Hell & High Water (THIRDS 1)

“But wouldn’t that just arouse more suspicion than if they made up some bullshit?”

“Considering no one outside the THIRDS has access to the file, who’s going to question it? And if someone did, you think the government’s going to give them a straight answer?”

“You got a point. Jesus Christ, Pearce. How long have you been looking into this?”

“From the moment I knew it was getting serious between him and my brother.” Pearce swallowed hard, his expression grim. “Of course it doesn’t matter now.”

“I understand your concern, and I appreciate it,” Dex stated sincerely, “but my family’s been working with the guy for years, and believe me, if they thought anything suspicious was going on, they would have told me. Sloane’s intense, sure, and maybe there is something there the THIRDS don’t want getting out, but I don’t believe it’s anything sinister.”

Pearce let out a resigned sigh. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Guess I’m having trouble letting go.”

“And that’s perfectly reasonable, Pearce.” He patted the guy’s arm, wishing there was something he could say or do that would help. “If you need someone to talk to, ring me anytime.”

Pearce smiled at him. “Thank you, Dex.” His smile faded as he looked down at his fingers. “I think it’s the guilt eating away at me. If I’d left him alone, maybe he’d still be alive.”

“What do you mean? You had nothing to do with what happened to your brother, Pearce. He was having a meet with an informant. We all know how ugly those things can get sometimes.”

The anguish in Pearce’s eyes was heartbreaking. “I know, but my last words to him were unpleasant, and after he’d been so happy. Brodie had surprised him with cruise tickets. They were going to go on their first vacation together that week. I felt like I was losing him. I barely saw him because he spent all his free time with Brodie. From the moment he joined the THIRDS, it seemed like all we did was argue. We argued that night, said things we didn’t mean. Next thing I know… he’s dead. If I’d walked away….”

“Don’t do that to yourself. You can’t blame yourself for what happened to your brother. You were looking out for him, and that’s what brothers do, right? What happened to Gabe was tragic, but he was an experienced agent whose job was to take those kinds of risks.” He gave Pearce’s arm a squeeze. “From what I’ve heard, your brother was a great guy. He would have wanted you to go on living.”

Pearce took a long swig of his beer, a sad smile on his face. “Sorry. I didn’t invite you here to listen to my sob story.”

“Consider it making up for lost time,” Dex replied with a big grin, holding up his beer and tapping it against Pearce’s. “I don’t get a lot of time to socialize outside of work these days, so it’s nice. Thanks for inviting me.” He noticed the black string around Pearce’s neck with some kind of metal Greek style pendant with an image of some goddess’s face. “That’s pretty cool.”

“Thanks.” Pearce flushed, looking embarrassed. “I made it.”

“No shit?” Dex sat forward, taking in the intricate piece of metalwork. “Wow. I’m lucky I can use a pen. That’s amazing.”

“I do metalwork. I have a workshop in Brooklyn. You should drop by sometime. I’ll show you around.”

“I’d like that.”

Dex was relieved when Pearce started talking about his metal shop and the work he did on his downtime. It was nice to forget about the HumaniTherians case for a while. Come tomorrow, he’d have to go back to staring at his board and praying they got a lead before they ended up with another victim.

Chapter 8

THIS CASE was driving him nuts.

Dex wasn’t used to getting his information fed to him. When he was on homicide, he’d been responsible for investigating and gathering information. Not now. As a Defense agent, he provided backup and aided the investigation, but Recon agents carried out the investigative work. While Cael and Rosa were making phone calls and chasing leads, he was stuck at his desk, training, or staring at the same damn screen with the same damn information.

“You’ll get used to it.”

Dex swiveled his chair around so he could look at Sloane without having to move his head. “This sucks. Three weeks, man. It’s been three weeks.”

“Believe me, Rookie, after a few months, you’ll be basking in these moments.”

“Maybe,” Dex muttered, turning back to the screen. The HPF had finally given Intel access to their reports on threats called in against HumaniTherians. It had been a dead end. Forensics reports on the first two victims were clean, too clean. No fibers, hairs, fur, blood, skin, nothing that wasn’t the victim’s. They were still waiting on lab results from Ortiz, though as of yet, nothing flagged as being suspicious or out of the ordinary. There were no connections between the three victims. None of them had ever been in contact with one another. The only lead they had was Lloyd Everton, an Unregistered Therian who was in the wind.

“They’ll find him,” Sloane said, as if reading his thoughts. He made a strange half groan half moan noise that caught Dex’s attention. He swiveled his chair around in time to catch Sloane stretching, his arms high above his head, his chest expanding and his neck exposed. He scrunched up his nose like maybe he was going to sneeze then lowered his arms, his gaze landing on Dex when he finished. They both sat there looking at each other until Dex snapped out of it. He cleared his throat, sat up, and tapped his desk’s surface to wake it up.

“Have you given table hockey any more thought?” Dex winced at his piss-poor attempt not to draw attention to whatever the hell had just happened.

“Yep.”

Dex looked up hopefully. “And?”

“Nope.”