Page 105 of What a Wolf Wants

“Hell, finally. Renault was dirty. Damn.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ll let you know more once I’ve done the interrogations.”

“I’ll be waiting to hear the news.”

Then Grainger and Ethan ended the call and Ethan hugged and kissed Charlene while Mrs. Osburn went inside her house with Noah to get all the information for them.

When they came back out, Noah said, “Renault’s car needs to be towed and investigated.”

“Yeah, I need you to drive us home and drop Charlene off. Then you and I can go in and question everyone,” Ethan said.

“What about me?” Mrs. Osburn asked.

“You’ll come with us. You can fill us in on anything we’ve missed,” Ethan said.

***

When Ethan spoke to Renault, he still couldn’t believe his partner, though he hadn’t been one for all that long, had worked with notorious drug dealers. “Did you work with Agents Ryerson and Cohen with Kroner and Clara Snyder?”

“Hell, they were on the take. Not me. I can’t believe you still think I’m involved,” Renault said.

“Why would you be? Money? That’s all? You wanted me to follow you to protect you from Thor. You knew I would offer, but you figured Thor would take me out. You thought I was retired and probably didn’t have a gun or badge on me. I know it was a shock to you when you learned I was still on the force and Thor was taken into custody.”

Renault didn’t say anything.

“The only reason you sent roses to Charlene was to learn where I was. It was the only way you could set me up so that Thor could take me down. You would have been in the clear but would have done what Kroner wanted you to do. You knew Kroner would be at the warehouse, and I suspect you thought that was going to go down a lot differently than it did. Thanks to Noah, he learned you had lied about Ferret telling you that Kroner was at the warehouse.”

“As if you can believe everything a snitch says,” Renault said.

“You had no access to him. You didn’t realize he was in protective custody. You’ve wanted to be with me every step of the way to put me in Kroner’s or one of his henchmen’s line of sight. Except for the one time when Agent Cohen came for me at the house. But you couldn’t kill me yourself because you were afraid you would be found out.”

“All speculation on your part,” Renault said.

Then Ethan played some of the security tapes that Mrs. Osburn had taken. They were damn good and perfect to use in convicting every one of the guys and the head honcho they had in custody.

Renault was frowning at the laptop showing him talking to Kroner about setting up Ethan so he could be taken down.

Tori called Ethan then and said, “You wanted me to check into Renault’s finances, and my preliminary investigation of his accounts showed nothing out of the ordinary. But then I found where he had paid off his home, moved his kids to a private school, and bought a new Porsche, though he has it hidden in his garage.”

“Money, greed. Thanks, Tori.” Ethan looked at Renault. “So now we know it was all for money.”

“You were supposed to be retired.”

Ethan smiled. “So you thought if I had been retired, I wouldn’t have seen you coming? We’ve got enough on you to put you away for a good long time.”

Ethan told the officer to lock Renault up. Both Clara and Kroner wouldn’t talk until their lawyers were present, though Kroner was going to be in the hospital for a while longer.

When they were done, Ethan told Mrs. Osburn, “How would you like to come to our house for dinner and have a nice grilled steak?”

She smiled. “I would love that.”

“You, Noah?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Ethan called Charlene. “Hey, honey, we’re coming homeand I’m grilling steaks for us. Mrs. Osburn is our guest of honor, and Noah is coming so we can celebrate.” Forget celebrating with Renault.

“I’ll be ready.”