Hidden Crimes (24 page)

“We knew Evina and you were friendly,” Paul
said, a hint of sourness returning to his tone. Nate fought the
smile that wanted to rise at this. “We figured you could help us
quietly.”

“I could help you better with my whole
team.”

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Liane begged. “We
took a risk coming here. If the kidnappers found out . . . Malik is
so little, and he’s . . . special.”

She didn’t say
special
like her son
was the destined savior of his people. She said
special
like
he had some weakness. Nate shot a glance at Evina and back to
Paul’s wife. “Mrs.—”

“Liane,” she corrected. “And this is my
mother, Iseult Fionn.”

Both nice fae names, he couldn’t help
noticing. Iseult inclined her head to him coolly. In contrast to
her daughter’s misbuttoned cardigan and jeans, she wore a crisp
cream-colored pantsuit with a pale blue satin shirt. Worried or
not, she was perfectly accessorized. Solitary rose-tinted pearls
gleamed at her ears and in the hollow of her elegant throat. If
she’d been expected to pay the ransom, Nate had a feeling the
kidnappers could have asked for more.

Filing this away, he returned his attention
to her daughter. “Liane, I know this is a personal question, but
does your son have trouble shifting into his tiger form?”

“What the fuck, Evina!” Paul snapped.

“I didn’t tell him,” Evina denied hotly.
“Though maybe I should have!”

“Maybe you—”

“
Stop
,” Nate said, hard and low,
before the exes could get into it. “Liane, are you the person who
answered the ransom call?”

Her eyes were round, both her arms hugging
one of her mother’s. “My mother answered the phone, but then she
got me. Mom’s been staying with us to help with Malik.” She paused,
seeming to decide whether to say what she did next. “I remember
every word the kidnappers said. It’s one of my few gifts. I’m a
quarter-faerie on my mother’s side.”

Her mother stroked her flaxen hair,
presumably to comfort her. Her face showed less emotion than her
daughter’s, but that could have been due to her being half faerie.
Faeries didn’t believe in displaying feelings in front of
inferiors. Oddly, considering she had more fae blood, Iseult seemed
less beautiful to him than Liane. Maybe her coldness was the
reason. Nate had never gone for icy blondes.

“Can you help us?” Iseult asked Nate. Her
voice was warmer than her expression, though he wouldn’t call it
sultry. The observation was trite, but she and her daughter could
have passed for sisters in age.

Nate suspected Iseult didn’t mind that at
all.

“I hope I can, Mrs. Fionn,” he said, aware he
wasn’t going to be asked to call her by her first name. “Perhaps
you could keep the others calm in the living room while Evina and I
have a quick discussion. Do you have a phone the kidnappers can
reach you on?”

Paul pulled a 4G Elfnet Galaxy from his pants
pocket. His hand was shaking, but he was calmer. “I had our other
line forwarded.”

“Good,” Nate said. “If they call again,
please send Rafi up to get me.”

When Nate looked at the boy, the six-year-old
nodded that he could do this. Nate smiled at Rafi’s wide-eyed
readiness to help. Throwing appropriateness to the wind, he bent to
kiss the curly top of his head.

“You’re a trooper,” he whispered.

“I like Malik,” he whispered back. “Thank you
for saving him.”

Nate hoped this nice expression of faith
didn’t turn out to be misplaced.

Aware that nothing but sharp ears surrounded
them, Nate led Evina to the upstairs bathroom. There, he shut the
door behind them and turned the taps on full. She sat on the edge
of the tub while Nate leaned against the savannah-themed wallpaper.
He was sorry the space wasn’t bigger. He would have liked to
pace.

“We have to do something,” Evina said.
“Whatever is going on, we can’t let those butchers cut up another
child and sell it for parts.”

Nate was glad her mind had followed the same
track as his. He only wished his own would work faster. He crossed
his arms and drummed his fingers on one elbow. Clearly, the powers
behind the bogus adoption scheme, the ones they hadn’t discovered
and arrested, had decided he was too close to unmasking them.
Otherwise, why choose a kidnapping target so likely to involve him
in the rescue? Paul and Liane might or might not have been steered
into contacting him. The baby sellers could have relied on natural
association suggesting the path to them. What he had trouble
guessing was what he’d done to set these particular wheels in
motion. Was the final straw the search he’d phoned in about the
black SUV? His visit to the smoke shop for the Galina case?

