“Last week.” He grinned. “But you were busy eating a Snickers bar, so I think you probably missed it.”
Knowing she’d never keep up with her brother when it came to snarky comebacks, she turned her attention to her eggs, thinking about how perfectly Deven had synopsized her present conundrum.
“Being with Hale is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced,” she admitted after a moment. “But it’s more than the physical part. We spent one night together and I’m already thinking about what a future with him would look like.”
“I’m happy for you. I’m even happier with the lack of details when it comes to what you and Hale got up to last night,” Deven said, his smile like a ray of sunshine. “So, what has you concerned?”
She hesitated, taking the time to spread strawberry preserves on her whole wheat toast, then nibbling on it for a moment as she tried to put her doubts into words.
“Hale is incredible,” she finally said, letting out a sigh. “Only I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do about it.”
Deven snorted as he started in on his second piece of toast. “Forgive me for being crass, but I’m pretty sure you already did what you were supposed to do about it last night in Hale’s bed.”
If she hadn’t finished her eggs already, Karissa would have thrown some at him. Instead, she threw a salty look his way. “Very funny. What I mean is how can I possibly have a relationship with a guy when I’m a Paladin?”
Her brother frowned in confusion. “I don’t see the issue here. Is there some rule that says a Paladin can’t have a committed relationship?”
“No, of course not,” she said, letting out another sigh, of exasperation this time. “But my gift has me running all over the world to save people. How do I balance my life as a Paladin with what I want to have with Hale?”
“By being open and honest with him,” Deven said simply, taking a bite of his toast and chewing thoughtfully. “Tell him everything you feel for him and ask for the same in return. I mean, it’ll add an entirely new level to the long-distance relationship thing, but if you both really want it, you can make it work. Love conquers all and everything.”
Karissa considered pointing out that love hadn’t come into the conversation yet but decided it was unnecessary. The important thing was that her brother was right. If they wanted this, it was there for the taking. They simply needed to reach out for it.
She only hoped Hale felt the same.
“Once again, I can’t help but wonder when you became this wise, but I’m glad you are,” she said,giving her brother a smile as she picked up her mug of coffee. “Thank you.”
“Happy to help. Now, don’t go and waste all my wisdom by screwing up this second chance you have with Hale, okay?”
“I won’t,” she promised, sipping her coffee. “Okay, enough about my love life. Did you discover anything about who hired Bagley?”
Deven spun around his laptop so that Karissa could see the screen and began punching keys. Karissa had to admit she was impressed by her brother’s display of nerd prowess.
“The analyst from STAT that Davina put me in contact with was dope when it came to digging up dirt on people,” he said, glancing her way. “The woman’s advice improved my intel-gathering techniques light years ahead of where I’ve been. Damn near all of it’s illegal as hell, but I guess that’s a given.”
“Wait a second,” Karissa said, confused. “Davina called you about new ways to dig up dirt on our list of suspects? How did she even know you existed?”
“I get the feeling they did a background check on you while checking out Bagley, which obviously led them to me,” Deven explained. “Davina mentioned you were interested in finding out who hired him, and since digging into people’s financial backgrounds wasn’t her thing, she put me into contact with someone at STAT who’s better at it.”
Karissa wasn’t sure what she thought of STAT knowing about her brother, not to mention contacting him directly. She didn’t think STAT was dangerous, but still… Deven was her little brother. She felt an uncontrollable urge to protect him from anything even remotely scary. And that included a covert federal agency that basically didn’t exist as far as the rest of the world knew.
Deven found what he was looking for, then showed her a plethora of screenshots of endless numbers that meant absolutely nothing to her.
“What am I looking at?” she asked. “And don’t you dare say something snarky like a laptop screen.”
Her brother stopped with his mouth halfway open, a disappointed expression on his face. “Bottom line, it’s a money trail,” he finally said. “It leads from a personal account in Glenn Patterson’s name to a corporate shell account controlled by a Swiss real estate firm that specializes in laundering money for worldwide criminal enterprises. It was a messy and convoluted path to follow, routed through a dozen banks, a dark web funding maze, and at least three different crypto accounts, each in a different country. But the end result is an account associated with Thomas Bagley—the one he uses to launder the money he makes from murdering people.”
Karissa wasn’t sure if she was surprised or disappointed. “So that’s it? Glenn hired a hit man to killhis father?” She shook her head. “I have to admit I didn’t see this coming. Not once in all the times I’ve talked to the man did I ever get a killer vibe off him. I must be losing my touch.”
Her brother didn’t say anything but simply went back to the first page of evidence and walked her through every step of the money trail. She hated to believe it, but after Deven explained everything, it seemed obvious. She was convinced, not needing to see any more. Yet she sat there and watched as Deven went through the evidence trail a third time and then a fourth, his green eyes darting back and forth across the screen.
“What is it?” she asked, having spent enough time with her brother to know when something was bothering him. “I can tell there’s something you’re not saying.”
“This stuff took a little while to dig up—don’t get me wrong—but it wasn’t that difficult to find,” Deven said with a frustrated shake of his head. “In fact, it shouldn’t have taken me talking to STAT to uncover it. Lorenzo and Dad have a dozen contacts in the FBI, CIA, and Interpol. Why didn’t they come up with this info first? We should have known about this days ago.”
Karissa didn’t have an answer for that. Her parents—and Lorenzo to a certain degree these days—took care of all the background investigations. And they were good at their jobs. She hadto believe that STAT had helped out Deven much more than he wanted to admit.
“We’ll deal with that question later,” she said. “Until then, I think it would be best if we go talk to Dominic Patterson. Maybe his son, too. Let’s see what they have to say about all of this.”
