“It must. I can’t imagine any other explanation. It shouldn’t be possible at all.”

“I don’t understand. He’s a wolf, right? Isn’t it just, ah, slipping?”

Park looked surprised.

“Eli told me about it,” Cooper explained. “Said he’s pretty good.”

“He’s not just pretty good,” Park said. “He’s unbelievable. I’ve never heard of anyone who can do what he does. I wouldn’t even really call it slipping, it’s too precise. Individualized. James’s face, spine and hip girdle were more traditionally slipped because everything was progressing through the normal process of shifting.”

“Why is that impossible then? I’ve seen you look, ah, slipped.”

Park grimaced a bit and seemed to consider his words carefully. “It’s a lot like balancing on a tightrope. The body wants to fall one way or another. For most of us it’s horribly...disorienting and uncomfortable and takes serious focus and fine muscle control to hold an extreme slip like that. Muscle control you definitely don’t have when you’re dead.”

“You think something was keeping him that way. Some kind of drug or toxin.”

“Something strong. He was dead in the water about an hour before we found him.”

“An hour? How did nobody notice him?”

“They found the remains of a sandbag tied to his waist. Seems like someone kept him weighed down, before it either accidentally or intentionally ripped. Sand leaks out slowly, body floats up. Either way, the killer bought themselves enough time to get away while still ensuring James would be found today. As dramatically and publicly as possible.” He hesitated, then said with meaning, “Cola wants us to call if we hear anything from Eli.”

Cooper blinked. “She can’t be serious. He didn’t do this.”

“He was being blackmailed by the victim. He’s admitted to stalking the victim. We can’t account for his whereabouts at the time of death. We can’t account for his whereabouts now. None of this is a good look.”

“You can’t possibly think he’s guilty,” Cooper protested.

Park bit at the scar in his lip, contemplating that. Finally, he said, “I don’t think he’d get us involved if he’d planned to kill James all along.”

“Nice,” Cooper said sarcastically. “I hope you stand up for me with that much conviction someday. You seriously have no idea where he might have gone?”

“No. I mean, we did have that one conversation that if we turned forty and we’re both still single and one of us is on the run for murder, we’d—”

“All right, all right, point taken. Cola give you anything else?”

“Yes, his name popped up in a recent report. There was a fire at James Finnigan’s building four days ago.”

“What?”