, friends. Like a few weeks makes you friends with these assholes?”

Xander cleared his throat.

“Speak for yourself, prick. She’s like the little sister I’d always wanted if Dad stopped killing off his girlfriends.”

I gaped at him.

“I didn’t know your mother was murdered too, Xander. I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged.

“Cas is the only one that had something like a mother to any of us. His gran is made of something harder than fucking steel is all I can say.”

I smiled at the idea that Cas had a grandmother. It was cute to think of little Cas baking cookies with her.

“Wipe that fucking dreamy gaze off of your face, blossom. She isn’t that kind of gran. Or well, she is now, but don’t underestimate her. She would shoot you straight between the eyes if you pissed her off.”

I held my hands up.

“Remind me not to cross her then. What exactly would piss her off? And are you implying I get to meet the woman that created such wonderful men?”

I couldn’t stop the laughter that burst from me. They were wonderful to look at, that was certain, but I wasn’t sure any of them would be the marrying type, and that, for some stupid reason, had my stomach all twisted up. Why did it bother me that they were all players and deranged lunatics that would murder for a friend but never seemed to have the emotional capacity to love anything?

In my mind, I’d twisted my ideas of Cas. I wanted to remember him as the boy who would murder for me, and I always thought that was something. But what if it was just who he was? He didn’t like injustice, even if it was on his own moral compass.

“Hey, Rylee, did you get this?”

I turned back to Cali. Nothing about this crime scene was official or even close to following the books, but no one seemed to be saying shit. Another officer walked in and took one look at the boys and was looking the other way.

“Yeah, what’s up?” I answered.

She pointed towards the judge’s mouth.

“Get a shot of that before we pull it out to catalogue what’s in there. It better just be paper and not a fucking roach or something with trash stuck to it.”

That made my skin crawl. Not the bluish purple of the guy’s lips or the pasty gray of his dead skin, but a damn bug? No thanks. I clicked away and got all the angles before Cali did her thing and pulled the item out of his mouth.

“What is it? I doubt he was writing poetry to his little date here and tried to eat the evidence.”

I looked at him and the dead woman again.