Hidden Crimes (10 page)

“Can I ask you something?” Nate said. “Why do
you think your mother is more attractive than you are?”

This brought her gaze back to him. “You’ve
seen her, right? She’s a sex goddess on a diet. Men’s eyes follow
her everywhere she goes.”

“Men’s eyes follow you.”

Evina released a snort. “Not like they do
Rita.”

“Trust me, who’s a sex goddess and who isn’t
is very much in the eye of the beholder. And you hardly have to
worry about your weight.”

“Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?”

“Is that how it’s going to be?” he joked.
“You think I’m a pick-up artist, so you won’t believe anything I
say?”

“If you told me the sky was blue, I’d
probably believe that.”

Nate shot a strangely fond look at her. “Your
mother isn’t alpha, which I suspect secretly bugs her. That could
be why she feels a need to compete with you.”

Evina could only gape at him. He was more
than smooth, he was scary insightful.

“Hey,” he said, “I’m more than a pretty
face.”

“No kidding,” Evina muttered to herself.

~

Rita’s friend the news producer was a bit too
excited about scooping his rival networks on a possible big story.
Nate was glad they’d met in a small Greek restaurant instead of the
studio. The fewer eyes on this meeting, the better. He didn’t want
Derrick Black’s ambitions putting Evina in jeopardy.

“You can’t use Miss Mohajit’s name or image,”
Nate said, leaning across the table toward the silver-haired
werepanther. “We don’t know what happened yet, but we have to treat
her as a witness whose identity needs to be be shielded.”

“‘Have you seen this child?’ doesn’t make for
much of a story,” Derrick Black complained.

“It isn’t a story. It’s a favor WQSN is doing
for a member of the RPD.”

This was splitting hairs but honest. Sensing
something off but not what, Black crossed his arms. He was a lean
older shifter, handsome enough to be on-air talent, were it not for
the Wall Street sharpness around his eyes. The four of them sat in
an isolated booth at the back of the family restaurant, untouched
cups of coffee in front of them. “This isn’t how the station
usually gets requests from the police.”

“This situation is delicate, and maybe time
sensitive. I give you my word I’ll remember I owe you one.”

“Sweetie,” Rita interrupted, her manicured
hand stroking Black’s expensive suit jacket. “They’re trying to
help a kid. Surely you don’t have to profit from everything.”

The producer struck Nate as the sort who did,
but evidently Rita’s pull on him was strong. “Fine,” he said.
“We’ll air the picture at eleven, six and noon. You need more than
that, you’ll find you owe me two.”

“Understood.” Sensing it was time to
withdraw, he rose and shook Black’s hand. Evina stood with him, all
of them understanding Rita would be staying. This seemed all right
with her. As far as Nate could tell, Black’s rough edges didn’t rub
her the wrong way.

“Phew,” Evina said once they’d stepped out
into the fresher air of the street. “Good thing my mother doesn’t
mind swimming with the sharks.”

~

Maybe he shouldn’t have, given his ranking in
the pack, but Nate subscribed to the adage that it was easier to
beg forgiveness than to ask permission. That said, he knew he’d
arrived at the point where his knees had better shine the floor. He
hoped he hadn’t gone too far for his alpha to accept groveling.

A quick cell call to Carmine yielded the
information that Adam was at the precinct.

“Where you been, bruddah?” the stocky werecop
asked, putting on one of his many fake accents. If pressed, Carmine
could pass for almost any nationality on the phone. “You missed
some excitement.”

Wincing, Nate allowed his pedal foot to grow
slightly more leaden. He was ten minutes out from the station
house, eight if he finessed stoplights. “What happened?”

“Well, nothing regarding your door-to-door.
Me and the unis came up with nada. Nobody’s seen nobody, doctor or
otherwise. Rick and Tony’s crew, however, unearthed a corpse.”

“The Galinas’ not-so-naturally-deceased
CPA?”

“Looks like. Nice and stinky too. The bad
news is a sorcerer worked some mojo on the body and the site. The
techs are saying there’s no trace to test. Without hard evidence to
link Ivan to the murder, there’s nothing to prove Vasili didn’t do
the number cruncher all by himself.”

