CHAPTER 4 #2
We don’t take an elevator but rather a beautiful floating staircase of reclaimed timber that descends to the lobby, which is done in warm-toned wood planks, exposed steel ductwork and matte-black beams.
The far wall features oversized arched windows that look out onto South Main Street with Occidental Square across the way, the frames painted in a muted sage green.
To the left sits a long communal worktable in pale wood beneath a spiked orb chandelier, surrounded by mid-century leather chairs and industrial metal accents. Task lamps dot the surface.
At the center of the space is a seating area of caramel-colored leather couches arranged around a low rectangular coffee table. A white-tiled fireplace anchors the wall behind them, above which hangs a large framed black-and-white print of the Cascades at sunset.
And along the perimeter of the entire space are glass offices, each framed in the same sage green trim as the windows. Some offices are empty, but others have people inside working diligently.
“There’s no reception desk,” I point out, a detail that strikes me as odd for a lobby.
“Don’t need one. We’re a ‘by appointment only’ kind of business and the front doors stay locked. You have to be buzzed in.”
“Oh,” I murmur, a dozen other questions forming, but a beautiful blond woman appears before us.
She’s dressed in a tailored camel-colored skirt that hits just below the knee and a silk white blouse.
A wide brown leather belt with a bold gold double-ring buckle cinches her waist, sharpening the silhouette, and her heels look dangerous to walk in.
She’s holding a digital tablet in one hand, a coffee tumbler in the other.
She smiles at Cole and turns her attention to me. “Good morning. You must be the journalist.”
“I must be,” I reply, holding out my hand. “Tessa Ward.”
“Josie McAdams. I’m the intelligence specialist who will be working with you.”
Well, that’s one mystery down.
Josie pivots and Cole follows, so I do the same.
She leads us through a set of doors and down a corridor lined with conference rooms until she enters the last one.
A huge table that could seat at least twenty takes up the room and a man sits at the end.
He looks up and I’m taken aback by how handsome he is.
His brown hair is longish to the shoulder and wavy, and like Cole, he has hazel eyes, although his seem to have more of a greenish hue. He can’t be more than thirty years old.
He stands up and rounds the table, his hand outstretched. “Tessa… I’m Malik Fournier, director of the Jameson Seattle office. It’s nice to meet you, although these are less than desirable circumstances.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” I reply.
“Please… let’s all sit,” Malik says, motioning to the table. He resumes his seat at the end and Josie sits to his left, immediately setting up her tablet to type on a wireless keyboard.
I follow Cole to the two seats to Malik’s right, and I don’t think twice when Cole pulls out my chair for me. A move he’s done hundreds of times, always the gentleman, always insisting he open doors for me, make me walk farthest away from traffic on the sidewalk.
Malik folds his hands on the table. “Cole gave us a brief summary of what’s going on, but before we talk about that, I want you to know that we’re going to help you.”
I’m still confused about why they’re making such an offer. “Like I told Cole, I don’t have the money to hire your agency, and I know my newspaper won’t. I just wanted Cole’s help on looking at the fire patterns.”
Malik holds up his hand. “There’s no charge for our services.”
“But—”
“Consider it the friends and family discount,” he says with a sharp smile, in a tone that tells me it’s going to be useless to argue. Cole doesn’t say a word, not even a twitch at the label friends and family. “How about you give us the details so we can figure out a game plan?”
I push aside my worries about involving this company in not just my personal business but in my professional business.
I’ve always worked alone to help preserve the integrity of relations with my sources.
As succinctly as I can, and knowing they’ll ask all the necessary follow-up questions, I walk them through everything.
I explain my original theory formed with Erik’s help—about fire-pattern anomalies, the shell corporations, and finally the mysterious flash drive that I’m eager to look at.
I go through all the details of the meeting in the garage, the SUV, the moment Erik died, the fear, the escape. My voice shakes only once and I notice that Cole’s hand twitches like he wants to reach for mine but doesn’t.
