Triana still hesitated. She wanted to catch the man who killed her father more than anything, but she was smart enough to know that going to the place where this guy might actually work probably wasn’t too smart. Bodine would have a cow if he knew she was considering something like this.
“Shouldn’t we call Bodine and let him know what you found out?” she asked.
“Lady, you can call anyone you want, but I’m expecting someone down here with my money in the next fifteen minutes or I’m leaving. I don’t want to be out in this weather any more than you do.”
Triana was tempted to tell him she didn’t appreciate being threatened, but she resisted the urge. It would only chase Dominic away, and she sure as heck didn’t want to do that. She needed the guy.
“Okay, I’ll be there as fast as I can,” she snapped. “But it’s going to take me a bit. I don’t keep five hundred dollars lying around in my couch cushions.”
Dominic laughed. “You can pay me another way, if you want.”
That thought made Triana want to yak. “I don’t think so. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes with your money.”
Another throaty chuckle. “I thought so, but now it’s twelve minutes. You done wasted three minutes talking instead of driving.”
Triana swore and hung up. Twelve minutes didn’t give her much time to stop at an ATM. She ran upstairs for her purse, calling Bodine on the way back down. Hopefully, she could get the PI to meet her. Unfortunately, he didn’t answer. She quickly left him a message, giving him the address Dominic had provided.
“I’ll call as soon I get something,” she added.
Triana started to drop her phone into her purse, then hesitated. Maybe she’d call Remy too. He might not care, but still…
She dialed his number before she had a chance to think better of it. It went to voice mail. She considered leaving a message but then hung up. For all she knew, he was ignoring her calls anyway, and she refused to come off as pathetic.
* * *
Remy and Max walked into the main briefing room of the NOPD SWAT facility, soaked to the bone and squishing water out of their boots with every step. They’d spent the whole morning working the streets of Bywater, Saint Claude, and the Lower Ninth Ward, doing everything from shoving water-stalled vehicles off the roads to helping those living in the worst of the flood-prone areas get to higher ground. The rain was still coming down in buckets, and in a city surrounded by levees, that meant lots of flooded streets. But at least it was better than getting hit with the storm head-on.
Still, it had been a long frigging morning and he was beat, which was unusual, considering werewolves rarely got tired. He couldn’t help wondering if maybe Max was right and his exhaustion had something to do with breaking up with Triana. It sounded crazy, but if that wasn’t it, what the hell was it?
Remy figured he and Max would be out helping people for hours, but Brooks had called fifteen minutes ago and told them to get their butts back to the shop ASAP. He hadn’t said why, but one look at Lorenzo standing off to one side of the briefing room, clearly tense as hell, not to mention the building outline drawn up on the whiteboard with access points and entrance routes marked all over it, and Remy knew why Brooks had told them to get back here. They were going after Aaron Lee again.
“Took you two long enough,” Brooks muttered, not looking up from the Google Maps image of a big building spread out on the table in front of him.
“Sorry about that,” Remy said. “There’s standing water on almost every street in the city now and some of the wind gusts are strong enough to shove a vehicle off the road if you start to hydroplane.”
“Whatever,” Brooks said. “Get over here so we can bring you guys up-to-speed on the plan. Zane and the team Drew selected for the raid are almost finished loading up.”
“We got the call from our informant?” Remy asked as he scanned the drawing on the whiteboard. From the size and layout of the building drawn there, it looked like another warehouse structure similar to the last one they’d raided.
Drew nodded. “A text actually. Our informant said Lee’s people are in a warehouse on Royal Street where one of the Mardi Gras krewes stores their floats. They probably figure it will be safer to use a location that has no connection to Lee. It’s going to take them a while to break down hundreds of pounds of meth, so we’ve got time to do this right.”
“Are we still keeping everyone else in the dark about this?” Remy asked.
Lorenzo nodded glumly. “Yeah. I haven’t told any of my people at major case or the DA’s office. That means we’re going in with no backup and no warrant. The warrant thing isn’t a problem because our informant gives us plenty of probable cause, but this had better work out right, or Lee won’t have to work very hard to get Drew and me fired. The NOPD will gladly do it for him.”
That was a sobering thought. “What’s the plan this time?”
He and Max listened as Brooks and Drew outlined the plan. It was relatively basic. They’d go in through all three entrances at the same time, hopefully catching whomever was inside completely by surprise.
As the two senior SWAT officers briefed them, Remy felt a shiver run down his back, making goose bumps break out along his arms. He saw Max look at him out of the corner of his eye, but he ignored it. How could he explain he just felt freaky all of a sudden?
“The only thing that will make this job complicated are all the parade floats in there,” Drew added. “If these guys see us coming, we could end up having to chase them around in that big warehouse like rats in a maze.”
Something like that wouldn’t have concerned Remy if it had just been Pack werewolves on this operation, but with the guys from Drew’s team involved, they had to worry about things getting out of hand quickly. The NOPD SWAT cops were good, but all it took was one lucky shot and one of the officers they’d been training with all week could end up dead.
As Remy followed Brooks and the others out of the briefing room, his legs suddenly gave out from under him as a wave of near-total panic swept through his gut, making him feel both weak and queasy. A second later, he felt a stab of pain lance through the back of his head, and he reached out to catch the doorjamb. The sensation was similar to something you’d feel if you were terrified, but that didn’t make any sense. He hadn’t been scared of anything since he’d turned into a werewolf.
Max grabbed his arm to keep him from falling. “What the hell, Remy? You okay?”
