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Mickey’s eyes flashed and he straightened, his handsome features going tight. “Like some guys hiring people for a job they are vague about?”
“What guys?”
He looked at Kodiak, nudging with his chin. “Guys that look like him.”
“Where?”
“Bars and downtown mostly filled with a lot of street trash who would kill their own grandmum for a buck…some bad dudes.”
“Do you have names?”
“Yeah, some, but this can’t get back to me. I’ll get a knife in the back in some alley.”
“We’ll make sure about that.” She would protect him with her own life. Her mind went back to Abbey Gate and how she failed the people who had depended on her…left them behind. She would never do that to Mickey. She slid a pad of paper to him, and he wrote down some names and slid it back. “Ta, Mickey.”
Mickey nodded and threw a glance at Kodiak.
“You know someone named Alice?” Kodiak asked.
Mickey frowned and then shook his head, his shoulder-length blond hair catching the light. “No, I don’t think so.” After a moment, he focused his electric blue eyes back on her. He lowered his voice. “Speaking of cash, mate. I’m stretched. Could I get a payday?”
“Yeah, I got you covered. See the front desk.”
Kodiak’s phone rang and he answered, his voice low. The now-familiar fizzle shot through Kaiya, and she steeled herself as she looked at Kodiak, who was leaning against the wall. Their eyes met, and he gave her an apologetic yet somehow intimate look. Her heart skipped a couple of beats and butterflies fluttered in her stomach. She turned back to Mickey. Mickey rose and gave her a sly smile, his voice hushing to a whisper, “You’re into this massive bloke, yeah?”
“Mind your own business, mate,” she said but felt her face flush.
He grinned. “Yeah, all right, mate.” He nudged her when he passed. “Keep your wits about you. I’ll see you around.”
“Mickey…”
He turned back, her affection for him reminded her of another man who had risked so much to help her. “Stay safe.” He nodded and disappeared through the door.
Kodiak finished his call, lowering his voice, his features softening. There was a deep discontentment about him, as if he was enduring an inner struggle, and something in his eyes resembled anguish. It aroused such a fierce protectiveness in her she had to fight to keep from asking who he had been talking to. Instead, he was upfront. “That was Anna. There’s been a lead on the abducted women.”
“That’s great news.”
He nodded, his gaze going to the front desk and focusing on Mickey. “You like this kid.”
“What do you mean? Romantically?”
He smiled. “No, I can see there’s nothing romantic. You want to protect him.”
“He has a good heart. Just bad circumstances.” She bit her lip. “I would love to see him off the streets. He’s clean, just hasn’t had a break.”
Kodiak nodded. “Maybe someday you’ll figure something out for him. In the meantime, his intel sounds promising. Let’s take a look at these guys and then go beat the bushes and see what pops out.”
She nodded and led the way to her office. She settled behind her desk, and Kodiak stood behind her as she woke her computer up and accessed the police database, typing in Lenny’s muscle first. As the records came up on the screen, Kodiak braced his hand near the keyboard, the warmth of his big body behind her snagging her attention for several seconds before she got herself back on track. He was damned distracting and now that she knew what it was like to be close to him, kiss him, her body and mind were going haywire. Not that it had been easy before to dismiss him, but now it was just impossible.
Neither Allambee Mitchell nor Billy Coen had anything felonious on their records, just petty stuff when they were kids. They went to the same high school, so she guessed they must have been friends and joined Lenny’s crew together.
She suspected she was going to find something different with the four names Mickey had given them. “Barry Turner,” she said. “Hmm, nothing in our local database. Let me try the military one.” She opened a new tab and typed in his name again, working at keeping her cool while she ignored his big hand. A record popped up on the screen with a picture of a clean-cut man in his mid-twenties with dark brown hair and hazel eyes dressed in a light olive drab service uniform in the distinctive slouch hat. He would be older now, probably in his mid-to-late thirties. She skimmed the information. “Second Commando Regiment, Special Forces. He was dishonorably discharged and served ten years for the sexual assault of an Afghan woman in Spin Kecha Village, northwest Uruzgan Province. He was just released five days ago. Born in Sydney to working-class parents.”
“Sounds like the kind of candidate NSH would employ.”
“This would be so much easier if they had known followers.”
“Yeah, JSOC would agree. Who’s next?”
