by Paige Tyler
“You want to head down to the range and punch a few holes in some targets?” Jake asked. “You can imagine it’s Dick if it helps.”
Trevor chuckled. “Sounds like fun, but Dick asked me to meet him”—he glanced down at his watch—“nearly thirty minutes ago. I guess I should probably get over there before he decides to go ahead and just fire me already.”
Neither of his friends laughed.
“What if he does?” Jake asked. “I mean, I don’t understand why the hell you’re even still working at the DCO. You could walk into the Defense Intel Agency Headquarters at Anacostia-Bolling and walk out with a great job within minutes. Why the hell would you want to hang around this joint and get treated like crap?”
Trevor had asked himself that more than a few times. Pushing back his chair, he stood and picked up his tray.
“It’s complicated,” was all he said.
* * *
The minute Trevor walked into the main DCO administration building and saw the memorial plaque with John’s name, as well as his secretary Olivia’s, on it, he remembered exactly why he stayed and put up with Dick’s and Thorn’s bullshit. Contrary to what he’d told Jake and Jaxson in the cafeteria, it wasn’t complicated at all.
He could have bailed the moment he’d heard John was dead. He’d been up in Maine, dealing with some demented doctors who’d been trying to create hybrids of their own, and it would have been easy to jump the border into Canada and disappear.
Feline shifter Ivy Halliwell and her husband/partner, Landon Donovan, had wanted him to go into hiding with them, and he’d been tempted. He was smart enough to know what life at the DCO would be like without John there. But in the end, he’d wanted to come back and get the son of a bitch who’d killed John. He’d liked and respected John. It was the least he could do for the man.
Admittedly, coming back had been risky. Dick could easily have labeled Trevor one of the conspirators and tossed him in some supermax prison, never to be seen again. Hell, Dick could have had him executed, and no one would ever have known that, either.
Trevor only hoped that Dick wouldn’t realize how closely Trevor was aligned with Ivy and Landon. Outside of one mission in Tajikistan, they’d never officially worked together, so it was possible he might not. Crazy, but possible. Ivy and Landon hadn’t liked the idea of Trevor staying but said they’d help him any way they could.
“If you even think Dick or Thorn are onto you, promise you’ll run, okay?” Ivy had said before she and Landon had gone off the grid.
Since then, all communications had been handled through burner phones, code words on various chat loops, and trusted messengers. It wasn’t the same as being able to talk face-to-face, but it was good enough.
As he strode down the hall, Trevor marveled at how quickly the bombed-out part of the building had been repaired. He couldn’t even smell the smoke residue anymore over the scent of fresh drywall, paint, and carpeting. No one would ever know a bomb had taken out the whole middle section of the first floor and part of the second right above it.
For a man who’d sworn up and down that he wanted to catch John’s killers, Dick had been damn quick when it came to destroying any evidence of the bombing. The new director had had the entire damaged section of the building demolished and removed within days of the murder. Fortunately, Trevor had slipped into the smoking ruins that first night, fresh off the flight from Maine, when the heat had still been so bad it’d melted his boots and burned his hands. But he’d found more than two dozen pieces of the bomb, so it had been worth it.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t known what to do with them right away. Normally, he would have turned them over to the DCO analysts and tech people and let them do their magic. But most of the ones he trusted had left, and the ones who’d stayed freely admitted they had no skill when it came to bomb and explosive forensics.
Because Dick had so many people watching Trevor, it had taken almost a week to get a message to Ivy and Landon, letting them know what he needed. They’d given him the name of Danica’s former FBI partner in Sacramento, Tony Moretti.
Trevor had never met the man, but Danica and the others trusted him, so that meant he would, too. But with people watching him, it had taken another week to get everything packaged up and sent out there. Since then, he’d been waiting to see if the FBI labs could come up with anything. He wasn’t expecting much. It wasn’t like Thorn was an idiot. He wasn’t going to hire a bomb maker who’d be dumb enough to leave any solid clues behind. Moreover, Tony would have to get the bomb remains evaluated without tipping off anyone as to where the bombing had occurred. They simply couldn’t risk word of the investigation getting back to Thorn or Dick.
While he waited, Trevor had been trying to find the bomber another way. DCO training officer Skye Durant and intel analyst Evan Lloyd were helping, but it was slow, excruciating work. He had things he could be out there doing, leads he could be checking out, but he couldn’t, not when he was under constant surveillance. He would have asked Jake and Jaxson for help, but he didn’t want to put any more people in danger than absolutely necessary.
Sighing, Trevor walked into the outer waiting area of the newly renovated director’s office. The monstrously large desk his secretary, Phyllis, was sitting behind probably cost more than John’s entire suite of furniture from the old office. There were paintings on the wall that appeared to be original pieces from the early colonial years, and the coffee machine set up along the side wall looked like something you might need an engineering degree to use.
Phyllis glanced up from her computer. Nearly sixty, she had short, curly gray hair and a thin, almost beaklike nose, on which a pair of half-moon reading glasses were perched.
He grinned at her. “I’m here to see Dick.”
