Read Online Birds of Prey by Crissy Smith - Free Book Online Page B

man she’d come to see. “Mr Brunson, thank you so much for seeing me.”
    “Of course, I’ve always wanted to meet you.” Anton waved her farther into the room. “Plus I want to help in any way I can with the investigation,” he assured her. “Cody stopped by and I mentioned to him that you had called. He wanted to stay too.”
    Anton looked between her and Cody, amusement evident in his eyes.
    Aubrey sighed. Were there never any secrets? And now Cody had busted her.
    So she might as well go all in, keep her questions professional, and try to hold back any rant that Cody would go off on. “Okay, so I shouldn’t be here,” she admitted.
    “No, you shouldn’t,” Cody barked. “I told you to stay out of this!”
    His reaction put her back up. She glared at him. “Did you?” she replied sarcastically. “I must have misunderstood.”
    “Misunderstood?” Cody said before growling and stalking towards her.
    “Cody.” Anton’s voice was low and all Alpha.
    Cody paused. He continued glowering at her.
    A chill travelled down her spine. Damn, Anton was a powerful leader.
    “Let us all calm down and have a seat,” Anton suggested.
    Aubrey and Cody moved at the same time. Aubrey settled into a large, overstuffed chair across from the couch that Cody and Anton took.
    She did her best to avoid looking directly at Cody. Unsure how to proceed, the only course of action was to let Anton take the lead.
    “This is a difficult situation for everyone,” Anton started. “Not only have you both lost people you were very close to, there is also your personal connection to take into account. So let’s move forward. I’ve already informed Cody of this, but since it does involve your Cast,” Anton told her, “I see no reason why you shouldn’t be aware too.”
    She nodded slowly. As soon as she’d realised Cody was there, she’d been certain that she wouldn’t get the information she wanted. She was pleasantly surprised.
    “About two months ago, a young man, the one in the photo, approached both Gregory and me,” Anton explained. “He is a falcon shifter and contacted us under the pretence of joining with the Cast or my Flock.”
    Aubrey bit her lip as a dozen questions raced through her mind.
    “I had a bad feeling about the kid. He was young, yes, but there was something…dark about him. I gave him a few vague statements about the Flock and encouraged him to speak with the members. I don’t know whether he did or not. I never spoke to him after that, but I did notice that he showed up in several of the places I did around the city.”
    So the kid had been following Anton? That was interesting.
    “Three weeks ago, I ran into Gregory and saw him again. I can’t… I’ve tried racking my brain, but I can’t remember his name.” Anton waved it off. “Anyway, Gregory noticed the young man and told me how he’d gone to the Cast and asked about joining them too. Gregory hadn’t felt right about the meeting either. So we compared notes.”
    When Anton paused, Aubrey took the opportunity to ask her question. “So Gregory had him followed?”
    Nodding, Anton replied, “There was just something…not right.”
    “Who did you have follow him?” she asked. “It wasn’t anyone from the Flock or Gregory’s law firm. Mike would have known if any of Gregory’s people were involved.”
    “No, we decided that we needed to keep it off the records. If we were wrong and the guy was just looking for family, then we didn’t want to have any paperwork on the search,” Anton responded. “Starting an investigation on someone is a big deal.”
    Aubrey knew that. While they did a basic information check on any new member of the Cast, there were too many privacy regulations, especially with the new shifter laws in place, so they had to be careful.
    What had been in the file was way more than just a basic search.
    “We used a private detective with no connection to shifters. His name is Sam Gibbons. Sam reported that