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“I don’t need a damn babysitter,” Jenny said, her hands on her hips. God, she looked good. This was the first time he’d seen her hair done, make-up on, dressed in a suit and heels. Right now, he’d give her about anything she’d ask for, except when it came to her safety.

“Jenny, you know Edgar and Ronald flew in on Cyber Tech’s jet early this morning. Gideon and Jada have found out all the information they needed to prove that Edgar funneled money out of Fiona and Angela’s shell corporations and put them into accounts that belong to him. They’ve got a tidy little report that they can give to authorities, but we want more. We want confessions, so we’re going to go visit Edgar, and when we do, I want you at Gideon’s house. That’s the safest place for you to be.”

“Brax, I have an interview this afternoon. Mr. Grant could only fit me in at four-thirty.”

“I’m sorry, Honey. You’re going to have to cancel it.”

“I don’t understand why you’ve got your undies in a bunch. You’ve just said that you know where Edgar and Mr. Lynch are going to be. I should be safe. Also, they shouldn’t know I’m at your house.”

“Did you send a resume with Cyber Tech as one of your jobs?” Brax asked.

Jenny nodded.

“Don’t you think the hiring manager called for references?”

Jenny tapped her foot. “No, I don’t. They only do that after they interview you and are interested in hiring you. So, no, big guy, Cyber Tech won’t know I’m there. Now you see why I don’t need to go to Gideon and Jada’s house.”

Brax rubbed the back of his neck. “Jenny,” he said softly. “Can you do it for me? I just don’t feel good about things. I want you safe.”

She stopped tapping her toe and took her hands off her hip. Her expression softened. “Why didn’t you say it that way from the start? I’ll put off interviewing until after this is over with.”

Brax stepped forward, and she met him in the middle. “I don’t deserve you,” he whispered into her sweet-smelling hair.

“You’ve got that the wrong way around,” she whispered into his chest.

At the last minute, Gideon was pulled back to Little Creek by Kostya to clear up a situation, and that put their operation timeline on hold. Brax felt even better about things. Confronting Edgar in the middle of the night was sure to have him shitting his pants. Especially how they intended to do it.

Edgar Travers lived in a plush condominium in downtown Richmond. Mateo would bypass the building’s security and put the camera feeds from Edgar’s floor on a repeating loop for one hour. Within that time, Gideon, Brax and Mateo would go up the delivery elevator with a laundry cart that contained their gear. Confronting Edgar with night-vision goggles, bulletproof vests, and assault rifles should capture his attention as they discussed his involvement with the death of Angela Polk.

They intended to get his confession on video.

Easy.

Or maybe not.

As soon as they entered the condo, the hair on the back of Brax’s neck stood on end. Something was not right. He gave the signal to spread out and proceed with caution. It wasn’t until they got to the last room, the primary bedroom, that he found out why. Edgar was on his bed, his sleeve rolled up, a rubber tourniquet tied around his upper arm, and a hypodermic needle hanging out of his vein. There was foam around his blue lips, and his dead eyes were partially open.

All three of them took off their night vision goggles and Brax turned on the bedroom light. They touched nothing.

Beside the corpse was a spoon, a baggie of what had to be heroin, and a lighter. A cheap lighter.

Brax saw the pack of Parliament cigarettes on Edgar’s dresser. There was a lighter beside it that looked gold-plated. “Take a look at this.” He nodded at the expensive lighter.

“Someone sure did a shitty job of setting up this overdose.” Gideon said in disgust.

“Ronald?” Mateo asked. “But why would he? Why not just cut him loose? People dump their boyfriends or girlfriends all the time,” Mateo asked.

“Because now Ronald is an accessory after the fact of the embezzling, and I’m sure that Edgar has pointed this out,” Brax said slowly. “Or better yet, he’s an accessory after the fact of Angela’s murder.”

“Yep, I’m sure he would have pointed that out,” Gideon agreed. “Now Ronald wants all the players off the board.”

“How do we get to Ronald?” Mateo asked.

“We’re sure as hell not going to be all nice and get a paper trail. Now I get to get him in a room alone, and this time I want four minutes.” Brax caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror above the dresser. He looked deadly.

Jenny smiled when she saw her friend’s number come up on the screen. “Hi, Tina. Did you like the picture I sent you of the interview look?”

“Uhmm, I didn’t see it,” Tina said.

“You didn’t?”

“Uhmm, no.”

Jenny frowned. “Are you okay?”

Jada looked up from where she was watching a reality TV show, and Jenny shrugged.

“Look, Jenny, I really wanted to come and visit you. Remember when I said that?”

“Sure. I can’t wait to see you.” Jenny smiled. “But I think I should come out to you. Brax snowboards. So, it will be perfect for us to come out and hit the slopes. There’s just a couple of little things that need to be sorted?—”

“Stop! Just stop!”

“Tina, honey, what’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry. Let me start again. I came to visit you. I wanted to surprise you. I’m near the Norfolk airport, but my rental car broke down and my phone’s about to die.”

“Honey, I’m having trouble understanding you. Are you safe?”

Tina sobbed.

“I’m going to call the police,” Jenny said firmly.

“No! You can’t. I just need you to come and get me. I need to see you. Please. Can you come and get me?”

“Do you know where you are?”

“When I drove in it said Norfolk Industrial Park. I’m in a parking lot somewhere on Village Road. Can you please come and get me? I’m in a white Toyota Corolla.”

“Okay honey. Are you under a light?”

“Yes. And I have mace. Just come and get me. Okay?”

Jenny checked her phone and from James Lake, she calculated it would take about fifteen minutes to get there. “I should be there in less than twenty minutes. Okay?”

“Okay. I’m so sorry, Jenny. So sorry.”

“What for? This is what friends are for.”

Jenny disconnected and turned to Jada. “Did you hear?”

“Yep, sounds like we’re going to pick up your friend. She sounds pretty shaky, are you sure we shouldn’t call the police?”

“I think that would spook her even more at this point. Let’s just go get her and bring her back here.” Then the idea of seeing her friend that she hadn’t seen in over three years hit her brain and Jenny grinned. “Jada, you’re going to love her.”

“I’ll text Gideon.”

“I’ll text Brax.”

What the fuck? He re-read his text from Jenny. “Gideon, how far away are we from your house?” Brax demanded to know.

“Seventy miles.”

“And to the airport?” Brax asked.

“About the same.”

Brax dialed Jenny. “Go back to the house. It’s a setup.”

“What are you talking about?” Jenny sounded perplexed.

“It’s a setup.” Brax repeated himself.

“My best friend would not be setting me up.” He could hear the exasperation in her voice.

Brax rubbed the back of his neck. The same hairs that had been standing up when they’d entered Edgar’s condo were standing on end now. He put his phone on speaker so Mateo and Gideon could hear.

“Jenny, your best friend just called you and said that she flew in from Colorado, unannounced, and that her car is broken down near some warehouses, and she wants you to come and pick her up. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Why haven’t you called the police?”

“That would just scare her more. She’s a nervous traveler, anyway. Jada’s with me.”

“Jada, tell me you’re not falling for this shit,” Gideon groaned.

“Maybe,” his fiancée strung out the word.

“Both of you go back home and wait for us,” Gideon ordered.

“She’s scared. I’m picking up my friend.” Jenny was beginning to get mad, Brax could tell.

“Call the police. Have them arrive when you do.”

There was a long pause, then finally, Jenny responded. “Okay, I can do that.”

“Jada, you know where the gun is in the Range Rover. Take it with you.”

“Gotcha.”