Chris just smiled, not surprised in the least that the man knew his daily schedule. “Just make sure we’re in the clear on this.” He pushed himself from the bench. “Oh, and there’s one more thing.”
“There usually is.”
“He’ll be OCOTUS for the next few days,” he revealed.
“Out of the country, eh?” Billy unwrapped a piece of gum before folding it into his mouth. “Tell your boss I said safe travels.”
“He wants the Reynolds woman handled before he gets back. Take her, but don’t kill her. And if I were you, I’d do it sooner rather than later.”
“So what? Now I’m a babysitter?”
Chris shot Billy a glare from behind his polarized lenses. “You’re whatever he wants you to be.”
Billy responded to the warning look with a tilt of his head and a smile. “So are you, you know?”
“Just let me know when you’ve got her,” Chris growled.
Message delivered, he turned his back on the killer and walked away. Less than thirty minutes later, he was in the secured, underground parking garage the public didn’t know existed.
Chris got out of his car, retrieving his equipment from the vehicle’s back seat. Once his utility belt had been fastened securely in place, he leaned in and grabbed his vest. The heavy, protective gear slid over his head with ease, its hidden ceramic plate designed to shield his vital organs.
With the vest in place and its straps secured, Chris locked his car and started for the elevators a few yards away. Across his back were bold, reflective white letters.
United States Secret Service.
CHAPTER NINE
“What do we know?” Emmett asked from the front of Echo’s conference room.
Janie appeared stiff and tense as she sat in a chair not far from where he stood. Her expression was an equal mixture of both anger and grief. His chest grew tight, and he wished like hell there was something he could say or do to take away her pain.
There is something you can do. You can find Amy Weaver’s killer.
“The cops are keeping a tight lid on this one.” Gwen was the first one to speak. “I called around on my way here. Tried reaching the lead detective…his name was Boone, right? Anyway he wasn’t available, and no one else would give me the time of day.”
“Maybe you need to do a better job at turning on the charm,” Draven teased.
The spunky blonde sent their teammate a sugary sweet grin. “You wanna give it a shot? Be my guest.”
When Draven opened his mouth to respond, Blake cut the other man off at the pass.
“Won’t do any good.” The tech analyst used Gwen’s last name. “We’re the new kids in town. The Feds aren’t going to talk to us without some powerful backing.”
Lucas sat back in his chair. “Can’t say I blame them, given the victim was a White House employee.”
“Only she wasn’t.” Janie turned Lucas’ way. “Not according to the updated list, anyway.”
Gwen waved the discrepancy away. “They can easily spin that to fit their narrative,” Gwen pointed out. “They’ll probably say it was a typo or that Amy unexpectedly quit.”
Emmett nodded, bringing his hands to a rest low on his hips. “She’s right. I mean, we both heard what they said on the news earlier. They’ve already figured out that Amy was an intern with the press office, so denying it now would only fuel the media’s suspicion. But if they get out in front of this thing, which it appears they already have, the White House will brush it off as a harmless error on some low-level lacky’s side.”
“And the public will buy it, of course,” Blake predicted. “That and the suicide angle. Especially when the press gets ahold of what I just found.” After a pause, he shared with the room, “The autopsy is being conducted as we speak, so we’ll have to wait for those results until later in the day, but someone with the login number four zero eight one two uploaded Amy Weaver’s medical records into the medical examiner’s office mainframe thirty-six minutes ago, using an external file.”
“External?” Janie’s brows dipped inward. “You meanlike it came from her primary doctor’s office or something?”
Blake shook his head. “This one originated from a private server.”
“Private?” Emmett frowned as Gwen chimed back in.
