Chapter 1

Quantico, Virginia, Present Day

“The director wants you in his office ASAP.”

Trevor Maxwell glanced up from the hot dog he was eating to look at the guy standing in front of his table. Short and stocky, the man was regarding him like something to be scraped off the bottom of his shoe. Trevor resisted the urge to bare his teeth in a snarl and took another bite of his hot dog. He wasn’t really hungry, but at least lunch was a pleasant break from the monotony of an otherwise miserable day. And the cafeteria served damn good hot dogs.

Unfortunately, he’d had a lot of miserable days at the Department of Covert Operations, the secret government organization where he worked. It came with being labeled a traitorous freak.

“You have a problem understanding what ASAP means?” the man asked, a butt load of attitude lacing his words.

Gaze never leaving the man, Trevor slowly finished chewing, then swallowed. “It means Dick Coleman wants me in his office as soon as possible. I’ll go just as soon as I finish eating. Because I couldn’t possibly leave before that.”

The man looked like he wanted to say something snide in reply, but when Trevor let his eyes glow coyote yellow and his upper canines slide out far enough to extend over his lower lip, the guy quickly changed his mind.

“Whatever,” the man muttered. “Your funeral.”

The comment probably would have come across as more ominous if the asshat hadn’t shuddered before walking away. But hey, the people who had been brought into the DCO lately didn’t have a lot of experience with shifters, and seeing a man sprout claws and fangs—not to mention flashing gold eyes—was a bit much for a lot of them to deal with. Most of the other people around the cafeteria were regarding him with the same mix of hatred and revulsion. It wasn’t only the muscle-headed thugs Dick—or rather Thomas Thorn, the man Dick answered to—had hired lately. The agents who’d worked alongside shifters like Trevor for years were throwing him dirty looks, too.

Trevor supposed hating shifters was sociably acceptable now that John Loughlin, the former director of the DCO and de facto champion of the organization’s shifter program, had been killed when a bomb had exploded in his office.

The day John had died, everything had changed. Now the covert intelligence organization the man had spent more than a decade building from the ground up was quickly falling apart from the inside out.

One look around the cafeteria proved that. It was lunchtime, yet you’d never know it from the handful of people scattered around the room shoving food in their faces as if they couldn’t wait to be somewhere else. The place used to be filled with agents, analysts, and other support personnel at this time of day. While there’d always been some who were antishifter in the DCO, their numbers had been more than offset by those who realized the good that people like Trevor and his kind brought to the organization.

Somehow, John had perfected the concept of pairing shifters with highly trained covert operatives. People had said it would never work, that shifters were little more than animals and couldn’t be trusted to work in a team environment, much less be given missions critical to national defense. John had proven the doubters wrong, fielding teams that had accomplished things that should have been impossible.

But John’s death had led to a complete change at the top of the organization, and the new regime was blatant in their opposition to all things shifter. These days, there were probably half as many people working for the DCO as there had been a month ago. Trevor couldn’t blame them. Why stay when Dick’s first act had been to announce that the very shifters John had trusted had conspired to murder him? There hadn’t been any proof of course, but then again, when had that bastard Dick ever let something like proof get in the way of what he wanted? Hell, he’d barely let John’s seat get cold before sitting in it.

Trevor seriously doubted that anyone with an ounce of intelligence believed any of the supposedly rogue DCO agents had been involved in John’s death. But when those twelve men and women who formed the backbone of John’s shifter program had gone on the run within hours of his murder, people either accepted they were guilty as charged or smart enough to know they’d never be able to prove their innocence before they were eliminated.

Either way, lots of good agents had read the writing on the wall and bailed. The moment they were gone, Dick had filled their positions with trigger pullers who spent most of their time chasing the rogue shifters or sitting on their asses.

It made Trevor wonder what the hell he was still doing there.

Trevor was still contemplating that—and whether to get another hot dog—when two men walked into the cafeteria and immediately headed for his table. Considering there was a twenty-foot-deep buffer zone of empty tables around Trevor, that might have put him on guard, but since they were among the few friends he had at the DCO, he turned his attention to the plate of french fries just begging to be eaten as Jake Basso and Jaxson West slid out a couple of chairs and joined him.

