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

  Did the playboy run a drug business?

  “What’s in that building?” he said, pointing at it. From the outside, it looked like an old building.

  His informant closed his mouth.

  “Spill it!”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Okay, I can arrest you, drag you inside, and tell them all you ratted them out,” Cordelia stated.

  “Come on!”

  “Spill it,” Boone stated, again. “You took the money. Just give us the dirt. If you don’t, I’m going to get out, pat you down, and when I find empty meth packets in your socks, you’re going in as a dealer.”

  Okay, he couldn’t do that, but the man didn’t know that, and he didn’t think he’d hold out for long.

  “You’d do me like that?”

  Boone laughed.

  “Yep. Spill it.”

  Cordelia let her partner work his magic. She’d been on the streets less time. He’d worked longer as a uniformed officer, and he, obviously, had a rapport.

  “That’s Purgatory.”

  “What?” Boone asked. “Come again?”

  The man rolled his eyes.

  “Cops are so fucking clueless. I said that’s Purgatory. That’s a bar. The down and dirty go there to get the skinny on jobs or info.”

  Uh, then why did the playboy head there?

  “Who owns it?” Boone asked, suspecting the man was going to tell him it was Ravenscroft’s joint.

  “No one now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That was Charlotte’s place until someone killed her in cold blood. The new owners haven’t bought it yet. Who knows what will happen then?”

  Interesting.

  The crooks in the city had a private playground that the cops had never heard of before. It looked like the bad guys were upping their game.

  Cordelia was curious as hell.

  “What’s her old man doing by going in there?” Cordelia asked, playing an odd.

  The man laughed.

  “He didn’t go in there for years. When she died, he started coming around again. Who knows what he’s doing in there? Maybe he’s looking to find someone.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Who?” Boone asked.

  The man grinned.

  “It’s to network.”

  Yeah, that said it all.

  They were suspicious as hell now, and Boone could see the feral grin on his partner’s face. This little tidbit had put her back on the trail of the playboy’s guilt.

  Here they went again.

  “Thanks for your help,” Boone stated. “Go.”

  The man scurried down the street without even looking back. He headed through the door as they watched him.

  Neither spoke for a few minutes.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?” Boone asked.

  “Come on! That’s a bar. It’s operating out of code. This is residential, and I don’t think they have a liquor license. We can kick in the door…”

  He stopped her right there.

  “You’re obsessed.”

  “With?” she asked. “Solving a case?”

  “That man. What do you think is going to happen when you go through that door if you don’t get shot?” he asked. “Those are the miscreants of the city. They don’t care about popping a cap in a pretty cop’s face, cher. This isn’t something we do. We call in a marshal’s unit if we have PROBABLE cause.”

  She stared at him.

  “You’re no fun.”

  He laughed.

  “Well, excuse me for wanting to live to see my kid grow up,” he stated. “If that makes me crazy, so be it.”

  “If we don’t go in there, how will we know if we have probable cause? Running with no liquor license isn’t going to keep anyone locked up. If Ravenscroft, and I say IF, is involved with Charlotte Shaw’s murder, busting in the door will make him aware that we suspect him.”

  She hated that he was right.

  “So, we aren’t going in there,” Boone stated.

  That did NOT make her happy.

  “I think we could…”

  He stopped her. Boone stared at his partner like she was a few bricks shy of a wall.

  “I’m the senior detective. That’s not happening. I’m putting my foot down so we BOTH go home tonight.”

  That was the end of it. She couldn’t argue that. He was the lead detective. Cordelia had to play the game, and he was right.

  She knew it too.

  “You’ve lived here your whole life, and you don’t know about that place?” she asked, hoping he’d heard something about it. The place couldn’t be new.

  Charlotte Shaw had to own it a while.

  “Uh, no. I only know what you know. I’ll run her IRS records.”

  He did.

  It didn’t take long.

  “Nothing. She has no work history.”

  That right there said it all. How did a person have a really decent apartment in the French Quarter without having a job?

  Well, a legal one.

  “There’s no record of that place even existing,” Boone stated. “I guess she wasn’t unemployed.”

  She laughed.

  Then he went serious.

  “Wait.”

  She stared at him.

  “What?”

  Boone stuck his head out the window and looked around like he was trying to get his bearings.

  “I’ve worked a crime scene here.”

  “Where?” she asked.

  “HERE. In front of that building. I’m sure of it. It had to be years ago when I was still walking the beat. I’m pretty sure it was right on those steps.”

  That didn’t sound like a coincidence.

  “I was at the tape.”

  Boone made a call.

  She listened the whole time.

  When he hung up, she was holding her breath.

  “That was a retired detective buddy of mine. There was a death there. The last time I was on this street as a beat cop, the owner turned up dead, too, and that was a few years ago. I’m going to guess before Charlotte Shaw.”

  Well.

  Well.

  Well.

  “And now she turns up dead too?” she asked. “Well, that was ominous for Charlotte from the start.”

  He didn’t disagree.

