Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jo waited until the squad room started emptying out before she made her way to Sam’s office.
He was at his desk, finishing up paperwork, Lucy curled at his feet. She lifted her head when Jo appeared in the doorway.
“Got a minute?”
Sam set his pen down. “What’s up?”
Jo stepped inside and closed the door behind her. “I caught Shaw taking pictures of the station today. Back entrance, parking lot, officers’ vehicles. When I asked about it, she gave me some line about establishing shots. Standard procedure.”
Sam’s expression didn’t change, but she saw the slight tension in his shoulders. “You believe her?”
“Not for a second.”
He was quiet for a moment, then nodded slowly. “I had Mick do some digging into our FBI friends. Both of them.”
Jo raised an eyebrow. “You were already suspicious?”
“Two agents showing up separately, not coordinating? One of them asking for ten years of archives?” Sam pushed back from his desk. “Something’s off. I wanted to know what.”
“And?”
“Mick’s meeting me at Holy Spirits in twenty minutes.” Sam reached for his jacket. “You should hear what he found.”
Mick had already claimed his usual spot at the bar when Jo and Sam walked into Holy Spirits, a whiskey in front of him and two drinks waiting—a Moosenose for Sam, a Coors Light for Jo.
“There they are,” Mick said, raising his glass as they approached. “Thought you two got lost.”
Jo slid onto the stool beside him. “Thanks for the beer.”
“Sam said you’ve got FBI trouble.” Mick’s eyes held that sharp, knowing look he got when he’d been digging into things. “Color me intrigued.”
Billie appeared from the other end of the bar, wiping down glasses. “You three look serious tonight. Case getting complicated?”
“When isn’t it?” Sam said.
Billie set down the glass she’d been polishing. “Hey, did you get another K-9? Saw a gorgeous dog going into the station the other day.”
“No, that’s an FBI agent’s dog,” Sam said. “She’s in town helping with a case.”
“Ahh.” Billie nodded. “Well, he’s a beauty. You should see him run—fast as anything.”
Jo glanced up. “Where’d you see him run?”
“Field next to Motel 8. Must be staying there—only place in town that takes dogs that size.” Billie shrugged. “Anyway, holler if you need refills.”
She moved down to help another customer.
Sam waited until she was out of earshot, then turned to Mick. “What’d you find?”
Mick swirled his whiskey, the ice clinking against the glass.
“Ran both names like you asked. Agent Keller first—Nelson Keller, fifteen years with the Bureau. Organized crime unit, mostly Northeast corridor. Clean record, good evaluations, commendations out the ass. His partner Cooper was the same. Solid agents, both of them. Whatever got Cooper killed, it wasn’t because either of them were dirty. ”
“And Shaw?” Jo asked.
Mick’s expression shifted—that look he got when he’d found something interesting.
“Shaw’s a different story. Lennox Shaw, twelve years in.
Currently assigned to some classified unit I couldn’t get details on.
The file’s locked down tight—the kind of classified where even asking questions gets you noticed. ”
Sam set his beer down. “But?”
“But here’s where it gets interesting.” Mick leaned in, lowering his voice. “I checked her status. She’s on leave. Personal leave.”
Jo frowned. “Personal leave?”
“No active assignment. No official case.” Mick took a sip of his whiskey. “Whatever she’s doing in White Rock, it’s not Bureau business. At least not on the books.”
Sam and Jo exchanged a look. An FBI agent on personal leave, showing up at a murder investigation with her K-9 partner. That wasn’t vacation.
“There’s more,” Mick continued. “I tried to dig into her previous cases. Most of it’s redacted.”
Sam was quiet for a moment, turning his beer bottle slowly on the bar. “And you saw her taking photos of the station today,” he said to Jo.
“Back entrance, parking lot. Fed me some line about establishing shots when I caught her.” Jo shook her head. “She’s using us.”
Mick gave a low whistle. “So you’ve got two FBI agents in town. One’s legit—grieving partner trying to get justice. The other’s off the reservation, running some kind of vendetta operation.” He raised his glass. “Sounds like a party.”
“The question is what she’s really after,” Sam said. “And whether she’s going to get someone killed finding it.”
Jo thought about the surveillance photos. The questions Shaw kept asking about Wyatt. The way she’d deflected when caught, smooth and easy, like she’d practiced it a hundred times.
“What do we do?” she asked.
Sam’s jaw tightened. “For now, nothing obvious. We keep working the case, keep her close, see what she’s really hunting. But we watch her. Everything she does, everywhere she goes.”
