Ben showed up at Devon’s office in the hospital bright and early Wednesday morning. It was later than he’d wanted the information. He could deal with that though.

Devon had contacted him the day before to arrange a meeting to go over the names and what roles each person had played during Carolline’s care.

These names would be his next wave of interviews in the case. The EMTs who’d been there already being marked off the list. They remembered the case. Remembered Devon’s presence, but weren’t clear on the surrounding circumstances. Their main objective had been getting the injured woman to the hospital and into the hands of the ER doctors. Once that had been accomplished, they moved on to their next call. Not another thought had been given to what happened before they’d arrived.

It helped that their background checks came back clean. No abnormal influx of money. No phone calls traced back to the newspaper. No phone calls to anyone connected with the case.

They had been cleared as far as Ben was concerned.

As he made his way down the hall that would take him to Devon’s office, he passed by a group of nurses. The group of women looked him up and down before moving along in hushed whispers. In their wake, Ben caught a whiff of a familiar tangy bitterness. It clung to the air like an old lover pushing him to remember what had been in the past.

Before he had a chance to figure it out, though, Devon stepped out of his office. “Good to see you, Ben,” he held out his hand. “Thanks for agreeing to meet me here.”

“It isn’t a problem.” They shook hands and went in behind closed doors. “I appreciate you helping me out with this.”

“I’m not sure I would have given you much choice but to accept my help soon. It’s been a couple of weeks, and I don’t feel like we’re any further than from where we started.”

Ben nodded in understanding. He knew it seemed that way, but he had more information than he was letting on. Going into the meeting he acknowledged, at least to himself, that he may need to clue the man in more than he had up to this point.

“Take a seat,” Devon said, motioning to one of the chairs in front of his desk. Devon took a seat behind it. He pushed a neatly written sheet of paper across the desk’s hard surface. “This is everyone that was involved in Carolline’s case in one way or another. As you can see, it isn’t very long. I personally went through the logs and talked to the staff to verify names. I also had security scourge through video of the floor to double check. That doesn’t mean they didn’t tell someone though.”

“That’s where I’ll come in. To make it easier on everyone, and to, hopefully, make them more comfortable, I’d like to conduct interviews here at the hospital. I don’t need a lot of space, but I would like to record everything just like down at the station.”

“That can be arranged. I’ll have my secretary set it up. If I remember correctly, we have an empty office or two up on Carolline’s floor. We can have one set up for you.”

Ben nodded. “I’ll have one of the deputies contact everyone and schedule them. I want to get this done by Friday, if possible.” Ben had a gut feeling that the newspaper article and the kidnaping were two separate occurrences, even though they were somehow related. The release of information to the paper was bold and out there. A look at this and showing it to the world. The kidnapping attempt may have happened in broad daylight, but the kids had been isolated. No one had been around, and the kidnappers weren’t advertising their act. The two things just didn’t click together.

“And what about the EMTs?” Devon asked, pulling Ben out of his reverie.

“Done and cleared to my satisfaction.”

“Okay. What about the man in custody? Any news on him and who he was working for? I’ve been wanting to sit down and get an update, but things have been…” he trailed off.

“Hectic,” Ben finished for him with a smirk on his face. Claiming your mate while juggling a family had to take up a lot of time. “Anyway,” he cleared his throat. “We haven’t been able to put a name to the face or find his partner. One of the deputies noticed a small mark, like a tattoo, behind his right ear, and I ended up putting in a call to a buddy back East. He’s head of the gang task force and, since none of us recognized the mark, I figured I would give him a shot. I’m waiting to hear back. Should be later today. He had to reach out as well to verify some information and gather background for me. What he’s told me so far was that he believes the pair are part of a rogue shifter gang that does jobs for hire. They don’t care if the client is human or shifter. And they don’t care if the target is human or shifter. As long as you pay, they’ll do what you want. There is no within reason.”

Devon grunted with displeasure. Ben hadn’t been too thrilled to learn that bit of information either. Though, he was not surprised.

Ben pushed up from his chair, forcing Devon to stand as well. “I’m going to head up and check on Carolline while I’m here. See how she’s doing.”

“Sounds good. I would go with you; but,” he glanced at the clock on the wall, “I’m due in the family practice clinic in a couple minutes. Check with Bertie next door, and she can tell you what rooms are empty on that floor. You’ll be able to check them out while you’re up there.”

“Will do.” Ben held out his hand. “Thank you for not butting into my investigation.”

Devon grinned and shook his hand back. “Thanks for keeping me in the loop.”