Page 41 of The Wolves Come at Night

Santiago stood at the kitchen door, a look of genuine concern etched on his face.

“I’m going to talk to someone sane about all this,” she snarled.

She sensed the mood changing in the room almost immediately.

“We can’t let you do that, Avery. You know that. You’ve been entrusted with a secret, and you have to keep it.”

“Or what? You’ll have me killed like you did my husband?”

“I didn’t kill Richard. I loved him like a brother. And of course I’m not going to kill you.” He’d stalked across the room while he spoke, and she had nowhere to go. He held out a hand. “But I can’t risk you drawing unwanted attention to this situation. We are handling it from within. I swear to you we are. Give me your phone.”

“No.”

Santiago sighed and snatched the phone from her hand so quickly he might as well have been a snake striking from hidden grass. She gasped and yanked back her hand, but she was unwounded. Untouched.

But now, also unable to communicate with the one person she thought might shed some light on what was happening around her.

The phone began to ring, but just as quickly, the battery was twisted out, the SIM card yanked from its tiny slot, and the phone crushed beneath Santiago’s heel.

“Don’t do that again,” he said, then marched from the room.

Twenty

Nashville

Taylor called Avery Conway’s number three times before she set the phone on the table and rang Lincoln.

“I don’t know what happened. She said she needed to talk, securely, and now she’s not answering.”

“Weird. You don’t think something happened to her?”

“I don’t know. I’ll keep trying, and if I can’t get through I’ll head over to her hotel. What’s your status? Everything okay?”

“As okay as it can be. We’re crawling through Carson’s email and social media, trying to pinpoint when that photograph was taken, but nothing’s popping. Someone else took it and posted it. Besides, it’s early days. Marcus will shout if we get anything. You know how this is. Legwork. It will take time. Without a sighting or any other physical clues… You might as well shut down for the evening.”

“All right. But don’t hesitate if you find anything. I doubt I’ll be asleep.”

“Roger that. See ya.”

She called Avery Conway’s cell again, to no avail. Prowled the kitchen, opening the fridge, the pantry, the fridge again, settling at last on a beer. She paced—into the living room, the bedroom, back out—worrying. She wasn’t used to letting others do the work. Leadership was for the birds.

Why had Avery Conway ghosted her?

She couldn’t just sit here. She’d never get to sleep worrying if the woman was okay.

Taylor grabbed her keys and drove the few blocks over to the Hermitage Hotel.

She badged the valet, who paled and backpedaled, waving her into a spot. He probably had an outstanding warrant, but she wasn’t worried about him now. She parked the Tahoe directly in front of the hotel’s portico in between a fiery red Ferrari and a gleaming black Audi Quattro, ran up the stairs into the lobby, then headed up to Conway’s suite.

She heard muffled cursing after she pounded her balled fist against the door. Moments later, the door opened to reveal an unshaven man with red-rimmed eyes wearing a white bathrobe. Surprising, to say the least.

“What?”

“I’m here to see Dr. Conway.”

“Wrong room.”

“I’m certain it’s not.” She lifted her jacket, her badge gleaming on her belt. The man yawned widely, not impressed.