SIUBlues3

Nash paced the metal grate walkway as he waited with Harvey and Rachel. Too much was happening all at once and he didn’t like the way things were adding up. He knew that the federal government was involved, but he wasn’t happy with the fact that no one had contacted him. When he found out who the agent in charge was of that particular operation, he liked it even less. He had dealt with Agent Post on two other occasions and Nash found him to be sloppy and arrogant. Not a good combination for someone with that much authority. There wasn’t any doubt in his mind that there was going to be trouble and he already had enough of that.

Three men dressed in cookie-cutter black suits mounted the metal stairway at the old shipyard. Nash approached them quickly with Rachel and Harvey following close behind. They still had things to arrange for their meet with Sinclair and they had wasted far too much time waiting on Post to show with his cronies. “What the hell are you up to this time, Post?” Nash demanded.

“Calm down Bridges,” Post returned, holding his hands up in surrender before things got too heated. “We didn’t say anything to you because we knew you already had a man on the inside.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” he shot back, a little surprised at the submissive attitude and speech coming from Post, but he brushed it aside. “How does that justify bugging our offices?” he returned sarcastically. “What could you possibly learn from us that you didn’t already know from your man?”

Post sighed heavily as his hands went to his hips. “We were hoping that you would get a line on the shooter from the warehouse.”

Nash’s eyes narrowed. He definitely didn’t like where this was heading. “One of yours?” When he received a nod in return, he swore under his breath. “You know, you could have told me what was going on from the beginning instead of playing your ridiculous spy games. We might have had this guy already if you had bothered to fill us in a little.”

“Nothing I could have told you would have helped,” Post argued. “We’re dealing with the best of the best here.”

“All right. So what’s his story?”

“We’ve been after him for the better part of a month, but he has always managed to keep one step ahead of us. He killed two suspects and let a major arms dealer get away. His partner reported the incident and, when formal charges were brought up, Wrath disappeared. He believes that he was set up so he feels justified in hunting down the men that betrayed him.”

“And was he set up?” Nash asked.

Post was silent for a long moment. “The evidence was circumstantial. He probably wouldn’t have done any jail time, but his career was over. The fact that his partner initiated the proceedings only made it worse. It made it personal.”

“Let me guess,” Nash interrupted. “His partner was Griggs?” When he received another nod, he fought hard to keep from losing his temper. “Description,” he stated succinctly, giving Rachel a hand signal for her to write everything down.

“He’s a vapor, Bridges. A description isn’t going to help.”

Nash leaned toward him. “Humor me.”

Post sighed again. “Last known stats. Height, five-foot-eleven. Weight, one-hundred ninety pounds. Blond hair. Blue eyes. No distinguishing marks.”

“There. Now that wasn’t so hard, was it? What about his skills?”

“That’s classified.”

“Well we already know he’s not much of a marksman. Griggs is still alive.”

“He’s an expert marksman, served with special op forces in Saudi and was highly decorated. If he wanted Griggs dead, he would be already.” Post returned gruffly.

“Meaning that he was playing with him?” Nash asked incredulously.

“Meaning that he wanted to let Griggs know that he was coming,” the agent clarified.

“But Griggs wasn’t the only one in that car,” Nash added, his eyes narrowing as he tipped his head at that bit of information. “He wants Sinclair too?”

“The arms dealer that got away?” Rachel asked and received a glare from Post that said subordinates were suppose to remain silent, but Nash gave her an approving look.

“Everything full circle?” Nash said as he turned once more to Post to confirm Rachel’s supposition.

Post gave him a knowing smirk, then shrugged. “No one ever forgets the one that gets away.”

Nash gave him the same kind of dismissive glance he gave Rachel. “I suppose you would know that better than anyone.” When Post looked about to respond, Nash cut him off. “What about the man that I lost, Evan Cortez?”

Post hesitated. He knew that things had gone horribly wrong and that he was responsible for it. He just wondered how the captain would react to it. He hadn’t wanted to do the face-to-face, but he had no choice. He still needed Bridges. “We had no idea that things would go down the way that they did.”

“Don’t sidestep me man,” Nash warned.

A muscle twitched in his jaw as if he were chewing on the words. “Retaliation from Sinclair for the warehouse incident. There was no way of knowing how Sinclair was going to react,” Post reiterated.

“I could have told you how he was going to react. He was going to be pissed off!” Nash tried his best to cool down, but he could see Harvey fidgeting out of the corner of his eye. He was a volcano ready to erupt at any moment and Nash wasn’t sure that he could stop him, or even if he wanted to.

“This was a gang drive-by,” Nash began calmly. “Sinclair’s men went down to the projects to set it up. Are you telling me that Griggs didn’t tell you anything before the hit?” Nash asked suspiciously.

“He didn’t know anything for sure,” Post hedged.

“Meaning that he suspected,” Nash clarified.

Harvey squared off on the federal agent. “You didn’t even bother to call it in, did you?”

“There’s a bigger picture to consider, inspector,” Post spat out in distaste for the insubordination. “Cortez was just one man.”

