What a journey this has been...
Last June, more than a year ago now, I signed up for a fic exchange on tumblr. I was assigned randomly to write a story for elle_stone who particularly wanted an omega verse story where Sherlock was an omega and John an alpha. I was not best pleased. Sherlock being Sherlock, I've always seen him as an alpha. Then I started thinking of just how difficult it would be for him if he WERE an omega because of how he is. My story 'Permutation' resulted. When I was finishing I had a sudden inspiration and threw in the the idea of Lestrade being Sherlock's pack alpha in for fun.
I couldn't have imagined what that one thought would catapult me in to.
In November I started writing again, this time with the intention of writing a three or four chapter short story explaining how that situation came about.
Nine months, many sleepless nights and more than 80,000 words latter I find myself the writer of an entire novel-length fic!
I finished it last week and have been working with my beta to polish, edit and prepare the end for posting. The end turned out to be a little long one chapter, so I've divided it. I'll be posting Chapter 22 and the epilogue later this week when I finish the final editing.
This story is dedicated in its entirety to my out of this world beta, Coian, and to my dearest friend CJ in whose hospice room I wrote a great deal of this and who's ashes we buried the day before yesterday under a tree near where she grew up.
Chapter 21
More than an hour later, Greg finally stepped out onto the street for a much needed breathe of fresh air. The forensics team had arrived with Jones on their heels and Bradstreet not far behind him. With the other DI present he'd been happy to hand over Kevin to Jones for transportation to the yard and booking. What he'd done was *not* something Greg wanted to think about tonight. He'd have to deal with it but tomorrow would be soon enough.
Worn out from the mental fight, Kevin went with the DS without any trouble.
After that, there had been an endless swirl of activity. EMTs had arrived and looked over Sherlock who had put up with the examination with ill grace. They'd declared him to be fine, which he had loudly insisted he'd said from the beginning and that all they'd done was waste his time.
Greg himself was jittery in the wake of his confrontation with Kevin, still running too much on instinct. He'd hovered while the EMTs worked, unable not to act like an anxious parent. It had earned some scowls from Sherlock and some odd looks from some of his men.
Now, most of what he himself had to do tonight was done. The coroner's people had left with the remains to begin their grisly task of figuring out what belonged to whom. The crime scene techs would still be at it inside for another hour at least and a couple of uniforms would be needed to stand guard. Normally he'd have stayed to supervise anyway. Tonight, though, he was just too tired. Everything else could wait until morning, when he'd had some sleep and daylight showed the crime scene better. As it was, he wasn't much good to anyone like this. The crash that came with the draining away of adrenaline had left him fuzzy and this was something he needed clear head for.
Closing his eyes, Greg focused on breathing in the chilly pre-dawn air, trying not to think about anything.
Sherlock was still harassing the techs but Greg thought that even he was tiring. How he was still on his feet at all after more than two days without sleep Greg didn't know. Greg had finally admitted to himself an hour ago that taking Sherlock back to Colwith tonight wasn't going to happen. He'd been making excuses to himself to keep Sherlock close. Exhausted as he was the alphic part of his nature was still far too close to the surface to be comfortable with the idea of the omega being anywhere Greg couldn't see to his defence himself. It wasn't rational, he knew, but it was there nonetheless. For what was left of tonight then, he'd take Sherlock home with him. He could sleep then with the other man safely tucked away in Greg's personal territory.
He'd already called Ann to let her know that Sherlock was with him and they'd both be coming home that night. She'd got off the phone quickly, her voice already husky when she'd said goodbye. Greg suspected the tension of waiting had got to her more than he'd realised and she wasn't the type to want an audience when she cried. She'd get it out of her system and be ready to give Sherlock hell when they got back.
"You can take my car."
Starting he turned to find Bradstreet strolling up to him. "As I understand it, you drove here with Fitzhugh and then sent him off to book your killer without making any arrangements for how you were going to get home."
Greg groaned. Oh hell, she was right. His own car was back at the yard. He'd have to hitch a ride all the way back there before he could even consider heading home.
"How would you get home?" Greg asked.
"I don't live nearly as far from the yard as you do," she said. "I'll grab a ride back with one of the uniforms and catch a cab from there."
"That won't come cheap," he objected, feeling guilty over how much he wanted to take her up on her offer.
