Chapter Six
The run back to his cottage had been bittersweet. He was free, he hadn’t been hauled into the nick, but other than that one word, Stuart had yet to speak to him. To look at him. Saying that, Edwin hadn’t given him a chance to look. He’d remained on his back, staring at the stars, until Roberts had gone and Stuart had followed shortly after.
Edwin stood panting in his back garden, his wolf skin seeming to shrink as the heat from his sprint home left his body. Everything was tight—his muscles, even his bones—and his whiskers twitched. Whether that was from him feeling uneasy about what he had to do tomorrow or relief that Roberts didn’t think Edwin deserved a jail sentence for his part in the night’s earlier activities—or, to his surprise, the ones leading up to them—he wasn’t sure. Roberts had said that Farrow had been on the police radar for quite some time, although they hadn’t suspected murder was something they’d have to deal with. It was just a matter of catching him either in the act or admitting to having committed an illegal act.
That was where Edwin would come in.
Shit, wearing a wire… Will Farrow know? Will he suspect I might go to the police and be in on a sting to get him arrested?
It was a worry, but better than Edwin ending up six-feet under at the hands of Gunner, or Farrow himself when Edwin either refused to kill someone or flat-out said no to disposing of another body.
Edwin squeezed through the dog flap and, while in the shower, recalled the stunning revelations he’d heard coming from his Alpha’s mouth. Roberts had told him something staggering: it was known by those in authority that shifters existed.
That news had all but blown him away.
“The existence of shifters has been kept a secret from the general public since the dawn of time,” Roberts had said.
Edwin had always known that, but Roberts had gone on to say, those humans who needed to know, knew shifters lived among them.
“How could such a huge thing be kept under wraps for so long? How come some government official hasn’t got his knickers in a twist and informed the press? What was the threat to them that makes everyone keep their mouths shut?” Edwin had asked.
Now, as the water cascaded over him and he lathered his body, he considered that maybe pack Alphas and human officials had signed some sort of disclosure thing where they promised never to reveal that secret unless they absolutely had to.
And apparently, wolf and human laws were different.
That information had stunned him, too.
“What does that mean for me?” Edwin had asked. “How do the different laws affect me in this?”
“What it means, is that you, being a valued and trusted member of a pack, will only face charges if I think it’s necessary.” Roberts had sniffed. “I advise that to show me you’re sincerely remorseful, you should agree to help bring Farrow down. Pack law has been explained to the government—hell, even the queen herself—and an Alpha can mete out any punishment they see fit if a shifter breaks human laws.”
“So there are lawyers out there who are shifters, and they let chiefs of police all over the country know that their locked-up client is a shifter, therefore they’re set free to be dealt with by their Alpha? Does it go something like that?” Edwin had asked.
“Yes. Having shifters inside police stations and prisons isn’t something those in authority want. Too risky, thank you very much.” Roberts had also said that although Edwin’s decisions lately hadn’t been the best, he understood why he’d made the choices he had. “This will be a lesson to you, one I hope you won’t forget, but if you do? Then I’ll give appropriate punishment, as per wolf law.”
“Which is?”
“Fighting to the death for your freedom against one of the bigger, rougher wolves in our society. The fact that you didn’t know shifters were exempt from human law, and that you only really had to obey shifter law, tells me your fear of being caught and sent to prison—your willingness to go to prison—is an indication that you haven’t turned into a bad person and aren’t a threat to any society. No bad person wants to go to prison, cub. In your confession you said you should go, that you had to pay for what you’d done. You ever heard a criminal say that and truly mean it?”
No, Edwin had never heard that. And it was true. He’d been prepared to pay whatever price he had to in order to atone for his sins.
He mulled it all over one more time. In his head, he went right back to the start of it all and relived it. Now it seemed as though Edwin had ‘got away with it’, but he knew he hadn’t. He’d carry the guilt around with him forever, and that was a punishment in itself. Every time he saw Mrs Lyons or one of the Lyons family, he’d be reminded of the part he’d played. As for Farrow, when he got caught, if he spilled the beans about Edwin having something to do with the disposal of Mr Lyons’ body, Roberts had assured him that certain securities would be put in place where, in court, it would be made to look as though Edwin hadn’t even been there and that Farrow had fabricated his story.
It had Edwin thinking about all those articles in the papers he’d read over the years, where people had claimed, once they stood in the dock, that they’d been ‘stitched up’. It was clear now that that sort of thing went on more than anyone thought. Edwin was grateful it did, in his case. It still seemed wrong, though, to, in effect, lie. But as Roberts had explained, Edwin hadn’t lied when it mattered, not to Stuart, whom he’d thought he’d been confessing to, or to his Alpha—the person who was the one, apart from those on the wolf council, who was their pack’s version of a judge and jury.
Roberts’ decision was final.
“Now you know the truth, you have learn to re-school yourself into accepting shifter law is what matters now; forget about prisons and whatever—and keep it to yourself,” Roberts had said. “It wouldn’t do for other shifters to know they can break human laws, otherwise there’s a potential for anarchy. The threat of fighting to the death is enough stop most shifters from committing any sort of crime, but the government aren’t so sure about that. They’ve suggested that those who are good fighters know they’ll be in with a chance of winning, thus freeing themselves from punishment. And, let’s face it, if all shifters know they just need to fight for their life and they can run around doing whatever they like, they’d undoubtedly train themselves to be able to fight to the death and win, should they be inclined.”
