Page 30 of Knocked Up by my Best Friend's Brothers

“It’s PTSD, man. We all have it to some degree.”

I nod in agreement. “I think Christa’s dealing with something similar. She’s nervous around crowds. She’s pretty closed off, if you notice. She wasn’t like that before. Despite her difficult upbringing and her issues with her aunt Mary, Christa was always so open and honest and cheery about everything. She’s not that girl anymore.”

“She’s notagirl anymore.” Nathan gives me a wry smile. “Which is why we’re even more fucking smitten with her. She’s a fully grown woman.”

“It’s more than that. Come on, Nate, you said you agree.”

He chuckles softly and gets up, slowly making his way to the window. He leans against it and gazes out for a while. “I don’tthink it was the FBI raid that rattled Christa or the actual crash of the company,” Nathan says. “I think it’s something much darker. It’s connected to Perry-Sage, but not the embezzlement part.”

“Do you know what that might be?”

My interest is easily piqued, and I know River would want to know as well. He’s elbow deep in a strategic meeting with Alexandra at this hour, probably checking the time every other minute, hoping it ends sooner rather than later. He definitely isn’t her biggest fan.

Nathan shakes his head. “Not yet. I’ve got a few connections in the Bureau, though not in DC, just the Portland Field Office. I’m sure I can at least ask them to shake that tree and see what falls out of it.”

“Well, she’s not in the witness protection program, so there’s that,” I say and chuckle dryly.

“That means she didn’t testify against the executives at Perry-Sage and the handful of Mancinis who went down with them.”

“Mancinis?”

“Well connected and with tentacles all the way from New York,” Nathan replies. “I thought you read those newspaper printouts.”

“I skimmed them. I’ve been busy.”

“Take an hour for lunch and read the whole thing,” he says. “It’s riveting.”

“So let me get this straight before I delve into the story. Perry-Sage, a major fintech company with a sturdy presence on the stock market, gets obliterated by the Feds for embezzlement,fraud, SEC breaches, and a slew of other charges, and they took down some mobsters with them, too?”

“Some, not all of them, though that was the original scope of the investigation. White Collar and Organized Crime actually worked together on it, but the latter let the former take the credit for their busts, mainly because they didn’t have enough evidence to put all the Mancinis away.”

“Talk about inflated egos.”

“Yeah and get this. It all started with a series of anonymous tips followed by a couple of whistleblowers, whose identities were never revealed. But around the same time, several bodies dropped, all of them employees of Perry-Sage, mid- to high-level executives.”

I frown as I process this information and start putting two and two together. The big picture is definitely beginning to emerge, but I have yet to find Christa’s role in it.

“We should be able to figure out Christa’s involvement,” I tell Nathan.

“I’ll do my best.”

A thought crosses my mind, and I take my phone out, remembering we still have a few contacts in law enforcement in California, too. ““Remember the staff sergeant from our mission in Damascus? He’s not FBI, but I think he might be able to pull a few strings,” I say.

“Yeah. He’s a sheriff in Orange County these days.”

“Worth texting him.”

“Absolutely,” Nathan agrees.

In the meantime, we leave Christa out of it. Whatever happened in Los Angeles, no matter how big or how bad it was, left an imprint on her. I can read her like an open book, every page of her begging to be understood even when she’s working overtime to keep her past hidden.

About an hour later, I come out of my brother’s office with all the newspaper printouts in a manila folder under my arm. Nathan is about to start an overseas call, River is somewhere on the other side of the building, and I’m wondering how Christa is faring thus far.

My pulse picks up speed as I walk toward her office.

“There you are!” Alexandra comes up from the other end of the hallway.

At the same time, Christa walks out of her office. For some reason, I feel uneasy about the imminent collision. As soon as they see each other, I notice very different reactions. Alexandra seems eager, while Christa would rather go back inside her office. She doesn’t, though.

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