12

GRANT

Shooting paper targets isn’t as satisfying as shooting double-crossing federal agents, but it does the job in a pinch.

The cavernous echo of Simon’s shots peeling off beside me come to a halt, and I glance around the partition wall to see how our results compare. As usual, they’re easy enough to distinguish. We might have trained at the same facility and taken aim at the same silhouette, but while my shots are dead center in the man’s chest, Simon has systematically outlined the shape of the man’s brain.

He can be a bit dark sometimes, that Sterling. Anger issues, mostly.

“You better not let the office psychologist see that. They’re already concerned with your lack of a social life.” I watch as Simon unclips the target and folds it, tucking it carefully in his messenger bag. I’ve never asked what he does with them, but Penelope likes to think he stuffs them in his mattress and floats off to bed every night on a sea of fond, bullet-fueled memories.

“I won’t tell them if you don’t.” He indicates the earmuffs around my neck with a nod. “Another round?”

As tempting as it is to spend the rest of my day demolishing invisible demons, I shake my head. “Can’t. I have to meet with the detail I’m putting on Lewis. Wanna guess how many of my guys volunteered for the job?”

Simon releases a short, barking laugh. “All of them?”

“Just about.” It was impossible to get clearance for a full team to watch Penelope’s stepmom without Christopher finding out about it, so I had to go through less formal channels. And by less formal channels, I mean I asked the small team of agents I’ve come to know and trust during my time at the Bureau. Paulie Jones, who was there at the first Christopher Leon paintball betrayal, an information technology specialist named Nathan who owes me a few favors, and a handful of other agents I know can be counted on to keep things quiet. All I had to do was say the name Tara Lewis, and the hands shot up.

Not that I blame them. Having spent a hefty portion of my own career investigating a highly attractive jewel thief, I can understand the appeal.

“No one volunteered to help me watch the guy Blackrock has me tailing,” Simon grumbles. “He only has one ear.”

Considering the quality of people Penelope’s dad associates with, I don’t find this surprising. I know she looks back on the time she and her father were apart with regret, but it’s a sentiment I can’t share. Riker and I don’t always see eye to eye, but I know he did his best to keep her away from those kinds of criminals, to shield her from the less savory aspects of the world they both inhabited. I’ll always be grateful to him for that.

“What happened to the other ear?” I ask.

“He cut it off to prove that he could.” Simon pauses. “And then he ate it.”

I grimace. Yeah. Riker’s definitely not looking so bad these days.

I’m in the middle of unrolling my shirtsleeves when there’s a loud outburst of voices at the door. Outbursts and shooting ranges rarely make for a happy combination, and it takes all of two seconds for Simon and me to have our stances secured, every possible angle covered as we approach to discover the cause.

Damn, but I miss working with this guy. One more point to stack up against Christopher—anyone in a position of authority who would purposely break up a smoothly working team is an idiot. I don’t care how happy the ADD is with his performance. I’m much happier with a partner who has my back.

As if to prove me right, we move as one around the partition, heading toward the raised voices in a semicrouch. Simon gets there a few seconds before me, giving me enough time to hear the sharp intake of his breath before I see the cause of the commotion.

Of course. Christopher Leon, leaning on the front desk and booming at the assembled crowd as if he owns the place. Which, given his track record to date, isn’t an outrageous idea. I expect him to be pronounced president any goddamned day now.

With considerable regret, I relax my guard.

“Hello, Leon,” I say, fighting back a sigh. The man can’t go anywhere without making a disturbance. “Here to brush up on your target practice?”

I mean the comment benignly enough, but he must take it as a reference to our first training exercise together, because he loses the self-satisfied smile for a fraction of a second.

“Not today,” he says before slapping his smile back into place. “I came looking for you. There’s been a development in the case.”

My professional interest picks up almost immediately—and not just because I left Penelope out there in the field today, lurking around with Tara and her ilk. “Has the Prowler hit again?” I ask. I shrug into my jacket. The burglaries are definitely coming faster and closer together now. “What’s the address?”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that,” Christopher says quickly. An almost guilty flush washes over him as he adds, “But the forensics report is finally in, and I thought you might want to take a look.”

