by Tess Diamond
Jake slipped into the senator’s office, using the key card security had issued him. The small, cluttered room had a desk outfitted much like the one in Thebes’ home office, with pictures of Kayla and his wife set in frames. Legal texts filled a large bookcase, and a framed painting of the Founding Fathers stared down at him from the wall. But Jake wasn’t here to go through the senator’s things—his focus was on the side door that led to Max’s office. Taking his keys out of his pocket, he twisted the top of a silver keychain that looked like a whistle. Pulling off the cap, he exposed a hollow interior and shook out a small tension wrench and a set of lock picks into his palm. With a light touch, he raked the pins inside the lock with the tension wrench, getting a feel for it before inserting the pick and pushing the pins up one by one. After a quick, practiced turn of the wrench, the lock sprang free, and the door opened.
Jake smiled in satisfaction, stepping into Max’s office.
He knew men like Max Grayson. He understood the type. He’d been surrounded by them ever since the Army had slapped medals on him and sent him home to “advise on sensitive matters.”
For politicos of Grayson’s ilk, home was a place to sleep, but life happened at work. A guy like that felt more at home in an office than kicking back in front of the game on the TV. Jake knew Maggie would zero in on anything of note at the apartment, but it was better that he was here. Faster. They covered more ground apart, and he knew that with Grayson’s apartment crawling with FBI, she’d be safe. Plus, she was armed and knew what she was doing. That was a load off his mind, especially with her habit of spouting off her opinions and jumping into situations on her own, without waiting for any cover. He’d be damned if he ended up chasing after her, trying to play catch-up when she went after Max.
Now that they knew her kidnapper was Grayson, Kayla’s time was running out fast. The thought made him want to punch something—or someone, preferably the senator. That sweet kid wasn’t going to die, he told himself firmly. Not with a woman like Maggie Kincaid fighting for her. And not with him watching Maggie’s back.
It was strange to have that much faith in someone he’d just met, but Jake found that instead of retreating, he wanted to charge toward the feeling—toward her. Their connection evoked something he thought he’d lost when he’d been hauled back to DC, leaving his team, his men, behind. He trusted her: her intellect, her instincts, her fighting spirit. She was as smart as she was sexy, but it wasn’t just physical attraction that drew him to her and made him want to skim his hands underneath that neat button-up blouse. There was something behind those big blue eyes, the deep kind of pain that has forged a person stronger than steel.
She would fight a hell of a battle to bring Kayla back, and he was determined to stay right by her side. Someone needed to watch her back. The FBI was full of guys eager to dismiss and discredit her. Jake smiled grimly. He bet she’d outgunned and outsmarted all of them when she worked there. She wasn’t one to play nice, not with lives on the line. And there was a certain kind of man who was threatened by a woman like that, instead of intrigued.
Jake was the type to be intrigued . . . to say the least.
Grayson’s office was plain and even smaller than the senator’s, with a less opulent desk and a pair of locked cupboards behind it. Selecting a longer pick from his set, Jake got the cheap lock open in less than twenty seconds. File upon file spilled out of the cupboard—they’d been stuffed inside in no discernible order—which seemed a little weird to Jake, considering the stuff on Grayson’s desk was so organized and neat. He brushed more files onto the floor, digging deeper through the ones remaining. Behind a stack of them, he caught sight of the square edge of a laptop.
He pulled it out from where it was jammed into the back recesses of the cabinet, scattering more papers and manila envelopes to the ground.
Walking over to Grayson’s desk, he flipped the laptop open and turned it on, unsurprised when he was prompted for a password. Grayson wasn’t stupid—he was a careful son of a bitch. But so was Jake. He dug in his pocket for his wallet and pulled out a slim USB drive tucked into one of the credit card slots.
It paid to have retired Army buddies who had turned to the private tech sector. This little baby had a hacker virus coded into it. The minute it was inserted into a computer, it began to unravel and read all the passwords, unlocking them one by one.
Nothing is safe. Nothing is secret. Not if you have the right code. Or the right friends.
It took only three minutes for the virus to unlock the computer, the screen flipping to the desktop. Multiple folders, labeled with titles like “Clancy Hearing” and “Senator’s October Schedule,” turned up a whole lot of nothing. As Jake clicked through the folders, every single one of them empty, he began to think he’d hit a dead end.
Pulling up the search bar, he typed in “.jpg.” Maybe Grayson reserved the laptop just for pictures? He had to have scoped out the place he was keeping Kayla, after all. He hit Search, and a list of images appeared.
He clicked through the pictures—most were stock photos that came preloaded in the computer. He clicked on a file named “HarleyDavidson.jpg,” but instead of finding a picture of a motorcycle, a spreadsheet appeared on the screen.
“Gotcha,” Jake whispered with a smile. He scrolled down, finding copies of financial information, dates, times, and Grayson’s passport photos.
Jake frowned. He knew what this was. He’d seen it before when he’d been stationed in Afghanistan. This was a ready-made identity. Professional level. It went back all the way to childhood medical records.
How could this be? He scrolled through the file again, just to be sure. But it was too extensive, too high quality. How had Grayson gotten his hands on this? Who had gotten his hands on this?
