CHAPTER 1
Jake Walsh had been in Tampa eleven months, and this was the first time Ray had used the wordurgentin a text.
Not when they'd tracked a witness to a trailer park in Polk County. Not when the Marshals fumbled a pickup and their RICO case nearly lost its foundation. Ray Crawford didn't do urgent. Ray didwhen you get a chanceandlet's discussand, when things were genuinely pressing,my office, eight sharp.A lifetime of friendship had taught Jake to read every shade of Ray's communication no different than how he'd once read terrain maps, and urgent was new.
So he'd driven in fast, parked the Range Rover, and taken the stairs because the elevator in this building operated on federal time.
Now he was sitting in Ray's office, in the chair by the window that he'd claimed the first week because it gave him sight lines to the door and the hallway, and Ray was explaining about a missing witness named Ryan Costa.
Jake was listening. Mostly.
"Costa was Vance's accountant for eleven years," Ray said. He was behind his desk, jacket off, reading glasses on, whichmeant he'd been here since six. "Flipped four months ago. Full cooperation agreement. Emily's been building the RICO case around his testimony."
"Emily."
"Emily Callahan. AUSA, Major Crimes. She's lead on Vance." Ray turned to him. "You haven't met her yet?"
"I've seen the name on case files. Callahan. Files are tight." Jake stretched one leg out, crossed his arms. "So Costa's in the wind."
"Two weeks. Missed his last three check-ins. Marshals can't find him, which is embarrassing for them and a problem for us." Ray took off his glasses and set them on the desk. "I need you to find him."
Jake considered this for approximately three seconds.
A cooperating witness who'd gone dark wasn't unusual. People got scared. People got stupid. People convinced themselves that hiding from the government was somehow safer than testifying against the man who'd been laundering money through shell companies for a decade. Costa wasn't trained. He wasn't connected. He was an accountant from Clearwater who'd cooked books until the math caught up with him, and now he was hiding from lawyers and Marshals like that was a plan.
Jake had found high-value targets in Helmand Province before lunch. This was a milk run.
"When's she getting here?" Jake asked.
Ray checked his watch. "Should be any minute. She and Claire are?—"
"Claire?"
"Claire Harper. Emily's best friend, also an AUSA here. They came up together." Ray studied him. "You'll like her."
Footsteps in the hallway. Two sets. One purposeful and quick, the stride of someone who moved through this buildinglike it belonged to her. The other lighter, easier, keeping pace but not matching it.
Ray's door was open. Jake was already turning toward it when she appeared in the frame.
Emily Callahan walked into Ray Crawford's office like she was about to cross-examine everyone in it.
She was carrying a coffee in one hand and a file in the other, and she was mid-sentence, talking to the woman behind her, about a motion deadline. Her hair was down, dark blonde, just past her shoulders. Professional but not stiff. A blouse that fit her as confidence fits, without apology.
Then she looked at him.
Jake had been in rooms that went still. He'd been in rooms where the air changed because something significant had entered. He'd stood in briefing rooms at Bragg where a single piece of intel rearranged every assumption in the building.
This was not like that.
This was worse.
Emily Callahan's eyes found his and Jake Walsh, who had walked into ambushes with his pulse barely touching seventy, lost his footing without moving.
She recovered before he did. Whoever she'd been talking to was forgotten. The motion deadline, abandoned and her expression assembled itself back to composed and professional, almost hiding the half-second where it hadn't been.
Almost.
"Ray." She didn't look away from Jake when she said it. "I wasn't told we'd have company."
