Locke and Key (Titan Book 12)

by Cristin Harber

Rocco turned back to the table, ignoring Locke. Either his presentation was all wrong, and Rocco was a dick, or Rocco had a thought and didn’t want to lose it.

  His boss wasn’t idly working. As Locke eyeballed him, he noticed that it was almost as if he was searching for something. Then Rocco slapped the table.

  “Good news?” What else was he supposed to say?

  Rocco pushed back. “Let me see the folder from Parker. I want to compare something.”

  Of course Parker hadn’t given Locke a folder without Rocco knowing. Locke handed it over and watched as Rocco paged through the files, quickly going from one page to the next page, to the next—and then he stopped.

  Locke leaned over to see that he was on Ivan’s page. He shifted his weight in his chair as Rocco tossed the file onto the table and went back to his work. He pulled up a screen on the tablet and then moved over to his papers, moving back and forth, until he turned back to Locke.

  “Do you believe in coincidence?” Rocco asked.

  Tricky question, because it depended on the situation. Had Locke decided not to drive to see Bishop, he would never have seen Cassidy, and then he wouldn’t be at this table having this discussion with Rocco. That was a solid argument that everything happened for a reason.

  If he hadn’t jumped in her car, and she hadn’t called him a sexist asshole, then they would never have ended up at that club and seen Alex with Ivan. But for intelligence and military spec ops, Locke accepting coincidence was probably was not high on the list of things that Rocco wanted to hear about.

  Still, honesty was the best answer. “It depends on the situation.”

  “Fair enough.” Rocco took his tablet, slid it across the table to Locke, and gave him a chin lift to go ahead and look at the screen.

  Locke picked up the tablet and settled back, reading the name Ivan Mikhailov at the top of the screen. It was the same bio that Locke had in his folder. He didn’t understand why he was looking at it. Raising his eyebrows, Locke asked, “Isn’t this the same guy?”

  “Now swipe to the next page.”

  Locke did so. At the top of the page was the same last name, different first name. Taisia. It was a woman’s name. That was interesting. The bio listed her birthday, making her slightly younger than him, and referenced her education in the United States at the University of Maryland. Listed under Unconfirmed but Probable: “One pregnancy, assumed live birth. Unknown father. The child is believed to be living with the mother.”

  “Ivan’s a grandpa?” Locke mused aloud.

  “Bet he’s stellar,” Rocco spit sarcastically.

  “No kidding.” He’d just seen Ivan with women who had to be the age of his daughter—or younger.

  “It says she didn’t graduate from college.” Rocco tapped the screen, expanding the intel report. “Dropped out junior year, spring semester.”

  “Huh.” Locke wondered why she would be in the US to begin with. He knew the KGB had successfully planted Russians in America over the years, but his daughter would have been too obvious. But… his wheels began to turn. If the daughter was about the same age as him, Locke guessed Alexander was about his age also. What if…? He furrowed his brow, giving Rocco a hard look. “Did we ever get a follow-up from St. Andrew’s or their insurance company?”

  Again with the sarcastic laugh. “Did they want details on the asshole teacher screwing the locals? Yeah, no.”

  “Fucking A, man.” Locke blew out a breath.

  Rocco raised his brows. “You want to clue me in on your thoughts?”

  “Cassidy saw Alex with a woman.”

  His boss’s brows rose higher. “The teacher didn’t screw just with the locals. He actually screwed a local. The local.”

  “The?”

  “Taisia Mikhailov. She’s like royalty out there. A protected, hidden princess. No one knows anything about her, but because of her last name and her father’s reach and power? Yeah. The.”

  “Daddy Russian wanted to blow Alex’s brains out for getting back in touch with his daughter. He runs, they chase. We go in, thinking it’s a typical private contract job…” Locke let his mind run.

  Rocco hit the speakerphone button on a console on the table. “Parker?”

  A moment later, “Yeah?”

  “Where’d Alex Gaev go to college?”

  Keys clacked. “University of Maryland.”

  “Thanks, bro.” Rocco raised his eyebrows. “Coincidence again?”

  “Not a chance.”

