David was silent a beat. Having been around a pack alpha who would have pulled heads off shoulders if anyone had dared ordered him to do something, I was surprised by David’s response. “Yeah, will do. Security has already tightened since Hazel went missing.”
“Lucinda?” Her name on my lips was barely above a whisper.
“We sent her with Debbie and her mate, Jason, to a pack a few towns over. Lucinda loves Debbie, so she’s okay. We thought it best to move her in case it was Blackheath.”
I nodded my relief and let my shoulders drop. “Don’t tell her about Hazel, not yet.” I blew out a breath. “Can you keep her safe for me?”
“Yes.” The word was immediate and absolute.
“I’ll come for her.” I swallowed hard. “After.”
“I can do that,” David responded, and relief swept through me, threatening to pull me under with the new emotion.
“Thank you.” The words weren’t enough to express my gratitude, but they were all I could offer.
“If you need anything—”
Thatch answered for me. “Thank you. We’ll call. Please keep the information about Hazel quiet if you can. Be on high alert but not to the point of panic.”
“On it.” With that, the line went dead.
“You going to be okay?” Both of his hands were on the silent phone. He turned it around, fidgeting. I concentrated on the action, surprised. Little about Thatch suggested he would ever feel the need to fidget.
“Yeah.” I flicked my eyes to his face. “She’s safe.”
A smile lifted his mouth. “She’s safe,” he confirmed.
I nodded. “We need to find the bastards who did this and shut down whatever operation it is that they’re running.” Now that I could focus, knowing Lucinda was secure, determination thrummed through me. It forced its way past the heavy emotion weighing me down, instilling purpose where grief had tried to take residence. “Where do we start?”
The green in his eyes darkened, and I saw a similar determination settling in their depths. “We gather the team and go and tear out some throats.”
I quirked my brow at that, wondering if the bloodthirstiness was new. Rather than asking him, a wry grin curled my lips. “Sounds like a plan.”
CHAPTER FOUR
FOR FIVE DAYS we’d been staring at notes on paper and on the screen. While we’d managed to go into the field twice in that time, we were still no closer to locating Cartwright. Thatch had confirmed Cartwright was a key player, so our mission was directed to tracking the piece of crap down and, I hoped, having the opportunity to beat answers out of him.
“Have you heard from Jenson and Michaels?” It had been a few hours since we’d had an update. There were four operatives in total in the team, including Thatch. The low number surprised me. Jenson and Michaels were a human/shifter combo. They were tracking down a lead we’d found in the lab Thatch had extracted from Hazel’s memories. The lab was now closed for good. Another explosion had seen to that. Unfortunately, we hadn’t been the ones to detonate the bomb, again. But we had managed to pull a hard drive from the wreckage.
Kent was still working on decrypting some of the files. She was a vampire and a legit whizz on the computer. While she scowled a lot, she was all right, well, for a vamp. Her smart mouth did keep me entertained though.
“Nothing yet. They have thirty minutes before they need to check in. They’ll do so by the server, so we’ll get the update forwarded to us.” Thatch stood and stretched. The movement forced my eyes to travel the length of him. I spent far too long casting an appreciative glance at the exposed skin on his stomach.
Kent’s snort had me casting my eyes quickly away and in her direction. Her right brow was quirked high, and she shook her head at me. “Loser,” she mouthed, and I flipped her the finger.
It was the fifth time today she’d caught me all but salivating over Thatch. In my defence, he was wearing a super tight black tee rather than one of the shirts I was getting used to seeing him in. And by “wearing,” I meant hot damn, that man knew how to wear a T-shirt. It hugged every single hard line and muscle and lifted just the right amount when he angled in certain ways.
Getting a hard-on for Thatch was ludicrous. It was the last complication I needed, and this was beyond not the right time. But still, my eyes gravitated towards him at least once an hour. I snorted at myself. Who was I kidding? More like ten times an hour.
“You almost done?” His question made me jump. Kent laughed this time, and I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to ignore her.
“Yeah. There are a couple of things I think are worth checking out.” I hit Save on the file, and watched the notification telling me it was safe in the encrypted server.
“Sounds good. We can chat over dinner.”
And how that sounded was not how I really wanted it to be.
Every moment of the past few days had gone at warp speed, despite the seemingly slow progress. One of the elements that still had my mind spinning, though, was how I’d somehow managed to still be staying at Thatch’s. In the room next to his. The one with the adjoining door, where I could hear every damn movement he made during the night, every creak of the bed.
It was messing with my mind and my libido.
Besides the intensity and urgency of the case, I did understand the need to be with Thatch. Every day so far, a new memory slipped into place. He talked through each one. While with each recollection a shard of pain punctured my chest, especially when the memory was personal, it quickly became clear how important it was to help decipher Hazel’s memories
