Bad Cop (Entangled Covet) (9 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Ian cursed the sun. He had an hour before it left the sky, and he wanted nothing more than to hear with his own ears that Alice was all right. It had taken every ounce of effort to focus on the security video last night while she filled his every waking thought.

They’d found nothing, but there were countless hours of video left to scan. He wasn’t sure she’d be up to going to headquarters tonight. Had she taken Zach off life support? Had she spent the day making arrangements to donate organs and arrange a funeral? She’d be a wreck.

He paced a path across his carpeted living room. Fuck, he hated wall-to-wall carpet. He needed to find a new place to stay when he was in town, one that didn’t impersonate a cage. One with more windows to let in the moonlight and more room for a gym. He had equipment stuffed in an office down the hall, but it was cramped and got too hot in there. After he’d awoken, he worked that room hard, trying to kill time.

The light died down as he paced, but too slowly. When he couldn’t take anymore, he braved the remaining sunlight and bolted out his front door. He kept to the shadows, but even so, by the time he arrived inside the safety of the VLO lobby, his skin burned as if he’d rolled on a skillet. His body ached all over, and he could barely shuffle his way to her floor. Thank God for elevators. Stairs would have been out of the question.

Alice jumped from her seat when he burst through her office door. She took one horrified look at him and pulled him to a seat. “Oh, God. What happened to you?”

“Alice. The blinds.” He groaned. She clicked them shut and knelt by his chair.

“Your poor skin. What were you doing out in the sun, you idiot?”

Guess that meant she was all right. He chuckled. “I’ll be okay. Give me a minute.”

After opening her fridge for a bottled water and grabbing a towel from her coffee service, she returned to him with the doused cloth.

Pressing it to his face, he peeked at her over the edge. “I was worried about you.”

Her expression softened. “Oh, Ian. You could have called me.”

“Guess I could’ve done that.” He put the towel across the back of his neck where the sun had done its worst.

“Admit it. You were worried about your car.” She rolled her eyes, but she definitely wasn’t serious.

“You know men. We only truly care about two things: our cars and our cocks. You got your hands on one. You’re welcome to the other.” His grin pulled at his still split lip. Damn sunlight.

She huffed. “I suppose you’ll live then.” She slapped another towel at him before pushing it into his hands. Leaning close enough for him to get a good shot of that warm-cookie smell, she examined his face. “Amazing. Looks much better already.”

“Can I ask you something?”

She laughed. “Why do you bother saying that? You’ll just ask anyway.”

“Well, yeah,” he said. “But I want to know what that scent is. Smells like cookies.”

A pretty pink flushed her cheeks. “You can smell that? It
is
cookies.”

“What? You eat a lot of ‘em?” He eyed her tiny waist. Where would she put them?

“I’m kind of a stress baker. I get upset and bake a few dozen. Keeps me busy.”

“What do you do with them?”

Her eyebrows rose. “Uhm, what do you think? I toss them.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? You’re throwing them out when you have a perfectly large specimen of male here every night who could use some fattening up?”

“Oh, now you want me to feed you.” Her blush deepened. “I mean…junk food.”

He stared at her, couldn’t force a word out if his life were at stake. That night came back in full color, sharpening his senses and riling a different kind of hunger.

“So, uh, did you find anything last night?”

He shook his head, more to clear it than to answer. “Nothing. There’s more video to sort through, though. We’ll get there, probably tonight.”

“Can I help?”

“Of course you can.” He stood and leaned closer to where she perched at the edge of her desk. “Are you sure you’re up to working? How’d things go today?”

Her face betrayed her pain, but her voice was steady. “I filled out a lot of forms, and they ran tests today. I’m grateful for that. They don’t have to, but I think Doc’s trying to buy me a little time to cope. It’s just…”

He swept his fingertips along her cheek. It felt like a rose petal. “Just?”

“There’s nothing I can do to fight this.”

“I know, turtle.”

Her eyes widened. “Turtle?”

Aw, hell. Had that slipped out? He backed away and cleared his throat. He’d swear his face was heating again. A quick peek at the blinds showed them still tightly shut.

“You’re blushing.” Before he could duck away, she took his face in her hands. “I never knew you could blush.”