He’d admitted Roberts had a point there.
The drain gurgled, bringing him out of his head and back into the reality of the bathroom. The water smacking onto his skin had turned cold. It was time to get out of the shower and slip on his shorts ready for bed. Whether he’d sleep or not remained to be seen, but he’d have to try. He had a big day ahead of him tomorrow—a troubling, frightening day, but a better day than he’d been facing a couple of hours ago. At least this way he wasn’t getting himself farther into a hole—a hole created by Farrow, one designed to be deep enough so that Edwin had no chance of ever climbing out of it.
Edwin flopped into bed, pulled the quilt up to his chest, and yet again picked over the conversation he’d had with Roberts. It had been easy to swear he’d keep the new information to himself. He wouldn’t even discuss it with Roberts or Stuart again through fear that someone might overhear them. It had been agreed that any meetings they had about the shifter law situation would be in the field where they’d just been, far from prying eyes and listening ears.
That was fine with Edwin. He didn’t want anyone else knowing about his shame.
He closed his eyes. Shook out his limbs in an attempt to fool his body and mind into thinking that everything would be okay now, that he could sleep, with no threat of bad dreams. He huffed out a breath. Who was he kidding? Everything wasn’t all right now. Just because his Alpha was taking care of things, it didn’t mean it absolved the guilt. Okay, Edwin wasn’t going to prison, and he wouldn’t find himself standing before some massive wolf intent on ripping him to shreds, but there were still things playing on his mind. His mission with the wire tomorrow was child’s play compared to what he’d already been through—and that was what troubled him now.
I’ve carried a dead body and helped put it in a boot. I’ve watched while two men squashed a dead bloke into a coffin with some other poor soul.
And that thought had his nerves shivering in apprehension. Tomorrow morning, before the funeral, the police were going to show up at Black Hair’s parlour and ask to look inside that shiny pine coffin.
Fucking hell. Farrow’s going to know it was me. That I’m a grass.
So then do what Roberts said, do what you’ve been doing for months. Act like you’ve got no idea what the hell is going on. Listen, you’ve been playing a role for a while now. Farrow already thinks you’re in with him, that you’re not someone who’ll squeal to the coppers. You ‘yawned’ earlier, for fuck’s sake, when Farrow got in the car out the back of the funeral home. He thinks you’re like him, someone who isn’t fazed by the kind of shit you got up to tonight.
He won’t believe it was you. He won’t.
Having conversations with himself had been par for the course lately, the only way Edwin could keep from totally panicking. And if he acted like he usually did, nonchalant and at ease, he reckoned Farrow wouldn’t even suspect him, even though he’d freaked out over the Mr Lyons issue.
“How will you approach Farrow about his involvement in putting that body in the coffin, though?” That was what Edwin had asked Roberts as a cool breeze had skated across his naked belly while the moon and stars had looked on, impassive.
“That’s where you come in,” Roberts had said. “You’ll turn up for work as usual. Do whatever it is you normally do. What would that be? Make the old dear behind reception a coffee? One for Farrow? Knock on his office door and report for duty? What?”
“Something like that.”
“Then you do it all over again tomorrow afternoon, except this time, when you sit on the other side of his desk or whatever it is you do, you’ll mention that on your way into work, you noticed a police car or two outside the funeral place. You’ll say whatever you need to so that Farrow finds out that things have taken a different turn to what he’d imagined. Then you’ll steer the conversation to where we need it to go.”
Edwin opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. He could do that—do what Roberts had said. But what if his facial expressions betrayed him when it mattered the most? What if, after all this time, he cocked it up and didn’t hide his true feelings? Would the fear of Farrow hurting him—killing him—help Edwin to focus and behave as he had done for the past few months?
It had to. Otherwise, once again, Edwin was well and truly fucked.
He snapped his eyes shut, willing everything in his mind to clear, to bugger off and leave him alone. But then a voice piped up that he didn’t deserve any peace. What he deserved was to spend the rest of his life in misery—the type of misery Mrs Lyons and her family had in store.
“Does anyone even know Mr Lyons is missing yet?” Edwin had asked.
“There’s been a report lodged, yes,” Roberts had said. “By his wife when he didn’t come home from work. Tomorrow we’ll ‘find’ him after an ‘anonymous tip’. Don’t worry about that side of things. I’ll deal with that. You just concentrate on what you need to do. It isn’t your fault he was killed. You didn’t have a hand in that. And I, for one, am glad about it.”
So am I. Jesus fucking Christ, so am I.
After what seemed eons, Edwin’s mind began to let up on its relentless assault. At last, his body felt as though it was sinking into the mattress, and that wonderful, magical lull of sleep came to claim him. His eyelids grew heavy, but just as they closed and he began sinking into the abyss, the mournful howl of a wolf yanked him from going under.
He sprang out of bed, fully alert now, and went to the window. Parted the curtains and stared down into the back garden. Stuart’s wolf gazed up at him. Edwin nodded, giving him permission to come inside, and Stuart dipped his head into the dog flap, then the rest of his body followed.
“Time to face the real judge and jury,” Edwin whispered. “To find out the opinion of the only person on this planet who truly matters to me.”
Dear God, please don’t let him hate me.