Chapter 26 #2
“That someone is Hugo Thomas.” He was sure of it. “Get the ME to compare the wounds Frederick has to the knife we retrieved from Hugo.” Ryan whirled and stared hard at the bloody scene.
Harry’s injuries told him that the poor guy had been hit by a car. There were no skid marks in the area, so the vehicle hadn’t slowed. The hit had been intentional. No cameras on this street. No witnesses left behind.
Why had Harry been out there? Had he perhaps seen Simone and Logan? And he’d been chasing after them? Only to get hit by Konstantin’s vehicle when the prick came to collect Simone and Logan?
Ryan kept replaying the scene from the suite in his head, and certain things that Logan had said took on all new meaning now for him.
Like when Logan had told him… “You need to tell me to fuck off. You need to beat the hell out of me and whisk Simone away. Seriously, do it.”
Oh, but Ryan wished he’d beaten the hell out of Logan Sterling when he’d had the chance. But he’d truly believed Logan cared for Simone. Logan and Simone had known each other since they were children. They’d grown up together, with Logan’s grandmother taking care of them both.
Yet in the suite, Logan had told Ryan and Simone, “I am not trustworthy. Ask anyone.”
He remembered that Simone had just rolled her eyes in response. “You know I trust you with my life.”
And Logan, he’d just said—
“Ryan, what are the orders?” Charlotte asked. Jamar wasn’t with her. He’d taken Hugo to a secure holding.
“Don’t,” he whispered.
“What?” She lowered her phone. “Don’t what?”
When Simone had said that she trusted Logan with her life, he’d told her…
“Don’t.” The man had been telling them that he was working with Konstantin.
The truth had been right there. “He was trying to make us understand.” Ryan rubbed his forehead.
“He asked about the egg. Wanted to know if it was stashed in the suite’s safe. ”
“I am really lost,” Charlotte informed him. “Trying to keep up, truly trying, but you’re going to have to tell me more.”
His gaze collided with hers.
“The body at the country estate is being transported.” She nodded.
“Crime scene techs will document everything, but we are back to having no clue where Konstantin took Simone. His phone has gone dark, as in, just utterly vanished. Tracing them that way isn’t going to be possible. And her phone is a dead end.”
Konstantin would have known to ditch his phone so he could not be traced.
As for Simone’s phone, had it deliberately been crushed? Or had she accidentally dropped it when she’d been trying to help Harry?
How could Logan do this to her?
Family.
Family.
Family. Ryan sucked in a breath. “We need to find Logan’s grandmother.”
“I’m sorry.” She shook her head, hard. “I seem to say this a lot but…what? We’re hunting for a grandmother now? I thought we were looking for Simone and Konstantin.”
“We are. Simone retrieved the broach and the earrings for Nana.”
“Again…what?”
“Logan Sterling’s grandmother,” he gritted between clenched teeth. He could not hear the wail of the ambulance any longer. But he did hear a faint…
Meow.
He whirled and searched the street.
“Why is Logan’s grandmother important right now?” Charlotte asked as she darted around him. “Ryan, seriously, focus.”
He was focusing. “Where’s the damn cat? I need to get it for her.”
“Uh, okay.” She reached out a hand to touch his shoulder. “I get a lot is happening. If you need to step back, I can take lead on this one. Sometimes, when things are too personal, we need a break.”
“I am not stepping back.” He’d just seen the cat. The black cat with the scraggly ear. The same one he and Simone had seen during their trip to the Arch. He bounded forward and grabbed the cat, clutching it to his chest when he straightened.
“I do not know what is happening right now.” Charlotte eyed him with no small amount of worry. “I am concerned.”
“It’s Simone’s cat,” he snapped. Or, it would be. When he got her back, he’d have the cat for her.
“That’s a stray, Ryan. The thing looks half-starved and seriously in need of a vet trip.”
It would get a vet trip. It would get plenty of food. It would get a lifetime of love.
“And I hate to break this to you, but black cats are bad luck. We don’t need any more bad luck considering the way this case is going.” She still gripped her phone.
