Chapter Twelve
Lisa shot up the stairs toward her child and Lucky spun, aiming his gun at the last man he’d expected to see.
Despite the venom in his words, Keith wasn’t sneering or smirking, his normal facial expressions when around Lucky.
“What the…”
Keith put a finger to his lips, held out a familiar device, and made twirling motions with his finger.
Did the asshat think Lucky low enough to bug their conversations? Keith specialized in surveillance, Lucky in everything else. Besides, he didn’t even know they were going to meet.
Whipping his head around to keep eyes on his nemesis, he turned, arms out to the side, but gun still at the ready.
Keith ran the wand up and down his body. Nothing. Lucky expected no less.
“How about you?” Whatever the hell Keith wanted couldn’t be good.
The greasy stain on the SNB surrendered the wand. “Nothing on me.” He placed his hands on his head and allowed Lucky to swipe him down.
“Why are you here?” Lucky asked. “Couldn’t you just speak to me at work or in the gym? Send an e-mail? Call me?”
Keith shook his head. “No one saw me come here, and since you didn’t enter through the front door, I’m guessing the same about you. I wanted to meet face to face, and iPhones are easy enough to monitor.”
Maybe the guy possessed more brains than Lucky gave him credit for. “Mind telling me what this is about?” Lucky waved the wand in the air.
Staring down four or five inches to make eye contact, Keith murmured, “Someone’s watching you.”
“You mean, other than you?” Lucky had no intention of sharing information about O’Donoghue’s lapdogs. No sharing info until Keith brought something worthwhile to the table. Yeah, he’d tipped Lucky off about a possible cube camera, but nothing solid.
Cabinet doors opening and closing in the kitchen gave away the location of Lisa’s husband. The baby no longer cried, but Lisa didn’t return.
Keith collapsed against the wall. “You have no reason to trust me, but hear me out, okay?”
“I’m listening.” Not that the shithead would say anything Lucky wanted to hear.
“The morning Walter collapsed he’d called you into his office to discuss the DEA findings on a place you’d given a positive report.” Keith’s gaze never wavered. “I was scheduled out of the office and wanted to witness the smackdown you were sure to get, so I installed a camera in the corner of Walter’s office.”
“You what?” The little shit had a bruising coming.
Keith waved his hands to stave off any blows Lucky planned to aim his way. “Let me say what I need to, all right? If not for me, then for Walter.”
“Don’t you dare…”
The man in more trouble than he realized stepped back. “I put a camera in his office, and it’s too late to do anything about it.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a flash drive. “I think you need to see this.”
Lucky narrowed his gaze. “What is it?”
“Just watch it, okay?”
Lucky rolled the device over in his hand. Just a flash drive, nothing more, though Lucky ran the wand over it in case. “Is that all?”
“No. Seems I’m missing some equipment. At first I thought you raided me, until I checked my cameras.”
If Lucky raided him, the asshole would never know. “You watch your own folks?”
“How else will I know what they’re up to? Anyway, I found someone wandering around surveillance who shouldn’t be there.”
“Who?”
“One of O’Donoghue’s guys.”
“What’s missing?”
“A necklace fitting.”
Who the hell stole necklaces? “Microphone?”
“Yeah. Designed to fit into something pretty for the female ops. Hadn’t gotten a chance to test it yet.”
The heat of Lucky’s glare should’ve sent Keith up in flames. “Why are you helping me? I thought you hated me.”
Keith let out a snort. “I do hate you, but Walter Smith is the SNB. If someone’s fucking with either one of them, you’re sonofabitch enough to stop them.”
Damned skippy. “As Bo might say, ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’” Lucky and Keith would never be friends.
“No.” Keith shook his head, lips in a thin line. “In this case, the enemy of my enemy is my weapon. By the way, keep Schollenberger out of this as much as possible.”
Lucky bristled at Keith daring to say Bo’s name. “Why?” One wrong word and he’d remove some teeth.