“It’s the sunlight.”

“No, you are blushing. Your face is fine.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why would you call me turtle?”

“Never mind about that,” he answered. “We need to get going if we’re to view all the video tonight.”

She pursed her lips, but picked up her jacket and followed him out. They’d settled into a comfortable silence in the car. Focused on her phone, she tapped away.

“It’s an endearment, an old one,” she said.

“What?” His head angled toward her.

“Turtle.” She read from her little screen. “As early as the fifteenth century, turtle was used as an endearment often referring to a lover.” Her eyes went from her screen to his face. “A turtle dove.”

His attention returned to the road, but he smiled. Tenacious, she was. “You don’t let things go, do you?”

“How old are you, Ian? When were you born?”

“Don’t rightly remember.”

“Oh, come on.”

He sighed. “Around 1370-something.” He shot her an indignant frown. “And that term is older than the fifteenth century. Can’t trust anything on the Internet these days.”

She laughed a sweet, bubbly laugh. “You, sir, are charming when you want to be.”

“I was trying?”

“God help me if you weren’t,” she said under her breath. “Oh, I may have found a loophole for Graham, but I need your help.”

His mood soured at the mention of the weasel who’d been involved with the plan to kill Kade a few months earlier. “I’ll hang him myself.”

“Ian, no! He’s my friend, and there’s no way he’d ever willingly do anything to kill Kade. I won’t let him die. The laws are different for Trackers than the other Legion. If he were a Tracker, we could turn him over to you, and he wouldn’t have to be executed. So, my question is how can we make him a Tracker? Fast.”

“Have you lost your flippin’ mind?” He nearly went off the road, but caught himself as the tires bumped the curb. Her eyes flew wide at the jolt. Luckily, they were at the parking lot for his headquarters. He pulled into an empty space, shut off the car, and leaned toward her. “You think any ignorant fuck with fangs can do what I do? The fucking
Dominorum
Enforcers can’t even do it.”

She faced his fury like it didn’t exist. “But can’t you make him one, take him into custody, and then fire him? There has to be some other punishment for him besides execution.”

“It’s not a job, Alice. It’s what we are. Once a Tracker, always a Tracker. There are no ex-Trackers, only dead ones. You have no idea what it means to be one.”

Her silver eyes pleaded with him. “I don’t know what else to do. Ian, you said you’d do anything.”

He plunked back in his seat and thumped his head a couple times against the headrest. “Now, she wants to pull that card.”

“You’re talking to yourself again.”

“That’s what happens when there’s no one intelligent around to talk to.”

“Don’t be such a hick.”

He blew out a forceful breath. “You don’t know what you’re asking of me.”

“I’m desperate. Please?”

He hurried to her door before she could get it. Her hand was tiny and soft in his as he helped her out of the low-slung sports car. And then she penetrated him with those eyes of hers and liquefied him inside.

“Ian?” she whispered. “If I could find another way…”

“I know.” Before she could walk away, he leaned in and touched his lips to hers, a butterfly brush of skin on skin. An urgent need to linger pounded at his skull, but he backed off. It was a gratifying moment when she touched her lips with her fingertips. “I’ll help if I can, but I won’t guarantee anything.”

Her smile was a sun that didn’t burn, but warmed him deeply from head to toe. “I’ll owe you—”

“Nothing,” he said. “You’ll owe me nothing. Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Well, it’s too late for that.”

He stopped her at the entrance to the square metal-and-glass building. “Alice, the only way to do this is to bend some rules, use some connections. Can you live with that?”

Surprise, frustration, apprehension—her face was an emotional slideshow. She struggled with her conscience, and then she gave in. “The rules are killing my brother. So…yeah, I think I can deal with some rule-breaking. A little.”

He grunted and then led her inside. Skirting the law distressed her, no matter what she said. The frown pulling at her lips threatened permanence. As much as he hated the self-analysis, she’d been right about his tendency to toss the rule book. Depending on his position to shield him made it too easy to take that route first. But this time he’d do it for her and not his own sake. Schmuck that he was.

