Meiling looked up at Gedeon. His voice changed subtly. There was growl in his voice, an underlying threat she knew was very real. A shiver went down her spine. He had a real problem with any man hurting women. The moment he had real proof that Guy Hawkins gave the order to murder his lovers, the man was going to die. Gedeon would see to it.
She looked at Remy, a homicide detective. A shifter. A man who obviously could hear lies. If Hawkins turned up dead, the first person he would suspect of killing him would be Gedeon. How could she cover for Gedeon? She was going to have to find a way because Remy Boudreaux wouldn’t be easy to fool.
“Why do you believe Hawkins ordered his former lovers killed?” Remy prompted.
Meiling couldn’t just sit there. She and Gedeon had talked this over, coming to Drake and Remy and disclosing what they knew and suspected of Hawkins. At the time she thought it was a good idea. Now she wasn’t so certain.She sent Gedeon a sign to be very cautious how he worded what he disclosed to Remy.
“It was obvious from the beginning that something wasn’t right with Laverne’s disappearance,” Gedeon began. He appeared relaxed, but then, he always did. Meiling knew better. Gedeon was convinced Hawkins had ordered several women killed. “If she had a bipolar episode, forgetting to take her medicine, she would have just taken off, not planned carefully for months, siphoning off money and stashing clothes away from her house. Her bodyguard wouldn’t have been on board unless he felt her life was at risk. When Meiling and I investigated Hawkins’s past affairs over the years, we found six women who had disappeared. No one has seen or heard from them. The only common tie is their relationship with Hawkins.”
“Why haven’t the police questioned him?” Remy asked.
“I’m sure they have at some point, although most likely only briefly. He broke up with these women and it might have been six months later that they disappeared. Maybe less time, maybe more.”
“No bodies found?” Remy pursued.
“No,” Gedeon conceded. “Part of the reason I insisted on meeting you where we wouldn’t be seen is that from the moment we left Hawkins’s office we’ve been followed. Meiling circled back and got detailed photographs of the man watching us. His name is McGregor Handler.”
Both Drake and Remy reacted, Remy with a swift intake of breath and narrowing of his eyes and Drake with a shake of his head.
“He’s in New Orleans?” Drake asked.
Gedeon nodded. “Chasing Meiling and me all over. I wouldn’t be too surprised if he’s dragged some poor guide out of his dinner and is trying to figure out where we are.”
“Does he have a tracking device on either one of you?” Remy asked.
“He tried to drop one on Meiling,” Gedeon said, a slightgrin escaping at the memory. “Slid up next to her at the Café Du Monde and got in close. She never takes kindly to that sort of thing. When he tried to make the drop, she had already moved away from him and he nearly had his hand down some tourist’s pants.”
Remy laughed. “I’ll bet there was quite an uproar.”
“The woman was angry and quite loud in expressing her complaint. She called McGregor a pervert and told everyone he tried to grope her. He turned bright red and tried to say that he’d been pushed into her, but she wouldn’t stop yelling. The waiter tried to calm her down. McGregor escaped with his little tracking device. Meiling was already sitting on her bench by the river, so he didn’t have a clue she was aware of him.”
“The tourist is lucky he didn’t shove a knife into her,” Drake said. “Or that he didn’t follow her to wherever she was staying and do it later.”
“I should have checked on her afterward, but I was so worried about Laverne I didn’t think of it,” Gedeon admitted. “I was afraid we were too late and she was already dead. I thought McGregor was put in place to watch us just in case we were too close and found her body.”
“I didn’t hear of a woman murdered recently,” Remy assured. “Not like that.”
“I received a tip recently,” Gedeon continued, “which is why we’re here. I believe Edge Wilson is in San Antonio working on Jake Bannaconni’s ranch. It’s impossible to get near that ranch without a special invitation. I can go through the Amurovs, they’re friends with him, but that could take time as well. I need to talk to him. If I found him, McGregor can find him. If I’m right about all of this, it would be a death sentence for him.”
“You want me to call Jake and arrange a meeting with you and Edge on his ranch.”
“Yes. I want to make certain I’m right. I’d like to knowLaverne is safe. I want you to ask Wilson to talk to us. And I’d like that meeting to happen on the Bannaconni ranch.”
Meiling thought it was significant that Remy and Drake exchanged a long look but neither asked Gedeon what his intentions were once he knew for certain.
“I’ll arrange the meeting with Jake. I agree it would be best to hold it at his ranch. If you fly into the San Antonio airport, he can arrange for a helicopter to pick you up and take you to his ranch. Even if McGregor manages to follow you to San Antonio, he won’t know where you’re going. As soon as Jake replies I’ll send you the thumbs-up,” Drake said.
“Thanks,” Gedeon said. “We won’t keep you from your families any longer.”
“You want to turn over any files to me so I can continue looking into the disappearances of those women?” Remy asked. “Their families must be looking for them.”
“Hawkins chose them carefully. They didn’t really have family who would look for them,” Gedeon said. “That’s the true tragedy. He essentially erased them.”
When they were working, they were careful to keep a distance from each other just in case they had to leap into action or become weapons. The unspoken rule didn’t stop her from wanting to fling her arms around his neck and hold him to her. He gave nothing away to the two men, but shefeltthe animosity eating at him.
Meiling had always been able to catch insights into his emotions. She knew him now after a year, and he could become very dangerous extremely fast when it came to anything to do with violence against women or children. She didn’t want to take chances that Remy or Drake might “read” him.
She flashed a quick smile to everyone and started back in the direction of the pier, wrapping her arms around her middle. “I’d love to have a tour of this place when I have loads of time. Right this moment, I’m always concernedmy hussy of a leopard is going to start showing herself.” Deliberately, she shivered and turned a heated gaze on Gedeon.