“Think about it, and don’t hit me. As much as I love the man, best case scenario, Walter only has a few more good years with the bureau. Rumor has it the brass has been encouraging him to quit.” Keith leaned in and lowered his voice.
Lucky took an involuntary step back.
Keith scowled. “Rumor also has it that O’Donoghue’s planning to transfer from DEA to SNB. Some of us in the department think he plans to take over permanently.”
“Oh, hell, no,” Lucky growled.
One side of Keith’s mouth lifted. “Believe it or not, for once the entire department except for one or two idiots agrees with you. Sadly, we’re lacking in agents with the proper qualifications and backing to stand a chance at landing the job.”
“Why are we even talking about this? Walter’s gonna be fine. He’ll be back.”
“Would you shut up already? Even you don’t believe that. Not really. Though Schollenberger came to us much like you did, he’s got a clean slate now, holds a PharmD degree, is proven in the field, and is well liked. Although he doesn’t have seniority, he stands the best chance of being Walter’s replacement if they fill the position from within.”
What? Bo? The boss? What would that do to their relationship? If Lucky was Bo’s direct report…
“Don’t worry about it right now.” Keith nodded toward the flash drive in Lucky’s hand. “Watch the video.”
Lucky held the flash drive up to his nose and turned it over. Nothing special. A dozen just like it sat in the drawer of his desk. “What am I looking for?”
“I could tell you, but then you’d be looking only for that and might miss something important I didn’t see.”
No way would Lucky admit how much sense the man made.
Keith strode a few paces away and turned. “Oh, and Lucky?”
“Yeah?”
He nodded toward the wand. “Keep that. I have a feeling you’re gonna need it. And one more thing.”
“What?”
“Don’t trust anybody.”
“Never have, never will.”
“Good. I’m counting on you being a total bastard. To keep one of us in the know, I’m pretending to be on board with O’Donoghue, but I’ve got Walter’s back. Remember that in days to come.” Keith slunk into the shadows, leaving Lucky with more questions than answers. A moment later a door closed in the back of the house.
***
The flash drive burned a hole in Lucky’s pocket, but with Bo and the boys home when he got there, he didn’t dare disappear into the bedroom with his laptop.
He wolfed down his spaghetti and garlic bread—Todd’s first, rather successful attempt at cooking—picked at his salad, and tapped his foot through the movie Bo picked.
When the rest of the house fell quiet, Lucky slipped out of bed and into the living room. He grabbed his laptop bag from by the front door and headed out to the deck, Moose and Cat Lucky on his heels.
Crickets sang in the grass, and the scent of seared meat hung on the air, coming from the direction of the neighbor’s yard.
He fired up his laptop and shoved the flash drive into the port.
Anger rose as he watched the scene unfold in Walter’s office. Walter entered, sat behind his desk and set down a file. A cup of coffee waited on the desk.
He watched himself enter the office and sit down.
All appeared normal until Walter took a sip of coffee. Lucky’s eyes burned and a boulder lodged in his throat. What if he hadn’t been there?
Walter collapsed onto the floor, Lucky not quite fast enough to stop his fall.
The desk partially hid the team’s efforts to save him.
Team. A word he’d once despised.
Paramedics took Walter away on a gurney, Bo, Lucky, and Johnson filed out, and then the office remained empty.
What had Keith intended for him to see? Despite the knife twisting in his heart and his anger at Keith for installing the camera, he replayed the video clip again and again.
What was he missing?
He slowed the video, watching frame by frame, snorting in disgust when he reached the end and still hadn’t found anything noteworthy.
And then…
He paused the video, backed up the action, and started again. Shadows fell across the walls of Walter’s empty office. Barely distinguishable to the eye, a frame jumped.
Lucky watched again. The frame repeated the jump. He studied the before and after. The shadows were longer in the “after” version and…
Oh, God.
The coffee cup and file were missing from Walter’s desk.
He’d forgotten about the fucking file.