Lycan Packs 1: Lycan Instinct (29 page)

“He’s in a meeting. If you give me your name, I’ll—”

“We’ll wait.” Mackenzie strolled to a pair of matching chairs and sat.

“It could be hours.”

“That’s quite all right.” Mackenzie reclined, making certain her badge was clearly on display. “I’m sure he won’t mind a couple cops taking a little time out in the lobby.”

“Yep,” Cooper agreed. “We’re good for business.”

The receptionist sniffed and cast a nervous glance at her purse before stuffing it under the counter.

Acting on a hunch, Mackenzie tilted her head back and sniffed the air as she stood and approached the counter again. “Do you smell that, Coop?”

“Not your normal air freshener.”

The receptionist frowned and took a sniff, too. “What? I don’t smell anything.”

“Not much of a challenge for our K-9s.” Cooper leaned over the counter.

The woman’s eyes widened. “K-9s? You’ve no cause to—”

“What do you think, Coop?” Mackenzie leaned against the high, glass-topped reception desk and casually examined her nails. “I lay twenty bucks on ten minutes, if we call in a suspicion of drug possession.”

“They’d be here before that. I’ll lay a Grant on five.”

The secretary scowled. “You can’t just come in here with no warrant.”

“A fifty on five. You’re on, Coop. Of course, we’ll have to lock the place down while the units are here.”

“How dare—”

Cooper pointed to a vent. “Smell could be coming from there. How many floors? Three? This could take all day.”

“And we still gotta talk to Caprini. Damn, there goes lunch. Tell ‘em to hurry.”

“Check.” Cooper began the call.

“Stop. Stop. One moment, please.” The woman all but ran to the double doors behind her.

Cooper hung up and nudged Mac’s arm. “What do you think? Purse or desk drawer?”

“Purse. Designer compact in the side pouch.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure. Easy to hide. Easy access. Besides, that’s where she glanced first when you mentioned K-9s.”

Cooper shrugged. “Shame she didn’t give us a chance to bet on that.”

The secretary returned with the mute brute they’d encountered at Caprini’s house.

“Oh look, Mac. Bruno plays fetch.”

The man pulled back his jacket to reveal a handgun. His message was clear. “This way.”

“You gotta a permit for that?” Mackenzie asked as she neared to get a better look at the firearm.

“I’m legal.”

“Is that an HK?”

“Smith and Wesson, nine mil.”

“Nice piece,” Cooper said, his expression changing from admiration to dismay. “Why do the privates get all the good stuff?”

The bodyguard smirked.

Cooper continued to whine about budget cuts until they walked through the doors. They had indeed interrupted a meeting. Five men sat around a conference table with Caprini at the head; the chair to his right was vacant. Caprini’s guard didn’t take the seat but positioned himself in front of another door, already closed, located behind Caprini.

“Hey, Ernie. Nice of you to send Bert as escort.” It did her heart good to see the brute’s eyes narrow. He wasn’t as dimwitted as he first appeared. “Sorry for the interruption, folks. Need a word with your boss. Is that your office?” She pointed to the closed, guarded door. “We could talk in there. Only take a few minutes.”

“I don’t care for your insulting manner or threats against my employees, detectives.” Caprini remained seated.

“Threats? I don’t recall any threats. Did you threaten anyone, Coop?”

“Who me?” He shook his head.

“See? No threats. Just questions.”

“The last time we spoke, I said you could discuss any further inquiries with my attorneys. This is one of them. Stuart Fische of Pfister and Fische.” A smug grin across his round face, Caprini gestured to the beady-eyed suit on his left.

With his shiny, dark hair combed back from a large forehead and a narrow chin, the lawyer looked like a weasel in a three-piece suit. If his nose twitched once, Mackenzie would burst out laughing.

“This kind of highhandedness will not be tolerated against my client,” Fische said in a snooty nasal tone that fit his pinched expression.

Mackenzie gave him a feral grin. “I have a low tolerance for murder, and you haven’t even seen highhanded yet, Mr. Fishy.”

“The name is Feeeesh. What exactly are the charges?”

“None. Yet.”

Fische stood with an imperious scowl. “Then you are wasting my time and my client’s.”

