Page 3 of Nora
“Then it’s a good thing you have clearance to move ahead.” He removed a folded sheet of paper from his coat pocket and slid it across the table to her.
She held his gaze as she unfolded it. Once the paper was flat on the table, she dropped her eyes and scanned the text. Not surprisingly, Franklin had somehow managed to get NATO authorities to authorize her to lead the investigation.
Slowly but surely, Franklin was backing her into a corner.
She took another sip of her latte to buy herself time before responding. She had a practice to run, and rescheduling three weeks of appointments wasn’t a walk in the park. Yes, she did it when she was activated by the Directorate, but this was different.
To say she wasn’t happy to have her services farmed out was an understatement. Not that she had anything against NATO, but the way Franklin had orchestrated the situation was a reminder of how much her life wasn’t her own, and that thought sat uneasily on her shoulders.
Then again, it was possible that her issue wasn’t so much the assignment, but the fact that it amplified the general malaise she’d been feeling about her life. She had a successful practice and a solid group of friends, but there was no denying she’d been restless. She wanted what her friends had and had been spending far too much time wondering if she’d ever find someone to share her life with. To have a family with.
But even if she did find someone, what kind of life would it be if her government had the right to call her away at the drop of a hat? And now she was being farmed out for something that should be handled by a different agency, too? Franklin’s request was a stark reminder of how untethered she was.
But none of that was Franklin’s doing, and so she took a deep breath and asked, “Do you have additional files?”
True to form, Franklin’s expression changed not a bit at her acquiescence, and he nodded. “We’ll have them sent over. You should know that three of the handlers have been cleared. They have unshakable alibis for all the murders.”
She nodded. “That’s good. What about the others?”
“Four have no alibis for any of the murders, and five have partial alibis.”
“Partial?” she asked.
“We were unable to confirm their whereabouts for at least one of the murders at each location.”
She considered that for a moment, then thought about the handlers involved. “Is there any chance it’s a game between two of the participants? A sort of ‘you kill one, I’ll kill one, and we’ll see who gets away with it’?” It was a sick thought, but one she couldn’t ignore. For as many honorable people as she’d met in various military positions, there were just as many my-dick-is-bigger-than-yours types, too.
“At this point, we’re not ruling out any options,” Franklin replied.
“And what about the trainers? I assume they are being looked at as well? And the vet I’m replacing?”
“The veterinarian you’ll be replacing is in the clear. The trainers are being looked at as well, and none of them have an airtight alibi.”
She quickly did the math in her head. “I have three weeks to investigate twelve people—three trainers and nine handlers. And if I don’t find the killer, three more people might die?”
“You were always an overachiever, Nora.”
“Laying it on thick, Franklin.”
That elicited a smile. “The club can help, of course,” he said, referring to her group of friends. “The club” was a shortened version of “the Doctors Club,” a name Six, also known as Violetta Salvitto, gave the group when Cyn completed her PhD and was the last of the four to earn a title with the name “doctor” in it. It started as a joke and over the years had simply morphed into an easy way to refer to her friends. It had morphed again in the past year, but in size not name, when Joe Harris, Gavin Cooper, and Darius Washington had partnered up with Cyn, Six, and Devil, respectively.
“They would regardless,” Nora shot back. They didn’t need an okay stamp from NATO to help. That wasn’t how they operated.
“To my everlasting chagrin,” he replied, though Nora didn’t miss the pride in his voice. But then his expression sobered, and he tipped his head toward the file again. “There is one more reason I wanted you a part of this.”
She arched an eyebrow.
“Read the last page,” he directed.
Her heart started climbing into her throat as she thumbed through the pages to reach the final document. The one she had yet to look at. On the front were bios of two of the trainers. A woman from Sweden and a man from the UK.
“Turn it over,” Franklin said.
She hesitated, then flipped it over to read the name of the third trainer. She skimmed his bio, then read his name again before looking up. “He’s not involved,” she said with more certainty than she felt.
“He hasn’t been particularly stable since his wife died ten years ago.”
“People grieve in different ways,” she countered.