I blink at him, waiting for the rest, but apparently, that’s all he has. The desire to inform him of this great invention called the telephone—or better yet, email—is strong, but there are several people milling around the desk, watching our interaction. Despite my suspicion of the guy, I don’t want to diminish his position any more than I already have. I may not respect Christopher’s authority, but I tend to respect authority in general.

“Did they find anything?” I ask instead.

“Nothing conclusive, but there may be a partial fingerprint worth running.”

One partial at a crime scene where at least a dozen people had been present is hardly a break worth getting excited over, but it’s more than we’ve had in a while. Usually, all they get is evidence of Christopher’s shoddy investigative work. The man leaves footprints everywhere. Literally.

“All right. I’ll head in and look it over. Anything else?”

“Oh, there’s something else,” says the agent working the front desk, a paper-pushing lackey named Justin who, by my reckoning, has never taken a day off. “You obviously didn’t notice what Christopher rolled up in.”

“I’ll work free overtime for a month if you let me take her for a spin,” another field agent adds. “Two months if I can floor it.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, but that’s when I glance out the front window and see it, double-parked on the street and cutting off a major stream of backed-up traffic.

To anyone else, it would be nothing more than a sweet ride, the type of car that men with big dreams and small lives buy as soon as their bank account tips into the black. To me, the ’69 Camaro SS parked a few feet away, gleaming with its sleek black body and freshly polished chrome wheels, is more.

A hell of a lot more.

“What is that?” I ask, even though I know down to the three-speed transmission what I’m looking at.

Christopher’s beaming face breaks out into an even bigger smile. “Do you like it? I picked her up today. You wouldn’t believe the power she’s got under that hood.”

I would believe it if I wasn’t having such a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that this man could be so cunning and so fucking stupid at the same time. A car in that condition is worth a quarter of a million dollars, and that’s a modest estimate. I used to fantasize about all the things I might have to do to come up with that exact amount of money.

Marrying a jewel thief who I know has a secret reserve of cash she’s not telling me about wasn’t on that list, but that’s about as close as I’ve been able to get. Mostly because FBI agents don’t have that kind of income. Believe me, anyone getting into this rig for the money is setting themselves up for disappointment.

Unless, of course, he has major income beyond what comes with the job. The guy has always worn nicer suits than any other agent, but this is a whole different playing field.

“That’s some car,” I say neutrally.

“Way above my pay grade, though,” Justin puts in. It’s what we’re all thinking, and we’re all grateful he’s the one to voice it. “And a pain in the ass to own unless you’re a Jersey boy like Christopher. I guess that promotion must have come with a few extra perks, huh?”

Christopher has the decency—or stupidity—to look guilty. “Well, not exactly. I’ve been saving up for a while. I’ve wanted one ever since I was a kid.”

I don’t move, not even to glance at Simon, who I know is paying as much attention as me. Besides my mom, he’s the only other person who knows how prominently this particular car figured in my adolescent dreams. I’ve never mentioned the vehicle to anyone else at the Bureau. Except, of course, for the Picasso college bust Christopher and I worked on a few years ago. But that had just been a throwaway line, a casual comment that could be interchanged with any number of similar ones throughout the years.

“Now that’s interesting,” Simon says, his lips thinning in a poor attempt at a smile. “I’d have taken you for a Lamborghini sort of guy.”

“Or a Bentley,” Justin puts in.

Before they launch into a list of all the traditional status cars, Christopher shakes his head. “Nah. My dad always had a thing for the classics.”

This time, glancing at Simon isn’t optional. I’m fairly sure I’ve said that exact same sentence before. Granted, I never knew my father, given that he bailed on me and my mom when I was five years old, but pieces of memory remain. One such piece includes the glossy black ’69 Camaro SS he always dreamed of having.

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

“Do you want a lift?” Christopher asks me with a tilt of his head. I’m tempted to say yes, but Simon clears his throat significantly, stopping me short.

I’m grateful for his intervention. I don’t think of myself as an overly sentimental man or even that much of a car guy anymore, but seeing that model up close and personal hits me harder than I expect. It’s too strong a reminder that relationships end and people leave, regardless of who gets hurt in the process.

Sometimes, three thousand pounds of steel is all that’s left behind.

“No, thanks,” I say and turn away from the car. “I’ll head back to the office in a few.”