"You can pay me back. Did I ever tell you that I have three older brothers, all of them alphas?" she asked conversationally. Greg blinked at the non sequitur. God, he was too tired to keep up with leaps in conversation.
"No, I don't think so."
"I grew up with them attempting to Command me to do this or that nearly all the time. They thought it was funny. Until the day their beta little sister was able to stand up to one of their Commands without batting an eyelash." She smiled but it had an edge to it. "Then it wasn't so funny anymore, at least not to them. I didn't let on until one of them Commanded me in front of his friends. It made him look pretty weak when his little sister told him to stuff it. I mean, what kind of alpha can't Command a beta?"
Greg couldn't help but give a small smile back. "That explains a few things," he said.
It was well-known at the yard that Jane Bradstreet was the one beta Commands didn't seem to work on. It was part of what had earned her the rank of Detective Inspector, the fact that the most dominant suspect couldn't cow her.
"So I know something of just how hard it must have been for Sherlock to hang up on you earlier this evening. I also know a bit of how he's likely to be feeling about the whole thing."
"Jane…" Greg began.
"No, just listen okay," she said, holding up a hand to forestall him. "With someone as independent as he is, the fact that you *can* Command him will likely scare him as much as infuriate him. The fact that you nearly had me on my knees earlier, that if you really tried you *could* Command me… I'll admit that that makes me a little nervous even though I *know* you'd never try. And at least I have the distance that comes with the fact that you aren't my alpha. He doesn't have that anymore, does he?"
"No," Greg admitted. "I claimed him and he acknowledged."
"I thought so," she said. "There's levels of dominance among non-alphas too, you know."
That was news. "There is?"
Bradstreet snorted. "It wouldn't make much difference to someone like you, able to Command anyone you like but it does matter to the rest of us."
Bradstreet paused for a fraction of a second as though expecting him to object to her statement and Greg realised for the first time just how automatic his rejection of any mention of his level of dominance had become. Had he really become *that* defensive about it? God, he had, hadn't he? Now though… Maybe it was simply because the alpha was still so close to the surface but Greg didn't feel the need this time to argue that he didn't *want* to Command anyone. They both knew it and the fact that he didn't want to dominate those around him didn't alter the fact that he could.
When he said nothing, Bradstreet continued.
"Usually people only talk about alpha dominance since that's where the real power is. But there are other kinds of dominance. The only way it effects an alpha is in how easy or hard a person is to control, how susceptible they are to being Commanded. Since that's not how you roll you wouldn't be all that familiar with it but it's there. Among non-alphas it's pretty subtle who's dominant but sometimes you get people like Sherlock and myself. We're actually dominant enough in our own ways that with the right blockers and pheromones maskers we can actually pass for alphas. Weaker alphas sure, but we can do it."
"Sherlock does that all the time," Greg said, surprised that he hadn't actually thought about that before now. He himself had assumed Sherlock was an alpha but he'd never really thought about what that meant in terms of natural dominance. And now that he really looked at it, many, if not most, of the betas at the yard *did* defer to Bradstreet. They seemed to accept on some level that she was closer in dominance to someone like Greg than to themselves. He'd always put it down to her rank but now… he wasn't so sure.
At Greg's questioning look she nodded. "Sure I have. It's useful, though, I mostly like to make use of the fact that everyone underestimates betas." Another of her fierce grins, gone in a moment as she continued. "With Sherlock, though, it's obviously different. Betas are at least allowed their own careers and lives, omegas… not so much."
Greg swore. "Bugger. Everyone here will have smelled what he's like now and if the whole yard knows…"
"It's handled," Bradstreet said. "I talked to him in front of the techs just loudly enough so that they all will have heard me ask him about the masker he was wearing and why the hell he'd want anyone to think he was an omega of all things."
Greg relaxed, only then realising how much he'd tensed at the thought of Sherlock's secret being out. "And he answered that it was to act as bait for our killer," Greg surmised.
"Exactly," she answered smugly. "I overheard them talking afterwards, all assuring themselves that they'd never thought for a moment that *Sherlock* of all people could be an omega."
Greg shook his head. "Sherlock's said more than once that it's amazing how far people will go to convince themselves that the world really is the way they think it should be."
"He's not wrong," Bradstreet said, rolling her eyes.
They stood in silence for a moment, considering the perversity of humanity.
