by Paige Tyler
If that wasn’t enough, she and Landon still had no idea who the feline shifter was.
John didn’t want them using DCO resources because he was worried Thorn had moles inside the organization, so he’d asked the mysterious shifter Adam for help. He had an amazing network of people who had a knack for finding shifters, but unfortunately, they didn’t have any leads either. Whoever this feline shifter was, she was damn good at hiding her tracks.
The uniformed officer guarding the crime scene glanced at their badges, then lifted the yellow tape and motioned them through without a word.
Hayes was standing beside the Dumpster with a body bag on the ground beside it. He didn’t look surprised to see them.
“Another suspect on your list, Detective?” Landon asked drily.
Hayes’s mouth tightened, but he only gave them a curt nod.
Ivy jabbed Landon with her elbow. She knew he was pissed, but taking it out on Hayes was a waste of time and energy.
They watched in silence as the people from the medical examiner’s office lifted the body out of the Dumpster and placed it in the body bag. Ivy made a face. Crap, this guy was in even worse shape than the previous ones. Thorn’s men were obviously getting more vicious—and impatient.
“The victim’s name is Kevin Greene,” Hayes said softly, referring to his notepad for this one. “He’s pretty new in the DC area, but has a long line of B and E, car theft, and larceny. Even though he has the skills, hitting a target like Thorn would have been a big step up for Greene. I thought he might have tried it in an effort to upgrade his reputation, so I talked to him this morning.”
“Was that before or after you tried to convince your bosses at headquarters that Thorn is the one behind all these dead bodies suddenly showing up all over town?” Landon asked.
Hayes looked like he wanted to punch Landon. Jaw tight, he motioned them to the side. They moved away from the gathering of ME personnel, crime scene techs, and cops, finding a quiet spot near the back of the alley. This wasn’t something they should be talking about in front of people—and Landon knew that. Or he would have if he hadn’t been so pissed off at that moment.
“For your information, I talked to Greene an hour before bringing my suspicions to the brass,” Hayes said. “As soon as I realized he had a solid alibi, I warned him about Thorn and told him that he needed to get out of town for a while. He said he’d take off as soon as I left.” The detective shook his head. “Dammit, I warned him this would happen if he stuck around. I should have put him on a bus myself.”
Beside her, Landon’s expression softened as he finally figured out what she’d known all along—Hayes was doing the best he could in a crappy situation. Hayes was a cop. It was his job to solve crimes not deal with people like Thorn. Hell, she and Landon were trained to deal with people like Thorn and they still were having a hard time.
“What happened when you talked to your boss?” Landon asked quietly.
Hayes had brought up the idea of telling his supervisors about Thorn after finding the third dead thief last night. She and Landon had told him it was a mistake, that no one was going to take on Thorn, especially when he had absolutely zero evidence to back up his accusations.
Hayes had disagreed. “If Homeland Security considers this is a legitimate possibility, it has to count for something.”
“Say we do,” Ivy had said. “What is that going to get us, even if we convince your boss we’re right? No way are you going to find a judge somewhere crazy enough to sign a warrant to search Thorn’s mansion. Or maybe you’ll just drag him downtown for questioning? Either way, it will be a waste of time. There’s no evidence in his home, and he’ll have a hundred lawyers on you and the MPD before you can even ask your first question. In the end, all you’ll do is let Thorn know that you’re onto him.”
“We’ve worked too hard getting close to him to waste it on a Hail Mary,” Landon had added.
But Hayes had refused to admit they were in a no-win situation. He’d insisted that if he talked to his boss, the guy would back him up. From the look on his face now, Ivy guessed things hadn’t worked out the way he’d hoped.
“Both my division and bureau commanders looked at me like I was insane,” Hayes admitted. “They threatened to toss me out of Criminal Investigations Division if I even breathed a word about Thorn to another human being. I talked to a couple detectives in homicide I knew too. They said the same thing, that nobody in their right mind would go after Thorn without rock-solid evidence.”
No surprise there. People who made it to the upper levels of any police department were all smart enough to know their careers would end the second they went after somebody like Thorn. Hayes was lucky he’d gotten off with just a warning. He could have easily been shuffled off to patrol duty for something like this.
“What are you going to do now?” Ivy asked. Hayes was one driven cop. She doubted he was going to give up simply because his job was on the line.
The detective frowned as he watched the crime scene techs finish taking close-up pictures of Greene’s hands before the ME’s people took the body away. “What the hell can I do? If I keep talking to the suspects on my list, they’ll likely end up dead long before I solve this crime.”
Landon glanced at her. “There is another way,” he said to Hayes.
“Yeah?” Hayes said. “What’s that?”
“Trust us enough to show us your list of suspects.”
Hayes narrowed his eyes at them, immediately suspicious. “What the hell can you two do with a list of suspects that I can’t? Put them in the Federal Witness Protection Program?”
“This is the part where the trust comes in,” Landon said. “We have a plan to take down Thorn, but it’s complicated, and it starts by getting the diamond back.”
