Read Cat's Paw (Veritas Book 1) for Free Online

can where it sat near the back fence, battered and grimy. As he drew near, he could see the flies boiling out of the lid, which was ajar. The stench hit him ten feet away, and he stopped in his tracks.
    That wasn’t garbage. That was something dead.
    He edged closer and shifted the lid, then dropped it, gagging. In the midst of the garbage was a calico cat, painted with flies. Mr. Toes.
    Only when Alex covered his nose and mouth to step closer did he find the note, scrawled on a piece of lined notepaper.
    NOWHERE TO HIDE
    *~*~*
    The Hotel St. Sebastian was in the French Quarter, one of those true New Orleans beauties that had survived hurricanes, floods, and decades of dirty politics. Morgan’s boss sat in an overstuffed armchair near one of the windows, a position she thought was inviting trouble. Though Veritas’s home office was in Chicago, whenever the boss was in town he stayed here, and his enemies knew it. The Russians would love nothing more than to take this guy out, and yet, he made no effort to conceal himself.
    Doesn’t he realize how important he is to us?
    As if he’d heard her thoughts, Crispin Wilder’s attention rose from the tablet in his lap, his distinctive dark-gray eyes troubled. At present, he was wearing a black T-shirt and a pair of jeans, totally at odds with the elegant room around them.
    It was actually a suite of rooms named after a famous author, decorated with crown molding, still-life paintings, a glittering chandelier, and comforting sage-green walls. The floors were wood, highly polished, a thick rug denoting the center of the room. A white fireplace was built into the far wall, and in a nearby hallway, an orchid bloomed on a carved table. The space spoke of tranquility, a sanctuary in a city known for glittery excess.
    Morgan shifted on the sofa. As she waited, she noted that Crispin’s beard had been trimmed, closely cropped. It revealed a few gray hairs. His long, dark-brown hair was graying at the temples as well, not unusual for someone in his forties. Caught in a ponytail at the nape of his neck, it made him ruggedly handsome. Both of his hands had a series of small scars in no discernible pattern.
    She’d heard a lot of rumors about how those scars had come to be, but no one knew the real story. At one time Crispin had not served the forces of good, but had been a ruthless gunrunner supplying weapons of war to greedy despots across the planet. The kind of weapons needed to decimate whole villages or countries, sometimes in the name of God, but most times in the name of the Almighty Dollar.
    Something had happened along the way, something that had changed Crispin Wilder forever. No one really knew the whole tale, and the man wouldn’t speak of it. All Morgan knew was that he’d abruptly quit the arms business and vanished, only to resurface a year later, the head of Veritas. His vast fortune helped fund their activities, cultivating those nefarious and legitimate contacts he’d made across the globe.
    Except this time he was peddling justice, not arms.
    When Morgan shifted on the sofa again, her boss noticed.
    “I did ask you to come see me, and now I’m ignoring you. That’s rude,” Crispin said, closing the tablet.
    “That’s okay. This is about Parkin, isn’t it?”
    He nodded. “Had any second thoughts since you met him?”
    Morgan cut to the chase, now that she’d had time to reflect on the situation.
    “I think we can still get him on board, but you really need to send someone else after him. He’s not listening to me.”
    Crispin nodded, leaning back and crossing his arms. A tattoo peeked out from the right sleeve of his T-shirt. Morgan couldn’t make out what it was, and she wasn’t going to ask. Her superior was open about some matters and totally closed on others, and you never knew where a topic fell on that scale.
    “Buryshkin’s shipment arrived last night,” he said. “Cocaine. Street value in the millions.”
    “God,” she murmured. “It