A Loaded Question

by Danica Winters

  Contractors raked it in. But, for what it was worth, the men she had run into that lived in that world never saved up... Instead, they had made it to burn it and had an attitude of “We’re all gonna die soon, so spend it all now.”

  It wasn’t one of her favorite qualities.

  It made her wonder what kind of man Troy was, if he was one of the typical contractors who didn’t give a single thought to tomorrow as today was still up for grabs.

  She walked to the interrogation room and tapped on the door. Mike’s deep baritone voice silenced. “You guys done making up in there, or do you want another minute or two?”

  “Just giving each other back rubs in here—you are good,” Troy said. “But if Mike doesn’t watch himself, he’s going to get another chewing.”

  Kate laughed as she walked in and came over to the table. The interrogation room was soft and friendly, designed to put people at ease. There was a couch against the wall; in front of it was a table covered in a variety of magazines, including everything from Guns & Ammo to Tactical Life. Maybe she needed to talk to someone about getting a little Cosmo up in this joint. Not everyone wanted to read about grain weights and the benefits of a new butt plate.

  “I hope you don’t mind having to wait in here,” she started.

  “And I hope you know that it is about the last goddamned place we want to be,” Mike said, his voice barely more than a growl. “There you were, touting that we should be allies, and you stick us up in this closet.”

  “But I did feed you,” she said, straddling a chair as she sat down across from them. She picked at a piece of a leftover sandwich and popped a bit of the bread into her mouth like it could act as some kind of salve to the animosity that Mike felt toward her. “And if you wanted, we could head out and get a couple beers once my investigation is complete. I’d love to pick your brains a little bit more about what you do and how a girl like me could get into it.” She sucked in a breath, just deep enough to make her breasts press against her shirt.

  Yeah, she totally wasn’t above using her body as a weapon. Especially when it came to two door kickers.

  Mike stopped talking while Troy gave her a knowing and deflating smile.

  “How did you guys become cybersecurity experts?”

  Troy put his hands up, palms facing her. “Look, we aren’t what I would call ‘cybersecurity experts.’ Rather, we are both guys who are just doing what we get paid to do... And it may or may not involve a little bit in the tech world.”

  “I’ve heard a hell of a lot of hedging and dismissing titles in my day, but you and I both know that what you just said has to be one of the biggest loads of garbage anyone has ever tried to hand my way,” she said, throwing Troy a cut-the-crap look.

  He chuckled. “All I meant is that there are players in the CS world who are a hell of a lot better than we are, more experienced and a heck of a lot better at writing code.”

  “And yet you are paid...and paid well, I would assume...in the private securities world,” she argued. “I’m not a stupid woman, and I would appreciate it if you would treat me with just a small amount of respect. Let’s start by dropping the bull with each other. I didn’t get to where I am in the FBI without being good at something. You didn’t get where you are without being good at what you do.”

  Mike laughed as he looked toward his brother. “Hey, man, you finally found your match. Good luck with this.”

  Troy smirked at him, and the simple back-and-forth between the two made her like them both just a little bit more. It would have been fun to be a member of their tribe, running operations with them—even if it was in the back of their van.

  He glanced over at her. “I’m not being dismissive of our abilities, just honest. We are good, but there are better. We are more specialized than the normal contractors. Mike and I both started out playing in the Sandbox in the fertile crescent area. From there, it was a bunch of hits and misses.”

  He was hardly the first of his kind who had started his career in the Middle East, nor would he be the last. Many men who came out of a variety of government agencies came home, retired and didn’t know what their next steps should be. Some became lobbyists, took positions in governmental offices, and others just couldn’t get enough of the fray and went back to work in the private sectors. Mike and Troy were definitely of the latter group.

  They were kick-ass-and-take-names types, all in the shadow world of counterintelligence. And she’d be lying if it didn’t make Troy look about ten degrees hotter than she already saw him. Dammit, she needed to ignore her weakness for the mysterious hero types.

  There was a picture of the St. Andrews Golf Course on the wall above Troy’s head, and she forced herself to look at it for a long moment. Anything to not look at him, but make it appear as if she was. He was in the hot seat, but if she wasn’t careful in ignoring his odd but magnetic charms, she would find herself there instead. No, thanks.

  There was a knock on the door and it cracked open. Her father stuck his head in the entry. “Kate, can I talk to you for a second?”

  She couldn’t have been more surprised if the Easter Bunny had hopped into the room carrying a basket of grenades.

  “Dad?” As soon as she spoke, she realized her misstep in recognizing him in front of the two men she had been trying to dig into. She turned to them. “Excuse me for a moment,” she said, standing up.

  “Actually, this affects them,” her father said, motioning toward the two men. “I’m here to let you know that this questioning needs to come to an end. You are done here.”

  Though a million comebacks flipped into the front of her mind, she said nothing and instead took her father by the hand and led him out of the room. “What are you doing here, Dad?” she asked as soon as the door clicked shut behind them.