  “That’s why we really can’t stroll in there. We need to play this right, cher,” he warned his partner. “We’ll listen and move slowly. Something is up.”

  “Are you shitting me?” she asked.

  SLOWLY?

  He shook his head.

  “Now we need to know who the ladies were with him, who owns that house, and why a rich playboy is hanging out in a bottom feeder dive? We’ll start there.”

  Well, shit!

  That was going to take time.

  It didn’t make her happy.

  Then again, one thing did.

  It looked like Rogue Ravenscroft was going to be busy.

  With the cops.

  As soon as she could pin his ass down.

  Chapter Two

  Purgatory

  O nce inside the makeshift bar, the mood was still somber over Charlotte’s demise. The people who were hanging out inside the building were clearly still mourning the loss of Charlotte Shaw. Yes, they were drinking, but the normal celebrating wasn’t there. In fact, there was a picture of her on the wall, and Julius was slinging drinks while wearing all black.

  There was no smile on his face.

  As they walked in, he glanced over. It earned Sarah a little smile from him—likely the first in days.

  “Bunny!”

  Since that was the name she used when she came into the joint, Sarah went with it. She didn’t hesitate to leave Rogue’s side and head around the back of the bar to the man.

  Immediately, she hugged him.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said, knowing that Charlotte and Julius were close. Yes, she’d only met him twice, bu
t Julius was a decent person. His mourning was hard to watch.

  Oh, was he a criminal?

  Hell, yes.

  Was he the only one who could help them?

  Likely.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked, trying to do anything to soothe him.

  He wiped his eyes.

  “Bunny, my girl is gone. I took care of her for the last few years. She became mine. Family isn’t always blood. She was like my child.”

  Sarah imagined that had to be hard. No one deserved to be gunned down in cold blood, and she got the whole ‘family’ thing. She’d bonded with a bunch of killers.

  Go figure.

  “I can’t believe she’s gone.”

  Rogue took a seat and just listened to the interaction between Sarah and Julius. Part of his success in life was watching people and learning from how they interacted.

  His gift in life was reading a room. In business, he watched people, and with his secret pastime of stealing, he excelled with it too.

  “That first day I met her, I knew she was going to be trouble. She was fresh off of a BAD relationship, and she needed me.”

  He glared at Rogue.

  Yeah, he knew why.

  What Rogue didn’t get was it took two people to destroy a relationship, and Charlotte had been playing him from the start.

  Oh, and she had kept his daughter from him.

  “I can’t believe she’s gone. Even gone, she’s causing my heart trouble,” he stated, as Sarah poured them all a few drinks to help him relax.

  “I’m sorry, Julius.”

  “Me, too, ma petite. Me too. I wish I could rewind to that day and stop her from going out.”

  She patted his arm.

  “We all know you would, Julius.”

  It occurred to him that until the bar was sold, it was his job to do the listening—not the bellyaching. He was the bartender now, and he needed to carry on for Charlotte’s memory.

  And he would.

  “Now, what are you doing in here?” he asked, throwing back the drink she handed him. “I know you aren’t here to socialize. The city is ready to crack wide open. Talk to me.”

  She had to play this right.

  “I did come to check on you,” she said, not really knowing how to approach this. While Zayn and Dakota were planning tonight’s extraction of Storm St. Clair, they had to do their part, too, and that was to get any intel they could.

  “Oh, Bunny. Thank you for that. That means a lot to me. Family isn’t always blood,” he said, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

  “She was like family, huh?” Rogue asked, gearing up to go there with the man.

  Someone had to do it.

  Julius stared at him.

  “Yes, she was.”

  There was no love lost there.

  “I was her family,” the man behind the bar stated in no uncertain terms. “Do you have a problem with that?” he asked.

  “So, you knew about our daughter,” he said, resulting in Stella elbowing him.

  It must have been the tone of his voice, or the look on his face when he said it.

  She stared at him in warning.

  Apparently, even she knew that this was NOT the place to piss people off.

  “Yes, I knew. Then again, shouldn’t you have known?” he asked.

  Oh, that was a bone of contention with Rogue, and he wasn’t happy that the man was putting this on him.

  POOR.

  CHARLOTTE.

  Yeah, that wasn’t happening. There was no way Rogue was participating in the pity party for her. She’d done a million things wrong by him, and this was the icing on the shitty cake.

  You didn’t hijack a man’s child, and then expect it to be okay in the end.

  It never would be.

  EVER.

  “Maybe if she wasn’t a sneak and hid the fact that I had a child, I would have been there for her,” he stated.

  Julius moved so fast.

  The gun kissed Rogue’s forehead, and there was the click of the safety going off. Still, Rogue didn’t flinch.

  Sarah went into saving mode. There was no way she wanted to watch Rogue die. He was her family now, and she’d try to save him.

  “Julius,” she began.

  “Everyone out,” Julius stated, cutting her off.

  At his tone, the place emptied pretty damn fast.

  “Down on your knees,” he stated, moving around the bar to keep the man in position.

