Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
CHAPTER 21
Cole
The FBI meeting runs long because Special Agent in Charge, Dennis Hara, is thorough without regard for anyone else’s schedule. I sit across from him in a conference room on the fourth floor of the federal building and walk him through everything—the financial trails, the shell corporations, the damning emails between executives, the Pelham–DelRey family connection, the SAPG link, and Vega identified among the breach team. He listens and asks precise questions, writing notes in a leather notebook. He takes it all very seriously, which is exactly what I was expecting.
“When can I get this actual evidence that you proclaim to have?” he asks, closing the notebook and pushing it to the side. “These are very serious allegations.”
“Soon,” I say.
“How soon?” he pushes.
“Not until Tessa publishes the article.”
“Why not now?” he asks, but I can see he already knows the answer.
Still, I indulge him. “You and I both know the minute I hand this stuff over, you’re going to kill the article so it doesn’t hamper your investigation. She’ll provide it as soon as the article goes live.”
Hara crosses his arms on the desk, leans forward with a no-nonsense look on his well-lined face. “This could be considered obstruction of justice, failing to provide this information.”
I mimic his actions, leaning in. “Dennis… we both know how this game is played and we’re doing you a solid by presenting the knowledge we have right now. Nothing is stopping you from moving forward and starting your own investigation. I know you’d like for me to make your job easier, but you’re going to have to have a little patience.”
He sighs and leans back, tapping his fingers on the table. “Fine. Can you give me an approximation when I’ll have your evidence in my grubby little hands?”
I can’t help but chuckle. “The article is with her editor and if it passes their legal review, I imagine it will go to print very soon. A few days at most.”
He has no choice but to accept that and by the time we shake hands in the lobby, it’s four twelve. The drive back to Pioneer Square takes the usual thirty minutes because of the start of rush hour and I replay the Hara meeting in my head, noting what he responded to, what made him curious and wondering how long before federal wheels will start turning in a meaningful way.
I enter the lobby of Jameson from a back corridor connected to the garage. Josie looks up from the communal table where she normally sits with Tessa.
“How’d it go?” she asks.
“Productive,” I say, scanning the table filled where Tessa normally works. “Where is she?”
Josie glances at the empty chair across from her. “She was here when we went into the two o’clock meeting, gone when we came out.” She shrugs mildly. “Assume she’s upstairs.”
That makes sense. She’s been working in the lobby for the most part but maybe she just wanted some quiet. Maybe a nap, and it wouldn’t be horrible to find her in bed where I would decidedly join her.
“Catch you later,” I say as I turn for the stairs, but Josie’s already forgotten me.
The quiet of the apartment hits me as soon as I enter. Not the type of quiet that says she’s napping in the bedroom but rather an ominous stillness that tells me without a doubt that she’s not here. I move through the living area, checking the kitchen, the bedroom, the guest room.
As my gut told me, empty. All of it.
It doesn’t worry me, though. Plenty of other places she could be, as she has free range of the building, except for the command center down in the sub-basement.
The communal kitchen is empty and Reid’s the only person in the gym, hard at work on the rowing machine, although he tells me he hasn’t seen Tessa in a while. The training bay is dark, not that Tessa would be in there, but I’m looking for anyone who might know where she is.
I stand at the bottom of the stairwell and feel the first cold edge of anxiety settle into my chest.
I can’t find her.
I take the stairs down to the main level, two at a time, heading straight for Malik’s office. I push the door open without knocking, which tells him everything he needs to know before I say a word. He’s on his feet before I’ve fully crossed the threshold.
“Tessa,” I say. “I can’t find her anywhere in the building.”
Malik is moving before I finish the sentence, stepping out of his office and snapping his fingers twice in Josie’s direction. She’s up immediately, snagging her tablet off the desk without breaking stride, falling in behind him without question or reserve.
Reid materializes from the stairwell, and Malik points at him. “You. With us… now.”
We move to the secured elevator at the end of the north corridor—a brushed steel door set flush into the wall with no visible means to enter other than a sleek, obsidian rectangle to the right. Malik raises his hand to the biometric panel that reads palm geometry rather than fingerprint and it pulses once with a cool blue light as it scans, then shifts to white.