by Lexi Blake
“I have to talk about stupid shit or she starts in on her relationships. All of them,” Kyle admitted. “I know a lot about her feelings. So we talk about dogs and TV shows I pretend I watch so I don’t have to know more about her feelings.”
Kyle was an asshole. “Fine. Take care of her. Text me when she’s safe in the lab.”
God, he hoped she would be safe in the lab.
Noelle kissed him again and then walked off, her cane in her right hand. Stretchy sex seemed to have done wonders for her.
It sure had done wonders for him. Noelle made her way out to the garage, and Kyle glanced back as he walked after her.
“Dude, take a shower. You smell like sex.” Kyle shook his head and the door closed.
He was surrounded by assholes. He found his phone and texted Theo, who promised to pick him up in half an hour and made fun of him for his nonfunctional car. Hutch was making his way to the bathroom when the phone trilled.
Michael. Hutch slid his thumb across the screen. “Hey, Mike. You heading out?”
Michael had been assigned to watch the house overnight.
“I thought I might follow them to work. Just in case. What’s going on? I don’t buy the story about testing Kyle,” Michael said over the line.
Big Tag was slipping. “It’s probably coming from the bodyguard unit. You know Fisher is always trying new things out.”
“And when I ask Fisher about it, what do you think he’ll say?” Michael asked.
Hutch sighed. “Please don’t.”
“All right. This is one of those things I shouldn’t ask about so I won’t. But I don’t feel right tailing one of our own,” Michael admitted. “He left the house last night.”
Hutch stopped. “He turned my security system off?”
“He must have because I watched him go for a jog. That was all he did. He ran around the block for almost an hour, made a phone call and talked for about twenty minutes, and then slipped back in the house.”
Hutch fisted his hand, anger and fear curling in his gut. “I’m going to check the logs on the system. If he left us vulnerable, I’ll kill him myself.”
What the fuck had he been thinking? And who did he call at that time of night? It might be time to take a hard look at Kyle’s phone and computer and his presence on the web. He hadn’t because he rather thought Tag was being paranoid, but now he had to consider the fact that Kyle was putting Noelle in danger.
“You’re worried about him?” Michael asked. “You don’t have to tell me anything. I’m only trying to figure out how to handle this detail. I’m supposed to hand the reins over to Boomer this afternoon.”
Boomer wasn’t good at blending in, and sometimes he got distracted by food trucks. Or ice cream trucks. But he would be useful if Hutch decided to snipe Kyle. “I think you should bring in Jamal. He knows how to not be seen, and he won’t talk.”
For a six-and-a-half-foot heavily muscled Black dude, Jamal moved like a ghost, could oddly blend in when he needed to, and was absolutely one of the most solid guys McKay-Taggart had hired in the last couple of years.
“I’ll talk to him, and I’ll talk to Wade as well. We can watch Kyle for a few days, rotating shifts. Damn, I like him. I really like his brother. If he’s doing something he shouldn’t, Grace is going to be devastated,” Michael said with a long sigh.
“Hopefully he’s just a dude who likes to jog. He didn’t meet anyone?”
“I couldn’t follow him closely at that time of night,” Michael admitted. “Don’t you have a tracker on his phone? Give me access.”
He did. Hutch opened his laptop and did not like what he saw. “He must have a second cell because according to my report, he didn’t leave his room all night. Damn it. I do not want to tell Sean Taggart his stepson is doing shady shit.”
“Have we considered he’s an Agency plant? He was Navy. It would have been easy enough to recruit him, and they would look at him because of his ties to Big Tag.”
Well, it hadn’t taken Michael long to get there. It didn’t surprise Hutch since Michael used to be on the same CIA team he’d been on. They knew all the hallmarks of an undercover operative. “I hope that’s all it is. I hope he’s reporting back to the Agency and that’s the extent of it. But we need to know.”
“All right. I’ll follow them and then Jamal can take over this afternoon. I’ll see you at the office?”
