Absolution: The Hunter Mercenary Series (Book Two) Read online

  Them…not so much.

  Sarah fit in fine in N’awlins.

  This had become her town.

  * * * H U N T E R * * *

  Washington DC

  Airport

  They had just landed, and there was a beep on Elizabeth’s tablet alerting her.

  “Well, that can’t be good,” Ethan said, zipping up his pants. His wife had just been making the skies that much friendlier, and now it was time to play deputy director.

  Yeah, she agreed.

  “Trust me, it’s not,” she said, pulling on her shirt. “Someone ran the house in New Orleans.”

  “What?” he asked. “What house?”

  “Our house. The Hunter house.”

  Uh oh.

  “I had the FBI put a block on the house. Someone has been picking at it electronically,” she stated. “I didn’t want it being traced back to us, or to Dakota and his team.”

  Well, that made sense.

  Ethan wasn’t shocked about that.

  At all.

  “Uh, that can’t be good. Can it be traced?” he asked.

  Elizabeth pulled out her phone and made a call to the cyber department.

  “I need to know who is searching the deed on four twenty-five Chartres Street in New Orleans. I authorized a block on anything tied to it.”

  She waited.

  “Director, it came out of the New Orleans Police Department.”

  Oh, that wasn’t good. Was someone onto the Hunters? Did they need to move them?

  “Shit,” she muttered.

  This was not good.

  “Who accessed it?” she asked. Maybe she could call and get some intel, or she could have Ethan pull a ‘CLASSIFIED’ moment to save Dakota’s ass.

  “Ma’am, it’s logged as a detective by the name of Boone Savage.”

  She started laughing.

  Oh, this was going to be easy-peasy. She could handle this one on her own. There was no need to pull the hubby card. She was good to go.

  “Thanks,” she said, hanging up.

  Ethan was watching her like she was insane.

  “Uh, why is this funny?” Ethan asked, wiping a smudge of red lipstick off her cheek.

  “We know the cop.”

  “Who?”

  “Boone Savage.”

  “Merry’s husband?”

  “UH HUH.”

  He laughed.

  “Well, this worked in our favor. Now I don’t have to concoct some lie to cover our asses.”

  Yeah, this time, it did.

  They were in the clear.

  “It looks like I have to make a little video call to a certain detective and his wife. It seems they’ve stumbled onto something they want no part of,” she stated.

  “We’ll be at the office in ten.”

  Yeah, and then she’d warn off a detective. He didn’t want any part of this mess.

  She knew she didn’t.

  * * * H U N T E R * * *

  Ravenscroft Manor

  Grace’s Home

  When they pulled up to the gate, they could spot the cop car a mile away. Fortunately for them, they’d ditched Elliot’s ride down the other block, and picked up Dakota.

  Had they not, this would have been…tricky.

  The cops were staking someone out, and Rogue didn’t doubt it was him. The police had been dogging him about Charlotte’s death for days.

  Now here they were, at the end of the block, and he knew what house they were sitting on. Apparently, someone was looking for him.

  “We have company.”

  “Let’s get these things in there, and dump Sarah too,” Dakota stated. “She’s a dead giveaway that we’re up to no good. A cop can smell weed within a mile. This?”

  “HEY!”

  “Sorry, Sarah, but you smell like garbage and dick. Your words, not mine,” Rogue stated. “Recall that?”

  “Yes, yes, I do.”

  He punched in the code to the gate, and they drove up the driveway. Outside the main house, they found his mother, a nanny, and the gardener. They were playing in the flowers.

  By playing, he meant doing a full remodel of his mother’s once lovely rose garden.

  “Uh, what happened?” Rogue asked. “Did someone hatchet all your roses?”

  The woman smiled.

  “Oh, look, Peony, Daddy is here!”

  The little girl headed his way.

  He scooped her up in his arms and she cuddled against him. It was sweet to watch.

  “I decided that Peony and I needed a garden full of flowers that matched her name, didn’t we, my sweet girl?”

