“She stole a paperclip from the federal government,” Mr. Grumpy growled. No lie, he actually growled. “We take theft of government property very seriously.”
Danica Buchanan ignored Mr. Grumpy the same way Braden had ignored Dreya.
“I’m not really in a position to comment on why the DHS wants Ms. Clark, Detective,” she said. “My partner and I were just sent to pick her up.”
Braden locked eyes with the FBI agent. “And what if I’m not in the mood to let you have her?”
Danica Buchanan gave him a small smile. “Look, I know how you feel, I really do. I’ve had the carpet pulled out from under me a few times, and it’s never fun. You caught your suspect red-handed, and now a couple of feds walk in and think they can take over. It sucks, I get it. But at the end of the day, there’s not a lot you can do about it. This is way above all our pay grades.”
Reaching into the inside of her jacket again, she came out with a neatly folded stack of papers and offered them to Braden. He unfolded them, already knowing what they were. He made a living arresting thieves, not handling prisoner transfers, so he didn’t see documents like these very often, but the paperwork looked legit. It was signed by what seemed like all the right people, from the commander of the Criminal Investigations Division to the desk sergeant downstairs in addition to a dozen admin and legal people in between.
“You’ll notice that there’s a form in there requiring you to turn over all surveillance footage related to Ms. Clark’s arrest as well,” the FBI agent added. “I assume you have the videos here?”
Braden nodded absently, still reading.
“I’ll grab them,” Mick said, disappearing out the door.
Braden didn’t need Tommy’s voice whispering in the back of his head to convince him that there was something seriously wrong here. His gut told him to tell the Agents Buchanan to go pound sand. While the idea might make him feel good, he knew that ultimately it would be a waste of time. He could drag his feet and slow down Dreya’s release for a little while, but the moment his bosses got to work, they’d order him to release her. To them, she was a small-time collar, a petty thief who’d stolen a silly glass dog. They wouldn’t even question why the DHS and FBI wanted someone like her. She’d simply be sacrificed on the altar of interagency cooperation.
Dreya Clark belonged to the feds now, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
Braden turned and met Dreya’s eyes, seeing the fear there. She was probably thinking the same thing he was, that there was an ex-senator named Thomas Thorn out there who still had the connections to make something like this happen. Thorn probably had his goons watching Dreya the moment she got back in town. Which meant they would have seen him and Mick tailing her. That explained how they’d known she was about to be arrested and how they’d had time to arrange her transfer.
Shit.
Mr. Grumpy must have decided he and his partner had given Braden enough time to read the transfer paperwork. He took the stack of surveillance DVDs from Mick, then asked for the keys to the handcuffs Dreya was wearing. Handing his partner the DVDs, he brushed past Braden and motioned for Dreya to stand up. She did so hesitantly, her eyes going from Mr. Grumpy to his FBI partner, then finally to Braden.
“Where are you taking her?” Braden asked, ignoring the guy and turning to focus his full attention on the FBI agent. “What’s she being charged with?”
Danica Buchanan regarded him thoughtfully. “I can’t comment on those things either.”
The thud of metal hitting the table made Braden jerk his head around. Mr. Grumpy had taken off the cuffs and was leading Dreya toward the door, more than ready to escort her out of there with no restraints at all.
If everything else up until now hadn’t struck him as strange, that definitely would have.
“Aren’t you going to cuff her for the transfer?” Braden asked.
The guy stopped, but instead of turning to look at Braden, he kept his gaze on Dreya. “Our little thief doesn’t need any cuffs. Do you?”
The DHS agent’s voice came out low and threatening, and while Braden couldn’t see his face, he could sure as hell see Dreya’s. Her eyes widened, her face going pale. After a moment, she shook her head.
Mr. Grumpy turned to look at Braden. “There you go. No cuffs necessary.”
Something twisted in Braden’s gut, those stupid instincts he’d always blamed on Tommy telling him something bad was going to come of all this. The FBI agent gave him a nod, then followed her partner and their suspect out the door.
“What the hell just happened?” Mick asked.
Braden could only shake his head, getting more pissed off—and worried—by the second. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. He shoved his fingers through his hair in frustration, then headed for the door. He’d gone out of his way in the years since Tommy’s death to do the important things in a careful, well-thought-out, and by the book manner, knowing that was the best way to make sure nobody else he cared about ended up dead. What he was considering right now wasn’t careful, well-thought-out, or by the book, but he was going to do it anyway. For the first time since Tommy, his gut was telling him something terrible was going on, and it was important enough to break the rules.
“Cover for me, okay?”
“Where are you going?” Mick asked.
“You asked me what the hell just happened,” Braden said. “I’m going to find out.”
* * *
Even though Ivy and her husband, Landon Donovan, had spent a lot of time at the Chadwick-Thorn corporate headquarters over the past few months, she still got a little uneasy when Thomas Thorn called and told them he wanted to see them ASAP. Not only was Thorn the CEO of one of the largest defense companies in the world, he was also the most powerful member of the Committee, the shadowy group that ran the Department of Covert Ops, the organization she and Landon worked for. People who got on Thorn’s bad side had a nasty habit of showing up dead. Even though he was no longer a senator, he was still as powerful as he’d ever been, maybe more so.