“Aiy,” Nate said, imagining this wouldn’t
please Adam. Their lieutenant controlled his temper better than
most, but he wanted the werewolf mobsters bad. He cursed as another
driver made him miss the light for his turn on Mott. Damn taxis
shouldn’t cut people off.

“
Aiy
is right,” Carmine agreed. “Story
goes, suspicion for Vasili’s alleged embezzling fell on the
accountant first, which led to him being given his premature
sendoff. If the accountant could have proven Vasili stole the
money, younger bro would have had motive.”

“Except why give up the dump location if
Vasili didn’t think it would implicate Ivan?”

“To stall us maybe. He looks like he’s
cooperating, so we keep him around. Ivan’s going to tear Vasili
limb from limb, probably in slow motion, the minute we let him
go.”

“Maybe.” Nate got his chance to turn at last,
glad his shifter reflexes allowed him to multitask. “I feel like
we’re missing something with this Galina thing. I just can’t put my
finger on what it is.”

“You want your finger to be useful, get your
head back into the game. Rick and Tony are good, but your brain is
more devious than theirs. Adam could use you on this.”

Nate wished he could drop the snake tail he
and Evina had got their claws into. He couldn’t though, no matter
if the snake twisted around and bit him. He believed a child’s fate
hung in the balance, possibly more than one. Noticing where he was,
he shifted more of his attention onto the street. Older buildings
surrounded their station house, tiny businesses tucked into their
ground floors. Nate shot a wistful glance at his favorite espresso
bar, regretting it wasn’t strategic to stop right then.

“I’m coming up on the garage,” he informed
Carmine. “I’ll see you in a few.”

“Put up your umbrella,” Carmine advised.
“Boss-man looks like a thundercloud.”

By the time Nate parked and joined his squad,
Adam and the others were wolfing down Chinese take-out in the break
room. Seated closest to the door, Tony handed him a full box of
beef lo mein. Nate would have appreciated the gesture more if he
hadn’t seen the pity in Tony’s expression.

He was about to catch it good.

Adam was tipped back in a chair, his feet
stacked on the break room table, his chopsticks stabbing into
another box. Carmine’s mention of thunderclouds was accurate. Their
alpha looked as frustrated as Nate had ever seen.

“Well,” he said sarcastically at Nate’s
arrival, “look what the cat dragged in.”

Nate was certain the feline reference was
deliberate. Evina’s race might not be appropriate for dating, but
it was hardly cause for shame. Not about to apologize for it, he
pulled his spine straight and faced his boss head on. “You got a
minute to talk?”

Adam’s face darkened. Apparently, his mood
dictated that he say
no
to anything he was asked. “Whatever
very important business you’ve been up to, I’m sure you can share
it with the team.”

“Fine,” Nate said, his own temper stretched.
“I commissioned a sketch of Evina’s vision. I’ve released it to
WQSN. They’ll be airing it on the eleven, six and noon broadcasts.
I gave them one of our open tip lines. The calls will go to
recording, but I could use Dana’s help screening them.”

Dana was their dispatcher. She liked Nate and
wouldn’t mind, but that didn’t cut him slack with Adam. The others
knew this. They’d fallen silent, holding their breath for the
explosion that now seemed inevitable.

Face like a mask, Adam dropped the front legs
of his plastic chair to the floor. His voice came out as a
half-wolf growl. “Any other way we can serve you?”

“No,” Nate said, something in him suddenly,
crazily unable to bend at all. “That’ll do me for now.”

Adam launched his body out of the chair, his
spring carrying him over the table to crash into Nate’s chest. Nate
fell backward beneath his weight, too startled to defend
himself.

“Lieu!” Tony and Carmine called in
protest.

They’d hopped out of their chairs, but only
Rick, Adam’s second, dared to lay his palm against Adam’s back.
Adam snarled at the touch that was meant to calm him.

