"I want to keep going through these files, unless you need me."
"No, I've got it." He paused, looking like he wanted to say more.
"What?" She gave him a searching look.
"What's the situation with Malone?"
"What do you mean?"
"He was with you last night when I gave you the location of the safe house."
Her eyes widened as she realized what he was suggesting. "Max didn't leak the information."
"Are you sure? He drove you and Whitney to the building, right?"
"Why would he leak the address?"
"Because he's working for Dominic Ashford," Tyler said with irritation in his voice. "He has a conflict of interest."
"There's no conflict. Max is trying to find out what happened, same as us. And I don't believe Ashford is involved in the explosions."
"You don't know that for sure. Ashford could be responsible for everything that's happening. He worked with Cooper, and he was dating Samantha. He's the link between those two. And Max is his protector. Haven't you considered the fact that staying close to you keeps him in the loop on information that he can then feed to his boss?"
She didn't like his tone or his question. "You need to back down, Tyler. I know what I'm doing. And you have reasons for disliking Max that have nothing to do with this case. If you want to share what those actually are, maybe I'll be more interested in listening to your opinion."
Tyler's jaw tightened. "I can't tell you. But I know he doesn't always stay on the right side of the line. You're going to have to trust me on that."
"And you're going to have to trust me not to make poor decisions."
As the air grew heavy between them, Alina came over. "Everything okay here?" she asked, making Kara aware that several people in the room had stopped what they were doing to listen to their discussion.
"It's fine," she said, sending Tyler a pointed gaze that he should think twice about contradicting her.
"Fine," he echoed. "I gotta go."
As Tyler walked away, Alina turned to her. "What's going on between you and Tyler?"
"We're just getting to know each other," she said. "There's no problem."
"Tyler can be a hothead, but he's a smart guy. If he's worried about something, you should listen."
"I always listen, but his concerns are not valid."
"Are you talking about Malone?"
"They have a history, Alina. Neither one wants to tell me exactly what that history is, but something happened in the Middle East, when Malone was CIA and Tyler was Delta. None of that is pertinent to now." She took a breath. "And I don't like being second-guessed or accused of letting someone use me for information."
"I'm sure Tyler didn't mean it like that."
"I hope not. But none of us know each other well. We're going to have to give each other leeway, find a rhythm. I'm sure we can do that, but right now I'm only concerned with this case."
Alina nodded. "Me, too, so I'll get back to it."
As Alina walked back to her desk on the other side of the room, Kara let out a breath. She didn't need to get into fights with her team, not when they were in the middle of a case. But she also didn't need a fellow agent questioning her decision-making. She knew what she was doing, and she felt like she knew Max better than she knew Tyler. With what had happened at the safe house, the only person she was going to trust was herself and her own gut instincts. Those instincts told her that Max was genuine in his desire to help.
Despite that affirmation, she couldn't ignore the tiny seed of doubt that Tyler had planted. Ashford was a link between Cooper and Samantha, and Max did work for him. But she could see no reason why Dominic Ashford would want to kill anyone or blow up two buildings.
She needed to find another connection, something that would lead them to the bomber.