  Peony smiled at her grandmother.

  Grace patted her son’s cheek.

  “Thank you for watching her,” he stated. “I have to handle one thing, and I’ll take her with me.”

  Grace smiled, and it came across as strength. She had to dig deep. Whenever Rogue was there, she had to pretend she was fine. If not, he’d lose his mind and cluck all over her like a mother hen.

  That was exhausting more than the chemo.

  She was tired of being cooped up while he bossed her around. When she had more energy, they were going to have a discussion on who was the parent, and who was the overbearing child.

  “I don’t mind, my love. She’s an angel. Our Peony picked all of the new peonies out.”

  “And that is why you’re tearing out the roses?” Dakota asked, giving the woman a kiss on the cheek in greeting.

  “Well, yes, because you have a Peony, not a rose, and one day, this house will be hers. By then, the peonies will be amazing. I want her to have something that may remind her of me.”

  “You’ll be here,” Rogue stated.

  Grace hoped, but she knew her son was in denial. She was battling cancer. She could die, and she knew it.

  “Oh, Sarah, my dear, how are you?” she asked, touching the scarf covering her thinning hair. “I was thinking of you this morning.”

  Sarah kept her distance.

  “Oh, Grace, I’m so glad. Before I touch you, I was manhandling some garbage.”

  Literally.

  “Can I use one of your showers?” she asked. “We had a job, and we got dirty. By ‘we’, I mean me.”

  “Uh, certainly dear. Do you smell like fried chicken?” she asked. “My senses are off thanks to the chemo.”

  “Cooked dick,” she said cheerily.

  Rogue stared at her in horror.

  “She’s kidding, right?” Grace asked, looping her arm through Dakota’s outstretched one. She appreciated his gentlemanly offer.

  “Sure she is, Mother,” Rogue said, pointing at the house.

  “Man! You both are bossy today,” Sarah said, carrying all of Peony’s things, and her go bag, toward the house.

  Oh, they were aware.

  “Can you spare some time?” Grace asked.

  “Well, we have to handle one thing first,” Rogue stated, as Dakota helped his mother to a bench in the annihilated garden.

  “Where are you going?” she asked as he handed Peony to the nanny he’d hired to help him. While Peony was with his mother all day, she couldn’t be the only one watching the child. She was weak, and he structured her day so she’d have frequent periods of rest.

  It was for her own good.

  Rogue couldn’t bear to lose her. So, he would make sure she wasn’t exhausted.

  “We have a police stakeout going on down the block. I want to see why they’re staring at your home.”

  “How exciting. May I go too?”

  “No, Mother. You may not ‘go too’,” he stated.

  Dakota laughed.

  “I’d love to see Grace sashay up to that car and scare them,” he offered. “I think she could take them,” he offered.

  The woman tugged him down and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t tell Sarah, but she’s a lucky woman.”

  He grinned.

  “It’ll be our secret, ma’am.”

  Rogue cleared his throat.

/>   “Okay, I get it. I hit on your girl, and you hit on my mother. Stop it. It’s all kinds of wrong.”

  Dakota smiled like the Cheshire Cat.

  “Well, she is a beautiful woman.”

  Grace winked at him.

  “Focus, boys. I can be imposing.”

  “No,” Rogue stated. “That is never going to happen in my life. I want the cops far away from my mother. I’ll lose my damn mind. The only other person I want further is HIM.”

  “You’re no fun,” Dakota stated when he pointed in his direction.

  “Yeah, I keep hearing that,” he admitted.

  “Want to adopt me, Grace? I’m a good boy, and I’ll let you intimidate cops.”

  “Of course!”

  “I’ll hurt you,” he warned Dakota. “Don’t make me take off my suit jacket.”

  “Oh, it’s all fun and games when you propose to my fiancée, but the second I threaten to poach your mother, it’s all kinds of wrong.”

  She laughed.