Finally, Greg turned to Bradstreet and held out his hand. "I can't thank you enough for your help today. It's been beyond invaluable and I don't know what I would have done without it."
"You'd have managed," Bradstreet said, accepting his hand. "Still, I'm glad to have been able to help. We got not one, but two killers off the streets and kept our favourite pain the ass from getting himself killed. All in all, not a bad day's work." She held out her keys. "You can bring my car back to me at the yard tomorrow."
Looking past her, Greg shook his head. "You know what, I don't think that's going to be necessary after all."
A sleek black car had pulled up on the other side of the street and Greg recognised the man who now climbed out to stand next to it, folding his hands on the top of his umbrella and looking for all the world like he was ready to wait as long as it took.
Glancing behind her, Bradstreet's brow furrowed. "Who the hell has on a three-piece suite at this time of the morning?"
"Mycroft Holmes," Greg answered. At her questioning look he nodded. "Yep, he's the one who so thoroughly violated both of our privacy not all that long ago. He's also Sherlock's big brother."
"Oh my God," the other DI groaned and Greg couldn't help but grin at genuine horror in her voice.
"Oh yes," Greg assured her. "There are *two* of them. And that one," he said nodding toward Mycroft, "has government influence to back him up."
Bradstreet groaned again and threw up her hands. "This is something I want nothing to do with. But if you can get a ride with him, great. I'll be off then. Night Greg."
"Night."
As she left Greg headed across the street to Mycroft.
"I take it that Sherlock is still getting in the way of the crime scene technicians?" the man asked as Greg approached him.
"I'm not even going to ask how you knew where we were or what was happening," Greg said.
Mycroft's lips twitched ever so slightly. "It might be for the best that you don't. I understand that my brother is unharmed?"
"He's fine," Greg said. "I'll take him back to Colwith tomorrow." There was a faint challenge to the words, though he hadn't meant there to be. He knew he should take him back tonight as much as he knew he wasn't going to.
"Of course, Detective Inspector." The slight inclination of the man's head somehow both acknowledged Greg's right to make that decision and indicating that he'd expected nothing else. How the hell the man could convey so much with something so basic Greg couldn't begin to guess.
"Ah," Mycroft said, looking past Greg to the house. "And here is my brother now."
Sherlock scowled furiously as he marched up to them. "Piss off, Mycroft." He swung on Greg. "Did you call him?" he demanded.
"He did not call me," Mycroft answered placidly. "You know very well that such an action on his part would hardly have been necessary."
Sherlock's scowl somehow managed to darken even farther. "I'm not your concern anymore."
"I can't help but be concerned about my little brother's welfare, can I?" Mycroft answered, and for the first time Greg thought he saw a chink in Mycroft's armour. Some small flash of annoyance or hurt or God only knew what; some glimpse of real emotion behind his ever placid exterior. "Now," he waved to the car behind him. "If we are done with the usual formalities, let me give you a lift."
"We don't need a ride from *you*," Sherlock snarled at the same time Greg said, "A ride would be welcome, thank you."
Sherlock transferred his glare to Greg. "Fitzhugh took the car back to the yard, Sherlock," Greg said tiredly. "And in the heat of the moment I forgot to make arrangements to have one brought back here for us. We need a ride and I for one don't want to have to either go all the way back to the yard *or* wait around here while someone brings something over for us."
"And, in fact, that would be counterproductive at this point," Mycroft interposed. "I have already made arrangements to have your vehicle taken back to your home, Detective Inspector."
Greg paused, wondering for a moment how the hell Mycroft had arranged to get the keys for his car but then decided he didn't want to know any more than he wanted to know how Mycroft knew to come here, much less when to show up.
"In that case, I'll just let the officer on scene know I'm heading out," Greg said utterly ignoring Sherlock's indignant assurances that he wasn't going *anywhere* with Mycroft.
When he got back to the car he found to his surprise that Sherlock had relented enough to get in. He was less surprised that he sat with his arms folded petulantly, staring out the window in the manner of a teenager determined to pretend they were alone as pointedly as possible.
Conversation was nonexistent as they glided through the nighttime streets of London. Greg was too damn tired to make small-talk and Sherlock had no intention of talking to either of them. Thankfully, Mycroft seemed comfortable with silence and didn't try to push conversation on either of his guests.
