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He nodded without looking at me He had avoided eye contact the whole ti more like a victim If he’d been a woman, or even a man under other circumstances, I’d have wondered if he’d killed in self-defense after an attack That was the sort of vibe I was getting off of hiure out how to ask if his uncle, the man who’d raised hiht back finally? No, that didn’t feel right, and that wouldn’t explain the blood evidence on hi A shapeshifter would know that his human form wouldn’t have blood on it from the kill Only someone who didn’t know much about wereanimals would do it this way

“Are you sure these are all the pictures I need?”

He nodded again but stared at the floor

“Bobby,” I said, “what aren’t you telling me?”

He shook his head this ti at the floor

“Bobby, is there blood evidence somewhere else on your body?”

He went very still in the way that trauo deep inside theh, quiet enough, they won’t have to answer any o away in plain si

ght, then the worst thing won’t happen or won’t have to be shared Everything about hi on here? What had happened to Bobby Marchand to make him react like this? I’d ask Newman later in private if Bobby was usually this quiet and withdrawn; if he was, then that usually indicated long-ter bad had happened to hi up covered in blood and being accused of h? Yeah, that sounded like enough I was just used to looking for horrors, as if tragedy alone wasn’t enough

“Bobby, we’re trying to help prove that you didn’t kill your uncle Don’t you want us to prove that?” I asked softly, gently, the way you do with victims when you don’t want to spook them

He answered, still staring at the floor, “If I killed Uncle Ray, I don’t want you to save me”

“But if you didn’t kill your uncle Ray, then someone else did, Bobby Don’t you want to catch them?”

He looked atto seeto see if I meant it, I think

Sheriff Leduc said, “Don’t you go lying to hi to have to die for it Giving him false hope is justcruel”

Bobby looked at Leduc “You know I did it, don’t you?”

“I’m sorry, Bobby I’m truly sorry, but I knohat I know I knohat I saw at your house”