“Not a good idea for you guys to be seen with me,” Trevor said between bites. “Not only could it be hazardous to your career, but it might just end up getting you killed.”

Jake, a former Navy SEAL and technically still a member of Trevor’s counterintelligence/counterespionage team, reached over and snagged a fry off the pile with a laugh. Since Trevor’s team had essentially been disbanded, Jake wasn’t anything but a good friend and coworker now.

“What career?” Jake asked. He was a big guy with dark-blond hair, blue eyes, and a slightly crooked nose thanks to a fight he’d gotten into in high school. “I haven’t done anything but clean weapons at the firing range since everything went to hell around here. I think I’d appreciate someone trying to kill me just to relieve the boredom.”

Yeah, Trevor guessed Jake’s career was already shot. Thanks to him. Something else for Trevor to feel crappy about. But Jake was damn good at his job, and his SEAL background would ensure that he’d land on his feet, even if he wasn’t likely to use anyone around here as a reference on his résumé.

Jaxson West, on the other hand, was kind of screwed. As the DCO’s head of security, he’d answered directly to John when it came to securing both the training facility here on the back side of Quantico as well as the main DCO offices in downtown DC. Given that his boss had been assassinated on his watch—and that Dick hated his guts—Jaxson was in serious trouble. Dick would see that the man was blackballed in the covert community just because he could. But looking at the big, dark-haired guy sitting there so relaxed, you’d be hard-pressed to know the man was counting the days to unemployment.

“You hear anything from Lucy?” Trevor asked.

Jaxson grabbed a handful of fries. “No. But then again, I never expected to. The only reason she stayed at the DCO was because of John. With him gone, there’s nothing to keep her here.”

Even though he tried to cover it up, Trevor knew Jaxson was hurt that Lucy had walked away from the DCO without ever saying a word to him. He’d been closer to Lucy Kwan, the feline shifter that John had found in China, than anyone—except maybe John, of course. Trevor had always assumed Jaxson and Lucy would end up together.

Who knew? Maybe she’d come back someday. It wasn’t like she had to worry about anyone trying to hang the traitor label on her. No one in the organization, not even Dick, would be dumb enough to accuse the petite Asian woman of anything. While she might look like the sweetest angel ever, she was the most cold-blooded, ruthless killer the DCO had ever employed. And that was saying a lot, considering the kind of people the organization had associated with over the years.

“You should have gotten more fries,” Jake pointed out as he snatched up the last half dozen or so in one big hand.

Trevor chuckled. “If you’d told me you’d be joining me for lunch, I would have.”

Jake shrugged. “I wasn’t planning on it. Jaxson and I were heading down to the pistol range to burn off a little stress when one of Dick’s new muscle-headed asshats walked past us muttering about the damn freaky shifter in the cafeteria. Since there are only three of you guys still hanging around and the others are too new to possess the ability to piss people off quite like you, we figured we’d stop in and say hi.”

“That was mighty kind of you,” Trevor said. “I think.”

“You haven’t heard from Ed since I talked to you last, have you?” Jake asked.

Trevor frowned at the name. Ed Vincent, a former Air Force Pararescue, had been the first man John had teamed up with Trevor when he’d come to work at the DCO eight years ago. Jake had joined them a little while later, and since then, the three of them had traveled the world, covering each other’s backs more times than Trevor could count. When John had been murdered, Ed had up and left without saying anything to anyone, not even Trevor and Jake. Clearly, Ed hadn’t been as tight with him and Jake as Trevor had thought.

“Nah, I haven’t heard from him,” Trevor said. “Maybe once he gets settled.”

Jake nodded but looked doubtful. “Maybe. How about Tate Evers? He and his guys have been gone for weeks.”

“He called about a week ago from a little town just inside the Panamanian border called Cerro Punta,” Trevor said. “Dick has them down there scouring the jungles of Costa Rica and Panama, chasing down rumors about hybrids that might have survived the fighting back in November.”

