Eccentric ✓

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

"I've made up my mind," Edward said, slamming Oliver's door open.

Oliver yelped, seeing his life flash before his eyes when his phone slipped from his hands and landed right on his face.

"What the fuck, Ed?"

He sat up, ignoring the device as it slid down to land in his lap. Edward ignored his outburst, entering the room and closing the door behind him. He crossed his arms.

"I'm accepting the deed to the bar from Miss Kay on one condition – I'm leaving the second we make enough money to afford our own apartment. Considering she's giving us eighty percent of the bar's earnings, that's not going to take long at all. I suggest you really think about what you want, Oli, because I'm done waiting for you to let go."

Oliver bristled at the words, but Edward was out of his room and slamming the door shut behind him before he could respond.

Trinity had given them a week to think about her offer.

Their deadline was tonight.

Oliver's palms grew sweaty. On the one hand, he did want to make more money, he did want to see Edward fulfil his dreams and accomplish everything he ever wanted in the whole wide world.

But the truth still remained that he didn't want to leave. They'd built a home here, where it was safe, why couldn't Edward understand that?

"This is bad," Tania whispered on their third case in just as many weeks.

"There's still nothing concretely linking the deaths, so we can't be sure they're connected," Markus said, trying to sound reassuring.

"The scent thing is more than enough," Dallas said, arms crossed.

The crime scene was a car, parked haphazardly across the street from a rundown apartment downtown, uncomfortably close to Cass, the bar where Oliver worked. Even though it was a huge city, and Bill knew crime could happen anywhere, he didn't like how uncomfortable he felt at the proximity, even though he tried to tell himself that he didn't really care.

Oliver was just some alpha he was having sex with. It wasn't his job to find out if he was alright or whatever.

Inside the car were two dead women, both distinctly smelling like alpha and omega each, the scents so interlayered and intertwined Bill wasn't sure who was what and what was who.

Dallas scrubbed a hand over his face. "We can't ignore the scents. Twice might be a coincidence but three times?"

Markus sighed. "I hate what it implies, but I have to agree. We can't ignore the connection, even if it seems to be the only one."

So far, each of the crime scenes have differed completely. The first one had involved someone jumping – or were they pushed? Bill wasn't sure because he wasn't working on the case – the second case involved someone apparently overdosing, and now they had two female weres who'd – quite literally – torn themselves apart in some sort of frenzy.

Another thing that linked all three crime scenes were the scents of heat and rut and sex.

"Hallucinogen, do you think?" Tania asked. "Would make sense why the first guy jumped, the second guy overdosed, and these ladies went bonkers."