  Agent Hunt was standing just down the hallway; he gave her a pinched expression as though he had tried to stop her father from barging into her questioning, but Solomon Scot had proved too formidable an opponent. Though she knew and understood what Agent Hunt had probably had to put up with from her dad, he had screwed up royally in allowing him anywhere near her work.

  “Hunt,” she said, condemnation flooding her tone.

  “I’m sorry,” he moaned. “He came armed.” He pointed to two men behind him who were carrying the telltale briefcases of well-paid lawyers.

  Her spirit slipped, threatening to leave her body at the sight of the two suit-clad men. There was nothing she hated more than a sleazy defense attorney, unless it was two sleazy defense attorneys.

  “I see you brought your henchmen. What did your men in there do that would require that level of defense?” she asked, nudging her chin in the direction of the lawyers.

  “They didn’t do anything they weren’t paid to do.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “If I was really upset, do you think I would have come down here myself? I would have just sent my men. I’m here to talk to you, to let you know that my team is not guilty of any wrongdoing in what transpired today. And if you wish to pursue any sort of legal action, it would be a foolhardy endeavor.” He gave her the look, the same look he had given her as a child when the discussion was over.

  Well, she wasn’t a child anymore. She was almost thirty years old and well outside the realm of requiring her father’s permission—especially when it came to her job. Nonetheless, that didn’t mean he was wrong in his handling of the situation. If she was in his shoes and her company’s name made it into headlines related to a shooting—since Troy and Mike worked for him through STEALTH—she would have brought along a set of lawyers as well.

  His company, his reputation and her family’s fortune depended on the business prospering.

  “I have no intention of arresting your men. So far as I’ve learned, they are not the guilty party here. They did not pull the trigger, but I’m interested in why they were involved in a shooting. So far, they have
n’t given me any information.”

  Her father nearly cracked a smile, but it was so rare she wasn’t sure she had actually seen what she thought she had seen flicker over his face. “They are under several NDAs that prohibit what and with whom they can speak. I’m sure you know all about them.”

  Just because his contractors had signed nondisclosure agreements didn’t mean they could get out of this situation without filling in some critical details.

  “I don’t have a problem working around your NDAs, but I do need to get a positive ID on our shooter and make sure that nothing like this happens in Missoula again.” She tried to stare her father down, but he didn’t break his gaze. “If you have any idea who was up there, pulling the trigger, then you need to tell me. Right now.”

  Her father gripped her shoulder a little tighter and gave it a hard squeeze. “The person or group responsible for the shooting will not be caught. Not by you and not by me. You would be smart to just brush this event under the rug.” He paused. “Now, I know you need to make a series of public statements and cross your t’s and dot your i’s, but I would request that you protect my teams and our family’s company by keeping our names out of the headlines. Do whatever you need to do, but let’s try to bury this as quickly and efficiently as possible.”

  She had a sickening feeling that her father was right. They wouldn’t find this person. Her family’s company, from what little she had managed to glean over dinners and overheard phone calls, had been taking military machining contracts for years. Once she’d heard talk of them building parts for a specialized aircraft that reportedly could be virtually “invisible” to their enemies.

  She had a fair amount of acumen when it came to understanding some of the tech that was at America’s disposal, but when it came to this, she felt out of her depth. And being out of her depth wasn’t something she was accustomed to, and she didn’t relish the sting it delivered. What she did know, with absolute certainty, was that her family now found themselves enmeshed in something with an odor to it.

  Hunt appeared to be busy doing something on his phone and she stepped closer to her father so only he could hear what she said. “I will do what I can. Call it a professional favor. I’ll pull my crews back on this, at least a little bit... Appearances.” She glanced over her father’s shoulder. Hunt seemed oblivious to their conversation, but she knew he was trying to listen in. “This can’t happen again.”

  Her father nodded. “I will take care of things on my side.”

  It was the closest thing she could have gotten to a tacit admission that her father had a hand in today’s events, and she hated it. She didn’t like what was going on here, but she wasn’t going to create a scene until she knew more.

  She should have been dragging his ass into the interrogation room and having another agent working him over for answers, but with her father, that kind of thing never worked. This was hardly the first time he had found his feet in the fire. And even if she tried to get him to talk, all that would happen would be another swift end to any sort of questioning, thanks to his menagerie of lawyers.

  “Will you please release them?” her father asked, motioning in the direction of Mike and Troy.

  “They were never really being held. They could walk whenever they would have liked,” she said, heading back into the interrogation room. Reaching into her pocket, she grabbed a business card and handed it to Troy. “If you need anything, let me know. Or if you think about anything that you can tell me that would stop this from happening again, I’m here.”

  Her father took the card from Troy’s hands and ripped it in half, throwing the bits left of it down on the floor. “He won’t be needing that. He has a job to do, a job that doesn’t need FBI oversight. If I were you, I would make an effort to get things sorted with the public. And, from what I hear, you have something waiting from Agent Peahen. If I were you, I would jump.”

