“Yessir.”
He took a breath. “This morning it was made painfully clear to us that Special Agent Cillian Wojno was not the only leak in our office connected to the escaped felon Craig Hartley,” he explained gravely. “After only a cursory look into profiler Kol Kelson’s personal correspondence, it appears that he’s been communicating with Hartley since he escaped from federal custody before you were taken two years ago.”
I never stood a chance. The thought threatened to drown me.
Hartley was brilliant all by himself, and on top of that, he’d had not one but two corrupt federal agents working for him. The deck had been stacked against me from the beginning, and the worst part was he wasn’t paying either of them.
Wojno was dead, killed by the man who had blackmailed him into service.
Kelson was still a mystery. I had no idea if some sin he’d committed had ruined him and put him in Hartley’s path, like had happened with Wojno, or if he had been willingly seduced to the darkness. Either way, the FBI, which should have had a hand in protecting me, had done the exact opposite. I was used to it at this point, to their failings, but it didn’t make the admission any better.
“Through Kelson, Hartley was given direct access to FBI databases containing private information such as your home address and—”
Ian scoffed loudly.
“Doyle,” Kage warned.
“Stop,” I muttered.
“Sir,” Ian replied to Kage, his voice a mixture of consternation and a sharp, serrated edge. Anyone who knew him at all could tell how disgusted and furious he was.
Kage answered with a scowl because he was, I knew, angry. But in a different way, not protective and possessive as Ian was. His feelings about Hartley and the FBI were more righteous indignation than the simmering fury Ian had been holding on to since last November.
“Is there an issue I’m not aware of?” Ryerson asked sharply.
“No, sir,” I answered before Ian could.
“Yes, sir,” Ian nearly snarled, not caring in the least that I was trying to build a bridge, not burn one down.
“And what is that, Marshal?” he challenged Ian.
“Well, I just wanted you to know that we are well aware that Craig Hartley knows where we live since he was just fuckin’ there!”
Ryerson processed that in silence before he turned back to Ian. “I’m sorry?”
I cleared my throat so Ryerson would focus on me and took that opportunity to lean on Ian. He needed to feel how close I was, the warmth of my body, the reassurance I was right there. We didn’t talk about it, but between what we had been going through with Ian being deployed all the time and Hartley popping up out of the clear blue sky multiple times, we had been on the verge of walking away from everything. But Ian had decided I was the most important thing in his life, and Hartley and I were on a new path that did not, I was fairly certain, include me being dissected, even if I inadvertently tumbled into a trap.
“Marshal?” Ryerson barked.
“Craig Hartley was just in my house last November,” I explained clinically, not letting him hear what that encounter had done to me. “So there’s not a question of if he knows where I live—he absolutely does.”
The FBI guys in the room made startled noises, sounding scared, maybe even sick, as did the new marshals in our group. And I understood. I probably would have been freaked out too, hearing the news for the first time that a serial killer visited my colleague. If it could happen to me, maybe it could also happen to them. It had to be sobering, terrifying to think about.
“Perhaps you didn’t have time to read Jones’s file on the flight in,” Kage suggested, his voice rising over the others, his arms crossed, looking at Ryerson like he was a total tool.
“No, I—” He gestured at Adair, who was sitting on the other side of Ian. “Please.”
“Bottom line is,” Adair began, leaning forward in his chair so he could see me around Ian. “We need to take you into protective custody, Jones. It’s become an issue of—”
“No,” I told him flatly. “We already tried protective custody, and it didn’t make a bit of difference. Hartley knows everything about me, from the fact that I got married four months ago to the fact that he’s the one who saved my dog.”
“He did what?” Ryerson asked, floundering, looking as flummoxed as the other members of his team and the newbie marshals. Again, I understood. Hartley was a psychopath, and yet he kept my dog alive? What in the world was going on? “The hell are you talking about, Jones?”
“My dog was shot, and Hartley saved him,” I answered, bumping Ian before leaning away from him. “So I have to say that if he wanted me dead, I would be. You should really focus your efforts on somebody else.”