“So.” He cleared his throat. Focus. The FBI. Charges. Facts. “There was an update on Kylie’s case?”
“Of sorts, yeah.” Moreno’s voice was as metered as her words, and a thought slammed through Kellan’s mind with all the subtlety of a wrecking ball on demolition day.
“Don’t try to tell me the Feds aren’t calling Fagan’s death a clean shoot.” The suits in DC must be out of their freaking minds if they thought for one second that there had been an option other than putting a kill shot on that son of a bitch.
But Moreno erased his concern with a quick shake of her head. “Oh God, no. The bastard had Kylie at gunpoint, and he’d clearly been tracking her with the intent to keep her quiet, permanently. Collins and his superiors examined both Kylie and Devon’s statements and determined the force was warranted. That part of the case is closed.”
The tension in Kellan’s shoulders unwound by a fraction, making him all too aware of the press of Isabella’s fingers over the thin cotton of his T-shirt. “Okay, so what the hell is Kylie talking about with new details then?”
Half of the song’s chorus floated through the warm, dimly lit air in the bar before Moreno answered. “The agent who gave up Kylie to Fagan was identified and arrested. He’s being indicted on federal charges.”
No less than a trillion questions burst through Kellan’s brain, but for right now, he settled on the big three. “What? Who? How?” Last he’d heard a couple of months ago, the case had been so cold, the Feds could’ve carved an ice sculpture out of the damned thing.
“The agent’s name is Mike Burton. He’d been with Collins for two and a half years, and he was slick as hell about playing both sides. It took a ton of surveillance and some really serious digging by our tech guy and a forensic accountant, but we were finally able to catch him siphoning money to an offshore bank account in Seychelles.”
“Jesus,” Kellan managed, his mind still loaded with questions.
Thankfully, Moreno continued, answering at least some of them as she said, “We grabbed him three days before he was set to fly out of the country on a one-way ride. Of course he’s denying everything, but the evidence is pretty damning. We made a good bust, and the FBI indicted him. Burton’s currently in solitary at the federal prison in Chicago, awaiting trial.”
“Wait.” Kellan’s pulse sped through his veins, and no way. She couldn’t possibly have said—“We? Did intelligence work this case somehow?”
A pause opened up to fill the slight space between them, but Moreno didn’t allow it to last for more than a song beat. “Oh. Yeah. No. Not exactly.”
“Then who’s ‘we’, exactly?”
“I guess ‘we’ is, um. Me. Collins was too close to the investigation since someone on his team was clearly involved, so I went out to Chicago to lead the task force team that took Burton down.”
And here Kellan had thought he’d reached his you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me limit for the day. “A case like that couldn’t have been a nine to five. How long did the investigation last?”
“I don’t know. A few days.” At his arched brow, she released a sigh, her breath coasting over his shoulder in a soft puff. “Fine. It might have been eight.”
His jaw unhinged. “The FBI just let you waltz on out and lead an extended investigation on one of their own?”
“The investigation was a team effort within the FBI task force,” Moreno said, although hell if that wasn’t a non-answer to the question. “I’d been in on the original case, so I knew the players, and I’ve been a cop for over ten years. Burton was a dirty agent who needed to go down. I was happy to work the investigation.”
“And Sinclair was cool with that?” Kellan asked, and her body went just rigid enough beneath his hands for him to take notice.
“Sinclair didn’t really get a say.”
Right. Anyone who’d met the man even for a minute knew there was zero chance she was being straight about that one. “Try again.”
“Fine. No one else from the Thirty-Third was involved in the task force. I used personal leave to go,” Isabella said, her lashes fanning upward to frame her chocolate-brown stare as she looked him directly in the eyes. “I told Sinclair about the investigation as a professional courtesy. He’s my boss and I respect the hell out of him. But as far as whether or not I went, no. Sam didn’t get a say.”
The same fierceness Kellan had seen outside the row house this morning resurfaced on her face, sending a hard tug through the center of his chest. What kind of cop would burn her vacation time to haul halfway across the country so she could work a case cold enough to warrant its own slab at the morgue?
Here’s a hint: not the kind who’s as incompetent as you thought.