But it was the other who looked truly pained. Dark circles sank deep beneath her eyes. Her skin was sallow. Konstantine wondered if she’d slept in days.
He caught Lou watching him. She arched a brow.
He smiled, bringing his focus to the detective. He’d begun speaking again.
“Our objective here is to hide Lou’s abilities from Diana. I think we can do that,” King said, tapping his knee. “What do you think?”
He was speaking to Konstantine.
“Aren’t you worried that by helping this crazy person at all, we’ll never get rid of her?” Piper asked. She sat between Dani and King. “What if she shows up every time she needs help with something? Is this the sort of behavior we actually want to encourage?”
“No,” Konstantine and King said in unison.
Konstantine handed her the espresso in its little cup. “Would you like sugar?”
“No, thank you.” She sipped it and scowled. “Oh, it’s bitter. Maybe I should’ve said yes to the sugar.”
“Give it to me,” the other one said. She downed it in a single go.
“Have you considered killing her?” Konstantine asked. He was watching Lou. She stood at the window, watching the courtyard outside, her arms crossed. He wondered how her shoulder was feeling. She wore dark cargo pants and a tight black tank top.
“She hunts predators,” she replied without looking away from the window. “Why should I stop her?”
Konstantine saw movement in the corner of his eye and turned his head ever so slightly to better track it. Piper was taking the other girl’s hand in hers. Her jaw was furiously working. The emptied espresso cup was placed on the table beside the sofa.
“And if she hurts someone? One of us, for example?” Konstantine asked.
“Then I’ll kill her.”
She said this plainly. And perhaps anyone else listening to this statement would believe it. Lou’s ice-cold exterior was terrifying. It made such declarations easy to believe.
But Konstantine heard the slight drop in her voice. He saw the miniscule shift in her body weight. She might kill Diana if the woman crossed her in some way, but she didn’t want to.
How interesting.
“This man that Dennard wants to find—”
“Winter,” the dark girl interjected.
There was a bit more light in her eyes now. Konstantine wondered if he should offer her another espresso.
“Correct. If they wanted to arrest a man like this, what’s the lawful protocol?”
They were looking at King.
“I assume that you mean without all the red tape. Because when someone does a sting like this legally, it’s all about warrants and probable cause. Bureaucracy prevails.”
“And we don’t want this man to be put on trial?” Konstantine asked him.
“I always try to get the families justice if I can. Peace of mind is priceless, you know? But in cases like this, I’m not sure it matters,” King said. “Sometimes the families are the pimps themselves. Or if they aren’t, an arrest doesn’t undo what happened to the kids.”
“I can take him,” Lou said calmly. There was no boast in it.
Konstantine knew better than to point out the obvious, but he did so anyway. “Your shoulder isn’t a hundred percent, amore mio.”
King almost looked relieved. Better you than me, that face said.
This amused Konstantine, the idea that he wasn’t the only one trying—and failing—to take care of Louie Thorne.
“I second that,” Piper said. “You were supposed to rest for six months. I don’t see how this is resting.”
“I’m with Lou,” Dani said. “I can’t think about those kids enduring one more night of that.”
King held his hands up when everyone’s eyes fell on him. “I can’t tell anyone what to do with their own bodies. But we should be sensible here.”
Konstantine stepped forward. “Assume that the red tape has been cut and the operation to capture Winter was approved. What would a police force do? We can’t pretend to be such an operation if we don’t know what it looks like.”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” King laughed. “We don’t know what Dennard thinks we are. An off-grid organization of some kind?”
“We’ll pretend to be whatever you think is most believable,” Lou said.
King shrugged. “A privately funded enforcement agency?”
“And what would they do?”
“They’d go to his last-known location, surround the place. Extra points if he’s home and apprehended, but they’ll go in regardless to collect as much evidence as possible.”
“And how many people are needed for such an operation?”
“A ten-person SWAT team is standard for a small city, but there’s as many as sixty for an urban area like Chicago. If there were multiple locations, such as a home and a workplace, they would move on both at once. Usually there’s a bit of a stakeout to see if he shows up, so that the likelihood of apprehension is higher.”
“Diana wants to move against him once he gets online and starts a feed. She says she can confirm he’ll be in the building if he starts streaming from it.”
This is true, Konstantine knew. He knew it was possible to track a person’s location in such a way, if they remained connected long enough. There were ways to disguise one’s exact location as well. For a man such as Winter, Konstantine suspected he knew how to do that.
“We need to be prepared for the possibility of a second location,” Konstantine said. “Or it is possible he will not be in the building. He can mask his location.”
“Not from me,” Lou said.
“True,” he acquiesced. “But if you’re at a raid location with Dennard and she is convinced he’s there and you know he’s not, how will you explain your knowledge? You cannot disappear. That’s what we are trying to plan around.”
“Why do some criminals have to be smart,” Piper bemoaned. “Why can’t they all be dumb?”
After brief eye contact, Piper’s face reddened and she looked away.
“Could we put Lou on an earpiece so that Diana thinks she’s there and involved, but that frees her up to move if necessary?” King asked. “It would also explain any information that comes in.”
