Gabriel looked at us, nodded. The other shifters must have taken that as their cue to exit, as they rose and disappeared into the bar.
“What’s in the bag?” Gabriel asked.
Ethan slipped out the bottle, passed it over.
“GlenDronach,” Gabe said, in what sounded to my ear like a pretty good Gaelic accent.
Ethan nodded. “A token in sympathy of Caleb Franklin’s death.”
“Thank you. We’ll toast him with this.”
Ethan inclined his head.
“You two hungry?”
Ethan glanced at me.
“Oh, that’s a joke that never gets old,” I said. In fact, my metabolism was a diesel engine; it rarely stopped running. But even I didn’t think it was wise to pile rich Eastern European fare atop spicy Thai.
“No, thank you.”
Gabriel’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Well. Not an answer I’d have ever expected from you.” He wiggled the bottle. “In that unusual case, how about a drink?”
“I wouldn’t say no to that,” Ethan said.
“Me, neither,” I said.
Gabriel nodded, rose. There was a small refrigerator in a corner of the room beside a skinny rattan cabinet. Gabriel pulled out three glasses and brought them back, then poured a finger of GlenDronach for each of us.
“You find Franklin’s house?” Gabe asked.
“We did,” Ethan said, accepting the glass with a nod. “No one was there, and there weren’t many personal effects as far as we could tell. A few pieces of furniture, probably came with the house, a few articles of clothing. No vehicle, no paper. Plenty of food in the fridge and freezer, so he was definitely staying there. We didn’t find anything that indicated why he’d ended up dead.”
All that was entirely correct, if not the entire truth. Ethan didn’t mention the cashbox we’d found or the key. He must have had a reason for the omission, even if he hadn’t shared it with me.
I took a sip, let whiskey burn down my throat. It was strong, but smoky and smooth.
Gabriel nodded his head back and forth, back and forth, as if considering the information, debating whether we told the entire truth. Or maybe that was just my conscience talking.
“Have you learned anything?” Ethan asked.
“Not really. There are a couple of shifters he’s stayed in contact with, but they haven’t seen him in several weeks.”
Because he was involved in something big, I suspected.
“I managed to get the address, and that’s it. They knew it by sight, but neither had been in. Caleb kept to himself.”
Ethan nodded. “You mentioned Franklin’s neighborhood was at the edge of Hellriver. La Douleur has relocated there. We paid it a visit.”
Gabriel’s eyes lifted to Ethan, then me. “Now, that’s a side of you I didn’t expect to see, Kitten.”
“And you never will see it,” Ethan said with a mirthless smile, then glanced at me. “Would you mind showing him the tattoo?”
I nodded, pulled up the picture of Cyrius’s ouroboros I’d snapped before we left, passed it to Gabriel.
“The Circle controls the Hellriver,” Ethan said, “and Reed controls the Circle. Therefore, Reed controls Hellriver. It also appears Reed owned the vampire who killed your shifter.”
Gabriel’s expression tightened. But I wouldn’t say he looked especially surprised.
“Would you like to tell us why you don’t look at all shocked to learn this? And perhaps, while you’re at it, why don’t you tell us the truth about Caleb Franklin and why he left the Pack?” Ethan’s words were carefully strung and mildly threatening.
In silence, Gabriel finished his whiskey and poured another finger, but didn’t offer one to me or Ethan. He pivoted sideways in the chair, pulled out the chair beside it, and crossed his ankles over the empty seat. Free arm on the table, the other holding his glass.
I wasn’t sure if we were watching him prepare to tell us a story or give us a dressing-down. Either way, he was setting the scene for something.
“Caleb Franklin was my half brother,” Gabriel said.
That explained why Gabriel had nearly come to blows over a man who’d voluntarily abandoned the Pack. On the other hand, Gabriel was the oldest of the Keene siblings, who were named in reverse alphabetical order—Gabriel, Fallon, Eli, and so on. There was no “Caleb” in that list. Caleb’s relationship with the Keene family must have had its own complications.
“Which side?” Ethan asked.
“My father’s. He was unfaithful to my mother. Caleb Franklin was the result of it. My mother was a kind woman, but she drew the line at acknowledging my father’s infidelity. So Caleb Franklin was a member of the Pack, but considered a bastard.
“My mother was adamant, so I didn’t know him growing up. I learned about him later, met him later. He definitely had a chip on his shoulder. Hell, I’d have had one, too, under the circumstances. It certainly changed my perception of the old man.”
Gabriel finished his whiskey. “Caleb came to me about two years ago. He’d gotten an opportunity—that’s what he called it: an opportunity—to do some high-value, if questionable, work for a human. Not a big deal, he’d said. Just a contract. I said no. Humans didn’t know about us then, and I gauged it too risky. The little shit did it anyway, and that was, of course, just the beginning.
“About a year ago, he was making a run of contraband, invited Eli to come along. Eli had no idea what Caleb was running, and they both got caught. They both ended up doing time for it. I was pissed. I confronted Caleb, reminded him that I’d given him an order. I could tell he was scared, and I thought, in the moment, that he’d been scared of me.”