The woman didn’t return his smile. Now that he thought about it, Trevor wasn’t sure the woman knew how to smile. If so, she’d certainly never done it around him. He was pretty sure Dick’s secretary didn’t think much of him, though whether it was because he was a shifter or a smart-ass, he didn’t know. He preferred to think it was his animal nature. He didn’t mind being looked down on because he sometimes had claws and fangs. He’d been born that way and couldn’t do anything about it. But his wit? That had taken him years of hard work to develop. He hated to think the effort had been wasted.
“Director Coleman is expecting you. And has been for nearly thirty minutes,” she said scathingly.
“Great! So I guess that means I can just let myself right in.”
The older woman didn’t seem amused by that. Then again, Phyllis never seemed amused. Or angry. Or alive, for that matter. Maybe she suffered from a perpetual case of resting bitch face.
“You most certainly will not. I’ll announce you,” she said in a tone that suggested she considered him somehow unworthy of that honor.
He smiled even broader. “Well, how about that? I’ve never been announced before. I mean, sure, they announced my number all the time back in prison, but that’s not the same thing, you know?”
He was hoping to at least get a disdainful glower out of her, but not even that comment could crack her bland facade.
Good sarcasm was simply wasted on some people.
Getting to her feet, Phyllis came around the desk and led the way to Dick’s office. She knocked once, then stuck her head in and told her boss Trevor was there. A moment later, she opened the door and motioned him in.
“Announcing someone would be more dramatic if you had a big staff you could thump on the floor a few times,” he pointed out, unable to resist poking her one more time. “You know, kind of like they do in Renaissance festivals?”
Phyllis stood there holding the door open, regarding him with absolutely no expression.
“Nothing?” Trevor shook his head. “I’m standing here working it, and you’re just going to leave me hanging like that?”
Phyll
is arched a brow. Damn, the woman was tough.
Giving up, Trevor walked past her into the office. He barely made it through the door before Phyllis closed it. He supposed he could consider that a small victory. He might actually get a rise out of her at some point.
Thanks to a keen sense of smell, Trevor knew there were three people in the office before he got inside—Dick, Thorn, and some woman he’d never seen before. He was interested in who the new woman was, what Dick wanted to talk to him about, and why Thorn was there, but he chose to ignore them all for the time being as he took a moment to appreciate all the changes Dick had made to the director’s office.
Okay, appreciate was probably the wrong word. Trevor was never one to appreciate gaudy displays of excess, and that’s what Dick was all about.
The first thing that struck him was that it was bigger than before. Actually, it was nearly three times the size of John’s old office. Like the outer room, this part of the renovation had come with loads of pricey furniture and over-the-top artwork. Based on the framed paintings mounted on the wall, people might think Dick had an obsession with dead white guys painted in dramatic poses. Two presidents, a general in battlefield garb, an arrogant-looking man sitting behind a big desk, and a sailor standing in a small boat holding an old-fashioned harpoon. Obviously, Dick wasn’t a big fan of landscapes.
When Trevor finally turned his attention to Dick, he noted with pleasure that the director looked a little pissed off sitting there behind his ridiculously large desk. If Trevor was lucky, maybe the man would blow a gasket the more he aggravated him. Then again, Trevor might not get the chance to hang around here long enough to do that. There was a good possibility Dick had called him in here specifically to fire him.
Trevor sauntered over to the empty chair in front of Dick’s desk, passing his other least favorite person, Thomas Thorn, on the way. The well-dressed former senator was leaning casually against the edge of a low bookcase, regarding Trevor with something more than mild interest.
Regardless of the man’s posture, there was nothing relaxed and casual about Thorn. While Dick liked to think he could make himself more impressive with a fancy office and a big desk, Thorn demonstrated that truly powerful people needed none of those things. You could put this guy in green tights and a pink tutu, and while he might look ridiculous, there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind about which man was in charge…and which one was more dangerous.
Thorn was nearly sixty years old but could easily have been mistaken for a man ten or fifteen years younger. He was very fit, with a head of dark hair that didn’t have even a sprinkling of gray in it yet, although that could have been because he dyed it. His dark eyes were as sharp and intense as a hunter’s, and he had no problem giving away the fact that he was studying Trevor as much as Trevor was studying him. But while Thorn exuded the pure charm and charisma that many politicians possessed, he also had the cold, detached aura of a psychopathic killer. Thorn might not have set off the bomb that killed John, but he’d ordered the hit.
Until recently, Thorn and his head of security had never hung around the DCO training complex, but since John’s murder, they’d both become regular features. Their excuse was that, in times of crisis, the DCO needed superior guidance and leadership. That was bullshit of course. Thorn was hanging around to make sure his plans—whatever those might be—went off without a hitch.
It was difficult seeing Thorn and knowing what the man had done, not just to John, but to the whole DCO. One friend was dead, and the rest were on the run for their lives, all because Thorn wanted them out of the way. The urge to rip out the man’s throat was frigging hard to resist. The only thing that stopped Trevor was the knowledge that killing Thorn wasn’t what John would have wanted.
