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Nash made a face. “If they aren’t, they ought to be. He’s up to no good.”
I huffed. “Like it takes a special agency to figure that out.” Then I stopped. “Whose jurisdiction is this agency under?”
He hesitated, then murmured, “The government’s.”
I rolled my eyes.No shit, Sherlock.“I mean, what branch?”
“That’s classified. I shouldn’t even be telling you it exists.”
“Because I’m likely to announce it to everyone at Buffalo Bill’s?” I laughed without humor. “Like anyone would believe me.”
He didn’t say anything.
I mulled it all over. “You don’t work for this agency any more, and yet here you are, snooping on me.”
“I’m not snooping on anyone.”
“No, you were just joining the party very quietly through the second-floor balcony when no one was looking.”
He made a face, but I had him there, and he knew it.
“Even though I don’t work for the agency, I can still report suspicious activity. But I need more than a hunch to do that.”
“Harlon rewriting the memories of seven balloon passengers doesn’t count as evidence?”
“Evidence of malicious wrongdoing, I mean.”
I cackled. “Malicious? Why don’t you report that Angelina woman, then?”
He paled. Clearly, I’d struck a nerve there.
“Vampires weren’t what I trained for.” His eyes dulled, hinting at a lie — or a stretch in the truth, at least.
“How do you train for vampires?” I pictured a 007-style lab equipped with wooden stakes, cloves of garlic, and booby-trapped coffins.
“Good question,” Nash murmured bitterly.
Was that bitterness aimed at all vampires or Angelina in particular? And, yikes. Did he and she have a history?
Jealousy stabbed my gut, which was weird. Jealousy was when you wanted the guy, and that wasn’t the case here. Not even remotely.
“Can you report her — and Harlon?” I tried.
“I could.” His flat tone didn’t exactly inspire.
“Why wouldn’t you?”
He looked at his feet for a long time before replying. “I left for…several reasons…”
I bit back the impulse to fill in his pause with some guesses.Inability to cooperate? Poor communication? Insubordination?
Angelina?the back of my mind added.
Finally, he continued. “One reason I left was a hunch that we’d been infiltrated and that someone was leaking information.”
“Leaking information to whom? Harlon?”
He shrugged. “Possibly. I never got to the bottom of it. But entire investigations were compromised, and agents were endangered. I reported my suspicions, but no one took it seriously. Maybe the higher-ups I reported to were guilty.” He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “Who knows.”