When I’m finished, the room is silent.
Josie is the first to speak. “I’m going to take the flash drive and make a forensic backup. I’ll check for tampering and start mapping all the information.”
I can’t help but get a little proprietary. “I’m sorry… but that information is from a protected source. I don’t share stuff like that.”
“With all due respect,” Josie says softly, “your source is dead. I don’t think he’s going to care if we look at it.”
I jerk back as if I’d been slapped, my eyes whipping to Cole. He stares at me, eyes hardened and resolute. “Accept the help, Tessa. It’s the surest way to help you solve this and keep you alive at the same time.”
I swallow hard, shoot him a glare for being high-handed, but then turn back to Josie. “I’m sorry. Habit of protecting my sources. I just… this is my job. I want to be the one who looks at what’s on it.”
Josie shoots me an empathetic smile. “Understood. I’ll add you on to an encrypted server so you can see how I organize all the information. I’ll also scan in all your hard documents, but if I may suggest, if you have any of this saved on your employer’s server, you delete it.”
I blink in surprise. “You mean I shouldn’t trust my paper?”
“You shouldn’t trust anyone who doesn’t work for this company,” Malik says, and my attention snaps to him. “The first rule is always assume everyone’s compromised.”
“Jesus,” I mutter and pinch the bridge of my nose. I’ve done some dangerous shit in my career, but I’m being told that there’s no one in the world I can trust except these people.
Who are people I don’t even know, except for Cole, of course.
And well, I trust him implicitly so I should trust them.
Malik nods once, decisive. “You’ll get a temporary clearance badge. Your evidence stays here. No copies leave this building. We verify your data, secure your safety, and build a case that will hold up under federal scrutiny.”
Air rushes out of my lungs. Relief. Fear. Both. “I’m not going to be staying here,” I feel compelled to point out.
Malik chuckles, clearly amused. “Cole told us you want to stay at your house, and we’ve got a team there now installing a top-of-the-line security system. You’re free to go anywhere you want, but I strongly suggest you keep Cole by your side.”
“And when will it end?” I muse out loud. “Because in ordinary circumstances, I’d publish my piece and let nature take its course.”
“Except now,” Cole says, his voice a low grumble of that same frustration I used to hear from him, “nature taking its course could be a forfeit of your life.”
Steepling his hands before him, Malik eyeballs me. “I assume you won’t give this up and the end goal is to publish.”
“It’s a hill I apparently might die on,” I quip, my bravado getting a bit of a kick-start.
Cole doesn’t like that statement and growls, muttering an obscenity under his breath.
Malik nods in understanding. “My recommendation is that when you’re ready to publish your piece, we have a complete copy of the evidence ready to hand over to the FBI. We have several former feds on our staff.”
“I don’t want them involved right now,” I say, sitting up straighter. Malik cocks his head. “They’ll kill my story. They only get the evidence after I publish.”
“Of course. I’ll be on standby, ready to introduce you to our contact when you’re prepared.”
Josie stands, snapping her tablet up and smiling brightly.
“Let’s get to the bottom of this sooner rather than later so Tessa can get back to her normal life.
I’ll begin with the shell corporations. By tonight, I’ll have a preliminary map of RainVest’s holdings, and I’ll pull satellite imagery of the Oregon fire zones for Cole to look at. Maybe catch something Erik noticed.”
“Thanks, Josie,” Cole says with a fondness that makes me wonder if they’re more than colleagues.
I push that thought away. None of my business.
Malik rises from the table. “Cole, you’re on protective detail and this will be the only case you work.”
I look at him, heart thudding. Protective detail.
Cole stiffens slightly but nods. “Understood.”
Malik follows Josie to the door but turns back to look at me. “Tessa… we won’t let RainVest get away with Erik’s murder.”
A huge flood of relief hits me, causing my eyes to sting. Because no matter how important it is to stop what RainVest is doing, I want the people that killed that man to pay for what they did. “Thank you.”