Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3)(67)
Author: Patricia Briggs

So, no clothes, and I couldn’t stay in here much longer before someone came in to check.

No one would ask the coyote questions she couldn’t answer.

For a frightening moment I wasn’t sure I could shift, when shifting had always been second nature.

You need to stay human, Mercy. We’re in the hospital and you need to stay with us just a little longer. Samuel’s voice.

I didn’t care about police and this wasn’t the hospital. Fur slid over my skin at last and my fingernails turned to claws. It took longer than it ever had, but in the end I stood on four paws. I whined to myself because I still didn’t want to go out.

The door opened before I could figure out any alternative, which was just as well as there were no good hiding places in the bathroom – not even for a coyote.

Ben sniffed. "Aftershave? Good enough. Someone had time to run some sheets through the wash, and I put them on the bed. So the sheets are clean."

I realized I was looking up into his face and dropped my gaze and tucked my tail.

"Like that, eh?" he said. "Mercy…" He sighed. "Never mind. Come on, then. Get back to bed."

I didn’t need to sleep, but I curled up in the clean sheets and waited for Ben to leave so I could go…somewhere. I couldn’t go home because Samuel was there and he knew.

Everyone knew and Tim was right: I was going to be alone.

I should go swimming…but that wasn’t right. My foster father had done that. No, I would never kill myself, never do to someone else what he had done to me.

After a while the door opened and Adam came in. He must not have had time to wash properly, because he still smelled faintly of Tim’s blood and the stuff Tim had made me drink. I’d thrown up on him, I remembered with regrettable clarity.

"Zee’s being released as soon as they can get the paperwork through," Adam said. He must have been talking to Ben because I was pretending very hard to be asleep. He didn’t say anything more for a minute, as if he were waiting for some response. Then he sighed. "I’m going to shower. When I come out, you can take a break."

Ben waited for the shower to start before he began talking. "I don’t know how much you remember. That fae, Nemane, was going to take her fairy things and leave before the police got there, but Adam thought that her part of the story was necessary to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the gremlin was innocent. And that you had reason to kill Tim. So he showed her the video the security cameras caught and she changed her mind and gave us a couple of things to prove your innocence. She was very impressed that you fought your way free of the goblet’s influence."

I pulled my tail tighter over my face. I hadn’t fought, not until the very last. I’d let Tim…I’d wanted him. For a moment I felt the pull of his beauty, just as I had then.

"Shh," Ben said with a nervous look at the bathroom. "You have to be quiet. He’s on edge right now and we don’t want to send him over."

I didn’t want to hear any more. Zee was free. Tomorrow I’d be very happy for it. He could take the shop back in lieu of my payment. I’d find somewhere else to go. Mexico, maybe. They had lots of Volkswagens in Mexico. Lots of coyotes, too. Maybe I’d just stay a coyote.

Unaffected by my attitude, Ben continued. "Turns out your Tim killed his best buddy yesterday before you went to his house. At least that’s what we think." Even in my current state I realized that his speech was missing its usual heavy dosing of foul language. Maybe he was worried about Adam, who disapproved of swearing in front of women. I lost my curiosity about it, though, when I understood what he was saying. "Austin Summers walked into the river and drowned himself. Some old man saw him do it and said he was smiling. He tried to save him, but Austin just kept swimming and then dove. Never came up. They found his body a few miles downstream. No one knew why until the fae showed them how the cup worked and they watched the video. It was nice of Timmy-boy to confess."

Austin knew too much, I thought. He must have known something about the artifacts, and once Tim learned that I knew about them, and might have told other people, Austin was too much of a liability. It hadn’t been all my fault, though.

Tim was jealous of Austin and hated him for being so good at everything. He would have killed Austin sooner or later. It wasn’t my fault. Not completely.

Ben pulled the edge of the blanket over me and sat on the edge of the mattress. "We showed the cops the video, too. Don’t worry, your change was off camera. No one knows you’re a coyote. Adam also picked the camera shots that didn’t show any of us werewolves except for him. He’s pretty fast with that computer of his." I heard professional approval in his voice: Ben was employed as a hotshot computer geek and he was apparently good at his job.

"Adam was going to go with the police anyway," he continued. "He had to since Nemane put him in charge of the artifacts – but the police were kinda freaked out about the condition of old Tim’s body. There was no danger they’d keep him – not with the clear evidence that you killed him. But Adam didn’t fuss. Truth to tell, I think that Adam was freaked, too. They, ah"  –  a sudden, satisfied smile was in his voice – "requested very nicely that he come with them to the police station with the video. Warren went, too, just in case the police decided to give Adam a bad time. All in all, it’s a good thing that Tim was already dead when we happened on the scene, or Adam might have been kept more than a few hours."

"Not so," Adam said from the bathroom. He turned off the shower. "I’d rather have gotten there a lot sooner and taken the consequences with the police."

Ben stilled on the bed, but when Adam didn’t say any more, he relaxed a little.

I shouldn’t have taken Tim to my garage. Surely I could have figured out some other way. I’d been running to Adam for help again, just as if I hadn’t brought Fideal to his door yesterday and endangered his home, his pack, and his daughter. If it hadn’t been for Peter, Honey’s sword-wielding husband, they might not have been able to drive him off. Adam might have been killed.

If Adam had been closer to my shop when I used my birthday on the keypad to call for help, if he’d killed Tim…I hadn’t even considered the risks. I’d just known that Adam would come and save me from my own stupidity. Again.

Adam came out of the bathroom dressed in clean jeans and nothing else, rubbing his short-cropped hair with a towel. He dropped it on the floor and knelt beside the bed. Ben slipped off and went to stand by the window.

Adam’s face was drawn with worry and weariness.

"I’m sorry," he said tiredly. "I’m so sorry that I forced you. I told you I’d try not to do that and I broke my word."