Jaxson shook his head. “Hunting for hybrids in the middle of the jungle without a shifter to help them track is insane. It will take months.”

No kidding. Hybrids were man-made versions of shifters, and the ones the DCO had fought with down in Costa Rica had been almost rabid. That was what happened when people tried to use science to create something rare and unique.

“I think that’s the idea.” Trevor picked up his bottle of Gatorade and took a swig. “The real DCO teams are out chasing ghosts so they won’t get in the way of the so-called investigation into John’s murder.”

Jake snorted. “Dick has to know those idiots he has gallivanting all over the globe earning frequent flyer miles have no chance in hell of catching a shifter.”

“True that,” Trevor said.

Thank God.

Not that Dick was truly the one giving Tate’s team or any others their orders. The person really pulling the strings was Thomas Thorn.

Since its inception, the DCO had been run from behind the scenes by a shadowy group called the Committee, a nebulous collection of eight current and former House and Senate elites who’d held powerful positions on their respective intelligence panels. While nothing had officially changed within the Committee’s structure, John’s death had scared most of them so much that they’d gladly ceded most, if not all, of their authority to one of their members—Thomas Thorn. Which was a mistake, since Thorn was almost certainly the man who’d had John killed.

“You want to head down to the range and punch a few holes in some targets?” Jake asked. “You can imagine it’s Dick if it helps.”

Trevor chuckled. “Sounds like fun, but Dick asked me to meet him”—he glanced down at his watch—“nearly thirty minutes ago. I guess I should probably get over there before he decides to go ahead and just fire me already.”

Neither of his friends laughed.

“What if he does?” Jake asked. “I mean, I don’t understand why the hell you’re even still working at the DCO. You could walk into the Defense Intel Agency Headquarters at Anacostia-Bolling and walk out with a great job within minutes. Why the hell would you want to hang around this joint and get treated like crap?”

Trevor had asked himself that more than a few times. Pushing back his chair, he stood and picked up his tray.

“It’s complicated,” was all he said.

* * *

The minute Trevor walked into the main DCO administration building and saw the memorial plaque with John’s name, as well as his secretary Olivia’s, on it, he remembered exactly why he stayed and put up with Dick’s and Thorn’s bullshit. Contrary to what he’d told Jake and Jaxson in the cafeteria, it wasn’t complicated at all.

He could have bailed the moment he’d heard John was dead. He’d been up in Maine, dealing with some demented doctors who’d been trying to create hybrids of their own, and it would have been easy to jump the border into Canada and disappear.

Feline shifter Ivy Halliwell and her husband/partner, Landon Donovan, had wanted him to go into hiding with them, and he’d been tempted. He was smart enough to know what life at the DCO would be like without John there. But in the end, he’d wanted to come back and get the son of a bitch who’d killed John. He’d liked and respected John. It was the least he could do for the man.

Admittedly, coming back had been risky. Dick could easily have labeled Trevor one of the conspirators and tossed him in some supermax prison, never to be seen again. Hell, Dick could have had him executed, and no one would ever have known that, either.

Trevor only hoped that Dick wouldn’t realize how closely Trevor was aligned with Ivy and Landon. Outside of one mission in Tajikistan, they’d never officially worked together, so it was possible he might not. Crazy, but possible. Ivy and Landon hadn’t liked the idea of Trevor staying but said they’d help him any way they could.

“If you even think Dick or Thorn are onto you, promise you’ll run, okay?” Ivy had said before she and Landon had gone on the run.

Since then, all communications had been handled through burner phones, code words on various chat loops, and trusted messengers. It wasn’t the same as being able to talk face-to-face, but it was good enough.

As he strode down the hall, Trevor marveled at how quickly the bombed-out part of the building had been repaired. He couldn’t even smell the smoke residue anymore over the scent of fresh drywall, paint, and carpeting. No one would ever know a bomb had taken out the whole middle section of the first floor and part of the second right above it.

