Meaning Hamish might have fancied her, but he hadn’t pinged on her with a mate bond. If he had, he would have marked her that night. At the very least, he wouldn’t have let her walk out of his hotel room without knowing exactly where she was going and walking her home. Especially if he realized he’d got her pregnant.
Badger sensed she was nearly worn out. He stopped recording with the camera and sat back, taking a few last notes on his tablet before tucking his equipment away.
“Thank ye, Corrine. It’s been a pleasure talkin’ with ye today. You won’t remember anything about this conversation later, just that an old friend from church came to chat with ye. That’s how ye know me. I stop by quite often to see ye. If ye ever see me again, ye’ll immediately recognize me from church, and as a frequent visitor.”
She opened her eyes and nodded, smiling. “It was so nice to see you again.”
He patted her on the arm and stood, leaning in to kiss the top of her head. “Nice to see you, too. Take care, Corrine.”
Badger was shaking by the time he returned to his car. It wasn’t much, and it was over seventy years ago, but it was a clue.
He’d done more with less in the past. And now?
Now he knew what Hamish looked like. Well, what he’d looked like seventy years ago. In shifter years, there was a good chance of there not being a drastic change in the man’s appearance.
Badger now also had alotmore trouble on his plate than he ever imagined. First things first, he needed to get these samples sent off to the lab for a rush job. He’d receive the rapid test results in under forty-eight hours while they performed detailed tests on the other samples. Then he could plug the results into the genealogy sites he used for comparison.
“All right, Hamish Lewis. Time for ye to come out of the shadows so we can see what kind of trouble ye been gettin’ into over all these years.”
CHAPTERTHIRTY-FOUR
PEYTON
Peyton endedthe call with Badger and fought the urge to heave his phone against the wall.
This is absolutelynotwhat I needed right now.
Especially not with Faegan Lewis still on the loose.
The longer that situation remained unresolved, the more certain Peyton grew that they were missing a vital piece of the puzzle.
Like that maybe someone with a lot of resources and connections was helping Faegan stay hidden.
And that person would have to be eliminated. If they could even identify and locate them.
It also bothered him that with all the information available at his fingertips, somehow this newest development had slipped under the radar.
That a corgi shifter—a brother of Faegan fucking Lewis—had crossed to the US and set up a new life here.
Meaning how many other active shifter lines were now spread across the country, unknown and unsupervised?
He groaned at the knock on his office door. “Come.”
It opened and Gillian walked in, looking grim and carrying her laptop.
And she closed the office door behind her.
“Do I want to know?” he asked.
She smirked as she rounded his desk to sit the laptop in front of him. He immediately stood and had her take his seat.
And fought the urge to run his hands all over her beautiful body, her growing baby bump—
“I have Peyton, Alvarez,” she said to the computer.
That focused Peyton, who now looked at the screen. On it, their secure video conferencing software, military-grade and encrypted. And one of their Enforcers, Alvarez, who was still in Mexico, was shown on the screen.
“Good morning, sir,” Alvarez said.
