Page 39 of Out of the Shadows

Knowing she’d been caught checking him out, she held up a finger. “Not one word, buster.”

The corner of his lips kicked up in that smirky smile. “Wouldn’t dream of it, honey.”

Shaking her head, she turned and headed to her room, calling out, “Make yourself useful, please, and get MacKay and Tiny on the line. Xander too.”

After changing into leggings and her favorite red 49ers sweatshirt, which she knew needled Gavin since he was a lifelong Seahawks fan, she quickly washed her face, slapped on some moisturizer, and pulled her hair back into a high ponytail with a matching red-and-gold scrunchie. Yes, she generally tried to keep up the professional appearance when she worked, but she’d just spent the last few hours being super fancy. Enough was enough.

She returned to the main room, and Gavin turned toward her. He grimaced as he took her in from head to toe. “You’re wearing that shit on purpose, aren’t you?”

She shrugged as she made a detour to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water and an energy drink. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Damn, you even have a matching hair thing.” He made a face and took the bottle of water from her as she passed him on her way to her workstation.

“I have an extra Niners sweatshirt if you want to get more comfortable.” She shot him an overly sweet grin as she cracked the can of her energy drink. She gestured to her dark monitors. “Are the guys unavailable?”

Gavin took a drink of his water and shook his head. “I called them, and they’re ready whenever you are.” He grabbed a dining chair and pulled it up beside her plush office chair. “I didn’t want to touch your computer.”

The corners of her lips twitched. “Smart man.”

She settled into her chair and tapped her keyboard. After she typed in her fifteen-digit passcode, her monitors came tolife. Another four clicks, and MacKay’s, Tiny’s, and Xander’s faces were on her center screen.

“What’s up, gentlemen?”

“We should be asking you two that,” MacKay said. “Car chase through downtown Seattle? Seriously?”

“Frazier’s always gotta keep things interesting, right?” Bean said with a chuckle.

Gavin shook his head. “We can’t be certain I was the target.”

Bean rolled her eyes. “Please. No one knows who I am, and if they were after Carmichael, they had hours to take their shot while he was waiting for us.”

Gavin muttered under his breath as he moved his chair closer to hers so they were in the same shot for the rest of the team. They were nearly shoulder to shoulder.

“Well, thank God Bean was there,” Xander said. “Carmichael said she was able to do her thing and create a route for him to get out of there.”

“All true,” she said as she shot off an email to her cyber division team.

“Xander,” Gavin began, “why don’t you update everyone on what Carmichael reported.”

While Xander gave everyone Carmichael’s play-by-play, Bean sent a company-wide notification to all their employees. Within seconds, everyone’s phones sounded with the alert. Even though they didn’t have a grasp of what was going on, when their head boss was targeted, the entire team needed to be extra cautious.

Once he concluded his brief recount of Carmichael’s statement, Xander asked, “Do you want me to head back to Seattle?”

“We just have Team Two keeping watch over Anson and Rita at the hospital, right?” Gavin asked.

“Correct,” Xander replied. “Riviera is currently stationedoutside of Anson’s room, and both Carmichael and Bonson are on-site.”

Gavin frowned and rose, pacing behind her. Having worked with him for so long, she knew it was his way of ordering his thoughts while releasing his pent-up energy. She often joked that pacing back and forth brought out his best thinking.

He stopped behind her and leaned down so he was in the video-call frame. “Those three should be good. Where’s Tash at?”

“LA,” Xander said. “After the McClintock mission, she went down there to meet up with Hanniger and the rest of Team Three. They’re meeting with some record label minions about a possible security detail for one of their people.”

Bean noticed a look of confusion crossing Tiny’s face. “Tiny, I’ll explain the team breakdown to you later.” She glanced up at Gavin. “Do you want to call everyone in?”

“I don’t know yet,” Gavin murmured before he resumed pacing.

Bean frowned. It was safe to say that when Gavin got a bad feeling, it wasnota good thing.

---