9
The direction the evening had taken left Dev jumpy and jittery. Kinsley’s phone call caused him to clench his jaw. Hard. Tight. The muscles constricted, a headache forming, and he wanted to race out the door and get this Huff guy under surveillance.
Let it go. You have to handle this the right way.
He couldn’t afford to fly off the handle and make a mistake. No way. Mistakes cost lives. Maybe the life of someone he cared about deeply. That meant not managing his search for Kinsley’s suspects alone. Why would he go it alone when he had a highly skilled team on his side who would do everything within their power to come up with the best plan to keep her alive?
He’d immediately called his teammates together for a meeting with Kinsley and Jada around the dining table in his cabin. Dev had laid the binder, Huff’s section face up, on the table in front of him. He ripped the pages out. It was either do that or punch a fist into something, letting his team know that he was overly distressed by the situation.
He’d reviewed Huff’s file copious times while waiting for everyone to get there, but now he stared at the first page of his report. A picture of the menacing-looking man glared out from the paper. He was all muscle, strapping and tall, and his shaved head gleamed in the sunlight as he stood in front of a concrete block wall and scaffolding. His face held a grimace, and his expression said he was eager to take his frustrations out on the first person who slighted him, or at least whoever he felt slighted by.
Not the kind of guy Dev wanted threatening Kinsley. Not at all.
Dev forced himself to share Huff’s details. “The guy was only forty-two years old when he went away. He’d risen up in the world of commercial construction. Surprisingly he had a solid reputation and was raking in the money.”
Kinsley gripped the edge of the table, her fingers losing color. “Until the whistleblower brought all of that crashing down on him.”
“What happened?” Reid asked.
“Huff’s foreman had worked with him for years,” Kinsley said. “But Huff got sloppier as time went on. The foreman couldn’t let Huff get away with the egregious code violations anymore. He revealed dangerous construction shortcuts Huff had taken before the buildings were complete and tenants were hurt.”
“But what about construction safeguards?” Russ asked. “Huff would’ve had to pass county building inspections, right?”
“Right.” Kinsley’s eyes darkened. “But he was blackmailing an inspector—guy named Arnold Wacker. Huff caught Wacker at a party forcing himself on an underage girl. At least Huff had enough decency to break it up and save the girl, but not before taking pictures.”
“So let me guess.” Ryan pinched his eyebrows together. “Wacker wanted to keep his secret from being revealed, so he rubberstamped all of Huff’s work.”
“Exactly,” Kinsley said. “Lucky for him, he cut a deal to testify against Huff to avoid jail time.”
“Didn’t Huff threaten Wacker too?” Dev asked.
Kinsley nodded. “Huff tossed out threats at the trial to anyone who was within his hearing distance.”
“So if he’s our shooter, he could be going after Wacker too,” Colin said. “We should contact the guy to see if he’s heard from Huff or had anything unusual happen since he was released.”
“We’ll do that before questioning Huff.” Dev tried hard not to sound angry.
“Are you sure you want to talk to him?” Reid asked. “If he’s not our guy, you could set him off, and he might follow through on his threats. Then we’ll have two people trying to harm Kinsley.”
Dev had to admit when it came to Kinsley, he might not be thinking straight, and he should listen to his boss, whose years in the FBI had taught him how to run an investigation. “What do you suggest?”
“We get eyes on him and tail him to see what he’s up to. If we find proof that he’s trying to harm Kinsley, then we go in. If not, we remain hands off.”
Micha tapped his sidearm. “And maybe while we have him under observation, we can see if he has any weapons. And before you tell me possessing a weapon is a violation of his parole or supervisory release, if he’s out to exact vengeance, he won’t care about that.”
As the team’s weapons expert and the guy who served with Russ in the military as a weapons tech before moving into military investigations, Dev wasn’t surprised that this would be the area where Micha would offer to help.
“I agree with Micha,” Dev said. “I think it’s top priority that we find out if he has weapons and what kind so we can protect ourselves against them.”
“Not me.” Russ rested his elbows on the back of his chair and steepled his fingers. “I’m inclined to agree with Reid. We hang back for now. I’ll look into the man. See if I can learn anything about him and his prison associates.”
“Prison associates?” Dev asked. “His parole will prohibit him from hanging out with felons, too, so how will they help?”
“Just like living at their release address isn’t always followed, neither is this.” Russ wiggled his fingers. “Who knows? I might find someone else he’s hanging around with who could be involved in trying to harm Kinsley.”
“I don’t know about any friends,” she said. “Back in the day, he was a real loner except for Spencer Caldwell. He was Huff’s right-hand man.”
“Did he go to prison too?” Dev asked.
