Page 21

Twenty-One

Roman

“O kay, so where do we go from here?” I asked as I looked around my apartment at Mike, Trevor, and Max. Quinn and Rosie had stayed the night with me last night but left to spend the day at her mom’s house while us guys tried to figure out a plan to keep Rosie safe.

“It’s hard to say,” Mike replied with a hint of frustration in his voice as he ran a hand through his hair.

“We know that it’s not just one person that’s involved,” Max added. “There are several people at play, and that will make it even harder to narrow it down.”

“There’s also a strong FBI thread,” Trevor said with a nod in Mike’s direction.

“I know,” he muttered. “I fucking hate this. I can’t even go to my own team for help because I don’t know who I can trust. We know Rosie is the ultimate target, but Quinn and I are also targets.”

“Let’s start at the beginning.” Max stood up and paced the space between the kitchen and living room.

“Things started when Rosie’s teachers spotted a van across the street.

They were the ones who said that she was being targeted.

The police were called, but nothing happened because he was gone by the time they got there.

After that, Quinn spotted the same van parked outside of her mom’s house after she picked Rosie up from school when Quinn had a last-minute meeting at work—right? ”

“Yeah, that’s correct,” I confirmed.

“And the person driving the van was wearing Mike’s baseball cap that was stolen from his office?”

“Correct again,” Mike said. “Very few people have access to my office, so it leads me to believe that someone in my department took it.”

“Do you think that it was the same person wearing it and driving the van?”

Mike shrugged in response to Max’s question.

“In addition to that, we know that Justin was killed on the job in a car accident and that he was the only one ejected from the vehicle because he wasn’t wearing a seat belt. Were you with him when it happened?”

I looked over at Mike and noticed his jaw clenching as he balled his fists.

“No. I wasn’t with him when it happened. We worked on two different cases, so we didn’t cross paths much. Given that we were considered family, the department kept us separated and prohibited us from working on the same case.”

“Do you know who all was in the car with him?” Max asked, folding his arms over his chest.

“From what I remember, it was Justin, Saul, Frank, and Julia.”

“The woman from this morning,” I confirmed. “Quinn told me that she was the one who was driving the car.”

“Does she still work in witness protection?” Max turned to Mike.

“Yeah. She’s still there.”

“So she would have had access to your office?”

Mike nodded.

“And she knew about the car accident.”

“You think she’s responsible for all of this?” I asked Max, taking some of the pressure off of Mike.

“I think she’s definitely involved. Between the seat belt left on Quinn’s bed and the situation yesterday with Julia bringing Rosie home, it doesn’t sit well with me. She’s up to something, but I don’t think she’s working alone.”

I turned to face Mike.

“Didn’t you say that the last case that Justin was working on was a child trafficking case?”

“Yeah.”

“How soon after the trial ended was Justin’s accident?”

Mike closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the cushion.

“It was the same day.”

“And the girl that was being protected was recently found dead, right?” I knew there was too much excitement in my voice, but I felt like we were finally cracking through this mystery and getting closer to knowing what was going on.

“About a week ago,” Mike confirmed.

“And the guy she put away?” Max asked, sensing where I was going with this.

“There were two,” Mike responded, pulling his phone out and typing something in the internet search bar. “A father and son. The father was the ringleader of the operation and got a life sentence.”

“But the son?” Trevor asked.

“He was released two weeks ago.”