On high alert, I asked, “What’s happened?”
“It’s Jenson.” He didn’t have to say anything else for us to understand; the pain contorted with anger was enough. But still he elaborated. “He’s dead.” No, he’s gone or lost. No, he’s not with us anymore. There was no room for misinterpretation.
Despite only knowing the human agent for a couple of months or so, distress lanced through me, tangling with fury. It would be only a fraction of how hard this development would hit both Thatch and Kent. And fuck, Michaels. “What about Michaels? What details do you have?”
“He’s okay. Heading here now. He’s just left the hospital.” A quiet strength filled Thatch’s words. He was made to lead, to have me bowing at his damn feet with how truly incredible he was. But the pain ebbed off him in waves, cutting me deep. I hated his pain, the loss, the whole cluster of destruction Lentwood, with Brent and my father, had created.
They all needed to be in the ground. And whoever had taken Jenson out needed to be first.
“Michaels said it was Brent. We even have it on camera,” he elaborated.
Kent snarled “The piece of mother—” ended abruptly as she clamped her hand over her mouth, and I just knew it was to hold back a sob. She thrust her head back, face to the ceiling, and seemed to be exhaling a breath she didn’t need. The combined hurt in the room made my hackles rise. Just like my sister had deserved the time to be properly mourned, this too would have to wait until we settled this.
“Are we going to Durrant with this?” I asked, not sure which way Thatch would go and having no idea how we could keep it from her.
His jaw tensed before he said, “No.”
Every single person in the room bobbed their heads in agreement. Durrant involved would mean we’d have to take him in alive.
He continued. “Michaels has already spun a story to keep her out of the loop, but we won’t have long before she comes to us for answers.”
There was only so long you could keep an agent’s death hidden, and doing so went against the grain. Jenson had a family, but we all knew he’d wanted this case over and the perps buried. So we’d spin the necessary tales to make sure that happened.
“Now’s the time to walk.” Thatch’s voice was clear and firm and held no room for negation.
Lucas, Kent, and I headed to the large table, each pulling out a seat. We all turned as one towards Thatch. We were all in this. My heart kicked up, worry for Thatch peeking up. I’d broken so many rules since joining the SCIB, I was constantly surprised I hadn’t been fired. And while I loved my job, my role, it wouldn’t break me if I left. But Thatch… this was all he’d known, and he excelled at it. As if hearing my inner worry, Thatch’s gaze moved to mine and stayed.
One simple nod was sent my way. It was enough. He knew what he was risking, and was all in. Screw the consequences.
“Okay,” he said as he pulled out a chair and sat. “Kent, can you pull up the footage from the coordinates Michaels should have sent over?”
“All over it.” She leaned over and snagged the tablet from the table she’d been working at. Her fingers flew over the screen, and we all looked over at the large screen positioned central to the table and fixed to the wall. “Got it.”
We watched with various levels of horror and outrage as Brent shot Jenson from behind while he was sweeping the building. Jenson had gone down hard, was out and dead, unable even to get a call in. Within seconds, Brent had grabbed a case off a unit and hightailed it out of there. It took four minutes for Michaels to find Jenson, and I was sure I wasn’t the only one to appreciate we couldn’t hear the wail from Michaels.
The screen stilled when Kent pulled up another camera, this time showing Brent getting in a Prado, complete with the number plate showing.
Silence pulsed through the room, my and Thatch’s shallow breaths making sporadic slices through the quiet. It was Lucas who spoke first. “This your man who’s arrived?” A few buttons later, live footage of the main entrance replaced the still screen of the dead man walking.
Thatch cleared his throat before saying, “Yeah, that’s Michaels.”
Wordlessly, Lucas bobbed his head and pressed the necessary command to let Michaels in the building.
“Kent, make sure that footage is only accessible by us until further notice,” Thatch instructed.
Four sets of eyes zeroed in on the door as Michaels entered. Grief rolled off him. The steel in his eyes was familiar. Bloody determination was one hell of a catalyst to get the job done. Silently, he joined the table and sat, his eyes moving around the four of us before settling on Lucas, the one face he didn’t know.
“Mathew Lucas,” Lucas said, and dipped his head in acknowledgement.
Michaels’s body all but vibrated with tension as he nodded back before turning his attention to Thatch. He doggedly ignored Kent.
“Kent,” I said, needing to move forward, “how are those plates looking?”
“Running them now,” she said.
I nodded, ignored how her voice pitched strangely. “Thatch, you heard from Jamison?”
“Nothing,” he answered. “I’ll call now for an update.” He stood and moved a few metres away from the table.
My gaze landed on Lucas. “Lucas, what’s the latest on Lentwood?”
Frustration squeezed his brows tightly together as he admitted, “Nothing. The guy’s a damn ghost.”
I let the irony of that statement, considering the anonymity of Thatch’s unit, brush past me. “We need to get eyes on Brent. He wasn’t in his vehicle.” I directed my question to Lucas. “Did he find the bugs?”
He was already shaking his head before
