Page 80 of The Wolves Come at Night
Taylor stalked around the condo, running the past hour through her mind. It was fragmented, pulling apart. What had she just agreed to?
Finding Baldwin’s son. That’s what. Finding Carson. That’s what.
Redemption, in all its many forms.
Angelie Delacroix was right. Taylor was planning to chuck it all and join Macallan. She’d agreed to work with Thierry already. This was her test drive. And it wasn’t like she could do anything here, watching from the sidelines.
But she also wasn’t stupid. Haring off with an assassin without telling anyone what she was doing, regardless of the warning she’d received, without proper weaponry or a phone, was downright idiocy.
The first thing she did was make duplicate copies of the identification she’d been given. She also wrote up everything Angelie had told her, turning off her WiFi before quickly typing it all up on her laptop. She wrote Baldwin an extensive letter, explaining her rationale both with Macallan and agreeing to work with Angelie to find Carson—stopping just short of telling him the whole truth about his son. That was something she had to do in person. But if something happened to her… In a separate file, she documented the conversation about the boy, citing the doctor, Tamsin, in London, who worked for Doctors Without Borders and had supposedly taken him in. It was only right that Baldwin have some way to get the information if she couldn’t be the one to relay it directly.
She didn’t mention Angelie had managed to get into a secure building and past their layers of security without blinking an eye. That trick, she wanted to dive into with the assassin herself. Though she was pissed off about it, she wanted to see exactly how Angelie had managed to circumvent their precautions.
She filled envelopes with the papers, the identifications, the letters, and sealed them. She placed the letters about the child in her “SHTF” file in the gun safe—Shit Hits The Fan was their morbid reference to the personal files that would be opened in case something terrible ever happened to one of them. It contained wills, letters, bank account information, passwords and PINs, and now, a hint to help Baldwin find his son. The other letter she left under his pillow.
She downed a granola bar and a Diet Coke—gingerly, her lip was even more swollen than it had been, though thankfully her wrist wasn’t hurting as much. Packed three days’ worth of T-shirts and underwear, a spare pair of jeans, and a sweater, grabbed her black leather jacket, and shoved her feet into her favorite battered Lamas. Now that she’d made the decision, she moved with purpose, even alacrity. She was taking a chance, yes, but it was a calculated risk.
Justify it to yourself, why don’t you.
She sent Baldwin a text, telling him how much she loved him, that she might be hard to reach for a couple of days. Put an “MC” after, with a winking smiley face, knowing he’d get what she was trying to say.
It was well past dawn now, and she shut everything down, grabbed her bag, and took the elevator to the street.
She had a stop to make before she met Angelie’s car.
Forty-Two
Taylor felt like she owed it to her team to explain in person what was happening since she was pretty sure the rumor mill had spun off into the stratosphere.
She texted Lincoln, who grabbed Marcus and Renn and met her at Pinewood Social. They got a booth in the back, ordered breakfast, and sat back, waiting. They watched her, confused, upset. These men had been her life for so long that she didn’t know how she was going to leave them. Doubt spilled through her, but she just as quickly pushed it away.
She took a fortifying sip of tea and dove in. “I’m sure you’ve heard already, but I’ve resigned. I owe you an explanation.”
“You don’t have to explain anything, Taylor,” Lincoln said, reaching a big hand over to cover hers. “Yesterday was my fault. I’ve already told Huston that forcing you to turn in your badge and gun was a mistake, and—”
“Linc, hon, that’s not what happened. This was all me. And it’s not about what went down yesterday. That was simply the breaking point. I’ve been planning to resign for a while. I don’t like being in the brass, and I really don’t like taking orders from Huston. She’s changed, and we will never see eye to eye. I have another opportunity, but I haven’t accepted their offer just yet.” At this, she met eyes with Marcus. “The moment I do, you’ll be the first to know.” He nodded and looked at his lap, a small smile starting on his lips. She wasn’t forsaking him, and that made him happy.
“You’ll still be here in town, won’t you?” Renn asked. “We might have someone who’ll want to see you.”
“Of course, I will. You can take me out of Metro, but you can’t take me out of Nashville.” She laughed, surprised at how true this felt. She’d never thought about it before, but it was right. “This is my home, and it always will be. I might be traveling a bit more, but this is my base, no matter what.”
“Good. We’re going to miss you.”
Lincoln shook his head. “First Sam, now you. I wish things could have stayed the same, but I suppose that’s impossible.” His phone lit up with a text, and Taylor saw the image of Flynn on the phone’s screen. She gestured toward it. “No, Linc. Nothing stays the same.”
He smiled softly, and she marveled again at how having a child in his life had gentled him.
“That might be true, but we all adore you, and if you stop coming around for BBQs we’ll hunt you down and drag you back to the house. You hear?”
“I hear.”
“Good. You want an update on the nest case?”
She grabbed a piece of toast and nodded. “Hell, yeah. I admit, this wasn’t exactly the right time to bail, especially when we’ve got a possible serial. I’m sorry to leave y’all in a lurch.”
Marcus chimed in. “It’s all good, Taylor. We get it. So we have IDs on the women in the grave. All four are documented missing person cases. Renn has been reaching out to the families.”
“Hated like hell to do it,” Renn said, breaking a piece of bacon into crumbles. “You know how much I dislike doing notifications, but this, this is different. They’ve all been so grateful to have an answer at last.”
