“I know a guy in the local PD, asked him to copy the reporting officer’s handwritten case notes. That was the only place S?ren was mentioned. After the woman on the video, they decided S?ren was a dead end.”
I’d passed a weary hand over my face and asked Harry what he thought. About Tabby, about all of it.
“I think there are a lot of unanswered questions,” he’d said, watching me closely. “But mainly I think this girl is a wild card and dangerous to the clarity of your thinking. Mainly I think you’re balls-deep in trouble, my friend.”
It’s really inconvenient when motherfuckers are so observant.
I’d avoided his all-seeing eyes and stared morosely out a window instead. “I don’t know what it is between us.”
“It’s something, though, isn’t it?”
Respect for him had made me nod instead of offer a denial, which would’ve been a lie anyway.
He’d sighed and downed the dregs of his cold coffee. “You’ve never been one to think with your dick, buddy, so I won’t give you a lecture. Just watch yourself. I have a feeling this thing is much bigger than it looks.”
I wasn’t sure if he’d meant the situation with Miranda and S?ren, or the situation with Tabby and me, but for the moment, I’d dropped the conversation with Harry due to sheer exhaustion. I’d been up for twenty-four hours and needed to sleep.
I needed to get my head screwed on straight before I talked to Tabby.
Whether she’d let that happen was up in the air. She’d curled up in a chair in the new COM center and gone to sleep without once looking in my direction. Or accepting my suggestion that she sleep on the sofa I’d had brought in for her.
Harry had asked that we both stay on premises until further notice…though I knew it really wasn’t a request.
So I’d found a quiet spot for a nap in someone’s office and gone to sleep.
And now someone is shaking me awake.
I open my eyes to find a man—goateed, tatted, grinning—standing over me.
“Gettin’ your beauty rest, pumpkin?”
“Ryan.” I’m on my feet and slapping him on the back in greeting before the word is all the way out of my mouth. I’m surprised how relieved I am to see him. Impulsively, I pull him into a hug.
“Gee, boss,” he says, my arms still around him, “one day in LA and you’re already battin’ for the other team? What’re they puttin’ in the water out here?”
“Fuck you,” I say with gruff affection and push him away. “And if I was going to bat for the other team, your ugly ass is the last place I’d start.”
Still smiling, he crosses his arms over his chest. At just over six feet tall, Ryan McLean is a few inches shorter than I am, but bigger than pretty much everyone else. We served together in the corps, and as soon as he aged out of Special Ops, I recruited him to Metrix. He’s an expert in close-quarter battle tactics, weapons, and recon.
And despite my teasing, he’s not ugly. His nickname is Thor, because the resemblance to the Norse comic book superhero is uncanny. All he needs is a flowing cape and an oversized hammer and he could star in the movie. Add a sleepy Georgia accent and a pair of baby blue eyes to the mix, and he’s the kind of “not ugly” that melts panties.
Those blue eyes now squint at me. “You all right?”
I drag a hand through my hair, shake my head to clear it. “Been a strange coupla days.”
“So you said. Wasn’t sure what to make of your phone call last night, brother. You sounded…not like yourself. Got on a plane fast as I could.”
I don’t want to get into exactly how much I’m not myself at the moment, so I deflect with a question. “You see Harry yet?”
Ryan nods. “He brought me up to date. And they just got another email from the target. Apparently this Maelstr0m is none too fuckin’ happy someone on our team cock-blocked his malware. Says he wants the name of who did it. Threatenin’ all kind of mayhem if we don’t give it up.”
“Fuck. All right. Let’s hit it.”
I leave the room, Ryan by my side. When we reach the COM center, Miranda is already there, pacing back and forth in front of the windows. Harry and his boys are gathered around a desk set up with computer equipment, staring at a single monitor. Tabby is noticeably absent.
“Heard you had contact,” I say, stopping next to Harry.
With a subtle smile, he jerks his chin at the screen. “Looks like this Killgaard character doesn’t like sharing his toys.” He sends me a sidelong glance, which I don’t take the time to interpret because I’m too busy staring in fascination at the screen.
Appearing in rapid succession on the monitor is a series of pictures of battle: atomic mushroom clouds, planes dropping bombs over targets, buildings exploding under heavy mortar fire. At the bottom left of the screen is a white skull and crossbones—the skull has flaming eyes—with a bar of text. Ryan reads it aloud.
“‘Give me a name, or there is no avoiding war.’” He snorts. “Melodramatic much?”
“That’s Machiavelli, not melodrama.”