For a man who’d sworn up and down that he wanted to catch John’s killers, Dick had been damn quick when it came to destroying any evidence of the bombing. The new director had had the entire damaged section of the building demolished and removed within days of the murder. Fortunately, Trevor had slipped into the smoking ruins that first night, fresh off the flight from Maine, when the heat had still been so bad it’d melted his boots and burned his hands. But he’d found more than two dozen pieces of the bomb, so it had been worth it.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t known what to do with them right away. Normally, he would have turned them over to the DCO analysts and tech people and let them do their magic. But most of the ones he trusted had left, and the ones who’d stayed freely admitted they had no skill when it came to bomb and explosive forensics.

Because Dick had so many people watching Trevor, it had taken almost a week to get a message to Ivy and Landon, letting them know what he needed. They’d given him the name of Danica’s former FBI partner in Sacramento, Tony Moretti.

Trevor had never met the man, but Danica and the others trusted him, so that meant he would, too. But with people watching him, it had taken another week to get everything packaged up and sent out there. Since then, he’d been waiting to see if the FBI labs could come up with anything. He wasn’t expecting much. It wasn’t like Thorn was an idiot. He wasn’t likely to hire a bomb maker who’d be dumb enough to leave any solid clues behind. Moreover, Tony would have to get the bomb remains evaluated without tipping off anyone as to where the bombing had occurred. They simply couldn’t risk word of the investigation getting back to Thorn or Dick.

While he waited, Trevor had been trying to find the bomber another way. DCO training officer Skye Durant and intel analyst Evan Lloyd were helping, but it was slow, excruciating work. He had things he could be out there doing, leads he could be checking out, but he couldn’t, not when he was under constant surveillance. He would have asked Jake and Jaxson for help, but he didn’t want to put any more people in danger than absolutely necessary.

Sighing, Trevor walked into the outer waiting area of the newly renovated director’s office. The monstrously large desk his secretary, Phyllis, was sitting behind probably cost more than John’s entire suite of furniture from the old office. There were paintings on the wall that looked like original pieces from the early colonial years, and the coffee machine set up along the side wall looked like something you might need an engineering degree to use.

Phyllis glanced up from her computer. Nearly sixty, she had short, curly gray hair and a thin, almost beaklike nose, on which a pair of half-moon reading glasses were perched.

He grinned at her. “I’m here to see Dick.”

The woman didn’t return his smile. Now that he thought about it, Trevor wasn’t sure the woman knew how to smile. If so, she’d certainly never done it around him. He was pretty sure Dick’s secretary didn’t think much of him, though whether it was because he was a shifter or a smart-ass, he didn’t know. He preferred to think it was his animal nature. He didn’t mind being looked down on because he sometimes had claws and fangs. He’d been born that way and couldn’t do anything about it. But his wit? That had taken him years of hard work to develop. He hated to think the effort had been wasted.

“Director Coleman is expecting you. And has been for nearly thirty minutes,” she said scathingly.

“Great! So I guess that means I can just let myself right in.”

The older woman didn’t seem amused by that. Then again, Phyllis never seemed amused. Or angry. Or alive, for that matter. Maybe she suffered from a perpetual case of resting bitch face.

“You most certainly will not. I’ll announce you,” she said in a tone that suggested she considered him somehow unworthy of that honor.

He smiled even broader. “Well, how about that? I’ve never been announced before. I mean, sure, they announced my number all the time back in prison, but that’s not the same thing, you know?”

He was hoping to at least get a disdainful glower out of her, but not even that comment could crack her bland facade.

Good sarcasm was simply wasted on some people.

Getting to her feet, Phyllis came around the desk and led the way to Dick’s office. She knocked once, then stuck her head in and told her boss Trevor was there. A moment later, she opened the door and motioned him in.

“Announcing someone would be more dramatic if you had a big staff you could thump on the floor a few times,” he pointed out, unable to resist poking her one more time. “You know, kind of like they do in Renaissance festivals?”

Phyllis stood there holding the door open, regarding him with absolutely no expression.

