Since then, all communications had been handled through burner phones, code words on various chat loops, and trusted messengers. It wasn’t the same as being able to talk face-to-face, but it was good enough.
As he strode down the hall, Trevor marveled at how quickly the bombed-out part of the building had been repaired. He couldn’t even smell the smoke residue anymore over the scent of fresh drywall, paint, and carpeting. No one would ever know a bomb had taken out the whole middle section of the first floor and part of the second right above it.
For a man who’d sworn up and down that he wanted to catch John’s killers, Dick had been damn quick when it came to destroying any evidence of the bombing. The new director had had the entire damaged section of the building demolished and removed within days of the murder. Fortunately, Trevor had slipped into the smoking ruins that first night, fresh off the flight from Maine, when the heat had still been so bad it’d melted his boots and burned his hands. But he’d found more than two dozen pieces of the bomb, so it had been worth it.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t known what to do with them right away. Normally, he would have turned them over to the DCO analysts and tech people and let them do their magic. But most of the ones he trusted had left, and the ones who’d stayed freely admitted they had no skill when it came to bomb and explosive forensics.
Because Dick had so many people watching Trevor, it had taken almost a week to get a message to Ivy and Landon, letting them know what he needed. They’d given him the name of Danica’s former FBI partner in Sacramento, Tony Moretti.
Trevor had never met the man, but Danica and the others trusted him, so that meant he would, too. But with people watching him, it had taken another week to get everything packaged up and sent out there. Since then, he’d been waiting to see if the FBI labs could come up with anything. He wasn’t expecting much. It wasn’t like Thorn was an idiot. He wasn’t likely to hire a bomb maker who’d be dumb enough to leave any solid clues behind. Moreover, Tony would have to get the bomb remains evaluated without tipping off anyone as to where the bombing had occurred. They simply couldn’t risk word of the investigation getting back to Thorn or Dick.
While he waited, Trevor had been trying to find the bomber another way. DCO training officer Skye Durant and intel analyst Evan Lloyd were helping, but it was slow, excruciating work. He had things he could be out there doing, leads he could be checking out, but he couldn’t, not when he was under constant surveillance. He would have asked Jake and Jaxson for help, but he didn’t want to put any more people in danger than absolutely necessary.
Sighing, Trevor walked into the outer waiting area of the newly renovated director’s office. The monstrously large desk his secretary, Phyllis, was sitting behind probably cost more than John’s entire suite of furniture from the old office. There were paintings on the wall that looked like original pieces from the early colonial years, and the coffee machine set up along the side wall looked like something you might need an engineering degree to use.
Phyllis glanced up from her computer. Nearly sixty, she had short, curly gray hair and a thin, almost beaklike nose, on which a pair of half-moon reading glasses were perched.
He grinned at her. “I’m here to see Dick.”
The woman didn’t return his smile. Now that he thought about it, Trevor wasn’t sure the woman knew how to smile. If so, she’d certainly never done it around him. He was pretty sure Dick’s secretary didn’t think much of him, though whether it was because he was a shifter or a smart-ass, he didn’t know. He preferred to think it was his animal nature. He didn’t mind being looked down on because he sometimes had claws and fangs. He’d been born that way and couldn’t do anything about it. But his wit? That had taken him years of hard work to develop. He hated to think the effort had been wasted.
“Director Coleman is expecting you. And has been for nearly thirty minutes,” she said scathingly.
“Great! So I guess that means I can just let myself right in.”
The older woman didn’t seem amused by that. Then again, Phyllis never seemed amused. Or angry. Or alive, for that matter. Maybe she suffered from a perpetual case of resting bitch face.
“You most certainly will not. I’ll announce you,” she said in a tone that suggested she considered him somehow unworthy of that honor.
He smiled even broader. “Well, how about that? I’ve never been announced before. I mean, sure, they announced my number all the time back in prison, but that’s not the same thing, you know?”
He was hoping to at least get a disdainful glower out of her, but not even that comment could crack her bland facade.
Good sarcasm was simply wasted on some people.
Getting to her feet, Phyllis came around the desk and led the way to Dick’s office. She knocked once, then stuck her head in and told her boss Trevor was there. A moment later, she opened the door and motioned him in.
“Announcing someone would be more dramatic if you had a big staff you could thump on the floor a few times,” he pointed out, unable to resist poking her one more time. “You know, kind of like they do in Renaissance festivals?”
Phyllis stood there holding the door open, regarding him with absolutely no expression.
“Nothing?” Trevor shook his head. “I’m standing here working it, and you’re just going to leave me hanging like that?”
Phyllis arched a brow. Damn, the woman was tough.
Giving up, Trevor walked past her into the office. He barely made it through the door before Phyllis closed it. He supposed he could consider that a small victory. He might actually get a rise out of her at some point.
Thanks to a keen sense of smell, Trevor knew there were three people in the office before he got inside—Dick, Thorn, and some woman he’d never seen before. He was interested in who the new woman was, what Dick wanted to talk to him about, and why Thorn was there, but he chose to ignore them all for the time being as he took a moment to appreciate all the changes Dick had made to the director’s office.
Okay, appreciate was probably the wrong word. Trevor was never one to appreciate gaudy displays of excess, and that’s what Dick was all about.
The first thing that struck him was that it was bigger than before. Actually, it was nearly three times the size of John’s old office. Like the outer room, this part of the renovation had come with loads of pricey furniture and over-the-top artwork. Based on the framed paintings mounted on the wall, people might think Dick had an obsession with dead white guys painted in dramatic poses. Two presidents, a general in battlefield garb, an arrogant-looking man sitting behind a big desk, and a sailor standing in a small boat holding an old-fashioned harpoon. Obviously, Dick wasn’t a big fan of landscapes.
When Trevor finally turned his attention to Dick, he noted with pleasure that the director looked a little pissed off sitting there behind his ridiculously large desk. If Trevor was lucky, maybe the man would blow a gasket the more he aggravated him. Then again, Trevor might not get the chance to hang around here long enough to do that. There was a good chance Dick had called him in here specifically to fire him.
Trevor sauntered over to the empty chair in front of Dick’s desk, passing his other least favorite person, Thomas Thorn, on the way. The well-dressed former senator was leaning casually against the edge of a low bookcase, regarding Trevor with something more than mild interest.
Regardless of the man’s posture, there was nothing relaxed and casual about Thorn. While Dick liked to think he could make himself more impressive with a fancy office and a big desk, Thorn demonstrated that truly powerful people needed none of that. You could put this guy in green tights and a pink tutu, and while he might look ridiculous, there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind about which man was in charge…and which one was more dangerous.