It was all Greg could do not to audibly sigh when they turned the corner onto his street and he could see his own home at last. Unlike the homes of his neighbours, the lights were on. Greg had told Ann that she didn't need to wait up for them but he wasn't surprised that she'd done so anyway.
They pulled in just behind Greg's own car and Sherlock was out the door before the driver could even put them in park.
"Thanks," Greg said, climbing out after him.
"My pleasure, Detective Inspector."
Sherlock was halfway up the walk already as Greg got out of the car. The front door opened, spilling light onto the porch.
Ann was already giving it to Sherlock with both barrels by the time Greg entered the house. Sherlock had hunched his shoulders but was giving back as good as he got in the rare intervals when Ann paused for breath long enough for him to get a word in edgewise.
Greg hung up his coat and pressed a kiss to the top of Ann's head. He hadn't known how much stress he'd still carried until now when the last of it finally drained away. He felt wrung out, emptied by the emotional roller-coaster of the last twenty-four hours.
"I'm going to bed," he told the combatants and left them to their fight.
He barely stirred when Ann got in beside him sometime later.
"Sherlock's asleep," she told him.
Greg nodded, gratefully pulling Ann into his arms, utterly content knowing that his little pack was safely tucked in where he could be there to protect them.
~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~
Morning came all too early, pulling Greg out of his warm bed and into the chill of a grey day.
He was relieved that neither Sherlock nor Ann stirred as he left the house. Sherlock hadn't slept in two days and Ann had been going on far too little sleep herself. Greg was exhausted too but needs must. He was glad that they at least could get some sleep. He stopped for a coffee on his way to the yard and poured himself another as soon as he got there, grimacing at the taste of the yard's horrible sludge, particularly after having had the real thing on the way in. Still, caffeine was caffeine and he would need all he could get to get through the day.
Fitzhugh was just arriving himself when Greg reached the conference room, Styrofoam cup of liquid wakefulness also in hand. There were circles beneath his eyes from lack of sleep, similar to the ones Greg had seen in the mirror that morning when he'd shaved. Still, there seemed to be a sense of peace to the younger man that hadn't been there before. Donovan was already there, ready with the reports from the crime scene techs, the preliminary coroner's report, and news that Jones was on his way. She too was clearly going on too little sleep but it in no way seemed to impact her efficiency, something Greg appreciated.
"You're never going to believe this," she told them as Greg strode into the conference room, Fitzhugh on his heels. "I managed to get most of a background check done on Cartwright. He's not a beta."
That stopped Greg in his tracks.
"If he's not a beta, what is he?" Fitzhugh demanded, all the shock Greg himself felt was in his tone.
"Mixed permutation," Donovan said, obviously enjoying their shock. "He's genetically an omega but apparently he's got this condition where there due to too many beta hormones and not enough omega ones in utero. So he was born not able to produce the right pheromones." She shook her head. "I've *heard* of mixed permutations but I've never actually seen one before. He was raised as an omega and he was enrolled in school as one but as an adult, he chose to live as a beta and enrolled in nursing school as that."
"He smells like a beta," Greg commented.
"He's on some kind of medication that suppresses the production of what few omega pheromones he can produce," Donovan supplied. "So, yeah, he'd smell just like any other beta since the beta pheromones he produces are his own."
Greg shook his head. "A beta serial killer killing outside their permutation was weird enough, but an *omega* serial killer? I don't think there's ever been more than one or two ever documented."
"Someone should write a book," Fitzhugh said dryly. "This is going to really hit the public imagination."
Greg groaned. Fitzhugh was right and that would mean press conferences and interviews and all the rest of that nonsense, which got in the way of Greg doing his actual job.
Alex Cartwright was already in the interview room when Greg and Fitzhugh entered twenty minutes later. He looked like the night hadn't been any shorter for him than it had been for them but at least he seemed reasonably alert, not fazed out like he had been last night. There was nothing crazy in his eyes either as his gaze met Greg's. It was hard to imagine now that the slight man before him with the ordinary face had brutally killed and mutilated six people. Still, that was what people always said about serial killers, wasn't it? How they were quiet, kept to themselves, how they couldn't believe the person would ever have hurt anyone. Greg had been a cop far too long not to know that often it was the ones who seemed so harmless that got away with it the longest.
Turning on the recorder, Greg read in the pertinent information.
For a moment afterwards he sat, looking at the man across from him.