  Rocco slapped the speakerphone button again, and this time Jared growled, “Yeah? What?”

  “War room needs your eminent presence.”

  “Jackass.” The line hung up.

  “Who knew this would become something,” Rocco mumbled as he shuffled papers around.

  Locke sure as fuck hadn’t known. Maybe Cassidy knew, but even she didn’t know how big, not if she didn’t initially understand who the Mikhailovs were.

  Jared walked into the room.

  “Hey, Boss Man,” Rocco said. “If some guy upset one of your daughters enough that you kicked him out of your house, why would you go meet with him again?”

  Jared grumbled and smirked as he also took a seat. He cracked a couple of knuckles. “Just to kick the asshole’s ass. Simple.”

  “What if you didn’t touch the guy? What if you just hung out?” Locke asked.

  Jared shook his head, his lips pursed. “Then there was never a problem with Asal or Violet. Simple. Their integrity isn’t for sale.”

  “Ding motherfucking ding,” Rocco muttered. “Ivan Mikhailov has no integrity.”

  “None of those fuckers do. What’s going on?” Jared popped another knuckle and grumbled at Rocco.

  Rocco looked at the folders, his tablet, and then at Locke. “I was reviewing a couple of up-and-coming contracts, but also, I happened to have the after-action report from Krasnaya Polyana over here when Locke walked in.”

  Jared nodded. “Got it. So?”

  “It looks like the FSB involved in ordering the hit on Alex Gaev was none other than Ivan Mikhailov—”

  “One of my favorite former KGB hardliners,” Jared grumbled.

  “But now they’re all friends. Ivan’s been in DC for the past few weeks, seen around town with Alex,” Locke said.

  Jared’s eyes narrowed as he rubbed his hands together slowly in thought. “Interesting. Gaev became worth more to Ivan alive than dead.”

  “He was possibly seeing his daughter while in Russia.”

  “Doing the man’s daughter would cause a hit, so Gaev negotiated his way out? Smart.” Jared rubbed his chin. “Not all that surprised Ivan would trade for his daughter. But… how? Why? I don’t see the connection.”

  “The daughter and Gaev went to college together.”

  “Where?” Jared asked.

  Rocco tapped a finger on his coffee cup’s lid. “University of Maryland.”

  “Not a small place,” Jared said. “Could be coincidence.”

  “Last night, Gaev and Mikhailov were discussing senators,” Locke said.

  “And you’re leaping to—what?” Jared shrugged. “They’re talking politics? Who cares?”

  “It’s weird,” Locke pointed out.

  “I’ve seen a lot of weird shit in my life,” Jared said. “Enemies becoming friends at a bar isn’t weird. Even after they’ve tried to kill each other. That’s the fucking story of my life.”

  Rocco nodded. “Yeah. We’re missing something.”

  Locke rubbed his hands together. “Cassidy Noble, the reporter who was with Alex Gaev—”

  Jared laughed. “I think we all know who she is. You’ve made a big enough deal out of her that we’ll probably never forget her. Speaking of which, how goes intel-therapy?”

  Locke bit his tongue and recalibrated his approach. “It goes so well that I’m going to ask you if I can work with her on something.” He didn’t know what they were missing, but hell, it was out there, and this was important. “She was with me when we saw
Alex and the Russians. She’s been following Alex, and I’ve been checking up on her, and the woman thinks some seriously hinky shit is going on. “

  “Seriously hinky shit. There’s a first for me,” Rocco muttered.

  Locke ignored him. “There’s no telling what Ivan would do to exploit others.”

  Parker walked in. “I agree.”

  Jared glared over his shoulder. “And why is that?”

  “Because Ivan Mikhailov has come in and out of the US more times in the last six months than in the last two years, and because I threw some feelers out to see what’s out there. The chatter is fierce.”

  “What’s going on?” Jared asked.

  Parker grimaced. “He’s opening a new line of business, and it ain’t pretty, and Ivan wants an insurance policy in the United States.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Cassidy’s phone rang, and she jumped for it. Not that she had been waiting for it to ring all day, but she had. Locke’s number was on the screen. She swiped the screen to answer and in her most casual voice said, “Hey, how you doing?”

