Page 113 of When He Lies
Family. Ryan sucked in a breath. “We need to find Logan’s grandmother.”
“I’m sorry.” She shook her head, hard. “I seem to say this a lot but…what? We’re hunting for a grandmother now? I thought we were looking for Simone and Konstantin.”
“We are. Simone retrieved the broach and the earrings for Nana.”
“Again…what?”
“Logan Sterling’s grandmother,” he gritted between clenched teeth. He could not hear the wail of the ambulance any longer. But he did hear a faint…
Meow.
He whirled and searched the street.
“Why is Logan’s grandmother important right now?” Charlotte asked as she darted around him. “Ryan, seriously, focus.”
He was focusing. “Where’s the damn cat? I need to get it for her.”
“Uh, okay.” She reached out a hand to touch his shoulder. “I get a lot is happening. If you need to step back, I can take lead on this one. Sometimes, when things are too personal, we need a break.”
“I am not stepping back.” He’d just seen the cat. The black cat with the scraggly ear. The same one he and Simone had seen during their trip to the Arch. He bounded forward and grabbed the cat, clutching it to his chest when he straightened.
“I do not know what is happening right now.” Charlotte eyed him with no small amount of worry. “I am concerned.”
“It’s Simone’s cat,” he snapped. Or, it would be. When he got her back, he’d have the cat for her.
“That’s a stray, Ryan. The thing looks half-starved and seriously in need of a vet trip.”
It would get a vet trip. It would get plenty of food. It would get a lifetime of love.
“And I hate to break this to you, but black cats are bad luck. We don’t need any more bad luck considering the way this case is going.” She still gripped her phone.
“The cat is good luck. In France, they are good luck.”
“We are not in France.”
The cat rubbed his head beneath Ryan’s chin. “Find Logan Sterling’s grandmother. She should be in Vegas. She has dementia issues.” The broach and earrings had made her smile. Simone had been willing to travel across an ocean, get a job working for Frederick, and then lift those items right out of the guy’s heavily guarded gallery. She’d done all of that because she loved the woman she called Nana.
There was no doubt that Logan would love the woman just as much. So what would he be willing to do for her?
But Logan didn’t kill Harry. Harry had said Konstantin thought he was dead but…
“Got a bullet here!” An agent was pointing to a crack in the road. A space near where Harry had been sprawled in a pool of blood.
“Damn.” The agent whistled. “Looks like it was about an inch or two away from Harry’s head.”
A deliberate miss on Logan’s part.
“Weapon!” Another agent shouted. “Discarded gun. It was half-hidden in a bush over here. Getting it bagged and tagged.”
Ryan’s gaze darted to the weapon that the agent was, indeed, bagging and tagging. He’d seen a gun exactly like that one earlier, when Logan had pointed it straight at his face.
Logan, what are you doing? Leaving his gun behind would tie him directly to the crime. But maybe that was exactly what Konstantin wanted. Konstantin had thought Logan shot and killed Harry. Konstantin wanted Logan to be hunted by the CIA and MI6. He wanted Logan going down…
While Konstantin had the chance to slip away.
You’re not getting away, you bastard. It will not happen.
“Find the grandmother,” he told Charlotte. “In Vegas. I want operatives to close in. I want them beside her.”