"No lawyer?" Greg asked finally.
"What's the point?" Alex said. "I'm not stupid, Detective Inspector. I know it's over."
Okay, that was surprising. He'd caught criminals actually in the act of committing crimes and they still tried to weasel out of it somehow, pretend it wasn't what they thought or tried to make a deal.
"Last night you said several times that you didn't do it," Fitzhugh challenged.
"There was a name," Alex said. "You said a name that I didn't recognise, someone I didn't know."
Greg had to swallow past a sudden obstruction before he could speak. The knowledge of what Kevin Saunders had done still too raw.
"Marjory Phelps," he supplied. "We thought she was one of yours but it turns out that that was a copy-cat killing. So, instead of one jar in that flat unaccounted for, we have two. You gave us one name, Bethany Walters." Greg shuffled the papers in front of him. "We've determined that she was a patient of yours through the mobile clinic you work for. You helped her get a place at Abbott House nineteen months ago. She seems to have disappeared a little over two months later, although no missing person's report was ever filed."
Greg fixed the man in front of him with a hard stare. "Why her?" he asked. "She was your first, right? What was it about her that made you want to kill her?"
Alex looked away, his hands clenching and unclenching in front of him. For a long moment the three sat in silence, Greg content to wait as long as it took.
"I knew her in primary school," Alex said finally, his voice barely above a whisper.
"Back when you were still living as an omega," Fitzhugh supplied matter-of-factly.
"She knew," Alex said. "She knew I was… defective."
Greg's brows drew together. "Defective? Because you have a mixed permutation?"
Alex snorted. "There's no such thing, not when you were born to be a breeder. You can either fulfil your role or you can't. We found out when I was in primary school that because of the severity of the Betagen Aplestia I was probably infertile. My parents found specialists, tried every treatment they could find to fix me. They already had my mate picked out, you see. The contract signed and sealed by the time I was a year old. The alpha was the son of one of my father's business partners. Sixteen doctors, three surgeries and every treatment known to man later they finally gave up and told them I was defective. They broke the mating contract then and there, there's no point in an omega that can't give their alpha pups."
Even in modern Brittan it wasn't unheard of for the parents of omegas to make contracts for their mating long before the child hit their majority. It was a practice that Greg found distasteful in the extreme but as long as the omega in question didn't actively object to the mating there was nothing actually illegal about it. Unfortunately, in those situations the omega was usually raised with the understanding that they didn't have a choice in the matter. In Greg's experience it was a rare child or teenager who was able to stand up to their family in such a way. Greg had seen a few, runaways refusing to go home to fulfil a contract they wanted nothing to do with. It wasn't common though. The majority did as they were told and tried to make the best of it.
The contracts usually made certain stipulations regarding the circumstances under which the mating wouldn't occur. Infertility in either party was pretty much always one of those reasons.
"Sounds to me like you were well out of it," Greg said. "Who wants to mate with someone who only wants you for your ability to give them kids?"
"Easy for you to say," Alex said, glaring at him from under his lashes. "You're an alpha. You have value beyond your ability to produce the next generation."
"You think an infertile omega isn't worth anything?" Fitzhugh demanded. Greg couldn't blame him for the distaste in his tone. Even now there were too many people who felt omegas had no business doing anything but being mothers for the next generation.
Alex just shrugged. "I know what I was born for and I know that because of some stupid hormonal imbalance I was useless for that purpose."
What kind of parents raised a kid to believe such a thing? Greg wondered. Then he put the thought aside. The psychological impact of Alex's childhood and how it had made him into what he was was something for the shrinks to deal with.
"And Bethany knew all about this?" he asked, getting them back on topic.
"She said I was lucky." Bitterness laced the words. "She'd had a mating contract as well, to an alpha who was kind and treated her well. They were mated when she was sixteen, the age I would have been mated at too. Her alpha even encouraged her to go to University, to have her own career and life. He was willing to wait and not have kids until she was ready. But she didn't want to go to University or have a job or be mated. She started using, ran away from him, turned tricks. As her mate, he had to be informed when she was accepted into Abbott House. He came several times to see her. He wanted her to be healthy, happy. She refused even to talk to him. He came to me more than once, asking what he'd done to make her hate him, what he could do help her. And all the time, all she would say was how much she hated being an omega, how much she wished she'd been born an alpha. Hated how alphas looked at her, treated her, wanted her. She *hated* the idea of being a mother. She told me that she's started using when she'd found out she'd got pregnant by accident. She took whatever she could get her hands on to kill the baby, because she knew her mate would never consent to her having an abortion." It was still illegal, even now, for a mated omega to have an abortion without the knowledge of their mate and nearly impossible to get one at all if the mate chose to fight it.
