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“So am I.” Cal winked.
“I’m guessing you have an idea for our first case.” Quin’s question basically gave our plan the go-ahead.
“Yes.” Nero’s jaw went tight. “We’re going to find the people who are after Felix.”
Cal rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Obviously.”
“Before we dive into this, don’t you want to know what Felix was doing that put him in danger?” Quin removed his glasses and buffed them clean with a monogrammed handkerchief he pulled from his pocket.
His twin shrugged. “Nope. Doesn’t matter to me.”
“I want to know.” Julius stood and slid his slim silver laptop off the island, bringing it back to his seat.
I looked at Nero, and he nodded, then squeezed my fingers under the table.
Taking a deep breath, I launched into the story. “I was digging into a case for the FBI, but the agent who is my handler was worried someone in the bureau might have loose lips?—”
“A mole?” Julius asked.
“The FBI?” Nero’s fingers tightened around mine.
I nodded. “They weren’t sure, so the feds ‘loaned’ me to the SPD to make it look like I was working on something else. I was supposed to be trying to see what I could find out about a missing art thief.”
Julius and Nero shared a significant look, and then Julius asked, “Who?”
“Her real name’s Amanda Vanderkaamp. She disappeared from her WITSEC location in Amsterdam two months ago. No one was supposed to know where or who she really was, but someone had all those details.”
The brothers let out breaths I wasn’t sure any of them knew they’d been holding, and the legs of Cal’s chair hit the floor with a thud.
“What do the feds want with a missing art thief?” Nero asked.
“I don’t know. I only ever get part of the story. I was only supposed to find out where she was.”
“So how did whoever find you? If you’re good enough to work for the FBI, you’re smart enough to cover your tracks.”
I gave Julius an unimpressed glare. If only he knew how I’d ended up working as a gray hat for the feds in the first place. But that was a story I’d share another day. “Thanks. I think.”
He held his hands up in surrender, then went back to his computer, no doubt trying to find out how I’d gotten into his encrypted files.
“I don’t know what happened. I was digging into Amanda’s financials, trying to see if I could find payoffs or anomalies, and just as I started to see a pattern and tried digging into her finances before her arrest, I got the email with the target on my head, sent it to McMahon, and he pulled me off the job and came to pick me up. I told you the rest from there last night. I honestly have no idea what I found, but someone sure as shit didn’t want me going any further.”
Quin looked at Nero. “You know McMahon, right? You think he’s the mole?”
Nero shook his head. “He’s a detective with major crimes for the SPD, not a fed. But no, I don’t think it’s him. Why call in a favor and have me guard Felix if he was really after whatever information Felix could find?”
“To throw everyone off the scent.” Cal sucked his teeth, considering that angle.
McMahon was a by the book cop, and for as long as I’d known him, he’d always been kind to me. I couldn’t see him as the mole. “No, I don’t think so. McMahon didn’t know what I was actually doing. My FBI handler told him I was looking into a money-laundering case for organized crimes. He shouldn’t know anything about Vanderkaamp.”
Julius still looked unconvinced. “We need to know what you found that tipped off whoever is behind this that you’re involved. We need to figure out how they knew it was you, especially because you’re damn good at erasing your fingerprints. I can’t even tell you were in my files.”
“I agree.”
“Wait.” Nero put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re off the case?”
“On paper, yes, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do some more digging. Besides, I work for ORCA now.”
“Felix…”
