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She grunted softly, smiling despite her aggravation with him. “You’d better be careful. You’re starting to sound an awful lot like a partner to me.”
She meant patrol partner, but the remark she’d intended as wry humor now hung between them full of dangerous i
He sat back, withdrawing from the front of the Rover and settling once more into the shadows behind her.
“Just keep me informed, Je
She let out the breath she’d been holding and reached for the handle on the driver’s-side door of the vehicle. “I’ll text you from inside.”
Without waiting to hear his growled reply, she climbed out of the SUV and headed for the FBI field office across the street.
Special Agent Phillip Cho didn’t keep her waiting so much as five minutes in the eighteenth-floor reception area. Je
Agent Cho gestured her toward a swivel chair at the oblong table in the center of the room. He closed the door behind him, then took the seat directly across from her. He set a black leather notepad down in front of him and offered her a polite smile. “So, how long have you been retired from law enforcement, Ms. Darrow?”
The question surprised her. Not only for its directness, but for the fact that her FBI friend in Anchorage had offered to keep her civilian status under his hat. Of course, it shouldn’t surprise her that Cho would do some homework on her in preparation of their meeting.
Je
He nodded sympathetically, and she realized that he’d already known the answer and her reasons for leaving the Staties.
“I must admit, I was surprised to discover that your inquiry into TerraGlobal wasn’t an official investigation,” he said. “If I had known, I probably would not have agreed to this meeting. I’m sure you understand that using state or federal resources for personal interests is illegal and can carry severe consequences.”
She lifted her shoulder in a faint shrug, not about to let him cow her with threats about procedure and protocol. She’d played that card too many times herself back when she wore a badge and uniform. “Call me inquisitive. We had a mining company in the interior go up in smoke—literally—and no one from the parent corporation has bothered to offer even so much as an apology to the town. There’s going to be a hell of a bill attached to the cleanup, and I’m sure the town of Harmony would appreciate knowing where to send it.”
Under the stark light of the fluorescent lamps overhead, Cho’s unblinking stare put an odd buzz in her veins. “So, your interest in the matter is primarily that of a concerned citizen. Do I understand you correctly, Ms. Darrow?”
“That’s right. And the cop in me can’t help wondering what kind of management a shadowy outfit like TerraGlobal Partners employs. Nothing but ghosts and phantoms, from what little I’ve been able to find.”
Cho grunted, still holding her in that unsettling stare across the table. “What exactly have you found, Ms. Darrow? I would be very interested to hear more.”
Je
He sat back from the table and steepled his fingers in front of his thin smile. “I’m afraid that’s classified information.”
His air of dismissal was unmistakable, but she’d be damned if she’d come all this way for the meeting only to be stonewalled by a smug suit who seemed to be enjoying the fact that he was jerking her around. And the more she looked at him, the more his flat expression seemed to make her skin crawl.
Forcing herself to ignore her unease, she attempted a more conciliatory tack. “Listen, I understand. You’re obligated to give me the official response. I just hoped that two professionals could help each other out a little bit here.”
“Ms. Darrow, I only see one professional at this table. And even if you were still affiliated with law enforcement, I couldn’t give you any information about TerraGlobal.”
“Come on,” she replied, her frustration mounting. “Give me a name. Just one name, an address. Anything.”
“When exactly did you leave Alaska, Ms. Darrow?” he asked casually, ignoring her question and cocking his head at an odd angle as he studied her. “Do you have friends out here? Family, perhaps?”
She scoffed and shook her head. “You’re not going to give me a damned thing, are you? You only agreed to meet with me because you thought you could wring something useful out of me to further your own interests.”
That he didn’t reply was telling enough. He opened his leather notebook and began scribbling some notes on the canary paper. Je
“All right,” she said, figuring it was time to play the only card she had in her hand. “Since you won’t give me any names, I’ll give you one instead. Gordon Fasso.”
Cho’s hand stopped moving halfway through what he was writing. It was the only indication that the name meant anything to him at all. When he looked up, his expression was bland, those odd, dullish eyes revealing nothing. “Excuse me?”
“Gordon Fasso,” she said, repeating the alias she’d been told Dragos used when he moved in human society. She watched Cho’s face, trying to read his reaction in the unblinking, sharklike gaze and coming up empty. “Have you heard the name before?”
“No.” He set down his pen and neatly replaced the cap. “Should I have?”
Je
Cho’s mouth flattened into a hard line. “I’m sorry. I don’t recall it.”
“Are you sure?” She waited through his prolonged silence, keeping her eyes fixed on his dark gaze if only to let him know that she could cling just as stubbornly to their apparent impasse.
The tactic seemed to work. Cho released a slow sigh, then rose up from his seat. “There is another agent in this office who’s working the investigation with me. Will you excuse me for a moment while I confer with him about this?”
“Sure I will,” Je
After Cho stepped out of the room, she took the opportunity to fire off a quick text to Brock back in the SUV across the street. Got something. Be down soon.
No sooner had she sent it, Cho reappeared in the doorway. “Ms. Darrow, will you come with me, please?”
She got up and followed him along a cubicle-lined corridor, past the heads of numerous agents who stared into computer screens or talked quietly into their telephones. Cho kept going, toward a row of back offices on the far end of the floor. He hung a right at the end of the walkway and bypassed the numerous doors with their government-issued nameplates and departmental designations.
Finally, he paused in front of a stairwell door and swiped his clip-on ID badge through the slot on an electronic reader. When the little light turned from red to green, the agent pushed open the steel door and held it for her. “This way, please. The task force is headquartered on another floor.”