Max Grayson wasn’t Max Grayson. Everything about him—everything they thought they knew so far—was a lie. Max Grayson didn’t exist. He was a lie. A mask invented solely to get whatever was in that secret file of the senator’s.
Jake leaned back in the chair, staring at the information in front of him. This was a new kind of trouble, a different kind of game to play.
Who the hell was this guy? And what was he planning to do to Kayla?
Chapter 30
“You ready for this?” Paul asked as Maggie walked down a hallway in the FBI headquarters for the second time this week. This time, she found it easier to ignore the stares and whispers that followed her. She even smiled neutrally at the people gawking, unable to hide their surprise at her return.
You’re the touchstone, Maggie. She could hear Jake saying it in her head, how earnest and sure he sounded. How much faith he had in her. Strength built inside her. “I’m ready,” Maggie said.
“You didn’t think you’d ever be here again, did you?” Paul asked, his mouth flattening in concern.
He was always worried about her. She hated that he still carried that burden. That was one of the reasons why they had broken up. She wanted to tell him she was fine and she wanted him to believe it. She wasn’t sure if they’d ever get there.
He needed to move on. To find a woman who deserved his goodness and sweetness. Who wanted to have him worry about her. To love her.
Paul needed the kind of softness she no longer possessed. Life had sharpened her edges and she’d learned not just to use those edges, but to like them.
“I meant it when I left, Paul,” Maggie said. It was impossible to dismiss the double meaning of her words. She’d quit the FBI and then she’d quit him, and she’d known those had been the right choices. The FBI might have drawn her back in—temporarily—but Paul never could.
He smiled sadly, reaching to get the door to the conference room for her. “You’ll be fine.”
“Of course I will,” Maggie said. “I have to be. For Kayla.”
Chin up, she moved into the room with confidence. Ten or so agents were already waiting for her to debrief them and had gathered around a trio of whiteboards. Ignoring the unsettled murmurs that foll
owed her, she walked briskly to the front of the room and turned to face her audience.
“Our unsub is no longer unknown,” she told the agents grouped around her, pointing to Max’s photo posted on the middle board. “Kayla Thebes’ kidnapper is Max Grayson, the senator’s political advisor. Agent Sinclair has put together a preliminary profile that you’ll find in the files provided. Grayson is a highly organized criminal with a very specific end goal: to acquire sensitive material from Capitol Hill that only the senator has access to.”
“Can’t the senator tell us what it is?” asked an agent.
“He’s not being forthcoming with that information,” Maggie said. “He insists it’s a matter of national security.”
“And you believe him?” asked a skeptical voice.
No, Maggie thought. But she couldn’t say that. She didn’t want the agents distracted. She needed their focus on Grayson and his location. Kayla’s time was running out.
“The senator deals with many classified issues,” Maggie said, hoping she sounded convincing. “This is his child’s life at stake. If he could tell us, he would. It’s time we put the focus of our investigation on Grayson. I want to know everything about this guy. She pointed to three techs to her left, who snapped to attention. “Thomas, Wilder, and Eager—you’re on financials. I want to know everything that man’s bought and where. Gas stations, especially. Pullman and Smith, you’re on phone records. Who’s he called and who’s calling him? I want every phone call traced and every email analyzed.”
“We’re on it,” Agent Pullman said, already flipping open her laptop.
“Johnson, you’re on pharmacy detail,” Maggie said. “Grayson’s been giving Kayla insulin—where did he get it?”
“Do you really think that’s necessary?” Johnson, a hulking agent with a thick, overhanging brow who looked more Neanderthal than human, asked.
Maggie whirled around, a death glare on her face. “Considering Kayla’s insulin dependency, yes, I do.”
Johnson folded his arms across his chest, the picture of stubbornness. “Why should I take orders from a burnout like you, Kincaid?”
Before Maggie could say another word, Paul stepped forward, glowering. Johnson shifted nervously. Paul outranked him and he knew it. “Because I said so, Johnson,” he barked.
Anger spiked through Maggie. She knew Paul meant well trying to defend her, but he wasn’t helping her earn any respect. She could fight her own damn battles.
“Do your job, Johnson,” she ordered. “You know how to do that, don’t you?”
He glared at her, nodding sullenly after Paul shot him another quelling look.
“Let’s continue,” Maggie said. She had to keep this moving, keep them thinking. An investigative team was like a machine: All the moving parts had to be working in unison. One moment of delay and everything could fall apart. “It’s clear from the evidence Special Agent Sinclair and I pulled from Grayson’s apartment that he’s been planning this for a long time. Years. That means we—”
The door opening and slamming shut startled everyone in the room, causing Maggie to stop midsentence. Jake hurried in, striding through the crowd of agents, who parted as he made his way up to her. An excited murmur followed him, and Maggie heard catches of muttered conversation. “. . . works for the senator . . .” and “. . . Special Forces, I think?”
“Can I talk to you?” he asked in an undertone.
She cast a nervous glance around the crowd of agents, already muttering at the disruption. “Can it wait?” she asked.
