Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
RAJ
“I still don’t understand why we can’t just infiltrate the warehouse at night,” Jet says, his knee bouncing.
Empty takeaway containers litter the surface of the manor dining table, the lingering scent of Chinese food permeating the room. My half-drunk mug of coffee has long since gone cold, and Bryn’s steady presence opposite me at the table settles my tiger in a way that I sorely need right now.
I sigh. ‘Day or night, we won’t get a search warrant because the undercover operation hasn’t turned up any evidence.’
If it had, we’d be having a different conversation right now.
“So we sneak in like we did when we came here to get Ayo’s grimoires,” Jet says.
Ethan’s scowl deepens. “I wish it were that fucking easy. The grimoires were never going to be used as evidence for arrest, just proof of a theory being viable.”
“Not to mention, the shield charm Bryn and I created is designed to prevent the wearer from being harmed,” Ayo says. “It won’t hide anyone from the security spells, and the only camouflage spell I know is finicky. I’d need time to figure out a better option.”
“Isn’t it worth the risk if there’s a chance we could find something to lead us to those missing shifters, though?” Skye asks.
My chest tightens. ‘You mean like the source for the weapons in the fae realm? You think that could be where our shifters are?’
“Or at least where they were moved through, if they were indeed kept alive,” Cal says.
We have no way to reach the fae realm, and Doc P wasn’t able to tell me anything about the pocket realm due to a confidentiality clause in the agreement he made, but if we had proof of arms trafficking we could get specialists from the BSG involved.
There must be at least one fae working for the government who could help us.
Bryn frowns. ‘Is that where the weapons are coming from? I assumed they were making them on Earth.’
I stare at him, my brain stuttering. ‘We’ve been working on the assumption that they’ve been bringing weapons here from their own realm, potentially supplemented by small earth-based suppliers like Nyoka.’
If that’s not what they’re doing then we’ve been looking at this case all wrong. We’ve discussed the source of the weapons as a team of course, but I should have thought of this possibility. It’s my investigation at the end of the day. It’s on me to cover every possible angle.
Jet fidgets with his empty mug. “We’ve never figured out why these shifters were kidnapped or killed, right?”
‘Various theories, but nothing definite. What are you thinking?’ I ask.
Jet grimaces. “What if the weapons are being made in Birchester, and our missing shifters are being used to test them?”
My stomach drops as everyone reacts with sharp inhales, snarls, and more than one pair of glowing eyes. If that’s what’s been happening this entire time… My tiger urges me to shift, ready to find the culprits and rip them apart. We wouldn’t succeed, but it’s bloody tempting to try.
Kit yanks their laptop closer and taps rapidly. “There was a lot of information in what the PRN sent us about various poisons on the weapons the Zbrodnia Smoka stole, although they didn’t find out much of use to us from the prisoner interviews.”
“We’ve already been over this,” Ethan says. “We can’t categorically link that to Far Out Freight.”
“We didn’t consider that they could be manufacturing such weapons here though,” Cal says tightly.
“If they’re adding poison to weapons, they’d need a secure lab space,” Jet says.
I clench my jaw. ‘We need to figure out where, and how they’re getting these weapons to the warehouse.’
‘Restocking is done overnight, but we’ve probably missed the window to follow a supply lorry,’ Bryn signs.
“Actually, we planted hidden cameras across the street a couple of months ago,” Kit says. “They’ve never picked up any nighttime movement at the warehouse, either night shift workers arriving or freight coming in.”
“I did a couple of fly-bys at night as well. Nothing,” Skye says.
“Could they be glamouring the vehicles arriving?” Ayo asks.
‘It’s possible, but why bother?’ Bryn signs.
Ethan rubs his beard. “It does seem unlikely.”
“What about underground tunnels?” Cal asks.
I shake my head. ‘Again, it’s unlikely. There’s no door unaccounted for, no access hatch that I’ve seen, and if there was a glamoured entrance Bryn would’ve spotted it by now.’
“You can see through all glamours?” Ethan asks Bryn.
Bryn nods. ‘Yes. On buildings, people, objects, everything.’
“Does Birchester even have underground tunnels?” Skye asks.
“Yes, but not in this part of the city,” Ayo says.
“So that option’s out. What else?” Ethan asks.
