Chapter Twenty-Four
Ana
What was once bloody is now Tide fresh.
It’s always amazed me how easily blood and death can be forgotten, how easily it can become just a part of the day of a member of law enforcement. But as I pull my freshly washed clothes back on, I am not immune to the fact they were recently covered in Darius’s blood. Or to the fact that there were things going on around me that I missed.
“How good of an agent am I that I missed what was right beneath my nose?”
Luke laces his boots and stands up. “You were not around Kurt or Kasey on a daily basis, baby. Don’t do that to yourself.”
“I was with Darius often. There’s no excuse for me not figuring out he was dirty. Had I figured out there were problems, Jake might be alive. Kurt might be alive.”
Savage pokes his head in the door. “Boogie on down the stairs, you two. We need to dance party it on out of here.” He disappears.
Luke’s hands settle on my shoulders. “Had I not left, maybe I would have seen the trouble with Darius.”
“Don’t—”
“Do that to myself?” he challenges. “I won’t if you don’t. We need to focus on what we can change, not what we can’t.” He motions to the door. “Let’s go down.”
I nod and when he starts to turn, I catch his arm and say, “I am better with you than without you, Luke. Don’t get killed.”
His lips curve. “I’m Lucifer when I need to be, baby. Love me, you love him.” He winks and catches my hand, leading me toward the stairs.
A few minutes later, the whole lot of us—me, Luke, Savage, Adam, and Parker—stand around the island with coffee cups in hand, all of us running on next to no sleep but no one complaining.
“Nothing is as it seems,” Parker repeats, after hearing about the message Olivia left. “That helps how?”
“Jake was connected to Kurt,” Luke says. “This isn’t about Kasey. It’s about Kurt. That’s why Jake got the hell out of Dodge. Whatever got Kurt killed was too hot to handle.” He glances at me. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but—”
I jump to Kurt’s defense. “Kasey could have dragged him into the mix. I can deal with that a whole lot more than I can Kurt being dirty.”
“You don’t have to be dirty to find trouble,” Luke replies. “Look at all of us now.”
“We need a next move,” Adam says, glancing between me and Luke. “Kurt’s records are wiped out, Ana. Blake tells us this is normal for someone with his government connections. We can’t dig into his background. Too much time has passed to recover what’s been lost. Where does that leave us?”
I have this quick memory of me and Luke standing on the edge of a cliff in the Great Divide to dump his ashes, and it cuts me right to the soul. The idea of all things Kurt being gone, even his ashes, is brutal on every level. I shove aside the emotional thoughts that Kurt himself would scold me for, and focus on the matter of survival. Live, don’t die, Kurt used to say.
My mind is instantly swimming in the memory I’d had just before I fell asleep earlier. I turn to face Luke, tuning out the rest of the group. “Do you remember me telling you he came to see me the day he left for that mission?” I don’t wait for his reply. “I asked him why he was going on the mission. I thought he was retired. He said, really bad guys sometimes need to be dealt with by really bad guys like me. I told him that he wasn’t a really bad guy. He said, well, what you don’t know won’t hurt you, honey. He was talking about whatever Jake was talking about. He meant something, a clue he handed me just in case, but I have no clue what that means.”
“I told Blake we need to know who was on his final mission with him but don’t get your hopes up. Blake’s damn good and well connected, but so far, every road to Kurt is a dead-end.”
“And the only person who could have told us is dead. Every time I asked, Jake said it was top secret. He would never tell me.” A realization hits me. “The only person we know was connected to this for sure is Darius, and Darius was paranoid. He kept insurance, a way to blackmail those who might wish to control him. Somewhere, in one of his secret hiding places, there is something that will lead us to someone in charge, maybe even the man who had Jake killed. I have to go hunting.”
Luke tilts his head and lowers his chin. “What does that mean, Ana?”
“Me and Savage watched a couple of dudes work that place over top to bottom,” Adam interjects.
“Yep,” Savage agrees. “His house will get you nowhere. They were as thorough as I am eating this delicious sugary breakfast.” He shoves a mini powdered donut in his mouth and pretty much swallows it whole. He grins and rubs his hands together. “All gone. Nothing left untouched.”
“He wouldn’t leave his insurance anywhere expected,” I say. “I need to go to the office.” I glance at my watch. “It’s Sunday. I work in a small field office that’s closed, not the divisional operation. We don’t have to worry about staff coming in and out of the building.”
“No,” Luke says. “Not no, but hell no. They’re watching your office. They’ll use you for bait or kill you. I’m not letting that happen.”
“I can get in and get out and I have an amazing team to help me.”
“We weren’t so amazing when Darius got his head blown off.”
“Luke—”
“No, Ana.”
“We don’t have time to argue,” I say. “We need to go now. The offices might be closed.” I turn to the team. “I need backup, but if you don’t give it, I’m going anyway.”
Luke catches my arm and turns me to face him, his eyes a hot wash of anger, every line of his body tense. “We’re talking about Kurt. Let’s talk about Kurt.”