Page 104 of Sting
Adrian was pressing her arm, demanding that she say nothing more.
Hickam leaned across the table again and thumped it with his fist. “Not Panella. Not Josh. Then who? Tell us. Who called you?”
“I did.”
At the sound of the new voice in the room, four pairs of eyes swung toward the door. There stood Shaw Kinnard.
Chapter 26
Jordie and Joe Wiley lurched out of their chairs. Jordie’s tipped over backward.
But Wiley’s partner moved faster than anyone. In under a second his pistol was drawn and aimed at the bridge of Shaw’s nose, his finger on the trigger.
Behind Shaw, Xavier Dupaw shouted, “Don’t shoot! He’s one of you. FBI. Special Agent Shaw Kinnard.”
Shaw’s focus remained on Jordie’s wide, incredulous gaze, but in his peripheral vision he saw that the woman sitting in the chair next to her was blinking rapidly. Joe Wiley mouthed several profanities and looked like he wanted to drive his fist through a wall.
The guy with the nine-millimeter acted like he hadn’t heard the disclaimer. He still had a bead on Shaw’s forehead.
Shaw didn’t move except to cut his eyes over to him. “Want to lower that?”
“Not really.”
The prosecutor edged around Shaw and entered the room, chortling, “You should see your faces. I guess we pulled it off.”
Shaw watched Jordie’s lips part in disbelief. Or disillusionment, maybe. In a barely audible voice, she said, “You’re an FBI agent?”
“Guilty.”
With obvious reluctance the black agent lowered his pistol. “You son of a bitch. I almost shot you.”
Shaw turned his head and sized him up. “I don’t like you all that much, either.”
“Gentlemen, no need for hostility,” Dupaw said. He turned to Shaw and added under his breath, “I told you that I should come in first to neutralize the situation, but did you listen?”
Joe Wiley stepped around the table. Shaw could practically see smoke coming from his ears, and, frankly, he didn’t blame him. “If you’re FBI, I’m a Chinaman.”
“I caught ’em on a slow day.” If Shaw had felt better, he might have grinned. But he couldn’t muster the energy.
The woman beside Jordie had righted her chair and took her elbow in an attempt to guide her back into it. Jordie shook her off and remained standing. Shaw had only ever seen her in the jeans and top she’d worn into the bar. Today she was dressed for business in a navy pants suit with a pink scooped-neck top underneath the jacket.
But he was less interested in her wardrobe than in her facial expressions, which had evolved from dismay upon seeing him, to absolute fury upon learning how he had misled her, big-time.
He didn’t blame her, either.
Wiley propped his hands on his hips. “Badge?”
“Can’t carry one. But if you want to call Atlanta and check me out, I can give you a password.”
“Do that.”
Shaw gave him his code, the number to call, and the individual to ask for. The super-stud agent pecked the phone number into his cell and stepped out of the room to make the call.
Joe Wiley still regarded Shaw with blatant mistrust. “You work out of the Atlanta office?”
“When I work out of an office at all.”
“I can vouch for him,” Xavier Dupaw said with overblown self-importance. “I was about to indict him for that double murder. NOPD, you and Agent Hickam, everybody in Orleans Parish was pressuring me to do so.”