“The cat is good luck. In France, they are good luck.”
“We are not in France.”
The cat rubbed his head beneath Ryan’s chin.
“Find Logan Sterling’s grandmother. She should be in Vegas.
She has dementia issues.” The broach and earrings had made her smile.
Simone had been willing to travel across an ocean, get a job working for Frederick, and then lift those items right out of the guy’s heavily guarded gallery.
She’d done all of that because she loved the woman she called Nana.
There was no doubt that Logan would love the woman just as much. So what would he be willing to do for her?
But Logan didn’t kill Harry. Harry had said Konstantin thought he was dead but…
“Got a bullet here!” An agent was pointing to a crack in the road. A space near where Harry had been sprawled in a pool of blood.
“Damn.” The agent whistled. “Looks like it was about an inch or two away from Harry’s head.”
A deliberate miss on Logan’s part.
“Weapon!” Another agent shouted. “Discarded gun. It was half-hidden in a bush over here. Getting it bagged and tagged.”
Ryan’s gaze darted to the weapon that the agent was, indeed, bagging and tagging. He’d seen a gun exactly like that one earlier, when Logan had pointed it straight at his face.
Logan, what are you doing? Leaving his gun behind would tie him directly to the crime. But maybe that was exactly what Konstantin wanted. Konstantin had thought Logan shot and killed Harry. Konstantin wanted Logan to be hunted by the CIA and MI6. He wanted Logan going down…
While Konstantin had the chance to slip away.
You’re not getting away, you bastard. It will not happen.
“Find the grandmother,” he told Charlotte. “In Vegas. I want operatives to close in. I want them beside her.”
“Why? Is this woman some kind of threat?”
“No, I think she is being threatened.” He had to go. He clutched the cat and rushed toward the line of waiting cars.
“Wait!” Charlotte caught his arm. “We have to find Simone!”
He nodded. “I found her.”
“No, you found a cat. One that may have fleas so don’t let him rub on you like that.” She grimaced. “We have no idea where Simone is.”
“Simone is a retrieval specialist.”
“Ah…okay?”
“If Konstantin wanted her dead, she’d be dead. We would have found her next to Harry.” But they hadn’t. “You’ll do anything for family.”
Charlotte’s golden eyes narrowed on him. “Where is Simone?”
“She’s going after the egg. Konstantin wants her to retrieve the egg and the chip.”
“Explain slowly. For me.”
“Jezebel has both items. Jezebel has an off-the-books location she was using here in London. Jezebel isn’t there now because she just rushed to the hospital with Harry.
That means this is the perfect time for Simone to slip inside.
The place will barely be guarded. All the agents are swarming out here. ” He had to haul ass.
“How would Simone even know about the location?” Charlotte chased after him as he rushed toward the waiting vehicles.
“She wouldn’t know. But Konstantin can get all sorts of intel.
We know his reach extends nearly everywhere.
” It would be easy enough for him to learn about the CIA’s hidden site, a place that technically was shared with MI6.
All it would have taken to get the location was the wrong agent speaking at the wrong time.
Ryan yanked open the door to the car he’d used earlier.
“Most of the agents are here,” she mused, glancing around. “There will only be a skeleton crew at the site Jezebel used. It would be the perfect time for an attack.”
An attack or…a theft.
Ryan put the cat in the back seat. “Gonna need you to be a really good kitty and not shred the seat to pieces, got me? A new home and lots of food will be in your future if you can follow orders.”
“I’m coming with you!” Charlotte raced around to jump in the passenger seat.
As he revved the engine and shot away from the scene, she was already on her phone, rushing out instructions about Logan Sterling. Demanding a search in Vegas for his grandmother.
Meanwhile, Ryan’s hands had clenched tightly around the steering wheel. Every breath, every heartbeat, was focused on Simone.
Be alive.
Be safe.
Need you.
Love you.
He sucked in a breath. Let it out slowly. Be alive. Be safe. Need you. Love you.
Be alive.
Be safe…