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Interesting story but awfully convenient. People broke into the bank at the exact moment the boss was out? It raised a red flag. From Connor’s frown, Ben realized he was not alone in wanting to dig around more in Kent’s story.
“Everybody is fine.” Connor’s voice wasn’t much better than the skeptical look on his face.
Joel pointed at the body bags. “Except for them.”
“Who are they?” Kent asked without looking.
It was the one question Ben knew the answer to, so he handled it. “The bad guys.”
Chapter Eleven
With his sleeves rolled up and his hair showing the tracks of his fingers, Connor stood at the head of the conference-room table on the first floor of the Corcoran Team headquarters later that night and looked around the room. “Let’s run this.”
Jocelyn heard the phrase but was too busy keeping her head from falling and smacking against the table to get all excited about being included in an information session. The adrenaline kick had long worn off. Now she had the afterburn of exhaustion. But no way was she leaving the room.
The entire building fascinated her. On the outside it looked like any other historically protected brick town house in this part of the city. Stately and expensive. But the inside had been carved up into something very different.
The big country kitchen with the blue cabinets at the back of the house fit. The front double rooms filled with computers and files and a conference area straight out of a spy movie looked more like a war room than a place for the family hangout.
This was where the real work happened. The behind-the-scenes gritty digging for leads. On the monitors stationed around the room and behind the security system complete with handprint identification and key cards.
They’d given her a seat at the table and she was going to sit in it, even if she almost fell asleep doing it.
A tray with a coffeepot and clean mugs sat on the middle of the table. Joel slid into the seat across from her and took a laptop out from where it was tucked under his armpit. Opening it, he looked up with his usual smile. “I’m ready.”
“We need security footage, along with the name and all the information you can find about every business on that street.”
Ben’s voice, firm and angry, contrasted with the way he smoothed his hand up and down her thigh. Not sexual so much as soothing, yet the touch still made her want to crawl up onto his lap.
She tried to concentrate on what was being said and add in her concerns. “And where does the door from the upstairs balcony at the bank go?”
“Good question.” Ben nodded. “Look into the blueprints, then check out the bank president, Kent Beane, and the security guy.”
“Ed?” She thought about the older man who always greeted her with a smile. He made it a point to know people’s names and open doors.
Seeing Ed as part of some grand conspiracy struck her as a waste of time. And a little scary. If the bad guys could get that close to her without her knowing, nowhere was safe.
“He disappeared for the entire robbery.” Ben’s fingers curled around the inside of her knee in a gentle squeeze.
An unexpected heat swirled through her. Okay, maybe she wasn’t so tired after all. “Not to point out the obvious but Ed did shoot one of the attackers.”
“You’re both right.” Joel waved a hand in the air without taking his attention from the computer screen. “I’ll track this Ed guy on the tape and we’ll see where he went. Could be a case of nerves. You know, a hiding-in-the-closet sort of thing. Some folks can’t handle pressure.”
She didn’t like that explanation any more than the other one. “How comforting.”
“I have a list of suggestions from Davis and Pax.” Connor shot a file across the table in Joel’s direction.
“Suggestions?”
“Davis used a different word but I’m trying to be tactful.”
Joel laughed. “Must be killing them not to be in on this hard-core.”
“Davis needs to stay where he is. By now whoever is coming after Jocelyn has to know something about our team, since we keep showing up next to the dead bodies. That means Kelsey and Lara need to stay in a protected space, just to be safe.” There was nothing light in Ben’s voice. The words settled in Jocelyn’s mind. She hated every one of them. Ben was right but the underlying reality stung. She’d brought all this danger to their doors. Her, not Ben and not his team.
The guilt and worry balled up inside her. These men knew how to protect but her being there could cost them everything they cared about. She tried to think of another place she could go hide but nothing came to her.
