As the pain finally disappeared completely, he looked over to see Zarina still holding his hand. Dick was on the far side of the room, a cell phone up to his ear. Jayson heard him saying something about the first phase of the test being very successful.
Jayson was so focused on what Dick was saying that he didn’t realize Zarina had released his hand until one of the doctors who’d administered the serum came up and began poking and prodding him like he was a piece of pizza dough.
“It’s been two hours and the results seem nominal so far,” the man said to Dick as the deputy director hung up the phone. “We need to move on to phase two and get him into a field environment as soon as possible. It’s the only way we’ll know for sure whether the serum worked.”
The doctor didn’t even look at Jayson as he spoke. Why should he? To them, he was just a two-legged lab rat. A rat they anxiously wanted to get into the field in order to evaluate the success of their experiment. Normally, that kind of dismissive, condescending bullshit would have pissed Jayson off. But right then, he’d have liked nothing better than to go into the field. And he knew exactly where he should go—to meet up with Layla.
* * *
“I never thought we’d get in here so easily,” Ivy whispered to Landon as a member of Thomas Thorn’s security staff led them up the marble stairs to the third floor of the former senator’s home.
“No kidding,” Landon muttered. “Though I have to admit, coming in through the front door almost seems like cheating.”
On the way up the steps, she and Landon passed several plain clothes detectives, two uniformed police officers, and three crime scene techs. None of them looked happy to be there. From what John said when he’d called, Thomas Thorn was royally pissed that someone had waltzed into his heavily secured home while he’d been there and made off with a family heirloom.
When they reached the third floor, the guard led them to a room at the end of the hallway. Thorn and his head of security, Douglas Frasier, were over by the far wall near a big picture frame that had been swung back on a hinge to reveal an open safe. A tall, dark-haired man in jeans and a leather jacket who exuded pure cop stood near the big window, and from the way he was clenching his jaw, he was obviously angry about something. He wasn’t the only one. Ivy could practically hear Thorn’s teeth grind together as he took in the empty safe. As for his paid muscle, Frasier looked like he was waiting for a live chicken to walk by so he could bite off its head.
The detective frowned when he saw her and Landon. “This is a crime scene. I’m going to need you to step outside.”
“That’s not necessary, Detective. I asked them to join us,” Thorn said. “These are Agents Donovan and Halliwell from the Department of Homeland Security. They’re here to help with the investigation.”
Detective Hayes looked like someone had just handed him a lemon to suck. “DHS is working home break-ins these days?”
“This is Detective Braden Hayes,” Thorn said, interrupting before either she or Landon could respond. Probably a good thing, since Landon would have almost certainly said something snarky in response to the sarcastic tone in the detective’s voice. “He handles major robbery for the Washington Metropolitan Police Department. You three will be working together.”
Hayes’s eyes narrowed. “Burglary is a police matter. DHS has no jurisdiction here. Unless you’re trying to tell me that this case has terrorism implications that I don’t see.”
“This isn’t an issue of jurisdiction or terrorism,” Thorn snapped. “This is about someone breaking into my home and stealing something that’s extremely valuable to me. Youwillwork together, youwillfind the thief who took my property, and youwillget back what they took. If you can’t do that, Detective, I can call the MPD brass and have someone else assigned to this case. Is that clear?”
The detective’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t say anything. Obviously, he was smart enough to realize this wasn’t a battle he could win. Even for a former senator, Thorn possessed a tremendous amount of influence in the DC area. Add that to the power that came with his position as CEO of Chadwick-Thorn and his place on the DCO Committee, and Thorn could easily make life a living hell for the detective if he wanted to. The only problem was, Braden Hayes seemed like the kind of man who loved tilting at windmills, even if the windmill always won.
She’d better step in and say something before the two men decided to drop their pants and compare dick size. “What do we know about the thief so far?”
Hayes and Thorn continued their staring contest for another long moment before the detective finally turned his gaze on her. “Unfortunately, we don’t know much of anything about the thief at this point. We can’t even say for sure how many of them there were.”
“No evidence left behind, I’m guessing?” Landon asked.
Hayes shook his head. “Nothing. No fingerprints, hair, fiber, or trace materials. No footprints anywhere on the grounds, no obvious signs of forced entry, and not a single mark on the safe. No one would even know it had been tampered with if it weren’t for the fact that it was left hanging open.”
“How did the thief get in?” Ivy asked as she wandered around the study.
“We’re still looking for his entry point into the home, but right now it’s looking like he came in through a third-floor window in the hallway, by way of the roof. I was up there earlier with some of the security staff. You’d have to be a psycho to walk around on that tile, but that seems to make the most sense. I’m thinking the thief lowered himself down from the edge of the roof somehow and came in through a window, but how he did it is beyond me.”
Ivy’s estimation of the detective went up a few notches, not just because he’d actually figured out how the shifter had gotten into the home, but also because he’d been committed enough to clamber around on the roof and confirm his suspicions.
“About all I can say for sure is that the thief is good,” Hayes added. “Based on the time line established by the security people working last night, the thief couldn’t have been on the property for more than fifteen minutes.”
“What did he take?” Landon asked.
“This,” Frasier said, handing Landon a photograph of what looked like a flawless diamond. “It was last appraised for twenty-five million and is worth considerably more than that now.”
Ivy blinked. While she couldn’t tell the exact size of the diamond from the picture, it looked huge.
Landon handed the photo back to Frasier. “Was anything else taken?”
“No,” Thorn said quickly—too quickly. “Just the diamond.”
Ivy’s kitty alarm immediately went off. Thorn was lying, she was sure of it. And something told her that the former senator was more interested in getting that other item back than he was the diamond.
