Page 17 of Crossfire

“No.”

“Can we get another tech team to help?” I wondered aloud.

“Wehaveanother tech team helping,” Seth replied. “This shit takes time.”

“So, in other words, you can’t help me identify her,” I said.

“Not at the moment.”

“Can you train me how to run facial recognition?” I asked.

The guy had the nerve to laugh out loud. Guess he forgot that between the two of us, I was the deadlier one. Seth spent most of his time behind a computer screen or behind the long lines of a scope, his finger on the trigger he never had to pull.

“There has to be someone else we can call to help go through this faster,” I insisted.

“We can’t pull in more resources without risking an intel leak that could compromise future missions on this target. Not after that explosion,” Seth disagreed.

Great.

“Seth,” Daniel said. “Prioritize following Nightshade’s movements after the detonation. Give me real-time intel. I just arrived at the scene. I’m going to pose as a bystander to see if they pull more than one body from the rubble.” More than one, meaning the woman arrived with someone else we missed, but left them to die. “Grayson, do you have eyes on our surprise guest?”

As if the universe finally decided to throw me a bone, the front door of the police station swung open again. Lo and behold, out walked the enigmatic brunette, her arms crossedtightly over her stomach, like she was trying to hold herself together.

At least I didn’t lose her on top of all my other incompetence today.

“I do.”

“Good. Tail her. Get a name, address, or photo if you can. Be discreet. Don’t blow your cover. We’ll debrief tonight.”

“Okay.”

“I have to go,” Daniel announced.

I did, too.

Because she was on the move. On foot this time, headed toward a city bus stop.

The woman with no name and a mystery that could unravel everything.

7

IVY

My finger hovered over my cell’s keyboard as I stood at the bus stop, reading the latest barrage of texts from Pete. Ugh, it was beyond embarrassing that Detective Mitchell’s IT guy probably had these, too, when he downloaded the messages from Bob. I shouldn’t have told Pete what I was doing today. I knew he would get upset, but it felt irresponsible to not tell at least one person that I was meeting someone I had met online. And telling my mother was out of the question.

She would have shown up at my house to physically block me or maybe even called the police. In hindsight, it would have been a fair reaction, but that wasn’t the point.

The point was, I had confided in Pete—last minute, before he could pull any tactics to try to stop me.

Was it a little pathetic that I didn’t have more friends to choose from that I resorted to my ex-boyfriend? Definitely. But what was even more upsetting than my pathetic social life was Pete’s reaction.

I mean, worrying about someone was one thing, but he needed to stop with his all-caps texts. The literary equivalent of shouting, and now, I was on my way to meet him in person.

Maybe I should just go home. It would be mean, leaving him hanging, but at least it would give him more time to cool off.

No. If I did that, he would just show up, and then there’d be no getting him to leave. He would rant and rave for as long as he wanted.

At least if I met him at the coffee shop, I could walk out anytime I wanted, and truly, there was something far more pressing I should be focused on right now.

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