The agent who offered free overtime gladly claims my spot. I try not to watch as Christopher revs the engine before lurching into traffic, but I can’t seem to help myself. He cuts off at least three cabs in a cloud of exhaust and memories and, as much as I hate to admit it, a healthy twinge of jealousy.

Damn. Maybe taking up a life of crime isn’t such a bad idea after all.

“Emerson.” Simon’s voice indicates he knows what I’m thinking.

“What? I was just looking.”

“Emerson.”

“I know, I know.”

“I don’t think you do know.” His voice drops to a hiss. “This is fucked up. That’s your car he’s driving away in—the one you used to talk about, the one you’ve always wanted. You never told him about that, did you?”

“I mentioned the car in passing once.” More to convince myself than Simon, I add, “It could just be a coincidence.”

“And you don’t have that stuff about your dad written down anywhere?”

“What, like in my diary?” I tap my temple. “No, Sterling. I keep my feelings locked up in here.”

“Joke all you want, but I smell something off. Between the way he’s been gunning for your cases and his obsession with Penelope…”

“What about her?”

“Oh, nothing,” Simon says. “Only that Christopher Leon seems to be trying to take over your life, one detail at a time. I hate to say it, man, but I think you’re being single white femaled.”

My first reaction is to laugh—a person doesn’t just take over someone else’s life. Especially not when one of them is well armed and good with his fists.

But a feeling of cold anxiety builds in my gut as the clues line up. Christopher’s questions and constant interest in what I’m doing. The way he always pops up when he should be handling his own shit. His refusal to accept that I neither need nor want him around. It was weird before, but this car thing pushes it into out-and-out batshit territory.

“He wouldn’t dare,” I say.

“You said that exact thing when he tried to toe in on your Warren Blue case. You also said it when the order came in for me to step off the Peep-Toe investigation. And God knows he’s always been a little too interested in your wife. Not a good track record, wouldn’t you say?”

It’s a terrible track record, and if I didn’t think it would get me kicked out of the Bureau, I’d say it to anyone willing to listen. Unfortunately, all I have to go on so far are theories and suspicions. Proof, that ever-elusive mistress, is nowhere to be seen.

Or is she? As my success record with the Bureau attests, proof is usually just several hundred man-hours of due diligence away. My mistake has been shouldering those man-hours on my own. Two things I’ve learned from tracking my wife’s brilliant but less-than-ethical career: one, blithe unconcern for your own safety is a must, and two, the real secret to success is having a strong team at your back.

“You’re right.” I make a decision on the spot. “I’ve had just about enough of this bullshit.”

“Wait, where are you going?” Simon asks, his tone worried.

“I’m tired of letting a few bureaucratic reprimands stop me from figuring out what that man’s up to,” I say. That overeager desire to please, the systematic theft of cases from more experienced agents, hell, even trying to arrest Penelope so he can pretend he actually solved a crime on his own—I understand them all. I don’t like them, but I can understand them.

This, however? Single white femaling my life? My wife?

“I’m heading back to the office,” I say. “I’ve got someone I need to talk to.”

“Emerson…” Simon calls after me, but there’s nothing he can say at this point to stop me. I’m already out the door.

* * *

“You’re sure about that? Leon has no personal data listed whatsoever?”

I don’t move from my position behind No-Aim Mariah, who’s in her element hunched behind a panel of flat, glowing screens. It’s not the wisest place for me to stand, since peering at a tech expert’s monitor and questioning her findings is like holding a field agent’s gun for them to make sure it’s steady, but there’s nowhere for me to sit. Mariah doesn’t like people hanging around while she works, a circumstance she avoids by refusing to keep any chairs in her office.

It’s not a bad idea. The spiky-haired computing genius might not be able to hit moving targets, but she’s not without her insights.

“Well, the basics are here, of course. Date of birth, height, weight, the usual. But it’s wiped of any personality, which is odd.”

“Since when does an employee database have personality?”

“I’m not saying the FBI includes biography-level insight, but they tend to keep pretty close tabs on their people. Want to see yours?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

She ignores me with the rapid-fire movement of her fingers over the keyboard, and I use the moment to gently shut her door. The information she’s digging up for me isn’t illegal, per se, but her backdoor access to it is.

Her fingers stop, and she leans close to the screen for a few seconds before releasing a low whistle. “Damn, Emerson. You’ve been busy.”

“I told you not to look at my page.”

“Pages.”

“What?”

