“This guy who tried to kill the three of you,” she said. “Does he hate cops or you three in particular? I haven’t met the other two yet, but I can definitely see a person coming to dislike you enough to try killing you.”
Zane snorted but didn’t look up from his stack of pancakes. He carefully layered the crisp bacon in between the fluffy pancakes, then slathered on gooey butter before dumping nearly an entire bottle of maple syrup over the top of the pile. He cut off a wedge from the stack that was way too big for a lion to eat and shoved it in his mouth. The sounds of happiness he made as he chewed were patently unfair. The man even made gluttony sound sexy.
Alyssa was beginning to think she’d have to wait another ten minutes to get more information out of him when he looked at her with those mesmerizing, dark eyes.
“The man we’re after didn’t just aim for the three of us. He led a group of men who were attempting to kill my entire SWAT team.”
Something clicked in her head then. Dallas SWAT team…terrorist attack…corrupt city official. Alyssa didn’t watch much in the way of news since her work was in the category most people would describe asall-consuming, but she vaguely remembered seeing something about a group of psychos trying to murder cops at a wedding.
“That was you, huh?” She gave him an apologetic look. “Since I’m a fed, you’d think I’d have figured it out the moment you mentioned you’re Dallas SWAT, but I’m a little disconnected from the real world these days. Sorry.”
He took another bite of the high-sugar-diet killer in front of him. “You have nothing to be sorry about. You don’t stay glued to the TV and social media. In the world we live in, that’s probably a good thing.”
Alyssa ate some more fries. Because they were there, and everyone knew it was bad luck to leave uneaten fries on your plate. “The man was a high-level city official or a cop, right?”
Zane nodded. “Randy Curtis, chief of police.”
Her eyes went wide. “Your own chief tried to kill you? Why?”
His mouth edged up. “It’s…complicated.”
She wanted to get pissed at his nonanswer, but she’d started that particular defensive strategy, so she supposed she couldn’t complain if he used it on her.
“Every law enforcement organization in the country is looking for Curtis,” she said. “What makes you think he’s in LA?”
Zane regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, then turned his attention to his fries. Alyssa watched in amusement while he made french fry sandwiches with the toast, then slathered them with mayo. How could he eat this much and stay so fit?
“A teammate of mine who’s good with hacking tracked a text message on Curtis’s phone to LA,” he said.
“So, you came out to LA to find him yourselves,” she surmised. “I’m just guessing here, but I’m assuming you didn’t share this little tidbit of information with anyone else, right?”
He shrugged. “When your boss tries to execute your entire team, it’s a little difficult trusting outsiders.”
Alyssa could understand things becoming personal. It was a weakness of hers, too. “You obviously must have gotten some more leads since arriving in LA, since the three of you were scoping out that club.”
He gave her another long look, his eyes boring into hers as if evaluating how much he should tell her. “It turns out Curtis has family here, with lots of money, power, and connections.”
It didn’t take long for Alyssa to figure out where this was heading. “You think he came out here looking for help from one of his rich relatives. The creepy guy in the expensive suit?”
Zane nodded. “Stefan Curtis, his nephew. He’s the black sheep of the Curtis family—as in the Black Swan Enterprises Curtis family.”
Alyssa didn’t bother to hide her surprise. She wasn’t even from LA and still knew the name. Black Swan Enterprises was some kind of worldwide conglomerate, existing for no other reason than to make a buttload of money. She had no idea they were even based out of LA, or that a single family ran the group.
“Stefan has lots of money, but no obvious position within the Black Swan organization,” Zane continued. “More interesting than that though is his criminal record. He even has his very own goon squad.”
She nodded. “If someone in the Curtis family is capable of helping someone hide from the po-po, it’d be him. But where does the kidnapping angle come in?”
Zane pushed his empty plate aside and gestured toward Alyssa’s, arching a brow. She nudged her plate closer to him.
“That’s the part I’m hoping you can help with.” He picked up a handful of fries from her plate, careful not to cross-contaminate. And who said chivalry was dead? “We’ve been following Stefan, hoping he’d lead us to his uncle, but he doesn’t do much beside hang out in clubs, gambling joints, and strip clubs, staring at attractive women and looking like a bloody pervert.”
Stefan’s behavior tonight, along with the criminal background Zane mentioned, painted this particular pervert as a good suspect in the recent disappearances she was investigating. And maybe the other ones Christine had been tracking as well. Alyssa had no idea how the body in the landfill drained of blood or the Curtis family–slash–Black Swan Enterprises angle played into this yet.
“This is the part where you share what you know,” Zane pointed out. “Since I’m being so friendly and all.”
Alyssa considered pulling theit’s complicatedcard but decided against it. The Dallas cop had done his part. She had a name to work with now. She knew how to play nice when she had to—even if she couldn’t tell him everything.
“Three attractive young women disappeared about a month ago.” She pulled out her phone and flipped through the photos she had of the girls. “Lindsay Carr, Stacie Bryant, and Georgie Sparks. Over the past few years, other people have gone missing in this part of LA, all fitting the same profile. All attractive and young. All the kind of people who can disappear without anyone noticing.”
