Page 22 of Knotted Laces

Nightmares.

CHAPTER SIX

Ats

I closethe file and lean back in my desk chair, staring at my computer screen and trying to make the facts fit.

Lex and I spent almost five years trying to close down an organized crime ring that centered around the small coastal town of Stoneybrook on the other side of the country.

We finally cracked it when we managed to nail the ringleader—Frankie’s dad.

Yeah, it’s complicated and made shit seriously heavy for Lex when he was falling in love with her, but the bosses of the Lyon crime ring were eventually taken down, Frankie was cleared, and her and Lex could ride off with their happily ever after into the sunset.

But that doesn’t mean all parties who were working for the Lyons just turned over a new leaf and got on the straight and narrow. The lifelong criminals we weren’t able to take down didn’t start volunteering for senior charities or to paint over graffiti on the side of buildings or to clean up dog poop assholes leave on the street.

They’re still out there.

Still doing illegal shit.

Still hurting people.

And one of them killed Tommy.

I rub the throb in my temple and sigh.

I just don’t know which one.

Same as I can’t beabsolutelycertain that a group of those Lyon criminals—the mid- to high-level bastards who managed to slip out from beneath our net—are in the Bay Area.

I just…feelit.

The pieces seem to line up. My gut tells me I’m right.

But then again, my gut led to Tommy getting killed, so what the fuck do I know?

I exhale again, rub more determinedly at the throb.

I’ll find him. I know I will.

I just need to keep working, keep pulling the pieces together, keep?—

There’s a knock at the door and I look up, see my new boss, Sandra, leaning back against the door frame. “Pack it in.”

I frown. “What?”

“It’s seven-thirty,” she says. “You’ve been here since six”—I open my mouth to play dumb, but she talks over me—”cameras, Ats, plus you know that Connie keeps track of everyone’s hours, so don’t try to bullshit me.”

Suitably chastised, I close my mouth.

Connie is the office mom—and just like most good moms in the world, she has her fingers on the pulses of all of the agents in her department.

Which means there’s no way I can lie my way through this.

“I know I’m close,” I mutter.

“Says every agent, all the fucking time,” Sandra quips then tilts her head to the hall. “Pack it up, pack it out. We’re going to the bar.”

“No, I’ll?—”

---