Unlike the VLO building, Tracker headquarters was sealed tight like a fortress, with very few windows—multiple balconies but only solid doors leading out to them. Entry at the access door required a fingerprint scan and a pin code. Alice probably felt she was walking into a tomb, but the lobby would change that. At least the designers had gone full luxury on the interior with marble flooring, high vaulted ceilings, extravagant furniture, and creative artwork by prominent Legion artists.

As she studied the place with interest, he signed her in at the front desk. The lower-ranking Tracker there eyed her with an open wariness Ian chose to ignore as he led her away to the elevators. The vault was in the deepest belly of the building, two floors below lobby-level. Dec met them at the lower-level elevators, barely nodding at Alice and snubbing him completely.

“I love you, too, you arrogant bastard,” Ian said.

“Whatever. I’ve been at this for hours. It’s your turn, love.”

He eyed Dec’s wrinkled Dior suit—or Gucci, Klein, Valentino, whatever. “What did you do, spend the day here?”

Dec sighed. “Something like that.”

“Well, go on. Go feed or whatnot. I don’t need a grizzly looking over my shoulder.” He saw his friend out and shut the vault behind him. Too bad the vault wasn’t nearly as impressive as the lobby. Basically an open warehouse, it featured endless rows of box-lined shelves. A spacious, clear area near the elevator contained a single, utilitarian desk, a table with coffee and tea service, and a wide security console with a few metal folding chairs.

“Is he always like that?”

“Like he’s got a bur the size of a whale where the light doesn’t shine?” he asked. “If that’s what you meant, then yes. He’s always like that.”

With a distracted chuckle, she surveyed the space. “It’s massive.”

“I know, but whaddya think about the vault?”

She turned to him with a peculiar emotion in her eyes, soft and a bit stunned.

If he didn’t know how much she despised the way he worked, he would’ve mistaken that for “
I’m falling for you.”

“What?” he asked.

Without answering, she ducked her head. “Let’s get to work.”

“There’s coffee there by the desk.” He glanced at her while he turned on the screen at the viewing console.
Goddamn
, she was worth changing for. He loved bantering with her. The teasing. She inspired him more than anyone he’d ever met. Speaking of teasing… “With fixin’s to make it white. Wouldn’t want you to lose your sweetness.”

Her answering smile gratified him, enveloped him in warmth he hadn’t known in half a century. Hell, he’d make her smile every damned day just to feel this. Once she’d collected her cream and sugar colored with a touch of coffee, he settled into a chair beside her in front of the screen. The video was set to fast-forward, projecting them ahead through time. An hour stretched by and then another and another. Right about then,
vesania
sounded enjoyable.

“Not keen on the soundtrack,” he said.

“What soundtrack?”

“Yep.”

“We could make our own. You take Hansel, and I’ll take Gretel.”

At the moment, a male and female were in the vault, going through one of the other crates of evidence.

Her eyes sparkled as she smiled, and a tiny dip of a crease appeared in her left cheek. When she let go like this, she went from beautiful to outright divine. He might go to crazy lengths to get this from her—Alice without the walls, without her cloak of sorrow.

He laughed. “Sounds like fun. This’d be even better with popcorn. And hot sauce.”

“Why hot sauce?”

“What? Are you saying you’ve never put hot sauce on your popcorn?”

She started to speak and then froze, nudging his face toward the screen. “Rewind! Rewind!”

Bumping the controls, he reeled the feed backward, and there it was. A man digging into the crate containing the Infancy evidence. A very recognizable man.

“Holy fuck,” he muttered.

“Who
is
that? Looks like a circus freak.”

“Mmm. That’s because he was one.” He set the time interval and copied the video to a portable drive. “He’s a Legion Tracker called The Revenant. And no, before you ask, that’s not his real name. Real name’s something smarmy like Bob or Ed. He didn’t think the name a car salesman would have suited his new persona.”

She stared at the image as if entranced. “He looks like a living skeleton.”

“Well, you won’t miss him walking about.”

The Revenant was indeed a walking tattooed skeleton, his entire body marked up to resemble a high school science dummy, with the skull, spine, ribs and everything. Even had the plates of the skull tattooed on him and shading around the hollows of the artwork bones.

“Did he do that because he became a vampire?”