“That’s two to two,” Wolfe said helpfully. “British dude? Jet? What sayeth you?”
Jethro scratched his head. “I could go a round or two.”
Nari’s mouth gaped open. She’d expected the opposite answer. “Wait a minute.”
Wolfe cracked his knuckles. “Raider? You wanna fight and give Rutherford another black eye?”
“Nope,” Raider said easily. “Nari’s idea is better.”
“Wait,” Dana called from the back of the office. “I vote no violence.”
Wolfe sighed. “Brigid? Get your Irish tush out here. We’re outnumbered right now.”
Brigid poked out her head, her red hair escaping its clip. “Go for it. You guys could seriously burn off some energy.”
Nari’s nostrils flared as she pulled in air. “You people are all crazy.”
Wolfe scratched his head. “We’re tied. Somebody get Millie Frost.”
“She went to a meeting,” Raider said. “An hour ago.”
Dana stepped out. “Well, then. Nari’s plan wins because I’m voting for two.”
Nari nodded. “Good point.” The woman was about three months pregnant, although she wasn’t showing yet. She did throw up a lot, though.
Wolfe’s shoulders went down. “Shoot. I guess that’s fair.”
Angus rubbed his hands together. “I suggest everyone not on my team get the hell out.” He gestured to the elevator, looking sad that he didn’t get to hit anybody. “Now.”
Chapter Four
Angus waited until the HDD techs had left before speaking. The silence was heavy enough to make his shoulders ache from the tension.
Wolfe tilted his head. “I guess you forgot to tell us about the year?”
Angus kept his gaze stoic, while his team faced him, as usual masking their expressions. “I’m sorry.” It was the truth and the only thing he could think to say. “The year went fast and I figured Lassiter would make a move before now.”
Raider’s eyebrows rose. “It’s quite the coincidence, right? He reengages with you one week after your deadline?”
True. Very true. Angus would have to mull that one over. Did Lassiter have a mole in the HDD or DHS? For now, he had a volatile team to handle. “So.” Guilt ached through him and he fought it, looking for anger but finding none. Had he let everyone down?
Wolfe looked around. “Well, we’re gonna need lattes to figure this out. I’ll make sure those HDD jackasses are gone and go get supplies.”
Angus stiffened. He’d figured Wolfe would at least throw something at him.
Raider nodded. “Yeah. We should secure everything we have, just in case they show back up with SWAT.”
“Good plan,” West said.
Angus couldn’t breathe. They were sticking with him? Rallying around him? “I could be wrong about Lassiter,” he said slowly.
Malcolm shrugged. “Maybe, but the team is good, and we have work to do. If nothing else, there’s a dead woman who needs justice, and you said we took the case last night. We’re with you, Force.”
The moment hit Angus square center. With him. His team. Okay. They trusted him and were willing to continue working with him. It meant something. Hell, it meant everything. They had to get to work and fast. “Wolfe, please get lattes. Nari, head to your meeting and see what you can do.”
The two moved toward the elevator.
Angus zeroed in on the most immediate necessities. “Brigid? Get everything onto USB drives and scrub any personal information about the team. Dana, same thing with your records.” He nodded at Malcolm West and Raider Tanaka. “Wrap up any case files you can and leave the open cases with any notes we’ve compiled.” He gestured to Jethro. “Let’s take a look at this crime scene, while you’re here.” Without waiting for an answer, he skirted the bank of desks and headed back into the case room, nearly overcome by the loyalty of his team.
“Where’s Kat?” Jethro asked Raider before following Angus.
“The kitten is hanging out with Pippa at West’s place,” Raider said.
Angus pulled out a chair at the large conference table and dropped into it, facing the board of death.
Jethro entered the room and drew the nearest chair, whistling at the scene on the board. “I take it that’s our victim from last night?” He glanced at the papers and manila files spread across the table.
Angus nodded. “Yep.”
“No note?” Jethro asked.
