Page 4 of Shadow of the Moon

2

The hairs on the back of her neck were going to fricking run off if they stood up any harder.

Amberly glanced around her as surreptitiously as she could, without moving her head. She bumped her sunglasses up with a fingertip, and tilted her head back into the breeze. The bustling Chicago streets were an assault on the senses, and she was at peak alertness. The covert informant should have been here ten minutes ago. If he stood her up after she’d traveled all this way…

Maybe this was a power play. They did that sometimes. Reaching forward, she took a sip of her coffee, then nibbled a piece of danish. It was stale, though, and not very appetizing. Maybe when she got out of here, she would treat herself to a real meal.

The chances of this panning out, though, were pretty slim.

Deputy Director Brown would be so happy when she reported back that another cold case was going to stay cold.

Something niggled at her about this one, though. This was the big botched transport job that had sent shock waves through the department. They’d managed to keep it fairly quiet at the time, but a lot of managerial paperwork had come out of it. The CIA was basically trying to cover its ass, because it had been one of the worst ops in history. They had lost one of the world’s worst homicidal maniacs.

Amberly would hope that after almost three years she had enough emotional distance to not be swayed one way or the other by the outcome of whatever the informant had to say, but that would be stupid. She was five hundred percent invested in the information the CI had.

When she thought about that time, when her life had quite literally fallen apart, it was full of sadness and betrayal. Loneliness. Regret. The way things had gone down had been so fast, and she’d regretted her reactions for years. It had shaped the way she did her job now, and it had been a hard lesson to learn. Be patient, and listen more than you speak. As a woman in a predominantly male world, it had been difficult to throttle her voice, even when she’d been right in her deductions. She worked with a lot of emotionally compromised men that equated a loud voice with being right.

Like her boss, Mark Brown.

The man was a letch and an asshole and every other disgusting thing she could think of. He’d made his reputation by being in a good team and taking the credit for their work. He was young for a manager, but the people who hired him seemed to love him. She just didn’t understand it. The man had a line of bullshit ten miles long, but it seemed to work for him.

It was why she was here. The asshole was trying to put her off her game, so when he’d tossed the file on her desk of the botched transportation of Cole Regent and told her to figure out what had gone wrong, she’d understood he was prodding her. Brown knew exactly who her husband was, and the part he’d played. Maybe he was testing her loyalty. Again.

Operation Quicksilver had been a botched op from the beginning. She didn’t understand why the Navy SEAL team had been attached as transports, because they had their own people to do that. And she didn’t know why Devlin had tried to take the man out. If he’d been given orders, he would have said so. Officially, his team had been ordered to escorting the target to the airport. But somewhere along the line, Devlin had chosen to take Regent out. The folder had been anemic in details, and there seemed to have been whole pages of missing info. Who had put together the op? She only knew it had come from the top levels of the CIA, which could mean any one of about twenty people. There were no orders in print. It all seemed to have been word of mouth. There should have been some kind of documentation.

Amberly doubted she would be able to magically solve the case, but she would do her best to dig up more details. Things had never settled in her mind, despite the supposed proof she’d been shown.

Most importantly, they needed to get a handle on Cole Regent. He was psychotic, literally, but he had a way about him that made him friendly and likable, and he sounded sane as he talked about the myriad government conspiracies cluttering his mind. Amberly had watched interview tapes of him, and even being in the position she was, she could understand why he would be able to sway people. Charismatic and handsome, he was capable of wreaking incredible damage. He should have been dead months ago.

When was the damn informant going to show up?

The server approached her again, a broad smile on his face. “Ma’am, I’ve been asked to tell you that your companion will meet you in the back courtyard.”

Her stomach twisted. She wasn’t sure she liked this turn. “Is the back courtyard public?”

The smiling server waffled his hand. “A little more private.”

Amberly gathered her things and stood from the table, then she followed the man as he wove through the tables. In her mind she was mapping out exit strategies as she waded through people, scanning for danger. She was armed, her Springfield nestled beneath her left arm, but that would only get a single person so far, and the thought of trying to shoot her way out of a Chicago restaurant was not cool.

Following the young man through the back door, she stepped down onto a bricked floor. Immediately, her skin began to prickle, and her steps slowed. This didn’t feel right. Her gaze scanned the brick walls surrounding her. There was an interior balcony along all four walls that reminded her of a place Devlin had taken her in New Orleans years ago. It was even painted white like that place. She couldn’t see anyone in the depths of the rooms beyond, which was what was putting her on edge. Anyone could be standing up there, watching. Was this a kill box?

Plus, the tables were set, but not one was filled. It was as if the area had been kept witness free for a reason.

Had the CI set that up?

The man she’d traveled 700 miles to see sat in the back corner, in a shaded alcove. The table was under the balcony and in one of the most protected locations, so she appreciated that. She didn’t, however, appreciate having her back to the open room. Amberly wanted to see what was going on around her at all times.

Necco, her contact, was not a very big man. Their heights were probably about even. 5’9” ish. But he was a lean man, with stringy muscles honed with strength. Brownish gray hair, with a straggly mustache. There was a hardness to his expression. Amberly knew she would not want to scrap with him because he would probably take her down.

His watery eyes darted around the space as she joined him. “You’re alone, right?”

“I am,” she confirmed, sliding into the seat opposite him. “Just like you told me to be. Now, what is it you made me travel up here for?”

Necco glanced around, rubbing his hands together. Then he ran his palms down the fronts of his thighs, obviously wiping sweat away. “Let me see your belly. Are you wearing a wire?”

Frowning, she lifted her shirt enough for him to see the bare skin of her belly. “Why would I wear a wire to talk to you? I never have before.”

“Because I have information that will destroy your department,” he hissed.

---