Chapter 3 #2
“I don’t hate you, Emma. I have a job to do.” He backed out of the space and went in the direction of the structure’s exit.
“You could be polite.”
“Polite won’t keep you safe,” he said.
“I’m going to request a change.”
He half laughed, although not because he found what I said funny. “To what?”
“Luke can handle my detail.”
“No.”
“That isn’t your decision,” I snapped.
He swung into the next driveway he came to, pulled into an empty parking place, and cut the engine. “Actually, it is. As long as K19 is involved, I’ll be the person who determines who is on your team and what role they play.”
“Why?”
That question appeared to catch him off guard. “Because.”
I half laughed like he had and looked out the passenger window. “That’s not an answer.”
He gripped my arm. “Here’s an answer. Someone is on to what you’re doing, and whether the mess they made of your house yesterday was an actual threat or a scare tactic, you’re in danger. Luke isn’t qualified for protection detail, and no one else you request is going to keep you safe like I will.”
“Why?” I repeated.
“Because I don’t hate you, Emma.” His sigh was heavy. “Atticus had a full security team on the property by six this morning. Cameras, sensors, two guys on rotation. Nobody’s getting near Brenna’s house without K19 knowing. That’s why we don’t need to make arrangements to meet them somewhere else.”
“Thank you,” I said, looking down at his hand gripping my arm.
“Anything else?”
I had a long list, not that this was the time or place to address all the questions I had for him. “No.”
He let go of my arm, started the SUV, and drove out onto the road.
We’d gone a few miles when I noticed his hands tighten on the steering wheel and his jaw clench.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he muttered.
He was lying, but at this point, I didn’t feel up to pushing him on it. Instead, I sent Brenna a message saying we were on our way.
She met us before we made it up the front steps. She hugged me hard, then held me at arm’s length. “You look exhausted.”
“It’s been a day,” I said as we followed her inside.
Atticus emerged from the kitchen, with a dish towel over his shoulder. “Perfect timing. Brenna made enough food to feed a small army.”
“I made pasta, and you burned the garlic bread.”
“Once. Three years ago. You’re never letting that go.”
“Never.”
Listening to their easy banter felt normal. It was what I needed without realizing it.
We settled around the dining room table, with plates of angel-hair and glasses of red wine. For a few minutes, it almost felt like a regular dinner with friends instead of a strategy session over who would like me dead.
Brenna refilled my glass. “When you came in, you said it’s been a day. What happened?”
Kodiak mentioned my panties, and when I threw the tease back at him, he turned into a brick.
“We stopped by the office,” I said instead, twirling pasta around my fork. “It was uncomfortable, to say the least.” I glanced in Kodiak’s direction, and Brenna nodded almost imperceptibly.
“What did you find at the house?” Atticus asked him.
“Nothing in terms of eyes or ears. Whoever broke in didn’t make it upstairs.”
“Why not?” Brenna asked. “I mean…you know what I mean.”
“They were either interrupted, or they were still there when she got home.”
The fork stopped halfway to my mouth. That hadn’t occurred to me.
Kodiak steered the conversation to logistics after that—secure server access, check-in schedules, other things I’d tuned out. By the time we finished eating, we had something resembling a plan.
Atticus pushed his plate to the side and rested his forearms on the table. “We need to go over possible suspects.”
“I don’t have any,” I responded honestly.
“Then, we should develop a list of everyone with enough proximity that they’d know you were digging into something.”
“It’s not anyone I work with,” I insisted.
“Emma.” His tone was patient but firm. “We need to look at Treasury first.”
I set my fork down. The wine had taken the edge off the day, but it wasn’t enough for this conversation. “Okay,” I mumbled.
“Start with who’s closest to you,” Atticus said. “Day to day.”
Brenna nodded.
“Darla Keene is my chief of staff. She runs my front office—my calendar, my calls, who walks through my door. Nothing reaches my desk without going through her first. She’d notice if I were pulling unusual files or staying late on something outside my normal portfolio.”
“Would she have access to the systems you’ve been flagging accounts in?”
