by Layla Reyne
“Going on your cocky-little-shit theory, I won’t discount hubris. Fame, glory, chicks, dudes. Or maybe it’s someone looking to make a few bucks.”
“You think our hacker might try to sell it?”
Aidan nodded, and that feeling in Jamie’s gut turned from the good kind of odd to the bad variety. This case was high stakes, not just Academy training with his attractive instructor.
“I’ve already set up alerts and contacted a few fences,” Aidan said. “We’ll know if anything connected hits the market.”
“And I’ve got alerts on the network security system in case there’s another breach.”
Lowering the gun, Aidan removed the earmuffs and turned, resting back against the shooting table. “GNL Security know you did that?”
“Nope, cocky little shit, right here.” Jamie grinned, jutting two thumbs at himself.
Aidan shook his head and smiled indulgently. “Well, I think we’ve got another cocky hacker on the inside.”
Jamie’s smile died. “Which means we have to go to Texas.”
“Don’t look so thrilled. What’ve you got against the Lone Star State?”
“We would have gone undefeated my senior year, if not for the Longhorns.”
“You did make them pay for it in the Final Four.”
“I did.”
Aidan pushed off the table, handed Jamie his weapon, and brushed past him, rolling down his sleeves as he went. After grabbing his jacket from the hook outside the booth, he shrugged into it, adjusted his sleeves, and clipped in the cufflinks.
Jamie tucked his gun into its harness and pulled on his own jacket. “When do you want to leave? We could catch a red-eye out tonight.”
“You said you had alerts in place for further intrusions?”
Jamie nodded.
“Assuming nothing comes up, we’ll take the red-eye Saturday night. My niece Katie, her birthday is Saturday. Gabe and I...” Eyes cast aside, he paused to clear his throat. “We were her godparents. She doesn’t understand why he’s gone. I need to be there for her.”
“Aidan—”
“Let’s go.”
Aidan turned for the exit and Jamie grabbed his arm, spinning him back around. “Dammit, Talley, let me say it, then you won’t have to keep avoiding it.”
“I’ve heard it enough already,” he snapped, tortured gaze locked on Jamie’s hand around his arm.
“Believe me, I know better than most.” Between his father’s death and his injury, Jamie had heard more than enough condolences.
“Then why?” Aidan asked, gaze still averted.
Jamie’s hand glided down his jacket sleeve to the shirt cuff and sparking cufflink, straightening it. “Respect. Not for what you lost, but for what you had. And my Southern mother would kill me if I didn’t.”
Aidan looked up, one corner of his mouth slightly hitched. “How’s she ever gonna know?”
“You weren’t raised in the South. They always know.”
Aidan raised his wrist, the afternoon sun catching the emerald clover. “Irish, as good as.”
“Then shut up and let me say it.”
Aidan pressed his lips together and nodded.
“I’m sorry, Aidan.”
“Thank you.” His autumn gaze held Jamie’s several long seconds until Aidan held out his open palm. “I’m driving back.”
Jamie dropped the keys in his hand. “By all means.”
Chapter Five
Aidan sat at his desk the next morning, scanning GNL’s BSL-4 inventory. Ebola, hemorrhagic fever, anthrax, West Nile virus. The list went frighteningly on.
Galveston National Laboratory was a high-security national biocontainment laboratory, handling biosafety level two, three and four pathogens. It was the largest such facility on any academic campus in the world. The only places on par with it in the US were Rocky Mountain Labs in Montana and the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Those sites, however, were highly regulated and government-operated. GNL, by contrast, sat in the middle of the University of Texas Medical Branch’s campus—academic buildings to the front and back, a primary care hospital adjacent. The sheer number of civilians in the immediate vicinity of GNL on a daily basis—professors, students, patients, their families and visitors—was enough to give Aidan a headache.
“That’s not a good face,” Mel said from his open doorway.
He looked up from the list of doom. “Have you ever seen the inventory of a BSL-4 lab?”
“All the outbreak movies ever, in one place?”
“Pretty much.”
She sat in the visitor chair across from him, her gaze skating over his shoulder to the empty desk behind him. As senior agents, he and Tom had shared one of the glassed-in offices along the outer edge of the bullpen. He’d thought about inviting Walker to take the other desk, but stopped himself every time, wondering if it was too soon, a disrespect to his former partner. And maybe he should be the one moving to the vacant desk in the cave instead. His mind rebelled against the notion, probably as Walker’s would about this main floor location.
“How’s it going with Jamie?” Mel asked, reading his thoughts.
“Good.” Aidan closed the file and tilted back in his chair. “He was instrumental in making the bust on Byrne’s case, and I’ve been running him through Academy basics.”
“When I said assess him, I didn’t mean test the things he’s already cleared at Academy.”
“I needed to see for myself.”
She considered him for a moment. “And?”
“He kicked my ass at twenty-one.” Aidan rubbed his left arm, remembering the soreness that had lingered after their pickup game. He’d kept the score close but doubted Walker had felt like a ninety-year-old the next morning. “He’s a natural behind the wheel. Not so much with a gun. Though given how fast he disarmed his target during Byrne’s bust, he’ll have the gun out of a shooter’s hand before it ever gets that far.”
