Chapter 7
Ben
Dallas, Texas
Tuesday morning
The sun yawns across the blue Texas sky and I-30 is already bumper to bumper. I suck down the last dregs of a coffee I probably should’ve avoided. My nervous system is already keyed up and the caffeine is just throwing kerosene on it. But I needed the routine.
Wake up, work out, take a shower, get dressed, drink coffee, go to work. The monotony tricks my brain into believing everything is still normal. That my world hasn’t tilted off its axis in a way I never saw coming.
The longer I work for the FBI, the more I crave stability in the ordinary. Like walking through the glass doors of the Henderson Building, riding the elevator, nodding at strangers talking about sports and weather before peeling off onto our respective floors like it’s any other day.
But nothing about my job is ordinary, and last night proved that.
My brain hasn’t stopped replaying it. Cybil Langford. The girl who once gave me a black eye for putting frogs in her boots. Now all grown up—and somehow tied to the very company Ramirez wants to work with.
At the twenty-second floor, I step off the elevator and into thefamiliar façade of AJ Investments. The polished reception desk. The sleek sign. The friendly agent greeting me with a “Morning, Mr. Miller” as I scan my badge. The illusion of normalcy.
The floor is divided into large conference rooms that overlook the city on one side and individual offices on the other where members of the forensic accounting team are working other cases. On the surface, anyone who happens upon our floor would see what we wanted them to see—anordinaryinvestment firm.
I’m halfway to my office when my phone buzzes with a message that has me pivoting to a stairwell. I take the stairs up to the twenty-third floor and scan my ID card again to unlock the door to enter what was once the offices to Dallas’s number one real estate company. Right now, it’s the FBI headquarters for Operation Shadow Broker.
I walk past empty cubicles to a corner office with a view of the Dallas skyline and find FBI Special Agents Ruby Knight and Seth Jackson waiting.
“You look...” Ruby gives my navy suit a once-over. “Likeyouwere the one up with a sick child.”
Ruby, perfectly polished in a gray pantsuit and ponytail, looks about as fresh as the morning news anchor. I sink into the seat between her and Seth. “Good morning to you too.”
I glance over at Seth, whose exhaustion is hanging in the circles beneath his eyes. “Long night?”
Seth, senior to me by a few years, one wife, two kids, gives a tired grin over his coffee mug. “Spent the night sucking snot out of a squirmy—”
“Stop,” Ruby gags, holding up a hand. “Don’t finish that sentence.”
Seth just chuckles. “Hey, kids are just tiny criminals. Sticky fingers. Loud demands. Suspicious odors. Training ground for this job.”
“At least criminals are predictable,” Ruby mutters.
I suppress a grin, but my focus shifts back to Seth and why I asked him to meet me this morning. As one of the best forensic accountants the Bureau has, he’s been pivotal in the behind-the-scenes role of making my alias as a financial advisor believable. “Would you mind looking into something for me?”
Like a button has been pressed, Seth shifts, focused. “What’ve you got?”
“Can you look into a company called VerityCrypt?”
“VerityCrypt,” Seth repeats. “Looking for anything specific?”
“Not sure yet,” I say. “Ramirez mentioned it to Rook last night, but if it’s important, I want to know.”
“Got it.” Seth nods.
Our boss, Special Agent in Charge Katherine Scott, steps into the room with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She sets down a laptop and a handful of files, surveying us with that hawklike precision that makes me sit up straighter.
“Morning,” she says, before glancing at Seth. “How are the girls?”
“Flu’s hit the Jackson household,” Seth says with a yawn. “My mom’s at the house to help keep it contained.”
Ruby wrinkles her nose and squirts hand sanitizer into her palms like she’s preparing for chemical warfare.
