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She knew that this is only conjecture, but it was incredibly interesting conjecture. Tamara Westmoor had been investigating Stefan Ronin, and then Tamara Westmoor had been killed by the Devil Claw Killer himself.
“Maybe Steffane Ronin wasn’t lying about Devil Claw after all?” said Monroe hopefully.
The three of them looked to Storm, waiting as he leafed through the rest of the notes. When he was done, he leaned back against his chair and rubbed his temples.
“Maybe,” he said hesitantly.
.
Remi leapt on that. “Exactly!” she said with a grin. “Maybe we have something!”
“You do understand,” said Storm, “That the chief made it very clear to me that if this team involves themselves in the Ronin case any further, that we will all be suspended and perhaps terminated with immediate effect? The people from the embassy were not playing. In their opinion this team has already crossed the lines and they want us gone.”
“Uh huh,” said Remi, nodding. She was glad to see that Leo and Monroe were nodding too. They were all on the same page. They all wanted to help Diana.
“And so you understand that I can’t tell you to validate this lead and investigate any further to see if it pans out, because there is no way that I can allow you all to officially work on this case?”
Storm raised his eyebrows, and Remi knew what he meant. She nodded. “You can’t tell us to investigate. Got it, boss.”
“Because if we investigate then we’ll be fired,” said Monroe.
“And we definitely wouldn’t want to be fired,” said Leo.
“All right then,” said Storm, his face deadpan. “So long as we all know what we’re doing.”
Chapter 16
STORM
Remi and Leo had told Storm that they need to head out on a case, and Storm had not asked them which case. He knew full well which case. It was late afternoon by the time they called him again to tell him that they were headed back in, and they had found something interesting.
The evidence would need to be a hell of a lot more compelling than just interesting in order to persuade the chief to re-open the Ronin case. Storm hated the thought of Diana out there alone causing havoc, and he full well knew how much havoc she was capable of creating without even trying. The problem was that this time she was messing with vampires, and she seemed to not understand exactly how much danger she was putting herself in. Magical beings were always dangerous, but all a vampire had to do was look at to you to make you bend to its will. He hated to think of Diana in that position. He had absolutely no idea how she had managed to walk out of the Ronin nest of her own free will. Had the vampires not bothered to use their mesmerism on her? Had she somehow broken free of it?
And what about this accusation that Diana had stabbed Marielle Ronin with a sword? Diana had been evasive about this point. Storm had never seen Diana with a sword. He couldn’t imagine her using one. Diana had always been more about using her words than her fists. She had never seemed to welcome physical confrontation. He couldn’t imagine her coming out of a fight with a vampire alive. So what the hell had happened in that vampire nest? He wished now that he had been calmer and spoken to her about it.
But just like Saskia, Diana seemed to know exactly how to press his buttons. And Remi’s accusations had been all too true. He had been angry at Saskia, and everything that he had been unable to say to his little sister had been all too easy to say to Diana. And now he felt even worse than he had felt when he had left his apartment this morning.
Diana was a hothead. Her walking out on the team had proved it. He was the head of the team. It was his job to protect them. And he could not allow everyone to lose their jobs just because one person refused to listen to reason. Storm rubbed his eyes, feeling tired, and it wasn’t just because of the lack of sleep. His life was all about work. Until Saskia had arrived, he had been perfectly happy most of the time to eat, sleep and dream about work. He had missed having someone to go home to but not given it much thought. There had been one night when Diana had had to stay at his apartment, her own having been invaded by a killer, and it had been good to wake up to her in the house. It had been good to have breakfast with her. Briefly his apartment had felt like a home instead of just an apartment.
He thought of how good it would be to have someone to come home to. Someone who made his apartment feel like home just by being in there. But Diana was off limits for Storm. She was capable of turning his whole life upside down, and not just emotionally. He needed someone cool-headed to be with, a calming presence in his hectic life. Someone he already knew. So he had damn well better stop thinking about what he couldn’t have.
While Remi and Leo had been out on the field, Storm had distracted himself by working his drowned girl case. He had been on the phone for the past hour tracking down witnesses and arranging for them to come in to the office to be interviewed. When his phone rang, he assumed one of the witnesses was calling him back. He answered, but it was not a witness.
“Evie,” he said in surprise, hearing his older sister’s voice.
“Evaine,” Evie corrected him automatically, her voice cool and distant.
It was her who had called him, but now she went silent, waiting for him to speak. Evie had always been good at making him feel uncomfortable. Even when she didn’t mean to do it, it was how he felt anyway. Storm did not know what she wanted him to say. After a lengthy pause, she finally said, “Well? Have you persuaded her to return to finish her last year at university yet?”
“How are you, Evie?” said Storm in a mocking tone. “Husband and children well?” He had not heard from his older sister in a year, and neither had she found any reason to call him either. She had three little girls; the eldest Maya was four, and the twins Zaira and Zoya were two years old now. Storm had last seen them all three months after the twins were born, having dropped in while visiting Otherworld, where Evie lived now, briefly for a case.
“My family is fine, thank you,” she said in a clipped tone. “I trust you are keeping well?”
“I get that you have to speak to people like that in your job, but do you have to speak to me like that too? I’m your brother.”
“Your job,” she retorted. “It’s your job I’m doing, Conn, and if you would only—”
“No,” Storm said harshly. “It is not my job. I’m doing my job here on E