  Grace knew the man was getting flustered. Her son was too damn uptight. Someone needed to calm him the hell down—and soon. Fatherhood had made him more nervous.

  Speaking of children.

  “Come along, Peony. Grammy will give you something sweet.”

  They waited for the two women and little girl to go inside. Then they headed down the drive, out the gate, and toward the car. As soon as he approached it, he recognized the woman. For the last few days, she’d been trying to get his attention—by way of an interview, threats, and following him.

  Detective Harding was back.

  As they tapped on the windows, both went down.

  “What are you doing, Detective?” Rogue asked, leaning in the window by the woman.

  “I need to speak to you regarding the death of Charlotte Shaw.”

  He sighed.

  “I do believe I gave you my attorney’s card, and I requested that you speak directly through him. I’m choosing to remain silent on the case, so that’s whose house you need to sit outside as you stalk innocent people.”

  “I just need ten minutes…”

  Rogue cut her off.

  He stood up and made eye contact with Dakota.

  “Let’s go,” he stated. “I’m calling my attorney to send a cease and desist to their bosses. Now they’re outside my mother’s home, and she has NOTHING to do with this. I can see stalking me, but my cancer-stricken mother? The media will love this!”

  Rogue was pissed.

  As soon as they began walking away, both cops were out of their rides.

  “Mr. Ravenscroft, come on!” she shouted, knowing they were screwed if he did that. Her boss would shit himself if they were sued by Mr. Playboy.

  They both turned but kept walking backward toward the large, private gate.

  “Hey, do I know you?” Boone asked the second man, checking him out. He was pretty sure he looked familiar.

  But where?

  “Nope.”

  “Are you new in town?”

  “Nope.”

  Again, he wasn’t buying that at all. Boone was good with faces, and he was pretty damn sure he’d seen this man before in Washington.

  Why would he recognize him from there?

  Had he arrested him?

  Boone began searching his memories of the short time he’d lived in DC.

  “Mr. Ravenscroft, if you’d just do the damn interview, I could leave you alone,” Detective Harding stated.

  He ignored her.

  When she caught up to his side, she grabbed his arm to get him to stop. Instead, he spun, and she nearly fell off of the curb. Rogue caught her before she could slip.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, staring into her baby blue eyes. The second he touched her, there was that weird feeling creeping through his body.

  It was awareness.

  It was heat.

  It made him angry.

  “I’m good. Thank you. Please let me ask you a few questions.”

  He’d always been a sucker for a blonde. This one had been on his mind, and not all because she was pestering the shit out of him either.

  She was gorgeous.

  “Fine. Make it fast. I have plans, and they don’t involve making my mother worry. She’ll think I’m involved in some ridiculous crime with how you’re sitting outside her home!”

  Cordelia pulled out her phone to make notes.

  “Where were you on Christmas Eve?” she asked since that was the official TOD that Nikolas had come up with for Charlotte Shaw’s death.

  “I was having drinks with my family,” he stated. “We were in a bar of sorts.”

  “Purgatory?” she asked.

  If that surprised them, neither man showed any reaction to it, and that was the most critical part of her questioning. She wanted them to lie, to react, to…be guilty.

  “Yes.”

  “You realize that was owned by Charlotte Shaw, right?” Cordelia asked.

  “I do.”

  “So, the night she was murdered, you were in her bar? That’s not suspicious to you?”

  He thought about it.

  “Well, had she been there, maybe, but she was never there when I was, and that gives me…what do they call it?” he asked Dakota.

  “An airtight alibi.”

  “Yeah, that’s the wording my attorney used too. It was right before lawsuit, someone losing their job, and owning the whole NOPD.”

  They got it.

  They had to tread lightly.

  “What do you do for a living, Mr. Ravenscroft?” she asked, keeping it to questions that wouldn’t offend him.

  “Investments. I don’t have to work. I’m rich.”

  That rubbed her the wrong way.

  That attitude.

  It made her want to tear him to shreds based on principle only.