“Yeah, I’m coming in with Theo.” Hutch pulled up his security system. His shower was going to be a quick one. “We can talk more there. I’ve got a tracker on Noelle’s car, but Kyle knows about it.”
“I’ll let Jamal know. See you in a couple of hours.” Michael hung up the phone.
Hutch set down beside his laptop and stared at the report on the screen. According to that report the system had been engaged all night with no disruptions. Either Kyle had found a way out without setting off the alarm or he had some skills he hadn’t mentioned when he hired on.
Had he hacked the system and changed the report? He hadn’t told Kyle the password to disarm it. He’d taken care of that himself. The system had been locked down tight when he’d gotten up this morning.
He would have to look into the reports but he could do that from the office. He could access his home server from there. A shower was necessary, and he needed to talk to Tag. Things felt like they were getting dangerous, and he didn’t want Noelle in the way.
He shut his laptop and started for the bathroom when he heard the doorbell ring. He considered ignoring it but caught a glimpse of who was standing on his porch through the half-open drapes.
He caught sight of a blue uniform. Police.
What had happened? He rushed to the door, a million bad thoughts going through his head.
“Officer?” Had something happened to Noelle? Had there been an accident? He wasn’t being reasonable, but he couldn’t in that moment.
So much of his life had been a tragedy. He couldn’t handle it if something happened to her. She was the one thing he needed. He knew it in that moment. He was in love with Noelle LaVigne, and it wasn’t going to go away. This feeling couldn’t be placated by sleeping with her a thousand times. She was in his heart, and she would be there forever.
“Greg Hutchins?” The officer stood in front of him, his partner close. His squad car was parked on the street.
“Yes, what’s happened?” Please let her be okay. He could handle anything if she was all right.
“Greg Hutchins, you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent,” the big officer said.
Yeah, he hadn’t expected that at all.
* * * *
“Where exactly are you taking me? I want to talk to my lawyer.” Hutch was still in shock twenty minutes later as he was ushered through the hallways of the Jack Evans Police Headquarters. It wasn’t where he’d expected them to go. There was a district office far closer to his house, but they’d blown right past it and come to the main building downtown. If this was about what had happened with that asswipe Jeffrey, they should have gone to the nearest district to book him.
“Where you need to go,” the smaller of the two officers said.
And now that he thought about it, something was wrong with his arrest. He’d thought he was getting hauled in because he’d beaten the crap out of an overly privileged douchebag, but now he suspected something else was going on. “What exactly am I under arrest for?”
No one had mentioned that. They’d simply thrown handcuffs on him and hauled him out to the car. It was lucky for him his door locked automatically or his house and all its contents would have been vulnerable.
Was that what was going on here? Was he being drawn away so someone could attempt to get a look at his system?
“I think they’re calling it impeding a federal investigation,” a familiar voice said as they rounded the corner. “They got me as I was dropping off the oldest kids at the middle school. Tash and Kenzie got real upset, but Kala taped the whole thing on her phone and laughed he
r ass off. Do not have kids.”
Ian stood outside a door marked Conference Room, his hands cuffed. Unlike Hutch, someone had been nice to Tag and his hands were in front rather than behind his back.
Still, someone was probably going to die. Big Tag had deep ties to DPD. The chief was a member of Sanctum.
The conference room door came open and another familiar face walked out. Chris Taylor was dressed in a suit this morning, his badge around his neck. He didn’t look like he’d slept much, but then he wouldn’t have if he’d actually worked a full shift at his “second” job. He glanced down at the cuffs and sighed. “Get those cuffs off them. Who the hell told you to bring in Ian Taggart in handcuffs?”
The officer standing near Ian immediately went to work. “It was not my idea, Detective. I realized who I was supposed to arrest and damn near crapped my pants. Luckily, the big guy was in a pretty good mood.”
“My arresting officer showed up with coffee and lemon donuts,” Ian said as the cuffs came off his wrists. “What did you get?”
