Jared nodded. “Ryku’s contacts, probably the list he kept on his personal CL.”
“Nice.”
“We need your help figuring out who’s who. I recognize some of these names, but there are a lot I don’t know. Maybe between the two of us, we can narrow it down.”
“Sure. What are we looking for?”
“I’m working on a theory that one of Ryku’s informants might have been behind Frazier’s murder.”
“So we need to rule out anyone we know who isn’t an informant,” Tripp said. “Send me a copy of that list and I’ll get started.”
“I can cross-reference it with Project members we’ve already identified and arrested,” said Salim. “We can at least rule them out, too.” He added them both to a shared, editable copy of the list.
Jared returned to his own workstation to begin going through it. Half an hour later, he was still trying to recall the names and faces of people he hadn’t even thought of in the past several months, but he’d made decent progress. He didn’t even notice Zira standing behind him until she spoke and startled him out of his concentration. “Tripp said you found a lead.”
He made a note of his position on the list and turned his chair around to look at her. “Yeah, maybe. We’ll see if it amounts to anything.”
“It’s better than nothing, which is all we’ve turned up so far. Nice work.”
“Thanks.” He started to say something else but hesitated a moment, unsure of how to handle their new professional dynamic. Not so long ago, he’d been a sort of mentor to her, assigned to fill the leadership role in their short-lived partnership. Now she was the one calling the shots, and he didn’t want to encroach on her authority. He opted for a gentle suggestion. “It might be a good idea for you to go through this, too.”
“I doubt I’ll know anyone on there you don’t, but I’ll have a look. Might as well be thorough. And let me know if you need anything else.”
He nodded and turned back to his display. Zira’s arm brushed against his shoulder blade as she walked past, sending a flutter of warmth across his skin. He shifted his weight forward in his chair and deliberately focused his attention back on the list.
The day wore on. Noon came and went, but no one took a break for lunch. A member of another team made a run to a sandwich shop a few blocks away, and they all ate at their desks as they continued working. News reports played in the background. The death toll from the morning’s explosion was up to four now, though there were at least three more people still missing, possibly buried under the building’s rubble. Rescue crews were working as fast as they could, but it looked like it was going to be a long night.
Later that afternoon, Salim, Tripp, Zira, and Jared all huddled together to review their findings. Salim had ruled out most of the operatives who’d been serving under Ryku when the compound was attacked, and Zira only managed to identify a few people from her elementary education group who Jared didn’t already know himself. When Tripp presented his information on a separate list sorted by each person’s unit, Jared didn’t bother trying to hide his surprise.
“Impressive memory,” he said as he finished looking over it.
Tripp shrugged modestly. “I wish it was just memory. I already had my own database from when I was hiding from the Project. Call it paranoia. I couldn’t keep track of everyone, but I had to at least know who the active E-2 operatives were so I knew who to watch out for.”
“Well, it’s definitely coming in handy now,” Zira said.
Jared merged Tripp’s list with the one he and the others had worked on, then eliminated the names of those he knew couldn’t have been responsible—people who were dead or who Salim had identified as already being in the Republic’s custody. His finger hovered over the name Rowan, the man who had been his partner before Zira. He’d died in the Republic of Asia during the same mission that had left Jared a captive of terrorists for two weeks before Ryku led a team to rescue him.
Ugly memories threatened to force their way to the forefront of his mind—memories of his captivity and torture in the RA, followed by more recent memories of his captivity in the PEACE Project holding cells where, somewhat ironically, Ryku had been his tormentor. He sucked in a breath and swallowed hard, then deleted Rowan’s name from the list.
He wished it was as simple to delete the memories from his mind.
He glanced up at the others. Zira gave him a look of vague concern, but if she realized what had made him hesitate, she didn’t say anything. He finished going through the last few names and tallied up the total number remaining. Twenty-three. Frazier’s killer had to be one of them. “Is there any chance we have photos of some of these guys?” he asked.
“I might,” Tripp said. “But some of them are going to be at least sixteen years old.”
“I’ll check what we have in our files,” Salim added.
Jared pulled up the footage he’d been reviewing earlier and waited for Salim and Tripp to finish. It only took them a few minutes to come back with their findings. Between them, they’d collected photos for seventeen of the twenty-three people on their list, which they arranged on Salim’s computer display so they could all be seen at once. Jared played the footage and they all watched closely, glancing at the photos periodically to check for a match between them and the people in the video.
They went through the clips one by one in total silence. Then, without taking his eyes off the display, Tripp said, “Go back to that third one.”
Jared found the clip, which had been pulled from a street camera several blocks away from Frazier’s apartment complex. They watched it for a few minutes as cars flew past and pedestrians crossed a busy intersection.
Tripp put a finger on the playback slider and skipped ahead a few minutes. He pointed to a woman at the edge of the frame and followed her as she walked up the sidewalk towards the apartment. Her back was to the camera so they couldn’t see her face, but Tripp’s expression remained confident and certain as he adjusted the display to zoom in on her.