“Nothing?” Trevor shook his head. “I’m standing here working it, and you’re just going to leave me hanging like that?”

Phyllis arched a brow. Damn, the woman was tough.

Giving up, Trevor walked past her into the office. He barely made it through the door before Phyllis closed it. He supposed he could consider that a small victory. He might actually get a rise out of her at some point.

Thanks to a keen sense of smell, Trevor knew there were three people in the office before he got inside—Dick, Thorn, and some woman he’d never seen before. He was interested in who the new woman was, what Dick wanted to talk to him about, and why Thorn was there, but he chose to ignore them all for the time being as he took a moment to appreciate all the changes Dick had made to the director’s office.

Okay, appreciate was probably the wrong word. Trevor was never one to appreciate gaudy displays of excess, and that’s what Dick was all about.

The first thing that struck him was that it was bigger than before. Actually, it was nearly three times the size of John’s old office. Like the outer room, this part of the renovation had come with loads of pricey furniture and over-the-top artwork. Based on the framed paintings mounted on the wall, people might think Dick had an obsession with dead white guys painted in dramatic poses. Two presidents, a general in battlefield garb, an arrogant-looking man sitting behind a big desk, and a sailor standing in a small boat holding an old-fashioned harpoon. Obviously, Dick wasn’t a big fan of landscapes.

When Trevor finally turned his attention to Dick, he noted with pleasure that the director looked a little pissed off sitting there behind his ridiculously large desk. If Trevor was lucky, maybe the man would blow a gasket the more he aggravated him. Then again, Trevor might not get the chance to hang around here long enough to do that. There was a good chance Dick had called him in here specifically to fire him.

Trevor sauntered over to the empty chair in front of Dick’s desk, passing his other least favorite person, Thomas Thorn, on the way. The well-dressed former senator was leaning casually against the edge of a low bookcase, regarding Trevor with something more than mild interest.

Regardless of the man’s posture, there was nothing relaxed and casual about Thorn. While Dick liked to think he could make himself more impressive with a fancy office and a big desk, Thorn demonstrated that truly powerful people needed none of that. You could put this guy in green tights and a pink tutu, and while he might look ridiculous, there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind about which man was in charge…and which one was more dangerous.

Thorn was nearly sixty years old but could easily have been mistaken for a man ten or fifteen years younger. He was very fit, with a head of dark hair that didn’t have even a sprinkling of gray in it yet, although that could have been because he dyed it. His dark eyes were as sharp and intense as a hunter’s, and he had no problem giving away the fact that he was studying Trevor as much as Trevor was studying him. But while Thorn exuded the pure charm and charisma that many politicians possessed, he also had the cold, detached aura of a psychopathic killer. Thorn might not have set off the bomb that killed John, but he’d ordered the hit.

Until recently, Thorn and his head of security had never hung around the DCO training complex, but since John’s murder, they’d both become regular features. Their excuse was that, in times of crisis, the DCO needed superior guidance and leadership. That was bullshit of course. Thorn was hanging around to make sure his plans—whatever those might be—went off without a hitch.

It was difficult seeing Thorn and knowing what the man had done, not just to John, but to the whole DCO. One friend was dead, and the rest were on the run for their lives, all because Thorn wanted them out of the way. The urge to rip out the man’s throat was frigging hard to resist. The only thing that stopped Trevor was the knowledge that killing Thorn wasn’t what John would have wanted.

A slow, evil smile curved Thorn’s lips, as if he realized the struggle going on inside Trevor. The arrogance in the man’s eyes damn near pushed Trevor over the edge, and he felt his canines elongate, aching to tear into some meaty part of this a-hole’s anatomy.

Trevor took a deep breath and forced his fangs to retract, pushing down the urge to kill and instead turning his attention to the woman sitting in front of Dick’s desk as he sat down beside her.

She was undeniably attractive, with long, strawberry-blond hair tied back in a professional-looking bun, perfect fair skin, and some seriously pink bee-stung lips. She also had the most unusual green-blue eyes he’d ever seen. They were kind of mesmerizing, actually.

