ELEVEN
Rivers had spent eight weeks itching to get back on an op. Today he was praying that wasn’t Cannon’s reason for calling them to the war room.
Sierra had already gathered around the table, the usual low conversation filling the room. Cannon stood at the head, with Rorke nearby and Rome, Younger, and the others taking their usual seats.
But Rivers barely registered any of them.
One look at the front had his gut clenching and his heart picking up. Caryssa stood before a large board dotted with sticky notes and lines. Today she wore her warm brown hair drawn into a ponytail that showed off the sexy line of her neck.
When she angled her body, he got a good view of her trousers hugging her hips, and the silk blouse she wore was tailored perfectly to her curves.
Without taking his eyes off her, he took his seat and tried not to think too hard about the orders they were about to receive.
Sierra could get five minutes’ notice and disappear for five months. They never knew what command might throw at them. Hell, Cannon had been known to move before the orders came down if he saw a situation going sideways.
The table looked the same as it did any other day, with energy drinks sweating rings onto the wood and a bag of beef jerky making its rounds.
Younger dug through the bag for a decent-sized piece. “Hey, Romey. Why hasn’t Stina made cinnamon rolls lately?”
Rome shrugged, his expression glum. “Wish I knew, man. Beats this crap.” He snatched up the bag Younger tossed down. He pulled out a small chunk and gnawed despondently on it.
Rivers passed on the offer of jerky and fixed his attention on Caryssa, the guys’ banter fading to background noise. Caryssa had his sole attention. Even the way she wielded the marker in her hand and the blocky letters she wrote intrigued the hell out of him.
He grew aware of some bickering between Younger and O. Rorke got in on it, and at that moment Caryssa faced the table with a crease between her brows.
She cleared her throat twice, but no one heard over the argument. Rivers was about to put a stop to it on her behalf, when she glanced at Cannon, one eyebrow raised.
Rivers could almost hear her question: are you going to handle this, or shall I?
Cannon cleared his throat once. The table went quiet.
Caryssa panned over the group, lingering for a beat on Rivers before she twisted to the whiteboard. The wall monitor lit up too with a profile already half-built, a photo in the upper corner with a timeline underneath it in red.
“All right.” She pointed to the red lines drawn between data points.
“Our focus today is on a man named Bill Kohler. Our dead guy isn’t just some unlucky bystander.
He’s tied directly to Blackout’s supply chain.
Government contracts, legitimate on paper.
But dig deeper and the picture gets a lot less clean. ”
And he was the connection Doyle had sent her here to find.
Bill’s phone tied him to Antonio’s. His delivery history tied him to Blackout.
Though the little information she’d learned from Jolie and Stina wasn’t groundbreaking, it had provided a better picture of how the stolen weapons moved after Echo was compromised.
She would need to work harder to earn their trust. One small detail could break the case.
Now she needed to find out where Bill fit between the two.
She tapped the photo of him in the corner of the board, and more spread out on the monitor.
“He was murdered in New York City six days ago. Some of the items collected from him included a cell phone, a set of keys and a wallet with eighty-two dollars in cash and a few credit cards. “
She clicked to the next image—a body sprawled on the sidewalk, cordoned off with tape holding bystanders away from the scene.
“Murdered in the street, in broad daylight, with people around. No defensive wounds either. There wasn’t a struggle.
Whoever did it walked up, did it fast and walked away before anyone processed what they saw. ”
“Cause of death?” Rome asked.
“Single gunshot, close range.” She let that sit a beat.
“Professional. Not a robbery gone wrong. His wallet was still on him, nothing taken. The shooter vanished into the crowd, and medics were on the scene within three minutes. Whoever wanted him dead did it so fast that even the witnesses were too rattled to be useful.”
Rivers leaned forward, forearms on the table. “Somebody made sure he couldn’t talk. Cameras?”
Her hazel eyes landed on him for a blink before she turned back to the screen. Several camera angles popped onto the screen but all they revealed were the corners of other streets.
“Funny thing is there are no witnesses and the cameras ‘happened’ to go down at that moment. Bill Kohler knew something worth killing for. So let’s talk about who he actually was.”
Rivers studied her more than the screen. He’d known from the very first day he met her that she was sharp. But watching her work a case in front of a room full of special operators who weren’t easily impressed was something else entirely.
