Jake stood, roaring, and stormed out of the room.
“Follow him,” Trevor ordered two of his men. “Let him be, but intercede if he’s about to hurt himself or do something daft.”
They hurried out of the room after him.
Peyton dropped into the chair Jake vacated. “Tamsin is, what, twenty-two? And Ben died…” He looked to Trevor.
“About 40 years before Tamsin was born,” he said.
Peyton blew out a breath. “Carl was around six, I think Jake said, when Maya died. That’d be about thirty-five years ago, if I’m correct. You’re saying Faegan paid Dorland to fake Maya’s death and sell her to him as, what, a breeder?”
Ken grimly nodded. “Looks like it. Awfully convenient her body was burned beyond recognition, right?”
Trevor leaned against the desk. “Or Faegan sold her off to the lab. Or purchased her while working as an intermediary for the lab.”
“Maybe Faegan struck a deal with them for a baby or something,” Ken said. “At this point, no theory is too outlandish to be off the table. Only way to prove it for sure is an exhumation and DNA test, but I have a feeling Ray Dorland would fight that.”
“Which would be further proof you’re correct,” Trevor noted.
“I want his head,” Hamish darkly said from the other side of the room, and they all looked at him. “I mean it.” He jabbed a finger at a mounted deer head hanging there. “I want Faegan’s motherfucking head mounted right there, next to that deer. And Ray Dorland’s, too, if he’s guilty.”
“Interesting conversation pieces,” Peyton darkly snarked.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” Ken said, looking at them.
“I can’t,” Peyton wearily said. “Because I don’t think you are. It would also explain why Ray wanted Jake and Carl dead, so there was no chance of them learning the truth. And Carl couldn’t grow up to one day challenge him for Pack Alpha. Other people had to help Ray pull this off. Someone, somewhere, knows the truth besides Ray.”
Ken flinched when Jake roared outside, a dreadful, anguished howl that set Ken’s hair on end.
The men looked at each other. “Trevor,” Peyton said, “do you have anyone you can call in that part of the world—someone reliable—to ask them about Ray Dorland?”
He grimly nodded. “Back in a tick.” He left the room.
“Now what?” Ken asked Peyton.
He slowly shook his head. “I don’t know. This changes everything.”
“Not really,” Ken said. “It’s more evidence, circumstantial, yes, but very strong, that Faegan and Ray are in cahoots with the people responsible for the lab.”
“Let’s hear what Trevor finds out. Meanwhile, see if there’s anything else in that timeframe we can tie to all of this.”
“What about Jake?” Ken asked.
Peyton looked at the window, where Jake howled again. “I’ll go talk to him. You and Hamish keep looking.”
They were still searching twenty minutes later when Trevor returned, followed by Peyton and Jake, who’d obviously been crying. They were trailed by Trevor’s two men, who now looked very wary. Peyton helped Jake sit in one of the chairs.
“What did you find out?” Peyton asked Trevor.
“I talked with the cousin of one of my people in New Zealand,” he told them. “He said his sources tell him Ray Dorland is in deep with organized crime.”
“Bratva?” Peyton asked.
Trevor nodded. “Old ties there, as well as new ones with the latest generation of new-money tech oligarchs.”
“Shit. In what ways?”
“Real estate, drugs, smuggling, trafficking. You name it, and apparently, Ray Dorland has his paws in it.”