“Pages. Plural.” She angles the screen so I can get a better view. I try not to look, but the word Blue pops up enough times that my profile looks like it belongs to a Smurf. “Hot damn. Did you really threaten to bury all your case notes and contacts if they gave Warren Blue to another agent?”

“Yes.”

“And that worked?”

“I was very convincing.”

Her shoulders shake with laughter. “I’m guessing these marksmanship scores had something to do with that. You have some interesting skills listed here. I’m a little scared to be looking at this right now.”

“Liar. You love this. It makes you feel alive.”

Mariah was a hacker before switching teams, which makes her an invaluable—if sketchy—asset in the Bureau. She’s also a hell of a personal liability, since I’m the one who got her the job after I busted her for breaking into the servers at the Treasury.

I have what some people have called a bad a habit of transforming the criminal world’s sketchy assets into my own sketchy assets. Personally, I find it to be a great habit. The best people I know are the ones who have to make a conscious decision every day to do the right thing. Give me someone capable of evil but willing to toe the line over someone inherently good every time.

I don’t trust inherent goodness. I never have. Until someone knows what it’s like to walk on the dark side, has faced the blackest temptation and emerged triumphant, it’s impossible to learn the true measure of their soul.

I’ve measured a lot of souls in my lifetime, and few of them are as blindingly brilliant as the one belonging to my wife. I’d do anything for her, even—especially—risk my job by investigating the FBI’s inexplicable golden boy.

“Could he have wiped his own profile?” I ask.

“Yeah, but he wouldn’t have made it this clean. Not unless he wanted to be caught.”

“So someone else has to have been in on it? Someone higher up?”

“You mean, like part of a government conspiracy? Sure.” Mariah shrugs. “But I doubt it’s the case here—cool things like uncovering a ring of high-ranking officials working together to overthrow the government never happen to me. Chances are your man is either boring as toast or he’s got a dark past someone buried in the name of the greater good.”

Oh, he’s no piece of toast. There was yet another Penelope summons from him in my inbox when I returned to the office, this time with the ADD on copy and a thinly veiled warning that the next request will be an order. It’s just like the man to go over my head instead of confronting me with the message face-to-face.

“What would it take to have you run a few off-the books scans into his background?” I ask, thinking of both that email and the car, of the increasing suspicion that Christopher isn’t a man I should underestimate. “Hypothetically speaking?”

“You want me to illegally investigate a fellow agent, thereby jeopardizing my entire career and my position as a law-abiding, free-to-roam U.S. citizen?”

“Yes, please.”

She laughs so hard, it’s a cackle. “Only for you, Emerson. And only if you promise to introduce me to that wife of yours when I’m done. Cheryl says she gives the best Christmas presents.”

I groan. The last thing I need right now is those two women in a room together. I can all too easily imagine Penelope wrapping Mariah around her little finger the same way she does everyone else, calling her up for a chat and a quick hack into the White House mainframe. “That’s a terrible idea.”

“Maybe, but it just so happens I love terrible ideas. Do we have a deal?”

I don’t see any way around it, so I stick out my hand with a sigh. “Fine. But I’d really like to know why all the women in my life have to turn everything into a twisted game.”

She pumps my hand once and turns her focus back to the screen. “That’s easy. It’s because you make it such a joy to win.”

I stare at the back of her head, seeing but not seeing the dark strands of her hair. “That was supposed to be a rhetorical question.”

She looks over her shoulder long enough to laugh at my expression. “Only because you didn’t realize the answer was right there. I’m sorry to admit it, Emerson, but most days, beating you at your own game is the only fun to be had around here. Nothing keeps a girl on her toes like a good challenge and an even better adversary.”

“A good challenge and an even better adversary,” I echo. That sounds an awful lot like Penelope’s idea of heaven. In fact, it’s the only way I got her to go out with me in the first place. She never would have given me the time of day if I hadn’t turned our courtship into a dare. I can still see her standing on the sidewalk, laughter in her sparkling blue eyes as she wove an intricate web of lies and truth to ensnare me.

As if I ever had a chance of escaping. As if I wasn’t hers the moment she tossed down the gauntlet.

Mariah’s head bobs in a nod. “If you ask me, those are getting harder and harder to find these days. You’re a diamond in the rough, boss man. No wonder we criminals flock to you.”