  “Hey, Beauty. I’m good. How are you?”

  Dang it to hell. How was she supposed to play cool when he dropped things like Beauty? “Oh, you know, I’m good.”

  An awkward silence hung there for a second, and she couldn’t gather her thoughts, which was so unlike her.

  “I found some information for you.” Locke cleared his throat quietly. “I mean, it’s shady. I’m not trying to insert myself into your work, but if you want information, I have something to offer.”

  “Really?” Information was far sweeter than roses and chocolates.

  “Backgrounds and a folder full of connections for the folks he met at the club.”

  “Wow, yes.” Her silly grin from earlier was gone. Locke’s news just made her happy. “I’d love to see that.”

  “And…”

  “And?” He couldn’t leave her hanging.

  “We have access to Titan’s resources.”

  Her jaw dropped. “We do?”

  “To nose around a bit. See what else there is besides a few one-off coincidences.”

  Cassidy couldn’t believe what he was offering, and as her mind reeled, she wondered what the hell was in the folder that Locke had. “I’m right, aren’t I?” she whispered.

  “Is he a spy? I don’t know.” But Locke took a deep breath, and she could picture him stretching or rubbing his hand into his hair, deep contemplation marring his perfect face. “But I was right when I said to stop following them all over town. Not good people, Cass.”

  Damn. Alex was in bed with the Russians. It wasn’t just that he upset someone in Russia and they chased him back to the US. “A journalist just knows where there’s a story. Haven’t you heard that?”

  He quietly laughed. “No, I hadn’t heard.”

  “But…” She plopped down on her couch and grabbed her notebook full of half-thought-out guesses and arrows that led to nowhere. “I’m missing something.”

  “I might know what that puzzle piece is.”

  “Yeah? Want to share?”

  Again, he chuckled quietly. “You could wait for gut instinct to tell you.”

  “Locke!” She slapped her notebook shut. “Don’t you trust me enough to share?”

  “Draven trusted you; I think I can too.”

  The mention of Locke’s CO caught her off guard, and her throat instantly tightened. It was easy to think about the loss of her good friend when she was prepared for it, but not when it came out of the blue. She might never get over Sadr City, and it still consumed Locke, dictating his thoughts on almost every conversation, even the easygoing teasing ones.

  “Buzzkill. Sorry.” Locke took a deep breath and blew it out. “I’m still working through that shit. It fucks me up sometimes. I don’t like that I can’t say his name without feeling gut-shot.”

  She got it. Mentions of Mike left her raw, and in general, she thought Locke didn’t trust her on Sadr City. “Me too.”

  “And I wanted to mention…” He paused, letting an uncomfortable silence join them on the phone. “Look, you gave me a pass the other night when I came back. I get that, and… I can’t explain it other than the music got under my skin at Red Star.” He laughed, but this time, it was a shameful, scornful sound that hurt her to hear. “Sounds whacked, right? The music fucking got under my skin…” His voice became a whisper, then he cleared his throat. “But some things do that. They trigger a memory, and I’m there again.”

  She wished like hell she could hug him and had no idea what the right thing to say was, but instead, she just let him keep going.

  “Kind of like PTSD. Just hits, then I calm down. But before that? Hell of a night.”

  “Yeah, it was.”

  “Who would’ve guessed I’d ever be on the phone with you talking about feelings,” he muttered. “It just feels like—I can’t control what I should be able to.”

  “Give yourself a break.” She wasn’t sure what he needed from her, and she knew that one heartfelt confession wasn’t going to be the end of it. “Healing isn’t linear, Locke. It jags up; it tears down. Don’t confuse that for weakness.”

  Silence…

  “Damn you, Beauty. I wish you were standing here right now.”

  “Why?” she whispered.

  “Because.” He breathed deeply into the phone and cleared his throat. “Never mind. Look, there’s a kid. That’s your missing puzzle piece.”

  She tried to follow his thoughts, realizing he’d changed subjects. “Alex?”

