Page 4 of Justified Lies (TFH Team Bravo #3)

“Of course. He needs to be taken down a peg.”

It wasn’t that Sam didn’t think he was a good agent.

When Eden had started working at Dillon, Sam researched the former MI-6 agent.

Sam had said he was a good guy, even though Eden thought she might not be telling her everything.

There seemed to be something about when he left MI-6, but as usual, Sam was keeping it close to her chest. The woman had a vault of secrets.

Eden was probably her best friend, but there was still so much she didn’t know about her friend.

She did know her real name.

“Delilah Eddington Underwood.”

“Do not three name me with my real name. Especially with that Texas twang and using that horrible full first name. I don’t need anyone to hear my real name.”

Eden rolled her eyes.

“El is the only person here, and you know you can trust him. “

She made a noise. “I’m not worried about that. I’m worried that you might be under surveillance.”

“TFH hasn’t had time for a search warrant.”

Sam sighed. “No. I don’t like the fact that things seemed to be converging on Hawai’i.”

That gave Eden pause. “You think it has to do with El and me?”

“Yes. Or at least that’s a possibility. How do we know that O’Malley and Green didn’t have something to do with these murders?”

Eden was sure El was thinking the same thing. Edwin O’Malley, another former agent, had been murdered three months earlier. They were pretty sure he had been operating as a double agent until he left the CIA. Then he turned up dead in Hawai’i.

They were running out of suspects.

“We don’t know. Hell, maybe we have it all wrong.”

“We don’t. The pattern is there.”

She sighed. She knew her friend was right. “It would be much better if it were just a bunch of unconnected murders.”

“No. Then we wouldn’t be able to figure out who took El, then outed you. Also, wouldn’t you rather have one person involved in the murders and all that shit, than it being a bunch of people running around offing ex-CIA agents?”

“Okay, you have a point.”

“Of course I do.”

Eden snorted. “Please, don’t overwhelm me with your modesty.”

“My grandmother told me it was a waste of time to be modest when I was made to stand out.”

“I’ll let you know what Dillon Security finds out.”

“Gotcha. Stay safe.”

“Ditto.”

After she hung up, she pushed through the jet lag and irritation of TFH trying to play head games with her and hurried to get ready. The faster she got to Dillon, the faster she would find out what the hell was going on.

Ninety minutes after she called in the breach, Eden was striding into Dillon Security. Dillon was actually headquartered in Miami, Florida, but Conner had moved to Hawai’i a few years ago. It made sense to open an office here, as they had a significant amount of international business.

“Hey, lady,” Emily Daniels said as she walked down the hallway.

The Dillon operative usually worked from the office, being the techie that she was.

Every now and then, she went out to work in corporations like El did—sometimes with him.

She was tall and athletic, with dark hair braided over her shoulder.

She shared the same unusual shade of eyes as her brother, former MMA fighter Aaron Daniels.

“Hey, yourself.”

“I thought you were off this week.”

“So you haven’t heard?”

“What? Is Devon Stryker dead? Did you fuck up the protection job?”

Emily’s voice was filled with humor because Eden was sure the other woman knew they had arrived home safely.

“No. I had to come in because of some issue with my phone.”

“That’s why the boss showed up a few minutes ago. He was cranky.”

“Is TFH here yet?”

She shook her head and stepped up beside Eden as she started down the hallway to Conner’s office.

He was the owner, but he only worked a few days a week, preferring to do most of his work from home.

His wife was a published author, and he occasionally took care of the kids so she could focus on her work.

Nothing is as sexy as a strong Alpha male type helping his partner.

She pushed that idea aside. In the last three years, she had come to understand that she would never have that. With the constant target on her back, she couldn’t ask a man to put his life on the line for that, too.

“Oh, you are having bad thoughts. What did Elwood do now?”

She glanced at her friend. “Nothing. Well, other than being El.”

“So, doom and gloom and pissy. Got it.”

Emily whipped out her phone and started texting him. Her brother and Emily had a complicated relationship. Eden knew that her brother was half in love with the woman, but since those horrible forty-eight hours, he felt he had nothing to offer a woman.

“Did you just yell at him in a text?”

“No. I just told him he was a whiny ass titty baby.”

A bubble of laughter tickled the back of her throat.

No one could put her brother in his place like Emily.

He was morose. Granted, they all knew what had made him that way.

Well, not the particulars, but they knew he had been captured by terrorists.

No one but Eden knew how broken her brother was when she’d found him.

