“Probably.” I turned to Jamie. “Can we get sound?”
He held eye contact while giving the slightest shift of his head towards Nina.
I nodded. They wouldn’t say anything Nina shouldn’t hear. Not in a private investigator’s office.
“You recognize them?” Jay asked.
“No.”
“Gibson?”
“On it.” His fingers were a blur as they coasted over the keys of his laptop.
“Why is this happening?” Nina asked, her voice cracking with the attempt to hold back her sobs.
“Nina—”
“I mean, I know it’s because of all of this.” She pointed to the table. “But why? I’m nobody. I don’t know anything.”
Tears filled her eyes.
The shell around my heart cracked.
Voices filled the room as Matt escorted Meg away from the desk to safety.
“Why didn’t he bring her upstairs?” Nina asked.
“She’s safe with Cate,” Jay answered.
“We don’t want to draw their attention upstairs,” I added.
“Mr. Sheppard, the woman we’re looking for is employed by your wife, so you can cut the ignorant act,” one guy said in too formal English.
“German accent,” I said to Gibson. “So not CIA.”
“Or any other TLA agency,” Jay added.
It wasn’t entirely true; some three-letter acronym agencies had foreign operatives, but Jay’s gut instincts matched mine.
“Contractor? Mercenary?”
When Nina’s hand flinched, I squeezed and rubbed the back of her hand with my thumb.
“Not all mercenaries are killers,” I whispered. While technically true, I had a sinking feeling in my gut these two would kill without hesitation.
John stood his ground without flinching. “That doesn’t change my answer. Just because the woman in the picture has served me coffee doesn’t mean I know her.”
The other guy looked around the room, eyeing everyone from head to toe, pausing at each person’s holstered gun.
“Who else is here?” I asked.
“Meg and Cate are in our office. Nathan’s on assignment,” Jay answered generically. Nathan was with Nina’s grandmother. The last thing Nina needed was to worry about her grandmother’s safety.
“Doug’s installing a security system,” Jamie said.
“We’re here,” G added smugly.
No one at SSI suggested we disarm ourselves to work in the office, so we hadn’t. We each had full sized 9mm pistols on our waists, and snub nose .38 Special revolvers on our ankles.
