“Thanks for your quick response,” she replies. “We actually had coyotes at our back right about the time you turned up those lights. Well-timed, I must say.”
“Coyotes are bold little fuckers around these parts,” he says, “but they don’t like people, unless they decide to eat you.” He doesn’t laugh but he does move quickly to what’s on all of our minds right now. “I hope like hell you’re wrong about Jake being dead.”
“She’s not,” I say, interjecting myself into the conversation. “Whoever did this shot him while he was on the phone with me, trying to warn me that they were coming for me and Agent Banks next.”
Ana makes a quick introduction, covering my ass and her own with, “This is Luke Remington, consulting on the case for Walker Security, but this is personal to us both, Chief. Luke has connections to my stepfather at The Ranch training facility in Denver.”
“Your stepfather is Kurt Banks?” he asks, making it clear that he knew Jake well enough to know exactly who and what we’re talking about.
“Was,” Ana replies tightly. “He’s been gone for years now.” She doesn’t give him time to comment, adding, “We’re going to need to be the first to walk the scene for a multitude of reasons, including the safety of your men.”
“We’re a small force here,” he says. “Unlike some of the big city folks, we don’t mind assisting the FBI and backing you up.”
“Chief!” someone calls out. “The dogs have something at the house!”
“I didn’t know the dogs had gone in,” Ana responds and she doesn’t sound pleased. “I need you to tell everyone who isn’t controlling a dog to stand down, Chief.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the Chief replies. “We’ll get you in and out of there safely.”
I’m not a take orders kind of guy, but she’s sexy as hell bossing everyone else around. It reminds me of why I fell in love with her. She held her own with me from the first moment I met her in that corner store. I didn’t just want to fuck her. I wanted to own her. Instead, she owned me. And it was almost the death of me, quite literally.
“Shine the lights left and right,” I say, and it’s not a suggestion. “We need to blind anyone who might want to pick us off.”
“Holy hell,” the Chief says. “You really think that’s going to happen?”
“No,” I say, “because you’re going to point those lights in their lines of sight.”
The chief nods and hurries away, shouting out random commands. The lights are turned on and a young man, maybe twenty, in jeans and a puffer jacket, offers us police raincoats with hoods. “I’m Allen. My dad, the chief, said the hoods will hide your identity. I’d offer you bullet proof vests, but I’m afraid we don’t have extra. Those lights should blind anyone who wants to fire, regardless of a jacket or a vest.”
“Thanks,” Ana says, accepting hers. “Can we get gloves for the crime scene?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll get those for you.” Allen hurries away.
Ana and I shrug into our new garments. “Thank God for this,” Ana says as we lift our hoods. “Because I didn’t feel the cold when our adrenaline was pumping but now that we stopped, I do.”
“I think we’re about to get a whole lot colder and not from the weather,” I say. “Because we both know what those dogs found.”
“Jake’s dead,” she supplies, “and if his killers have their way, we’ll be next, if they get lucky.”
“As Kurt would say, skills are mastered. Luck is not. We’ll live. The asshole who killed Jake will not. I’m going to kill him, and just to be clear, I don’t give two fucks about your badge or what you think of me after.”
Chapter Nineteen
LUCIFER
Ana stares at me, the air snapping between us. I don’t know what she sees when she looks at me anymore. Man? Monster? Lucifer? I don’t care anymore, either. I am who I am, and that isn’t anyone either of us recognizes as me, and she doesn’t even know how deep that change runs.
“I don’t know how you expect me to react to that,” she says.
“I don’t care how you react, Ana. Agent Banks. I am who I am. I’m not apologizing. I’m not asking you for permission. I’m telling you what I’m going to do. That means I find the bastard I talked to on the phone, kill him and his men, and do so painfully. If you want to try to arrest me for it, fuck it. Let’s do this.”
Allen appears and offers us gloves. “You’re clear to go in.”
We accept the gloves and he hurries away.
I shove the gloves in my pocket. “As I said, let’s do this.” I start walking. Ana falls in beside me.
“I loved Jake,” she says. “He was like a father to me. I’m just as invested in doing right by him as you are.”