Tana French The Searcher Novels & Stories

From what Tanya had told her, she didn't have anyone except her late sister so why would someone be searching for Tanya? The private investigator smiled again. He had traced Tanya's movement from the train station and had gotten her pictures through the street's CCTV. Perhaps he was being too lenient on granny Ann. He looked around and saw that no one was looking. He slowly put his hand behind his waist and took out a gun. Granny Ann gasped in fear when she saw the gun while the private investigator said, "let's go inside, ma'am. It seems we need to have a nice little chat."

“Have you found it? Please… let me know as soon as you do. I really need it urgently. Thank you.” She ended the call and downed the entire drink in one gulp. Her eyes drifted back to the crescent mark on her own skin. For some reason, she felt… stronger. And she had no idea why. --- Across town, Calvin stepped into a large, dimly lit house filled with fellow hunters, each busy at their stations. Weapons were being cleaned, maps spread out, and radios crackled with incoming reports. At one table, Alice sat beside another hunter, eyes fixed on a laptop screen as she typed and spoke in low tones.

They had left their golden goose completely vulnerable, guarded only by a skeletal crew of unsuspecting soldiers. Two miles away, inside the soundproof, high-tech command center of the Volkov van, Serena stood before a wall of glowing monitors. Her ocean-blue eyes were sharp, calculating, and entirely devoid of remorse. She wore a simple, form-fitting black turtleneck and dark jeans, her hair pulled back into a high ponytail. Beside her stood Alexei, his fingers flying across a tactical keyboard as he monitored the live satellite feeds and heat-signature maps of the Moretti warehouse.

I thought about my father, who had shaped me into a weapon and then complained when I hurt him. I thought about the thousands of employees at Vane Industries, who were now working for a company. Did they care about Project Chimera? Did they care about their mortgages and their childrens school fees? If I opened that tablet I would be Hannah Vane, the Investigator. I would be drawn back into the web. I would be back on a plane to New York or London or Hong Kong hunting shadows again. I looked back at the villa. Saw Stephen in the distance tending to a row of burned rosebushes. He looked happy.

The second refusal was happening in real time, and it was about Saoirse for a different reason. Eddie Doyle was, by my read, the most competent investigator in her physical proximity, and he was sitting at her kitchen table with the specific clarity of mind a man brings to an interview when he has already decided his interview subject is lying. He was going to push. He was going to push on something Marcus Reed could not have scripted her around, because there were things about her body and her affect and the specific way she occupied her own kitchen that Marcus Reed had never been in a room with her to observe. Doyle would find one of those things. He would, in finding it, take the case to

To them, this is a brief stop on a longer journey. To me, it's a crime scene. And I shouldn’t be here. There are too many competing scents. Human lives piled on top of one another until everything becomes a blur. I learned long ago how to listen through the chaos. Beneath the diesel and rainwater, buried under thousands of passing strangers, I find her. Nearly erased, but there. Frankie. Who made her choice. The scent catches something deep inside my chest before I force it back under control. Fear lingers in it, determination too. She was exhausted when she passed through. Hungry. Running on stubbornness and very little else.

She was feeling scared. Tanya, "I can't tell you her name. She is my friend. She told me to inform you about those werewolves' plan to sacrifice a human. I did whatever she asked me to do. Harsh was not my boyfriend, and I don't know who killed him. I lied to you." Vishal "So your friend is that hunter?" Tanya "I don't know." Vishal, "You know everything! Don't lie to me." Tanya "Yes, she is a hunter. But I am a normal human. Trust me, I was just helping her."

But no I’m alive and I get to decide who I live this life. In the beginning of my departure I was careless, I got close to peter, just a kid really but I was vulnerable and I needed a friend, I didn’t know the human world and he had such a wide view of it. I just latched onto him and became attached. I was optimistic for finally becoming independent and doing my own thing so I didn’t hide much or try to conceal myself so I basically made it easy for the hunters to find me. The hunter ripped through him without a second thought.

"We rest tonight. Let you heal. Tomorrow we'll find another way." My tablet buzzed again-this time a message from Fiona, my head of security back in London. The corporate side of my life now seemed a distant dream, but I still had resources there that could help us survive. "My team's detected increased activity at private airfields across France," I told Gerard after reading the message. "They're bringing in more hunters." He swore softly in French. "Then we have less time than I thought." He paced the small room, his agitation making the air thick with Alpha energy. "The safe haven your mate found in the Alps-can it hold many?"

“Because I walked quietly. Because I didn’t fight you. Because I smiled.” I knelt beside Isla, gripping her jaw and yanking her face up so she could look me in the eyes. “But you don’t get it. You don’t know who I am.” She whimpered. “I’m Aryn Fiona Flynn,” I whispered, voice sharp as a blade. “Best killer the Russian spy program ever produced. First woman to climb the ranks without spilling a single tear. You think a little knife and some high school jealousy was going to scare me?” They said nothing.