“Why are you giving this to me?”
Moore leaned forward, forearms resting on his crossed legs. “Because you’re a good attorney, Price. You were a good soldier too. You don’t deserve to have your name dragged through the mud for something you didn’t do. You need to be the one to shut it down, but you need to be careful. Vaughn has sources everywhere.”
Nic narrowed his eyes, parsing through the AD’s words. He didn’t want to offend but he had to ask. “Your office?”
Not offended in the least, Moore nodded. “Talley’s and Byrne’s conflicts weren’t the only reason access was restricted on this matter.”
“Do you know who?”
“No, we couldn’t figure it out, which is why I’m authorizing you to bring in Talley for the mole hunt. I don’t want that shark Vaughn infesting my waters.”
So this wasn’t just about helping him. Moore wanted to clean up his own shop too, to make sure the way was clear for his next step up the ladder.
Seemed like a mutually beneficial arrangement to Nic. They both had skin in the game.
Nic pocketed the flash drive. “I was already planning to loop Aidan in.”
“Good,” Moore said. “But there’s a leak in your shop too.”
“I think I know who.” The same person who’d known where he’d be each of those times a threat had been leveled against him. The same person who had ridden his ass particularly hard as of late.
“Don’t be so sure.” Moore scooped up his leftovers and stood, Nic doing the same. “He was my first guess too, but we didn’t find anything to connect him. Some people like your boss are just assholes.”
If not Bowers, then who was the asshole helping Vaughn? That’s what Nic needed to find out before the gangster decided threats were no longer enough.
Nine
Captain Diana Pritchard sauntered toward the front desk of the Boston Family Justice Center, smile dazzling as she caught sight of Cam. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Agent Hard-Ass.” That had always been Di’s favorite nickname for him for multiple reasons. Dressed as he was in a suit and tie, Cam had been hoping for the professional one, but by the way Di’s big brown eyes raked him over, she was definitely contemplating the less professional context, which he’d admittedly welcomed when he’d been younger, hot-to-trot, and unattached.
Then her gaze shifted to Jamie, and Cam might as well have been invisible. She pushed through the swinging counter door, whistling. “Damn, sugar, where you been hiding him?”
“In San Francisco with his husband,” Cam answered, and Jamie brandished his wedding band.
Her face fell so fast it was comical. “Well, that’s a fucking shame.”
“Di, Jameson Walker.” Cam gestured between the two. “Jamie, Diana Pritchard, Captain of BPD’s Family Justice Group.”
Jamie held out his hand, flashing his good-ole-boy smile. “Captain Pritchard.”
“Di, please,” she said. “You a fed too?”
“Former. Consultant still, on occasion.”
She shifted her assessing gaze back to Cam. “What are you doing back here? Just showing your boy around?”
When he’d worked kidnap cases for the Bureau, especially those involving missing children, Cam frequently worked with Di’s group, the matters often crossing over. As they did again now.
“Personal matter,” he said. “Looking again into some missing persons cases.”
Di’s expression softened, the mother of four coming out in her. There was a reason she’d dedicated her career to the Family Justice Group and a reason the officers working under her were some of the most loyal and hardworking in the department. “You going there again?” She’d found him more than once in the basement archives, combing through Erin’s file. After enough times, she’d made him an unauthorized copy. If you’re gonna obsess, she’d said, at least be in stumbling distance of your own bed so you don’t keep falling asleep here.
“Special request,” he told her now. “Mom’s in the hospital.”
“Oh, sugar.” She pulled him into a hug. “She gonna be okay?”
“She had a heart attack. Bypass surgery today, maybe more later this week.”
“So you’re here distracting yourself.”
