“You need it, you’ve got it.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“My advice? Start with Jared’s place. Then the gym where Michael was killed. Then the spot where Powell and Thacker were shot. Maybe by the time you’re done, one of them will be conscious.”
Faith bristled at the unnecessary advice. She knew how to run an investigation better than anyone else in this office, and Dale knew it. Did he trust her with this case or not? She considered calling him out on it, but then she saw the sheen in Dale’s eyes. This was personal for him.
It was personal for her too. “Yes, sir. I’ll keep you in the loop.”
Faith half jogged to her cubicle. She filled her bag with her iPad, Apple pencil, extra battery, charging cables, and voice recorder.
“I guess congratulations are in order.” Janice was anything but pleased.
What was her deal?
Faith didn’t respond while she rummaged through the side desk drawer. Where was her— There. Her fingers wrapped around a container of breath mints. She tucked them into her bag and scanned the other contents. Did she have everything she needed for the day? Who knew when she’d be back in the office.
Janice continued to hover, but Faith had no time for her junk. She lifted her laptop from the middle of her desk, looped her keys onto one finger, and turned to the door. “Gotta run.” She tossed the words over her shoulder.
“Break a leg,” Janice called after her. It sounded friendly. It wasn’t.
Faith’s phone rang thirty seconds after she pulled out of the parking lot.
Dale. Probably with more advice she didn’t need.
She answered through her car’s Bluetooth. “Malone.”
“Change of plans.” Dale didn’t give her a chance to respond or ask questions. “Go to the Secret Service office. They’ve evacuated the building.”Click.
Faith performed an illegal U-turn and sped toward the Secret Service office. She listened to the police chatter over her radio. Based on what she was hearing, it sounded like a bomb threat. It was normally a fifteen-minute drive to the Raleigh resident office of the Secret Service, what they referred to as the RAIC. She arrived in ten and had to park a quarter of a mile away. Dale pulled in behind her.
She met him at his car and waited for him to emerge. “What’s going on?”
“We’ll find out together,” he said.
“Do you know how many people are typically in their office?” Faith asked the question more to get Dale talking than out of real curiosity.
“It varies between eight and ten agents and one office manager,” Dale said. “Thad Baker hasn’t been replaced yet, so they were down to seven agents. Which means as of today, they are down to ... five. And two of them are in the hospital.”
Dale set a blistering pace, and Faith hurried to match it. Three functional agents and an office manager left? She didn’t like to draw conclusions, but who had ever heard of a resident office being decimated like this? What had they been investigating that would generate this level of violence against them? Or was itsomeone who had it out for the Secret Service, or federal agencies in general?
She and Dale reached the police tape. After a quick pause to show their identification, they were allowed inside but then were stopped at a secondary barrier.
“Can’t let you in,” the officer said. “Everyone’s out. The bomb dogs are in there.”
“Dale!” A thick Jersey accent punctured the murmuring voices around them.
“Jacob.” Dale took the man’s extended hand and pulled him into a hug. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”
The two men parted. “You and me both, brother.”
Dale pointed in Faith’s direction. “You know Faith Malone?”
“Of course.” Jacob turned to face her, and his eyes were puffy from tears.
If circumstances were anything other than what they were, she would have given him a hard time for the way his golf foursome had lost to hers and Luke’s in the last interagency golf tournament. As it was, she had absolutely no idea what to say.
“I know you and Luke have done a lot of work together. Did they tell you he’s going to be okay?”
