She’d promised to return when she could. They had a few rematches to get to. Poor Joe still thought he could beat her in a distance race. Sucker.
Smirking, she leaned against the wall outside the locked door, content to “hurry up and wait,” a circumstance with which she was all too familiar. In the Marine Corps, she’d spent more time being early and waiting around than she could count. Though the FBI was better, she still got caught in the bureaucracy of waiting on superiors and meetings.
Thinking of meetings, she wondered what SSA Scott might be up to. Who he might be talking to. She needed to get with Grace again. Her friend’s report hadn’t amounted to much more than what Jane had already known about her peers.
Several of the agents in her squad were divorced and paying child support. A few had gambling problems, one of which she hadn’t been aware. But Grace showed he made payments on time and was currently in a Gamblers Anonymous program. Her closer companions, Jenn Sullivan and Rob Williams, remained single and nosy about everyone else’s business while remaining clean of scandal. A big deal, considering how often they played fast and loose with the rules.
Like Jane, they got the job done, and she respected their work ethic. They never had a problem canceling plans in favor of a case or working through the weekend when needed. Forty hours per week only applied to regular people with regular jobs, not Feds trying to combat violent crimes and protect national security.
They felt like her people, and she couldn’t help calling them by last name the way she had her true friends in the Marine Corps. “Sullivan” and “Williams” sounded friendlier to Jane than “Jenn” and “Rob.” Weird, but it made sense in her head.
A door slamming and heavy footsteps on the cement floor caught her attention. She glanced up from her phone to see a guy a few years her junior moseying through the hall.
He had shaggy black hair needing a cut, skin a shade darker than hers, and wore a heavy winter coat, faded jeans, and clean sneakers. As he approached, he gave her a leisurely onceover and grinned, showing a crooked front tooth that gave him a charming, nonthreatening appearance.
Slender and standing maybe six feet tall, he didn’t move with the grace of someone used to close combat. This had to be the hacker Rapp had mentioned.
“Yo, a new face around the place. I like it.” He grinned. “Are you the girl Rapp told us to expect?”
“I am.”
“Diego Rivera.”
“Nice to meet you, Diego. I’m Jane.”
They shook hands.
He demonstrated the code for the keylock at the door then preceded her inside. A narrow hallway opened up into one large room with a bunch of cubicles in the center, surrounded by a few long tables covered in stacks of files.
Along one wall, photos of the victims covered white boards marked with names, dates, and notes. Two doors at the back, on either side of another hallway, led to glass-fronted offices.
A conference room with a long table and a dozen chairs was on the left. The right office likely belonged to Rapp. With the blinds up, she could see file cabinets and bookshelves filled with books and manilla folders, and in the center, a large desk with a computer.
The entire suite had recently been painted a neutral white. She could smell paint along with coffee and a light but floral perfume.
A small, open kitchenette occupied space on the left, complete with two tables and a high-speed coffee maker. A tall black woman stood there, openly assessing Jane and Diego.
She wore a plum-colored pantsuit, her braided hair swept into an appealing bun. Her flawless makeup and attire showcased a strong and confident woman. Jane put her age close to Jane’s, early- to mid-thirties, though the woman’s sharp gaze said she had experience in the agency. So she might be older.
Maybe this assignment wouldn’t be too bad. Something about the woman’s intelligent eyes and firm demeanor remindedher of Grace. Then the woman gave her a dismissive onceover and ruined any hope of a pleasant office experience.
Jane mentally swallowed a growl. She wasn’t her cousin, needing to prove herself to anyone. She’d been hired—had she, though?—to investigate a series of murders.
Diego introduced them. “Agent Gina Holtz, meet Jane. Jane, this is Gina.” Diego fetched an energy drink from the refrigerator, leaving them alone.
“Agent Holtz. Nice to meet you.”
“Jane.” Gina Holtz nodded but didn’t extend a hand, content to sip her coffee and look down her nose. “I’m not sure why you’re here, but Rapp said to show you to a desk. Follow me.”
Jane followed her to a desk covered in folders.
“This is what we know so far. Each of the stacks is what we’ve gathered on the victims. There are six of them as of yesterday.” She turned to Diego, who’d gone to a desk that looked like something from a movie. Covered in monitors and keyboards, with desktops jockeying for space under the desk, his station resembled the console of a spaceship. “I need you to gather what you can on the EMTs. Their phone records will be here in a bit. But I hit a snag on EMT2.”
“We didn’t have their names yesterday before Gina went home,” Diego explained and slurped his drink. “I’ll get it for you.”
Jane glanced at her crowded desk, eager to get her hands dirty. After seeing what had been left of the EMTs yesterday, she needed to do something to help catch their killer.
Gina nodded. “I’ll leave you to it then.” She turned on her heel, then stalked to her desk and settled in at her keyboard.
