Joshua turned and looked at him impassively.
Drake waved a hand in his direction. “Sorry, Joshua. I keep forgetting you’re a Tregre. Your uncles then, are up to no good. There’s no question, and they’re looking at Evangeline’s bakery to add to their distribution. You can’t let them near that place.”
“That would happen over my dead body,” Fyodor snapped.
“I think that’s the point,” Timur said. “Kill you. Kill me. They very well could convince Evangeline to allow them to work for her. She’s a sucker for a sob story. She took in Ashe knowing we were both going to be angry with her.”
“She knows better than to do something like that again,” Fyodor assured.
“Lipin arrived to run the hit team,” Timur continued. “He gave orders that instead of killing Ashe, they were to take both women prisoners. We were to be taken, but not killed. Lazar has something special in mind for us. On the other hand, then Lipin takes a shot at me.” He was missing something important. His mind kept circling back to the fact that Lipin, for the first time, according to Gavyn, had disobeyed a direct order. Why?
“Lipin has to have recruited other leopards,” Mitya said. “Leopards are a valuable asset they can’t just afford to keep throwing at us. You’ve killed how many now?”
Timur nodded his agreement. “Not all the leopards waiting for us in our home were Amur. There were definitely some from other lairs.”
“Local?” Drake asked. “The Tregres have been in the swamp for years and know all the families. It was Charisse Mercier who developed the scent-blocker. Her mother originally was the one to extract opium and use the perfumes being sent out to distribute. Everyone was cleared.”
“Maybe they were,” Eli said. He was out of his chair now and perched instead on the arm. “But everything seems to lead back to this perfume maker and her factory.”
“Her brother, Armande, tried using a firearm against me back before I took over,” Drake said. “He’s leopard, and that’s a killing offense.”
“Great,” Timur said. “Who else might join Lazar’s cause, given enough money, because I’m betting his recruits are local. I’ve never met these men from your lair, Drake. I wouldn’t recognize their scent. We disposed of them before you arrived. So, who else?”
“There were two brothers in that lair, both friends with Armande Mercier. Robert Lenoux, along with Armande, came after me with a rifle. I sent Robert to Borneo, hoping it would make him a better man. He didn’t go and in fact, disappeared not so long ago. His younger brother, Dion, is convinced that someone killed him and hid the body. Robert was traced here, to San Antonio. Dion has been drinking a bit and he definitely can shoot. If he became convinced that Timur had anything to do with Robert’s disappearance, he would go after Timur and never hesitate.” Drake looked pointedly at Timur.
“You’re looking at the wrong man,” Timur said truthfully. He didn’t so much as glance at his brother.
“Does he work for this Charisse?” Eli asked. “Is there a connection?”
“Just about everyone in the lair has someone in their family working for Charisse. It’s a poor parish, without too much in the way of good solid work. Her company offers not only fair wages, but also benefits,” Drake admitted.
“So that answer would be yes,” Eli confirmed.
Drake nodded. “I believe the Tregres got Dion his job.”
Timur frowned. There were so many connections to the perfume factory and the opium. “Joshua, what do you actually know about your uncles?” He was Evangeline’s first cousin but had been raised in Borneo by his mother.
Joshua shrugged. “Not much. I do know they betrayed my father by telling my grandfather that he was running off with his wife and child. My grandfather killed my father. I also know, from my mother, that Evangeline’s mother didn’t die in childbirth or run off the way they tell the story.”
“What happened to her?”
Joshua shook his head. “I don’t know. My mother would never say. They were exchanging letters and a few weeks after Evangeline’s birth, the letters stopped. She just cautioned me to stay away from the family, and I always have. Any family with that many secrets has too many skeletons. Probably real ones.”
“I don’t like Evangeline having anything to do with them,” Fyodor said. “On the other hand, if she was my sister, I wouldn’t want her to have anything to do with us, so that makes me a hypocrite.”
“Or protective of your wife,” Jake said.
“I think Christophe is a good man,” Drake said. “From what I’ve seen of him and heard from my crew in Borneo, he pulled his weight and worked hard. But, and it’s a big but … I can’t say with certainty that he isn’t involved in this up to his neck.”