"She killed her own baby!" Alex said, horror and bitterness in his voice. "What kind of an omega does that? I was so horrified when I realised what she'd done. She'd committed murder and her mate never even knew she'd ever been pregnant, never knew she'd killed his child. I told her she was the lucky one, with a mate like that, with the chance to really be what she'd been born to be, a real omega. That she was sick to have done what she did. She laughed at me. Laughed! Told me if I was so obsessed with her uterus I could have it…" He trailed of. "She *said* I could have it," he repeated quietly. "So I took it."
Silence fell in the little room.
"And after?" Greg asked finally, hating that he felt even a shred of sympathy for the man in front of him.
"I used her key to get into her room, took all her things and threw them out, said she'd run off. She hadn't been really all that committed to getting better, so no one doubted that she had."
"Where's her body?" Fitzhugh asked softly, his face pale but voice composed.
"I put it in the bottom of a restaurant dumpster, a couple blocks from the shelter. This Ethiopian place, I don't remember the name. That alley already smelled so bad, I didn't think anyone would really even notice the smell of decomposition. Besides, it was winter. I didn't think it would get too bad before the garbage trucks came. I was right."
Taking himself firmly in hand, Greg forged ahead. "Tell me about Denise Campbell," he said.
Alex looked up, clearly surprised. "How…?" He shook his head. "Nevermind, I don't suppose it matters."
"Did you kill her?"
"She was just like Bethy," Alex said softly, looking down at his hands again. "She ran away from her mate, had an illegal abortion — more than one actually — said she hated what she was. But she was happy to use it. Laughed at the alphas behind their backs because they were so easy to manipulate, hated them for being willing to do just about anything to share a heat with her. Still she was perfectly happy to let them for a price, thought it was funny how much they were paying for the chance. She charged extra for that. A hell of a lot of money upfront in order to spend those three days with her. I tried to talk to her, tried to help her see how lucky she was. She wouldn't listen. She just sneered at me, said I was weak and stupid not to make use of my good luck. Said I could charge whatever I wanted from alphas for the chance to share a heat with someone without even the possibility of an accidental pregnancy."
"You didn't bother getting rid of her things, though," Greg commented.
"No reason to connect her to me," Alex said. "I treated her, sure. But that was all. There was no link between us other than that and she was a junkie and a whore whose mate had washed her hands of her. The woman didn't even bother contacting the shelter after she was told that her mate was there. I couldn't blame her."
"And the body?"
"Same," Alex said. "It worked the first time."
"You changed all that when you went after Cynthia Harrison, though," Fitzhugh said. "Why?"
"She never stayed at Abbott House. I just knew her through the mobile clinic. Tried to talk to her, tried to tell her she should go home. She never said anything, though. Just took the meds I gave her and left."
"We have reason to believe that her family was abusive," Greg said. "A friend of hers claims that her step-father raped her on more than one occasion." Alex looked up at that, his attention caught. Then he looked away, shrugged.
"She was whoring herself out. Really, what's the difference between her and the others. Using her gender to make money off of alphas instead of trying to find a mate to be there for. She'd have been no different given time."
"So, you decided that she should die for that," Greg stated flatly, his sympathy for the man vanishing. "But unlike the Denise and Bethy you didn't have to get rid of the body afterwards. There was no link to you or to Abbott House. So you just left her where you killed her."
Alex said nothing, but it was confirmation enough.
Greg didn't want to push forward, all too aware of the man beside him, of what had to be asked next.
It was Fitzhugh himself who asked it. "Is that why you waited until Felicity left Abbott House before your hunted her down? So that there would be no obvious link?" Greg could hear the pain in the man's voice but it was well controlled and Alex didn't seem to hear it at all.
"She would have been missed," Alex said, staring at his hands. Greg could only imagine what he was actually seeing. "She made too much of an impression and there was no way anyone would believe that she'd just walk out without telling anyone. She wasn't like that. Besides, I knew a cop had pulled strings to get her into Abbott House. If she'd just disappeared from there I thought that there might be questions."