  “Yeah. He might have a kid. And—”

  That was as close as she was going to get to a heart-to-heart with Locke, and it was good, if not abrupt. But that was okay when he was connecting major dots and finding huge missing pieces in her investigation. “With the woman in Russia. That’s the mother?”

  “It’s a chance.” Locke hummed in thought. “Look, I have a folder that’s begging for you to read. Interested?”

  “Tell me where to meet you.”

  “Can you be ready in an hour? I’ll be there.”

  “Yeah, of course. Hey, Locke?”

  “Yeah, babe?”

  She wanted to say something more about PTSD. Something about bruises that couldn’t be seen and how exhausting it was to look impenetrable when, on the inside, the scaffolding shook. Instead, she closed her eyes and vowed to hug him the second she saw him. “Thank you. That’s it. Just thanks.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The doorbell rang, and Cassidy jumped up off her couch, having lost herself in the world of ZNN and on-air reports that she thought maybe she could do different, better, faster, slower. It didn’t matter how—one day, she’d be back on primetime TV. But she also must have lost track of time. “Wow. Locke was fast.”

  She shouldn’t have been nervous about visiting Locke’s work. But it was the good nervous that made butterflies run into each other and bump heads. She’d quickly dressed and looked casually professional enough to walk into his work, yet she absolutely picked out a pencil skirt and fitted blouse that drew attention to where he most liked to put his hands—over her curves.

  “Coming.” She slipped on her heels and fluffed her hair, then she stopped by the mirror near her door. No fuss hair and her makeup looked fine. If he was going to fall for her, he should see the real deal anyway, not the party girl dressed for the club. She threw the door open—

  Her eyes peeled back as her stomach dropped with uncertain dread. “Alex.” And a friend.

  “Hi.” Alex’s eyes were sunken and dark. He hadn’t shaved. At the club, he’d had a five-o’clock shadow, but now his facial hair was substantially overgrown. The smell of vodka and stale cigarettes clung to his clothes even though it was late in the afternoon. Cassidy wasn’t sure if he’d been home from the night before to take a shower. The man with him looked roughly the same and seemed eerily like the people in Ivan Mikhailov’s circle of friends.

  “Um, Alex? Are yo
u okay?” The other man hung to the side as though he weren’t even on her front stoop, and her gut instinct screamed that there was a problem. The way he stood awkwardly to the side made her uneasy, and Cassidy wasn’t sure if she should address him, ignore him, or what. But then she glanced the man’s way and gave a flat smile and a confident, “Hello.”

  The man narrowed his eyes but said nothing.

  “What’s going on?” she asked Alex since he hadn’t bothered to answer if he was okay.

  His face darkened as his eyes swept her attire. “What are you doing? Where are you going like that?”

  True, it was a bit much for a Sunday. Too work-ish to claim as church clothes. “Work.”

  “On a Sunday?”

  “The news never stops. Why are you at my home? How do you even know where I live?”

  “What did you do last night?” His scouring brow tightened.

  “I think you should leave.” Her stomach dropped again. Cassidy stepped onto her front porch, not wanting them inside and suddenly far more uncomfortable than she had been moments before. Apprehension squeezed bile into her throat. Did they know that she’d followed Alex? Was this a Mikhailov? “You could have called. I thought your schedule has been…”

  “Complicated, Cassidy. It’s been complicated.”

  “I’ve been trying to work with you,” she said, flicking her eyes to the other man, who stepped forward. “Can I help you?”

  The man didn’t say anything. Shit, Cassidy wished she had a dog. A big, angry dog. Where was Locke?

  Alex’s eyes narrowed, tracking her assessment of the man. “Why?”

  “Why, what?” She tried to recall what she’d just asked.

  “Why?” he snapped.

  “Is something wrong? Obviously, I’ve upset you. But… look.” What had she done to cause them to show up? “There’s a lot of pressure to get the articles and the op-ed done, but don’t worry about it. Not if it’s going to make you this troubled.”

  The other man stood next to Alex. She backed away, inching away from her front door, to the side of him. “Why don’t you both leave?”

  “Were you at Red Star last night?” the man asked, his Russian-accented English dripping with venom.