The Agent
Chapter 25

Archer watched Camila wave to the woman who lived across the street before heading to her car, travel mug of coffee in hand. He’d spent over a week quietly waiting. Watching patterns. Habits. Tendencies. Looking for weaknesses and calculating. He’d admit, between the precautions the Intelligence Unit had put into place and the fact that she was shacking up with an FBI agent whose townhouse had a serious-a*s security system, snatching her up to kill her was going to be a pain in the a*s of epic proportions. But he and Portia couldn’t stay underground forever. Just because the police thought they’d left town (new sightings in Cincinnati, thanks to a few more “anonymous tips”) didn’t mean they could get careless. Any tip that they were in Remington would trash all the hard work he’d done to divert the Intelligence Unit’s attention. He needed them to get careless so he could do this one last thing to buy the freedom he’d f*****g earned.

And he’d finally found his in. Agent Roman and the Intelligence Unit might be protecting her well, but Camila had a weakness. It was the perfect Achilles heel, and it was going to be her downfall.

Tonight.

* * *

Camila lookedat the message in her personal email for the fifteenth time since she’d first opened it, her heart threatening to burst. Nothing in the body of the message had changed, and it was very straightforward. But she was still terrified that somehow she’d misunderstood, or maybe it was even a cruel joke.

Per our conversation earlier today, please replace the offer for you to join the Remington Police Department as a forensic artist attached to this email…

Phone in hand, Camila walked out of the middle school, finally allowing herself to grin. She took a cursory glance around as she moved over the sidewalk toward the parking lot, but everything looked normal—a few dozen kids milling around, waiting for parents, a landscaper spreading some kind of pre-winter treatment on the grass—so she dialed Roman’s number.

“FBI Fraud Division, Agent Roman,” he said, and gah, his voice never failed to make her heart do a little backflip.

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Did you get the email?” he asked, making her laugh.

“Well, hello. It’s nice to hear your voice, too.”

“Camila,” Roman warned, although there was nothing but excitement and anticipation in his tone.

She folded like a double-load of laundry. “Yes, I got the email. It’s official. They offered me the job.”

“I knew it!” he said. “I’m so damn proud of you.”

Camila hit the button on her key fob to unlock her car doors, peeking inside the backseat before opening the passenger-side door to put her school bag inside. “Well, I still have to do the hard part, which is to impress them with my ability.”

“Nope. No way,” Roman said. “You are an artistically gifted badass, and you’re about to start a new career doing something you love. You’re going to take this moment to celebrate without worrying.”

“Okay, okay!” she laughed, slamming the passenger-side door and taking a breath full of chilly afternoon air. “Crooked Angel, seven o’clock? If I don’t tell everyone in Intelligence tonight, they’ll replace out through the grapevine, and you know how well that will go over.”

Roman paused. “I got a new case dropped in my lap today. I’m probably going to be tied up here until about six-thirty.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “I’m headed home right now, but I’ll just drive on my own and meet you there.”

“Okay. But text me updates?”

At one time—a few months ago, even—this might have made Camila feel incapable. But even though the threat level was pretty low and decreasing by the day, she knew her safety could still be an issue. Roman cared about her. Loved her. Needed her safe.

“You got it. Love you,” she said. Hanging up, she got into her car, locking the doors immediately and then heading home. She texted Matteo and Delia, telling them both that she had huge news, then calling Delia to spill the beans because a) that was the best friend code, and b) she couldn’t wait that long without telling somebody else about this job. Delia did her due diligence in letting Detective Hale know everyone should gather at the Crooked Angel, and in less than an hour, every cop in Intelligence, plus their significant others, plus all the other first responders at Station Seventeen and Remington Memorial hospital had been alerted to the fun.

Camila digitally signed her offer letter and returned it to her new boss, then called her current boss to break the news of her resignation. Her boss took it well, all things considered, and they worked together to come up with a plan to phase her out of her current role at the middle school in a way that fit her timeline but also didn’t leave the school in a jam. She FaceTimed her parents to give them the good news, then had to deal with all the texts and calls from her siblings that flooded in about five minutes later. By the time she’d accepted everyone’s congratulations, she had to hustle to change and get ready for dinner. She was feeling pretty fancy, so she chose a pair of boots with a four-inch heel to go over her jeans and a red wrap sweater with glittery threads woven through it. Her favorite red lipstick, some dangly silver earrings, and a quick selfie for her Instagram later, she was out the door.

