Page 1 of End Game

1

The slice across his flesh took him by surprise. Pain seared through subcutaneous layers with such speed that Special Agent Asher Cameron Blackwell—Ash to his family and Cameron to his colleagues—flicked his hand hard in a futile attempt to stop the flow of torture.

“Dammit.” He slammed the cabinet door shut on the deadly manilla file folder and stuffed the pad of his injured thumb into his mouth. The metallic taste of blood spread across his tongue.

Better there than on the paperwork he’d just completed.

He hated paperwork.

With. A. Passion.

Eileen Tao, the new FBI director, seemed to equate the quantity of forms, reports, and daily logs to an agent’s level of productivity. What she did with all the data, he didn’t know. But he would have liked to tell her where she could shove her new procedures.

He’d much rather be out in the field, tracking down leads, talking to his confidential informants, or being undercover. Hell, he’d even swap a night surveillance in twenty-degree weather for logging phone calls.

A quick tap against the metal frame of his cubicle brought his head around.

Senior Resident Agent Mitch Lawson stood at the opening, a blond eyebrow lifted at the sight of one of his agents with his thumb stuck in his mouth.

If Cameron had still been stationed at the Charlotte field office, his supervisor there would have made a joke about him regressing, and he would have responded in kind. Tit for- tat. Since relocating to the much smaller resident agency in Asheville six months ago, he hadn’t yet crossed that line from no-nonsense professionalism to friendly banter with Lawson.

Maybe he never would.

He lowered his thumb. “Can I help you, sir?”

“I need you to follow up on an unofficial complaint the Bureau received.”

Lawson’s use of unofficial caught his attention, but he let it ride for now.

“Anonymous?”

“No, the complainant is a member of the Engel County School Board.” Lawson shifted on his feet. “She believes another board member is going to sell her vote on an upcoming agenda item in exchange for a piece of artwork.”

Cameron’s interest sparked. After Special Agent Olivia Westcott left the Bureau to work for his brother at Blackwell Asset Recovery Services, aka BARS, he’d jumped at the opportunity to slide into the vacancy she’d left behind in Asheville. Partly because it was the opportunity he’d been waiting for since joining the Bureau five years ago and partly because it would put him closer to Steele Ridge.

Home.

Or what used to be home. Didn’t much feel like it anymore. Not with the unending tension between him and his brother Zeke.

A situation he intended to remedy. Soon.

If he could get his hardheaded brother on board.

Due to Cameron and Liv’s success with recovering stolen art over the past couple of years, Special Agent in Charge Shanice Williams had decided North Carolina could use its own art crime squad. Now, he and two other agents could prioritize art and cultural cases over others that might cross their desks.

But someone using artwork to swing a school board vote didn’t seem like a job for the FBI, let alone his team.

“Isn’t that an issue for the Board’s superintendent to sort out?” he asked.

“Under normal circumstances, yes.”

He lifted a brow. “And these aren’t?”

“The complainant believes the offending member and the superintendent are having an affair.”

“What about the sheriff?”

A look of exasperation crossed the SRA’s features, as if he’d already run through the gamut of FBI-alternatives. Which he probably had.

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