“Aaron Harries.”
“It’s Dewi,” she started. “I need to talk to you.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
She growled. “I told you not to fucking call me that.”
“Sorry, boss.”
She took a breath. “Look, I want to talk more about what the guys who attacked Lowri’s family said about drugs and looking for ‘weird people.’”
Twenty minutes later, after the call ended, she stared at the admittedly scant notes she had taken.
The men who’d attacked the family were all killed, but it was uncertain if they’d told anyone else about the pot.
A moot issue, because the pot was no more, the family’s small grow house immediately dismantled upon Tully’s death.
And while the attackers had inadvertently learned the existence of shifters, they’d all been killed and had not been able to pass that information.
Except one of the men talked about a cousin with connections to a drug cartel looking to “buy weird people.”
Hmm.
She quickly scoured the local papers from that area for any reports of missing men, then looked through law enforcement databases.
From what she pieced together, she had possible identities for only two of the men, but little else.
Except for the renewed tingling at the base of her spine that told her this was a new problem.
She texted Duncan, who lightly rapped on the cabin door minutes later.
“Come on in, Da.”
He did. “What’s up?”
“I need to talk to you about the Lowri Thompson incident.”
He settled into a chair across from the couch and looked resigned. “I handled that situation the best I could, sweetheart.”
“I know. This isn’t about that. I mean, it is, but about something else. Did you learn any information from her brother Gareth about the identities of the men?”
He winced. “Unfortunately, at the time, I wasn’t at my best after visiting Aunt Tully with Aaron and Lowri. Gareth did say he didn’t know most of the men, and only had a first name for one of them. Since they all died without being able to reveal the existence of shifters, I didn’t follow up.”
She chewed on her thumbnail. “Any chance of us digging deeper into that? Aaron didn’t have any info, either. I think I found potential matches.”
“I’m not certain what opinion you want me to give you,” he said.
That confused her. “I don’t understand.”
He ran a fingernail across the denim of his jeans for a moment before answering. “Pack Alpha business.”
Dewi growled. “I hate that fucking phrase, and you know it. How am I expected to effectively do my literal job if information is siloed and inaccessible to me?”
He held up a staying hand. “Badger shared…things with me when we talked to Ken the night Badger took over as acting Pack Alpha. There are moving pieces that are rightfully not being shared with you because the most important thing is what we’re dealing with right now.”
“We need to resume investigating whatever’s left of the Segura cartel,” she said. “I know we mulched Manuel, but we don’t know what Carl and Mateo don’t know about that situation. We don’t know if Manuel had actual proof that’s now in the hands of his uncle”—she consulted her notes—“Abundio, right? Or Abundio’s daughter, Miranda.”
Duncan met her gaze. “There are already…inquiries underway. Subtle inquiries.”
