“But—”
“I don’t want anything tying our businesses together. It’s in your best interest.”
And mine.
17
“I KNOW IT’S ALREADY BEENa long day and it isn’t even three o’clock, but we need to look at all the outstanding threats against the president.” Tessa had gathered the team in the conference room. She acknowledged the tight expressions on their faces and added, “And the threats against me. We have three days until he arrives, and I don’t want to risk anything falling through the cracks while we’re sorting out the chaos. So let’s start with the smaller cases.”
She turned to Gil. “What happened with the threat to blow up the Beast?” The Beast was the name the Secret Service used for the presidential limo. Blowing up the Beast wasn’t necessarily impossible, but almost.
Gil pulled a file from the stack he had in front of him. “Handled. They were kids. Dumb. One of them almost vomited when I showed them my badge. They had no clue that all threats against the president are taken seriously. I think they assumed we’d know it wasn’t real. They have almost no resources. They couldn’t pull off an attack on a parade float, much less plan and execute an attack against the Beast.” He set the file to the side.
“Wow. Open and shut. A miracle.” Tessa worked through the rest of the smaller threats, all of which had been addressedsatisfactorily. Carver and Rodriguez returned as she pulled out the Craig Brown file.
“Heard you had an interesting day.” Rodriguez scanned her from head to toe, then repeated the trip in reverse.
“Rodriguez.” Her voice snapped like a whip.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Was he trying to purr? It made him sound demented.
“I’m sharing this with you because it’s clear no one has ever taken the time to educate you properly when it comes to how you should look at your fellow agents. That look”—she pointed at him—“is the way agents like you wind up unable to father children.”
Carver nearly choked on the water he’d been swigging.
“Keep your eyes on my face. If you don’t, I can’t promise I won’t put these boots to good use for the second time today. Are we clear?”
Rodriguez blinked at her a few times before he recovered. “We’re clear.”
“Great.” She opened the file. “Craig Brown.”
It seemed her handling of Rodriguez had struck all six men mute. They stared at her with expressions that ranged from glee to fury. “Does anyone have an update on Craig Brown?”
Zane snapped out of it first. “I had a message earlier from the Carrington County Sheriff’s Office. They confirmed that it was him in Charlotte. He was with several others, and they spent hours at the expo but made no purchases. There’s also been an uptick in activity at his home. At least three cars parked overnight. Three, maybe five people staying in the house. That’s all they have for us.”
“Do we have photos of these people?”
“Not yet, but they’re working on it.”
Tessa made a note to follow up on the photos tomorrow. “Do we have anything else?”
Carver spoke up. “Nothing on our end. We talked to the localagencies today. None of them had anything actionable. We’ve made them aware of the threat.”
“I’d love to take care of it before POTUS sets foot in North Carolina,” Tessa said.
“Wish it worked that way, but it rarely does.” Carver gave her a sympathetic shrug. “And given the way your luck’s been going this week, I don’t hold out much hope myself.”
“Don’t hold back, Carver.” Benjamin shot him a death glare.
Carver raised his hands in a gesture of innocence. “Agent Reed has made it clear that she neither needs nor wants anyone to take it easy on her. We have a job to do. We’re doing it. I’m calling it the way I see it. I never believed the scuttlebutt about this office being jinxed, but I’m starting to see the validity of the argument.”
“I wish I could refute your assertion,” Tessa said. “But we don’t do calm and sedate around here.”
“Clearly. I just want to get out of here alive.” Carver knocked on the wooden table for luck.
“No one has you in their sights,” Gil told Carver, then pointed at Tessa. “But we can’t say the same for you.”