A soft sound of pain from Fitzhugh caught Alex's attention and his head came up. For the first time he seemed to really look at the other beta in the room, before his eyes widened, guessing who that cop must have been.
He opened his mouth as though he would say something and Greg tensed. Fitzhugh was a good officer, but if Alex started saying the same things about Felicity he'd said about the others Greg wasn't entirely sure the beta wouldn't attack their prisoner. Perhaps some realisation of that crossed Alex's mind, for he closed his mouth and said nothing, looking away again.
"You're right," Fitzhugh said, finally. His voice rough with strong emotion. "She would have been missed. She always made an impression. And yeah, she was a junkie and a whore. But she never hurt anyone other than herself."
"She could have had everything," Alex said. "They all could. They could have had a mate and a home and all the rest. They could have had everything I'd ever wanted but they threw it away."
"Sophie didn't," Greg objected, wanting to move passed Felicity for now, knowing Fitzhugh needed the emotional distance of moving on to a victim he hadn't known. "By all accounts she was devoted to her mate. She never turned tricks. Hell, she was pregnant with a child both she and her mate very much wanted when you killed her."
"Devoted?" Alex asked, looking at Greg incredulously. "She ordered him around like he was her servant. She acted like *she* was the alpha, not him. And that pathetic excuse for a pack went along with it. She said more than once that any omega who didn't use what she had to control her mate was just stupid."
"Shaun didn't seem to mind it," Greg said. "And who are you to decide what the relationship between a mated pair should be like? They were happy as they were."
"And what about the baby?" Fitzhugh demanded, having clearly regained control of himself. "You condemned the others for killing their unwanted children but you went ahead and killed one that was wanted."
Alex's shoulders slumped, seeming honestly upset for the first time. "I didn't know about the baby. I honestly didn't. I'd had no idea she was pregnant until after she was dead, until I realised there was something inside what I took out of her."
"You'd been watching her for a while," Greg objected. "How did you not know she was pregnant?"
"I couldn't be close enough to hear what they were saying most of the time," he said. "All I could see was how she acted and she never said anything about it to us in the mobile clinic. In fact, she'd stopped coming to us at all and when I was able to get close to her… It was too early for the shift in her scent. I had no way of knowing," he insisted defensively. "But… but I'm sorry about the baby."
"Shaun committed suicide after you killed his mate and child," Greg told him. Alex looked up again, eyes wide with evident distress. Greg wanted to shout at him, to say that he'd nearly killed Sherlock into the bargain. Greg didn't think for a moment that it wasn't Sophie's death and Shaun's anger that hadn't been behind his overdose. He said nothing though. That wasn't something he wanted on any official record. Besides, Alex probably wouldn't mind so much about that. Sherlock was probably as much deserving of death in his eyes as the others were. The thought was enough to harden Greg's heart entirely against the man in front of him.
"You knew you couldn't afford a link to Abbott House," Greg continued. "So it was you who did all you could to drive Agnes out of it. But why? She was getting better by all the reports. She might have gone on to have the life you say she should have wanted."
"No, she wouldn't," Alex said decisively. "She might have got clean, was getting clean. But she'd been turning tricks for too long. She'd come to have nearly as much contempt for alphas as the others. Didn't help that that so-called pack of hers was just a pimp using his position to make his girls whore for him."
That caught Greg's attention. "Did Agnes actually tell you that Jo Rossie was pimping her and the other women in his pack out?"
"Yes," Alex said. "He takes in girls who don't have anyone, gives them a pack, the illusion of safety and all that. He's generous with supplying them with their drug of choice. Once he has the kind of control over them an alpha should have, he starts demanding that they pay their own way. It's not that unusual."
It wasn't at that. Greg and Fitzhugh exchanged a look and Greg made a mental note to find Agnes' friend and packmate, Debbi, and have a serious talk with the woman. Jo Rossie would have to be dealt with.
Taking a deep breath, Greg focused his mind back on the matter at hand.
"Okay," he said. "We're going to go over all of this again. This time I want details. Where and when you first met each of your victims, how you killed them, everything."
Alex nodded, his gaze once again focused on the table in front of him. Greg exchanged a look with Fitzhugh, making sure that the other man was ready to hear the details of Felicity's death along with the others.
The constable grimly nodded his preparedness.