Marked By Lies: A Reverse Harem Series (The Marked Series Book 1) by Paige Orr (the red fox clan TXT) 📗

“Alright, I need any information about the people who have gone missing. Their home addresses, where you think they were taken, and lists of any enemies. As I said, I won’t promise anything, but I’ll try.”

“That’s all we’re asking, Miss Greene. Anything you can find out will be more than what we’ve managed.”

With that, Zaphyr and Morpheus begin to fill me in on any information they have on the situation, and we spend the next hour talking about different theories on who could be behind it. Before they leave, Morpheus writes down a list of the missing Fae from their side along with their home addresses and promises to send me the information on the missing Seelie Fae as soon as Cailean sends it to them.

I walk them to the door, promising to get in touch if I find anything before walking back to my desk. This shit is far from simple and already I can tell that it’s going to be a long day. The fact that they’ve kept things quiet when so many of their people have been taken or worse is beyond me.

Knowing that I’ll never be able to do this on my own, I decide to call Nika and ask her to come over so we can see what can be done. If anyone can dig up any dirt on these Fae, it’s her, and finding out their secrets hopefully will be the very thing that leads me to their kidnapper. I just have to hope that they’re still alive, I would hate having to tell Zaphyr to tell their families that they never made it. Nika answers after a few rings, her relief clear as day.

“I see you’re still alive! I’ve been worried sick waiting on your call.”

“Well, you can call off the lynch mob. In fact, I need you to come over. This shit is bigger than we ever could have imagined and I’m never going to be able to do it alone.”

“Shit, how big exactly?”

“Forty missing in all from both sides. I don’t want to say too much on the phone, I’ll fill you in properly when you get here. You’ll need to do some super sleuthing because if the fucking Prince can’t find a thing, I don’t see me having much luck.”

“Right, I’ll be there in thirty. We’ll figure something out, you know I wouldn’t leave you to deal with something this big on your own.”

With that, I hang up and lean back in my seat. I don’t even know where to begin with this shit. What I do know though is that if those Fae are still alive, they most likely won’t be for much longer, which means I don’t have a lot of time. This is why I hate Fae and their stupid sense of pride. If they had just got outside help before now, then maybe they could have stopped this shit already.

It’s still early afternoon, but with how long the list sitting on my desk is, it’ll probably take me well into the night to thoroughly search these houses. I slide the paper across the desk to study it and decide to group the addresses that are close to each other together to save some time and make things easier on myself.

I have no idea what I should be looking for but maybe that’s the whole point of hiring me. Maybe a fresh set of eyes that isn’t so close to the case will be able to find something, even if it’s only small. I remember the ghost and an idea comes to mind and I turn towards him. As soon as my eyes land on him his face lights up with a grin making me feel like shit for ignoring him for so long and he makes his way over to the desk, jumping up and floating just above the surface.

“So, what’s your name?

“Call me Grey, that’s what my nickname was when I was still alive.”

“Alright then, Grey it is. You said last night that you wanted to help me, right?”

“Yup! Believe it or not, but floating around when no one can see you gets boring real fucking fast. There is a reason I’ve been drawn to you so I might as well have some fun, help bust some bad guys while I figure out why.”

“Yeah, I have no fucking idea why ghosts are drawn to me so I can’t help you there. What I wanted to ask you is, do all you ghosts like to speak to each other, or do you have any other ghosts that you trust?”

“Well, just like you meat bags, we make acquaintances while wandering endlessly. Why?”

“Would you and a couple of your… acquaintances be able to check out some of these addresses and see if you can find anything out of place? It could be something small but maybe there is something that links the properties together.”

“Sure thing boss lady, just leave the list on your desk so we can check we’re going to the right place. We’ll take the top ten, you take the bottom.”

“Alright, sounds good to me. Thanks, Grey I know I haven’t exactly been pleasant to you but once I finish with this case, I’ll find out more about why I have such a connection to ghosts for you.”

“It’s okay. It couldn’t have been easy having me pop up all the time. I’m going to get started on this list, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

With that, he fades away, disappearing to go talk to his little ghost friends, and I sit back and wait for Nika to get here. Hopefully, we’ll be able to find something that can link the victims in any way. There has to be a reason why the attacker has chosen these specific