“Haven’t found one.” Angus steepled his fingers beneath his chin. There wasn’t a note. The victim wasn’t blond. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that Lassiter was just fucking with him. He pushed papers out of the way to reveal one of the photos that he’d taken on his phone the previous night. “This tattoo was placed on the back of her hand.”
Jethro slid the picture closer with one finger. “Looks like Roscoe.”
“Yep.” Didn’t mean it was Roscoe, though.
Jethro leaned back in his chair. “Was the tattoo recent?”
“Looked like it, but I don’t have access to the lab to ask,” Angus said, his skin crawling with irritation.
Jethro cleared his throat. “Well, that’s not the only interesting connection, right?”
Angus’s chest heated. “I’m aware.”
“Is she?”
“I don’t know.” Angus ground the palm of his hand into his left eye, where a migraine was rapidly approaching. “The victim looks Chinese, and she’s petite, like Nari. It’s hard to miss that fact, especially with the German shepherd tattoo on the woman’s hand.”
“Could be a coincidence,” Jethro said.
Which Angus didn’t believe in, unfortunately. “Perhaps.”
“Are you shagging the psychiatrist?” Jethro asked.
Angus coughed, his ears heating. “Of course not. She’s a shrink, for crap’s sake. You know how I feel about shrinks.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I wouldn’t even think of getting close to somebody with Lassiter on the loose. If he is on the loose, that is.” Bile swirled in Angus’s gut at the thought.
Jethro rocked back on his heels. “There’s enough tension between you and Nari that I can feel it across a room. Anybody watching you would see it, too. Although I’m still of a mind that Lassiter is deceased and rotting in hell.”
Enough of that conversation. Angus turned to face his old friend. “There’s a suspect in custody. Don’t you have connections with Metro?”
Jethro leaned over to read Angus’s notes. “I consulted on a case a year ago and I’d like to think I was supremely helpful. What do you want?”
“I want to interview the guy they have in custody,” Angus said instantly. “Just a quick in and out. Think you can make that happen?”
Jethro sighed. “I’ll call in the favor, if it’s possible, on one condition.”
Angus held up a hand, his heart thundering. “If the suspect did kill the woman in the alley, I’ll drop the case. I’ll never ask you to consult again, and you can go back to your college and pretend that you’re a normal professor studying philosophy and all that shit.” Although he knew better than anybody that Jethro would never be able to outrun the past. None of them would.
“I do appreciate that,” Jethro said dryly, pulling his phone out of his pocket to send a quick text. “What’s your plan if your team is disbanded and it turns out this horrible murder wasn’t committed by Lassiter?”
That was quite the question. Returning to solitary life in his cabin didn’t hold as much appeal as Angus would’ve thought. He was saved from answering when Jethro’s phone buzzed.
“My friend isn’t on the case, but he’s sending over the file. Give me a sec.” Jethro pushed a few buttons on his phone.
It did help to have connections, now didn’t it? Angus twirled a pen between his fingers.
“Ah. All right.” Jethro read quickly. “The victim was called Lori Chen and she was a twenty-four-year-old graduate student in business administration at Georgetown.” He scanned down on the
phone. “Suspect is her ex, Levi Mackelson. They lived together briefly and there were two domestic calls. According to the file, they broke up two months ago.”
Angus set down the pen. “Any priors on Mackelson besides the domestics?”
“No.” Jethro looked up. “No alibi, at least from the little bit in this file. He only spoke for a few minutes before demanding an attorney.”
Angus needed to talk to this man. It’d been a while since he’d profiled anybody, but he couldn’t have lost his edge that much. “Anything else?”
Jethro read the face of his phone and then whistled. “The lawyer was big-time, there wasn’t enough to hold Mackelson, so he was let go.” Jet winced. “I have a name and an address. I suppose you want to go and have a little visit?”
Of course he wanted to go. Angus stood and fetched his leather jacket from the far chair. “You’re welcome to join me.”
