“If we decide to get in their way, we’ll do it,” Kayla corrected. “But we’ll do it smart, and we’ll be prepared. It will be a tactical strike, not you blundering around and poking at people until somebody pokes back.”
Well, that wasn’t exactly how Jericho would have characterized his investigative technique, but he couldn’t really come up with a strong rebuttal. “If they poke back hard enough, they could expose themselves and give us something we could use.”
“If they poke back hard enough, you’ll be dead,” Kayla retorted.
“You and Wade should get together and have drinks, sometime. You might find you’ve got more in common than you think.”
Hockley broke in. “Are you saying that Mr. Granger threatened your life?”
Jericho sighed. “No.” He grabbed the folder and stood up. “Okay. I’ll look through this. I’ll let you know if the bikers contact me.”
Kayla nodded a dismissal, and he left the other three in the conference room. He was in his office a few minutes later when Kayla came in and shut the door behind her.
“What’s going on with Wade, Jay? I mean, is this going to an ongoing thing, him visiting you at home?”
He frowned. “You asking for yourself, or for the feds?”
“Damn it, I’m asking foryou! You need to be careful of him.” She took a deep breath. “Look, I know you and Wade used to be close. I get that. But you’re not kids now. You’re playing a dangerous game if you’re having anything to do with Wade Granger.”
“Jesus, Kay, he saved my life a month ago! Risked his own skin to do it.”
“You think he got involved just to help you out? You think he wasn’t sniffing around for that thumb drive, looking for an opportunity the whole time?”
“He sent you the video. The clip that allowed you to figure out who was dirty in your departmentandthat’s going to help convict them and the feds. What was his ulterior motive for that?”
“I don’t know, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have one.” She frowned at Jericho for a moment, then more quietly said, “When you left Mosely? I was sad for myself, and I knew I’d miss you. But I was sofuckingglad you went, all the same. Not just because you needed to get away from this town, but because you needed to get away from Wade fucking Granger. I could see—everyonecould see—that he was going to drag you down. You had a chance to get away from that, and you took it, and it was the smartest thing you’ve ever done.”
She waited as if to allow him to object, but he couldn’t. She shook her head. “And now you’re back. I know, I’m the one who made that happen, but you know what? I thought you’d have learned. I thought you’d gotten out in the world and had enough experiences to realize howhealthypeople behave, and I thought you’d come back with some common sense. But what the hell am I seeing? You’re running back to him like a magnet heading for the north pole!”
Jericho frowned. “Magnets don’t actually—they don’t travel north, Kay. Not under their own power. Magnets don’tmigrate.”
“Shut up. You know what I mean.”
Yeah, he did. He looked out the window as he said, “I didn’t know Wade was going to be at my place. He invited himself in. I gave him a beer, he tried to convince me to stay out of whatever’s going on between the bikers and the out-of-staters, and he left. That’s all. He was in the building for maybe ten minutes.”
“He tried to convince you to stay out of it,” she said thoughtfully. “Why?”
“Well, he didn’t use the exact words, but the gist was that I was going to get killed if I wandered around poking at people until they poked me back. Sound familiar?”
“What’s his angle? What’s he trying to achieve?”
“Shit, you think I know? I mean, is he actually trying to get me to stay out of things, or is it some sort of reverse psychology and he actually wants memoreinvolved, or is it really a double psych-out where he wants me tothinkit’s reverse psychology? Any of that is totally possible.”
“Yeah. Any of that and more.” They were both silent for a while, and then Kayla shrugged and opened the door. “So it’s important for you to keep me in the loop. Clear?”
He nodded. “Okay. Communication. Got it.”
“And try to stay away from Wade. I mean it. Making a deal with the devil rarely works out for anyone but the devil.”
He let her leave without arguing, but as he sat there and stared at the paperwork in front of him, he knew he didn’t believe her, not in his heart. Wade wasn’t the devil. He was . . . devilish, maybe. Certainly not an angel, except maybe of the fallen variety. But being a devil, beingevil, that was clear and straightforward, and there was nothing straightforward about Wade Granger.
Jericho kept his mind on his job, going through the feds’ files and making a list of notes and questions, until his cell phone rang around lunchtime. A glance at the call display had his shoulders tensing, and he answered with, “Hi, Nikki. How do you plan to complicate my life today?”
“That’s charming. A really nice way to talk to family.”
“You going to answer the question?”
She was quiet for long enough that he pulled the phone away from his ear to see if she’d hung up, but then he heard her say, “I need you to watch the kids tonight. Overnight. Come over before dinner, feed them, put them to bed, get them up in the morning, feed them again, and get them to school. Can you do that?”