“No. She doesn’t have clearance for those.”
Atticus didn’t comment. “Who else?”
“Naomi Hale. Acting Secretary of the Treasury. She’s my direct superior and has authority over my entire portfolio.
She could access anything I touch if she wanted to.
She’s a political appointee. She’s focused on policy, not operations.
I don’t think she’s looked at a disbursement record since she arrived. ”
“But she could.”
“Yes, she could,” I conceded.
“Next.”
I exhaled. “I have two special assistants. Brad Sullivan and Astrid Benson. Brad’s been with me for three years. Astrid for eighteen months.”
“What kind of system access do they have?”
“They’re credentialed for the same databases I use. Disbursement records, FinCEN filings, interagency audit logs. They need it to do their jobs.”
“So either one of them could see which accounts you’ve been querying?”
“If they knew where to look, yes.”
“And security?”
“Derek Mansfield is the chief. His department monitors access logs, badge records, and network activity. The team can see anything that moves inside the building.”
When he didn’t ask more right away, the silence made me uncomfortable.
“Derek was my father’s college roommate.
They were close. I mean, he was a groomsman at my parents’ wedding.
After my dad came home from Afghanistan, Derek was one of the people who helped him through it.
He’s the one who suggested I apply at Treasury when I left the FBI.
When I started at Treasury, Derek took me aside my first week and told me if I ever needed anything, his door was open. He said he owed my dad that.”
Based on the look on everyone’s faces, I wasn’t the only one who thought I was overexplaining. I should’ve quit talking. I didn’t.
“Derek’s been here for over twenty years,” I continued. “He’s not someone who—” I stopped short of defending him. “I don’t believe he’s involved. But his department would have the tools to watch anyone in the building without raising flags. That’s their job.”
“Who’s under him?” Atticus asked.
“His second-in-command is Joan Matthews. She runs badge access, surveillance monitoring, and incident reports. Derek sets the policy, Joan executes.” I leaned into my chair.
“Beyond them, I have six under secretaries and their staffs reporting up to me. Roughly eight hundred people in this building on any given day.”
Atticus rubbed his chin. “So we’ve got your chief of staff, who controls everything that reaches your desk, your boss, who can access your files, two special assistants credentialed in the same financial systems you’ve been working in, and a security department with full visibility into the building’s network.
” He paused. “That’s a short list with a lot of access. ”
“And I trust all of them.”
“I know you do.” His voice wasn’t unkind. “That’s why we’re looking at them, not you.”
Brenna stood to clear the plates. I picked up the rest and followed her into the kitchen.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said as I set the dishes by the sink.
“I needed something to do with my hands.” Brenna and I had been having conversations like this over dirty dishes since we were roommates in law school.
She ran the water and glanced toward the dining room, where Atticus and Kodiak were still talking.
“How’s it going? Staying at his place?”
I leaned against the counter. “It’s only been one night. Still, it’s confusing.”
“Confusing how?”
“This morning, he made a comment about my underwear.”
Brenna’s eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”
“He went through my dresser when he packed my things and made a comment on a pair of my panties.”
“That does sound like him.”
“I know. So, I flirted back. And for five seconds, things seemed normal between us. Then a text came in, and he shut down. He barely looked at me for the rest of the day.”
Brenna rinsed a plate and handed it to me to put in the dishwasher. “Maybe he’s seeing someone.”
I nearly dropped the dish. “Do you think that’s what it is?” I set it and the towel down, leaned against the counter, and folded my arms.
“How would you feel if he was?”
“It wouldn’t be any of my business.”
“Not an answer to the question I asked.”
I peeked at the guys to make sure they weren’t paying attention. “I wouldn’t like it,” I said.
“No shit,” Brenna said, laughing.
I smacked her arm. “Stop it. This is, you know, weird.”
She stood beside me and nudged me with her arm. “On the other hand, if there is a woman in his life…”
I sighed. “Yeah, I get it.”
We left a few minutes later.
The drive to Chesapeake was quiet. Traffic had thinned out, and the Potomac reflected the moonlight as we crossed into Maryland.