Since she was seated, he couldn’t tell exactly how tall she was, but he was guessing five ten or so. While he couldn’t be sure of her height, he was definitely sure the woman was fit. Not even the professional-looking pantsuit she had on could hide the fact that she had long runner’s legs.

She also had the familiar scent of smokeless gunpowder clinging to her. It was mostly covered up with some kind of fruity bodywash and a flowery shampoo, but he could smell it. She’d fired a weapon recently, probably that morning. She was almost certainly a field agent of some kind, though what the hell any of this had to do with him, Trevor didn’t have a clue.

He turned back to Dick. “Someone mentioned you wanted to see me? I would have come sooner, but they were serving hot dogs in the cafeteria.”

Dick’s jaw tightened, and for a moment, Trevor thought the man might explode, but instead, he got a grip on his anger and gestured to the woman. “Trevor Maxwell, meet Alina Bosch.”

Trevor glanced at her. “A pleasure.”

Alina nodded in return, but before she could say anything, Dick spoke again.

“She’s former CIA and your new partner.”

Trevor waited for the punch line. Because one had to be coming. There was absolutely no way in hell Dick was ever going to voluntarily put him back in the field, so why waste time giving him a partner? But after a staring contest with the man, he finally realized Dick wasn’t joking.

He hated doing it, but he was gonna have to bite on this one. The curiosity was just too much for him. This was like giving in and admitting you couldn’t find your four-year-old nephew during a game of hide-and-seek—it just plain sucked.

“Okay, Dick. I admit, getting someone out of the CIA is a big win for the team,” Trevor said, giving him a thumbs-up. “But why partner her up with me? I mean, you’ve had me on the bench for a while.” He threw Alina a glance. “No offense. I’m sure you’re a wonderful agent and all. Your parents must be very proud.”

Alina shrugged. “No offense taken. You’re not exactly my first choice in partners, either.”

Snarky and blunt. Two qualities he appreciated in a woman. Throw in the fact that she was also hot as a blowtorch, and Trevor had to admit he was disappointed she was on Thorn’s payroll. It made him wonder if the man had chosen Alina through the use of some crazy software program that said she possessed all the qualities necessary to trick him into being stupid in her presence, because she definitely did.

“Oh, and just to be clear,” she continued, “my parents don’t know I’m CIA. They think I’m a barista at a coffee shop.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Trevor saw Thorn regarding him and Alina with the same detached expression he probably used when pulling the wings off flies.

“You’re right,” Dick said. “I have been keeping you on the shelf lately, and with good reason. We just had six of our best shifter teams conspire to kill the former director of this organization. I haven’t been able to bring myself to put you out in the field since John’s murder because I simply don’t know where your loyalties lie.”

The fact that Dick was even having this conversation with him and bringing up the subject of trust was significant. The man instinctively didn’t want to trust Trevor because he was a shifter, but something else was going on that had him questioning that. Something serious enough to make him pair Trevor up with a new partner and put him back into the field.

Trevor had no idea what that something was, but if it meant getting out from under Dick’s constant surveillance—even for a little while—it would be worth it to play along.

“You want to know where my loyalties lie?” Trevor asked bluntly. “That’s easy. They lie with John Loughlin, the man who recruited me and taught me most of what I know. The man who was killed by a bunch of fucking cowards that I’d do anything to hunt down and gut like the pieces of crap that they are.”

Dick didn’t say anything, but his heart sped up a little. No doubt because Trevor had let out a menacing growl at the end there as his anger got the best of him. Then again, maybe Dick’s heart was beating a little faster because he knew Trevor was pointing those threats directly at him.

After a moment, the director looked at Thorn, who gave him a barely perceptible nod.

Dick opened a drawer along one side of his desk and took out a thick file folder, dropping it on the desk in front of Trevor with a thud.

