“You didn’t think I would just go to bed and not set something up in case, well, this happened?”
His initiative spoke volumes.
It also made her feel way too guilty about lumping him in with the airheaded surfer-dude stereotype.
His jacket around her shoulders felt a little warmer at that moment. As though he were physically touching her.
Protecting her.
“Right, I should have known. Thank you for that.”
Things were silent for a moment, other than the hustle and bustle of the team around them.
“Uh-huh,” Jack said, looking at them as though they had done something amusing. “I’ll put together the details. Chase Belair and Mike Stone will touch base with you, but stay close to your room. Don’t go anywhere alone. We’ll be in contact.”
His voice was enough to make Delilah blink back from the haze she’d fallen into. “Great.”
7
Delilah wasn’t going to lie. Having a creature the size of a bunyip crawling around so close to where she slept made her a little nervous.
It took longer than she expected for the team to pack up and leave, and even then, a few agents straggled behind.
They were backup, in case Agent Reyes needed the extra fish power.
But while they searched for any evidence of DNA, something that could identify who the fucker was, Delilah and Agent Reyes were back in her motel room.
She found herself combing through the files she’d been given on agents involved in the case, wanting to know exactly who everyone was, what they shifted into, and how long they’d been with the task force.
If she wanted information, she was damn well going to get it.
“We’re sure Chase Belair and Mike Stone had nothing to do with this? I know you said their mate was that squid shifter—”
“Kraken.”
Delilah shrugged. “Either way, you said Chase was with another agent who got mauled to death by it? How do we know they’re not covering for the kraken? Using the carcass of the bunyip to try to deflect attention?”
Reyes stood by the door, occasionally pulling the curtains to the window back to have a peak, while Delilah sat cross-legged on the still messy bed. And now he was giving her an odd look. “Chase isn’t even ATTF. He was on loan. He’s a type of bird shifter. A harpy.”
“I guess we could rule him out,” Delilah said, still looking over the files on her iPad.
A male harpy. That was fairly rare.
As rare as a bunyip?
Did that make him more or less suspect? Hard to say, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have some involvement.
“You really think he might have been involved?”
“He survived, and, what was her name, Carol? She didn’t. I’m just pointing that out.”
“Well, yeah, but come on. You can see in there that he was already questioned, and he nearly died, too.”
He had. His injuries had been bad.
Delilah was pretty sure he was innocent. His mate was the kraken woman, and the injuries Chase had weren’t done deliberately in places that would guarantee survival.
No one would ever put a mate at risk like that with such sloppy wounds. She could see that in the photos of Chase after the attack.
Delilah’s shoulders sagged. “What about you?” she asked.
He straightened a little. “What about me?”
“It could have been you out there last night. You set up the security cameras; you’re the one who found the track marks. Plenty of time to make them and get cleaned up before calling for backup.”
“I’m a whale shark.”
“I’ve never seen you in that form.”
Even now, a voice deep inside her head screamed at her that this was not the case. She was barking up the wrong tree. But that didn’t mean she could stop herself.
No. People did irrational things all the time when they were scared. It was human nature. Animal nature. Humans and shifters alike got caught up in those instincts.
Even as she looked at him, a piece of her not wanting to believe it, refusing to believe it, she had to keep her options open.
She could be alone with the killer right now. She still looked at him, waiting for his reaction.
“I came in from out of the country, same as you.”
“I know.”
“Which means I wasn’t here when the other attacks occurred.”
“If we’re to believe you.”
“Next time we have the chance, we’ll go to the beach, and you can see it for yourself.”
“I’d like to see right now if I can.”
“Right now?”
She nodded. “The bunyip has a distinct look. Even if you only bring out your scales, let me see that you don’t have claws, it should be enough.”
For now.
Aiden Reyes sighed, but like before, he didn’t fight her on it.
He changed. Right in front of her.
His skin showed the biggest difference.
Blue. Not one shade of blue either. Multiple shades, as though his scales were trying to form right on his skin. His eyes changed as well, becoming larger, a little wider, and definitely darker.
Delilah left her bed and padded her way toward him in the sneakers she hadn’t taken off since being outside.
Her tablet with her, she looked over his markings, the new color to his skin, and compared it to what they knew of the bunyip shifters and what evidence they’d found outside.
Definitely nothing alike.
Delilah had never been more relieved of anything in her entire life.
“Did you really think it might be me?”
No. Deep down, no.
But she’d been wrong about men before. “Any good detective would want to explore every avenue.”
Turning away from him, Delilah quickly put her nose as close to the screen of her tablet as she could, proving how much more important the notes were she read.
“Yeah.” He sounded unsure. “You’re not a field agent, though. It’s different.”
“How so?” She looked back at him. The scales had melted back into his skin, leaving only his human coloring and puppy-dog stare. “If the perpetrator wants to show an interest in me, then it doesn’t matter what my training is. I’d want to know every detail about everyone. Wouldn’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
“There you have it.” She said it dismissively, trying to ward off any further complaints.
It seemed to work. For the moment.
Delilah almost went back to sit on the bed but then decided at the last second that it might be a mistake to venture over there.
There was too much tension in the air. Too much attraction overwhelming her senses from wearing his jacket to having him around acting all protective.
Delilah was quickly learning nothing beat danger for wanting to get laid.
And badly.
But now was the time for thinking. For acting.
The honey badgers would be here soon to help go over the case. Chip would get Jack all the credentials he liked, to prove that the badger squad was more than qualified to offer assistance.
“I have a question,” she said, looking over a file of one of the agents who had been standing in the background the day she first met Jack and Reyes.
“Yeah?”
She looked at him. “If you’re a whale shark and this is a bunyip, then how could you expect to do anything if he attacked on land? I’m not trying to be insulting, but last time I checked, whale sharks stuck strictly to land.”