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He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “What?
“The case file mentions Nicola St. Martin.”
“That’s right. She’s in possession of the artifact BARS needs to recover.”
“She and my mother are good friends.”
“Will that fact prevent you from doing your job?”
“No, but—”
“That’s all I need to know.” Mitch leaned forward and began shuffling papers on his desk. “Your insider’s knowledge might prove useful to the case.” When she stood there, speechless, he raised his head. “That’s all, Agent Westcott.”
Liv turned to leave, but this thing with Cameron continued to gnaw at her thoughts. Words crammed in her throat, fighting for release. Nothing she could say would change the situation. Like it or not, events were already in motion. Yet…
She peered over her shoulder. “In your quest to get Zeke's cooperation, did you stop to think about what all of this will do to Cameron? How he’ll view the Bureau from this point forward? How will he ever trust leadership again after this?”
“How little you understand Special Agent Blackwell.”
“What do you mean?”
Mitch smiled. It wasn’t pleasant. “Ambition makes the most unendurable endurable.”
She strode away.
It would take a special person, especially in law enforcement, to forgive his supervisors for something like this. Leadership should be an agent’s buffer, their protector, their trusted mentor. Not someone who viewed them as collateral damage.
She had to get out of here. Breathing the same air as her SRA was like sucking in exhaust fumes. Toxic. She’d go to the warehouse and see how the UNC professor and her interns were coming along with cataloging the O’Fallon treasure trove.
Glancing at her phone, she spotted a text message alert. Her heart took off like a rocket when she saw it was from Zeke.
We need to talk. Be there in thirty.
“Shit.” She checked the message’s time stamp. “Shit, shit, shit.” He would be here any second. No way would she give Mitch the satisfaction of witnessing this showdown.
Grabbing her purse and laptop from her cubical, she practically sprinted to the elevator. A few minutes later, she pushed through the front entrance of the federal courthouse, but saw no signs of Zeke. She descended the stone steps and looked up and down Otis Street. Nothing.
She checked the clock on her phone and decided she had enough time to get her vehicle out of the secure parking area. After sending a quick text to Zeke, she turned to the left and marched the short distance to the security gate.
As she paused beside the small black box outside the guardhouse, Paul waved to her from inside before returning to his animated conversation on the phone. Impatience hummed through her veins as she waited for the wrought-iron fence to yawn open. Once there was enough room for her to squeeze through, she checked her phone again to see if Zeke had responded.
Nothing. She hoped he was making his way through the parking garage across the street and not already headed upstairs.
Maybe Zeke’s visit wasn’t about his brother’s forced leave. Maybe Cameron had gone to Maui instead of Steele Ridge. Zeke could be on his way to give them his decision, unaware of the lengths to which the Bureau had gone to secure his cooperation.
Or…what if he’d been stewing for the past three days about her perceived lack of recognition? What if he was coming to remind her of what she’d forgotten?
What if she let him?
An image of his I-know-you smile, followed by its slow death, still haunted her.
She’d been torn between kissing him senseless and pleading with him to run. From the moment she’d seen his name on the same page as fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamines, she had wanted to protect him from whatever Mitch had planned.
Instead, she had followed orders and kept her mouth shut.
Liv unlocked her SUV and reached in to set her purse and laptop into the passenger seat. When she straightened, something hard slammed into the back of her head. Her vision grayed and her knees buckled. She slumped forward into the driver’s seat, disoriented and confused.
But not for long. Her training kicked in and her mind identified the threat before her vision cleared. She pushed against the seat at the same time her foot struck out, connecting with her assailant’s body. A whoosh of alcohol-infused air rushed over the side of her face.