“Potentially syphilis, since I don’t think anyone’s cleaned the back of that squad car in forty years.” Hutch winced as his arms were free to move again. It was so unfair. He hadn’t even gotten a cup of coffee this morning.
“Donuts?” Taylor asked.
The officer shrugged. “Everyone knows the big guy likes them, and I am hoping he understands I was merely following orders. The fed told us we had to arrest them and put them in handcuffs. She wanted to put the fear of God in them. I tried to tell her about Big Tag, but she did not get it. Hence the lemon donuts, and you should know I let him call his wife. Write me up if you want to but this whole assignment stinks.”
“What does my guy have to do with McKay-Taggart?” The officer who’d arrested Hutch put his cuffs back on his belt.
“He’s my cybersecurity expert,” Big Tag explained. “He’s the guy who your cybercrimes head calls when he needs help. Hutch, are you going to feel like helping the next time the lieutenant calls?”
It sucked that almost no one was scared of him. Tag got donuts and phone calls, and Hutch got a stain on his jeans that might never go away. “Definitely not, and I will mention why. I’m also feeling a little hack coming on. Maybe it’s a cough from whatever I picked up in that car, or maybe it’s the kind of thing that gets an officer’s name on a no-fly list.”
The officer held his hands up. “Man, I was following orders and I will clean the car.” He looked to the other officer. “Donuts? You’re an asshole, Jones.”
“I’m a motherfucking genius, since I know not to piss off the dudes who work with brass,” Jones replied. “You were trying to show off for the feds.”
The officers walked away, still bickering.
“Please don’t hack him, Mr. Hutchins. I’m sorry it went down this way, but you stepped in the middle of something big, and I can’t have you busting up a six-month multiagency investigation,” Taylor explained. “Come on in. We’ll do what we should have done the minute you walked into the building with Noelle LaVigne.”
Finally they would get a debrief.
It struck him forcibly that this meeting was him and Ian, and only him and Ian. He walked into the conference room and sat down at the table, leaning over to whisper Ian’s way. “Why didn’t they bring in Kyle?”
Ian’s jaw tightened. “Because I suspect they’re investigating him, too.”
Taylor sat down across from them. “I am truly sorry she decided to bring you in this way. You need to understand that DPD isn’t the lead in this investigation.”
A whole lot of things fell into place. “Cara is the fed, right? She’s got impeccable credentials. We even looked up her socials and they go back at least ten years.”
“The FBI knows how to put together a cover.” Cara moved from the back of the room. She wasn’t in the boho clothes she normally wore. She was in a power suit, her blonde hair in a neat bun. “And we know when all our hard work is about to get blown out of the water. Mr. Taggart, I’m Caressa Thompson. I’m with the Dallas office in the criminal investigative division, and I’ve been investigating Jessica Layne and Genedyne for over a year. How did you become involved with Noelle LaVigne? I have to assume Mr. Hutchins is working and not playing her for some reason.”
Tag looked his way. “She got through your cover? Did MaeBe fuck up?”
“Oh, Chris recognized him,” Cara explained. “The cover was actually quite good. If Chris hadn’t seen you before I would absolutely believe you’re just a guy Noelle brought from home.”
Chris nodded. “You gave a talk last year at a conference I went to. It was about how local police departments can use new facial recognition tech.”
Hutch frowned Tag’s way. “See, I told you I shouldn’t do that conference.”
Tag’s eyes rolled. “You wanted to sit at home and drink beer. Next time I’ll remember to send you in with a disguise. I’ll let my girls dress you up. With a haircut and some glitter no one will recognize you.”
“So I would like an answer to my question.” Cara seemed unfazed by Tag’s sarcasm. “How did you get involved with Noelle LaVigne?”
“I’d like to have not been dragged out of my house,” Hutch replied. “We can’t always get what we want.”
“Mr. Hutchins, I need to remind you that I don’t have to let you go at the end of this meeting,” Cara said with an impatient sigh. “You truly are impeding an investigation.”