A slow, evil smile curved Thorn’s lips, as if he realized the struggle going on inside Trevor. The arrogance in the man’s eyes damn near pushed Trevor over the edge, and he felt his canines elongate, aching to tear into some meaty part of this a-hole’s anatomy.
Trevor took a deep breath and forced his fangs to retract, pushing down the urge to kill and instead turning his attention to the woman sitting in front of Dick’s desk as he sat down beside her.
She was undeniably attractive, with long, strawberry-blond hair tied back in a professional-looking bun, perfect fair skin, and some seriously pink bee-stung lips. She also had the most unusual green-blue eyes he’d ever seen. They were kind of mesmerizing, actually.
Since she was seated, he couldn’t tell exactly how tall she was, but he was guessing five ten or so. While he couldn’t be sure of her height, he was definitely sure the woman worked out a lot. Not even the professional-looking pantsuit she had on could hide the fact that she had long runner’s legs.
She also had the familiar scent of smokeless gunpowder clinging to her. It was mostly covered up with some kind of fruity bodywash and a flowery shampoo, but he could smell it. She’d fired a weapon recently, probably that morning. She was almost certainly a field agent of some kind, though what the hell any of this had to do with him, Trevor didn’t have a clue.
He turned back to Dick. “Someone mentioned you wanted to see me? I would have come sooner, but they were serving hot dogs in the cafeteria.”
Dick’s jaw tightened, and for a moment, Trevor thought the man might explode, but instead, he got a grip on his anger and gestured to the woman. “Trevor Maxwell, meet Alina Bosch.”
Trevor glanced at her. “A pleasure.”
Alina nodded in return, but before she could say anything, Dick spoke again.
“She’s former CIA and your new partner.”
Trevor waited for the punch line. Because one had to be coming. There was absolutely no way in hell Dick was ever going to voluntarily put him back in the field, so why waste time giving him a partner? But after a staring contest with the man, he finally realized Dick wasn’t joking.
He hated doing it, but he was gonna have to bite on this one. The curiosity was just too much for him. This was like giving in and admitting you couldn’t find your four-year-old nephew during a game of hide-and-seek—it just plain sucked.
“Okay, Dick. I admit, getting someone out of the CIA is a big win for the team,” Trevor said, giving him a thumbs-up. “But why partner her up with me? I mean, you’ve had me on the bench for a while.” He threw Alina a glance. “No offense. I’m sure you’re a wonderful agent and all. Your parents must be very proud.”
Alina shrugged. “No offense taken. You’re not exactly my first choice in partners, either.”
Snarky and blunt. Two qualities he appreciated in a woman. Throw in the fact that she was also hot as a blowtorch, and Trevor had to admit he was disappointed she was on Thorn’s payroll. It made him wonder if the man had chosen Alina through the use of some crazy software program that said she possessed all the qualities necessary to trick him into being stupid in her presence, because she definitely did.
“Oh, and just to be clear,” she continued, “my parents don’t know I’m CIA. They think I’m a barista at a coffee shop.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Trevor saw Thorn regarding him and Alina with the same detached expression he probably used when pulling the wings off flies.
“You’re right,” Dick said. “I have been keeping you on the shelf lately, and with good reason. We just had six of our best shifter teams conspire to kill the former director of this organization. I haven’t been able to bring myself to put you out in the field since John’s murder because I simply don’t know where your loyalties lie.”
The fact that Dick was even having this conversation with him and bringing up the subject of trust was significant. The man instinctively didn’t want to trust Trevor because he was a shifter, but something else was going on that had him questioning that. Something serious enough to make him pair Trevor up with a new partner and put him back into the field.
Trevor had no idea what that somethin
g was, but if it meant getting out from under Dick’s constant surveillance—even for a little while—it would be worth it to play along.
“You want to know where my loyalties lie?” Trevor asked bluntly. “That’s easy. They lie with John Loughlin, the man who recruited me and taught me most of what I know. The man who was killed by a bunch of fucking cowards that I’d do anything to hunt down and gut like the pieces of crap they are.”
Dick didn’t say anything, but his heart sped up a little. No doubt because Trevor had let out a menacing growl at the end there as his anger got the best of him. Then again, maybe Dick’s heart was beating a little faster because he knew Trevor was pointing those threats directly at him.
After a moment, the director looked at Thorn, who gave him a barely perceptible nod.
Dick opened a drawer along one side of his desk and took out a thick file folder, dropping it on the desk in front of Trevor with a thud.
“As I’m sure you already know, the DCO has expended a tremendous amount of time and resources in the hunt for the rogue shifters, especially Ivy and Landon, whom we consider the ringleaders of the conspiracy. Unfortunately, those efforts have been a failure. Regardless of our commitment to finding John’s killers, the time has come to realize that our traditional agents simply don’t have the tools necessary for the job.”
Trevor almost laughed. Considering that the operatives Dick had sent out weren’t even real agents but hired muscle, it was an understatement to say they didn’t possess the tools to catch Ivy and Landon. Hell, those meatheads weren’t just missing the right tools to catch a shifter; they didn’t even own a fucking toolbox.
“So you want me to track them down?” Trevor asked, figuring that was what Dick wanted to hear.