Page 77 of The Wolves Come at Night
“C’est impossible.”
“Non impossible, at all.” Jackson’s French pronunciation was surprisingly good. “I have your DNA. And I bet, as careful as you’ve been over the years, you’ve left a trace here and there. I put it in the system, who knows what might pop.” She put the gun into the waistband of her yoga pants, sat down, and crossed those impossibly long legs. “No one is a ghost. What’s the real connection between the girls? Tell me that, and I’ll know you’re serious.”
Angelie was struggling for self-control. Was Jackson bluffing? Did she truly have a usable DNA sample? Chances were it wouldn’t matter; even if something showed up, Thierry could make it go away. But the trouble that would cause—she might lose the château, and that was anonymity she was not willing to lose.
“I don’t know that there is any connection,” Angelie answered, honestly. “I genuinely believe it was bad timing for them. If you dig deep, you’ll see Carson was being tracked. It’s a favorite ploy of his. He likes to play with his prey. He followed her, probably for weeks, intending to take her, and when he found the perfect spot, was surprised by the singer and her boyfriend. He had to eliminate the threat.”
She watched Jackson think this through and pressed her advantage, leaning forward, dropping all pretense.
“I am not playing around here, Taylor. The daughter of a man I knew, a man I greatly respected, maybe even loved, is missing, through no fault of her own. I may not be an honorable woman in your eyes, but friendships are rare and treasured. Game killed my friend, and he’s going to kill the girl because he knows it will draw me out. He’s playing his end game, and I can’t let the child be hurt. She’s innocent, and I want to save her. That is all. I need your help. You know the world here. You have information. You are my shortcut. Time is running out for her, I can feel it. Game is a sadist. God knows what he’s done to her already.”
She got to her feet. Jackson tensed, but Angelie held up her hands.
“Men like this make our lives hell. We are grown women. We can handle a man like Game on our own. Carson is a child. She will be scarred for life because of this, but perhaps we can mitigate the depth of her horrors. But only if we move quickly, together, to find her. You are a very good investigator. I would appreciate your help. And Thierry wants us to work together. He feels we need a fresh start if we are both to work for him. Believe me, I will go it alone if I must. I’d rather have your help.”
Jackson was playing with the tips of her ponytail. A nervous twitch, a tell? Angelie didn’t know, but she thought she had her on the hook. Finally, Jackson said, “You’re supposedly retired.”
“Not supposedly. This isn’t a job. It’s a personal mission.”
“Then I’m sure you already know Carson’s phone pinged at a house today. A house that blew up. We don’t know if Carson was inside or not.”
“She wasn’t.”
“How can you be sure?”
“It is not his style. That was a diversion, at best. The man in the house was being investigated.”
“I wasn’t aware of that until after the fact. How were you?”
Angelie smiled. “If I knew it, so did Game. What better way to get you off his back than send you into a lion’s den, the home of an unstable man who is planning an attack on the city? Allow you to be a casualty of your own desire to do good. From what I can see, he nearly succeeded.”
Jackson touched her split lip self-consciously. “Then where has Game taken Carson?”
“That is what we must find out. I believe she is no longer in the United States. I have managed to get Game’s most recent telephone number, and am tracking it, but because of a…situation I was involved in, Game now knows I am in the US and hunting him. He will divest himself of all the items we can use to track him. But. There is a man I know who will have information. He has worked Game’s jobs in the past, handling money and papers. We must go to him, together, and he will tell us what he knows.”
“Call this person. Call him right now.”
“There is no phone in the world that he would answer. Believe me. He only works face to face.”
“But you know where he is?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me. Quit playing games.”
“It has to be my way, Taylor. My rules. This is my world you will be entering. I know the players. I know the landscape. You will have to trust me. This is what I do, and you need to learn how to maneuver safely in this space, for both our sakes. Thierry wants that. I… Well, I am interested to see how you operate. You add an air of…legitimacy to my project.”
Jackson yanked her hair out of its ponytail, wound it around her fist, and pulled the elastic over the ends, capturing the mass in a thick bun. A sign of frustration; Angelie recognized it from their last meeting. There was a bandage around her wrist. She had been hurt in the explosion. She must be both furious and terrified.
“How in the world can I trust you, Miss Delacroix?” the Valkyrie asked.
“Thierry trusts me. That should tell you all you need to know.”
“I saw you stick a knife into Thierry Florian, remember? You’re just as likely to kill me as help me.”
Angelie took a deep breath in through her nose. Her patience was fraying. “If you help me, I will give you information. No strings, as you say.”
Jackson recrossed her legs. “About what? What could you possibly have that a cop from Nashville needs?”
