“Okay, sorry.” Todd rubbed his forehead. “What do you need?” He made notes on his phone, eyes widening as Jason gave him all the details on Warner, Viktor, Kerry’s apparent suicide, and the underage girls. “Jesus. That’s…”
“I know.” Jason was still processing the implications on multiple levels. “Tell Valerie to be careful with this one. Somebody’s not fooling around.”
“We’re still on contract with Warner’s guys for this trip.” Todd and the rest of the team were providing surveillance on other suspects, though maybe that was simply a cover for spying on Viktor. “How do you want to handle it?”
Good question. Jason clasped his hands on his head and looked up at the textured ceiling. “Fuck if I know.” Sometimes being the boss sucked. “I was planning to call Byron, see if I can gauge his level of involvement.”
“With procuring girls, or with the murders?” Todd watched him carefully, something that looked an awful lot like pity on his face.
“All of it.”
His friend frowned. “You’d be confirming that you’re aware of Warner’s activities, and putting Emma and her colleagues in even more danger. Even if he’s not directly behind the attacks, his communications might be compromised, and you’d be admitting you were at the scene of another crime.” Todd leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs, his face haggard. “If he wasn’t your brother, what would you do?”
Jason scoffed. “I don’t know.” His gut twisted. “If Byronisinvolved, he already knows I’m working against him. If he’s not…he won’t expect a call until morning check-in because I reported in after Viktor’s shooting yesterday.”
“Do you think they knew Emma was involvedbeforeshe showed up?”
“If they did, why didn’t they target her at the same time?” The thought made Jason ill, and he glanced at the bedroom door. “Why wait to attack until she was at the condo? To get them both at the same time?”
Jason wanted to pound his head against the wall. “I don’t even know.” He rolled his shoulders, trying to release the kinks. “But it makes sense that whoever infected the memory card—which Viktor would’ve had to know about, right?—wanted to follow Emma, not kill her. Unless the tracker was a backup in case they missed her at the monument.”
“Which they did, thank God, even though you seemed to think theycouldhave done it there if they’d wanted,” Todd said. “But there’s a good chance the virus would replicate if she connected to FPP’s servers.”
“Leading these guys to the group she’s working for. And making it safe to take her out at the condo if she plugged in the drive there, or later when they were looking for us at the park.” Jason shuddered. He’d gone into the strange calm of combat mode at the park, but now that they were temporarily safe, he was losing his cool over the thought of something happening to Emma.
“Right. Or grab her for interrogation. Who knows?” Todd shook his head. “Jesus, this is fucked up.” He cracked open a bottle of sparkling water that sat on the desk and took a long drink, holding out the bottle.
“Maybe Emma has some answers.” Todd waved the bottle around. “But,” he said slowly, as if working things through while he talked, “the other thing I don’t get is, if Warner knew about her and had a plan to deal with her, and he already had someone in place to take Viktor out, why even have you follow him? Especially if Byron knew your history with Emma.”
“We only dated for a few months. My family knew about her, but we weren’t together long enough for them to meet her. Even if Byron knew her name back then, I doubt he’d remember it now.”
“Okay. But still, why have you follow Viktor?”
The boulder on Jason’s rib cage suddenly weighed a thousand pounds. “So the killer would know where to find him.”
“No.” Todd shook his head sharply. “If Viktor was in cahoots with Warner, he’d either have told him where he was meeting Emma, or they’d have tracked his phone or something.”
Jason desperately wanted him to be right.
“I think they had you following him to make it look like they weren’t involved with what went down. Like they were clueless.”
Actually, maybe that was just as bad, because it meant Byronwasn’tclueless. But really, wasn’t that where Jason’s brain had been trying to go for a while now? As much as he didn’t want his brother to be involved, it didn’t make sense that Byron—the man’s lieutenant—was out of the loop on his own boss’s actions.
Fuuuuck.
But… “If they wanted to plant the SD card on whoever Viktor was meeting, why kill him before the transfer? And if the guy who was going through his pockets was in on it, why try to retrieve the card after killing him? Unless he thought the killer jumped the gun and wanted to determine if Viktor still had it.”
Todd absently scratched at the stubble on his chin. “Maybe he really was just an opportunist.”
“Maybe.” Jason rubbed his eyes and sighed, trying like hell to ignore the growing ache in his thigh. “I’ve been up for like twenty hours straight. I’m not operating at full capacity.”
“Not only that, you’ve spent the last eight hours looking over your shoulder. All things considered, I think you’re doing all right,” Todd said, standing. “Why don’t you and Emma stay here for what’s left of the night? It should be safe.” He stuck his hands in his front pockets. “I’ll handle the morning meeting, tell Byron you came down with something. That way, if he’s in on it, he’ll assume you’re in hiding, and if not, he’ll just think you have the stomach flu. Call me when you get up and we’ll regroup then. Meanwhile, I’ll sic Valerie on Warner and everyone connected to him.”
Jason glanced at his watch and did the math, subtracting nine hours for LA and then adding back three for Virginia. “It’s nine o’clock there. This can wait until tomorrow.”
“You sure?”
Jason nodded, his energy flagging hard. “Let her rest.”