“As I said, we have a few questions about a guy who claimed to work for your client being left to rot in his own bathtub with a bullet in him.” That earned her the undivided attention of everyone at the table, and narrowing eyes from Caprini. “If I didn’t know any better, Mr. Fische, I’d think your client has something to hide. So I don’t see this as a waste of my time. I come here with a few questions, and he tries to deflect my inquiry with an overpaid legal minnow. Makes a girl suspicious.”

While the attorney sputtered over the personal insult, Mackenzie leaned on her hands at the opposite end of the table from Caprini. “We can do this the hard way and I haul your ass in for questioning, or you can answer them here and now. The location and audience are up to you.”

Caprini glared at her but ordered the others at the table to leave. All but the attorney scrambled for the double doors. The armed bodyguard continued to hold up the back wall.

Mackenzie took the seat on Caprini’s right, directly opposite the legal weasel. Cooper sat beside her.

“For the record, I will report your conduct toward my client to your supervisor,” Fische said, adjusting his coat with a snap before taking his seat.

“So noted. Now, do you really want to waste more time with petty threats?”

“Get on with it,” Caprini ordered. “I’m a very busy man.”

She just bet he was. Mackenzie glanced at the paperwork spread out on the table. “Opening a new casino, Caprini?”

“That’s the plan, as soon as the license is awarded to us. It’s all legal. What of it?”

She didn’t answer. “Do you know Rafael Stone?”

His expression was again smug. “I’m a businessman in Chicago. Of course, I know Stone. Been on opposing sides of the bargaining table a few times.”

“Lose any bids to him?”

His shrug was stiff. “You win some. You lose some. That’s business.”

“Lose any employees lately?”

“I think you have me mixed up with Stone there.”

Mackenzie’s expression remained deadpanned as she let silence stretch between them to the point of discomfort.

“I was referring to a man who claimed to work for you. Remember Jimmy Harden?”

Caprini sighed in obvious disgust. “I’ve already answered that question.”

“Humor me. Answer it again.” She folded her arms on the table and watched him closely.

“Never heard of him.”

“Then how do you explain your unlisted number on a piece of paper in his apartment?”

“I don’t.”

His lawyer added, “He could’ve gotten it from any number of sources. That proves nothing.”

“Are you aware that within twenty-four hours of our last meeting, the man you claim to not know was killed in his home?”

“No.” Neither did he seem surprised by the news.

“Where were you that night?”

“At home, watching a movie.”

“What movie?”

Caprini grinned devilishly. “The Godfather.”

“Can anyone corroborate that?”

“My security guard.” He turned to look at the man guarding the door behind him. Like a well-trained pup, the bodyguard nodded.

“After that, I went to bed. Will that be all, detectives?”

“Not yet. Do you know a Tony Soprano?”

Caprini grinned. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Doesn’t everyone? He’s a television mobster.”

She kept a straight face and met his gaze head on. “Would someone using that name as an alias have any business at your home?”

“No. This is absurd.”

Cooper leaned forward. “What about Anton Sagristano?”

The grin faded before returning with a forced brightness. “Who? I don’t believe I’ve heard the name. Is he a character on the show, too?”

“He’s very real,” Mackenzie said. “When was the last time you traveled to Atlantic City?”

The smile was gone now. “I go there occasionally. On business. I don’t see how this has anything to do with your investigation.”

“The last time you were there?”

“I don’t recall exactly.”

“What about June?”

“My work takes me all over the country. Maybe I was. Maybe I wasn’t. What does this have to do with—”

“Did you meet Sagristano there?”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about. What’s this have to do with some low-life thief getting whacked?”

“A thief?”

“The city’s streets are no doubt cleaner without him.”

“Pretty strong words considering you didn’t know the man.”

The attorney stood up. “This interrogation is over.”

“The seat was warm,” Mackenzie said on the way to her car.

“What?” Cooper asked.

“The chair I sat in. It was warm. Someone was sitting in it right before we were shown into the room.”

“Probably the guard.”

“I don’t think so. I think whoever it was went into the other room while Bernie retrieved us from the lobby.”

Cooper paused on his side of the car.

“Maybe so. You thinking it’s this Tony guy?”

“Possibly.”

