“Okay, Hal. Consider Riyadh forgotten. But Matthew Scott? That one’s mine.” After a pause, she added, “but we can’t tell Uncle Chris. Ever.”
They both looked at Joe, the weakest member of their three-person team.
He looked injured but said the magic words. “Fine. Fine. I’ll never tell. Happy now?”
Yes, she was. She had a plan. Now to beat Joe at shooting. For once in her life.
Several hours later,Jane got off the phone with one of her newer CIs, a young woman who liked to party with gangsters. She was pretty and talented, working her way from pole to pole in Seattle until she’d landed at Junior Mazzuca’s favorite hangout.
They’d dated for a while until Junior decided he could do better. Lola hadn’t cared for his attitude. After going down in a drug bust, she’d decided to offer Jane information to stay free of jail.
Tonight, Lola had definitely delivered.
The secret location of the new Mazzuca hangout.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jane lost,but not horribly, at fifteen yards. And seven. And twenty-five. But she did manage to win their race around the property. Joe might be a heck of a sprinter, but he couldn’t touch her when it came to distance.
The exercise put her in a great mood, so that even after three days of no contact from Rapp about finding the Code Blue Killer—because Diego’s suggestion fit as well as “that medical guy murderer”—she remained in good spirits while staying busy in Bainbridge Island.
With the guys out and doing whatever they did when Stateside, Jane had decided to head back into the city to clean up her apartment. Their visit over New Year’s had definitely put things out of place, and she’d just started obsessing over what she needed to clean when she got a ping on her phone.
A glance showed a forwarded message on a number she used with her CIs, something that couldn’t be traced to her personal number without help from a hacker like Hal or Diego.
Excited to finally have movement on the case that had sidelined her and put her reputation in limbo, she drove to the ferry, waited half an hour, and spent her time aboard looking for older news articles on the Mazzucas.
By the time she’d arrived in Seattle, she’d also managed to contact Sullivan and set up a meet.
Of the ten agents working in Jane’s unit, she resonated with Sullivan and Williams the most. They were closer to her age and viewed moving up in the ranks the same way she did—that climbing the political ladder was like killing yourself slowly, a poison to the soul as you sold out piece by piece.
Sullivan, a petite blond who rolled in sarcasm and irony like a feline in catnip, was often underestimated and used that to her advantage. Intelligent, fast, and an expert marksman, she was a plus to have on one’s side.
Williams, a funny guy of average height and features, had an ability to blend in. He was often overlooked while people talked about all sorts of things in front of him. A friend to everyone, enemy to none. Often undervalued, he made the most of it.
They’d come into the Seattle office at roughly the same time, and they didn’t like Agent Scott at all. While Jane had come from the Poulsbo RA and had trained under good people, Sullivan and Williams had transferred from Las Vegas.
When asked why they’d left, they’d both told her Vegas ate people alive. All the gambling, drugs, and prostitution, so many vices in one place, had soured them on Sin City. When learning about openings in Seattle, they’d jumped on them.
More acquaintances than friends upon leaving Las Vegas, they’d bonded here, and even more so with Jane as a happy third. She was probably as close with them as she was with anyone not family.
Another message popped up, and she read it with satisfaction—confirmation that the intel she’d received from her CI on the Mazzucas had been verified by another source.
By the time Sullivan met Jane at Pike Place Bar and Grill, Jane was ready to explode.
“Well, don’t you look excitable and casual at the same time.” Sullivan smirked as she sat down. Like Gina, Sullivan dressed to impress. The color of her dark pantsuit and pristine, pale pink blouse set off the attractive undertones in her skin, and her eyes sparkled. She looked pretty and capable.
Jane had always been called attractive in adifferentkind of way. She didn’t have conventional beauty, but rather an interesting face, whatever that meant. And she’d never been petite at five eleven, though she had an athletic frame and good genes, so she didn’t normally have to fight more than an aggressive five pounds here or there.
Jane acknowledged the awkward feeling in her gut when comparing herself to Sullivan and did what she normally did when feeling uncomfortable. She ignored it and focused on what she was good at—the hunt. Because she knew she’d found a piece of a much larger puzzle.
She made small talk until the server took their order and left. “I found them.”
“Them?” Sullivan blinked. “Would that be your real parents?”
“Huh?”
“You know, the alien clones whoreallygave birth to you, but left you, an alien changeling, in place of the human baby they stole from the people you think are your parents.”
