Chapter 19
Adam
Six months later …
“I’ve got something,” I tell my team as I walk through the front door of our offices.
“Thank God. We’re running on fumes over here.” Juliette sighs.
I stop in front of Lex Collins’s desk. He’s the only one who knows where Claire is because he’s the WITSEC man on our team. He’s told me she’s not technically in the program, but I can’t find her. “Where is she?”
“Man, I can’t tell you. Woody’s orders.”
“If you call me Woody one more time, I’ll kick you off the team for good,” Kellen Woodcroft, our sometimes-terrifying leader, says as he comes out of his office.
“Shit. Didn’t know you were here.” Lex has the decency to look embarrassed.
“Why all the secrecy, Woodcroft?” I ask our boss.
“Because you wouldn’t keep it in your pants long enough for us to figure out just how far this operation goes up the ladder.”
“I’m not a fucking teenager. Jesus. She could help us!” I counter.
“She already is,” Lex grumbles.
“What?” I spin around to face him.
“She’s been giving us names. Verifying identities,” Juliette says as she types on her computer.
“You have her working for us now?”
“Man, calm down. This is why they won’t tell you shit.” Clint Sinclair, or Sin as we call him, says from his desk. He’s our Internal Operations guy, which means he mostly does the tracking of suspects, but he knows a little bit about everything to help out anywhere.
“Are you fucking kidding me? Is the whole team conspiring against me?”
As I throw my hands up in the air, Harvey Stone walks in with Starbuck, the Belgian Malinois that’s our team’s mascot.
Stone does tactical operations with Starbuck for our little team.
We’re an eclectic bunch. “I mean, I gave Claire my copy of Battlestar Galactica to watch. She wanted to know where I got the Starbuck name from.” Stone shrugs like this new information isn’t going to send me into an absolutely vile mood.
Ever since shit went down with Oscar, I’ve been losing my mind. Once Juliette took Claire, she disappeared without a trace, and she’s all I’ve thought about since.
“So what do you have, drama queen?” Woodcroft asks as he sits at my desk.
“You really aren’t going to tell me where she is? It’s been six months,” I plead.
“Not right now I’m not. And if you try to withhold information from the team again in order to find her location, you’ll never know where she ends up.”
Properly chastised, I slump against the wall. “Lorentz wasn’t the only heavy hitter,” I mumble.
“Who else?” Juliette says, immediately dropping her hand from where she was petting Starbuck and focusing on her computer.
“Hunter Page.”
“The owner of the basketball team?” Juliette asks as she continues to type.
“The owner of the NBA team and the NHL team and the Premier League team in England,” Stone says in the smartass tone he reserves only for Juliette.
“So sorry I can’t keep up with all your little intricate hobbies over there, Stoner.” She rolls her eyes.
“Can you two not?” Lex asks, rubbing his forehead on a sigh.
“You know how they are. This is their weird form of foreplay.” Sin smirks.
“Absolutely not.”
“Hell no. She’s not my type.”
They both speak at the same time.
The rest of us smile at each other. One day, they’ll realize what’s between the two of them. Until then, we’ll continue to give them shit on the daily.
“What else do you have?” Woodcroft asks me.
“Nothing.” The silence that greets my words is expected. After all, this isn’t really an answer, just another place to dig.
“How did you get this name?” Woodcroft asks.
“I may have had a few words with one of Nico’s top guys.” I wait for the blowback. I’ve been ordered not to go anywhere near Nico’s people, but I wanted answers. Fortunately, Nico didn’t make it past the firefight at the warehouse.
“I’m not commenting on you going against a direct command, but how do we know this name is legit?”
“Weeks of research. He gave me the bullshit name he used, and I’ve been working on who he really was for what seems like forever.”
“And he was buying the artifacts directly from Cano?” Juliette asks, her fingers going a mile a minute on her keyboard.
“Hunter Page, yes, but …” Accusing a general of what I’m about to can get me far worse off than just fired. “I think that Lorentz is supplying.”
Woodcroft’s fingers drum on my desk.
“Holy shit. We stumbled on some high up shit here,” Sin murmurs.
“I don’t need to say it, but this information does not leave this room.
If I find out it’s been leaked, I’ll have all your asses.
” Woodcroft’s stern voice is rarely heard, but when he uses it, we all pay attention.
“Morrison, my office. Now.” He gets up and walks to the back of the room toward his office.
“Ooh, you’re in trouble.” Stone whistles.
“At least he’s doing something,” Juliette murmurs.
“Get a fucking grip, you two,” I tell them both as I pass them on the way to Woodcroft’s office.
“You’ve been busy,” he says as soon as I sit down.
“I have to do something. And no one will let me see or talk to Claire. Juliette’s blocked everything associated with her on my computer.”
“Adam, she doesn’t want to see you.”
“What?” I jolt back at his words. They don’t make sense.
“She doesn’t want to see you. We offered. Told her you could stay with her for the first week or so, but she declined.”
“But …” My mind races as it tries to make sense of it all. “Why?”
“I’m not entirely sure, but if I had to venture a guess, I’d say it’s because she doesn’t really know who you are. Everything she learned about you was fake.”
“Not everything.”
“Explain that.”
I curse internally. “We got close. I ended up telling her things that were the real me and not just the Chris Roth cover.” My eyes don’t leave his finger tapping on his desk.
Until he stops. “You fell for her.” An observation, not a question.
“I didn’t have an answer for all the undercover shit.”
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t fall for her,” he counters.
“And she wasn’t Nova either,” I think out loud.
“But you knew that.”
“Did I?” I tilt my head, finally looking up at him. “I knew Nova was a fake name, but I’m not sure if it was a whole persona. I mean, how am I supposed to know what was real and what wasn’t with her?”
“Adam … We’ve been friends for a long time.
You are headstrong and persistent like no one I’ve ever met.
But you are also someone who cares with their whole chest. I think you go undercover so you can shove all those feelings you normally feel down deep and act like you don’t give a shit.
But we all know you care too much. Is that what happened with Claire? ”
“Fuuuuck. I don’t know. One minute I’m over the whole mission, and the next I’m sitting at a park with a woman I just met, talking until the sun comes up. I don’t think any of it was fake,” I admit.
“Listen, all I can do is offer her a chance to see you. If she doesn’t take it, I can’t let you go to her. It has to be her choice, and the last time we asked, she didn’t want to see you.” He sighs.
“I know. I’m just trying to figure out why. Is she spooked I’m a cop?” I can’t imagine she is after I spilled my deepest hopes as a kid to her.
“I don’t have answers for you, man. Just keep your head down, and let’s see how far this case goes.”
“And just act like she was never in my life?” I’m taking out my frustration on him, I know I am, but I’m losing my mind here.
“It’s not up to you. Two have to tango, my dude. Good work on the name, though. That’ll keep us busy for a minute.”
With that, I’m dismissed as he turns back to his computer.
“You want to talk about it?” Juliette asks as she parks herself in my visitor’s chair.
“Nope.”
“It’d probably help,” she continues.
“Oh, go back to your bullshit with Stone.” I sigh.
“Low fucking blow. I’m on your side, but if you want to be a moody little shit about it, then you’re running solo.” The chair shoves back as she stands and stomps back to her desk.
I look around at the team, who is currently giving me the side-eye. Even Stone.
“I’m sorry, J. That was fucked of me.”
“Yeah, it was. Get your head on straight,” she says.
I twist my arm so I can check my watch and see it’s close enough to the end of the day. “I’m out. Call me if you find anything else. Please.”
Juliette’s right. I do need to get my head on straight. If only the thought of Claire not wanting to see me didn’t stab me right in the chest.