Several seconds passed as her mate held Callen’s eyes, revealing nothing. Then, with a one-shouldered shrug, he said, “Fine. Slate’s clean. Tell me what you know.”
A corner of Callen’s mouth tipped upward in a slight smile. Leaning back against the booth, he warned, “You aren’t going tae like it, I suspect.”
“I don’t give a fuck.”
Callen snorted, then tilted his head toward his companion in the universal gesture to speak.
Hamish drummed his claws on the edge of the table when he explained, “We went digging through Dan’s last few days. He obviously wasn’t the brightest, so we figured there must be some trail he left that could tell us what compelled him tae be so fuckin’ stupid.” He shook his head, loosing dark locks of hair around his blunt horns. “Personally, I thought it’d be a dead end. Likely he heard about the bounty same way others did: through word of mouth in the Underground.”
Rasmus made a thoughtful sound in the back of his throat. “I’m assuming that wasn’t the case.”
“Nae, wasn’t. First mention of the bounty we can find was the dayafterDan made an unexpected trip with a few friends to tae EVP.” Hamish arched his brows, clearly trying to convey the strangeness of that. “Dan was low-level. He dinnae have the connections to hear about something like that before anyone else. Usually he did odd jobs for clients looking for unsavory work. Extortion. Bribery. Enforcer type stuff.”
Kaz tightened his hold on her shoulders. His voice was dangerously calm when he prompted, “And? Tell me how a low-level thug like that managed to get that intel first.”
“That we dinnae ken. We traced his movements back a few weeks and saw that he had a slight uptick in high-paying jobs, but nothing too strange. Not until he crossed the border into the EVP.”
“Then what?”
Callen and Hamish shared a look.
Taking over for his companion, Callen lowered his voice to say, “About an hour before he headed for the airport to catch a flight to Denver, Dan made a phone call.”
Kaz’s fingers clenched around the delicate neck of the beer bottle. “Towho?”
“No one important. A girl he was chasing.” Callen leaned forward again, the skin around his mouth and eyes tight. “It’s no’who,Kaz. It’swhere.He dinnae make that call from a hotel, or a bar, or any other place he was most likely to be.”
Atria’s heart thumped unevenly in her chest. “Where?”
The gargoyle’s lips pressed tight together, as if he wished to keep the words in but knew he couldn’t. Then, with a small shake of his head, he answered, “St. Emaine’s cathedral.”
THE END
