“Mm, right. I saw her play the Super Bowl show last year with my grandfather.”
“Tell me more about your grandfather. Aside from Paxis and football, what did you do together?”
I tugged his hand until he came around to face me. “We worked,” I said regretfully. “Which is what you and I need to get back to. Sit.”
Jett seemed a bit disappointed, but he didn’t prod me again as he returned to his seat at the table. And maybe it was because he didn’t press me that I felt comfortable giving him a little bit of the truth.
“I need to find something in a ship,” I explained.
His brows furrowed. “Like what?”
I clenched my teeth as the tension Jett had massaged away immediately returned to my neck and shoulders.
There was no way I was giving Jett the details of the weapons and nerve agent antidote. I couldn’t begin to imagine the risk if he had information like that—not just risk to others if it got out but risk to him for having it. And I didn’t want to scare him either.
“I’m not sure. But I have technology that can scan the containers if I can get close enough.”
Jett’s eyes met mine, and I wondered yet again how it was possible the man hadn’t been discovered by a modeling agency somewhere along the way. He was fucking beautiful.
Distractingly so.
“Smuggling,” he repeated. “You’re forcing ships into the Kiel Canal so you can search them for whatever’s being smuggled. And you need a place to send your team with the scanning technology.”
“Hypothetically.” I met his eyes. “Find me a place.”
Jett opened his laptop, muttering. “The Kiel Canal sees ninety ships a day. Can your tech scan them all?”
“I might not need to. I have people reviewing surveillance video to find out which ones could have been loaded with contraband.”
He nodded and got to work.
And for some reason, it didn’t occur to me to wonder why he knew the daily commercial volume of one of the world’s most vital waterways.
22
JETT
I was a shit intelligence agent.How was I still employed? I didn’t hide my emotions well, and so far, I’d been so inconsistent with my cover story as to resemble the holiest of swiss cheese.
The notes app in my phone was full of the inconsistencies I’d spilled, either accidentally before I thought it mattered or on purpose to find a balance between what I’d already spilled and the need to keep some semblance of cover.
“Fuck,” I breathed as I finally escaped to my bathroom for a break from the strange new tension rolling off Locke.
It was clear that whatever was happening during all those work calls was impacting his ability to enjoy the Paxis game. He’d come out of the game room coiled tighter than a snake.
He hadn’t mentioned what contraband he was looking for, but for it to cause the amount of stress he seemed to suddenly be carrying, it had to be big.
Humans? Weapons? Hazardous chemicals?
Was it related to the work my fellow ESP agents were doing in Brunsbüttel?
If there were humans or weapons on a ship, ESP needed to know about it, but there was no way I could contact Rocky frominside this house. First of all, a text wouldn’t be enough. She’d immediately pick up the phone to ask me a million questions.
And I was way too paranoid to have this conversation under the same roof with Esteban Alvarado, not to mention the sheer amount of guilt I already felt at betraying Locke. It would somehow be worse if I did it steps away from his own bedroom.
Maybe I could get out after dinner and take a run on the streets around the villa with my phone.
But—and add this to the list of reasons I was not going to be making ESP’s Agent of the Year—none of those things were first and foremost on my mind the way they should’ve been.
