Page 49 of What a Wolf Wants
“Yeah. They’re in the car.”
“Okay, good.” Ethan helped Charlene bring in the plates of pancakes and slices of ham and set them on the table.
Then Charlene sat down next to Ethan at the table across from Noah, showing him whose side she was on.
“This looks great, Charlene. Thanks for inviting me to have breakfast with you.” Then Noah turned his attention toEthan. “I take it that Charlene knows you’re not really retired from the department.”
Ethan swore he brought the matter up to see if Charlene didn’t know about it and then Ethan would be put on the spot with her in front of Noah. Before Ethan could say that she did know all about the situation, she spoke up.
“Yep, and I was going to help Ethan with his mission. He shouldn’t be doing this on his own, so I’m glad you’re going to be working with him on this.” Charlene took a sip of her coffee.
“You’re no longer a homicide detective,” Noah reminded her.
“Right. No badge any longer, but I could still have helped Ethan with surveillance.” She ate some more of her pancakes.
“The way we’re going to work the living arrangements is that I’ll be here with Charlene, and you’ll stay at the rental,” Ethan said.
Noah was about to take a bite of his ham, but his jaw dropped. Then he shook his head. “All right.”
Ethan was glad the wolf was finally getting the point that Ethan was with Charlene and Noah had lost his chance with her back in Florida.
Ethan gave Noah some of the backstory on three of the men who were still at large. “Thor is a big dude. That’s the name everyone calls him. He’s Timothy Morton, but the guy is six five and more like a bear—black-bearded, black hair, eyes as black as coals, and he’s the real muscle of the group. His father was abusive, a drunk, worked construction, and his mother died of cancer when Thor was ten. Thor had fivesiblings, all boys, all of them in trouble from time to time. With his big size, he intimidated everyone, even when he wasn’t trying to, except for Kroner.
“Then we have Kroner—Jet Kroner—the leader of the drug gang. He’s almost as big at six three. He calls all the shots. He had his own gang when he was in middle school, and he continued having the same gang through his school years and beyond. He has a good family—well-to-do. His father was a retired judge, his mother a retired dentist. He was a spoiled only child, got everything he ever wanted, but he wanted to make a name for himself on the dark side.
“Oakley is smart, cagey, a follower, but when Kroner isn’t around, he takes charge. He has one sister who is a schoolteacher, his father is a minister, and his mother is busy with the church. But he feels closest to his great-aunt who adores him. He has a dark side to him as well.
“Benny Coates was just arrested. They had three other gang members, but they died during turf wars. Benny is relatively new to the gang by a few months. I believe he was hung out to dry, wanted to be like Kroner who took him in on a whim. But the guy was smart, streetwise, and a thug in his own right. I had hopes we could flip him to turn on Kroner and the others. There are others who work for Kroner, but they’re small fries and we don’t know their names.”
Noah said, “Then there’s the mole in the organization.”
“Yeah, at least one. Kroner’s the one who had my parents murdered,” Ethan said. “And he’s the one who shot me on this last mission.”
“You’re working on this case when it’s personal for you?” Noah asked.
“Yeah. Grainger had a similar situation with his dad being gunned down when he was serving as a police officer. Grainger’s boss let him track down the men who killed his father, so he’s fine with me working this case. I have too much to lose by getting myself killed, so I’m not going to go all Rambo and try and take these men out without playing by the rules.”
“Good to know. That’s the same with me. Grainger said you’re still recovering from the gunshot wound. How’s that going?” Noah asked.
“It’s healing.” Though it would be doing better if Ethan hadn’t gone cliff hanging when the bear charged them.
“But it’s still bothering you.”
“Yeah, but it won’t get in the way of me doing the job.”
Noah smiled a little at that and Ethan thought that’s what Noah wanted to hear—that Ethan was a worthy partner, even if he was still suffering from a gunshot wound.
“So all four men are wanted for a number of murders, racketeering, drug running, you name it. The three we need to catch won’t hesitate to shoot us.” Ethan told Noah all about the great-aunt who lived in Oyster Bay and that they needed to go there before church services to see if they could capture Oakley.
“Grainger said you weren’t supposed to try and take any of these men down on your own,” Noah said, then ate the rest of his pancakes. “That you’re supposed to call it in.”
“Right. That was before you arrived to help me out. Therest of the team is three hours away. They might not get here in time to take the gang members down if we find them, and then they could get spooked and disappear again. And there’s still a mole in the organization, I believe. So if he got word that we were gunning for Oakley, he could just give him a call and warn him.”
Ethan told Noah about the botched cases where the four men always seemed to get word that the DEA was on their way to grab them. He also told him about the clerical error that caused Kroner to be released back out into the public and the case Adam and Tori were working on that might be a homicide that Kroner had something to do with.
“What do you think about all this?” Noah asked Charlene.
“I’m ready to help you both out if you need my assistance.” She finished her coffee. “And I hope you learn who the mole is and take him or her down.”