“That would be ideal,” Konstantine said. “Perhaps a large team as well, a show of force, enough to give her pause in moving against Lou in the future, and then a second, smaller support team in case Lou needs to pivot.”
“I’m fine,” Lou said with a tone that brooked no argument.
“We know, babe,” Piper said. “Everyone here is aware that you’d tear your own shoulder off rather than lose your new BFF.”
Dani squeezed Piper’s hand.
Lou frowned.
“Would it be possible for you to get fifty or sixty people together in two days?” King asked.
“Yes,” Konstantine said plainly. “But you realize that I cannot hide what they are. They will not look or act like police officers. If you want Dennard to perceive you in a certain light—”
“I don’t care how she views us,” Lou said. But she was looking at King to see if he objected.
King only shrugged. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing if she thinks we run with rough people. I wouldn’t mind instilling a bit of fear in her.”
“Have you ever managed a coordinated operation like that before?” Konstantine asked, watching the detective pick something out from under his fingernails.
“With the DEA? Sure. We did drug busts all the time. I can figure out the schematics of the building, the entrances, exits, electricity, and all that. Who moves where and when. I just need a team who can follow directions and a good communication system. We can have a contingency plan for the presence of any children in the building versus if he’s alone. What would be more impressive, though, is if we can coordinate a cross-country attack where all the streamers are taken down and arrested simultaneously. They busted a ring in South Korea and made over three hundred
arrests all over the world. In the US, UK, Canada, and Saudi Arabia. That would really scare the shit out of her, if she thought we were everywhere.”
“I’d need more than three days for that,” Konstantine said. Did he have people everywhere? Yes. But well-executed plans still took time.
“You’re right,” King relented. “It would be cool, but unimportant at the moment. Let’s just dispose of Winter, rescue the kids, and placate Diana. Then if Diana is stubborn enough to stick around, we’ll deal with her too.”
Piper was watching the other girl, whose name Konstantine finally remembered. Daniella Allendale. She was the newest addition to their inner circle, and what Konstantine had learned about her wasn’t much except that she was an investigative reporter who helped expose the killers Lou had tracked down. Her mother’s ancestors were rich sugar barons from Cuba who’d emigrated to the US when Castro seized their homeland. Somehow, they’d maintained their considerable wealth despite those first, uncertain years. But more interestingly, he knew that Dmitri had tortured her almost to death—yet here she was. She hadn’t run.
She must be much stronger than she looks, he thought. Though she didn’t look it today. Not with those dark circles and a face drained of color.
“Would anyone like gelato?” Konstantine asked.
“Hell yeah,” Piper replied, leaping to her feet. “Babe. We have to get gelato. We’re in Italy.”
“Where is it?” Daniella asked, as if the idea of a walk troubled her.
Konstantine stood, crossed the living room to a window, and pulled back the shade. “Across the courtyard here, under that archway. The gelateria will be open for another hour. Stella makes delicious tiramisu and limoncello gelato.”
“Stracciatella is my favorite,” Piper said. She pulled Dani to her feet. “It’s basically chocolate chip. Come on.”
Konstantine didn’t think this was the time to argue that American ice cream could never compare.
Dani wiped invisible dust from the front of her jeans. “But I don’t have any Italian money.”
“Tell Stella I sent you.”
“No,” Lou said, and fished her wallet out of her cargo pants pockets. She produced a wad of euros, handing them over. If Konstantine’s eyes weren’t deceiving him, that wasn’t the only foreign currency she was carrying. At a glance, he also saw pounds and yen, tucked in beside the euros and American bills he recognized.
“Right,” Piper said. “We don’t want your gang people recognizing our faces, and if I walk up in there saying Konstantine said give me some gelato, that might send the wrong message.”
Konstantine smiled. “The gelato will be worth it. I assure you.”
The two girls were down the steps and halfway across the courtyard when Lou said, “I want to go with them.”
“I’ll wait here for you,” King said. “Go on.”
Lou seemed to need no other encouragement. She closed the apartment door behind her, leaving the two men alone.
King rubbed his chin. “Can you really assemble fifty or sixty trustworthy men in two days?”
“Yes,” Konstantine said. He crossed to his kitchen and turned on the espresso maker. It was almost too late in the day for it, but he wanted it nonetheless. Just the smell of the ground coffee freshened his mind. “Can you really lead them with only a set of walkie-talkies?”
King laughed. “Yes. But to be honest, it’s not the operation I’m worried about. I’m worried about Lou.”
Konstantine refilled the moka, but didn’t interrupt.
“It’s not just her shoulder, it’s Dennard.”
“I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting her,” Konstantine said. “What’s your assessment?”
“Like Lou on steroids. Determined, focused, doesn’t know when to quit, but it’s more than that. She’s like a rabid dog. She doesn’t have an ounce of Lou’s self-possession or control. She isn’t as hard to read as Lou, there’s that. Her anger and coldness are all over her face, and there’s…” He seemed to consider his next words carefully. “I don’t know. There’s an unsteadiness. An unpredictability. If I didn’t know better I’d say she’s crazy. Clinically out of her mind.”
