Chapter Twelve
“She’s carrying? You two are a perfect match,” Dario muttered as they waited for her to get into the rental car.
He’d loved to watch her fly the plane, and she’d been kind enough to let him sit in the cockpit with her for some time as she did. Her attention was totally different when she worked. Intense at times. So intense it was like nothing else existed but that.
And they’d arrived. She’d suggested they do so an hour before he’d told Bob they were arriving. She was sneaky that way. Another trait he liked about her. She’d handled the rental car, insisting on keeping that low profile.
“She’s certainly not a female who needs to be babied or taken care of.” She was self-sufficient. His mother had said she had moxie and that was totally true. Independent enough to drive him crazy. But there was something amazing in the way she let him take care of her when it mattered most.
She had baggage. As did he. But she was a full-grown female who knew her mind and that was the sexiest thing ever.
She got in. “All right. The paperwork is fine. Let’s go.”
It was Dario who drove them to the first stop, Bertram’s home.
“Park a few blocks away. Let’s take the alley. I don’t want to be seen just yet.”
She approached with him, pausing to peek into the trashcans. Which were full. “Karl, I want you on this. Bring this into the garage or the backyard and look through the bags.”
“I can’t believe they haven’t done this by now,” Mia said quietly.
“They’re having to start from scratch. This is a small jamboree. I think it’s more a matter of just not having the training to run an investigation rather than incompetence or collusion with Bertram.”
She snorted but held her tongue.
They looked around the backyard and then let themselves into the house. The nearest neighbor was on the other side of a very large hedge and fence, and the houses were on big lots so he was hopeful they hadn’t been noticed.
“I’ll take these rooms. Dario, you take the second floor. Mia, the basement.”
She nodded and he wanted very much to tell her to be careful. But he didn’t because he didn’t say it to Dario and he knew she would be anyway.
He wasn’t more than five minutes into searching the kitchen when she came back up the stairs. “Found a hidey-hole.”
He called Dario and they headed downstairs. There was a washer and dryer at one end and a pool table at the other. And a panel she must have removed just behind the washer.
“There was a lockbox in it.” She indicated the large box on the pool table. He popped the lock and opened it up to find pictures, birth certificates, property deeds and other types of paperwork.
Most of it was for Bertram and Sharon Cole. But the pictures were another story.
“It’s him.” Gibson held a picture of his uncle with his grandfather and had to swallow back the lump in his throat.
Dario took the property deeds. “This is for the house we’re in now. But there are others. They might offer some clues as to his current whereabouts.”
“Call it in to Galen so he can look into it.”
Dario moved to do exactly that.
“No passports.” Mia spoke up. “And the birth certificates are photocopies. It’s easier to carry off a fake with a photocopy. That’s probably how they got the original documents with the new names.”
“Why assume they had passports?”
“They had a hidey-hole. They have all these other documents. I bet they had a lot of cash stashed around too. It costs a lot of money to run.”
“He didn’t run though. He’s orchestrating this entire thing.”
“While he’s on the run. Not to South America, I never thought that story was true. But he’s away from home. He can’t use his bank accounts. They ran before too. He’s got to have been prepared enough to have passports just in case. I would have. You would have too.”
Gibson nodded. He did indeed have stashes of cash here and there should he ever have to run.
“Let’s see how many other hidey-holes we can find.”
* * *
In the end there had been three more hidden stashes around the property. Mia had a great eye. And apparently a penchant for great hiding places.
As they’d had all the assorted things spread out on the bed of their hotel room, he’d turned to her. “How did you find them all?”
“I was a teenage girl. I had a hidey-hole of my own. I’m sure my parents didn’t care about my diary, but I have two brothers and they would have. So I learned to hide things. And I got some training for it.”
“As a teenage girl?”
She laughed. “No, silly. How to spot someone who might be strapped with a suicide bomb. Or how to notice when cars looked a little different, or the road. Lots of IEDs killed our soldiers, you know. Anyway, it wasn’t what I did personally, thank God. But I thought the training would be useful and so I took it. I learned a lot, but I never imagined I’d need it back here.”
“Whatever the reason, I’m glad for it.”
She looked at him, reaching out to touch his face. He leaned into her palm, settling a little at the simple gesture. “I’m glad too. It’s hard for you.” She kissed him softly. Dario was off in his room working with the others on all the data they’d found that day so it was just them and he could be soft.
She gave him that. That solace.
“I wish it wasn’t this way. But you didn’t make it so. They started it, but you have to end it. And I’m sorry. But I have confidence in you. The Bringer is the heart of the jamboree. Sometimes justice comes with blood.”
He swallowed back words he didn’t know how to say. They’d declared war when they came into de La Vega territory. There was no way around it. And no way around how he had to respond.
With that spooky second sense she had, she seemed to understand he needed to back off and process the emotions that’d been stirred that day. “Take a shower. I’ll keep looking through this. You’re supposed to be meeting Bob in forty-five minutes.”
She turned back to the bed, sifting through the papers and making notes.
