Graham, Jan - Finding Angel [Wylde Shore] (Siren Publishing Ménage and More) (43 page)

“You think I’m an informant?” Christian spat his question at Trevor, not happy with the insinuation that had just been made.

“No.” Trevor looked embarrassed. “I know you’re as clean as they come. I’m just grasping at fucking straws since we lost the only person who could possibly get us a conviction on the biggest drug family in the state, possible the country.”

Christian was amazed at Trevor’s quick back down and his about-face. He had accused him of being an informant and then admitted it wasn’t a believable option, even though he had made the claims. Trevor looked like a man on the edge. Christian heard alarm bells going of in his head, Steve getting too involved in a case, Trevor not behaving like his usual self, and the mention of a missing person associated with both instances. Christian decided to tread carefully as he pushed forward, determined to get answers.

“Okay, this is not making any sense. I accessed the database to find out some information for one of my teams. I got to Barnard because he showed up on an assault report.” Christian looked warily at Trevor as he spoke. “I’m sorry if the search gave you an ulcer, Duncan, but it was a simple connection to an unrelated matter. As for calling Kathy, our families have been friends since we were at school. You know that. I was worried I hadn’t gotten a reply from Steve, and after you gave me the standard noncontactable blow off, I called to check Kath was okay and see if she needed anything.” Christian hoped his answer would satisfy Trevor.

“The unrelated case isn’t an unidentified corpse of a woman in her early thirties, is it?” Trevor looked worryingly at Christian.

“No.” Christian saw a visible wave of relief flood Trevor Duncan’s face. He sat silently, waiting for Trevor to say something, but the man remained silent, tapping a pen against his desk.

“Look, Trevor, I don’t know what this is about, but if you need to find someone, get Missing Persons involved. If that isn’t possible, then if you want extra manpower to find her, I’ll free up one of my teams.”

“I can’t involve anyone else. Hell, I don’t even know where I’m going to keep her if I do find her. I don’t know who is on our suspect’s payroll and who isn’t.”

Trevor stood and began to pace the office. He looked at Christian with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity.

“Okay, I have no idea where the offer to help has come from, and if you were anyone else, I wouldn’t be discussing this. But, I know you aren’t on the take, and as I said, we have hit a wall. But before I tell you anything, let me say this, I find out you’ve screwed me on this and I will hunt you down, Shore. Do you hear me?”

“Understood.” Christian gave Trevor a sincere look. “And if it makes you feel better, keep the information general. I don’t need names or places. Just keep the specifics to a minimum.”

Trevor gave a deep sigh, obviously deciding whether to take Christian up on his offer.

“Okay. We’re investigating the Hastings organisation. The woman we are looking for has been contacted by Adrian Hastings on two occasions that we know of. Hastings is after a ledger. He believes that Samuel Barnard gave it to her. Steve made contact with her a few times. She gave him some useful information, good evidence actually, but nothing that will put the final nail in Hastings’s coffin. Anyway, she always maintained she knew nothing about a ledger. Now, she’s disappeared. I’ve been waiting for her body to show up ever since she vanished.” Trevor sat down again and rubbed his hands over his face.

Christian had a sinking feeling. Could the woman they are looking for be Angel? He knew he needed to ask the question but dreaded the answer.

“So who is this woman?” Christian tried to sound casual.

“No names, remember? But for the purpose of this discussion she was his mistress.” Trevor looked at Christian. His disgust was visible as he continued. “She was given to him as payment for a bad debt from a local drug dealer. We’ve got the debt agreement on file, sick fucking bastard that he was. Who has a legal deed of title written up for another human being?”

“You said there was a leak, someone on the payroll passing information onto Hastings…any ideas who?” Christian breathed a quiet a sigh of relief. The woman wasn’t Angel. If it was Angel, Trevor would have referred to the woman as Barnard’s wife or de facto. A mistress implies someone outside of the relationship. He wondered if Angel knew Barnard had another woman.

“I’ve got bugger all idea on who it could be, but I’m sure they’re inside my unit. Some of the recent leaks have been too specific.” Trevor started pacing once again. “I’ve cut virtually everyone working on the case. I’ve gone from three teams of eight working on it down to one exclusive team of four. None of us are logging the information into the computer system. I’ve had to pull two men from inside Hastings’s gang because their covers were compromised. As far as the rest of the team is concerned, we’ve pulled back on the investigation because of lack of evidence. Any information that gets logged is either inconsequential or information we want passed on to Hastings.”

“So can I give you some extra men? What do you need?”

Christian felt for Trevor. He knew all too well what it was like to lose the grip on a case, and the foul aftertaste of a leak within his own team must be a bitter pill to swallow.

“I will let you know if I need them. At the moment, I’ve got Steve following a paper trail associated to Barnard as well as looking for the woman. I’ve officially announced to the rest of the team that he has gone on extended leave for personal reasons. The two men that were undercover with Hastings have been listed as missing. I have them on permanent surveillance of the woman’s home. Although, officially, all surveillance has been stopped based on her disappearance.”

“How safe are these guys in a surveillance van outside someone’s house? If you’re looking for the woman, Hastings would be as well. What if they are spotted by one of Hastings’s men?”