  Her chest tightened. How in the hell did her father know anything about what was going on in her inbox, her job? She tried to check any emotions from showing on her features. He couldn’t know that he had gotten a reaction; if he did, it would be like blood in the water.

  If it had been anyone else standing in front of her and pulling this kind of nonsense, they would have had their ass on the floor and their wrists in shackles. But no, not him, not the patriarch of her family, the man who cared for legacy and politics often to the detriment of the people he said he loved the most.

  She could only imagine what he had gotten himself into, but she held no doubts that because of her family she was about to find herself swimming with sharks.

  Chapter Eight

  Troy sat outside of Kate’s house for the second night in a row, staring at the yellow light that burned through the curtains of her front room. Occasionally a shadow would move by the window, teasing him with the flutter of the curtain. Tonight, he had sworn that he had almost seen her, twice.

  He had looked into her just enough since the shooting to know she wasn’t married, no kids and had graduated from Vassar with honors. Smart woman...driven woman...and perhaps she was the kind of woman who didn’t want the tie-downs that came with a family. Or maybe she was the kind who was so myopically focused on her career that such things had never played a major part in her life.

  Though he had sat outside of at least a hundred other houses in the dark in the middle of the night and watched over thousands of people, this was the first time he really felt uncomfortable. Yet, with a shooter on the loose, he couldn’t ignore the nagging feeling that told him she was in danger, and that she needed him.

  Or maybe it was the fact that he found her so goddamned sexy that bothered him the most. Generally, the people he watched were just put into one of two categories: high-or low-value targets. This time, his target didn’t quite fit into either of those neat little squares.

  He was too emotionally invested in this woman’s welfare. There was nothing better than complete, abject dissociation when it came to emotions and specifically any sort of feeling that was registered in or near the heart. Both nights he had mulled over the whys of his being here, but it all came down to one thing—even if he never spoke to her again and she never knew that he was out here and patrolling for danger, that was okay. He would have done his duty. Hopefully nothing would happen, no shooter would show up in the middle of the night or bear down on her when she was leaving her house in the morning as she made her way to the federal building.

  Hopefully he was making something out of nothing and she was completely safe. But, until he knew that this thing with the sniper was under control and in no way connected to her, he had to stay vigilant. STEALTH hadn’t turned up anything of value yet, but it seemed awfully coincidental that the daughter of the owner of the company they were working for was at the scene of the shooting. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if she was the sniper’s target. Instead of waiting for Mike and him to drive by a random street, it made more sense the sniper had been staked out to catch action at the Bureau building.

  He had to be the hero in the night, the hero that she never knew existed... He was her warrior, her guard, so she didn’t have to stand alone.

  This was who he had been meant to become. The keeper of the peace. The protector of the innocent. The man in the shadows.

  Though he shouldn’t have, he found himself smiling at the thought.

  There was a flutter of the curtain as she must have breezed by. Things had been quiet in Kate’s house for the last twenty minutes and the only other movement had been the flicker of her television. Besides the rustle of her curtains, everything seemed in order. It was nearly the time she normally shut down the downstairs for the night and made her way up to her bedroom. To a fault, her schedule was almost down to the minute. Predictability and patterns could be the downfall of even the best.

  He tried to reassure himself that she would be fine, that the shoot
er probably wasn’t coming after her, but with her jumping into the fight as she had—well, she had put herself into a new set of crosshairs: her father’s. Who knew what her father would do to keep his secrets—secrets that not even Troy was completely privy to. As far as STEALTH and Zoey were concerned, he was on a need-to-know basis. And, with ConFlux, that meant he was given the basic details and an objective.

  He didn’t mind working for Kate’s father, Solomon Scot, but the man was one step from being a criminal, as far as he could tell. And yet many of the best and most profitable businesses he worked for were just that way. He didn’t have qualms with people playing for keeps, particularly in the modern game of business that involved corporate espionage, dirty code, and terrorism at every level—especially in anything that involved health care, banking, insurance, government and military. Though those were the biggest players impacted in the corporate world, they were hardly an exhaustive list.

  Cyber attackers loved to go after anything that showed a vulnerability, often with or without hope of financial gains. But in cases like the one with ConFlux, the company had more on the table and at risk than most in their field—thanks to their engineering, designing and machining.

  He looked down at his phone as it vibrated on his wrist with a message. He had an email coming in from Zoey, nothing more than a status check. He needed to call her and let her know he was fine; no doubt she had been watching everything unfold. She’d made it no secret that she wasn’t on board with his watching over Kate when his focus was supposed to be elsewhere, but she hadn’t stood in his way, either. It probably helped that Zoey knew Kate. They ran in the same circles and played the same political games—more, both knew exactly how much could be at stake if this thing was poorly handled. It would be all their necks on the line if an innocent person, especially someone from the Bureau, turned up dead.