Until Ellen Owen’s cousins had turned off
their camera, his image had been on it. They could have discovered
he’d spearheaded the shutdown of the poorly named Wings of Love
agency. Someone might be afraid he’d find the pivot that linked the
two cases. Unfortunately, he didn’t know what he knew. If he had,
choosing his next move would be easier.

“Nate.” Evina reached out to clasp his
forearm. “I thought we came up here to talk.”

Nate uncrossed his arms and cupped her cheek
instead. Her face was turned up to him, shower spray pounding the
plastic mini-dragon curtain behind her head. Her corkscrewed curls
were springy against his fingers, her skin warm velvet under his
palm. Normally, Nate would have been revved by this stage of an
investigation. Motion wasn’t that different from progress. Today,
he was simply praying he could keep these people he cared about
safely out of it.

“It’s some kind of trap, isn’t it?” she
asked, her shoulders bracing for his answer. “Malik being taken.
You being asked to help.”

“It seems likely. Ivan Galina dies, and the
following morning, another shifter child who can’t change
disappears. That can’t be happenstance.”

“Malik is older than the others, and this
isn’t being disguised as an adoption.”

She was grasping at straws, hoping he’d say
this could be a regular kidnapping for money. Nate understood, but
wouldn’t give her false hope.

“We shut down the fake agency,” he said.
“Possibly the people behind this are desperate to fill orders.”

Evina shuddered. “Orders. Like those children
were groceries.”

“I know.” He stroked her hair behind her ear.
“I don’t like to ask this, but could your ex-boyfriend be
involved?”

“No,” she said, quiet but definite. “Not
Paul. He has his faults, but he’s dedicated his life to rescuing
people, not putting them in danger—and certainly not his own
cub.”

“And Liane?”

“I don’t think so,” she said less surely.
“I’ve seen her with Malik. She adores him, just as Paul does. I
know they probably wish he was normal, but they’d never wish him
gone. That’s why I didn’t warn them to be careful earlier. They’d
never give him up for adoption. Overprotect him, maybe, but not
that.”

Nate folded his arms again to think, rubbing
his chin this time. He remembered the werefoxes’ embarrassment over
their imperfect son. Could similar emotions have influenced Paul
and Liane? Nate respected Evina’s judgment, but couldn’t substitute
it for his own. Evina might be trying to be
too
fair to
Liane, because she knew her position as the replaced girlfriend
created a natural bias against her.

Her next words didn’t erase that possibility.
“I don’t know about Iseult,” she said. “I’ve only met her twice,
when I was dropping the kids at Paul’s. As you can tell, she’s a
cold fae fish. From what I’ve seen, she doesn’t mind cowing her
daughter, though Liane seems attached to her. I suppose if there
were a ring of part-fae criminals no one knew about, she might be
willing to help it out. I don’t think she likes non-fae much.”

Nate drew his hands down his face. Him
agreeing with this assessment didn’t mean it was true.

“What are you going to do?” Evina asked.

“The only way to see where this leads is to
play along.”

“You’ll tell your squad, though. You wouldn’t
play along that far.”

Her dismay warmed him. “I don’t think I can
tell them, Evina. I don’t know where the involved parties are
getting their information. I trust my pack members, but they could
be being watched without knowing it. Adam never liked me pursuing
this case. He kept his focus and the others’ on bringing the
Galinas down.”

“Your alpha won’t like you doing this
alone.”

“Even so.”

“But you know it’s a trap!”

His reaction to her outburst strengthened his
sureness that this was the right option, no matter what it cost
him. “Whether it’s a trap or not, that two-year-old was taken. Are
you willing to bet they’re not going to hurt Malik
because—maybe—Liane’s mother is their ally? I need them to believe
this trap is unfolding the way they want.”

“Crap,” Evina said.

The word held such surrender and frustration
Nate smiled at her.

“My kids love Malik,” she admitted. “I
worried they’d be jealous about their father starting a new family,
but them having a little half-brother is the one nice thing to come
out of me and Paul breaking up.”

