Page 36 of Quiet Protector
I realize Harvey has been left in the lurch when he physically balks from my question.
Phillipa updates us at the same time. “A turf war is going on, but from what I gathered on the scene, there’s no body.”
“Then how were they granted an arrest warrant so quickly?” When Harvey’s eyes snap to mine, I add, “An agent from my division was arrested for her murder. She’s being held at Ravenshoe PD.”
“Brandon was arrested with her,” Phillipa fills in, unaware I wanted to keep that snippet of information between us.
Harvey folds his thick arms in front of his chest. “What were you arrested for?” When I remain quiet, his eyes drop to my bloody knuckles. “Ah. Tobias was right, Liam trained you well.”
Not having the time nor the patience to be bombarded with another flurry of information, I jerk up my chin, agreeing with him, hopeful it will move us onto more pressing issues than old friendships.
Unfortunately, Harvey wouldn’t recognize a giant pink elephant if it were standing right in front of him. “If your knuckles got friendly with the arresting officers, how are you sitting here now?” When my brow arches, his lips match the curve of their incline. “Ah, that’s how it is, is it?” He spins a chair around, then straddles it backward. “We’re going talk about that once this is all said and done, aren’t we, kid?”
“I don’t know, Agent Harvey, are we?” I reply, ensuring I answer his question by asking one of my own, effectively turning his interrogation hack back on him.
Phillipa’s hand shoots up to clamp her mouth when Harvey slaps me up the back of the head. She’s not squeaking in shock. She’s struggling not to laugh.Traitor.
“Sorry,” she garbles under her breath before joining us in being seated around the dining table. “Where do you want me to start?”
I scan the documents stretched from one end of my apartment to the other, truly unsure where to start first. They all interconnect in some way, so once again, we’re hunting for a thread. We’ve just got over a dozen immaculately stitched outfits to sort through.
“I’ll flick on the coffee pot,” Phillipa says when she reads the expression on my face.
We’re in for another all-nighter.
* * *
I wake up groggy and confused. The deafening drone of someone snoring like a freight train rolls through my ears as readily as the thump of my tired head. I don’t need to look in the direction of my couch to know Harvey is responsible for the shudders of my apartment walls every time he exhales. The clam chowder he gobbled down without breathing last night fans my cheek with every loud exhale he does. I don’t know how Phillipa is still sleeping. She’s in my bed, and my apartment is a decent size, but still, Harvey’s snores are loud enough to wake the dead.
It dawns on me that Harvey’s need for a respirator isn’t the cause of my sudden awakening. It’s the buzz of my phone. It’s vibrating against my desk, announcing I have a new text message.
My slit eyes snap open fully when I see who the message is from. Melody is texting me.
Melody:Morning, BJ. I solved your riddle. Check your emails. Melody xx
I stare at the double x’s on the end of her message for far too long before logging out of my Messenger app to open my emails. Ignoring the three dozen notifications from my security firm, I click into Melody’s email.
“Holy shit,” I mutter to myself when I realize what I’m looking at. She deciphered the account number on the soggy printout I took a photo of yesterday morning. I must have accidentally text it to her instead of Phillipa, forgetting her number was at the top of the list since we texted until the wee hours of the morning.
I smile like a fucking lunatic, ecstatic Melody is part of our operation. It’s only a small role, but its importance is undeniable. She trained just as hard as me when we were kids, and I’ve often wondered if she still uses her skills. Her email proves she still has what it takes. She not only unearthed the account holder’s name, which just happens to be Isaac Holt, she linked his account to multiple other offshore accounts.
I send Melody’s worksheet remotely to my printer before returning her email. I’m halfway through a gushing bout of praise when my phone dings, announcing I have another message. Hopeful it’s Melody, I tap on the notification band at the top of my screen.
Although my message is from an unknown caller, I know who it belongs to. The tone of his message is very descriptive, not to mention the demand behind it.
Unknown number:Should I follow your plan or make one of my own? If you’re not here in thirty, the decision will be out of your hands.
When an image of the Ravenshoe courthouse stairs being swarmed by media downloads onto my screen, I snag my jacket off the coatrack and hotfoot it out of my apartment.
With traffic light, I make it to the courthouse in half the time Dimitri demanded in his text. I’ve barely thrown my arms into my suit jacket when my gallop up the stairs is unexpectedly cut short by Alex.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” Anger pumps out of him as readily as air whizzes out of his nose when he stops next to me. “I asked you to show me how to work her laptop, not steal information off her computer!”
My hands ball as I struggle not to scream my frustration into the street. Out of all the days in the year, today has to be the day Alex discovered I snooped on his Honey Pot’s computer.
It was for the greater good, but I don’t see Alex understanding that when he roars, “Regan thinks I stole information from her, that I used her to better my position.”
“That was never my intention. I had no plans to use the information I found. I just forgot that anything uploaded to the Bureau’s servers remains uploaded no matter how great your hacking skills are.” Everything I’m saying is the truth. Once the Bureau is in, you can never get them back out.