“I have to join you, if for no other reason than to keep you from hitting this jackass. That would get me in trouble with the authorities.” Jethro stretched as he stood and took a moment to put weight on his healed leg.
Angus paused. “How’s the leg anyway?”
“Aches, which means it’s raining,” Jethro said shortly. He’d been shot while helping Wolfe on an Op. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”
Angus faltered and pulled his badge out of his jacket, then put it on the table. His HDD-issued Glock was next.
Jethro straightened. “Force?”
Angus lifted a shoulder. “If I’m with HDD, I can’t talk to him without a lawyer.” He strode out of the room before Jethro could stop him.
* * *
Nari rode the fancy elevator up to the top floor of HDD headquarters and slipped her identification back into her handbag. Soft music played from the speakers, and the spacious lift smelled like orange-infused cleanser. Oddly enough, she missed the rickety deathtrap of the team’s office. She held her breath as she ascended, hoping nobody else entered the elevator on the way up. The last thing she needed right now was to run into her asshole of an ex.
She reached the top floor and forced her shoulders down where they belonged. She’d been summoned and that was never a good thing.
The door swished open with barely a whisper, and she stepped out onto the thick, navy-blue carpet of a reception area that led in several directions, depending upon which part of the organization one wanted to visit. A bright spray of orchids sat on a credenza beneath a stunning oil painting of an Arizona sunset; the waiting area was vacant.
The receptionist looked up from behind her rounded mahogany desk, sliding a professional smile into place. What was her name? Nari had never really paid attention. The woman was in her early thirties with blond hair perfectly twisted into a professional bun. “Dr. Zhang. Do you have an appointment?”
“No.” Nari matched the smile perfectly. “However, I have a matter of urgency. Would you mind seeing if the deputy administrator has a few minutes to spare?”
“Not at all,” the woman said. She lifted a phone to her ear.
“Thank you.” Nari turned and strode to the reception area to remove her wet raincoat and hang it up on the polished coat-tree. Had that been catlike glee in the woman’s eyes, or had Nari imagined it? Man, she hated this office. If she couldn’t save the team, maybe she’d finally go into private practice and give up this quest with the HDD.
“Dr. Zhang? The deputy administrator can fit you in right now. Please go back to his office.” She hung up the phone and returned to the notes on her desk.
“Thank you.” Nari strode to the right and down the long hallway to knock on the imposing wooden door of the corner office.
“Enter,” came from inside.
Nari took a deep breath and opened the door to a spacious office with a spectacular view of the Potomac River. The sprawling desk in front of her was vacant, so she turned to the conference area with its gleaming table, where her biological father usually worked. She stopped short when she found him there with his boss, the administrator of the HDD. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
He gestured her to an empty chair at the table. “Not at all. You said it was urgent, and Administrator Clemonte and I have a few minutes right now.”
Nari swallowed and moved forward, taking the administrator’s hand in a brisk shake. “It’s good to see you, Administrator.”
Opal Clemonte had a firm handshake and a tight jaw. The woman was in her early sixties but looked fifty, tops. Her blue suit was Chanel, her shoes Louboutin, and her eyes intelligent. Very. “It’s nice to see you, Nari. I hope things are going better for you this year.”
Nari forced another smile. “That’s kind of you.” She thought of the man before her as Quan, rather than Father; she had hoped to change that while they were working together. She took the seat he had motioned her toward, while hiding any bit of irritation. Now wasn’t the time to get into it with Quan’s boss. Just being in that office meant she’d bull frogged over her own boss, their handlers, their boss, and another boss. Yet another situation that would get her in trouble. “I’m sure it’s not a surprise that I’d like you to reconsider the disbanding of Force’s team.”
Quan’s dark eyes darkened even more. He was a couple of inches taller than her five-five, but he seemed much taller. Black hair, peppered with gray, framed his face. No emotion showed in his expression. “That seems unwise.”
Administrator Clemonte sat back slightly, as if giving Quan the lead in the conversation.