“Just the one?” Nate teased, loving how she
scowled at him in response.
She
certainly wasn’t going to
blow away in a wind. He chafed her shoulders to bolster them both
for what he had to say. “I want you to call your mother. Don’t send
the kids to school. Stick together somewhere other than here. It
shouldn’t seem out of character if you want to pull close
today.”

“I hate this,” Evina huffed. “I want to fight
this with you.”

His chest couldn’t have ached more if she’d
said
I love you
. “You need to keep your family safe,” he
reminded. “And yourself. I think you know that matters to me.”

She stared hard at him, not happy but not
putting up a fight. “Give me your alpha’s direct phone number.”

“Evina . . .”

“That’s my condition for going along with
this. I know I’m trained to fight fires and not criminals, but if
this goes wrong, someone has to be able to call in the
cavalry.”

“Fine.” He told her the number, trusting her
to remember it. Chances were, if he needed the cavalry, Evina would
have no idea until it was too late. If she got into trouble, better
she could reach Adam. Despite the strain between them, his alpha
could be counted on to come to her rescue.

Not wanting to leave the others alone any
longer, Nate left the bathroom and trotted down the stairs. Liane
was in the kitchen with the twins—Abby having finally woken up.
Liane earned at least one point with Nate for taking over preparing
the children’s steaks.

Seeing they were fine, and knowing Evina was
calling her mother, he stepped into the living room. Paul and his
mother-in-law were on the couch. A space the width of Liane’s
bottom separated them on the cushions. These two weren’t sharing
comfort in their time of need. Iseult’s spine was so ramrod
straight she could have been planted on a stick. Nate reminded
himself she must have let her hair down with a full shifter once,
or her daughter wouldn’t exist. Iseult couldn’t be as bloodless as
she seemed.

She and Paul turned their heads to him when
he entered. Iseult smoothed the perfect knees of her cream
pantsuit. Her hands were breathtakingly graceful, perhaps her
loveliest attribute.

“Here’s how it’s going to be,” Nate said,
deciding to let Liane stay where she was for this talk. “I’ll
accompany Paul to the bank to facilitate him withdrawing the sixty
thousand without trouble.”

“The kidnappers said they’d call me with
directions for the drop.”

“All right,” Nate said. “If it’s you they
want to make the delivery and not Liane—”

“Liane!” Paul had the decency to look
horrified.

“You wife might seem less threatening than a
man. In any case, whoever they choose, I’ll follow him or her to
the drop off point.”

“If they spot you . . .” Iseult said, lovely
hand to her throat.

“They won’t spot me. I know how to blend in.
Anyway, I’ll follow Paul or whoever. The place for retrieving Malik
will probably be somewhere else, though I’ll coach you on how to
negotiate the same drop off and exchange point.”

“You mean they could take the money and not
return Malik.” Not as calm as he was trying to sound, Paul wet dry
lips.

“They could. You’ll want to ask for proof of
life. A video sent to your phone or the sound of your son’s voice.
He can talk, yes?”

Paul’s mouth twitched with an ironic smile.
“Malik’s a terrible two. He can be very expressive.”

“That’s good. He’ll understand you. If you
get a chance to speak to him, say whatever you can to soothe
him.”

“What if I get nervous?”

“The kidnappers will expect you to be. We’ll
go over this again. Just do the best you can.”

Paul looked at him, and Nate saw a normal
scared civilian behind his eyes.

“I’ll do my best to get your son back safe,”
Nate promised.

Paul nodded and dropped his gaze, probably
embarrassed for needing reassurance from a man he didn’t approve
of.

Nate patted his trouser pocket to make sure
his keys were there. He realized he couldn’t take his Goblinati if
he was pretending to blend in. Evina’s Camry would be better, but
the converted model was a for-shit car. The last thing he needed
was for his ride to break down. That left Rick’s Buick among his
options, though he’d have to borrow it without permission.

“Give me your bank address,” Nate said. “Wait
in the parking lot until I text you. The people who have Malik may
be watching what you do. I’ll go in first and badge the manager for
you.”

Paul rose stiffly from the couch. He swiped
his palm down his shirt before offering it to Nate. His tiger
strength was apparent in the squeeze. Nate didn’t think he was
being macho so much as earnest.