He laughed, reminding me of a Bond villain. “There was a conveniently timed glitch.”
“Dude, you can’t pull shit like this if we want to build an airtight case.”
“Hate to break it to you, Steel,”I never should’ve told him Nina called me that.“But this won’t end in a trial.”
“Excuse me?”
“Our bad guys are definitely CIA, and I think they killed the Singers. They won’t go down quietly or without a fight.”
I stopped scanning the worn photo of Travis and Melissa Singer holding a baby, and slid it back into the manilla pocket folder.
“Evidence?” I asked, now giving him my full attention.
“Gut feeling. ”
“Your gut won’t hold up in court.”
“No, but we’ll get the evidence we need on the DL.”
Working on the down low was already part of the plan, no matter how much I hated it, since we’d suspected crooked officers all along. The problem was that there were too many fingers in the cookie jar, and we couldn’t narrow down our suspect pool.Unless…
“Did you ID them?”
“No, but I narrowed down the list.” His dramatic pause put me on edge.
“And?” I barked.
“And it goes up the food chain. We need to keep our heads down on this one.”
I appreciated the ‘we’ he kept using, because there was no way in hell I’d be able to solve this on my own. Not without putting a big ass target on my back.And putting my family in danger.
“We have to be careful.” I said, more to myself than to him, but he answered anyway.
“Yeah, and we may need help if the water gets too hot.”
I nodded, though I didn’t know who we could trust. Other than each other. “But who?”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got an outside guy I’d trust with my life.” The white scars on his pale brown hand stood out as he ran his hand through his dark, wavy hair. “In fact, I have.”
I considered asking about the circumstances, but instead I asked, “Do I want to know who?”
“No, my Type A, rule-following friend, you do not.”
Shit. I dumped the contents of the folder onto the bed I wasn’t sleeping in and started analyzing.
I held up the picture. “You think this is Nina?”
“I know it is. Check out the birth certificate.”
I did.Good thing I can read German. Nina Marie was born in a small German village to Travis and Melissa Singer, on the thirteenth of May. Two months earlier than the date listed on her American birth certificate.
Thinking aloud, I asked, “How’d they get her here?”
They flew from Germany to the U.S. with a baby, so there should’ve been a paper trail, but we hadn’t found anything.
And what the hell happened during the three years between her birth and the fire that left her a Jane Doe orphan?
“That’s still a mystery, but they were CIA, so they could’ve easily arranged off-the-books transportation.”
