Wolf's Wife (Monstrous Hearts #1)

Epilogue

Alice checked into the first bed and breakfast she found, fingers trembling as she paid for a night's board. For several hours she did nothing in it except sleep, wake up to cry, and fall back asleep.

Finally, at five o'clock in the evening, she got up and showered. Shaved her legs and cut her nails. Braided and pinned her hair into a neat bun and plucked stray hairs from her eyebrows. Those soothing little rituals of self-care that couldn't touch the massive fractures her life had become. She was lost, but she could at least look like she knew who she was. Still, before she put on her bra, she paused, fingers running over the faint suck marks still on her breasts.

A knock came at the door as she shrugged on her sweater.

"Yes?"

"Alice Corrigan?"

"Yes."

"I'm Jake Danvers, the local sheriff. May I talk with you for a minute?"

Dear God, she went ahead and did it, thought Alice, and kept her voice flat against the rising numbness behind her ribs. "Just a minute."

The sheriff was a tall man, burly enough that his paunch only gave him more formidability. His eyes gave away nothing of what he was about to say. He was cordial enough when she invited him into the room, but his gaze took in her appearance with the keenness of a hawk. Alice was glad she couldn't feel anything, as otherwise she'd be sweating and trembling in fear.

He quickly got to the point. "We a found a body in the woods about two miles from a cabin listed with you as the owner. The driver's license on the body belongs to a Magdalene Bishop. Do you know this person?"

Alice nodded. "We were staying at the cabin, but I left this morning after we got into an argument."

"Mm-hm." The sheriff didn't sound surprised.

"What... what happened?"

"A man walking his dog found the body at the south bank of the river. There were stones found in pockets of the coat."

When the sheriff said nothing else, Alice tried to form some words. "So you're saying it was suicide?"

"No ma'am, there's good evidence that Ms. Bishop did not take her own life."

Alice stared at him, fear joining the bewilderment roiling in her stomach. Magdalene was creative enough to make a suicide look like murder.

"Did she have a dog?"

Alice could only shake her head. "No. Why..."

The sheriff's face was lined with years, and those lines furrowed a little more. "It looks like an animal attacked her before she could jump into the river."

The words felt like a punch, and Alice folded over in her seat as if they had been one. She felt the sheriff's hand on her shoulder but whatever he said only buzzed at the edge of her consciousness. Further detail was unnecessary, anyway; she knew it had been Colton. He was alive and Magdalene was dead.

When she could breathe again, Alice straightened up and tried listening to the sheriff.

"We need someone to positively identify the body."

Dizziness rushed through her again, but Alice knew it was the last thing she'd ever do for Magdalene. She held that thought like a flashlight in the dark while the sheriff took her in his car, lights off as they drove to the morgue, and again when she stood in the cold room that smelled like steel and rot and saw what was left of Magdalene. Colton had not been kind.

She threw up. Not there in the morgue, but later after giving the sheriff the phone number of Magdalene's parents so he could notify the next of kin.