“Really?”Charlie laughed.“How does that happen?”
“That’s what they’re tryin’ to figure out,” Reese told her.
“You two workin’ it?”She pointed between Atticus and Slade.
“We are,” Atticus grumbled.
Charlie’s laughter was enough to make Brantley grin.While he sympathized with Atticus, this case couldn’t have come at a better time.It gave them something to focus on.Something that wasn’t mission-critical since they had important things to tend to at the moment.
“I need everyone down here.Including you, Holly,” Brantley said, directing his voice toward the loft.
“Coming!”she called back.
A moment later, she rushed down the stairs carrying an armful of notepads and some pens.
“I know it’s the digital age,” she said as she dumped her loot on one of the desks.“But personally, I like to jot things down.”
“I thought maybe we could record this,” Simon said, stepping up beside Brantley.“Unless you’ve got a problem with it.”
Brantley looked at Reese.“You cool with that?”
Reese’s response was a curt nod.
“We’re working on this together, remember?”Simon stated.
“We are?”Evan asked.
“Who’swe?”Becs questioned.
Brantley addressed the team.“Archer has officially accepted the offer and will be joining the task force immediately.Simon will be working alongside us on the case we’re about to discuss.”Brantley glanced at Simon briefly.“Meaning he’ll likely be here with us assisting while doing what he does.”
“So you’ll be recording us?”Elana asked.
“It’s part of the process, but I promise, you’ll have first listen of everything I do.”
That made Brantley feel slightly better.
“Will some of it make it into the podcast?”Becs questioned.
“More than likely,” Simon told her before looking at Brantley.“But again, you’ll have first listen.”
Brantley didn’t know what it meant for the recording to make it into the podcast, nor did he care for a lesson on it.Not right now, anyway.
“If everyone could settle, we can get started,” Brantley told the team.
Once everyone was sitting, Brantley gestured to Baz.
“Let’s start by going through the data we collected when we were looking for—”
His sentence was cut off when the door opened.
Ryan Trexler, a.k.a.RT, walked in.“Sorry we’re late.We had to wait for someone.”
Z came in behind him.
Brantley was about to ask who they were referring to, but then Z stepped aside, and Decker Bromwell stepped forward.
It took effort, but Brantley managed to avoid grinding his molars to dust as he kept his mouth closed.He had a few things he wanted to say to the man who’d clearly been keeping things from them.But now was not the time or place.Had he not been privy to the information Reese uncovered—the fact Decker went to the same high school as Kylie—he would’ve wondered why the man bothered to show up now.He only hoped the guy had something to contribute other than excuses.