“You’re gonna want to hear this,” Jake said. When she hesitated, he said, “Trust me.”
Such simple words for such a complicated request.
Did she trust him?
She wanted to. And not just because his touch seemed to be sex personified when it came to her.
“Take five, everyone,” Maggie called. “Let’s go into the annex,” she said, gesturing to the small room that branched off from the conference area. He hesitated for a moment, and Maggie grabbed his arm. She didn’t think she had any way of physically moving him—she was strong for her size, but Jake O’Connor was built like an infuriating—though sexy—brick wall. Still, at her beseeching touch, he followed.
She closed the door, catching one final glimpse of the curious and skeptical faces of the agents waiting.
“Did you have to do that?” she asked.
“This is a game changer,” Jake said. “I figured you’d want a heads-up so you could break it to your team.”
Maggie bit her lip. As bad as it looked to get pulled out in the middle of a case breakdown, she knew he was right.
“Okay,” she said. “Thank you. Now tell me what’s going on.”
Jake set a laptop on the small desk inside the annex, flipping it open. “Max Grayson doesn’t exist,” he said.
“What?” Maggie asked, moving forward, hair rising on her arms at his words. “How’s that possible?”
“It’s an alias,” Jake explained as she leaned over his shoulder and he began to open the laptop’s files.
“I just pulled this from Grayson’s office on the Hill,” Jake said. “His real name is Roger Mancuso. Grew up in Charlottesville. Not the best childhood, if we’re being generous. Parents dead, brother dead. No family. No one to identify him or mess up his plans.”
“And this was all in his office?” Maggie asked. It made sense—it was safer than his apartment.
“Stuffed in the back of a cabinet,” Jake said. “Under his real name, this guy’s been busted six times for minor offenses. Drunken fights, disturbing the peace, that sort of stuff. His last offense was reduced to minor assault by a judge who should’ve known better. Five years ago, he broke parole and disappeared.
“To find out more, I started making some calls. Reaching out to my contacts overseas. Turns out right after Roger Mancuso broke parole, Max Grayson shows up for the first time, in Paris, for about a week. Next time he emerged, it was in DC, with an impressive resume that was apparently good enough to fool several background checks. He worked his way up the political ladder for three years before being hired by Senator Thebes.”
“He’s been planning this for five years,” Maggie breathed. God, it was even worse than she thought. Dedicating two years of your life to a criminal plan was a commitment.
Five years . . .
Five years was obsession.
Jake met Maggie’s gaze, his eyes solemn and worried. “Everything we think we know about this guy is a lie.”
Chapter 31
“This is bad,” Maggie said. Then she laughed, exhaustion and despair bubbling inside her. “God, that’s an understatement.”
“This guy’s fueled by some kind of vendetta,” Jake said. “And you and I both know, men like that . . .” He paused.
“Men like that don’t play nice,” Maggie finished.
“Men like that don’t want money,” Jake said. “They want power.”
“And the senator has plenty of it.”
“We need to go in and brief the team,” Jake said.
Maggie hesitated, biting her lip as dread built inside her.
“What?” he asked.
“I missed this,” she said.
“Hey, no,” he said reassuringly. “You weren’t looking for it.”
“Yes, I was,” Maggie said. “I was looking for it at his apartment. Grace said that his place was weird—like there was no actual indication of a personality there.”
Jake frowned. “So you’re going to beat yourself up because I got to his office before you? It would’ve been the next place you went, Maggie. And if you had beat me there, you would’ve found the laptop.”
“I know that,” Maggie said. “But the guys out there?” She gestured to the door. “They hate me. I’m the bitch who got the promotions they thought they deserved. When I screwed up, they acted like they were expecting it all along. They’re just waiting for me to screw up again. And this will be more ammo for them.”
“Screw them,” Jake said.
Maggie’s mouth dropped open. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” Jake said. “Screw them. You’re the best, right? That’s what everyone I called about you said. Every single person, Maggie. They said you were a pit bull . . . you never let go, never stop, never get tired. They told me that the best person to have on this case is you.”
Her cheeks heated up, and she glanced back at the door to the conference room. “They’ll try to undermine me,” she said weakly.
“I’ll have your back,” he promised.
She’d heard those words before, countless times, from colleagues, from friends, from boyfriends.
But never had she believed them like this.
She reached up before she could stop herself. She had to go on her tiptoes because he was so tall, balancing herself with a hand on his shoulder as she brushed a kiss against his stubbled cheek. “Thanks, O’Connor,” she said, softly.
She began to pull away, but he grabbed her waist, his fingers spread against the sensitive curve, five points of fire burning through her shirt. His glance dropped to her lips.
“I could kiss you right now,” he said, his voice husky.
“You could,” she said, feeling breathless. Could he hear how hard her heart was beating?
He raised his free hand, his thumb brushing the lushness of her bottom lip. She closed her eyes against the heat, tingling shocks dancing across her body. When her eyes drifted open, he was watching her like she was something beautiful and mysterious, like he wanted to spend hours, days, months puzzling her out.
“But if I do,” he went on, “I’m not gonna be able to stop.”