Zane didn’t crack a smile.
“I’ll call it in.”
TWO HOURS ANDNO DOUGHNUTS LATER,she walked into her office with Zane on one side, Gil on the other, Luke in front, Benjamin behind. They’d put her in a bubble the moment she exited the car in the parking lot, and they’d refused to listen to reason. She argued against their overprotective behavior, but when Benjamin made an unveiled threat about shoving her back in the car and returning her to the warm embrace of Detective Morris, she gave in.
Morris was apoplectic when he arrived at The Slam Dunk. If she got within ten feet of him now, he’d snatch her up and put her in protective custody. As it was, she wouldn’t want to be in her would-be assailant’s shoes today. The Raleigh police were less than thrilled to have him in custody, partly because the FBI wasinsisting on keeping their fingers in the pie. The Raleigh PD, FBI, Secret Service, CCBI, and other law enforcement/forensic entities in the city got along reasonably well. But no one loved having representatives from another agency on their turf.
Greg stood at the security desk, hands on his hips and his expression set to “don’t mess with me today.”
“Greg, if I should feel compelled to run screaming from the building, would you attempt to stop me?” Tessa asked in lieu of a greeting.
“No, ma’am.” He pointed at her entourage. “But I wouldn’t stop them from coming after you either.”
“You’re no help.” She waved and tried to smile enough so he would know there were no hard feelings.
His response was a curt nod to her and extended eye contact with Zane. If she’d had any doubt, it was gone. Any escape attempts on her part, and Greg would rat her out to Zane in a heartbeat.
Not that she planned to escape. She wasn’t an idiot. And as she’d told Zane, she didn’t have a death wish. She liked her head on her shoulders where it belonged. She also had an intense desire to remain hole-free for the duration of her career and beyond.
But whoever was behind these attacks was either an evil genius or a few crumbs short of a biscuit. The people coming after her were doing such a bad job of it, she was almost embarrassed for them.
Her protective bubble popped when they reached their cubicles, and everyone separated to go to their own desks.
Zane paused at her cubicle, and she dropped her bag into the bottom desk drawer, then turned to face him.
He took a small step back. “You’re mad.”
“You’re just now figuring that out? I may need to downgrade my estimation of your intelligence.”
“Burn!” The word came from the other side of her wall, and tense but real laughter floated through the room on its heels.
“We love you, Tessa,” Gil called out in a singsong voice that could have come from one of the elementary-aged ballplayers he coached.
“We do,” Luke agreed.
She couldn’t stay mad at them. But that didn’t mean she could give in too easily. She crossed her arms and leaned back against her desk. “What? Nothing from Benjamin?”
Benjamin came around the side of the cubicle, and one look at him sent a chill straight to her bones. “What happened?” she asked.
Benjamin swallowed. “He’s dead.”
“Who?”
“The assailant from this morning.”
Before Tessa could wrap her mind around the news, her phone rang. She let it go to voice mail, but when the ringing stopped, it began almost immediately in Gil’s cubicle. He ignored it. But then Luke’s phone rang. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
“Powell.” Luke’s voice carried through the walls. A pause, then, “You cannot be serious. Does he have a death wish?” Another pause. “Yeah. I’ll tell her. Hang tight.”
Luke joined Benjamin outside her cubicle, Gil hot on his heels. Luke pointed down the hall. “Care to guess who’s here wanting to talk to you about the incident this morning and the dead assailant?”
Tessa dropped her chin to her neck. “Littlefield.”
“The one and only.” Luke rubbed his chin.
“How could he possibly know about the guy being dead? We found out five seconds ago!” Gil had a baseball in his hands and tossed it to Luke.
Luke tossed it back. “I say we let Jacob deal with him.”