  “Don’t do this, Julius,” Sarah stated.

  This was bad.

  “You can’t come into her place and bad mouth her! She was like my child. You don’t know what her life was like before you,” he stated. “You didn’t make her life easier,” he said, his dark eyes burning with anger.

  Rogue kept his hands up.

  “She was abused. She was hurt. I nursed her back to health after you and giving you her child was damn difficult. You don’t deserve her!”

  Well, that explained who had kicked in his door and dumped Peony like she was nothing. That, to Rogue, didn’t make the man a hero.

  It made him a sneaky, slimy asshole, who was doing Charlotte’s bidding after she was dead.

  Fuck her.

  “Whatever,” Rogue stated. He was over all of this.

  “You don’t talk about her like she was nothing!”

  There was another click, and Rogue tracked the sound. Sarah had her gun out and on the back of Julius’s head.

  “You’d save this scumbag? He knocked Charlotte up, and his playboy issues made her a single mother.”

  There were two sides to every story, and honestly, Sarah bought Rogue’s version. Charlotte had to be into some dirty shit to have her throat blown out at that airstrip.

  “Put your gun down, Julius. You are in the wrong here. Give him a break. He had a child he didn’t know about dropped into his lap by you. Charlotte should have done right by him.”

  The man’s eyes filled with tears.

  Julius was hurting.

  “Oh, Bunny.”

  “He’s my family,” she stated. “Family sticks. You can’t blame him for any of this, Julius. I know you’re hurting, but he is too. Rogue’s life was turned upside down.”

  The man stared down at him.

  It was as if he was measuring something in his mind.

  Rogue didn’t have a beef with this man. You loved who you loved. Look at him. He was fond of Zayn, and that was the oddest shit he’d ever had happen to him.

  So, he offered the olive branch. This man was Charlotte’s family, and at least he’d followed through and got his child to him.

  For that, Rogue owed him.

  “It’s my fault she took this road,” he admitted. “Before me, she was better. I made her into this.”

  Julius actually began laughing.

  Only, Rogue didn’t get the joke.

  “Are you shitting me?” Julius asked.

  “What?”

  What was he missing?

  Julius put his gun away and returned to his place behind the bar without saying anything.

  Rogue was confused as hell.

  What was all of this?

  “She was right about you,” he said, staring at Sarah. “She liked you, and God knows she didn’t like many people in life. She said you had balls. I believe it,” he offered, ignoring what the other man had asked.

  “I liked her, too, but it was shitty to withhold his child from him. I’m not going to let you kick him when he’s down,” she stated as Rogue returned to his feet and stood beside her.

  “Who’s this one?” Julius asked. “I saw her in here with you on Christmas Eve, but we haven’t been introduced.”

  It appeared Julius was going to play nice.

  Stella shook his outstretched hand in greeting and smiled warmly.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Julius,” she stated, not sure what to call him. “We haven’t been formally introduced. I’m Marigold Yazzie,” she said, using one of the aliases tha
t Zayn always said to use.

  She wasn’t sure, but this seemed like an appropriate time to protect her identity. This man went from hot to cold pretty damn fast.

  That made her wary.

  “That’s a pretty name for a pretty girl,” Julius stated. “I’m glad to meet you.”

  Rogue couldn’t believe the man was ignoring the big pink elephant in the room. They had to deal with Charlotte’s death—one way or another.

  The whole thing rubbed him the wrong way.

  Rogue was edgy.

  It didn’t help that Julius had shut their discussion down—and fast.

  This was a mess.

  Charlotte was dead. He had a kid, and his father was running around New Orleans—visiting the house of a man who was tied to a sex trafficking ring.

  This was a clusterfuck in the making.

  “Why did she do it?” he asked. “Why did she keep my child from me?” Rogue asked. “Before you tell me to mind my business, you kicked my door in, you dropped Peony in my lap, and I am now a part of this. I deserve to know what Charlotte was thinking, and since you were her family, you have to deal with the fallout.”

  He thought about it.

  Then, Julius poured four shots of tequila and passed them out.

  It looked like they were drinking.

  Great.

  This was NOT what Rogue needed. What he really wanted was answers.

  TODAY.

  NOW.

  “She didn’t want her at first,” Julius said, referring to Peony. “She didn’t think she could do the mother thing, but she wanted to prove the world wrong.”

  They listened.

  The man was sharing, and they needed some answers. They might get lucky.

  They kicked back the shot and let Julius take his time with the tale he was sharing.

  “Charlotte was involved with some bad shit well before you rolled into her life.”

  That was news to him.

  Rogue stared at him, trying to figure out if the man was serious or bullshitting him.

  That seemed…off.

  Charlotte always came across some goodie-goodie, and he’d fallen for it. Clearly, that was a total farce.

  Look at how she died.

  Good girls didn’t get shot in the throat at airstrips when they were doing Christmas Eve meetups in secret. Rogue was pissed that Charlotte had even done what she did, but go there?

  Yeah, she owed it to Peony to clean her life up.