Accidental Surrogate for Alpha

#Chapter 319 – Investigation

Sinclair

As Cora sits on the bed with her sister, I meet my brother’s eyes above her head and nod towards the door. He nods as well, agreeing. He places a hand on Cora’s shoulder and gives her a little squeeze before heading to the door.

Ella turns towards me as I stand up, grabbing my phone and heading to the closet, but I speak to her mind–to–mind to let her know that everything’s fine as I quickly pull on some casual clothes. Take care of Cora, I say to Ella, trying to send warmth and support along with my words. We’re just going to go talk downstairs with the team.

Ella nods to me, with a little smile, and then when I meet Roger at the door we walk out together, closing it behind us.

As soon as the door is shut, we’re instantly in motion. “We need more information,” Roger says, striding for the stairs. “And we need a drawing of this man, if we can convince Cora to speak to a sketch artist – it could be incredibly helpful –

”

“That shouldn’t be difficult,” I agree as the two of us hurry down the stairs to my office, where a team of investigators worked through the night on the case. “I’ll have a trained sketch artist come by as soon as possible – I’m sure Cora will comply –” I pull my phone from my pocket and start looking through my contacts.

“Someone should contact Hank,” Roger murmurs, striding into the office and moving behind the, desk. “To let him know that she won’t be in to work anytime soon – we need her here –“

―

I pause, a little, in my search for someone who can contact a reliable and discreet sketch artist to look at Roger and raise an eyebrow at him. “Didn’t think you’d be showing such concern for Dr. Hank anytime soon,” I murmur.

Roger shoots me a dirty glance. “It’s strictly professional,” he murmurs, sorting through some papers on the desk and handing them off to the investigators to properly file. “And after last night, he knows something is up –”

“Does he?” I ask, looking at Roger fully now. “Hank was there last night? At Cora’s?”

”

the desk and then lifting his head to meet my eyes. Can we not?” he asks, impatient. “Can we not do this, during a crisis regarding

someone to bust into my house to steal my child, and teasing Roger about Cora seems like just the thing. But I can tell that he’s perturbed, so I leave it

my arms and thinking aloud. “That the best clue we have so far is the black robes. Cora said that several times – the man was consistently dressed like

to him, “Don’t you have someplace where

fraud, and that

nodding and making a mental note to contact him after I find the sketch artist. “We were in touch with him yesterday in case he had come across anything useful in the past few months – but now that we have

Roger confirms,

I ask, working to peer over his

history of shifter religion.” He shrugs and turns the computer to me so that I can see a very old, very basic website that includes a description of some archaic holdings. “It’s about five hours

if Adolpho comes up with nothing, then perhaps we can contact the people here. It’s a closed–stack collection but,” he shrugs,

over the computer and scrolling through

of years of shifter religious history. If anyone’s going to have

will be them.”

my phone to again chase down that

“What?!”

done with the sketch artist,” I continue, looking up to meet his eyes seriously. “You’ll take

raise my eyebrows at his defiance of my command. Roger sighs, his teeth gritted, clearly frustrated. I’m curious about this. Why does he suddenly not want to go with Cora? “I mean, what is Cora going to add

doesn’t mean she doesn’t remember more details. It just means she didn’t tell us about them in the moment because she didn’t think they were important, or because she’s upset. If

to keep the smirk to my face as I see how disgruntled he is at the assignment.

“You’d prefer I sent Hank along with her, on the mission…he’s clever enough. Probably a good researcher, to get out of med

he’s glaring at me, knowing precisely what it is that I’m implying. “Cora and I will go tonight. It will be fine.“/

casually, pressing a contact on my phone

the baby in Ella’s arms, presumably heading for the

in my hand, but I hang up quickly, knowing I can call back. “Cora,” I say, as she comes to the bottom of the stairs. She turns her head up to me and I quickly explain the situation, how we want her to work with a sketch artist and then accompany Roger to the archive, Ella stands by her sister, her eyebrows raised at the second proposal.