Hayes stared at them for so long that Ivy thought he was going to tell them to go to hell and storm off, but instead he sighed and reached into his leather jacket to pull out a carefully folded piece of paper.
“I put this list together a couple hours after I left Thorn’s mansion back when this all started,” he said as he handed it to Ivy. “The list isn’t scientific or based on any detailed FBI profile. It’s based purely on my knowledge of the criminals who live and work in this area and which ones I think have the ability to pull off this kind of crime. None of these names appear in my official case notes or the files at headquarters. I was worried Thorn would get his hands on them if I did.”
Ivy glanced at the list. “There aren’t many people on here.”
“There aren’t a lot of people in the area who meet my criteria for this kind of job,” Hayes said. “It requires a very unique skill set, specifically an ability to work high off the ground and a pair of brass ones that would let them go after a person like Thorn. Those two things alone disqualify about ninety-five percent of the B and E types in this town.”
Ivy glanced at the list again. Besides Rory Keefe, there were only five other names on it, and three of those names were crossed out. That left one man and one woman—Dreya Clark. Ivy listened with half an ear as Hayes gave them the rundown on the man, waiting impatiently for him to get to the woman.
“I’ve picked up Ms. Clark for questioning on at least eight different occasions, but I never came close to making anything stick,” he finally said. “Technically, she doesn’t even have a record since I’ve never been able to get a DA to file charges against her.”
“Then why is she on your list?” Landon asked.
Hayes’s mouth curved into a wry smile. “Gut instinct. Every time I’ve picked her up, it was like she knew I’d be questioning her. She also strikes me as someone who’s completely fearless and good at hiding secrets. There’s also the interesting fact that she is—or was—close friends with Rory Keefe.”
“What’s so interesting about that?” Ivy said. “If she’s a thief, wouldn’t she have a relationship wi
th her fence?”
“Yeah, except she’s not a thief. At least not full-time. She makes high-end jewelry for people with lots and lots of money. She even comes from money and is always hobnobbing with the jet-set crowd. Maintaining a relationship with a known criminal isn’t something you would expect from someone who moves in that world.”
Unless you’re a shifter who gets bored easily and entertains yourself by stealing from the same people you sell your jewelry to, Ivy mused. She glanced at Landon and saw he was thinking the same thing. This was their thief.
“I think it would be a good idea if Ivy and I are the ones who go to talk to these two,” Landon said to Hayes. “Thorn’s men seem to be following you, not us.”
Hayes blew out a breath. “As much as I hate the idea of turning something like this over to you, I’d agree, but unfortunately, I think it might already be too late for that. Word on the street this morning is that there are criminals ratting each other out left and right for a payoff from Thorn. Sooner or later, someone is going to slip his men these two names.”
“Then we don’t go talk to them,” Ivy said. “We bring them in for their own protection. At least until we can get that diamond back. I’ll go talk to Dreya Clark. You two take the guy.”
Hayes frowned. “You can’t go off alone. I just told you that Thorn’s men might already know about Dreya Clark. They could be after her right now.”
“Ivy knows how to take care of herself,” Landon said. “The faster we find our suspect, the faster we can help her. Are those addresses on the paper still good?”
Hayes snorted. “Yeah, but these two have to know Thorn is onto them by now. They’re likely holed up somewhere that’ll make them hard to find.”
“Then let’s get moving,” Ivy said.
She appreciated how smoothly Landon had gotten Hayes off her back so she could focus on finding the shifter on her own. Now she just had to hope she could do it before Thorn’s goons found her first.
“Be careful out there,” Landon whispered, lightly running his fingers down her arm when Hayes wasn’t looking.
She nodded, reaching up to finger the engagement and wedding rings she kept on the necklace she wore underneath her blouse. It was just one of the ways she and Landon communicated their love for each other while working in an organization that forbid partners from dating, much less marrying.
“You guys be careful too,” she said. “Thorn probably knows by now that you tried to come for him, Hayes. He isn’t going to take that well.”
Hayes looked surprised. “You think he’d be ballsy enough to try to take out a cop?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Giving them a nod and another reminder to be careful, Ivy took the keys Landon held out and quickly hurried to the SUV, dialing John on the way. Now that they had a name, Adam would be able to find the shifter even if she’d gone into hiding. Ivy was sure of it.
* * *
Layla was surprisingly relaxed as she and Jayson walked slowly up the sidewalk toward the small, carefully maintained home in front of them. The place was a one-floor ranch house with flower boxes on either side of the porch and a beautifully painted exterior. She could easily picture this house sitting in the middle of almost any small town in America. That in itself reminded her once again that Donetsk used to be a normal place before all the politics, militias, and fighting had taken center stage.
She probably should have been more uptight than she was, considering they were walking unarmed into the home of a man who might help them find Anya or might turn them over to the militia for all the reward money that was being offered for them. But it was difficult to be tense after having multiple orgasms, even when the local militia was offering a hundred thousand Ukrainian hryvnia for information on the foreigners who had broken into the RSA building and vandalized the place. Fortunately, the only people who knew about their involvement in the vandalism at the militia headquarters were the prisoners they had helped escape, and Layla was pretty sure they weren’t going to say anything.