“So you’re comfortable taking him out in the field with you?” she asked, continuing to eye him. Nothing like being interrogated by your boss, who also knew all your secrets.
“I’ve already been out in the field with him. Like I said, top marks.”
“That was Cameron’s op.” She crossed one leg over the other. “Are you ready to lead someone out in the field with you?”
“You cleared me.” He kept his voice flat, giving away nothing.
They’d already had this conversation two weeks ago, and she’d expressed her doubts then. He’d have thought his performance on Byrne’s case would have reassured her. Something else must have set off this particular interrogation.
“Gary called me,” she revealed a moment later. “He said you reamed out his agents.”
“There was critical information missing from the case file. I needed to determine if that was an oversight or intentional.”
She tapped her trigger finger on her knee and measured her words. “Aidan, what I said that night at your place, it wasn’t meant to imply there’s a conspiracy around every corner.”
Ah, so that was what she was driving at. He could allay this concern easily enough. “My reaming out Gary’s agents had nothing to do with our conversation. Walker also noticed the missing information. We needed to be sure.”
“All right, but you’re not exactly winning friends and influencing people. Do you think those agents are going to want to work with you now?”
He shrugged. “Good cop, bad cop.”
She raised a brow.
“Fine.” Palms out, he propped his elbows on the desk. “I admit I was a little rough on them. I’ve got Whiskey for damage control. He’ll go in there, flash his megawatt smile, and they’ll be putty in his hands. Did you know he’s best friends with Byrne?”
H
er other perfectly plucked brow rose to match the first.
“No lie. I’m convinced he could charm a snake.”
“Good. Should balance out the vinegar in you.”
“Hey! Whose side are you on?”
She rose, a dash of mischief in her familiar dark eyes. “Play nice in Texas.”
He made the sign of the cross. “I’ll be on my best behavior.”
“Why doesn’t that make me feel better?”
“You’ll be at the house tomorrow, right?”
Sadness dimmed the spark of mischief. “Of course.”
Saturday would be his first anniversary without his husband, and Katie’s first birthday without “Unka Gabe.” Their goddaughter had been born six hours after they’d exchanged vows, Grace having gone into labor at their reception. While the past couple weeks had kept Aidan busy and distracted—Walker’s findings had given him some measure of absolution—the ache in his chest grew stronger as the weekend approached.
“Thanks.” He picked up a pen and spun it around his thumb. “It’ll be good having people around that she knows and loves.”
Mel snagged the pen and tossed it aside, keeping his hand in hers. “We’ll all pitch in and do the best we can.” She squeezed his fingers. “By Katie and by you.”
He returned the tight grip, only dropping Mel’s hand when a second visitor knocked on the door, making his presence known.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Walker mumbled, studying his shoes. “I can come back later.”
“It’s fine, Jamie,” Mel said. “I was just leaving.”
“Everything okay?” Walker asked, once she was gone.
“Fine.” Aidan picked up the pen and set it spinning around his thumb again. “Party planning for a preschool princess.”
“Pfft, that’s easy. Ice cream, sprinkles, pink balloons and a pony.”
“A pony. You speak from experience?”
Walker beamed as he settled into the visitor chair Mel had vacated. “Twin nieces.”
His smile was infectious and Aidan couldn’t help but return it, feeling improbably lighter about an event that had had him tied in knots. “Good to know.”
“Anytime. You get the BSL-4 list?”
Aidan reopened the file, pulled out the inventory, and pushed it across the desk.
Blue eyes tracked down the page and Walker whistled low.
“Not a place we want breached,” Aidan said.
“We’re still working the bioweapon theory?”
“Why else hack GNL?”
Walker repeated Aidan’s litany of motives from yesterday. “Fame, glory, chicks, dudes. Or maybe our hacker’s making a statement about lax security.”
Aidan shook his head. “CDC’s a better target for that kind of statement. No, I think GNL was targeted because it’s on an academic campus instead of a closed government compound. More exposed. Any breaches overnight?”
“Nothing detected. Maybe it was an isolated incident. The knock didn’t work, and our hacker gave up.”
“Would you give up?” He folded his hands over his stomach.
Walker smirked. “Of course not.”
Aidan drummed his fingers against his belly, intercepting the wave of heat racing south. That smirk was trouble. “Did you get the additional networks logs from GNL security?”
Walker tossed the folder he’d carried in onto the desk. “Nothing to indicate any breach of the internal firewall. Air gap did its job.”
Aidan flipped through the expanded security log. “If the air gap held, is your monitoring working on the internal network?”
“Look who’s catching on.” The prideful tone in Walker’s voice drew Aidan’s gaze and his approving smile warmed him through. Certain that heat showed on his pale face, Aidan bent over the logs again and pretended to be engrossed.
“I can’t set up monitoring inside the air gap until we’re on-site,” Walker continued. “GNL security knows to monitor around the clock until we arrive.”
A knock on his door preceded Aidan’s secretary pushing a rolling cart stacked with boxes into his office. “I have those files you requested.”
