Page 14 of Justified Lies

“How did she look?”

“Like always.”

But she hadn’t looked the same as usual. There was a fragility about her now. It was like the morning she’d returned to Saudi when he had confronted her, like one wrong word and she would fall apart.

Nikki studied him. “I heard her brother was there.”

Of course, she had. TFH was a rumor mill, complete with bets being made on everything from who was going to hook up with whom to who was going to get married.

“Wait, are there bets on me?”

“Yep,” Nikki said, popping the “p.”

“The fuck?”

“Everyone is wondering how long you’ll last before Graeme kicks you to the curb,” Rami said with a chuckle.

“So, there isn’t a bet about them banging?”

Dammit, he knew that voice. Their captain’s fiancée was a little different. Autumn Bradford leaned against the doorjamb. She was eating, of course. Some kind of candy bar. He had no idea how she stayed so thin when she ate enough food for a small family of three. Probably had something to do with being raised in a cult. He’d heard Seth comment that she would go weeks without a decent meal, so now she ate whatever and whenever she wanted.

“Not that I know about,” Nikki said.

“Uh, weird. So, she has an alibi, but that dude was CIA, so you know what that means.”

The feds were going to show up, if they hadn’t already been in contact with TFH. That meant more headaches.

He knew he should have realized that was coming, but within a few seconds, his phone went off.

Captain: Big Boss’s office, now.

“Well, this has been fun, but I have a meeting.”

“No one has ever said that. No one has ever said they want to go to a meeting,” Autumn said.

He said nothing to that. Instead, he shooed them out of his office, then hurried to Del’s office.

Adam, Graeme, and Seth were already there. Del did not look happy.

“Shut the door, Kap,” he said.

He did, then turned to face the other three men.

“What happened?”

“We have an issue.”

“The CIA?”

Del nodded. “Here’s the thing. They’re acting really weird.”

“They’re the CIA. They are weird,” Graeme murmured.

“This is over the top. They asked questions, and I told them I would share if they would. They refused.”

“That’s not that odd for them,” Seth said.

“You think there is more to this than just a normal killing?” Adam asked.