  “And a playboy. Yeah, I’ve heard the rumors. Some of us have to get up and go to work every day.”

  Yeah, he kept that veneer in place. He didn’t want this woman seeing that life wasn’t all about his money. He’d lost love, he grew up in a white man’s world, and his mother was dying. He couldn’t buy anything to change any of that.

  Oh, and Peony would grow up without a mother.

  Fuck her indignation.

  Life was brutal to everyone.

  “Yeah, I sleep around, I party hard, and I have it easy,” he said, emotionlessly. He felt Dakota’s hand on his lower back as the anger flooded in.

  It calmed him.

  If this woman only knew how much work his life was, trying to balance crime, helping Dakota, a sick mother who may not have much time, and now a child…

  “Well, that’s life. I was born a Ravenscroft. I didn’t ask to be born.”

  There were days he wished he never was.

  Cordy made notes.

  “What are you writing down?” he asked, as she continued scribbling a few things.

  “Oh, just impressions.”

  “Of?”

  “You.”

  “Care to share, or do I get to do the same for you?” he asked, a little pissed, a little curious, and a whole lot irritated that she was sexy.

  She turned her phone around.

  There was a list.

  Prickly.

  Agitated.

  Playboy.

  Guilty as sin.

  She smiled.

  “See?”

  Oh, he did.

  This detective had already tried him in the court of public opinion.

  “Does that pretty much nail it?” she asked, staring into his dark eyes. They were peculiar and a mix of silver, blue, and flecks of black. She’d never seen eyes like his before.

  They were sexy, and she hated that she’d noticed them—especially on him.

  “Pretty much, Detective Harding. You did miss polite. I am always polite. Now, if you’re done,” he stated. “I have things to do. My associate and I…”

  “And his name is?” she asked. “Oh, sorry. I’m not nearly as pol
ite. I’m a cop. We’re rude. You know…dead bodies do that to us.”

  “Yes, I can see that. As for my friend, that’s not your business. You’re questioning me, not him. Cops make me rude. Go figure.”

  Rogue motioned toward Dakota, and they began walking again.

  “Why did you kill Charlotte Shaw? Was it because you were once lovers?” she called out, loud enough that anyone in the freaking neighborhood could hear her.

  It was clear this woman didn’t get it.

  He stopped.

  “Don’t lose it,” Dakota whispered. “She’s baiting. It’s cop one-oh-one.”

  He was aware.

  “I didn’t kill Charlotte Shaw. I can, in fact, guarantee, that I haven’t had personal contact with her for almost three years. We broke up. We went our separate ways. There will be no cell calls, no secret meetings, and there certainly wasn’t me hurting her.”

  She watched him.

  “You realize when a woman is killed in a violent manner, it’s almost always someone who had a personal relationship with her.”

  Well, she’d nailed that one.

  Charlotte had a personal relationship with Chesky Jensen and being his business partner was likely what got her killed.

  Only, he couldn’t tell her that. Even though she was pissing him off, he didn’t want to paint a target on her back.

  She was pretty.

  She was sexy.

  Chesky would grab her and dump her into the sex ring. Look at Storm St. Clair.

  He inhaled and prayed for calm.

  Then, and only then, did he face her.

  Before he could lose it, Dakota took one for the team.

  “Did you find any evidence of him ever being at her home?” he asked.

  She hesitated.

  Yes, that one fact bugged her nonstop. Weeks of questioning, and her most logical suspect didn’t have any connection. HOW could that be?

  “Do you have any evidence that he was in her home?” Dakota asked again. “I mean hair, DNA, or anything like that?”

  She stared at him.

  They had NOTHING. DNA took weeks to months. They were going to have to wait.

  “What are you? A cop?” she asked, deflecting from what the man clearly knew.

  He smiled.

  “Nope.”

  “Who would have killed Charlotte?” she asked, keeping up the questioning. Who knew when she’d get another chance to ask? The man was slick.