Free Her Rogue Alpha (X-Ops Book 5) by Paige Tyler Page A

could win. Even for a former senator, Thorn possessed a tremendous amount of influence in the DC area. Add that to the power that came with his position as CEO of Chadwick-Thorn and his place on the DCO Committee, and Thorn could easily make life a living hell for the detective if he wanted to. The only problem was, Braden Hayes seemed like the kind of man who loved tilting at windmills, even if the windmill always won.
    She’d better step in and say something before the two men decided to drop their pants and compare dick size. “What do we know about the thief so far?”
    Hayes and Thorn continued their staring contest for another long moment before the detective finally turned his gaze on her. “Unfortunately, we don’t know much of anything about the thief at this point. We can’t even say for sure how many of them there were.”
    “No evidence left behind, I’m guessing?” Landon asked.
    Hayes shook his head. “Nothing. No fingerprints, hair, fiber, or trace materials. No footprints anywhere on the grounds, no obvious signs of forced entry, and not a single mark on the safe. No one would even know it had been tampered with if it weren’t for the fact that it was left hanging open.”
    “How did the thief get in?” Ivy asked as she wandered around the study.
    “We’re still looking for his entry point into the home, but right now it’s looking like he came in through a third-floor window in the hallway, by way of the roof. I was up there earlier with some of the security staff. You’d have to be a psycho to walk around on that tile, but that seems to make the most sense. I’m thinking the thief lowered himself down from the edge of the roof somehow and came in through a window, but how he did it is beyond me.”
    Ivy’s estimation of the detective went up a few notches, not just because he’d actually figured out how the shifter had gotten into the home, but also because he’d been committed enough to clamber around on the roof and confirm his suspicions.
    “About all I can say for sure is that the thief is good,” Hayes added. “Based on the time line established by the security people working last night, the thief couldn’t have been on the property for more than fifteen minutes.”
    “What did he take?” Landon asked.
    “This,” Frasier said, handing Landon a photograph of what looked like a flawless diamond. “It was last appraised for twenty-five million and is worth considerably more than that now.”
    Ivy blinked. While she couldn’t tell the exact size of the diamond from the picture, it looked huge.
    Landon handed the photo back to Frasier. “Was anything else taken?”
    “No,” Thorn said quickly—too quickly. “Just the diamond.”
    Ivy’s kitty alarm immediately went off. Thorn was lying, she was sure of it. And something told her that the former senator was more interested in getting that other item back than he was the diamond.
    Detective Hayes hung around a few more minutes before announcing he was going to start checking the usual fences to see if they’d heard of anyone looking to sell a diamond.
    He handed Landon his card, then gave both of them a nod. “If you’d like to compare notes, give me a call.”
    The moment Hayes left the room, Thorn looked at Ivy expectantly. “Was the thief a shifter?”
    “Could be,” she said. “Especially if Hayes is right about how the person got into the house.”
    “Could be?” Thorn frowned. “I thought shifters could identify other shifters purely by scent?”
    Ivy gave him a bland smile. “My sense of smell isn’t that good. I have feline DNA, not bloodhound. If it was a shifter, they weren’t here long enough to leave much of a scent trail behind. Not that it would have mattered. With all the cops and crime scene techs running around here, whatever traces left behind have been obliterated by now.”
    Thorn swore. “I want you two to stick close to Hayes. I get the feeling he already has a few ideas about who this