“That’s very generous,” her mother said. “But as I told you over the phone, I don’t have any necklace like that in my shop.”
“Of course you don’t,” Murphy said in a tone that made Triana think the man thought her mother was lying. “But perhaps you know where my client could find one exactly like it—and I do mean exactly.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Murphy, but I can’t help you,” her mother said in a tone that brooked no compromise.
Triana was confused. She remembered her father wearing a wolf-head pendant just like the one Murphy was looking for. She’d even played with it as a child when he’d held her in his great big arms. He’d never taken it off. And she did mean never. No way had her mother gotten rid of it.
“Perhaps if the offer was more substantial, it might help your memory?” Murphy proposed sweetly.
Her mom smacked that idea down like a june bug. “Apparently I haven’t made myself completely clear. Let me do so now. There is no necklace like that anywhere in my possession, but even if I did have it, I would never sell it to you or this anonymous client of yours. Please leave and don’t come back here again. Good day, Mr. Murphy.”
The man’s face turned red as he glowered, but her mother returned his glare with one of her own. Triana thought for a moment she might have to step in and do something, but to her surprise, Murphy sullenly gave her mother a nod, then turned and walked out of the shop.
Triana opened her mouth to ask what all that had been about, but her mother had already disappeared into the back room and closed the door.
“That was weird,” Kim said.
“That’s one word for it,” Triana agreed.
Chapter 4
Remy’s back thumped against the interior wall of the operations van as the vehicle made a right turn off the main street, then bounced a little as it crossed some train tracks. He closed his eyes and visualized the map that had been taped to the whiteboard during the tactical mission briefing. Crossing those tracks meant they’d just turned off Chartres and were only a couple of blocks from the river. In a few minutes, they’d reach the docks, the cargo ship, and the warehouse owned by a man named Aaron Lee.
Remy had already been familiar with the name before sitting through the briefing that Drew and the lead detective from the narcotics squad, Lorenzo Claiborne, had conducted earlier. Remy had run across Lee’s name more than a few times when he’d worked in the sheriff’s office years ago. The man had been a long-standing criminal fixture in the city, a heavy hitter in nearly every illegal activity going on along the Mississippi River. Drugs, prostitution, gambling, fencing stolen property, protection rackets—the man was into all of it. Remy thought for sure someone at the local, state, or federal level would have been able to pin something on the man a long time ago, but clearly Aaron Lee was too good a criminal for that.
If the informant Detective Claiborne and his narcotics crew had inside Lee’s operation was right, all that was about to change. Because they were about to serve a warrant on one of Lee’s ships just in from Mexico, which was supposedly carrying over three hundred pounds of high-quality crystal meth. If they found that stash of drugs, Aaron Lee was finally heading to prison.
Serving search warrants on drug operations was always a risky job, which was why SWAT was so frequently asked to go in the door first. Going up against a man who’d been running his drug operation for decades made it even worse. With a shipment of “ice” having a street value of close to five million dollars, Lee was bound to have dozens of heavily armed men covering the ship and the warehouse. The chances of this operation turning into a shoot-out were extremely high. But with the memory of that young girl on the ambulance gurney from last night still fresh in his mind, Remy knew there wasn’t any other way to do this. They couldn’t let a shipment this big make it onto the streets of New Orleans, or the girl he and Triana had seen would be just one of many people ending up in the hospitals—and the morgue.
Remy watched as his pack mates and the NOPD SWAT officers checked their gear and weapons again, then went over the plan one last time. As they murmured softly to each other, his heart began to beat faster. Around him, everyone else’s did too. But while Remy’s and his pack mates’ did so out of excitement, that wasn’t the case with the cops on the NOPD SWAT team.
The officers he and his pack mates had spent the morning training with knew they were going up against people who had no qualms about shooting cops. To be blunt about it, the men and women on the NOPD SWAT team had no way of knowing if they were even going to be alive an hour from now. Their adrenaline was pumping because they were nervous, even a little scared. Remy didn’t hold that against them. They were only human.
That limitation didn’t apply to Remy and the other members of his pack. Getting shot wasn’t that big of a deal for them. Werewolves could survive just about any kind of wound imaginable, as long as it wasn’t to the head or the heart. Getting shot hurt, sure. But knowing you weren’t going to die from it tended to give the Dallas SWAT team a completely different outlook on danger—it probably wasn’t an outlook a mental health professional would approve of, but it was definitely unique.
Remy and his pack mates were amped up because this was the shit alpha werewolves lived for.
He knew he’d never be able to explain the concept to a normal person, but feeling that surge of adrenaline when his werewolf senses went on hyperalert, experiencing the tension that rippled through his body as his inner wolf attempted to come out to protect itself… There was no better feeling in the world. For an alpha werewolf like him and the Pack, it was the feeling of being alive.
“We’re approaching the west gate. Thirty seconds out,” Detective Claiborne’s voice came through over the radio in Remy’s ear. “Drew, you ready on the east side?”
“Roger that,” Drew replied. “Gate personnel in position. The operation is a go. Move in.”
“Weapons hot,” Brooks murmured.
As one, the charging handles on eight M4 carbines were yanked back and released, loading the weapons with a familiar and soothing clatter. At the same time, Remy felt the operations vehicle accelerate. He pulled down his ski mask along with everyone else.
Lee’s warehouse complex had a tall fence around the entire property, with two gates, one to the east and the other to the west. Both of them were normally secured with locked chains. Now that Drew had given the word, two other members of the team dressed in plain clothes would be heading toward the gates with small explosive charges ready to blow the locks. The timing would have to be perfect, though—too early and they’d alert the people on the ship they were coming, too late and the operations vans would smash into the gates.
The driver of the operations vehicle Remy was in backed off the gas a little. No doubt he was worried the gate wouldn’t be open when they got there. But a moment later, the driver floored it, and they were racing through the gate so fast Remy bounced off the seat as they crossed over the entrance bump.
Remy tensed, ready to move the moment the operations vehicle came to a stop. It was only about a hundred feet across the west gate parking lot. Any second now, the driver would swerve to the side and they’d exit out the back of the van. Then, he and the other members of the Dallas SWAT team, along with the NOPD officers, would head for the cargo ship moored at the dock. While Remy and his pack mates began sweeping the ship, NOPD SWAT would head to the ship’s bridge to make sure no one tried to start the engines.
While all this was happening, Drew’s team would move into the warehouse from the east and gain control of the structure. Lorenzo and his men from the narcotics squad would hang back until the whole area was initially secured; then, they’d come in with dogs and personnel to do the detailed search for the drugs.
Remy was still visualizing exactly how much ground he and the others would have to cover to get to the ship when the truck slid sideways and Brooks shoved the doors open. Then he stopped thinking and started moving, jumping out of the truck and running for the southwest corner of the building and the ship docked just beyond it. He told himself to hold back a bit, so he wouldn’t blow past the NOPD SWAT officers, but that was damn hard to do when every instinct he had screamed at him to go as hard as he could, to attack ferociously before Lee’s people had a chance to react.
