Page 9 of Forged in Deception

“I’ll let you know tomorrow what I decide,” she said at last, catching Dr. Bajwa’s dark, brooding eyes and daring him to argue with her. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to head home.”

Without waiting for permission, she strode out of the building and into the biting cold of the desert night.

She had another phone call to make.

And if there really was some God out there beyond the twinkling stars, she hoped he was looking down on her now.

Because if this didn’t work, she was officially out of options.

And John would be the one to pay the price.

CHAPTER

FIVE

ASHER

Asher turned on his computer monitor, clicked open his music player, and hit shuffle on his enormous library. He stretched his arms over his head, closing his eyes for several long seconds and soaking in the upbeat vocals of Third Eye Blind. They were currently battling for a coveted spot on his top ten playlist, and with the whole office to himself, he could turn up the volume to his satisfaction without the company’s head of security, a slightly scary woman named Dolly, wandering in to yell at him.

Unfortunately, the song ended all too soon, and the Fairman file lay open on his desk, beckoning him to make some actual progress. At least Gabe was enjoying dinner with the family, for once. It made Asher feel a little better about volunteering to come into work on a Sunday night.

He turned down the volume on his state-of-the-art sound system and clicked over to a mellow neoclassical playlist before picking up the file.

He skimmed its contents, refreshing his memory of the case, which had taken place a few months prior. A young womannamed Katie Fairman had gone missing on spring break, and he, Ben, and Grace had traveled to sunny South Padre Island to find her.

He spent several minutes brushing up on the details, all while trying to avoid remembering too much about the part where he had almost killed someone. He didn’t need that guilt floating around in his brain right now.

Just as he was about to start signing the legal records, however, his phone buzzed in his pocket again.

Why couldn’t the Veterans Freedom Society just leave him alone?

He reached over and slammed his finger down on the space bar with too much force, silencing the piano track before answering the call.

“If I wanted to talk about the war, I would have answered the first eight times,” he snapped.

The line was silent.

Oops.

He had sounded exactly like his twin brother, Ben, when someone woke him up too early.

“Sorry,” he added quickly. “I’ll still make a donation at Christmas, I promise. But I’m not interested in this town hall thing, okay?”

“Is this Asher Forge? From Forge Brothers Security?”

The voice on the other end was female, and probably not from VFS. Whoever it was, she sounded annoyed.

Which, he supposed, was fair enough, considering his greeting.

“Yep,” he said. “This is my personal line, actually, so if this is about a private security gig, our office opens at–”

“I work at Senera Pharmaceuticals and I need help,” the woman said, cutting him off.

She was clearly trying to sound assertive, but Asher could hear the shaking in her voice. He sat up straighter in his chair. He supposed he could give her a few moments to make her point.

“I did some digging and saw that you were one of the operatives that our competitors hired when Senera was accused of corporate espionage.”

“That was me, yes.”

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