When Temptation Burns: A Shadow Keepers Novel (Shadow Keepers 6) (13 page)

“I don’t know him well,” Sara said. “But we crossed paths when I worked upstairs as an ADA. He’s ambitious. I’d bet my salary that he wins the senate race. He’s just the kind of man that Vassalo would want in his pocket.”

“And is there a connection between him and Vassalo?” Doyle asked. “Or are we just speculating?”

Bosch’s smile was thin. “We’ve learned that he’s hovering around the fringes of the Dark Warriors.”

“The fringes?”

“We don’t have the details, of course,” Luke said. “According to Jordan’s reports, Paul seemed to be courting Sullivan. But Jordan wasn’t in a position to get any more specific than that. We intend to use Sullivan as your gateway to an introduction to Paul.”

Doyle leaned back in his chair and snorted. “Do we? How?”

Bosch and Luke both turned to pointedly stare at Tucker.

“I’m up for the job,” Tucker said. “But what if he’s not susceptible? You said Paul may have trained himself to avoid influence. What if he’s been training his friends, too?”

“Actually, that’s exactly what we think he’s doing,” Luke said. “And that may be why Sullivan is still only on the fringes of the group. We’ve done a few test runs and he’s still susceptible, but the operator can’t go deep.”

“So we can tell him to trust Doyle, invite him for coffee, drinks, whatever,” Tucker said. “But we can’t have him forget he’s ever seen Doyle?”

“Exactly.”

“Too bad you can’t go deep enough to make him forget that I supposedly work for Homeland Security,” Doyle said. “That’s going to be a stumbling block.”

“I’m not so sure,” Bosch said. “I think it could actually work to our benefit.”

“That I’m in law enforcement?” Doyle asked.

“That you’re like him. Don’t forget, he’s a prosecutor. You two are sympatico, or so he’ll think.”

“Two like-minded men looking for a type of justice that the system isn’t providing,” Luke added. “He’ll believe it. With Tucker there to enforce the idea, I think we can be confident of that.”

Doyle nodded. “Fair enough.” He faced Luke. “Are we certain he doesn’t know about Division Six?”

“As certain as we can be,” Luke said.

Sara leaned forward. “We’re confident. I asked Porter myself,” she said, referring to Alexander Porter, the district attorney, and the only person in the DA’s office who was aware of the existence of Division 6. “Unless Sullivan’s
keeping it a secret, he doesn’t know anything more than I did back when I was an ADA.”

“And what exactly did you know?” Tucker asked.

“That Division Six was a special division of Homeland Security. I assumed it focused on undercover work. But believe me, until I saw the PEC floors myself, I had no idea what—or who—shared the building with me.”

“So whatever he believes about shadowers, it’s not because he works here and has been rubbing shoulders with us,” Tucker said.

Doyle considered everything they’d said and had to agree that they’d plugged the biggest holes. It still wasn’t a foolproof plan, but he sure as hell didn’t have a better suggestion.

Of course, Travis was only part of the problem. “Even if I manage to get in tight with Travis, Paul is likely to be more careful. And we already know we can’t use influence on him.”

“A fair point,” Bosch said. “But once you do earn his trust, he’ll undoubtedly find you indispensable for your position within Homeland. But you’ll need to work fast.”

“Earn his trust?” Doyle repeated with a tight grin. “Got any ideas?”

“Not a one,” Bosch admitted. “But we will. And the first step is for you to get in good with Sullivan. Everything else depends on that.”

“Fine,” Doyle said. “How do I do that?”

Sara pushed back her chair and stood. “Just follow me.”

“Analysts have been combing through surveillance footage of the lobby since Jordan reported Sullivan’s involvement,”
Sara said as they rode up in the elevator from the secret sub-basement level. “At five he takes a walk to the end of the block, grabs a coffee, and comes back before putting in a few more hours at the office.” She eyed Doyle and Tucker. “You ready?”

“A little more warning before diving into the opp would have been nice,” Doyle said. “But yeah. I’m good to go. You?”

“Hell yes,” Tucker said as the elevator doors slid open.

“There he is,” Sara said as they stepped into the cavernous lobby. Her head cocked slightly to the left, and Doyle saw that Sullivan had just emerged from the elevator next to theirs. He had a politician’s smile, and as Doyle watched, Travis shook hands with no less than two colleagues, working the after-work crowd like he was at a political rally.

“Here we go,” Sara said. Then, louder, “Travis!” He glanced over, then held out his arms in a gesture of surprise and greeting.

“Sara Constantine—look at you! I heard you were transferred to Division Six. Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” she said. “But it’s nothing like what you’ve been up to. I followed the Creevey trial. Amazing work. He’s an absolute monster.”

Sullivan’s face clouded. “He is indeed. Honestly, it’s never easy seeking the death penalty, but with Creevey I had no hesitations.”

