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Bit started to ramble in a language that she couldn't quite understand, but she let him go on while she retrieved her keys from the pocket of her dress coat. She'd made sure that the installers had followed her directions to the letter. Of course, it had been against the wishes of the security firm that the equipment had been purchased from, but they'd relented once they realized they would be paid upfront for the hardware.
"I'm sure you'll have the security system up and running to some usable extent by the end of business hours today," Brook replied, having already accepted that she shouldn't have too high of expectations when it came to the working hours of her employees. She assumed they all had outside lives, and she was okay with taking on the brunt of the caseloads. She and Graham had spoken at length about the fact that she wanted to keep things on a smaller scale instead of overseeing numerous investigators with copious amounts of cases. "Go ahead and start the tour. The last time you were here, there was nothing but drywall to separate the office spaces."
Brook turned the key until she heard the electronic deadbolt disengage. She then slid her keys back into her coat pocket before reaching for the keypad and entering in her code. She then turned the handle.
Bit was still studying the biometric device, so she left him to it while she turned on the overhead lights. There was a fragrance in the air that smelled of newness, but she doubted it would last long once they got down to work. She made her way across the marble tiles, glad that the lobby downstairs had the standard grey mats to take any residual dirt off the rubber treads of her boots.
Brook grimaced when she realized that she'd forgotten all about her antique coatrack that was still in the entryway of her condo. After setting her coffee down on her desk, she took off her leather gloves and jotted a note to herself so that she could take care of it later this evening. She didn't want to keep using the front entry closet in the reception area.
While it was on her mind, she also made a note to email the building association regarding the cleaning services that they offered their tenants in the lease agreements. She'd decided to outsource to a trusted and bonded company who'd already had a background investigation done in the course of one of her older cases.
Any outsider would believe that she was taking the security of the new firm to extremes, but she was the only one who knew Jacob's abilities. He wasn't to be underestimated, and he clearly wasn't done teaching her whatever lesson it was that he thought she should learn.
"Holy shit!"
Bit had apparently finished studying the biometric scanner and finally discovered his new office. The door had been secured with a keypad cypher, but he would have known that it had been the usual factory setting. She was confident that it would be one of the first codes that was changed out within the coming hours.
Brook went about removing the rest of her winter gear, using her new couch to sit down so that she could replace her winter boots with her favorite black heels. They were her most comfortable pair. She was certainly going to need the additional consolation during her meeting with Harden and the other agent in charge of her brother's case.
"Boss?"
"Yes?"
Brook glanced toward the doorway to find Bit standing there shifting his weight back and forth on his running shoes, his grey knit hat a bit askew on top of his head. There was a look of concern on his oblong face that had her straightening her back and dropping her winter boot on the floor.
"I think we might have a problem. A big problem."
Chapter Four
Brooklyn Sloane
January 2022
Monday — 7:04am
"Doweneed,like,personal security?" Bit asked warily as he tapped the pen in his hand against the desk. It was more of a table, shaped into half an octagon, and it had more monitors and keyboards than the trading desk in the financial firm across the hall. "No offense, Boss, but I just got out from underneath the shadow of a Russian mobster. I really don't want to get hacked up into pieces by some crazy-assed psycho. I'd be the laughingstock of the mob."
Someone had leaked her relationship with Jacob Walsh to the media.
The press was currently having a field day, and they were apparently parked right outside her condo building, her work site, and the FBI field offices reporting about how the Bureau had employed the sister of a serial killer as a consultant. The fallout for Harden was going to be astronomical, but she didn't feel sorry for him in the least. He'd known exactly who he had hired to work for him, and he'd benefited from it for many years.
Brook wasn't a betting woman, but she would have put her money on Agent Houser as being the one who had tipped the press. Harden wouldn't have signed off on such an unprofessional stunt, which meant they both had to be getting pressure from the brass to pull the surveillance after two months of producing next to nothing. It had to be the reason that the two agents wanted to go over things with her once more, and Houser was clearly hoping that she failed in recalling the same details as the day Mrs. Upton's body had been discovered in her condo.
"Bit, my brother prefers to kill females," Brook replied with an even tone, doing what she could to maintain her composure. Her entire world was disintegrating right before her eyes. The life that she had built for herself since she'd left the university to work for the FBI had just been torn up and cast to the winds, just as Jacob preferred to do to his victims. "I'm not saying that predilection wouldn't change if Jacob were pushed into a corner, so if you'd feel more comfortable with personal security, I'm sure that can be arranged."
"We don't need personal security."
"Whoa! Don't go sneaking up on people like that, man," Bit exclaimed after he'd placed his hand across his chest. "Not cool. Not cool at all."
Former Special Agent Theo Neville stood in the doorway with his attention solely on her. She was surprised that he didn't seem more offended over the information that she'd kept from him, but then again, hewasa consummate professional. He'd also been a damn good agent who had been injured in the field working with her.
"Boss, I'm going to get to work on coding that biometrics scanner," Bit muttered as he side-eyed Theo before pushing his knit hat a bit higher on his forehead. "I totally get why you thought we needed one in the first place."
There was no judgement in Theo's dark stare, though he could just be good at hiding his feelings of betrayal.
Brook had harbored quite a lot of guilt over the years, and she couldn't ignore the returning sharp pain in her chest at the sight of a black patch covering the former agent's right eye. The damage that had been done to his cornea had been irreparable. Had she not requested him personally to help her on a previous case, he would still be a field agent with the Bureau and a promising career ahead of him.
He certainly wouldn't be putting his life in danger by working for S&E Investigations.
