Riggs gave me a slight but firm shake of the head. “Look, I know you’re obsessed with this case, but it’s Elvo’s birthday. Remember I told you Carter would have his cook make us a big spread to celebrate? We can work later.”
I opened my mouth to remind him that Elvo’s birthday had been back in December and we’d celebrated it by playing an epic twelve-hour video game at Carter and Riggs’s house. It was one of the few times Kev had allowed us into his special gaming room. But I closed my mouth when I met Riggs’s eyes. It had been a while since I’d seen that look.
Something’s up. Act normal.
I nodded. “Fine. But if you think I’m day drinking again like we did for your birthday, you’re mistaken.”
He let out a breath and rolled his eyes. We both knew Riggs’s last birthday had been spent ankle-deep in goat shit while we barely got an executive hostage away from a local rebel group in Uganda. He’d never let us live it down.
I joined them in gathering up the critical equipment we needed before moving out to our vehicles. It wasn’t until I got out to the parking lot that I put two and two together.
Bugs.
Fucking Christ. Someone had put listening devices in our office? Someone had infiltrated our security company? It was unacceptable. The very thought made me rage inside.
Who would do this? It couldn’t be Vince. He worked for a government agency, and I could not believe that he had enough information to obtain a warrant to plant a device like that. There was Tommy Drakes, but he had no idea we were looking for something of his, because there was no way he’d let me and Quinn stay in his house if he suspected.
Could it be the cartel?
Fuck. That made the most sense. I hadn’t heard any more about any attempted break-ins at Tommy’s Nashville place or any of his business locations, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t happened. Or maybe they’d gotten cautious and backed off. Knowing we handled security for HOG Corporate, maybe they’d backed off and let us do the work for them, hoping we could lead them to the missing Horn… or even to Buck Nutter, the man who’d stolen the device from Gustavo Santiago’s compound in the first place.
“You’re doing a lot of thinking over there, boss,” Elvo said from my passenger seat as we began the drive toward Carter and Riggs’s house.
“Yeah. Let me keep thinking until we get there.”
Until we got to someplace where we couldn’t be fucking overheard.
Unfortunately, the drive was too short. Before I had come to any helpful conclusions, we’d pulled up outside of the giant mansion Carter’s grandfather had procured on the edge of Licking Thicket for his grandsons.
I waved everyone over to my vehicle and had everyone toss their electronics in the back before we reconvened in the side yard.
“What the fuck is going on?” I demanded of Hux, specifically.
He kicked at the dead grass below his feet, looking nauseated. “It’s on me, boss. I run anti-surveillance checks monthly. I figured that was enough since the office is always staffed and our alarm system has, like, fifty-seven redundancies. But I guess I should’ve been doing them more often, because somebody got in.”
“How, Hux? How the fuck could this happen?” I couldn’t even imagine a stranger getting access to our inner offices. The idea made me want to punch something. “And how long could someone have been listening to us?”
Hux met my eye. “Max twenty-six days. My last sweep was thorough. As soon as Jericho alerted me to what he found, I scanned through our video footage. The only people who’ve been in the office unaccompanied who aren’t regular staff are Herman, the plumber who worked on the bathroom sink, and Jericho.”
“If it’s Herman, I’m retiring today.” There was simply no way. The man was ancient and trustworthy.
“Agreed,” Hux said. “And Jericho was the one who alerted us to the bug—without dismantling it, either, so we wouldn’t tip off whoever was listening.”
“How the hell did he know to do that?” I demanded.
“Not sure. Spy movies, maybe? And I mean, I guess it could’ve been some kind of double play on his part, but… damn it, I just don’t think so. What do we know about the plumber?”
I scowled. “Don’t ask me. I didn’t hire him. Riggsy did.”
“Me? Definitely not,” Riggs said. “Hux did.”
“Ah, fuck,” Hux sighed. “No. Not me.”
I ran a hand over my forehead. “So you’re telling me that we run one of the best security firms in Tennessee, that we intentionally keep our crew small and highly vetted in order to maintain that security, and that we’ve been infiltrated by the most pitifully simple social engineering attack I’ve ever heard of?”
Riggs nodded grimly. “The plumber came multiple times and shut the entire bathroom for an hour on one of those occasions. In addition to the listening devices in the bathroom, he could’ve planted them in the drop ceilings. Hell, maybe he even hacked into our servers.”