“No, I want you and Agent Bosch to track them down,” Dick said. “Together.”
Trevor turned to regard the former CIA agent sitting beside him. Alina returned his gaze. There was only one reason Dick would team them up—so she could keep tabs on him. That meant she was already deep in Dick’s pockets—or Thorn’s. While he seriously wanted the chance to get out and do a little digging on John’s killer, he wasn’t thrilled at the idea of having to deal with a partner who’d be on the phone reporting everything he did to Dick five times a day.
“Before you bother asking what Alina brings to the table, I’ll clarify that point right now. She’s very good at digging out traitors,” Dick said succinctly, and Trevor had to wonder if that was a little jab at him. “It’s one of the things she’s excelled at the past few years in the CIA.”
Trevor didn’t say anything. This was obviously a done deal. If teaming up with Alina was what he had to put up with to get back in the game, he’d make it work.
“Fine,” he said. “If it’s settled then, I’d like to head out immediately. I have a couple of leads I’d like to look into this afternoon.”
“What leads?” Dick asked.
“I’ve heard rumors about some people down in Fredericksburg who got into a scuffle in a restaurant with a couple of guys they described as…odd. I think it might be the rogue shifters.”
Dick eyed him doubtfully. “Why the hell would any of the rogue teams stay this close to the DCO training complex? That seems incredibly foolish.”
“That’s only because you seem to think they’re out there running scared,” Trevor said. “They’re not. Ivy and Landon would almost certainly have left at least one team close to DC so they could keep an eye on what we’re doing. I’m sure you’ve already realized they likely still have people on the inside feeding them info, right?”
Trevor felt a slight twinge telling Dick this kind of stuff, but it wasn’t like it was a big secret. Dick might be a moron, but Thorn was smart enough to know at least some of the shifter teams were likely nearby. Part of staying on with the DCO was playing the game and making it look like he was actively engaged in catching his former coworkers.
Not that he was really leading Dick anywhere near his friends. In truth, he wanted to get down to the Fredericksburg area so he could check out a guy that Evan had stumbled across while reviewing video footage from the DCO’s front gate on the morning of the bombing. The guy had only started working for the DCO three weeks before John’s death, had driven onto the complex insanely early that morning, and had quit two days after the bombing. Even better, the man had a direct connection to Thorn. He’d worked IT support at one of the local Chadwick-Thorn subsidiaries before showing up at the DCO. With his background, Trevor doubted he was the man who’d built the bomb that had killed John, but he definitely could have been the one to plant the device in the director’s office.
It was someone they should have looked at a long time ago, but it had taken forever for Evan and Skye to find him, since they were dealing with their own trust issues within the remains of the DCO analyst section. It was a given that some of the people who’d stayed there were on Team Thorn. Any digging they did had to be accomplished slowly. But if this was the man who’d delivered the device that had killed John, it would be a good first step toward finding that link to Thorn.
Dick threw one of those what-do-I-do-now glances in Thorn’s direction. The former senator responded with another imperceptible nod. Thorn should rig up some marionette strings for the director. They could take their act on the road.
“Do it,” Dick said in his best imitation of a man who knew what the hell he was doing. “But I want you two to keep me informed of everything you’re doing at all times.”
Trevor snorted. “Of course you do—since you trust me so much now.”
Dick didn’t take the bait. “I don’t trust you. And I won’t until you give me reason to. Until then, you two should consider yourselves on a short leash.”
Chapter 2
“I thought we were going to Fredericksburg?” Alina asked as they passed straight through the town and kept going until they hit Highway 2 and headed south.
After leaving Dick Coleman’s office, Trevor had told her he’d meet her in front of the admin building, then disappeared. When he showed up fifteen minutes later in a black Suburban, she’d noticed he’d changed out of the black tactical uniform he’d been wearing and into cargo pants and a button-down.
Trevor glanced at his rearview mirror before giving her a smile. “We did go to Fredericksburg—and now we’re leaving. I figured since it’s such a nice day, why not enjoy ourselves with a leisurely drive through the country?”
She lifted a brow. “That’s what this is all about…a nice drive in the country?”
“Yup.”
“Yeah right,” she muttered as he checked the mirror again.
Sighing, Alina turned her attention back to the fat file folder on her lap. It was stuffed full of reports related to all the places Ivy, Landon, and the rest of the rogue shifters had supposedly been sighted. Dick had told her they were a slippery bunch, but she found it difficult to believe they could move from location to location as fast as the DCO agents trying to track them down claimed. It was like they’d put a map up on a wall somewhere and thrown darts at it.
She flipped the page, frowning as she read over the various performance records of the operatives Dick had called “shifters.” To say it read like something out of a movie was putting it mildly.
“Okay, I’m just going to come out and say it,” she told her new partner. “I’m not so sure I buy all this shifter crap. Dick made it seem like it was the real deal, but I gotta tell you, it sounds like BS to me.”
“It’s real,” Trevor said.
Alina waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. “Show me.”
He slanted her a look. “Excuse me?”