Just left the house, she texted to Roman, attaching the selfie and wink emoji. He texted back a simple thumbs up, which told her he was still buried at work. Traffic was a little heavier than usual, and by the time she got to the Crooked Angel, there was no street parking to be had. She circled the restaurant again, really not wanting to have to park in the public garage eight blocks away because the walk would be murder in these boots. But then—ah! Someone pulled out of a spot two blocks from the restaurant, just in front of an accounting office that was closed for the night.

“Yesssss,” Camila said to herself, angling her car into the parking spot and turning off her engine. She texted Roman one more time to let him know she was there, her phone buzzing a few seconds later with his response.

Stuck here for a little while longer. Sorry! Be there by 7:30.

Camila shook her head, refusing to let anything tank her mood. All good. See you when you get here.

Getting out of her car, she braced herself against the chilly evening and regretted her decision to forego a coat, figuring she’d only have to walk a block or two. She’d only made it a dozen steps from her car when a woman came running up to her frantically, tears running down her face.

“Oh, my God. Please! I need help. My dog is stuck behind a dumpster in the alley and I can’t get him free. His leg is hurt really badly, and I just…please. Please, help. I can’t move it by myself.”

Camila’s heart lurched, and she slipped her phone into the back pocket of her jeans. “Okay. Let’s see if we can get him out.”

“Thank you. Thank you! It’s this way. Right here.” The woman ran into the alley, and headed for a dark-blue dumpster about halfway down. Camila followed her as quickly as her boots would allow. But the alley was eerily quiet—wouldn’t a dog who was trapped make a lot of noise?—and all the hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention. Her feet clattered to a halt, too late, as the woman turned around, and Camila’s gut plummeted with ice-cold dread as she registered the gun the woman was pointing right at her. She examined the woman closely in the light spilling down from the overhead streetlamp, reconciling the short, dark hair and the dark eyes, swapping them out for a long blond ponytail and blue eyes, splashed with brown.

“Portia?” Camila gasped, the waver in her voice betraying her.

“Damn, you are good with faces. Not good enough to save you, unfortunately, but…” The woman gave up a shrug, and Camila’s brain raced for an escape.

Portia shook her head. “Don’t even think of screaming,” she said with enough menace to send a chill up Camila’s spine. “Or I’ll shoot you right here. I’d rather not, since it’s riskier than the alternative. But I’ll take my chances if you push me.”

The alternative. Okay, that was good. Maybe she wasn’t going to kill Camila, after all. “I won’t scream,” Camila said, although it was really freaking hard to get the words past her pulse ricocheting at her throat. Think. Think, think, she had to think.

“Good start. Now, lace your hands behind your head and walk over to me, nice and slow.” When Camila hesitated, Portia leveled the gun at her chest and added, “Now. Believe me when I tell you, I’m not f*****g around.”

Camila knotted her trembling hands behind her head and stumbled farther into the alley. She felt one boot snag on a crack in the pavement, the heel coming free, and damn it, there went her chances of running.

“So impractical,” Portia tsked. “But whatever. It won’t matter for long.”

She pulled Camila’s cell phone from her back pocket, turning it off, then smashing it with one well-placed stomp. Camila’s brain whirled, seizing on one thought above all. “W-where’s your brother?”

Portia threw back her head and laughed. “In an abandoned building down by the docks. I’m actually dying to see which one of you the cops replace first.”

Shock slammed into Camila, hard enough to make her vision pitch. “You killed him?”

“He was going to pin this whole thing on me and run off with the money, so…” Portia shrugged. “Yeah. The funny part is, for all his talk about how smart he was and all of his bragging about how he saw every angle, the fucker never even saw it coming. Anyway”—she smiled—“now all I have left to do is follow the plan he laid out to take care of you. Shall we?”

She moved so quickly that by the time Camila felt the pinprick in her neck, then the fast-moving haze that made her legs collapse beneath her, all Camila could do was fall to the ground.