Isabella pushed away from her desk, her back creaking as badly as her ancient office chair. The convenience store robbery Hale, Maxwell, and Hollister had caught three days ago had turned out to be a slam dunk thanks to a smart store owner with a lot of security cameras and a stupid thief whose license plate they’d easily lifted from the footage, so she’d thrown the last seventy-two hours’ worth of her energy into working alone, making a case for her case.
Hell if she hadn’t had to throw down for what little she’d been able to scrape up, too. Facial recognition on the girls in the photos had been the bust she’d expected it to be, although of course she’d tried. The rental agency for the house confirmed that the place had been vacant for nearly half a year, and the former tenant was an eighty-year-old woman who’d had no known relatives and a squeaky clean record when she’d passed away five months ago.
Still.
Isabella might be lean on hard evidence from the scene of this fire, but her gut absolutely screamed of things not right. If Peterson sank his hooks into the case, maybe took a harder look at the crime scene, had CSU scour the room in the basement for something they could’ve missed, she was positive he’d uncover something illegal.
And whoever was responsible for hurting those girls needed to go down.
“Moreno.” Sinclair stood in the doorframe of his office, tipping his head to the room behind him. “You got a second?”
Her gaze spun over the open space of the intelligence office, briefly connecting with Hollister’s before she planted her boots onto the linoleum and scooped in a deep breath. “Sure.”
“Have a seat,” he said, closing the door when she’d crossed the threshold, and shit. Shit. Getting asked into Sinclair’s office was a fifty-fifty on bad things about to happen, and the odds increased to seventy-thirty when he shut the door. When he told you to sit down on top of it all?
One hundred percent chance you were about to get news you didn’t want to hear.
“I just heard back from the FBI on the photos RFD found at that fire call,” he said, sliding into the chair across from her. “They’ve decided not to pursue the photos found at the house fire.”
Isabella’s heartbeat slammed in her ears. “What?”
“You put together a compelling report, and Peterson gave everything a hard look,” Sinclair said, propping his elbows over his desk and steepling his fingers as he gave her a sympathetic look. “But with all this gray area and no clear-cut evidence of an actual crime, he doesn’t have a damn thing to go on.”
There was no fucking way she was hearing this properly. “That’s what an investigation is for,” she said, trying—and failing—to keep her words level despite the anger free-flowing through her veins.
Sinclair sat perfectly still, save the barely-there lift of one brow. “An investigation into what, exactly? This case is already cold and it hasn’t even been opened. Look”—his voice softened in both volume and tone, and God, she officially hated this as much as possible. “I know this is personal for you, and it’s tough to let this one go. But for now, it’s what we’re stuck with.”
Translation: Until one of the girls in those photos becomes a body.
Not on her watch. Not ever.
Isabella set her molars together with a firm clack. If more evidence was what the FBI wanted, then she wasn’t going to stop until she damn well had some.
3
“Boss, we got a problem.”
Julian DuPree took a deep breath and reminded himself that he was wearing a five thousand dollar suit. If he hadn’t been so finely dressed, chances were rather high he’d have murdered the idiot in front of him.
At least his tailor would be pleased. Julian, on the other hand? Remained highly unimpressed.
“Come in, Charles.” Julian lifted a manicured hand, ignoring the frown on his employee’s normally vacant face as he waved the behemoth into his office. Muscle had its place within Julian’s organization, and he knew the value of a good enforcer. Still, he had standards. Calling the man Rampage wasn’t going to happen, no matter how deeply he frowned or how long he’d gone by the nickname in other circles.
“So.” Julian shuffled through the papers on his antique mahogany desk even though his attention was zeroed in on the no-neck delinquent in front of him. He fucking hated problems. They were so untidy. “What seems to be the issue?”
“There was a fire at the holding facility in North Point,” Charles said slowly, using all the right vernacular to relay all the wrong things. “The fire marshal says it was caused by bad wiring. Ruled the whole thing accidental. That geeky freak looked up the report online.”
Ah, Vaughn. Having a hacker on staff was wonderfully beneficial. Especially one with no conscience.