Daemon’s Mark by Caitlin Kittredge (web ebook reader .TXT) 📕

sent them to the detective in charge of watching the gang’s headquarters. Sort of a Spy Versus Spy thing. Only with eyeballs.”

Lane started to turn green, but I was looking at the mug shots. “This is the hierarchy of the Nocturne outfit?”

“As far as we’ve been able to tell,” Han said. “We don’t have anyone on the inside with the Russians, and neither does the FBI. Eastern Promises, this is not.”

I scanned the board, seeing a lot of hard-bitten, tattooed men glaring back at me. “Him,” I said, landing on a mug shot of Goatee. “That’s who I shot it out with last night.”

“That’s Nikolai Rostov,” said Han. “He’s an enforcer, a high-level one in line to be the boss. Very old school. Did time in a couple of Soviet prisons before he fled to the wicked, wicked West. That doesn’t exactly turn you into a cuddly sort of guy.”

“Is he involved in the human trafficking going on through the port?” Lane asked. Han nodded.

“Probably. Rostov is who you send in when you don’t want to get your hands bloody. Blood doesn’t bother him overmuch.”

“Or selling women into slavery…” I said, taking his photo off the board. Han made a sound of protest.

“You better bring that back. My captain gets very upset when we disturb the pyramid.”

“Don’t worry,” I said with a wink. “I promise I’ll return him and he’ll still be ugly.”

I yawned as I rode back down to the SCS to pull the computer file on Nikolai Rostov. I just needed to get a fix on him, and then I was on him like a fat kid on a birthday cake until this case was closed up tight.

My nose warned me that someone was in my office seconds before the door banged shut behind me. My Sig came out as I turned around and I found myself looking at Nate Dubois over the barrel.

“Hex me,” I sighed, lowering the gun. “That’s a real easy way to get yourself killed, Nate.”

“Maybe I don’t care,” he muttered, his shoulders slumping. “You arrested that man John Black. Is he the one?”

I scented him, subtly so that he wouldn’t take it as a threat to his dominance, and caught a whiff of cheap bourbon on his skin and breath. On a second look, Nate didn’t seem so hot. His hair was sticking up all over the place and the lines on his face were twice as deep as when I’d seen him last. “I don’t know,” I said, and then added, “I don’t think so. He has an alibi.”

Nate grabbed my citation plaque for bravery off my desk, the only one I’d managed to earn in Homicide, and flung it at the wall. “Why the hell not?” he bellowed.

“Okay,” I said, tightening my grip on the Sig. “You can calm down, or you can leave.”

Nate glared at me, his lips pulling back over his teeth, and then he crumpled, missing the edge of my sofa and sitting hard on the floor, legs akimbo.

“No one knows who hurt my little girl,” he sobbed. “No one cares … She’s just gone … I can still smell her in her bedroom, I think I hear her coming into the room, laughing…”

I crouched down next to Nate and gripped him by the shoulder. “I promise you that I am going to make this right. Where’s your wife?”

“Home,” Nate sighed. “She’s taking this so well … she’s being so strong. I went out last night just to get away from the house and I ended up here…”

I stood up and dialed Norris, our office assistant. He was old as the hills and twice as crotchety, and we didn’t talk if I could help it, but this was an emergency. My life is full of those. “Norris, can you get Petra Dubois on the line and tell her that her husband is here and needs a ride home?”

“Very good, Lieutenant,” he said prissily, and hung up on me. It was probably the most civil exchange we’d ever had.

Nate tried to pull himself up, and I helped him onto the sofa. “You wife will be here soon,” I said. “You need to go home and be with her, and take care of yourself.”

“I miss my Lily so much,” Nate sighed. “Pack justice won’t bring her back to me.” He swiped his hand over his face. “You really pissed them off sending Theodore back like that. They’re going to come for you now, just like Lily’s killer.”

“I thought you were the pack leader?” I said gently, even though his words sent an involuntary tingle of fear through my gut.

“I’m broken,” Nate said, slumping. “One of the younger ones will use this as an excuse to oust me and then we’re both fucked.”

“I’ll close this case,” I said. “You just have to have a little faith in me.”

“What kind of a world do we live in when this can happen to a sweet little girl?” Nate asked me.

“No kind of world,” I said. “But it’s the only one we’ve got.”

Nate and I sat in silence for a time, him nodding in and out and me scrolling through the photos from the night before. Just a glutton for punishment, that’s me. I paused on a clear shot of Nikolai Rostov’s face. My last lead. My last hope.

My phone buzzed and I switched on the speaker. “What?”

“Mrs. Dubois is here,” Norris said.

“Thank you. Send her in.”

Petra came through the door a moment later and her face fell when she saw her husband. “Nate, is this really what it’s come to? Stumbling around like a bum?”

“I’m not strong like you,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Lieutenant Wilder,” said Petra. “I’m so sorry that he barged in here.”

“Look,” I sighed as Petra pulled Nate to his feet. “This may be out of line, but you two need help. Take the grief counselor’s number. He’s supposedly very good.”

Not that I had ever gone to the guy. I’d seen the department psychiatrist,