Her inbox chimed with an internal email from Dr. Montgomery. Claire pulled up the flowchart, started reading about neuropsychological markers and predictive behavioral modeling. It was fascinating. More sophisticated than anything she’d seen at the Bureau. Her mind soaked it up, reading and rereading. She scribbled notes. Wished she had coffee.
Her lids dipped half a dozen times. She pushed herself to stay awake and keep circling different ideas. If this worked—if she and Montgomery could identify the killer before the FBI did?—
There was a knock at her door.
Claire glanced at the clock. Ten thirty. Three hours had passed without her noticing.
“Agent Dawson? Your briefing is ready.”
A male voice. Deep, controlled. The kind of voice that came from years of command.
Claire took a breath, cleared her mind, and opened the door.
The man in the hallway stood at attention. Former military was written in every line of his posture. “Agent Dawson.” His voice was professional, carefully neutral. “I’ll show you to the conference room.”
“Are you my bodyguard?”
His lips quirked. “That would be Wolf. He’s busy at the moment, designing your security protocols and getting the team up to speed on you.”
“Wolf?” It came out in a huff, part disbelief and part confusion. “That’s his name?”
“His call sign, ma’am. We all use them.”
Call sign, right. They used codenames for themselves and probably would for her and the mission. “And you are?”
“Lynx.”
“What’s mine?”
He lifted a brow, looked slightly uncomfortable. “Ma’am?”
“You may be ex-Special Forces, but you act like Secret Service, right? You’ve already given me a call sign, haven’t you? Like JFK was Lancer. Nixon was Passkey. Carter was Rawhide. What’s mine?”
His gaze dropped to his boots. “Uh, that’s something you should discuss with Wolf.”
Her curiosity was piqued. “That bad, huh?”
He rolled his lips in as if hiding a grin and gestured down the hallway. “Dr. Montgomery is waiting in the conference room.”
Claire followed, the past stirred up in her head, and the present playing mind tricks with her.
They reached the conference room where Dr. Montgomery waited with a tablet and several files. Lynx nodded and left. Nothing personal in any of it.
“Agent Dawson,” Dr. Montgomery said. “Let’s get started.”
Claire took a seat, pulled out her laptop, and forced herself to focus. She was here to work. To hunt. To prove she wasn’t prey.
Everything else could wait.
Even the uncomfortable truth that being here made her feel something she hadn’t felt in fifteen years.
Safe.
CHAPTERTHREE
Garrett had imagined this moment a thousand times in fifteen years. None of his scenarios involved Claire failing to recognize him.
He stood outside her door, hand raised to knock, heart pounding in a way that had nothing to do with tactical operations and everything to do with the fourteen-year-old girl who’d cried at his sister’s grave.