She had them all leaning in within seconds. More photos popped up of a younger Bill Kohler.
“He grew up in New York and got in with the mafia in his late teens. He wasn’t Italian, which meant there was a ceiling on how far he would ever climb in the ranks. But he was smart. He paid attention. And that is how he discovered the morally gray areas of a legitimate contract.”
She pulled up a split image of the trucking company’s public information on one side and mess of shell entities on the other.
“This is where he split and started skimming from Blackout shipments. On paper, he was running a legitimate business. But the two laptops we recovered tell a different story. He was running an illegal supply chain parallel to the real one.”
Cannon stood off to the side, studying the information, arms crossed. “He was stealing from our shipments and selling the goods.”
She gave a brief nod and pulled up a new image of photographed pages from a paper calendar.
“These were sent over by the NYC field team. His wife kept a family calendar and logged every trip he told her about. We know where he was going, when and for how long. His business calendar is missing some of these trips. Also, his executive assistant booked his official travel for the company. I cross-referenced the two.”
She showed them two timelines stacked on top of each other. There were glaring gaps where they didn’t line up.
“There’s a whole set of trips his wife knew about that don’t show up on any official itinerary. Those are the ones we’re focusing on. They’re off-the-books runs—deliveries and pickups he wasn’t supposed to be making. Moving things nobody was supposed to track.”
Rivers sat back, genuinely impressed. Pride swelled in his chest. He remembered this woman, sharp and relentless, three steps ahead of everyone else in the room. Only now, years had honed her skills to a lethal edge.
He was damn sorry he’d missed the evolution.
O cut in from the corner, attention still fixed on his screen. “The PO box you found a key to. I located it. It’s registered under one of the shell names on that second machine.”
Caryssa straightened. “I need to get to that PO box.”
“What are you expecting to find?” Cannon asked.
“Anything that didn’t pass through Bill’s computer. Instructions. Payments. A name.” Her pulse picked up. “Bill’s dead, but whoever was directing him had to communicate somehow. That box might be the first place we’ve found where the trail runs the other direction.”
Rivers didn’t realize he’d pushed to his feet until everyone stared at him. “I’m going with her.”
“Nope.” Cannon’s tone was final.
He pushed. “I’m going.”
“You’re the medic. Are you worried she’s gonna get a papercut opening an envelope?”
Laughter rippled around the room.
Rivers leveled his commanding officer in his gaze. “Cannon.”
His tone must have been more severe than he guessed because Cannon studied him a beat longer. As if he saw a battle he wasn’t up to fighting today, he issued a sigh.
“Fine. Go. O will drop you the coordinates.” He walked over to where O sat and leaned in to scan the screen.
Victory hit him first, followed fast by a hard twist of dread. The last time he’d been tasked with keeping someone safe, he’d failed Jolie and Stina.
He wasn’t making that mistake with Caryssa.
And there was no fucking way he was watching the woman he loved walk out of here with Rorke, Younger or anyone else guarding her.
“Rivers, Lane, you’re dismissed.” Cannon’s words set him in motion.
He gave her a small nod, and she took a hesitant step away from the board. Realizing she still gripped the marker, she capped it and set it on the table. Then she moved toward Rivers.
The sight hit him harder than it should have.
Caryssa walking toward him.
Because some part of him still believed that was where she belonged.
As they walked in silence down the hallway, he paused at the small desk near the exit and pulled a hood from the drawer.
Caryssa spotted the hood in his hand. “Don’t bother. I told Rorke I already know where we are. Under the Montclair Ski Resort.” She didn’t even break stride.
He huffed a laugh and fell a step behind her. “I forgot who I was dealing with.”
“Try to keep up, Reid.”
There she was. That little flash of attitude he remembered so damn well.
And now he really wished they were headed to bed instead of a post office in Portland.
In a narrow stretch of the tunnel, his shoulder brushed hers. “What about a blindfold instead?” He kept his tone light and teasing even though his pulse picked up.
His innuendo caused her to falter a step. But he was on it.
He whipped around and pressed her against the wall, his mouth inches from hers.
Her chest rose and fell with rapid breaths and her eyelashes fanned downward over her flushed cheeks.
He lowered his mouth until it hovered barely a breath away. “Or maybe handcuffs?”