“By protecting my client? I’m involved in this investigation because Noelle is a client of McKay-Taggart, and I think you had something to do with that.” He wasn’t a fool. “First of all, I need to remind you that I’m not some kid from a small town who’s going to buy your line of bullshit. You’re pissed because you’re the one who turned on my client’s monitoring system when I turned it off. You’ve been watching and listening to Ms. LaVigne, and you better hope that you have a warrant authorizing it because I intend to challenge it.”
Cara’s face flushed slightly, proving she wasn’t as cold as she wanted him to think. “Ms. LaVigne is part of an important investigation.”
“She better be because I suspect you’re the one who got on her system and downloaded confidential files.” His initial confusion was rapidly becoming anger. “You stripped her of her privacy, and you’re potentially endangering her life’s work. You know damn well she’s not involved in whatever you’re investigating Jessica Layne for. You’re using an innocent young woman and placing her in danger without even giving her a warning about it. I find your investigation dangerous and cynical, and if you push me, I’ll talk about it publicly.”
“Hutch,” Tag began.
Hutch shook his head. “No. She wants to arrest me? I’ll show her how I can really impede an investigation. You think I haven’t done it before?”
“I am well aware of your arrest record, Mr. Hutchins,” Cara shot back.
“Then you’re aware that he was a kid who did the right thing and got his ass thrown in juvie for it.” Tag leaned forward, his eyes narrowing in that way that let Hutch know he was ready for a fight. “He went to juvie because the DA’s office refused to do their job.”
“I don’t know any of this,” Chris complained. “Juvenile records are supposed to be sealed. What don’t I know and how will it affect this investigation? We can’t have a criminal close to such an important player.”
Cara softened slightly and looked Hutch’s way. “He’s not a criminal. He was a kid who broke the law to try to do the right thing. A girl at his high school…she went to a college party and got drunk and some football players took advantage.”
“The word you’re looking for is rape.” He wouldn’t sugarcoat it, and he’d been fucking happy to set his ass in jail. “They taped the whole thing, and then their parents worked with the DA to cover it up. I was in a smaller town then, and no one wanted to lose the conference championship. So I hacked the system and I sent that tape to a couple of reporters.”
“Hutch did
more time than the football players,” Ian explained.
“Yeah, but they didn’t play again, and their names are still out there.” He would circulate the story every few years. Every time one of those fuckers thought it was gone. “I was sixteen and I barely knew that girl. What do you think I’ll do for a woman I care about?”
“Your prior arrest doesn’t concern me or my bosses. But I do have something that does concern me.” Cara’s spine straightened and she leaned toward Ian. “Do you know that your…what do you call them…your operative is sleeping with the client?”
Ian chuckled. “Yeah, if I fired them all for that I wouldn’t have any employees. It’s kind of a perk of hiring my firm. McKay-Taggart. Serving your security needs and getting you off. It’s our new slogan.”
Hutch couldn’t help himself. If there was one thing he couldn’t stand it was hypocrisy. “Does your boss know you’re sleeping with the locals? Or was that scene in the lobby for show?”
Ian was the one sitting up straighter now. The boss loved some gossip. “The detective’s doing the fed?”
“Oh, yeah,” Hutch said under his breath. “Blew their cover wide open last night.”
Cara looked like she was ready to breathe fire.
Chris put a hand on her arm. “Don’t. You know he’s right and that’s why you’re angry.” He looked Hutch’s way. “Special Agent Thompson and I used to be engaged. We broke it off two years ago when she joined the FBI. Working on this assignment together brought back certain feelings, and we allowed them to cloud our judgement last night. If we’d had our heads in the game, this wouldn’t have happened. We would have known to keep you in the lobby until that light went off. It takes about a half an hour to cycle on that system, right? The light was still on when you got up to the apartment. That’s why you packed her up and left.”
“Yes. I assume you’re the ones who turned it on, and you did last night because you knew we would be late.” He remembered Cara specifically asking about that night. “She thinks you’re her friend, you know.”
