Chapter 5 #2
Following Nic across the tarmac, noticing the determined set of his back and shoulders, Cam couldn’t help but think about the tattoo underneath the layers of fabric. About the initials he still didn’t know the story behind. Cam suspected he was still missing the most important information of all.
Cam had reined in his temper at the airport, but once back at the Bureau, one look across the bullpen to his friend and partner in the conference room and simmering ratcheted back up to boiling.
With the conference room crawling with agents processing evidence under Lauren’s direction, with Agent Cole snooping around the edges of the activity, and with Aidan standing next to AD Moore, Cam couldn’t explode in there either.
The mental daggers he was glaring must have been powerful enough, though, causing Aidan to glance up and catch his stare.
Cam flashed him two digits and a nod toward the interrogation rooms, and Aidan was out the door seconds later.
Rather than speak in the bullpen, Cam headed for Holding Room Two, trusting Aidan would follow.
The door shut and Aidan started to ask, “How’d the service—”
Cam cut him off, the last of his restraint vanishing. “Why didn’t you tell me Vaughn propositioned Nic when I was in Boston?”
Aidan crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. “We talked Nic out of pursuing it.”
“Well, Vaughn’s not done pursuing him.”
“As a means to get to Curtis’s money.”
Maybe, but the way Vaughn had checked Nic out, Cam didn’t think that was all Vaughn wanted with his boyfriend. Even if it was, it didn’t make Cam feel any better.
“Do you not trust Nic?” Aidan asked with a raised brow.
“Of course I trust Nic.”
“But?”
Cam circled the interrogation table, debating whether to get into this with Aidan, but he had to get into it with someone. Needed to get it out. They were all supposed to have each other’s backs. “The SEAL side of him makes him want to do more.”
“It also keeps him calm.”
“On the outside.” He shrugged out of his suit coat, tossed it at the chair, and loosened his tie, trying and failing to open the collar button. “Do you know how many times we’ve argued about him staying in the surveillance van on ops?”
Aidan chuckled. “Jamie told me about the one in Boston.”
“And that wasn’t even the worst time.”
“Cam—” Aidan started, pushing off the wall.
Cam paced the opposite direction. “I feel like I’m constantly playing catch-up because no one, including you, looped me in on this until I got back from Boston. And apparently, I haven’t been looped in all the way.”
Aidan grabbed his bundled-up jacket, shook it out, and draped it over the back of a chair. “You told Nic this?”
“Yes, and now I’m telling you again.” He stopped right in front of Aidan, needing his partner’s—his friend’s—reassurance. “Is there anything else I don’t know?”
“You know what I know.”
Cam hung his head. “Fucking lawyers.”
“Hear, hear,” Lauren quipped, voice echoing over the speakers.
Cam didn’t bother lifting his gaze. “Eavesdropper.”
“That’s what you pay me for.”
He extended his arm toward the observation window, raising his middle finger, as did Aidan, and Lauren’s applause rang through the speakers. “A-plus for coordination. Now, can I bring in Agent Lorton?”
Aidan glared at the window. “You’re starting to sound like Mel.”
“Learned from the best. I’ll bring Rick in.
Comm units are in the corner console.” She made a racket leaving the adjoining room, much noisier than when she’d apparently entered.
Why was she working for the FBI and not the CIA?
Cam wondered daily. And daily thanked whatever had led her to them as the tension in the interrogation room eased.
“Is this settled?” Aidan asked, retrieving the earbuds.
“As long as I’m kept in the loop.”
“You have my word.” He offered Cam one of the comm devices, then after tucking in his, pulled out chairs for both of them. “Now, how are we going to play this? Lauren briefed you on the money?”
Cam unbuttoned his sleeves, rolling them up to the elbows. He usually didn’t get to this point until later in the afternoon but fuck if this hadn’t been the longest day in recent memory. “She did. I’m still aiming to eliminate him as a suspect.”
Aidan lowered into the chair next to him. “You think it’s Cole?”
Cam nodded. “The way he’s been hovering . . .”
“All right, then. That’s how we’ll play it.”
Lauren opened the door, handed Cam a file, then ushered in Agent Rick Lorton. She ducked back out and into the observation room where she’d be reading Lorton’s biometrics during the interview, the perks of interviewing suspects and witnesses in this room.
Cam was ninety-five percent certain Lorton was neither a suspect nor a witness, but he needed to be one hundred percent.
In his late twenties, the junior agent was the epitome of boy next door with his fresh face, thick blond hair, and big green eyes.
“Agents, you wanted to see me?” And he had the Midwest accent to go along with his looks.
“Have a seat, Rick,” Cam said, starting out friendly.
The agent folded all his corn-fed muscles into the chair across from them. “Is there a reason we’re meeting in here and not one of your offices?”
