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“Did you get any traces off them?” Burnett asked. “Are they the same ones from earlier?”
“They aren’t the boys I saw walking. I didn’t get a good enough trace to know if they were the same scents from the jewelry store. I think they’re only half were.”
“But they are the ones I smelled earlier with animal blood on them,” Chase said.
Both Della and Burnett looked at him.
“You were here earlier?” Burnett asked.
Della didn’t appear surprised; she knew he’d been in the area. But she hadn’t told Burnett. Was she trying to protect him from the big bad Burnett? Chase liked that thought.
“Yes, before I came to Shadow Falls. Around seven.”
“So about the time of the murder,” Burnett said. “Did you get a visual?”
“No, just a trace.”
Burnett stood there as if trying to grasp it all. “The blood, was it—”
“I didn’t hang around to identify it as feline.” When Burnett looked surprised, Chase added, “I saw Lucas when he came back. He told me about the cat. That’s why I came here, to the murder scene … to see if I could still pick up the were scents.” And to go check out some scumbags. But he didn’t say that.
Burnett didn’t appear pissed. Was he just holding back until he had Chase alone? Burnett stared at the sky as if trying to come up with a plan. “Della,” he said. “Head back home. Straight home.”
Della frowned. “But—”
“Don’t argue. If your parents find you’re gone, it would just cause more trouble.”
Chase saw the spark of anger in her eyes, but she nodded. She respected Burnett that much. That was part of the reason Chase respected him too.
“Will you text and let me know if you get a confession?”
“Yes.”
She took off without offering Chase a goodbye or even a go-to-hell glare. He’d have preferred the glare to nothing. Nothing stung a little.
Burnett turned his dark, accusing gaze on Chase.
“I wasn’t planning to see Della,” he said.
“I know.” He started walking back toward the park.
Chase caught up with him. “How do you know?”
“I had you followed.”
The words raked across Chase’s nerves. “That’s underhanded, isn’t it?”
“No,” Burnett said, unconcerned if Chase was pissed.
“So you have the right to have me tailed?”
“Until I trust you, I do.”
And how the hell long would that be? Then logic hit. “You didn’t have me followed. I’d have picked up their scent.”
“Not if it was Perry,” Burnett clipped out.
Perry was one of the best shape-shifters out there. And the really good shifters could shift their scents so they weren’t distinguishable. But Perry was supposed to be in France … with Steve.