Nari kept her focus on Quan, who was sitting rather close to the other woman. Her instincts started to murmur, but she shut them down for now. Her folks had been divorced for eons, and her mother had remarried when Nari was a young teenager. Her mom and stepdad lived in LA, and she missed them every day. If Quan was dating his boss, that shouldn’t matter to her. But how freaking hypocritical.
She cleared her throat. “The team saved countless lives by preventing the bombings at the marathon last year, and we took down the Boston Mob. It’s a team that gets results, which is vitally important to the HDD.” Surviving as a secret branch of Homeland Security required results. A lot of them.
“Nari, your judgment is of concern to me.” Quan frowned, which was as damaging as a yell from another man. “You were temporarily assigned to Force’s team to give you distance and time away from headquarters, not to form attachments there. The year has concluded and it’s time to advance your career, which might be possible now.”
“It should’ve been possible in the first place,” Nari returned before she could stop herself.
The administrator stood gracefully, her hazel eyes direct. “I believe this is a personal discussion. Quan, we can continue the budget planning after the meeting with the secretary of defense this afternoon. Nari, I hope your new assignment goes well.” She gathered several of the dark-blue file folders off the table and turned on her three-inch heels, striding out of the office with a sense of impressive power.
Nari barely kept from crossing her arms.
Quan tossed a gold-and-burgundy Montblanc pen onto the table, where it rolled to a stop against a pad of paper. “Do you or do you not like working for the HDD?”
She knew better than to delve into the question with any sort of depth. “I do.”
“Good.” He pushed yet another blue file folder near her. “If you want to salvage your career, this is the team the administrator requires you to work with right now. The team is engaged in a high-stress case and requires counseling and monitoring.”
Sounded perfect for her. Except she didn’t want to leave her current team. “Force’s team is a good one.”
“That team doesn’t exist any longer. Either you want this assignment or you don’t.” He sat back, looking at his watch.
Her stomach dropped. So much for doing Angus and the team any good. “I’ll read through the file.”
“Good.” The tone of dismissal was hard to miss. “I should warn you, though. The team leader is Vaughn Ealy.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Are you kidding?”
“No. The team needs you, and this is a good opportunity to show the administrator that the two of you have put the past behind you.” He lowered his chin, his gaze piercing. “Vaughn has agreed, so there’s no reason for you to act like an injured female.”
Heat flashed down her back so quickly, she nearly yanked off her jacket. “An injured female?”
Quan would never stoop to rolling his eyes, but he came close. “Please. You created a PR nightmare and nearly derailed both of your careers.”
“I was doing my job,” she snapped, in one second going from a tough HDD agent to a little girl wanting her father’s support. “Agent Lisa Barksow was at serious risk of a mental breakdown and needed treatment. It wasn’t my fault that the media got hold of the story and blew it out of proportion.” The young agent had been with their team and had been on the edge, but Vaughn had disagreed, so she’d had no choice but to go over his head to force Barksow into treatment.
Quan waved his hand in the air as if batting away a fly. “Enough. You each have your own versions of what happened, and the truth is probably in the middle. Vaughn was your team leader and you should never have gone over his head.”
She drew in a breath. “You know I took an oath and have to reveal if anybody is a danger to themselves or others. I was trying to help her.”
“Well, she’s no longer with the agency, and both you and Vaughn were demoted. Let’s get past it, shall we? Show you’re a team player, do your job, and do not embarrass me again.”
“I wouldn’t think of it, Quan,” she said, realizing she would never call him “Father.” She stood and nodded, wanting more than anything to argue with him, but it wouldn’t do any good. So she left, having failed to save Angus’s team. What was going to happen to everybody?
Also, the “what if ” of her attraction to Angus swirled around in her mind and landed in her body. While they’d worked together, seen each other every day, there had always been a “what if” or a “maybe” between them, even though they argued most of the time.
It hurt to say goodbye to that “what if.”
Driven Page 4