“I don’t need to hear that right now,” Meiling replied very softly. “It’s going off like clockwork. We don’t fail, Gedeon, because we plan out every detail. She’ll stay alive and we’ll return her to her dad.”
She murmured something under her breath he couldn’t quite catch.
“Spit it out, Lotus.” Gedeon accelerated and deliberately passed her and several other cars, bringing him nearly side by side with their quarry. He didn’t look over but bobbed his head up and down to the beat of the music playing loudly. He wore dark sunglasses and a baseball cap backward on his head. When the car in front of him didn’t move over immediately, he revved his engine impatiently.
Meiling laughed. “You don’t miss much, Leopard Boy. I just said I wanted to kick her dad hard somewhere it might do him some good.”
He winced, having the feeling he knew exactly where she was thinking of aiming, and his Lotus Blossom knew how to kick.
“He deserves it,” she added.
“A wise man knows not to argue,” he intoned, and passed the moment the car in front of him pulled into the middle lane, almost directly in front of Georgi’s prettylittle Porsche. The driver gave Gedeon the finger, but he ignored it, rocking out to the music, his head banging up and down.
“When did you get wise?” she asked as the beat-up Honda glided up three cars to settle behind the Porsche.
“Suggesting kicks can straighten a man right up, Lotus,” he said, and let his truck slow just enough to annoy the hell out of Georgi. He wanted the man’s attention on him and his kick-ass truck, not the unremarkable little Honda sliding in and out of traffic, keeping right up with the Porsche.
As expected, Georgi pulled around the truck at the first opportunity and accelerated, wanting to put distance between him and the truck—or wanting to get to his destination faster. Gedeon wasn’t in the least surprised when he took the exit leading away from the city and toward Elijah Lospostos’s vast estate. The gently rolling hills were covered in trees placed close enough that their branches had grown strong but twisting together as they reached upward, forming an arboreal highway. Only a shifter would recognize it for what it was: essentially a road to use when one wanted to escape quickly.
The Honda pulled over in a small turnout under the shade of weeping trees someone had planted in the hopes of staving off the relentless sun on the side of the two-lane road. Gedeon pulled the truck in tight behind her so that not one part of his flashy vehicle was showing. He leapt from the truck into the Honda.
“Stay as far back as you can without losing him. Head for the knoll I told you about,” he instructed.
She glanced at him, her dark eyes soft. “Gedeon, we’re close, I can feel her.”
“I wish I was closer. If that note said to kill the child instead of providing proof of life, we’re fucked.”
Meiling drove with the same casual ease she did everything. He kept his gaze fixed on the Porsche, which wasseveral miles ahead of them. They were slightly above Chaban and could see his car weaving in and out around a few of the circular turns. Meiling didn’t push the speed, although she had to be feeling the same sense of anxiety as Gedeon was.
This was one of those cases that inevitably took him back to a childhood where he had no control. Where murderers decided the fate of children for whatever their reasons. It didn’t matter that he was called in at the last minute and he had only a couple of hours to find the victim; he always felt responsible if he didn’t get there in time. Finding a dead child was one of the worst failures imaginable to him.
She abruptly pulled the Honda over and both bailed. They’d chosen this spot ahead of time because it gave them the best view of the small house Georgi Chaban leased on Lospostos land. Chaban’s parents had the home a mile from his, also leased from Lospostos, but they’d held that lease for years.
Chaban pulled his Porsche into the garage and was instantly swallowed, out of their sight. The moment he was in the garage, Gedeon and Meiling swept their entire surroundings for signs of guards or anyone else who might be watching over Georgi. Both had extrasensory gifts they had learned to rely on, and when neither could spot anyone and radar hadn’t gone off, they crouched low and ran toward the leased property.
Chaban’s land was very neat and set back from one of the well-maintained roads on the property. Everything on the Lospostos estate was very well kept, although it could appear wild to an outsider. The trees were sculpted for leopards, the branches thick and twisted to bend toward one another throughout the massive estate.
Chaban’s leased property was a distance from the main house, where Elijah and his family resided. Many of the Lospostos workers were considered family and had leased portions of the land for their own families. The land aroundthe houses was maintained by the families, but all roads and the surrounding property were kept up by Lospostos.
Meiling and Gedeon utilized the shrubbery and foliage from the trees to help hide their approach to Chaban’s home. They kept away from the main road. It wouldn’t do to have someone passing by unexpectedly spot them. Anyone on the Lospostos property was most likely a shifter, with a shifter’s enhanced sense of smell. Meiling and Gedeon were using a special scent blocker to prevent shifters from discovering them as they made their approach.
The sound of a weeping child caught at Gedeon’s heart. He hadn’t recognized he had a heart until Meiling came along. She’d softened him in ways he wasn’t certain were all that good. He had been numb before—closed off. Being around Meiling had changed him in unexpected ways. The more he was with her, the more he obsessed over her—and the more he found himself caring about how some of their cases could affect her. She had a much more tender heart than he did. He couldn’t imagine what the sound of that crying child was doing to her.
He signaled to Meiling to move around to the other side of the house. As they did, the sound of the child’s crying became louder.
“I want my daddy,” she said clearly.
The window was open, and blinds fluttered with the breeze. The blinds were wooden and had been pulled open, so when Gedeon peered into the room, he could see Chaban holding a camera out in front of a very small female child. The little girl flung herself onto an unmade bed facedown so that only a tangle of dark hair showed against the white sheet.
Chaban swore at the child. “Stop being a little monster. If you want to eat, you’d better cooperate. Your father wants to see a picture of you.”
The child kicked her feet and any reply she made wasmuffled by the pillow and sheets she had buried her face into.
Chaban stalked across the room and dragged Lilith’s head up by her hair, making her wail louder. He snapped several pictures of her and then dropped her head back onto the pillow.
“You dad doesn’t want you back. That’s why you’re still here,” he said cruelly. “You’re never going home. No one wants you because you’re an entitled little brat.”
Chaban stalked out and kicked the door closed behind him. The sound was loud, but more important, he had kicked the thick wooden door so hard, when it hit the frame, it shook the entire house. The child jerked in fear and pressed her hands over her ears, sobbing louder.