“Is it okay for me to call my insurance company yet?” I asked.
“The scene should be released by tomorrow.”
When it was, I’d need to file a claim. After that, I had no idea what to expect or how long it might take before I could live in my house again.
I turned to the window and replayed the last few hours. Kodiak’s flirting this morning. Then his tension when I’d suggested we visit Brenna and Atticus. The way his whole body had relaxed after we got inside. Was whoever he was seeing someone we knew? God, that would make it so much worse.
Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Can I ask you something?”
Kodiak’s shoulders tensed. “You can ask.”
I clenched my fists. It was a classic intelligence-operative response. I wasn’t letting go of this now. “The wedding. You left without saying goodbye. I’ve been trying to figure out why. I mean, maybe you were—are—involved with someone and I, um, overstepped.”
His grip on the wheel tightened. “That isn’t it. You seemed preoccupied.”
“Preoccupied?” My mouth gaped. “With what?”
He didn’t answer.
“Kodiak?”
“Leave it alone, Emma.”
The dismissal stung.
I could’ve pushed. I didn’t.
Preoccupied. I had no idea what he was talking about. Whatever he thought had happened that night, he was wrong.
The morning was worse than I expected. Kodiak was in the kitchen when I came out. He didn’t say a word, just crossed to the opposite side of the counter.
Leave it alone, Emma.
Fine. I could leave it alone. I’d gone all this time without asking why he’d disappeared that night. I could spend another few hours not asking what the hell “preoccupied” meant.
“I need to get my car,” I said. “It’s been sitting in Georgetown since—” I didn’t finish. Since I found a bomb in my kitchen and my life went sideways.
Kodiak reached for his phone. “I’ll arrange for a car service.”
Twenty minutes later, we sat in the rear of a black sedan with the driver’s talk radio program droning on and on.
I should have been focused on the case. On who had access to my files and the connections to put a fake bomb in my kitchen. Instead, I kept circling to one word.
Preoccupied.
With what? With whom? The only people I’d talked to that night were Brenna and her family. I’d danced with a few of Atticus’ K19 colleagues. I’d spent most of the reception at the main table or near the bar, watching the crowd and wishing Kodiak would ask me to dance again.
He had. We’d danced. Then he’d left.
What had I missed?
Georgetown was the same as it always was. Brick rowhouses lined the streets, and people walked dogs and pushed strollers like the world hadn’t tilted off its axis.
My Audi was in my driveway, right where I’d left it. The sedan pulled up behind it, and I was out before the driver came to a full stop.
“I’ll drive,” I said.
Kodiak didn’t argue. He circled to the passenger side while I unlocked the doors and slid behind the wheel. The seat was positioned exactly where I’d left it. This was my space, my car, something I controlled. Right now, I needed that.
I pulled away from the curb and headed for Route 50.
Traffic thinned once we left the city. The Audi handled the way it always did—responsive, smooth, the engine humming at a pitch I knew by heart.
Kodiak sat with his shoulder pressed against the passenger side like he needed the extra distance.
Fine. At least behind the wheel, I could pretend the silence was my choice.
The highway curved ahead. A line of cars had slowed where the merge ramp fed onto the roadway. I eased my foot onto the brake.
The pedal sank to the floor.
I pressed harder. Nothing. No resistance, no pressure, no slowing.
I pumped the pedal. Once, twice, three times. My foot hit the floorboard each time.
The cars ahead grew larger in the windshield. A white SUV, a blue sedan, and a pickup truck with a trailer hitch glinting in the sun.
“Kodiak.” My voice cracked. “The brakes aren’t working.”
His head snapped toward me. “What?”
“The brakes.” I pumped the pedal again, and the Audi didn’t slow. “I don’t have brakes.”
The speedometer read sixty-three. The distance between my front bumper and the white SUV shrank to forty yards. Then thirty.
I yanked the wheel left and shot into the passing lane. A horn blared behind me. The semi in my mirror was gaining, its chrome grille filling the rearview.
It was twenty yards to the next cluster of cars, and there was no gap in the right lane. I had nowhere to go.