I scrub a hand over my face, my limbs heavy with fatigue. I’m out of ideas. We could be looking for a lab anywhere in the city, or even further afield. Maybe if we could search the remaining boxes in the warehouse, Lance’s office, even the admin office, we might find some sort of lead.
Ethan looks around at our weary faces. “All right, take five minutes, everyone.”
Bryn pulls out his phone and I take the opportunity to stand and stretch my stiff muscles. He types one-handed, his gaze drifting to the bare strip of skin at my waistband.
I manage a smile for the first time in hours and drop my arms, my shirt falling back into place.
My tiger chuffs, ready to shift and curl up with Bryn for pets if we’re not going after any bad guys right now and I sigh, really wishing that was an option but too stressed to actually consider it.
The priority is figuring out a way forward, because there has to be something we can do.
“Anyone want another brew?” Ayo asks. He gets a chorus of yeahs so he taps Bryn’s shoulder and signs, ‘Drink?’
Bryn nods absently, signs ‘Thank you,’ then frowns at his phone.
I wave to get his attention. ‘You okay?’
‘Harley volunteered for overtime this weekend. He said more than three-quarters of the boxes are gone.’
I run a hand over the short bristles of my regrowing hair, my skin feeling too tight. ‘We’re running out of time.’
Bryn grimaces. ‘You know, when you first told me about all this my only real thought was how satisfying it would be for Lance to end up behind bars. Now I feel like if we don’t stop him, the consequences could be so much bigger than whether or not I get revenge on the fae who ruined my life.’
I want to make some playful comment about him growing as a person, but my brain sticks on what he said about Lance behind bars.
‘Hold that thought,’ I sign, rushing over to the other end of the table where Kit insisted we leave the laptops well away from sticky fingers.
It takes me a few minutes to find the correct part of the BSG task force contract—it contains hundreds of pages—by which time Ayo has returned with a tray full of teas and coffees, and everyone is retaking their seats.
“Raj?” Ethan asks.
‘Bryn gave me an idea. Just give me a minute to check…’ I trail off, reading through the relevant section, then clicking the link to check the associated subsection. ‘Got it.’
I take my seat, my pulse racing. ‘I’ve got something, but it’s not a perfect solution.’
“Let’s hear it,” Ethan says, leaning back in his chair.
‘We may have enough evidence to arrest Lance for either gross negligence, or health and safety breaches related to the explosion Bryn and I were both injured in.’
“As necessary as that is, how does that get us any closer to finding the weapons lab and the missing shifters?” Skye asks.
I smirk, my previous fatigue replaced by buzzing energy. ‘Because when we arrest someone, we can search the premises for further evidence to back up the reason for arrest, and seize anything we find.’
“So all we’d have to do would be to arrest him at the warehouse to be able to search everything in there,” Cal says.
“Including their computers,” Kit says, their eyes lighting up. They’ve been wanting a legal excuse to go into Far Out Freight’s IT systems since I started investigating the company back when we found the link to Nyoka.
Bryn frowns. ‘Do you have enough evidence to charge him with either of those offences? He has excellent legal representation, so anything you have would need to be rock solid.’
‘That’s the beauty of it,’ I sign, my hand movements as enthusiastic as my voice.
‘Right now we have enough for his arrest. What we find in the boxes—presumably weapons in at least a few, if they’ve not already been shipped out—will be enough to charge him.
And whether or not we find those, there may be a digital trail we can follow to find the location of a lab if it exists, perhaps a record of what happened to our missing shifters, or even the source and destinations of the weapons, all of which could also bring about criminal charges. It’s a multi-pronged approach.’
Ethan points at me. “I like it. We have a lot of details to nail down before I agree to it, but this is our best idea so far.”
‘My biggest concern is that when we enter the warehouse to arrest Lance it’ll reveal my true identity, which puts Bryn at risk of retribution.’
People don’t tend to react well when they find out I’ve been working undercover, but usually by the time they realise who I am I’ve already left, or they’ve been arrested or killed.
I’m kicking myself for not considering the fact that I was getting involved with someone when we both have to live and work in the city afterwards, especially because Bryn will be on the fae-run work programme for several more months.
My rule about not getting involved with someone while undercover centred on them not knowing my real identity—an obstacle that was removed in Bryn’s case—and whether I could really trust them.
For all my overthinking, I clearly missed a critical angle.
‘I’m sorry,’ I sign to Bryn. ‘I’ve been so caught up in the investigation, I didn’t think through the implications for you when this ended.’