Chapter 22 – Sebastian
SEBASTIAN
Normally, the clacking of keyboards was a familiar, comforting sound, but this morning, each tap of the keys carried a tension that settled over the room like a stifling, itchy wool blanket.
After Evie and Danny left, the room had sprung into action.
Liam pulled another laptop out of his bag and handed it to Maya, who opened it quickly.
Their movements spoke of years of familiarity as they settled in side by side to watch traffic camera footage.
Alexander and Adrian stood against the wall, quietly discussing security before Alexander left to call Sanders.
Marcus followed him. We weren’t sure who had attacked Grace.
Was it an isolated incident, or a targeted attack?
When Izzy informed us that it wasn’t uncommon for my Evie to go on those missions, my heart dropped into my stomach.
I knew in theory that the work she did was dangerous.
The people they took down did not like their secrets being exposed, and I wasn’t na?ve enough to think the Archers hadn’t accumulated enemies.
But I hadn’t realized how often she had put herself in situations like this, often after working a full day with us.
That had to change. It was going to change.
I would never ask her to stop running the Archers.
The work they did was critical and life-changing for the people they rescued.
I wanted to help her expand the organization, and I wanted us to help her.
No more doing this by herself. Not when she had me; not when she had us.
It was going to take time to convince her of that, though.
I had seen her face when she realized what had happened.
I had obsessed over her for years, and I would bet all the money in the world that she felt guilty she hadn’t been there when Grace had been shot.
Or even worse, that she had been enjoying her night with Adrian and Marcus when it happened.
It had been out of her control, but my Evie didn’t think like that.
She believed the weight of the Archers rested on her perfect shoulders.
But she was going to learn that I had a perfectly broad set of shoulders that could carry some of the weight.
And if she thought she was going to pull away from us after this, I was going to stick to her like a barnacle to her very lovely ass.
Izzy’s phone rang, and she left the room just as Marcus entered, rolling two whiteboards in front of him. I arched an eyebrow at him, and he flushed.
“She likes whiteboards,” he mumbled as he positioned them at the end of the table.
I grinned but didn’t say anything. He had finally gotten his head out of his ass around her, and I wasn’t going to discourage her getting loved and worshipped like she deserved. Even if it was with a whiteboard.
“Are you looking into Donald Jefferson?” Maya lifted their head from their computer and looked over at me. Their purple hair was pulled back into two low pigtails.
“Yes,” I said. “Any starting points you would recommend?”
Maya tapped on their computer. “I just sent you the file we had on him. Typical rich-boy case. He and his friends were drugging girls at parties and filming them. Danny’s team gave them a warning, then they were put under observation.”
“Typical rich prick behavior?” I seethed. Seriously, how hard was it to be a good human being?
They nodded. “If I had to start somewhere, I would trace where they got the drugs. We haven’t been able to track that down yet.”
I nodded, impressed by their suggestion.
I hadn’t been around Maya very much, but from what I’d observed, they were really good at putting things together and seeing things no one else thought of, kind of like my Evie.
I wondered how much Evie had taught them or if that was why Evie recruited them. A question for later.
“I’ll get started on that.”
They nodded and leaned over to murmur something to Liam, pointing out something on his screen. He mumbled back, and they got back to their own screen. Maya got along with Liam really well, but it seemed like a sibling relationship, not like Danny and Grace’s relationship.
Focusing on my work, I reinforced the laptop’s security and set up a locked-down connection to the printer in the corner.
Marcus was right. Evie was a visual person, which was why she liked whiteboards.
I could get some things printed and ready for her to review when she got back from visiting Grace.
Izzy opened the door and poked her head through. “Are you ready?” she asked Alexander.
Alexander nodded and slipped his phone into his pocket.
“Adrian and I finished arranging security. We’ll have one team on her floor and one team outside the hospital.
I’ve arranged with Mr. Lawrence to move her to a private floor as soon as she’s out of recovery,” he told us.
“Izzy is going to sit with Danny while we fill Evelyn in on everything.”
It would be good for Evie to know what was happening. Less chance of her spiraling or rushing off to handle this herself. Plus, Alexander had this magical ability to make you believe it was all going to be okay. Part of his big brother charm, I suppose. He and Izzy left the room.
“Can I borrow one of these whiteboards?” Maya asked Marcus. “I want to make a list of suspicious vehicles we need to follow up on.”
Marcus tossed them a marker, and Maya pulled one of the whiteboards over to their side of the table. Liam started rattling off vehicle makes, models, and license plates. Maya scribbled out each one to build a list.
“If you have an extra computer,” Adrian said, “I can log in to the SDS database and start running some of those.” He indicated the list.
Liam pulled another laptop out of his bag and slid it over to Adrian.
“Seriously, man, how many laptops do you travel with?” I joked.
“Four,” Liam said, his eyes flashing to mine with a quick grin.
I laughed. “I’m impressed. I usually only carry two.”
“If I could, I would carry six, but Evelyn’s always on me about my backpack being too heavy for my shoulders and fucking up my back, so I’m limited to four.”
“Plus, there was that incident—” Maya started.
Liam dramatically hushed them, waving his hands in the air. “No! No! We agreed not to talk about that.”
“I never agreed to anything.” Maya smirked. They looked over at me. “I’ll tell you later.”
“I will hack your alarm clock,” Liam threatened.
“I’ll tell Izzy about the…thing,” Maya threatened back, and Liam slammed his lips shut. He grumbled, focusing on his computer but glaring at Maya out of the corner of his eye.