“I wouldn’t have, either,” Doyle said.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Sara gestured to Doyle and Tucker. “Agent Doyle, Agent Tucker, this is Travis Sullivan, one of our assistant district attorneys.”

They shared greetings, and then Sara glanced at her
watch. “Great running into you, but I’ve got to get to a meeting. Agents? You coming back to the office?”

“Gonna grab a coffee,” Doyle said. “Shame the snack bar only has dreck.”

“I’m heading to the Coffee Bean if you’d like to join me,” Travis said. Of course, Doyle and Tucker agreed.

“So how long have we been doing this?” Doyle asked as the barista handed their coffees over. He moved to a nearby table and sat down, stretching out his long legs.

“This?”

“Three months,” Tucker said. “You two have been grabbing coffee together on and off for three months.”

“That’s right,” Travis said. “I’ve enjoyed our breaks.”

“Good to be with someone who understands the way you think,” Tucker said. “Who knows what you do.” He leaned in, lowering his voice. “Who knows about the vampires and the werewolves and the other creatures.”

“Hard to do what we do, isn’t it?” Travis said. “We put away criminals, but it only makes a dent. The real danger is hiding in the dark, and there’s nobody out there fighting against that evil.”

“Nobody?” Doyle said.

“You know you can trust him,” Tucker said. “You’ve trusted him for weeks.”

Travis looked between the two men. “That’s right. I have.”

“It’s time you let me in,” Doyle said. “You know how I think. You know what I want.”

“To eradicate evil,” Travis said.

“Hell yeah,” Doyle said. He leaned back and lifted his
coffee, secure in the fact that at least for the moment he wasn’t telling a lie. “Hell yeah.”

Twice Kevin picked up the phone to call Wes, and twice he put it down again. He wasn’t sure what he’d say to the guy. Just like he wasn’t sure what to think about the fact that Andy’s cop friend didn’t know about any dead or injured kid at the Club Rouge. Or a dead werewolf for that matter.

But Kevin knew what he’d seen, even if Andy thought he was nuts.

Did she?

He couldn’t tell. He’d known her his whole life, and yet she always kept a part of herself shut off. It would bug him except that he’d gotten used to it. And he knew she was smart. So maybe it wasn’t that she didn’t believe him. Maybe she just needed to see it for herself. Like doing labs in school or dissecting a frog or something.

God
.

He plopped down on the sofa. What he really wanted was a beer. He was tired and ripped and he was supposed to be in class right now, but the last thing he wanted to do was think about class. He didn’t even know what he was doing half the time, and the other half he felt lost and in over his head.

He hadn’t been like that in high school. Then, he’d been popular. He’d fit in. But college had thrown him for a loop. That was, he realized, why he’d been so happy when Wes and Stu had pulled him into their circle. Why he wanted so badly to move up. To meet Paul.

Paul was someone he could really admire. He and his
Dark Warriors had a purpose. They had focus. They were doing something that Kevin could get behind. That he could be proud of.

And if he could prove that to Andy, he would. For once he’d be the one doing the explaining, and not the other way around.

Except he hadn’t been bullshitting when he’d told her he didn’t have a way in. He’d thought that Wes or Stu would come by today, that they’d ask him to hang with them. At the very least they’d be able to talk about last night. Better yet, they could go to Paul and tell him all about it. Wes knew Paul, he’d told Kevin so himself.

But there had been no call. Nobody had dropped by. Just Kevin and a bunch of bullshit programs on cable. Christ, didn’t anybody air movies starring anyone other than Goldie Hawn? What year was this, anyway?

He picked up the remote, then dropped it when the shrill ring of his phone startled him. For a second he didn’t answer, afraid it would be a bill collector or his mother or a wrong number. But he couldn’t stand it, and he finally snatched it up on the third ring.
Please be Wes. Please be Wes
.

It wasn’t. It wasn’t Stu, either.

It was better.

Paul Vassalo knew about evil. As a child, he’d looked it in the face. He’d gagged from the stench of it. He’d watched as the people he loved best had died, ripped apart at the hands of monsters. The kinds of monsters who shouldn’t exist. Shouldn’t, but did.

At the time, he’d been too young to do anything about it. But he’d waited and watched and learned.

Now, he was the one the monsters needed to watch out for. And not just him—one man couldn’t expect to stand against the monsters. But a team? An army?

That
was the way to fight the devil. And that was what he was fighting, after all. Evil incarnate. The physical manifestation of dark spirits upon the earth. Demons, monsters, whatever you wanted to call them. The creatures weren’t human, and they were poisoning the world.

Paul stood now at the north end of an underground bunker hidden deep within the Mojave Desert. In front of him, a dozen men stood at attention, his most promising soldiers. Each of them would recruit four more to their cause within the month, and those four would do the same in turn. With that type of exponential increase, his army would be massive within a year.