“And if she’s dirty?” Mick asked. “If she’s connected to the people who killed Cooper?”
“Then we deal with it.” Sam finished his beer and set the empty bottle down. “But we make sure we’re right first. Because if we’re wrong and she has a legit reason to be here, we’ve made an enemy out of someone who should be an ally.”
Jo nodded slowly. It wasn’t the answer she wanted, but it was the right one.
Mick raised his whiskey in a sardonic toast. “To the truth. May it be less complicated than it looks.”
Jo clinked her bottle against his glass, but she didn’t share his dark humor. Too many threads were tangling together—Shaw’s secret investigation, Keller’s grief, Kevin’s deleted files, Wyatt’s strange behavior. And underneath it all, a syndicate that killed people who got too close.
They finished their drinks in something close to comfortable silence, three people carrying the weight of too many questions. Outside the stained glass windows, the night settled over White Rock like a held breath.
Whatever was coming, Jo had a feeling they’d know soon enough.
Jo only stayed for one drink at Holy Spirits, then went straight home.
The drive was quiet. No radio, no podcast—just the hum of tires on asphalt and the thoughts she couldn’t shake.
Wyatt. Kevin. Keller. Shaw. Whatever was rotting under the surface of her department, she was going to find it.
She just hoped she wasn’t already too late.
The cottage was warm when Jo got home, the smell of something savory drifting from the kitchen. Bridget was at the stove, stirring a pot, her back to the door.
“Hey,” Bridget called without turning around. “Figured you’d be hungry. Made beef stew.”
“Smells amazing.” Jo hung up her jacket and moved into the kitchen, dropping onto one of the stools at the counter. A normal evening. A normal meal. Everything exactly the way it should be.
Except Jo couldn’t shake the feeling that had been crawling under her skin all day. The sense that everyone around her was wearing a mask, showing her a version of themselves that wasn’t quite real.
She watched Bridget move around the kitchen—reaching for bowls, ladling stew, setting down spoons. Easy, practiced movements. Her sister seemed relaxed, content. The same Bridget who’d rebuilt her life here, who’d found work at the bakery and friends in town and a place that finally felt like home.
But Jo had been a cop too long to take anything at face value.
She thought about Kevin, and the way he and Bridget had been spending time together lately—Thursday dinners, whispered conversations, the kind of closeness that suggested shared secrets.
Was Bridget hiding something too?
Jo hated herself for even thinking it. This was her sister. The person she’d fought to protect, the person she’d bent rules for. If you couldn’t trust family, who could you trust?
But the question wouldn’t leave her alone.
“You okay?”
Jo blinked. Bridget was watching her, a bowl of stew in each hand, her expression curious.
“What?”
“You’re staring at me like I’m a suspect in one of your cases.” Bridget set the bowls down, a hint of a smile playing at her lips. “Do I need a lawyer?”
Jo forced a laugh. “No. Sorry. Long day.”
Bridget studied her for a moment, and Jo had the uncomfortable feeling that her sister could see right through the deflection. But Bridget just nodded and sat down across from her.
“Want to talk about it?”
“Nothing to talk about.” Jo picked up her spoon, stirring the stew without really seeing it. “Just work stuff.”
“Right.” Bridget’s voice was light, but there was something underneath it. Something Jo might have called careful. “Just work stuff.”
They ate in a silence that felt different from the comfortable quiet they usually shared. Heavier. Full of things neither of them was saying.
That night, Jo lay awake in the dark, staring at the ceiling.
The cottage was quiet. Bridget had gone to bed an hour ago, and the only sounds were the familiar creaks and groans of an old house settling. Outside, wind moved through the trees, a soft rustle that usually helped Jo sleep.
Not tonight.
She ran through it again, the way she always did when a case wasn’t coming together. Wyatt. Kevin. Keller. Bridget. Everyone she trusted, everyone she worked with—all of them holding something back. All of them wearing masks she couldn’t see behind.
And somewhere in the middle of it all, a dead FBI agent and an organization that killed people for knowing too much.
Jo turned onto her side, punching her pillow into a different shape. It didn’t help.
The worst part wasn’t not knowing what secrets they were keeping. The worst part was the creeping fear that when the truth finally came out, it would change everything.
She needed to find out what was going on. Before whatever was brewing exploded. Before the cracks in her team—in her family—became breaks she couldn’t repair.
Jo closed her eyes, but sleep didn’t come.
It was going to be a long night.