“You forget, I remember everything.”
“No.” Nick picked up the second sandwich instead. “You remember disturbing things with disturbing accuracy. Food preferences from eight years ago fall under emotional attachment.”
Sterling stared at him. “You’re exhausting.”
“And yet, here I am, summoned to your house like a useful human.”
Juniper slid a sandwich toward Sterling. “He’s got you there.”
Sterling took it from her, his fingers brushing hers before he unwrapped the paper. “He has some redeeming qualities.”
Nick leaned toward Juniper. “That is close as he gets to affection. Don’t blink, or you’ll miss it.”
“Oh, now I get it.” She settled onto the stool beside Sterling and reached for her coffee. “You're jealous.”
“Am not,” Nick said. “I'm not sure I like this side of her. What did you do to my friend, Fox?”
“I'm allowed to haveotherattachments,” Sterling said. "And she's one I'm hoping to keep for a very long time."
"Wow. That's a statement." Nick took a very large bite of his sandwich.
It sure was, and Juniper wasn't sure what to make of it. She just hoped her hands didn't shake as she took the lid off her coffee. “I don't plan on going anywhere.”
"Good to know." Sterling smiled.
"Blech." Nick rolled his eyes. "Can we get to work please?"
"Sure." Sterling picked up a page and slid it toward Nick. “We need to talk about Koda.”
"Harlan Koda?" She pulled Mia’s report closer. His name appeared in the middle of a paragraph that had been highlighted in yellow. She’d heard the name the day before. She hadn’t paid it enough attention. Too many names had started circling Sterling at once, and Doyle had taken up most of the space with his easy grin and messy timing. “What about Koda?” she asked.
Sterling leaned back in his chair. “Doyle never mentioned him last night, and I found that odd.”
"Why?" Nick drummed his fingers on the counter. “Did you expect him to?”
“If I were looking to hire a partner, especially someone like me, someone whose knowledge I wanted to use, I'd drop his name," Sterling said. "He's the kind of guy that makes things happen in our world… in a very quiet way."
Juniper looked at the highlighted paragraph. “Koda backed Frost after the corridor collapsed, right? Helped him reorganize and restructure when he came to the states? Financed the move?”
“That's the intel we have," Sterling said.
“Koda helped reshape a lot of men like Frost after the corridor collapse. He had money, political reach, and the right kind of reputation for cleaning up ugly situations.” Nick folded his arms. "He did it in the background like no one was payingattention. It wasn't like he was making noise about it and our government didn't seem to have a problem with it."
Sterling tapped the report. “Koda sits on advisory boards, trade groups, policy councils. He gets pulled into congressional hearings when someone wants a smart man in a suit to explain why the world is complicated and to help make interesting decisions on what to do about those complications.”
“Controversial decisions that often fly under the radar,” Nick said. “He’s also arrogant as hell.”
“I won't argue that point.” Sterling shuffled a few pages around.
Juniper looked from one report to the next. Mia had arranged the pages in a way that made sense to people who liked flowcharts, spreadsheets, and things people with an engineer's mind liked. Juniper preferred lists, timelines, and notes in the margins that often only made sense to the person who made them. This level of organization made her want to stab paper with a pen.
She picked up a highlighter instead. Growth, apparently—from hanging around Sterling, Buddy, and the rest of the gang, she supposed. But especially Sterling. As was apparent by the way he kept his house, everything had a place, right down to the way the cabinets were organized with labels facing outward. It was kind of weird, but cute.
“Nothing here appears bad. Koda looks like a saint," she said.
“Exactly,” Nick said. “Good things happen around him. But spend an hour with the asshole, and you'll want to poke your eyes out or better yet, his. He's so fucking annoying and full of himself.”
Juniper underlined Koda’s name. “If he's doing something nefarious, then he's got to have leverage on people in some pretty high places."
