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“Okay. Sure.” He watched Jo find a seat as he scanned the place without giving away that he was checking all egresses—complex in a structure like this—and making note of every person.

Then he headed for the security guard, who had definitely noticed and appeared to size him up.

Cole needed to make sure the security guard understood that he wasn’t a threat.

So he introduced himself and flashed his private investigator credentials. “I’m hoping you can help me.”

“Nick Freeman. You’re former military?” Nick asked.

Nick was obviously trained to read people. Vets or current servicemen often had a certain posture and demeanor about them.

“Army. You?” Cole preferred not to offer more information than necessary.

“Army. Thirty-Eight Bravo, Civil Affairs. Then I was a local cop for twenty-five years. The security guard gig keeps me home at night. My wife is happy. We’re raising grandkids, so everyone’s happy.”

“I hear you. I list my services with CGIS, which is owned and operated by vets. They connect clients with vets who offer protective services, investigations, you name it.”

Nick leveled his gaze on Cole. “What can I help you with?”

“Maybe you can put me in touch with the head of security. I’d like to review footage from this morning.

Sometime between eight o’clock and noon.

What do you need from me to make that happen?

” Properties had their own security policies, but sometimes a person could get around the hard rules.

Rules might be rules, but people were people.

“I’ll see what I can do.” Nick got on his radio and asked for another guard to cover for him.

Cole figured that he’d made a friend. That Nick would help him.

“Have a seat, and I’ll come get you. I’ll take you over myself.”

Cole nodded, appreciation in his eyes. He rarely ran into issues. As long as a person knew how to play the game and asked nicely, they got what they needed without having to push the edge of the legal envelope. He took a seat next to Jo and told her about his conversation.

Another guard approached Nick, and they talked, and then Nick gestured at Cole, waving for him to follow.

“Stay here.”

“But why?” she whispered.

“I’ll tell you everything, don’t worry.” Bringing her along could complicate matters. Thankfully, she backed down.

Jo flipped open a magazine, and Cole left her for a few minutes.

He walked with Nick down the hall, and then Nick unlocked a door, and they entered into a security room, monitors revealing the various cameras around the building—the tallest building in Seattle, previously the tallest on the West Coast. Nick introduced Cole to two other guards.

Nick found the footage of the day, and they scanned the images for the timestamp. “There. I think that’s him.”

Though the man looked nothing like the Raymond Dodge he’d met, in terms of his demeanor and how he dressed—the grease monkey, as Jo had called him—it was him, all right.

Raymond ambled down the hall on the forty-sixth floor and joined a couple of men, walking with purpose.

Cole was familiar with that tactic and could tell Dodge did it to blend in. Then Dodge entered an office.

“What’s that?” Cole asked.

“Advanced Technologies.” That could be anything.

“What do they do?”

“No clue.”

He could figure that out later.

“Is that it?” Nick asked. “Are we good?”

“Let’s wait a couple of minutes. I want to see what he does next.”

Nick seemed more fidgety, as if he was ready to shut down this operation. “I’ll make you a copy and send it to you. Give me your contact information.”

Cole handed over his card while he continued to observe, but Dodge never left the office, at least while Cole was there to watch. Nick gestured to the door. Cole got it. Nick’s supervisor might not approve of this activity. Cole thrust his hand forward, and Nick shook it.

“We’ll be in touch,” Nick said.

Cole exited the office, then found Jo.

She stood when she saw him approach, dropping the magazine on the table. “Well?”

“Let’s take a walk.” He led her to the elevators, which they rode to the forty-sixth floor. They weren’t alone, so Cole said nothing.

Exiting the elevators, along with another person who took a right, Cole turned left and walked the hall and found two businesses. He suspected that Advanced Technologies took up half the floor.

He said nothing, just walked with her toward the main entrance. Next to the company name was an emblem that had three dots inside a flashy circle. “That’s where he went. Does that ring a bell?”

“Not at all. What even is it?”

“I don’t know.”

She almost stopped in her tracks, but he nudged her forward.

“Are we ... are we going inside? What would we do or say?”

A couple of burly men exited through the double doors.

They had the look of personal security guards and seemed somewhat out of place here.

To avoid looking suspicious, he smiled and laughed and grabbed her hand, turning her with him, and they walked toward the other company on the floor—IncuTech.

He pulled on the door and entered to get away from those men.

Inside, he snatched a brochure—IncuTech was a “sprout lab,” designing containers and storage for sprouts.

“Can I help you?” A woman looked up from a tall reception counter.

“No, I think we’re good.” He pulled Jo with him out into the hall, took the elevator ride down forty-six floors, then exited the building.

His heart rate didn’t slow until they reached his vehicle. Normally, he would have gone inside to find out what he needed to know—in this case, from Advanced Technologies—but Jo was with him. Coming here might have been too much of a risk, after all.

He opened the door for her, and as she slid in, he whispered, “I’m supposed to get a copy of the security footage so we can review things later.”

Once he sat in his vehicle next to her, he took a deep breath. “I barely recognized him.”

“What do you mean?” She gave him a concerned look. “Are you sure it was him?”

“Oh, it was him, but he looked like a different person.”