Rising, Aidan gestured to his partner, who was already on his feet. “Leah, I’m sure you know Agent Walker.”
She parked the cart beside his desk, then, in what was becoming less of a surprise, went up on her tiptoes and pecked Walker’s cheek. “Jamie, dear, it’s good to see you out of the cave.”
“I might disappear in a puff of smoke at any second,” Walker teased back, dramatically dodging a ray of sunlight before bending to return Leah’s embrace.
“You better not,” she said with a wink. “We’re all enjoying the scenery too much. The both of you in here...mmm, mmm, mmm.”
“Careful, Leah, or you’ll scare the kid away again.”
She tittered as Aidan lifted two boxes onto his desk and Walker unloaded the other two onto the floor. “Hope to see you out here more often, Jamie.”
“Thanks.”
She rolled out the cart and Walker lifted the lid off one of the boxes on the desk. “What are these?”
“Personnel files of everyone at UT Med with access to GNL’s BSL-4 labs.”
He ran a finger over the tops of the files. “We can’t take all these on the plane with us.”
Aidan removed the lid from the other box, yanked out a stack of files, and dropped them on his desk. “Maybe I should start calling you Sherlock.”
“Would be better than ‘kid.’” Barely a whisper but Aidan caught it and the underlying bitterness.
“Walker—”
“Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us.” He knelt and peeked under the lids of the other two boxes on the floor.
“Grab a box and have a seat.” Aidan motioned to the empty desk behind his.
Avoiding his gaze, Walker gave a sharp shake of his head and rose with two boxes in his arms, carrying them as if they weighed nothing. “I’ll take these with me to the cave.”
Aidan stepped out from behind his desk. “You don’t have to do that.”
“It’s fine, Talley.” He glanced over his shoulder with blank eyes. “Call me if you find anything.”
“Likewise,” Aidan said, but Walker was already gone, disappointment and regret trailing in his wake. Aidan didn’t like the feeling now any more than he had when Walker shut down after the jock comment two weeks ago. All the progress they’d made since, gone in a puff of smoke, right along with Walker. Determined to apologize, to fix this before it festered and undermined their fledgling partnership, Aidan lidded and stacked the remaining two boxes. He opened his desk drawer to grab his phone and wallet, intending to go work beside his partner in the cave, lack of windows be damned.
He’d just picked up his phone when it vibrated. He slid his thumb across the screen and brought it to his ear. “Talley.”
“It’s Cameron Byrne. Federal prosecutor’s got a few follow-up questions for us on the child exploitation case. Can you spare a few minutes? I’ve got him on the other line.”
Aidan stared at the boxes and his fleeting opportunity to set things right with Walker.
“Talley, you there?”
The mental image of a kidnapped Katie flashed in his mind, reminding him of the need to put these people away for good.
“Conference me in.”
* * *
“Katie asleep?” Aidan shrugged into his jacket as he juggled the phone.
“Aye,” his mother replied, the snick of a door closing in the background. “Out like a light. You’re off story duty tonight.”
“I still want to swing by. I’m leaving the office now.” He yanked the last quarter of the personnel files out of the second box and tucked them under his arm. He crossed the darkened bullpen on his way
to the lobby elevators, admiring San Francisco’s nighttime skyline through the surrounding office windows. “Giants game ended an hour ago, so traffic should be light. I’ll be there in forty.”
He pocketed his phone and punched the elevator call button, stepping back as he waited for the cab to climb thirteen floors. A light down the hallway caught his eye as Springsteen’s “Born to Run” reached his ears. Realizing the likely source, he wandered down the hall, into the cave, and through the server racks. He was grateful the music drowned out his gasp when he emerged into the mini-bullpen.
The sight before him was something to behold. His partner, asleep at his desk, face planted in a stack of open personnel files. Walker looked so young, so beautiful, in sleep. Long, burnished lashes fanned against darkening under-eye circles, cheeks pinked, lips parted as he lightly snored. Unable to resist, Aidan reached for the light brown waves that had fallen over his forehead, intent on brushing them back, but then Walker stirred and Aidan snatched his hand away. He cleared his throat to alert him to his presence.
Walker came awake at once, blinking rapidly and scattering files with his flailing limbs. Once he recognized a familiar face, he relaxed back into his chair.
“I think you might need more coffee,” Aidan said.
“Where’s a twenty-four-hour Blue Bottle when you need it?” Walker ran his hands over his face and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, just like a little kid.
Reminded of the apology he needed to make, Aidan leaned a hip against the desk. “I’m sorry about earlier. You’re not a kid, and I shouldn’t refer to you as one.” Walker smiled wider than Aidan expected, lifting a heavy weight from his chest. “From now on, I’ll keep my nicknames to the adult variety.”
“I can live with that, and thank you.” Walker held his gaze several long seconds before eyeing the files under his arm. “Please tell me those aren’t more files for me to review.”
“For me,” Aidan said. “Cure for insomnia.”
Compassion flooded Walker’s countenance. “Since the accident?”
“Since the IRA put a bomb under the family car.”
Walker’s eyes widened.
“Sure you don’t want my personnel file now?”