“Ah yes, but they aren’t in a van. We had to pull that back to ensure that it appeared we’d stopped surveillance. I managed to acquire the property across the road from the house we’re watching. They are holed up with all the creature comforts and latest surveillance equipment. They are safe.” For the first time in the entire conversation, Trevor actually smiled.

“You said you had four working the case. What’s the other guy doing?”

“I’m running interference, tracking down the leak, feeding the enemy information I want them to have, and being the perfect boss to everyone else in my unit.”

Christian laughed as Trevor spoke. That was the second smile in as many minutes, and the man nearly made a joke.

“Well, you can have anyone from my team you need, within reason, of course. If you need to store information anywhere, I can clear a drawer in my filing cabinet in the office if you like. Other than that, is there anything else you think I can do at this stage?”

“Well, there is one thing. Even though Steve has been our main liaise with this woman so far, they have a bit of a, how shall I put it…tenuous relationship. She doesn’t trust him. Hell. She doesn’t trust anyone. So when he finds her, I need someone to offer her a deal she can’t refuse. Steve can’t do it. Apart from her distrust of him, he doesn’t have the rank. I can’t go because it’s too risky for her if I show up wherever we decide to hide her in case I’m followed.”

“Consider it done, just let me know when you need me. And if Steve needs backup at any stage, tell him I’m in the loop.” Christian looked at Trevor, who nodded in reply. “I’ll leave all contact up to you from this point. And as they say in the movies, this conversation never happened.”

Christian stood to leave. As he reached the door, Trevor spoke once more.

“Just before you go, I want to apologise for anything I may say within the next few minutes that you may consider offensive.”

As Christian walked from the office with a wry smile, he heard Trevor call out behind him.

“Don’t walk out on me you arrogant son of a bitch. You better believe I’m serious about this…keep your guys out of my way, Shore, or I’ll take you down with your fucking team.”

“Bite me, Duncan.” Christian didn’t look back. Instead, he raised his middle finger in a gesture of defiance as he walked away.

Trevor Duncan returned to his office, slamming the door for creative effect. He loved the fact that the whole wall shook, the tremor vibrating through the closer desks to his office. If anyone was in doubt that Trevor was pissed, the slam of the door should convince them he was for real. He only ever slammed the door when he was truly angry. Trevor knew Christian was a good man to have on his side. He was close to Steve, which would ensure that protecting his friend was a priority. And now that he had agreed to assist in convincing Angel to work with the police, he was sure she would agree. Christian was a damn good-looking bastard. Trevor was convinced that Christian could charm snakes if he needed to, so one scared woman should be no trouble at all.

He sat back down at his desk and went over the Intel he had been gathering on one of his team. Detective David Markham had raised some suspicion in recent weeks due to his conduct as part of the Hastings investigation. Trevor had told Christian he had no suspicions about who the spy in his ranks was, but in actual fact that had been a lie. Trevor consoled himself with his standard excuse of need to know, and Christian Shore didn’t need to know, at least not at the moment.

Trevor recalled the day about two weeks ago when he had pulled Steve Jax off Markham in the middle of the office. That was the day Trevor knew his whole case had gone to hell in a hand basket. It was a few days after Steve had returned from seeing Angel Wylde and she had given him Barnard’s hidden artillery, along with numerous other items to aid their investigation. It was also the same day information had been leaked to Hastings that Angel knew the house was bugged and was now working with the police to bring him down. Of course, the information was inaccurate. She hadn’t agreed to anything and had only just found out about the surveillance herself. The fact that the information was wrong hadn’t stopped an infuriated Adrian Hastings from placing a bounty on the woman’s head.

A quarter of a million dollars brought a lot of people interested in taking her out. It was also the day his undercover guys had to be sent into hiding, their covers blown by the same creep who had leaked the information about Angel.

Luckily Angel had disappeared by that stage. The fact she had told Steve she believed Hastings would kill her gave Trevor some hope that she was alive and had simply run for her life. But, the longer she was gone, the more his hope faded. He was tracking her bank accounts, and there had been no activity on them. The last transaction had taken place three days after she went away. It had been from a destination south of her address. That was all they had to go on. The cheap Toyota she had bought herself after Barnard’s death hadn’t been found, but she also had not accessed any of her bank accounts to buy fuel, either. Her disappearance was a mystery.

If nothing else, Steve losing his cool and attacking Markham had caused Trevor to look more closely at the detective, and had also given him the excuse to say Steve was now on leave for personal reasons. Attacking a colleague certainly showed a level of stress that could be interpreted as an officer needing a break. The more he found out about Markham, the more Trevor wished he had let Steve bust his face up some more before dragging him off the man. As it was, Markham had walked around with a black eye and busted lip for a good week after the fight.

Markham had conducted the initial search on Samuel Barnard’s home after the supposed suicide. He had come back with nothing, stating the house was thoroughly checked and was clean of anything incriminating. At the time Trevor had dismissed a few snide remarks from the uniform branch that had been used in the initial search. He regretted that he hadn’t questioned them further in relation to comments like “
if that’s how the drug squad search suspect premises, no wonder there are never any arrests.”
At the time Trevor had dismissed the comment. He had no reason to doubt Markham’s efficiency or his integrity to the team.