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Max peeredthrough the window into the security police station interrogation room where Lieutenant Colonel Kat Lowry sat, ramrod straight and not budging on her responses. Her voice echoed through the speaker as she answered routine questions from the steely-haired OSI Special Agent.
Alone in the narrow observation hall, Max processed her answers piping through the speaker. But more important, he studied the Army intel officer’s eyes to gauge her reactions. He absorbed her every betraying twitch, already compiling a list of rebuttal questions to pass along to the interrogator.
After a quick briefing from Crusty and Max, the OSI had picked her up hours ago—a cold victory, revealing a traitor. It all made sense. Her encryption specialty with the tap. Her knowing precisely when Max and Darcy had left to dive. Her ensuring Vinnie was in the wrong place at the wrong time to appear guilty.
How many other minds and lives had she played with? The scope of damage could ripple for years. The Army CID officer perched in the steel-backed chair with a calm no doubt honed from years in the field.
He’d waited for this moment since Eva’s death, longed to find a link to the intelligence leak in the South Pacific. Still, the closure didn’t settle within him.
Max rested his palms on the ledge and canted closer to the one-way mirror while she answered another round of questions. His gut told him they had the right person. She insisted she didn’t need a JAG, but he could sense the edginess in her even through glass.
Yeah, it fit. Almost. He couldn’t reconcile the image of this woman wasting time on spiders or tampering with a plane to taunt Darcy.
The tension in Lowry built until Max could almost see it pulsing from her, like the heightened Technicolor world he’d missed underwater for so long. Darcy challenged him, bringing all senses alive until the world sharpened. Focused.
Until he could see Kat Lowry was ready to… “I want to cut a deal.”
Max exhaled the victory.
Her voice remained calm through the speaker. “You can arrest me and stop just one solitary little leak.” She leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Or I can give you at least fifty military and CIA leaks in exchange for immunity.”
CIA? Alarms jangled in Max’s head.
“Colonel,” the interrogator intoned, “I don’t have the power to grant that and you know it.”
“Find someone who does. You can buy me off with a deal. Piece of cake. Other countries have been doing it with money for years. And while you’re at it, here’s a token of good faith, a freebie to give you a sample of what I know. Maybe soften the folks farther up the chain.”
The interrogator folded his arms. “I’m listening.”
“Max Keagan’s assistant.”
Perry? Max searched Lowry’s face, deeper, wondering what game she was playing with them this time. Confusion shuffled the new piece of information in his brain seeking a place in the puzzle.
The interrogator shot her a skeptical look.
She waved a hand through the air. “Your choice whether to believe me or not. Your loss if you choose wrong. He was placing encrypted phone calls to me right up to a few hours before he left San Diego. I’m telling you, he turned and he’s out of control. He’s got some kind of vendetta against Keagan. A person like that is dangerous. He blew this whole operation.”
Max scrubbed a hand across his face to clear away lack of sleep and search for what reason Perry would have to go gunning for him.
Kat Lowry drummed her fingers along the steel-topped table. “Perry Griffin’s been selling information for years. He’s the one who tipped off the other side so I could wrangle myself in on the intel team to control the fallout. He’s definitely got an agenda this time, and he won’t accept less than the personal satisfaction of watching Keagan suffer.”
His hand falling away from his jaw, Max studied her face and found— determination. He believed her. He didn’t need any more words for confirmation even while all those pieces of information jammed against each other in ragged mismatching order.
Slowly she turned to the one-way mirror. Max felt her eyes smolder through. Connect.
No way could she see him, but her eyes locked dead-on. “Keagan might want to call and check up on his girlfriend.”
Her implication popped right through the glass and into his brain like a bullet. Pierced him with a grinding certainty.
Snakes. The plane.
Screw wondering why Perry had it in for him. Where was Darcy? She should have arrived by now.
Max reached for the for his cell phone to call her.
Ring.
Pick up.
