her laptop—it was a couple of years old, and a little dinged. He noted that it was Rivera Tech brand.
She tapped in some searches. Made some frustrated noises. “Nothing of interest comes up on that warehouse. I can’t work out why the hell Nexus wants it. I can run a search on all the companies that have owned or used it. But it’ll take some time.”
His gut cramped. “And we’re running out of time.”
She reached across and grabbed his hand. “We’re not letting those photos go public. And we aren’t letting Jake get hurt.”
He nodded.
She squeezed then released his fingers, then tapped again on her laptop. Her brow furrowed. She was cute as hell when she concentrated.
His cell phone rang and he saw Vander’s name on the screen. Finally. “It’s Vander.”
Aspen got a funny look on her face.
Liam frowned. “What?”
“Vander Norcross is a legend.” She shivered a little.
Liam’s frown deepened. Did she have to look like a teenage fan at a boyband concert? He pressed the speaker button. “Vander.”
“Hey, Liam. I have some intel for you.” The man’s deep voice filled the room.
“Good, because we’re running out of time.”
“First off, Penn Channing is an alias of a woman called Aspen Chandler.”
Aspen pulled a face.
“I’m not sure how she fits into all this,” Vander continued, “but she’s a licensed investigator.”
“I know,” Liam said. “She’s sitting here with me.”
“Um, hi.” Aspen’s voice sounded a little breathy.
Liam nudged her. “Vander, let me bring you up to speed on things.” He gave Vander a brief rundown on Aspen, Erica and Jake, the warehouse, the fact that Nexus was looking for something at the place.
Vander expelled a breath. “Okay, that complicates things a bit. Ace hasn’t had anything pop on why these assholes want your warehouse, but we’ve dug up plenty on Nexus. The group is run by a guy called—”
“Kristoff Doyle,” Aspen said. “Doesn’t show his face and is very, very careful.”
“Yeah,” Vander said. “Guy keeps a very low profile, and we dug up zero on him. That concerns me. His second-in-command is a woman named Jackie Godin. Woman is bad news and has a string of white-collar crimes to her name, along with several charges for assault. She likes to cut, shoot, and beat people up.”
“Charming,” Liam said.
“Does she have badly dyed black hair and soulless eyes?” Aspen asked.
“That’s her. Nexus has been in operation for over a decade. Mostly corporate and insurance fraud, blackmail. I suspect Doyle’s work goes back even earlier, he was just less organized then. They’re really dangerous, Liam. They won’t hesitate to kill in order to get what they want.”
Liam felt the burn of rage. A huge helping of it was for his bastard of a father, but the rest was for Nexus. “Well, Nexus aren’t getting this land. If I hand it over it would scuttle a massive, billion-dollar project set to provide vital housing for the area. No, I want Jake Knox back safely, those photos destroyed, and Nexus stopped. If I give in to their demands, they’ll be back for more.”
“Okay,” Vander said. “Lay low. Ace is still searching for anything on the warehouse. We find out why they want it, it’ll help us find a way to stop them.”
“Thanks, Vander,” Liam said.
“I’ll be in touch.”
The call ended. Aspen pushed her hair back and sighed. “We need to keep looking.”
They got back to work. Liam rose and made coffee. He also pulled a small box out of his pantry.
He set it down beside Aspen.
She saw it and gasped. “Oh my God, is that from Jean-Paul Hévin?”
“Yes.”
“He’s like the best chocolatier in Paris!” She stared at the small chocolate squares in awe.
“All yours.” Liam felt a flush of pleasure to give her something she liked.
She snatched one up, ate it, and sighed. “Oh, wow.”
Now, if only he could get her to look at him the way she looked at that chocolate.
As Aspen savored another chocolate, Liam remembered the scrap of paper he’d picked up at the warehouse. He fished it out of his ruined suit and smoothed it out.
Aspen leaned over and frowned. “What’s that?”
“I picked it up at the warehouse.”
“It looks like a label.”
Liam squinted. “I think it is. From a bottle.” The ink was faded. “Look, I think that says whiskey.”
“The old part of the warehouse is from Prohibition times, right? Could they have made bootlegged whiskey in there?”
“This isn’t for whiskey, it’s for beer. They might have brewed it there, or at least distributed it out of that warehouse back in the 1920s