Page 23

23

Cyclone

I was halfway through a grilled cheese and a report on stolen ammunition in Tijuana when my secure laptop pinged.

It never pinged.

Only a handful of people had access to that line—Raven, Oliver, and Beatrice.

I shoved the sandwich aside and opened the message. One look at the sender and I sat up straighter.

FROM: B. Jones

Subject: Need your eyes on this—quietly.

My gaze dropped to the attachment. Encrypted files. Password-protected. And a single line in the message body that hit me like a sucker punch:

“Raven would know what to do. Just… help me confirm I’m not losing it.”

I keyed in the password: oceanfire .

The files loaded fast—system logs, timestamp screenshots, access IDs. I scrolled, jaw tightening with every line.

Katherine Laurent. Logged into the department server nearly an hour and a half before the warehouse bomb went off. Accessed building layouts. Forensic templates. Drafts of reports that hadn’t even been submitted yet.

I muttered a low, “Son of a bitch.”

I pulled out my phone and called Raven, but it went straight to voicemail.

He was still in transit.

I texted instead:

She was right. It’s bad. Katherine knew. Logs confirm it. Bea’s not safe.

I stood, already moving. I had a contact in local cyber forensics. Quiet guy, used to work with three-letter agencies. If Katherine had gone this far, we were looking at more than jealousy or rivalry. We were looking at premeditated sabotage— murder, those firefighters died in the bomb explosion, and some were badly injured.

And Beatrice was alone with her.

I called Sean next. “We’ve got a problem.”

“Let me guess. It’s about Beatrice?”

“You saw it too?”

“No, I talked to Raven, who is worried that something is up. I was just about to pull records on Laurent when yours came in. This goes deeper than anyone thought.”

I grabbed my go bag off the floor. “I want eyes on Beatrice now. And if Katherine so much as sneezes in her direction—”

“Already on it,” Sean cut in. “And Raven?”

“On his way back. You better believe he’ll tear the city apart if anything happens to her.”

“Then let’s make sure it doesn’t.”

I hung up, muscles coiled, blood running hot. Beatrice had reached out because she trusted us. Trusted me to help her when Raven was gone . I wasn’t going to let her down.

Katherine Laurent just put herself on the wrong side of the Golden Team. I wasn’t far from Carlsbad, I’ll take a quick flight home and be there in no time.