Two seconds later, he was back, thick key ring in hand. “They’re marked,” he said as he set the whole thing in Titus’s waiting palm. “Can I ask what you need ‘em for?”
“No. And you’re going to need to keep this confidential,” Titus said. “It’s a matter of Pride security.”
“Of course.” Stuart nodded several times, rapidly. Eager to please. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t talk about this to anyone who would listen. It wasn’t every day the Alpha of the entire Pride dropped by out of the blue to search a couple of apartments.
Not that that mattered. Vance and Tucker would know we’d been in their homes. They’d be able to smell our scents on everything we touched.
“Thank you.” Titus waited with a quiet, expectant smile until Stuart nodded and closed the door.
When we turned to cross the lot, I heard the soft clatter of plastic as Stuart pulled down his mini-blinds to peek through them.
Titus headed straight for the external staircase on one side of building three, sorting through the keys as he took the steps two at a time. I jogged up after him, nerves crawling like ants across my skin.
“This could backfire,” I whispered, as he slid a key into Vance’s front door. “We could lose the confidence and trust of my best men.”
“Or you could gain even more respect from them for turning over every stone. For being vigilant.” The door swung open, and Titus shoved the keys into his pocket, where they left a large, oddly shaped bulge. “The bottom line is that we have no choice.”
“I’m not even sure what we’re looking for,” I admitted, closing the door at my back.
“Anything that connects Vance to any of the victims.”
“Other than the research I asked him to do, you mean?” I picked up a yellow legal pad to show him a list of the victim’s names, along with several other pages of notes from our meeting the night before.
“Yes, other than that. Of course.”
We went through Vance’s drawers and cabinets. Through his closets and his desk. I looked under his bed while Titus felt around for false drawer bottoms and evidence taped to the under-side of every surface imaginable. We pulled the clothes from his dryer—his hamper was empty—and rifled through the food in his fridge. We squeezed couch cushions and bed pillows, and even examined the seams in both his mattress and his comforter. But we found nothing.
Vance was neat and organized, and he kept a spotless apartment—no dirt on the floor and no mildew in the shower. But I felt dirty as I stood on the second-floor landing, next to my sister’s apartment, while Titus locked up. Like I’d seen things my best friend and most trusted enforcer hadn’t intended to show me. Like I’d violated his privacy and his trust.
We went downstairs and repeated the process at Tucker’s place, which was directly below Davey’s. His apartment was messier, but no more incriminating than Vance’s had been, and this time when we were finished, I felt as much relief as guilt.
“This doesn’t entirely clear them,” Titus reminded me as he locked Tucker’s door. “It’s entirely possible that if one of themisinvolved, they’re smart enough to keep the evidence somewhere else.”
“But they aren’t involved,” I said as we headed across the lot to return Stuart’s keys.
Titus pulled up short, gravel shifting beneath his loafers. His gray eyes seemed to bore right through me. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.” I stared up at him, unflinching. “Ido. My gut says they want to find this guy as badly as I do, and you’re the one who told me that sometimes, in this job, you have to trust your gut.”
“Okay. I hear you,” Titus said. “Still, I’m going to leave Lochlan here, and maybe send one more of my guys. An outsider’s perspective never hurts, and they don’t fit the profile, because they don’t know your zone members. So you know you can trust them.”
“Don’t do that. Please,” I whispered, worried that Stuart was watching through his blinds. That he’d cracked the window open so he could hear. “That will undercut Vance and Tucker’s authority, as well as mine. And it’ll make them think I don’t trust them. We’re may have to interview the family members, Titus. Men who’ll be finding out their daughters and sisters died solely because of their common genes. Because of who they are. And they don’t know your men. They don’t trust your men. But they do trust Vance and Tucker. We did our due diligence. We looked for evidence of their guilt and we found none, so now I need them, not just at my side, but at my back. All of us here need to be able to trust them.”
Titus blinked at me, and I could practically see the gears grinding behind his eyes as he considered my words. My tone. My bearing and the speed of my pulse, which conveyed my confidence in my position.
“Okay,” he finally said. “I’ll take Loch back with me. But you call me if anything changes. If you need anything else. And you keep me updated. Okay? Regularly.”
“Done. Of course.”
His gaze narrowed on me. “How are you doing with all this?”
“With the news that Silas was basically resurrected, just to haunt me?”
“That’s an interesting characterization,” he said with a small smile. “But yes.”
“I’m fine. It helps, having something to investigate. Something to focus on.”
“Well, I’m here if you need to talk.”