“Want to hang out for a while, see what pours out?”

“You can. I’ve got an errand to run. Do you mind catching a cab back to the station?”

“No prob.”

She got in and rolled down the window. “When you get back, run a check on phone records for Caprini on the night of the Harden murder.”

“Sure thing,” he said, leaning in the window to tug on her ponytail. “What are you going to do? You late for a hair appointment?”

“If you’re thinking of turning in your badge to become a comedian, don’t. You’ll starve.”

“Yeah, and you’re a barrel of laughs. So where are you going?”

“Shopping.”

She was grinning at the shocked look on Cooper’s face as she drove away.

Mackenzie began with the pawnshop closest to Harden’s residence and hit the jackpot.

“Yeah, I’ve seen him in here a time or two,” the clerk said as he looked at a blowup of the bookie’s driver’s license photo. “What’s a pretty little thing like you doing looking for a guy like him?”

“It’s real important. Do you remember the last time he was in here?” she asked.

“I don’t work every day, you know. He could’ve been by on my day off.”

“I understand, but you keep records, right? Could you check to see if he hocked anything in the last month or so?”

The clerk scratched his beer belly while he considered.

She gave him her best smile, innocent and eager...she hoped.

“All right, but it may take me a bit.”

Her smile changed to a grateful grin. “Okay if I browse while I wait?”

“Suit yourself.” As he went to an old metal cabinet in the corner, she strolled around the small shop, looking at the array of used merchandise. Jewelry and electronics seemed to be the possessions of choice among those desperate enough to pawn property—theirs and others—for a few greenbacks.

Her cell phone rang, but she slipped it back in her pocket after recognizing the caller’s ID as that of Evalyn Drake. The meddling reporter would have to wait.

Mackenzie made her way up one aisle and down another, until she paused to view the goods in the barred front window. Through the glass, a shadow across the street caught her eye.

“I found it.”

She turned to see the clerk return with a slip of paper in his hand, and hurried to meet him at the jewelry counter.

“Says here he hocked a ring.”

Her heart lurched. “A ring. Do you still have it?”

“Sure do. Right there.” He pointed to the case. On the back row amid the gold and gemstones sat a man’s silver wedding band adorned in familiar delicate engravings.

“I need that.”

“A hundred bucks and you can have it.”

“Let’s say you give it to me, and I don’t haul you in for peddling stolen merchandise?”

At the sight of her badge, the clerk’s expression soured. “Look, lady—”

“Detective.”

“Detective, my operation’s legit. Ask anybody.”

“And you had no idea this was stolen off a murder victim?”

“Murder!”

“Some might say that makes you an accomplice.”

“I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout murder.” He scrambled to unlock the case and pull out the ring. “Here. Take it. I don’t want no part of it.”

“Thanks. Got an envelope?”

“Yeah. Sure.” He handed her one.

“By the way, is the mirror in that jeweled compact intact?”

A short time later, Mackenzie paused outside to drop the envelope in her pocket and unbutton her coat. Heading across the street and away from her car, she slowed her pace and without glancing around, passed the point where she’d noticed the shadow.

He moved well, silent and smooth, slipping into the crowd several yards behind her. If she hadn’t pretended to use the compact and adjust her lipstick, she might have missed him.

Stopping a few times to window-shop, Mackenzie continued down the street in a casual manner until she turned the corner. Then she quickly slipped into the nearest alcove, which turned out to be the mouth of a dead-end alley.

After a moment, she heard the approach of rapid footsteps. When they reached the alley, she sprang.

Her attack didn’t go as planned.

Rather than jerk the man into the alley, she found herself off-balance and
her
back—not his—slammed against the building’s stone wall. He’d swung around the corner and used her momentum against her.

“You pounce like a lioness, but you should know better than to try it on a wolf.” Lucian’s fingers curved around her throat, his lips lifting into a satisfied sneer.

“Is that so?” she hissed.

“Yes. Your scent gives you away.”

“So does yours.” She sniffed for good measure. “You’ve expensive taste in cologne, leatherman.”

He gave a bark of laughter before his expression turned serious once more. “Such boldness you have. Do you realize how quickly I could snap your neck in two?” His grip on her neck tightened.