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Rowan and a few of the guys were in the conference room already when he arrived. Though they had questions, he opted to wait for Nick and everyone else so he could go over Noah’s revelation once. The rest of the team filtered in, and they sat around, shooting the breeze for a few minutes.
Nick arrived last, looking harried. “Sorry, guys. I was on a call with Jarrod. What’s up?” His steely blue gaze found Micah. “You’ve got a positive ID on our monster?”
“It’s not one hundred percent, no. But it’s as good as a smoking gun as far as I’m concerned.”
“Who ID’d him?”
“Noah.”
There were a few murmurs of surprise at that announcement. Even Nick blinked. “How so?”
“Noah overheard Tyler Anderson speaking with a visitor the other day, someone he referred to as his brother. He called the man by his name—Parker.”
Nick whistled. “So Parker was either mistakenly placed on the list of deceased or had his brother lie for him.”
“I’m betting on the latter. When Noah made casual conversation and inquired about Tyler’s brother, Tyler denied he meant the visitor was literally his brother, but rather just a friend.”
“So Tyler’s a liar. And a nervous one at that.” Nick stroked his thumb over his bottom lip in thought. “If Parker’s our monster, he’s evil. That means Tyler’s in a horrible position, likely agonizing over what to do.”
Micah agreed. “He seemed nervous when we questioned him, and now I believe his brother is why. He fears Parker’s wrath. And having been on the receiving end of that wrath, I get it.”
“Yeah, Tyler seems about as lethal as a Hostess Twinkie,” Jax said. “So what’s next?”
“Noah’s getting footage of the security feed pulled, hoping to get a good current picture of Parker for us. Then I’d like to set up a trap for him. With Tyler’s help.”
“That’s risky,” Nick said, frowning. “Blood is thicker than water, as they say. If we can establish a pattern, it might be better to wait until he visits on his own.”
“True, but we wouldn’t have as much control over the time or place,” Micah argued. “If he gets all the way inside Sanctuary before we know he’s here, a lot of patients will be at risk if we try to take him.”
“We need to get his ass before he goes inside the building,” Aric put in.
“That means he’s outside, in wide-open spaces.” Rowan sighed. “Giving him more room to maneuver and fly away isn’t ideal, either.”
Micah sat back in his chair. “I think we need to talk to Tyler. Yes, it means tipping our hand, but he knows Parker better than anyone. If we promise to move him, keep him safe from his wretched brother, I believe he’ll cooperate.”
Nick gave a feral grin. “We’ll have to move him anyway, once we’ve tipped our hand, for our own good as well as his.”
“Good point.” M
icah blew out a breath. “Your call, boss. That’s why you get paid the big bucks. And if your mojo would make an appearance and tell us what to do, that would be great.”
“Gee, thanks.” The seconds ticked by as Nick mulled over the issue. Finally he nodded. “My gut is telling me to talk to Tyler, too. He’ll help us. Beyond that, I don’t know. If we can set up a trap of some sort for Parker, we will. If it can be away from the compound and Sanctuary, even better.”
Micah couldn’t see how that would work, because they’d need Tyler to lure in Parker. He didn’t say so, however. Instead, he said, “What if we lure him into one of the iron-and-silver-reinforced rehab cells?”
Nick sat forward, interested. “How would we do that?”
“We’ll have Noah tell him Tyler has been moved to a new room. When he gets in there, we shut the gates.”
“It’s risky, but it could work.”
“There won’t be anyone in the bed, of course, but we’ll make it look like there is. He just has to get inside the room.”
“Okay. These are all a bunch of big ifs. Jax, let’s you, me, and Micah go back and talk to Tyler. Find out if he’s got a regular visitation day, or if he can get his brother here somehow.” Nick checked his phone. “Got a message from Noah. We have a picture of Parker.”
The conference room’s laptop was hooked up to a data projector. Nick wasted no time sending the pic to his e-mail account, then downloading it to the laptop. In moments, he had a decent photo of a very creepy-looking Parker Anderson displayed for everyone to see.
The time in captivity, plus the last year or so, had not been kind to the eagle shifter. Tall and gray-skinned, hair thinning and unkempt, he appeared more like a cadaver than a man. Nick sent the picture to everyone’s cell.
