“No one gets to be pissed about what two consenting adults do,” Jesse replied. He pointed at Bonnell. “That applies to you, too.”
“If he compromises—”
“Pretty sure if something happens to one of us, it’ll either happen to the other, too, or the survivor would never let it go,” Jesse said.
“Fair enough,” Bonnell said.
“We also get access to my hard drives, if they survived.”
Bonnell shook her head.
“Ineedthem,” Jesse said. “I backup everything to the cloud and to them. We don’t know how good this person is. I can’t risk accessing my cloud. If someone wants me dead, the reason could be on those drives. If you let Bryce and I figure out if anything digital is relevant, your other agents could spend their time chasing more active leads.”
“He’s got a point,” Bryce said.
Bonnell glanced between Bryce and Jesse. She was hesitating.
“Mom,” Alex said softly. “If it were me, you’d be crawling up the walls inside of a day without something important to do.”
Bonnell cracked, and her defensive boss demeanor broke just enough for Jesse to glimpse her softer, more worried core. She and Bryce were cut from the same cloth. She must have mom’d him some, too. With a loud sigh, she said, “All right. I’ll see what I can do to get you set up. But you report anything you find.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jesse said. He completely intended to inform the DWO of any leads he found.
While he was on the way to investigate them, of course. Assuming Bryce would go with him.
And if he wouldn’t… well, Jesse would cross that bridge when he reached it. Considering Bryce looked equally pleased to be doing real work, Jesse thought he stood a chance.
All they had to do was find a lead.