“You recognize her?” Zira asked.
“No. She shows up again in the footage from the apartment, but I don’t think she ever shows her face.” He pulled up the clip from the apartment lobby and skipped ahead to find the woman as she entered, then again as she was leaving. In one instance, her back was turned to the camera again. In the other, she looked down as she dug in her bag for something so that only the top of her head was visible.
Jared frowned. He hadn’t even noticed the woman until now, and he should have. She was employing some of the same tactics he’d been taught in the Project to blend into her surroundings and avoid being caught on camera as much as possible. She left the apartment complex less than ten minutes after she entered—plenty of time for an experienced assassin to kill someone, stage the scene, and get out. But who was she?
He scrutinized the photos on Salim’s display, mentally eliminating the men and anyone with his same dark skin pigment. The woman they were looking for had fair to medium-toned skin and dark hair, though it was possible that hadn’t always been her hair color. One by one, Jared closed out the pictures that didn’t match. In the end, he was left with four options. Only two of those were former members of unit E-2.
“What do we have on these two?” he asked.
Salim pulled up the relevant files. According to the Project’s records, the woman in the first photo had been retired from active status after a fall during a mission left her paralyzed from the waist down. Unless she’d miraculously regained the ability to walk, that ruled her out. Jared turned his attention to the second woman and skimmed over the important parts of her file.
Mallory Calkin, thirty-one years old. Recruited to the PEACE Project for unit E-2 in 2111, removed from active duty in 2114 following a gunshot wound to the right shoulder that resulted in severe nerve damage and limited range of motion. Location: restricted. Contact information: restricted. Mission history: restricted.
“That has to be her,” said Tri
pp.
Jared was inclined to agree, though he was somewhat surprised by the fact that Mallory had been recruited to the Project as an adult rather than being placed there as a child. He would have expected someone so loyal to Ryku would have been raised in the Project and conditioned from an early age to follow orders without question, as he had been. That didn’t mean Mallory wasn’t just as brainwashed as the rest of them had been, though.
“It’s a good start,” Zira said. “I’ll send it to Alma. We don’t know anything for sure yet, though, so let’s just keep looking and see what else we can find. Nice work, all of you.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The car ride home from work that evening was somber and silent, which was a relief to Zira since she didn’t feel like talking about the day’s events. Although Jared, Tripp, and Salim had turned up some useful information, none of the others had made much progress, and investigators were no closer to apprehending the people responsible for the morning’s bombing. Disappointment lay heavy on everyone’s shoulders as the car took them back to their house. They all wanted to do something instead of just sitting on the sidelines chasing leads that fizzled out before they even really got anywhere. But that was the job. They had to collect and sort through all the information they had before they took action.
Zira frowned at her reflection in the car window. She should say something to them, something encouraging and leader-like. But she didn’t know what to say. If she were in their position, would it matter what anyone told her to try to make her feel better? Would she even believe them?
Maybe it wasn’t about making them feel better, though. Maybe it was enough to just let them know she didn’t blame them for the way things had gone today. She cleared her throat softly, and when they glanced in her direction, she said the first thing that came into her mind. “You all did great today.”
Nova stared down at her hands clenched tight in her lap. Cedric didn’t even seem to hear her. Tripp just shrugged one shoulder, but Jared looked at Zira and nodded as if encouraging her to continue.
“I mean it,” she said, directing her gaze at Nova. “I know we didn’t find all the answers we were looking for, but you should all be proud of the work you did. We’ll keep trying tomorrow, and the day after, and every day for as long as it takes.”
Nova’s expression didn’t change, but Cedric glanced up at Zira and offered a smile that seemed only half-forced.
The car pulled into the driveway, and they all got out and headed to their own rooms. As Zira, Jared, and Tripp reached the top of the stairs, Jared reached a hand out towards her. He stopped just short of touching her shoulder. “I just wanted to say you did good today, too.”
“I’m not sure I really know what I’m even doing.”
“You do. It might not feel like it yet, but you do.”
Zira went to her room and changed into something more comfortable to sleep in, then decided she should check in on Tripp. She walked down the hall and knocked on his closed door. Muffled voices came from inside, and she was about to turn away when he opened the door and beckoned her inside.
He was on a video call with Rita, which gave Zira some reassurances about his mental and emotional well-being. That was exactly what she’d come to talk to him about, but she still hadn’t figured out how to ask how he was coping without making him feel like she was hovering, just waiting for him to slip up again. The fact that he was talking to his counselor took some of the pressure off Zira, though, especially since Rita was far better equipped to help Tripp than she was.
“I’m glad you called,” Rita said as Zira followed Tripp into the room. “You can talk to me anytime, okay? I don’t care if it’s the middle of the night.”
“I know,” Tripp said.
“I’ll see you at group tomorrow, then?”
“Yeah. I’ll be there.”