“I’m not hurting him,” he said, which was
true enough. His grip had caught Nate’s shoulders and his eyes were
practically shooting flames, but all he was doing was holding him
submissive under him.

His alpha energy pushed at Nate like it would
keep him down forever.

“Is it too late to apologize?” Nate ventured
humorously.

Adam wasn’t ready to laugh. “What is it with
you lately? You catch a whiff of this pussy’s pussy, and suddenly
you’re unhappy with your place here?”

Nate’s jaw fell at his crudeness. Adam wasn’t
species-ist, that he knew. “I love this pack,” he said once he’d
recovered. “You guys are my family.”

“You love this pack,” Adam said darkly, “but
you don’t love your place in it.”

Nate couldn’t deny this, no more than Adam’s
alpha instincts could tolerate insubordination. Nate’s gut clenched
uneasily. They’d come to a confrontation that had been building for
a while.

“I love the pack,” he repeated, his voice
shaking. “I respect every one of you.”

“Ease up, Lieu,” Carmine said, the most
experienced shifter among them. “Let your wolf relax. Nate’s backed
down enough for now.”

The fire in Adam’s eyes guttered to a
glimmer. He pulled in his claws, which Nate only just noticed were
extended. They hadn’t broken skin, but they made a soft ripping
noise as they left his nice black shirt. Between Adam and Evina,
the expensive Ermenegildo Zegna was history.

If his pulse hadn’t been drumming like a
rabbit’s within his throat, Nate might have laughed. As it was,
when Adam shifted his heavy weight off him, what he mostly felt was
relief.

Grudgingly, Adam offered him a hand up.

“I am sorry I made you angry,” Nate said as
he took it. “I don’t know how to let this case go.”

Both statements were honest, as Adam seemed
to recognize. He rolled the last of his alpha tension out of his
big shoulders. “You’ve got to show me results, Nate. Not just weird
rooms and visions and behind-my-back meetings with reporters.”

“We will,” Nate assured him. “I know there’s
something here.”

He realized only later that his reference to
we
didn’t mean him and Carmine.

EVINA had finally gotten the twins tucked in
bed when Rita used her key to saunter through the front door.
Dressed to the nines in a sleeveless red cocktail dress, she joined
her daughter in the kitchen. Evina was washing up dishes there. How
three people dirtied so many she’d never figure out.

“You’re back from your date early,” Evina
commented.

Rita poked a fork at a piece of leftover
brownie, then set the utensil down. Though shapeshifters had fast
metabolisms, she didn’t believe in tempting Fate. “Derrick had to
go to the studio.”

“I’ve got the kids tonight. You didn’t have
to come over.”

“This thing you saw . . .” Rita twisted her
mouth. “It makes me want to stick close to my grandcubs.” She gave
Evina’s arm a rub. “You should go out.”

“Me?”

“I know. That delicious man you’ve been
flirting with is the Big Bad Wolf. That makes it better, if you ask
me. No expectations on either side.”

Not so sure about that, Evina dried her hands
on a clean dishtowel.

“You can’t mourn Paul forever,” Rita pointed
out.

“I’m hardly mourning him. He’s not dead.”

“No, he just got married—which if you’re
honest, you’ll admit is worse.”

“Mom!” Despite not wanting to encourage her
mother’s outrageousness, Evina had to laugh. “He’s the father of my
children. He loves them, and he was never unfair to me. I couldn’t
wish him dead.”

Temporarily neutered, maybe, but not
dead.

“That wife of his is barely thirty,” her
mother said as if the insult of Paul finding a lifemate had been to
her. “And she’s not even a full tiger.”

Paul’s wife Liane was a quarter fae and very
beautiful—more beautiful than Rita, which could explain why her
mother had taken such a dislike to her.

“That wolf is way sexier than Paul,” her
mother said silkily. “You know what they say about the best
revenge.”

“That it isn’t a mother’s business to get it
for her daughter?”

“Very funny.” Her mother pulled a single wine
glass down from the cabinet. “You know you’re itching to have at
that wolf again. And, who knows, maybe you’ll help him solve the
case. Cats are cleverer than dogs.”