“Hey, you’re not going anywhere tonight,” Emory called after him. “You’ve had too much.”
Jack stopped halfway to the door and turned over his shoulder.
“I’ll stay,” he said but was looking at Mirabelle. “Night, y’all.”
An anguished smile flashed across his lips but disappeared, and so did Jack down the hall. The sound of his boots grew faintuntil that faded too. Mirabelle stood and wrapped her arms around Emory’s middle, her body still trembling.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Emory said. “Ivan’s fucked up, but only human. A bullet to the head will end him just fine. Then we can finally move on.”
“I hope you’re right.” Mirabelle’s voice fractured with fatigue and dread in equal measure, and she extracted herself from Emory to fetch Amelia.
After she left, Emory shut the door and waited until the house fell silent. In a halo of lamplight, he sat at his desk and opened his laptop. A search of Cal Havick brought up his official portrait seated in front of the American flag in a pressed suit. He didn’t smile but stared into the camera, cocksure and determined.
Emory scrolled the call history on his phone. He knew better than to save the number in his contacts and held his breath as the call connected.
A man answered, his voice groggy with interrupted sleep. “Agent Bright.”
“It’s Emory. I’m cashing in.”
Sheets rustled on the other end of the line. A beat later, Kingsley Bright replied, “I can’t help you.”
Charity didn’t exist in Emory’s line of work, and he didn’t offer his services for free. He’d helped Bright once and accepted as payment a favor in return at a time of his choosing. Bright had either forgotten or grievously misjudged Emory’s bookkeeping.
“And here I pegged you as a man who keeps his word,” Emory said and clicked onto Cal’s personal Instagram page.
The last post—a family picture taken at Amelia’s graduation—was almost two months old. In it, Cal beamed with pride next to his daughter. She was as gorgeous as ever in a cap and gown, but Emory saw clearly the heartbreak in her eyes. It seemed unconscionable that Cal hadn’t seen it too.
When Bright refused a rebuttal, Emory continued, “I know you have your claws in Cal Havick.”
“What makes you think that?”
Emory expelled a husky laugh. Bright’s offended incredulitynever failed to amuse him. The man should’ve known the depths of Emory’s connections. His reach had only expanded since they last spoke. Along the West Coast, it wove through the corrupted core of law and order, all those sacred institutions men like Kingsley exalted.
“Intuition,” Emory said.
A door creaked on the other end of the line. When he spoke again, Bright’s voice echoed, still tetchy but no longer hushed.
“His daughter, Amelia, is missing.”
“My condolences,” Emory said with no sympathy to spare.
“I’m trying to help him.”
“Don’t.”
“Emory, whatever this is, whatever you’re doing, it’s not going to end well for you.”
Emory’s desk chair groaned as he leaned forward and rested one forearm on his knee. His temper flared with Bright’s warning. He wouldn’t take kindly to threats.
“I could say the same about your predecessor. Kranski.”
Bright released a heavy breath then snapped, “What do you want?”
“I need you to keep an eye on Cal. Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”
“Like what?”
Emory scoffed at the question. Cal’s stubborn ambition had eclipsed better judgment. He wasn’t rash, just obstinate, and Bright would do well to cull those tendencies in his new friend.