“Okay. Talk to you later.”
He disconnected the call and sat on the bed with his lanky legs stretched out in front of him. “What’s up?”
Zira lowered herself into a chair against the wall. “I just wanted to check in and see how you were doing.”
“Make sure I’m not thinking about going out there to find a dealer?” Tripp asked with a wink.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Well, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about it. But I really don’t want to, or at least the sane part of me doesn’t.”
“That’s good.” She tapped her foot against the floor, unsure of where to go from there. After being absent in his life for most of the past year and after everything she’d seen him go through over the last several weeks, talking to him now felt different than it had before. She didn’t want it to. He was still the same person, still her best friend, her family. She didn’t want to feel like she had to guard herself around him or be careful of what she said for fear that it would send him into a tailspin. Maybe she was just being overly cautious.
“What’s on your mind, kid?” Tripp asked.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” That wasn’t all of it, though. She hadn’t intended to speak to him so directly about his addiction, but now, she just needed to get it all out instead of tiptoeing around the issue. Let him be mad at her for it; she didn’t care. She looked up at him defiantly and clasped her hands together between her knees. “I’m worried about you, okay? And I’m probably going to be checking up on you for a long time. You don’t have to like it, and you don’t even have to like me for doing it. But that’s how it’s going to be, so get used to it.”
He burst out laughing, but Zira didn’t find the situation at all amusing and gave him a deadpan stare until he stopped. His broad, crooked smile remained even after he’d collected himself enough to speak. “You don’t need to be so serious.”
“It is serious, Tripp. You almost killed yourself.”
That seemed to sober him up a little. He pursed his lips together and nodded. “I know. And I’m sorry.”
“I don’t care about sorry. Just don’t do it again.” She swallowed a lump in her throat and stared down at the floor to stop the tears beginning to burn at the corners of her eyes.
“Zira, look at me.”
She waited a few seconds to regain control of her emotions, then looked up.
His expression was completely somber now, even repentant. “I’m sorry. I know I hurt you. I hurt a lot of people. I shouldn’t have, and I won’t make excuses for what I did. But I’m going to try my best to make it right, okay? I need you to believe that.”
The regretful sincerity in his voice made her want to believe him, even if the logical part of her mind wasn’t so sure yet. “Okay.”
“I never thanked you for finding me that night.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not fine. You had just gotten out of prison. I should have been there for you. At the very least, I should have stayed in the hospital like I was supposed to. You walked all over the city in the middle of the night in the freezing cold just to look for me, and then you locked me in a room and stood guard over me to make sure I wouldn’t go out and use again. I hated you for it at the time, and I know I said some awful things to you. I’m sorry for that, too. I didn’t mean any of it. You know that, right?”
She nodded. She did know, but it was healing to hear him say it anyway.
“I’m not sure where I’d be right now if it wasn’t for you, but I know it wouldn’t be anywhere good. So thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He looked down and picked at the edges of his fingernails. “Honestly, I probably do need someone looking over my shoulder. At least for now. I’m going to start going to this addiction recovery support group Rita runs in the evenings, and we talked about a relapse prevention plan. I told her you were someone I could turn to if I started thinking about using again. I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s more than okay,” Zira said. “You know that.”
“Good.”
“So are you really okay
after everything that happened today?”
He hesitated for a moment. “I don’t know. Going through that list of Ryku’s contacts was kind of spooky. You know he had Rafaela’s name on there?”
“Seriously?” She hadn’t noticed that name among the hundreds of others she’d read from the list, but she’d only been paying attention to finding the names of people she knew. It was surprising, though. Ryku was a pragmatic man, and keeping the contact information for his dead ex-fiancée on his CL seemed uncharacteristically sentimental. Then again, this was the same man who had personally rescued Jared from captivity in the RA. So he did care about people—a few people, at least. Zira just hadn’t seen that side of him herself.
“It threw me,” Tripp said. “And it’s silly, but I actually dialed the code he had listed for her.” He laughed at himself, but there was no humor in it. “It was a dead line, obviously. I’m not sure what I expected.”
“It’s not silly,” said Zira, even though it was. But if that had been Aubreigh’s name, she might have done the exact same thing.
Tripp shook his head and quickly moved to a new topic of conversation. “Enough about me. How are you holding up?”
Zira sighed. “I’m not sure I’m cut out for this team leader thing.”
“Of course you are,” he replied. “It might be hard to see that now with everything that happened today, but whatever frustration the others are feeling isn’t about you.”
“I know. I just want us to be able to actually do something.”
“We are doing something.”
She groaned. Hunting down and painstakingly piecing together scraps of information wasn’t exactly her idea of taking serious action. “I’m just not used to it, I guess. In the Project, everything was simpler. Even with the rebels, things were simple. We were given a task with clear instructions and we just did what we were told.”
“You just want to get out there and start hunting down all the bad guys.”
“Is there something wrong with that?”
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