“As little as possible. I mentioned you guys thought I might have seen something the morning of the bombing, but I told them I didn’t see anyone. I didn’t even bring up the employee photos you sent to me. I kind of got the feeling you wouldn’t want me to say anything about it.”
“That’s good,” Trevor said. “Did Cody have a problem with them being there?”
On the other end of the line, Seth sighed. “Yeah. They got a little physical with me, and Cody didn’t handle it well. It took two hours to calm him down.”
“I’m sorry, Seth,” Trevor said, his jaw tightening in anger. “I didn’t intend for any of this to come back on you.”
“I know. Don’t worry about it. We’ll be okay. The only thing that bothered me is that they showed up at my place. How did those guys know you’d come to see me?”
Trevor looked at Alina. “I’m not sure, Seth. I guess the information must have fallen into the wrong people’s hands.”
Alina winced. It was obvious Trevor had a good idea where those thugs had gotten their information. She’d told Dick, and Dick had sent some goons down there to check out her story. She hadn’t told Dick anything specific, but it had been enough to put Seth Larson on the man’s radar.
She was angry at herself, but more than anything else, she was disappointed. It sucked knowing she was the reason those men had shown up and scared Cody. And it double sucked that Trevor, a partner she’d been getting closer to by the minute, was looking at her like she’d betrayed him.
“Hey, before you get the impression that it’s all dark clouds and spilt milk,” Seth added in a lighter tone, “I also called you to say I talked to that friend of yours. He lined me up some pretty cool IT work. He’s even going to come in and set up a home office with a secure computer network for me. It sounds like a pretty sweet deal, so I just wanted to say thanks. I really appreciate it.”
Trevor’s mouth edged up. “I’m glad to hear that. If anyone has earned the right for something good to happen in their life, it’s you.”
Seth didn’t think that was true, but he said he wasn’t going to turn down the job offer regardless. “I’m too desperate to stand on principle.”
They talked for another minute or two, then Seth hung up after promising to let them know if anyone else from the DCO showed up. Alina expected Trevor to immediately ask her who the hell she’d told about Seth. He had every right to. She’d screwed up.
But he didn’t say a word. Instead, he gave her a nod and headed for the door, his face an expressionless mask. That was ten times worse than anything he could have said to her.
“See you tomorrow morning?” she asked as he turned the knob.
He hesitated for a moment but didn’t look back at her. “Yeah, I’ll be here.”
Then he was out the door and gone, leaving Alina feeling like ten pounds of crap as she wandered over and collapsed on the couch beside Molly. Her fur baby put her head on Alina’s lap with a sigh, as if she completely understood what Alina was going through.
“What the hell am I going to do, girl?” she whispered. “I was hired to figure out if Trevor was a bad guy, but right now, I’m the only one betraying anybody.”
Molly lifted one brow, then the other, apparently as torn as her human happened to be. Clearly, there wouldn’t be any advice coming from her canine companion.
Alina sat there caressing Molly’s fur and trying to figure out what the heck she was going to do. She’d spent the past three years hating Wade for betraying her team, and yet here she was, doing the same thing. No, she hadn’t gotten anybody killed, but she still felt like crap on a stick.
She was still staring restlessly at the wall when she heard her phone ringing from nearby. It took her a moment to remember she’d tossed her little purse on the couch when she and Trevor had come in. She looked around and realized that Molly was lying on it.
After yanking the purse from under her, Alina dug out her phone, hoping it was Trevor. But it wasn’t her partner. It was Dick.
Alina groaned. She’d completely forgotten Dick said he wanted updates from her every night. Her thumb hovered over the green button, but she just couldn’t tap it. Between kissing Trevor, confirming Thorn’s involvement in the bombing, seeing their witness to that fact die right in front of them, then discovering Dick had sent men to harass Seth, there was no way in hell she was going to tell her new boss anything.
She let the call go to voice mail, then stood. She was exhausted and needed to get cleaned up before going to bed. She doubted she’d get much sleep, but she might as well try.
“Come on, Molly. Let’s get ready for bed. If nothing else, at least I can watch you sleep.”
* * *
Tanner wasn’t sure if the preseason football game he was watching on the TV in his DCO dorm room was happening in real time or whether it was a replay. Considering it was nearly one in the morning, it had to be the latter. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t like he was paying attention to the game anyway. As usual, he was thinking about Zarina.
He ran his hand through his mane of dark-blond hair and took another long drink from his fourth bottle of Mountain Dew for the night. While there were no bars on the windows or padlocks on the door of his small efficiency apartment, he was as much a prisoner here as Sage was in her cell. The only difference was that his imprisonment was self-imposed. He could walk away at any time, but for reasons he was only now starting to explore, he stayed here surrounded by people who considered him to be little more than a monster.
At first, he’d told himself it was so he could get a handle on the hybrid rages that happened whenever he got angry. To be truthful, he’d succeeded in that. Until this most recent slipup with Sage, he hadn’t lost it in months. But instead of leaving, he’d convinced himself if he stayed a little longer, Zarina might actually find a way to rid him of his animal side. It was a long shot, but it allowed him to justify staying.
Staring at the TV now, his mind a thousand miles away from the football game, he finally admitted it wasn’t his control issues or the cure for them that kept him here. It was Zarina. And the fact that he loved her so much it hurt.
Tanner took another swig of soda and glanced at the big throw pillow Zarina liked to hug when she curled up on the couch and watched TV with him. While their nightly get-togethers were frequent, no one would call them dates. But he enjoyed the time they spent together, even if all they did was talk about football and why anyone would play a game where the men in the striped uniforms were throwing their hankies on the ground all the time—Zarina’s words, not his. It was fun and casual and made him feel like he was a normal guy.