Maya smiled smugly and turned back to their own computer, content to have won that round. Definitely a sibling relationship.
The printer hummed as I sent a photo of the skeevy little twatapotomas to the printer. Donald Jefferson had been spending too much time in the tanning booth, it seemed. With his orange tan, pale blonde hair, and smarmy smile, he looked like a walking red flag wrapped in a trust fund.
Marcus grabbed the picture from the printer and grimaced. “This him?” He waved the photo at me, and I nodded.
He taped it to the top of the whiteboard and wrote Donald’s full name in block letters underneath it.
I hunted the internet for photos of his family.
Always good to know where the bad guys come from.
Maybe one of his family members was supplying the drugs?
I had just found a family picture on one of his social media pages when the door clicked open.
Alexander and Evie entered the room. Evie looked exhausted.
Dark circles hung under her eyes, and her shoulders were slumped, but she had a determined energy about her as she stepped into the room.
I waved her over to me, and she headed my way.
When she was close enough, I tugged her into my lap, ignoring her soft yelp. She stiffened and made to get up.
“We’re going to get them,” I whispered in her ear, and she sagged into me, the tension leaving her muscles. I kissed her temple softly, and she took a deep breath. I knew my darling Evie, and there were no sweeter words I could whisper to her right now than those of vengeance.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her chin lifting towards my computer and the picture on the screen.
“Digging into the little twatapotomas,” I said.
“The what?” She turned to look at me, her brow furrowed.
“The twatapotomas,” I said seriously, lips quirking when she laughed. “I figured it was a good name for the little twat.”
She rolled her eyes, shaking her head, but couldn’t hide her grin on her lips. I relaxed slightly, then printed the picture. She stared at it on the screen, brow furrowing.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I don’t know. His dad looks familiar.”
I leaned forward, caging her in between my arms as I typed, digging up a picture of his dad and printing that one, too. I started a reverse image search of the dad as the picture printed.
Marcus retrieved both pictures from the printer. “I recognize the dad too. He’s a federal judge. Clarence Jefferson. He’s been a speaker at a few legal conferences I’ve been to. He lives locally.”
Evelyn cursed and rubbed her face. “That’s how Donald got out of those charges so quickly.”
“What else do you know about him?” Alexander asked as Marcus taped up the pictures.
Marcus frowned, rubbing his forehead as he thought. He froze for a moment. “Last legal conference, Clarence was talking about having family in a federal agency.” He turned to face us, eyes wide. “What if that agency is the FIA?”
“On it,” Liam and I said at the same time.
“I’ll race you,” Liam challenged, and our fingers flew across the keyboard.
There were thirteen Jeffersons in the FIA, but none of them were related to Donald.
“Try the wife,” Evelyn whispered to me.
I kissed her temple again as I found the wife’s maiden name. Nothing there either.
“Does the wife have any family?” Maya asked. “Maybe a sister or brother or an in-law?”
“Maya, you’re a genius,” I praised.
The wife had two sisters. One was single, and the other was married to…
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
Evelyn stiffened as I pulled up a picture of the sister’s wedding day.
“The judge’s brother-in-law is the FIA director,” she said softly. “What are the odds?”
“Too slim to make this a coincidence,” Alexander said grimly.
“Are we saying that the FIA director shot Grace? Or arranged it?” Liam asked, his eyes wide.
“Agent Hayes implied that there was something fishy going on,” Adrian pointed out. “And then he gave us the key for his office.”
“Can we really trust him, though?” Marcus argued. “What if that was all a setup to get to Evelyn?”
“But why shoot Grace?” Adrian asked.
“To draw Evelyn out?” Alexander mused.
“It’s not like she was hiding, though,” Maya pointed out. “And it’s not difficult to connect the five of us. What’s difficult is to connect any of us to the Archers. We just look like a group of friends to the world.”
“An eclectic group of friends who have former military and police ties,” Marcus countered.
Evelyn bit her lip, and I rubbed her back. I knew Marcus didn’t mean it like it was her fault, but Evelyn wouldn’t see it that way. I glared at Marcus, and his face softened.
“I didn’t mean it was your fault that Grace got shot. Just that it wouldn’t be hard to connect you all. So why go after her, and why now?”
“What do you think?” Alexander asked Evelyn, leaning forward and resting his forearms on the table.
“I don’t know.” She worried her bottom lip with her teeth, a rare moment of uncertainty for my usually brave and confident Evie.
“I agree it’s suspicious, though. We need to dig deeper into the judge.
We won’t know any more about the shooting until Grace wakes up.
Unless we’ve found anything on the traffic cameras?
” She looked at Liam, who shook his head.
“We can definitely dig deeper into the judge,” I said, rubbing soft circles on her back.
“How do we want to do that?” Maya said. “We can dig into him digitally, but I can’t imagine he would keep anything incriminating online.”
“He may,” Liam countered. “But it wouldn’t be anything I could access remotely.”
“He likely keeps a hard drive in his office,” Marcus said, scrolling through his phone.
Evelyn frowned. “Breaking into a federal building would be complicated.”
“He likely wouldn’t keep it in his work office but his home office,” Adrian said.
“How are we going to get into his home office then?” Alexander asked.
“That’s easy.” Marcus lifted his head from his phone and waved the device. “During his annual summer soiree.” He looked at Evelyn, who shifted in my lap. “How do you feel about a second date?”