“Yeah right,” Trevor said. He might have a hard time picking up Adam’s scent, but he knew bullshit when he smelled it.
“So what’s your first impression of her?” Adam prodded.
Trevor pinned him with a look. “If you know so much about her, why don’t you tell me what she’s like? I’m sure you have a complete file on her already.”
Adam returned his look with those disquieting eyes of his. “Actually, I do have a complete file on your new partner. But those are just facts on a piece of paper. I’d much rather get your personal gut reactions to her. I tend to place a lot more faith in those kinds of assessments.”
Trevor ground his jaw, fighting the urge to tell Adam to kiss his ass. The man could irritate the crap out of him sometimes.
“Well, for one thing, Alina strikes me as very competent,” Trevor said. “Something tells me she was very good at the job she used to have at the CIA. Dick said something about her digging out traitors, so I suppose that’s what she did there.”
He waited for Adam to confirm or deny that last part, but the other shifter didn’t say a word.
“She didn’t lose it too badly when I did a partial shift in front of her, so I guess that earns her a few brownie points,” Trevor added, taking another swig of beer. “But Dick obviously paired her with me at Thorn’s urging, which means she’s dirty.”
Once again, Adam didn’t say anything one way or the other about that. For some stupid reason, Trevor had hoped the other shifter would tell him that he was wrong, that Alina was one of the good guys. Kind of stupid, considering the facts of the situation.
The afternoon he’d spent with the former CIA agent had left him conflicted. His head told him that Alina was completely up to her neck in Dick’s and/or Thorn’s pockets, but after the conversation they’d had on the way down to Bowling Green, not to mention seeing the way she’d handled Larson—and Cody—he kept getting this weird feeling that there was something more to her than he suspected.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure what that something more entailed. He couldn’t even be sure if it was something good or something bad. His shifter instincts, which were usually reliable when it came to judging people, seemed to be withholding their opinion on the matter of Alina Bosch for the time being. A fact that pissed him off to no end.
“Anything else?” Adam asked.
Trevor shook his head. “Not really. I tried to hide that I was investigating Thorn’s involvement in John’s death, but the fact was probably impossible for her to miss. She handled that revelation better than I thought she would, though, so I’ll have to admit, I’m torn. Part of me thinks I should trust her, but there’s another part that’s just as sure she’s playing me. I don’t suppose there’s anything in that file you have on her that suggests one way or the other whether I can trust her?”
“Unfortunately, nothing written on a piece of paper can answer that question. You’re right to worry about Alina,” he said. “Dick actively pursued her and brought her in to be your partner. We have no idea what he said to her or what he’s asked her to do. All I can suggest is that you protect yourself and not trust her any more than you have to, at least until she earns it.”
“How am I supposed to know when that is?” Trevor muttered.
Since coming to work at the DCO, Trevor had had two partners—Ed and Jake. Trust had never been an issue with either of those men. It had just come naturally.
It was funny. He’d spent a good portion of his adult life living the life of spies and espionage, going undercover for months at a time to sniff out other people who were living the same way. Now his new teammate might be someone he couldn’t trust.
“I’m not sure how you know when it’s time to trust somebody,” Adam admitted quietly. “I trusted my partner years ago when I worked for the DCO, and he ended up shooting me in the back. John trusted a lot of people, and it got him killed.”
Trevor didn’t know what the story was with Adam and his partner, but he certainly understood the reference to John’s murder. The implications were clear. If he put his faith in Alina, and that faith ended up being misplaced, he was probably going to end up dead, too.
“I’ll be in touch,” Adam said.
“You might get a call in the next day or so from Seth Larson,” Trevor said as the shifter headed for the door. “He’s good with computers and security systems. In fact, I think he set up the security system at Chadwick-Thorn that Ivy and Landon had a problem with.”
Adam lifted a brow, like he was waiting to see what any of that had to do with him.
“Anyway, the guy’s in a tough situation, and I mentioned that you might be able to find him some work he could do from home,” Trevor continued. “He has a kid with special needs he has to be around to take care of, you know?”
Adam regarded him for a long time before finally nodding. “I’ll see what I can do to help him, but stop giving my number out like I’m your cousin who does plumbing work on the side, huh?”
With that, Adam turned and walked out.
As Trevor took another drink from his bottle of beer, he toyed with the idea of calling Adam in the middle of the night and leaving a message about a leaky toilet.
Chapter 5
“I don’t care if Dick said you’re already certified for fieldwork.” Sabrina Erickson pinned Trevor with a look before turning her glare on Alina. “The two of you need to spend some time training together as a team before you get into the field and find out you have zero chemistry, because it’ll be too late to do anything about it then. You’re going to sweat now so you don’t have to bleed later.”
Beside Alina, Trevor grabbed his paintball gun from the table and grumbled something under his breath about hating training officers who spouted clichés. Alina hid her smile as she loaded her own paintball gun. Sabrina was a force of nature, that was for sure.