Three dark-haired men were waiting for them on the porch. They came down the steps as she and Jayson approached. Mikhail had told them that the former Donetsk police officer Victor Garin would have men there to search them for weapons before letting them inside.
“You’re friends of Mikhail?” the tallest of the three men asked.
“Yes,” Jayson said.
“He said you’d be unarmed, but you will understand if we want to see for ourselves.”
The man didn’t wait for an answer but simply nodded to his buddies, who quickly and expertly patted her and Jayson down for weapons. When the first man gave her and Jayson a nod, Jayson placed his big, warm hand on her back as they followed the men up the steps and into the house. She liked the feel of his hand there. It reminded her of how he’d held her waist when they’d made love a few hours ago and the fierce way he’d gripped her hips as he gave her more pleasure than she’d ever felt in her life. If someone had told her that she and Jayson would take their relationship to the next level in a half-demolished library in the middle of Donetsk, she would have said they were crazy. She’d been madly in love with him for so long and knowing that he felt the same about her meant more than she could have imagined.
Layla expected at least one of the men to follow them into the house, but they all stayed outside, leaving her and Jayson with Victor Garin. Layla would have pegged the man standing in front of the fireplace for a former soldier-turned-cop even if Mikhail hadn’t told them what Victor had done for a living. At least sixty years old, with more salt in his hair than pepper, he still stood like he was at attention, his muscular shoulders filling out the crisp button-down shirt he wore, his blue eyes sharp.
“I expected you to be older,” he said in heavily accented English. Giving them a nod, he gestured to the floral-upholstered couch and matching chairs. “Sit, please.”
She and Jayson did as he asked, taking a seat on the sofa. The inside of the home was as neat and quaint as the outside. There were lots of framed photographs of soldiers and police officers in uniform, as well as pictures of Victor with a pretty, dark-haired woman his age that Layla assumed was his wife. There was also a big Russian flag pinned up to the wall on one side of the fireplace and another flag for the Donetsk People’s Republic on the other.
Victor sat down in a wingback chair across the coffee table from them just as his wife came into the room with a tray filled with ceramic cups and a teapot. She set the tray on the table and poured tea into each of the cups, then looked at Layla and Jayson.
“Cream and sugar?” she asked.
Layla nodded. Beside her, Jayson did as well.
Sitting down in a matching chair beside Victor, the dark-haired woman fixed their tea in silence, handing their cups to them when she was done. Then she added sugar to one of the remaining cups and milk to the other, giving the sweetened one to her husband and taking the other for herself.
“Mikhail tells me that you two are American CIA,” Victor said. “Is this true?”
Jayson answered for both of them. “We’re from an organization very much like the CIA, but you’ve never heard of it. Very few people in the world have.”
The answer seemed to satisfy the former police officer because he moved to his next question. “Did you come here to spy on the DPR?”
“No,” Jayson said. “We came to rescue the American boy, Dylan. He followed his girlfriend here, and his father at the embassy in Kiev wanted us to bring him back. Quietly.”
“You have the boy,” Victor pointed out. “Why are you still here?”
“Because Dylan’s girlfriend, Anya, is from Kiev,” Jayson told him. “She was grabbed by militia soldiers outside the RSA building almost a week ago. We’re not leaving until we get her back.”
Victor’s wife regarded them thoughtfully. “Why do you care about the girl if she is not American?”<
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“Because Dylan cares about her,” Layla said. “He won’t leave without her, and we won’t leave without him. When we learned that there were other girls about the same age as Anya who were captured, we realized we couldn’t leave without rescuing them too.”
The woman considered that for a long time, then turned to give her husband a nod. Victor asked how they had broken into the RSA building and how they managed to free all the prisoners held there on their own.
Jayson and Layla answered each question honestly, not leaving anything out. Well, except for the part about her being a shifter.
“And what will you do if you find out where the girls are located?” Victor asked.
“Get them out,” Jayson said simply.
“No matter where they are?” his wife pressed.
“No matter where they are,” Jayson affirmed.
The woman exchanged looks with her husband, then nodded. Victor set his cup down on the table and stood.
“Come with me,” he said. “I have something to show you.”
Layla and Jayson put their cups down on the table as well and followed him into a modest kitchen. She thought at first that he was going to take them outside, but instead, Victor shoved aside a set of shelves along one wall to reveal a hidden door.
He led them down a set of old, wooden steps into a darkened basement, yanking a chain dangling from the ceiling as he went. Layla blinked as light flooded the room. Now she saw what all the secrecy was about. Half of one wall was covered with dozens of surveillance photos of militia soldiers. The other half was filled with pictures of eleven teenaged girls. And in the middle was a poster-size print of a dark-haired man wearing the same uniform as the militia. Big and muscular with cold eyes that seemed to bore right through you even in a photograph, he didn’t look like someone you’d want to mess with.