Page 38 of Fatal Betrayal

"Yes, I am."

"And you've taken the lead on the Benedict case."

"I have."

"Well, I might have some information that will be helpful to you. Why don't we meet tomorrow morning and discuss it? It won't take long. I can meet you for breakfast at Chicky's Pancake House. It's near your office."

She was surprised and felt a little uncomfortable agreeing to his invitation. Why was he getting involved in a case that had been taken out of his office and given to her? She didn't understand the local politics yet, so she decided to say yes and then speak to Flynn. "All right. What time?"

"Eight. And let's keep this between you and me for the moment."

"Why the secrecy?" she asked.

"I'll tell you tomorrow."

He clicked off before she could ask him any more questions.

"Everything okay?" Nick asked as he walked back to her desk with two coffees in his hand. He set one down in front of her. "I need to catch up with Damon one of these days."

"That wasn't Damon. It was another agent, Jim Burnett. He works kidnappings. We actually met a long time ago when I was a kid, and he was investigating the disappearance of a child on my block."

"I remember you talking about that at Quantico, how that kidnapping was why you became an agent." Nick paused, giving her a quizzical look. "But I thought we had this case, that Damon didn't want his agents working on it because of some possible perceived conflict of interest."

"That's what Flynn told me, but Agent Burnett said he has information and wants to talk to me tomorrow away from the office. In fact, he'd like me to keep the whole thing private, which, of course, I'm not doing, since I just told you about it."

Nick gave her a thoughtful look. "What do you think that's about?"

"I don't know. Flynn told me that Burnett and some of the agents on that team had a run-in with Neil Benedict and Cooper Bradford over a docuseries they're doing and that's why we're running things and not them. I guess I'll just meet him and see what he has to say."

"This guy must be a well-seasoned agent if he was working kidnappings when you were a kid."

"It was eighteen years ago. He was thirty-four at the time, fifty-two now."

"As a veteran agent with a ton of experience on what's going to be a high-profile case, I bet he's angry that Damon took him off the investigation. Maybe he wants to prove he would have been the better pick. Or he genuinely wants to help you solve the case."

"That about covers all the options," she said dryly.

Nick shrugged, giving her a light smile. "I've never been good at office politics. That was one perk of working out of the office."

"I'm sure you ran into politics and power plays in the criminal organizations you infiltrated."

"That's true. But those plays usually ended with someone dying, not getting a promotion."

"Well, I'm not going to worry about Burnett. I'll find out how he feels tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm going to do more research on all the players in the Benedict circle. I need to know a lot more a lot faster."

"Let's get to it," Nick said. "I have nothing else to do tonight."

She didn't either, and she'd rather work than go home and think about why she was suddenly feeling attracted to Cooper when he was the last person on earth she should want.

CHAPTERNINE

Cooper didn't getmuch sleep and woke up Wednesday morning at six with a kink in his neck and a bad attitude. His dreams had been all over the place. He'd thought about Elisa, Hannah, his brother, Kyle, and, of course, Andi.

He had liked it better when he knew exactly how he felt about her, when everything was black and white, no gray areas. But a lot of gray had come into play yesterday.

He'd saved Andi's life or at least he'd prevented her from getting hurt, but that hadn't bothered him as much as the way he'd felt when they were tangled up in each other, when her body had been beneath his, when her face, her mouth, had been so close… He shook his head, hoping to drive that disturbing thought out of his mind. He needed to remember who she was—and that was someone who had betrayed him. She'd broken their friendship. She'd done something she couldn't take back. His brother had died, in part because of her actions.

Needing to get away from his thoughts, he opted for a run instead of a shower. Six miles and an hour later, he ended up at the bakery in Santa Monica where his younger sister worked.

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