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“And?”
“You’re not mad?”
“That you didn’t tell me?” She shrugged. “I get it. It’s an internal personnel thing. I know how undercover operations work—the fewer people who know the better.”
He stared at her, obviously having expected a different reaction.
She took another bite, didn’t say anything.
“You’re mad.”
She drained her beer. “Did you get me two?”
Matt produced another, popped the top off for her. She couldn’t help but smile. She stared at him; he didn’t avert his eyes. This man...he drove her crazy half the time. But he had an uncanny way of knowing how she felt. Not always what she was thinking, but he seemed attuned with her emotions and that was just weird. And a bit endearing.
“I’m not mad,” she said after a long pause, mostly because she wanted to get her thoughts together. She wasn’t angry with Matt. This problem wasn’t his fault. “Not about the undercover op,” she continued. “It’s a damn good idea. You have a couple bad feds, you need to get rid of them.”
“Then what are you upset about?”
“That he wasn’t fired when he lied to you. Or three years ago when he went after me and had me wrung through IA. Or seven years ago when we collided on another case and he nearly got me killed. Or ten years ago when he screwed with my investigation on the docks and put me in fucking handcuffs after I identified myself as a cop. He has never apologized, never accepted that what he did was wrong. He still has a badge, has been promoted, and I don’t think anything is going to happen to him. He’s going to keep his job because the FBI are a bunch of bureaucratic pricks. Present company excluded.” She waved her hands at Michael and Matt.
She stuffed a fry in her mouth. Yeah, she was still angry about all the bullshit Bryce Thornton had rained upon her over the years. “He got Colton killed. No doubt in my mind,” she said. “He’ll never pay for that, and you know it. But I’m not mad at you. You didn’t even know he existed seven months ago, and at least for the first time someone actually slapped his hand. He got reprimanded for lying to a fed, not for anything he did to me or others in LAPD.” She drank more beer. “So why tell me now?”
“Our undercover agent is coming here tomorrow morning with Brian Granderson, one of the SACs in LA. We’re going to debrief, and I want you here. She hasn’t uncovered a smoking gun, but we think that maybe she doesn’t know what she knows. She was a Marine, graduated top of her class at Quantico, but she’s still a rookie. We want a discussion—something that has been hard to do.”
That, Kara didn’t expect. “Happy to oblige,” she said.
Matt relaxed, finished eating his sandwich. “Sloane asked about several LAPD investigations that Thornton was interested in, but we can’t figure out why. She also asked to look at some other files, and we’ve quietly obtained them. It would send up big red flags if the FBI asked for files without giving a reason.”
That was true.
“I’ll give you access to Agent Wagner’s reports if you want to review them tonight.”
“I’d like that. I might be able to get those LAPD reports without raising a flag.”
Now Matt smiled. “I thought so.”
“We could also bring in Lex.”
“I’ll think on that.”
Kara glanced at Michael. He had been quiet. “Did you think I would get mad at you for keeping me in the dark?” she said to her partner.
“No. But you know me, I don’t like secrets, and I don’t like keeping them. I only knew about the operation, not the players. Now I do.”
Matt’s phone vibrated on the table next to his plate. He answered. “Costa... Sure, room 1050.” He ended the call and looked at Kara. “Your boss wants to talk to us.”
“Lex is here?”
“Elena Gomez.”
13
Kara hadn’t seen Elena since shortly after she took down Chen in February. Kara had been in the hospital with twenty-some stitches holding together the gaping slash in her back after Chen’s right-hand man threw a knife at her.
Kara had known Elena Gomez for almost her entire career on the police force. She was divorced, had two kids, a surprisingly good relationship with her ex, and was a workaholic. She was five-six, with a round face, dark no-nonsense eyes, stocky build, and had passed on her love of tequila to Kara.
Elena looked nervous when she walked into the hotel suite with Matt. Kara wondered why. Kara couldn’t remember a time when Elena ever looked unsure of herself. She’d told Kara more than once that command presence was the key to getting out of dicey situations, especially for female officers. If the perp sees a weakness, they’ll exploit it. Never let them see weakness.