“As I’m sure you already know, the DCO has expended a tremendous amount of time and resources in the hunt for the rogue shifters, especially Ivy and Landon, whom we consider the ringleaders of the conspiracy. Unfortunately, those efforts have been a failure. Regardless of our commitment to finding John’s killers, the time has come to realize that our traditional agents simply don’t have the tools necessary for the job.”

Trevor almost laughed. Considering that the operatives Dick had sent out weren’t even real agents but hired muscle, it was an understatement to say they didn’t possess the tools to catch Ivy and Landon. Hell, those meatheads weren’t just missing the right tools to catch a shifter; they didn’t even own a fucking toolbox.

“So you want me to track them down?” Trevor asked, figuring that was what Dick wanted to hear.

“No, I want you and Agent Bosch to track them down,” Dick said. “Together.”

Trevor turned to regard the former CIA agent sitting beside him. Alina returned his gaze. There was only one reason Dick would team them up—so she could keep tabs on him. That meant she was already deep in Dick’s pockets—or Thorn’s. While he seriously wanted the chance to get out and do a little digging on John’s killer, he wasn’t thrilled at the idea of having to deal with a partner who’d be on the phone reporting everything he did to Dick five times a day.

“Before you bother asking what Alina brings to the table, I’ll clarify that point right now. She’s very good at digging out traitors,” Dick said succinctly, and Trevor had to wonder if that was a little jab at him. “It’s one of the things she’s excelled at the past few years in the CIA.”

Trevor didn’t say anything. This was obviously a done deal. If teaming up with Alina was what he had to put up with to get back in the game, he’d make it work.

“Fine,” he said. “If it’s settled then, I’d like to head out immediately. I have a couple of leads I’d like to look into this afternoon.”

“What leads?” Dick asked.

“I’ve heard rumors about some people down in Fredericksburg who got into a scuffle in a restaurant with a couple of guys they described as…odd. I think it might be the rogue shifters.”

Dick eyed him doubtfully. “Why the hell would any of the rogue teams stay this close to the DCO training complex? That seems incredibly foolish.”

“That’s only because you seem to think they’re out there running scared,” Trevor said. “They’re not. Ivy and Landon would almost certainly have left at least one team close to DC so they could keep an eye on what we’re doing. I’m sure you’ve already realized they likely still have people on the inside feeding them info, right?”

Trevor felt a slight twinge telling Dick this kind of stuff, but it wasn’t like it was a big secret. Dick might be a moron, but Thorn was smart enough to know at least some of the shifter teams were likely nearby. Part of staying on with the DCO was playing the game and making it look like he was actively engaged in catching his former coworkers.

Not that he was really leading Dick anywhere near his friends. In truth, he wanted to get down to the Fredericksburg area so he could check out a guy that Evan had stumbled across while reviewing video footage from the DCO’s front gate on the morning of the bombing. The guy had only started working for the DCO three weeks before John’s death, had driven onto the complex insanely early that morning, and had quit two days after the bombing. Even better, the man had a direct connection to Thorn. He’d worked IT support at one of the local Chadwick-Thorn subsidiaries before showing up at the DCO. With his background, Trevor doubted he was the man who’d built the bomb that had killed John, but he definitely could have been the one to plant the device in the director’s office.

It was someone they should have looked at a long time ago, but it had taken forever for Evan and Skye to find him, since they were dealing with their own trust issues within the remains of the DCO analyst section. It was a given that some of the people who’d stayed there were on Team Thorn. Any digging they did had to be accomplished slowly. But if this was the man who’d delivered the device that had killed John, it would be a good first step toward finding that link to Thorn.

Dick threw one of those what-do-I-do-now glances in Thorn’s direction. The former senator responded with another imperceptible nod. Thorn should rig up some marionette strings for the director. They could take their act on the road.

“Do it,” Dick said in his best imitation of a man who knew what the hell he was doing. “But I want you two to keep me informed of everything you’re doing at all times.”

Trevor snorted. “Of course you do—since you trust me so much now.”

Dick didn’t take the bait. “I don’t trust you. And I won’t until you give me reason to. Until then, you two should consider yourselves on a short leash.”