Even his worst days, when he danced on the borderline between insanity and sanity, were better than she had ever expected after those few dark weeks after he had been rescued.

They walked into Conner’s outer office. There were two actual offices there. One was Conner’s. The other belonged to Lucius “Luc” Warner, the man who ran the office. The ex-SEAL was a good boss, if a little grumpy.

“Hey, ladies,” Junie Monroe said. She was their executive assistant, and all of them knew she was the one running the company. She had been with them for only two months, and Eden didn’t know if they could keep running if Junie left.

In her early thirties, the woman seemed to walk in and take over everything. It was weird seeing the way she ordered people around, considering the woman was barely five feet three inches tall.

“They’re waiting for you, Eden.” Then she looked at Emily. “Not you.”

“You’re no fun.”

She rolled her eyes. “Go on, Eden. Emily, they need you to help with some issues they’re having with security on the set.”

“Oh, goodie. Do I get to go?”

Junie nodded. “So go mess with Mix, but please, don’t be rude to the actors. They have a lot of pull with the studio, and Conner wants to make sure that we have a good working relationship.”

“Hey, as long as I can mess with Mix, I’m good. See ya.”

Then she abandoned Eden.

“Go on,” Junie said, motioning with her hand.

Squaring her shoulders, Eden walked over to the door, gave it a knock, then opened it.

“Come in, Eden,” Conner said.

Their boss—the owner of the whole damned company—was in his mid-forties and still in fantastic shape.

He was former FBI who broke out and started his own company and became a wealthy man in the process.

He had definite zaddie vibes, with a bit of grey at his temples and laugh lines around his mouth and eyes.

Warner was…not as happy with life. Granted, he was an excellent boss.

He liked order in the office, and he never questioned whether a woman could do the same job as a man.

Almost six five, he probably wasn’t as big as when he’d served.

There were rumors that he had been a member of SEAL Team Six, but, of course, no one knew for sure.

He had blond hair—still in a buzz cut—dark eyes, and preferred to wear polo shirts and jeans to work.

“Sorry you had to come in on your week off,” Conner said. Warner said nothing. “We could have done this over the phone.”

“No. We need to have someone look at the phone. I want to know how someone found out my number,” she said.

“All of us want that. Have a seat. Let’s talk about this Green.”

She did as he requested and fought the need to rub her hands down her pant legs because they were so damned wet.

“What do you want to know about him?”

“What kind of agent was he?” Warner asked.

“He sucked. No. Wait. He was decent enough, but he was sloppy.” She shrugged one shoulder. “You know that can be the difference between life and death when you work for The Company. He liked to brag.”

Conner nodded. “He couldn’t do something like find an unlisted number.”

She shook her head. “He was…well, he did a little undercover work, but mostly he worked for my mentor.”

She didn’t say Marv’s name because Conner knew who she was talking about.

“Do you know why he was here?”

She shook her head, and it was the truth. Had he been there to kill her, help her, or ask her to help him get a job?

“I talked to someone I used to work with, and she said the rumor was he had a job lined up. Or maybe planned to have one. Not sure, but apparently, he thought that there was more money in the private sector.”

“And he would be correct.” When he said nothing else, she fought the urge to fill in the silence. Having been raised by two spies, she knew better than to jump in. “Are you and El working another angle?”

“No. We have no dog in the hunt, as my grandfather would say. The two of us were outed, so the truth is we just try to avoid people who might want us dead.”

That was true enough that she didn’t even flinch when she said it.

His phone buzzed on the desk. He looked down. “TFH is already here.”

Her heart jumped into her throat.

“What?”

She drew in a deep breath. “TFH is using my ex in the investigation. It irritates me.”

“Yeah, and it’s smart. Tell you what. Go through the other door into Warner’s office.”

“I don’t run away.”

His mouth kicked up on one side. “I know, but I also know you aren’t telling me everything.”

She opened her mouth, but he held his hand up. “I don’t want to know unless it involves this job.”

She shook her head.

“I don’t want them talking to you. You weren’t here when the guy was murdered.”

“You have a TOD?”

He glanced at Warner. “I…took a peek at their investigation. The guy was killed sometime before midnight. Both you and your brother were just landing.”

She sighed as relief trickled through her system. “And El stayed at my place last night.”

“Good. Now go.”

As she stepped into Warner’s office, she let the door shut behind her and waited. The truth was, she didn’t like scurrying away, but she understood the need for a strategic retreat. She needed to regroup and figure out what the hell was going on.