“You should join me.”
She rolled her eyes. “We’d be really late if that happened.”
“Sure, but it’d be worth it,” he tossed over a shoulder as he went into the bathroom.
He had incontrovertible evidence that Bertram Cole was really his cousin Alberto. He sighed as he soaped up. He hadn’t wanted it to be so. He’d wanted it to be about something other than this. Anything other than this, damn it. He hated that his father would hurt anew over it. Max was on his way over to their parents’ home right then to tell him face-to-face. He felt for Max, who also wanted to avoid hurting Cesar.
They’d met with a few neighbors and went to the school Tito’s kids had attended. They’d disappeared the day before their father had sent all those cats into de La Vega territory.
What a fucking mess this whole thing was.
Yet, what a boon Mia’d been on the trip. He’d thought he’d ceased to be amazed at how good she was at things, but that day had shown him she was even better than he’d thought. Her military training had been a blessing. He wasn’t sure he’d have found everything without her eye.
And he liked having her at his side. Liked knowing that she understood how upsetting it was for him. Liked that she pushed on, knowing it had to be done. It was entirely new for him, letting himself depend on another in such a way. Sure he was fine with the investigation and the work of a Bringer. But she knew him on a different level and that was comforting in a way he wasn’t quite sure he understood fully.
* * *
“So, for fifteen years Alberto built a base of power here. He bided his time and gathered resources. This was not a momentary explosion of anger. This was premeditated. With their foray into de La Vega territory without permission they flirted with war, but when they shot me they declared it.”
But not openly and honestly. No, everything his cousin had done was cowardly. And cowards were far worse than other kinds of threats because cowards had no core values. They had no honor. One couldn’t palaver with a coward because you couldn’t trust their word or deed. And if you had no options to avoid war, you had to fight and you had to win.
And he could see Bob understood that clearly.
“Whatever you need from us, you have. We take responsibility for what Bertram, um, Alberto and our other cats have done. But we ask for your mercy.”
He’d checked in with Max before they’d arrived, and his brother didn’t want to punish Smithville for what their cousin and his men had done. If they found no one in the current leadership or general membership was involved. They were a very small jamboree. Less than ten remaining members after Alberto had left. Each member was being investigated by de La Vega and if a single shred of evidence was raised, the tenuous deal they made now would be null and de La Vega would extract their price.
“My Alpha has decreed that should no one left here be in league with or having aided our cousin, you will be spared. But if we find out different, Bob, you know the price.”
The other Alpha nodded. “I do. Thank you.”
* * *
They finished their dinner, having questioned Bob and his inner circle, and went back to the hotel.
“I don’t think he’s here in Tennessee,” Gibson said in the dark as he and Mia lay naked, limbs entwined.
“I don’t think so either.”
“Tell me why.”
He’d taken to doing that. He asked her opinion, but wanted to know how she came up with it. Gibson understood the world in ways most didn’t. He liked to know the why of things, not just the facts. It made him even better at his job and it flattered her that he cared to know.
“Jamborees are like the military. When they’re run well anyway. There’s a clear chain of command. Rules of conduct. Certain people do certain things. These cats who attacked you are true believers, but I don’t know that any we’ve seen so far have been strong enough to continue to run this operation without a leader. And not over the phone.” Cats didn’t work that way anyway. The power of an Alpha was far stronger in person. “He’s in Boston or nearby.”
“This is personal for Alberto. He wants to see the carnage firsthand. It won’t be enough to get a report.”
She agreed.
“We need to declare a hunt.”
She stilled as his fingertips continued to brush up and down her forearm. She’d only heard of such things as stories. “I never... I guess I thought those were old wives’ tales.”
“My brothers and I have done it twice.”
He didn’t elaborate, but she was sure they’d succeeded.
“What can I do?”
“This is not yours. The hunt will be me, Galen and Max. I have a feeling my father will join in as well.”
“All right. What can I do other than the hunt?”
“You’re doing it. But you have a job. You have to fly people around and truth be told, I like that you’ll be out of harm’s way as much as possible.”
Possible. Bah. If he needed her—and she’d decide that for herself—she’d be there, job or no. And she’d misjudged Grace Warden greatly if the other woman wouldn’t see it as far more important to be at Gibson’s side in a time of need instead of flying here or there. She’d heard stories about how Grace helped Cade in a challenge when he’d been dosed with a biological agent that would have killed him had she not come up with an antivirus that had saved his life.
“Hm.”
He sighed. “You’re going to do whatever you want. But you can’t come on the hunt. It’s not for... I don’t want you to see it.”
“Is it bad? Do you think I’d judge you?”
“No, it’s not that. I don’t think you would. I think you understand why this is necessary. But in a hunt the beast runs riot, even when it wears the man’s skin.” He recited the lines from an old story and it gave her a shiver.
“I need to not be worried about anything but the hunt. I need you away from it and safe so I can give over to it. Do you understand?”
She turned to face him. “Yes. I do. But I’m here when you come back.”
He hugged her to him. “I know. Thank you.”