Because of the aforementioned biometrics reading. “Because evidence exploded everywhere,” Cam said instead.
“From the search this morning? Duncan Vaughn, if I heard right?”
If he heard? Or if he knew?
“That’s right,” Aidan said. “But we’re actually doing some follow-up on the Kristi? case, and we wanted to ask you some questions.”
“Oh, sure, whatever I can help answer,” the big kid said, relaxing in his chair.
“You asked to be put on that case?”
“I did.”
“Why was that?”
“I thought I could be useful, and I wanted to work with Agent Byrne.”
First Cam had heard of it, but with everything that’d been going on the past year, he hadn’t had a chance to get to know all the agents yet. “Why’s that?” he asked.
“I want to do kidnap and rescue,” Lorton answered without hesitation, then averting his gaze, picked at the fuzz on his sweater. “I lost a friend when I was younger. They never found her.”
It was a story Cam knew well, but in his case, it had been his sister, whose body they’d found twenty years later. “That why you joined the FBI?”
Lorton nodded. “Certainly wasn’t the money, living in this town.”
Cam could commiserate. If you weren’t born and raised in the Bay Area, the sticker shock never wore off. At least being from Boston, he was used to somewhat higher prices. But a kid from Oklahoma . . . that had to be even worse.
Aidan opened the folder and pulled out a bank record. He pushed it across the table toward Lorton. “Bet this fifteen-thousand-dollar deposit helped.”
Cam whistled low. “I’m the ASAC, and I didn’t get that big a bonus.”
All the big guy’s ease disappeared. “I’d rather not talk about that.”
“We need to know who the money came from, Rick.”
“Why’s that?”
Aidan rested his forearms on the table, looming even while seated. “Because when my agents receive mysterious deposits after they’ve specifically requested on to a case, one where agents’ lives were in jeopardy, I want to know why.”
“I’d never—”
“He’s just doing his duty as SAC.” Playing the good cop, Cam tried to project ease in a room where the tension was ratcheting up.
Lorton bounced on the end of his chair, earnest and nervous. “It’s nothing that would put our cases or other agents in jeopardy.”
“Then why won’t you tell us?” Cam asked.
“It’s not strictly allowed.”
“Because it’s illegal,” Aidan said.
Wide green eyes shot to Aidan as Lorton waved his spread hands. “No, no, no, it’s legal.”
“Rick, you’re gonna have to tell us,” Cam coaxed.
He sighed, shoulders rolling forward. “I model.”
Not surprising. He was a good-looking kid if you liked the corn-fed sort.
Too pretty for Cam, but as a model, yeah, Cam bet he sold some photos. But fifteen-K worth?
Lorton clasped his hands in front of him. “Mostly naked.”
So much for wholesome. “Porn?”
Lorton did the jazz hands thing again. “No, stock footage for ads, book covers, and the like.”
Aidan closed the file. “Which someone could identify you by. You’re trained for undercover work, Lorton. That’s why we don’t allow it.”
“Look . . .” He yanked out his phone, tapped at the screen, then handed it across the table. “I never show my face, and I have no distinguishing marks.”
Cam smirked. “Just a sick set of abs.”
Lorton shrugged, gaze averted again. “If it pays the bills . . .”
“He’s clear,” Lauren reported through the comm. “He’s telling the truth.”
“Dude, my mom read romance novels to me as a kid,” Cam said, taking the tension down again. “Nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“I’m not,” Lorton said. “That extra income—which is a year’s worth, by the way, so really, it’s not that much—is the only reason I’m getting by out here. But I know it’s technically not allowed.”
“If all of them are like that”—Aidan nodded at the phone—“if you can’t be identified, then it’s technically not a violation.”
Lorton slumped in relief, letting out a big breath. “If at some point it does become an issue, I’ll stop.”
“Hopefully it won’t. That’ll be all, Agent Lorton.”
Standing, Lorton retrieved his phone and turned toward the door.
“Hey, Rick,” Cam called, stopping him before he opened the door. “Get me a signed one with you on the cover, and I’ll send it to my mom.”
He nodded, flashing a model-worthy smile. “Sure, man.”
“And you’re on the next K&R case that comes in the door.”
His smile grew wider, into a genuine one. “Thank you.” He opened the door, and Lauren met him outside, the two of them strolling across the bullpen together.
Cam popped out his earbud.
Aidan did the same. “Well, that was the last thing I expected.”
“But he’s eliminated.”
“Which leaves Cole. Bring him in for questioning?”
Cam’s first instinct was to answer yes. He wanted to nail the traitor’s ass as much as Aidan, especially if he’d been manipulating all of them, worming his way on to their cases and flirting with Lauren.
But then his learned instincts kicked in.
Maybe they could use Cole’s efforts to their advantage.
“No,” he told Aidan, a plan coming together in his head. “We might be able to use him.”