“That sounds like a very dangerous woman. But Lou can defeat her easily.” And he believed it.
King laughed. “I don’t think she wants to. That’s what worries me.”
Konstantine wondered if it was more than seeing a kindred spirit in Diana. What if Lou was unable to kill a woman? Women, children, animals—Konstantine had a sense that Lou never raised a gun against those weaker than herself. Perhaps it violated some unspoken inner code.
And what would she think of him if she knew the truth? That he held none of the qualms she did, if the end prevented unnecessary bloodshed in the future.
“We could take care of it,” King said quietly. He pitched his voice low, as if he was afraid someone might overhear them. “There will be a lot of commotion. Something could just go wrong at the operation.”
Konstantine smiled ruefully. “If I kill Diana for her, she’ll be furious. At the very least, she will kill whatever man I gave the order to.”
King was watching him with a strange expression, and Konstantine wondered if he’d gone too far. The relationship between the two of them was an odd one. King represented the law, having invested over thirty years in an organization that actively worked to disassemble the power of men like Konstantine.
Yet here they were, working on another case together and sharing a concern for the woman standing between them. Did it matter that King lived by and respected the law while Konstantine violated it at every turn?
“Lou is better about letting Piper help. Or was,” King added, glancing out the window.
Konstantine felt a twinge of jealousy at that.
“Maybe because she’s a woman. I don’t know. But I think Lucy would support us in this.”
Konstantine reluctantly pulled himself from his thoughts. “In what?”
“In protecting Lou from Diana. She might not want my help, but I promised to look after her. And Lou looks out for all of us. It’s fair.”
Fair, Konstantine mused, hearing Piper’s voice in the courtyard and knowing the girls were almost back.
When was anything in this world fair?
26
Piper sat in her bed with her laptop open on her lap. Her purple comforter was pulled around her and the A/C clicked on in the living room. She stared at the blinking cursor.
Lou, Konstantine, and King had their plan for the Missouri operation. Every time Piper thought about it, bees buzzed in her temples. They were playing with fire—didn’t they know it?
Diana couldn’t be trusted, and if they weren’t careful, that viper was going to bite them. She felt like they were already poisoned and she was the only one seeing it.
What are you going to do about it? Dani had asked.
She regarded Dani sleeping beside her, her dark hair spread over Piper’s pillow. If she was honest with herself, she liked her there, in her bed, in her apartment. She liked that Dani’s soap was in her shower and her makeup was on her sink. She liked that Dani could pull a mug down from her cabinet like it was the most natural thing in the world, that she had her preferred spot on the sofa.
It steadied something inside her.
Piper opened the new desktop folder labeled DD. It contained all the information they’d gathered on Diana as far back as March, when they’d first bumped into the woman while hunting Fish.
She scanned the data, opening and closing files at random. When nothing caught her eye, she went online to Diana’s forum and began scrolling. Most of the posts were about missing women. Some were about abuse and asking for help in taking down an abuser because authorities had failed to take their complaints seriously.
There were thousands of complaints. Maybe even tens of thousands.
God, Piper thought. Why is the world such a mess?
A post snagged her attention. It was dated two days ago.
&n
bsp; Want to make Earth a better, safer place for women? Ready to work hard for something that matters?
Piper wasn’t sure if Diana had created the post herself or if she’d simply seized and repurposed it, but the forum seemed to be her hub for recruiting.
Yeah, you need new people, Piper thought. After Lou laid waste to your ass.
Piper took the name from the post and added it to her growing list. She’d added more names every time she found a new admin in the forum. While she couldn’t be sure that every admin posting was Diana, she was sure that at least seven of them were her aliases.
“Sloppy,” Piper said.
“What?” Dani asked, stirring beside her.
“Oh, sorry,” Piper said, closing the laptop enough so that the light didn’t fall on Dani’s face. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“What time is it?”
Piper checked the computer screen. “Just past midnight. I’m almost done.”
It was a lie to buy her time. Hopefully, Dani would drop back off to sleep and she could keep working.
But Dani didn’t turn back over. Instead, she rolled toward Piper. “What are you working on?”
Piper closed the laptop rather guiltily. “Diana. I’m making a list of the names used on admin posts. Since it’s her site, some of these might be her credit card aliases. Piper wrapped an arm around the girl. “Maybe we can get her arrested for her credit card scams. That’s pretty illegal.”
“Fraud only has a jail time of ten to fifteen years,” Dani said.
“Yeah, but that’s fifteen years we don’t have to deal with her. She’d be in her fifties when she got out. Or maybe she’ll get shivved in prison and save us all some trouble.”
Dani gave her a sleepy laugh. “I don’t think so. Ask Mel how this one goes.”
Poor Mel. Her abusive, homicidal husband had been in prison for twenty-five years, and the first thing he did when released was show up on her doorstep and bully her for money.
Piper sighed. “Possible payback aside, this is the most solid option I’ve got.”
Devil’s Luck Page 16
