Page 65 of Midnight Secrets

“Senior.” He shook the Senior’s hand. Joe and Mancino had gone through Hell Week together and the Senior had been the worst thing about it. He’d screamed in their faces constantly, seemed to live for giving them extra laps, had begged them to ring the bell signifying defeat, had been like Satan’s spawn himself…and then had bought them all beers after they slept thirty-six hours straight upon completing Hell Week.

From being a living, walking, fire-breathing king of the sons of bitches, Kowalski turned out to be a pretty cool boss. Maybe he’d mellowed with marriage. To everyone’s enormous surprise, he was a gigantic pussycat when his wife was around.

Go figure.

“Saw Kay Hudson the other day,” the Senior said casually and Nick looked like someone had stuck a prod up his ass.

“Yeah?” He was trying for cool and it was a massive fail. A few beads of sweat sprouted along his dark hairline.

This was amazing. Nick was a former SEAL, just like Joe. Now he was on the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team and though they weren’t the badasses SEALs were, they came pretty close. Nick’s specialty was sniping. He was cool and calm, always. He’d even been cool and calm during Hell Week. Had even joked.

And a woman made him sweat?

Joe would give up one poker session’s winnings to see that woman. She must be something.

“Yeah.” The Senior had his own poker face on. Senior’s poker face wasn’t good enough to win against Joe in their sessions but for outsiders it served well enough. But Joe could easily see that Senior was hiding a huge grin. “She stopped by Portland on her way out, to say hello to Felicity and Metal.”

Nick’s eyes were wide, the whites showing like a pony’s. “She say—she say where she was going?”

“Nope,” Senior said cheerfully. “Not a fucking clue.”

Nick made a strangled sound in his throat.

Enough of this. Ordinarily, the entertainment value of seeing Nick squirm in his boots would have been enough to stretch this stuff out, but he had Isabel to think of and it was time to get down to business.

“Nick,” Joe said, voice hard and Nick shook himself and morphed back into the cold operator Joe knew.

“Yeah.” Nick had himself under control now and looked at all of them, plus Felicity who was sitting at the keyboard of her Magical Mystery Computer. No one was allowed to touch it, no one was allowed to even breathe on it. It was a prototype and it reportedly cost fifty thousand dollars.

At that keyboard, Felicity became God.

“Gentlemen,” Nick said. He nodded at Felicity. “Felicity.” He turned to the guys. “So. I’m here. Flew all fucking night. What the fuck is this about?”

Joe switched on his computer and nodded at Isabel and Lauren. “The lady talking to Lauren is Isabel Lawton, who used to be Isabel Delvaux.”

Nick’s face changed. “Delvaux? OftheDelvauxs?”

Joe nodded. “Alex Delvaux’s daughter.”

“So she’s one of the ones who survived the Massacre.”

“Yeah. Barely. She has amnesia. She was badly concussed in the explosion and doesn’t remember anything beyond the day before the Massacre.”

Nick glanced behind him, where Isabel and Lauren were engrossed in the drawing flowing from Lauren’s hand.

“So what’s she doing here, way across the country, under another name? She on the run from someone?”

“No. Not on the run.” Joe shook his head. “But the other day I got an anonymous message sent to my computer. We couldn’t trace it. Not even Felicity could.”

“That’s true.” Felicity shook her head. “Not for lack of trying. But he—and we’re assuming it’s a he because he’s sneaky and manipulative—used an anonymizer and I think it was washed through three points. Totally untraceable without bringing monster crunching power to bear for a long time. Plus,” she shrugged, looking at Joe. “I get the feeling he’s—well, he’s a good guy. Could be wrong but if he doesn’t want to be identified, there’s probably a reason.”

“I think he’s CIA,” Joe said bluntly. “Which doesn’t necessarily make him a good guy in my book. But he’s stepping outside the CIA. Asked specifically for someone good, someone incorruptible from the FBI. So we called you.”

Nick nodded.

“And we have a ten o’clock computer appointment.” Joe checked his watch. It’s ten now?—”

Hello, Joe,appeared on his monitor.

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