“Then you can’t talk to the FBI,” Hockley said quickly. “You can’t tell them that. As understandable as it is, if you tell them that, they’ll look at you for interfering with their investigation, at the best. They could try for conspiracy charges, or—I don’t know what they’ll come up with. But if you can’t be completely on their side, you need them to believe you’re in the dark.” He frowned. “Who else knows about this so far?”
“Who else knows that Kay knows?” Jericho said. “Just this room and Wade.”
“Granger’s not going to share his information with the FBI. He recited the alphabet for five hours straight the last time they hauled him in.” There might almost have been respect in Hockley’s tone, however grudging. “He was doing different voices, dialects, dramatic interpretations, everything. Just the ABCs.” He raised his eyebrows at Jericho. “I can see what the two of you have in common.”
“Besides liking dick,” Jericho said. Yeah, it was childish, but he’d been restraining himself for too long, and this wasn’t something that was going to hurt Kay.
Hockley straightened his shoulders. “So what’s the plan? Kayla, I guess this is up to you. Do you need to take some time to sort it out, and then you can talk to me or Jericho about it? Both of us, maybe, and we can try to run interference for you. Whatever you decide you need to do.”
“No,” Jericho said. He was pretty sure he was on the right track. At least he hoped he was. “We can’t sit on this. Kay, if you don’t talk to your dad, he’ll know something’s up. And if youdotalk to him, you’re screwed either way—if you talk about your cases, you’reknowinglysharing intel with a leak, and if you don’t talk about them, he’ll want to know why, and the feds could accuse you of tipping him off about the investigation. You could feed him fake intel, but that won’t last long before he figures it out, not if you don’t mix some real stuff in with the fake.” Yeah, that was the problem, and he hoped he had the solution. “You two should stay here. Or go talk to people or whatever, but no phone calls. Nothing that could give the appearance of you spilling information.” He stared at Hockley, willing the man to understand, and saw that he did.
Unfortunately, so did Kayla. “No way. This isn’t your fight! You can’t get involved in it. You have a career to worry about too.”
But he’d already decided. “I’m just a future burnout, right? I’m not going back to LA.” He’d said it as a joke but realized that it was true. He had no idea what his future held, but it wasn’t going to be anything like his past. “This town needs you. It doesn’t need me. And, of course, there’s the added advantage of me not giving a shit.” He grinned at her. “That’s always been what slowed you down.”
“Jay—” she said, warning clear in her voice. “This is cowboy bullshit again.”
“Yeah, a cowboy. Maybe that’ll be my next career. Thanks for the suggestion!” She was still frowning, though, so he smiled. “Don’t worry, I’m not throwing myself on a grenade. I think there’s a path around all that. So while I’m gone, stay off the phone. Go hang out with the feds if you can put up with them. You’re here. You’re innocent.” He looked at Hockley. “You’ve got a witness.”
Hockley nodded. “She does.”
Jericho was on his way to the door when he turned back and gave the DEA agent a hard look. “Was this your plan all along? Getting me to do this?” He didn’t really expect an answer, and Hockley didn’t give him one. So he headed out the door. Maybe he’d been set up and manipulated. Again. Maybe he should just sit back and get used to it, since it seemed as if everyone else in the damn universe was smarter than he was and could plan everything out far into the future.
He couldn’t worry about that stuff right then. He had a goal, a mission, and he needed to ensure its success. He’d worry about the rest of it when he was back at base. Or never. Maybe he’d worry about it never. That had a nice ring to it.
