Page 30 of Deep Cover

When they all had their fudgy cakes and dishes of rocky road ice cream, Caryssa steered the conversation to a lighter place than Reid or her loneliness.

“How did you two end up here, anyway?”

She knew a bit from the files. Both worked at the restaurant and heard a customer make a phone call using a voice modulator. Now the dead truck driver’s phone records connected him to Antonio’s too.

Caryssa’s friend Phillip had also been guarding Stina without her knowledge until he was killed in the back alley of Antonio’s.

The women were cautioned against discussing the base or team. But Caryssa needed them to trust her enough to talk about their experiences with the person of interest.

Jolie swallowed a bite of ice cream. “I came to Oregon on an adventure. I was taking photos from a fire tower when a storm blew in fast and I was trapped. The next thing I knew, a man rushed in on a snowmobile to rescue me, and here I am. Then I got kidnapped and now I’m in protective custody.” She spoke with a lightness that Caryssa suspected covered something rawer underneath.

Stina’s spoon hovered partway to her lips. “I was placed in protective custody after somebody killed my FBI agent.”

Caryssa covered her reaction by shoveling cake into her mouth.

“We got kidnapped together,” she went on.

“Which, honestly”—Jolie waved her spoon in the air—“how many people get kidnapped twice?”

“I’m FBI,” Caryssa said, waving her own spoon, “and I can tell you with confidence that’s extremely rare.”

They both laughed. “I’m pretty sure I’ve earned a commemorative plaque,” Jolie said.

“Frequent kidnapping miles. Free upgrade next time,” Stina added.

Caryssa laughed—actually laughed, surprising herself. The ladies traded the triumphant look of two women who’d just solved world peace.

She set aside her empty dishes and pulled her tea closer again. The drink was lukewarm but she still appreciated the comforting flavor.

She glanced between the women. “So what do we do now?” she asked when the silence stretched a beat too long. “Braid each other’s hair? Paint our nails?”

Stina snapped her fingers. “I knew I forgot something on the last supply order. Nail kit. I told Rome I needed one and he wrote down ‘nail gun’ instead, which, honestly, isn’t a surprise around here.”

“Please tell me there’s actually a nail gun in this building right now.” Caryssa leaned closer over the table.

Stina giggled. “There is. Cannon was furious.”

The three of them kept talking long past the point Caryssa meant to stay. They talked about nothing important—Cannon’s temper and how he carried a bottle of painkillers in his pocket because he claimed the team gave him tension headaches. They laughed over Younger’s cooking and the bets written on the whiteboard on the kitchen wall that Cannon always groaned over and occasionally erased.

Somewhere in the middle of scraping her spoon around the last of the mug cake and the bottom of her teacup, Caryssa realized a band in her chest that had been locked tight for so long loosened just a little bit.

She was enjoying herself.

God. When had enjoying life become so rare?

And somewhere along the way, she’d stopped thinking of Jolie and Stina as witnesses and started thinking of them as friends.

Which complicated the hell out of why she was sitting here.

They’d given her pieces tonight, but not enough. Both women still skirted around Antonio’s and the man they’d heard there, careful whenever the conversation edged too close to the investigation. Caryssa understood why. She was FBI, and trust didn’t come automatically anymore.

But she still needed answers.

And now she wanted them without making either woman regret trusting her.

EIGHT

Rivers had breached an enemy compound with three seconds of prep and zero hesitation. He’d also cleared a room of four armed hostiles without a scratch.