Nash had to react quickly to stop Harvey from lunging even though he was half-tempted just to let him go. He held Harvey’s arms for a long moment, until he was sure that the impulse had passed, then he looked back at Post. “You’re way over the line now, Agent.”

Post defended himself. “We couldn’t jeopardize Griggs. Whether you’re willing to admit it or not, you understand that. Your meeting with Sinclair will bring out Wrath. We’re sure of it and we plan on being there.” He shook his head as he let out a small burst of air in contempt. “I’ve already spoken to your superior and you will inform me of any and all actions concerning Wrath, Griggs or Sinclair. It’s out of your hands, Captain. This was just a courtesy call.” The smirk was back on his face as he turned to accept a manila envelope from one of his associates, then he handed it off to Nash. “That’s everything you need to know about Wrath and his partner. Unless you want to lose your badge, you will do as you’re told.”

Nash released Harvey and stood toe-to-toe with Post. “I lost a good man this week because of your incompetence and I’m not about to put any more at risk for your convoluted reasoning on how to get a job done.” There was no mistaking the glare in his eyes. Nash could put a face to the man responsible for Evan’s death. Even though Post hadn’t pulled the trigger, he was just as responsible by keeping it quiet. Nash wasn’t going to let him walk away without reprisal. “You do whatever it is you have to do to get your rogue agent, but do it quick because I’m going to be on the phone to your boss. I’m bringing formal charges against you. We will see who’s badge is on the line, bubba.”

Nash turned and walked away. Harvey hesitated a moment longer, fixing Post with a hard glare, before following with Rachel taking up the rear. Nash rubbed his chin. Something didn’t feel right. When they reached the top of the landing next to the parking lot, he turned back to make sure the agents had gone the other way.

“What is it?” Rachel asked, following his gaze before looking back up at him.

“I don’t know. Just a feeling.”

“So we’re still going through with it then?” she asked.

“We don’t have any choice if we want to get Sinclair,” Nash returned, stopping on the gangway so that he could talk with Harvey and Rachel for a moment. “The two of you need to keep your eyes open. We’re probably going to have to keep Griggs alive too.”

“You don’t trust Post either?” Harvey asked.

“That guy is a walking screw up.” Nash sighed heavily as he ran a hand across his face. “At least we know who the shooter was after, so we don’t have to worry about the two of you, but I’ve still got a bad feeling about all of this.”

“You might want to have one of our guys watching over Post;” Harvey suggested. “If he’s willing to let Evan go down without a word to cover Griggs, there’s no telling what he might do to cover his own butt.”

“That’s a good idea,” he approved. “Put one of the uni’s on it.” He started heading for his car once more as he handed Harvey the file that Post had given him. “Harv, I want you to verify everything in that file and see if you can get in touch with Griggs. I’d be willing to bet that Post is keeping him in the dark too.”

Nash glanced back in Rachel’s direction. “That was a good catch picking out Griggs from all of those files you went through.”

“It was luck,” she said, shrugging her shoulders at the compliment. “The real trick is going to be nailing Bixby without letting Sinclair get away.”

* * *

Rachel pulled up the video from the warehouse shooting and began to fiddle with the picture of the shooter according to Post’s description. She wasn’t sure why she was even bothering, but something was nagging at the back of her mind. The normal routine of the office caused a lull in the day. People were at their desks doing their reports, the occasional perpetrator was escorted through in handcuffs, phones ringing continuously. Days like that left Rachel with far too much time on her hands to think.

She fought with herself every time she wanted to glance over in Harvey’s direction. To the casual observer, it had been business as usual between them at the office, but there was an underlying current of energy between them that pulled continuously at Rachel. She had noticed a little smile on Harvey’s face that hadn’t been there for a long time. Not since his divorce. He had good days and bad days like everyone else, but now he actually looked happy.

Her heart did a flip when she realized that Harvey had caught her staring at him. She felt like there was a siren going off over her head, drawing attention, when she actually blushed. Not good, she chided herself. She had been concerned about Harvey trying to deal with his newly discovered feelings in the work place, but she hadn’t anticipated her own becoming so sensitized.

She hated having to find busy work, but she had to do something to keep her mind focused or she would give herself away. She checked the missing person search she had running on her computer and noted that there still weren’t any hits on the names she input, then she clicked up several photographs onto her screen. Sinclair, Griggs, Post, the three body builders that Sinclair had for protection, all with current wrap sheets, of course. She did a general search of the DEA files she had hacked into, but there were hundreds of men that matched the description of the two agents that were with Post. She didn’t have a name to go by.

Rachel tried typing in Post’s name to pull up his case file and was surprised to see that there wasn’t a current assignment posted for him. She looked back at his picture on the screen as if silently asking it why there wasn’t an open file on him. Her eyes narrowed as she studied the picture, then she clicked on it to enlarge. It was an old photo. One that someone in the office had taken a few years earlier at Nash’s request when he had the misfortune of working with Post for the first time.

Rachel began to adjust Post’s picture then. He had been approximately twenty pounds heavier when it had been taken, so she thinned down his face and added a pair of dark glasses which he had been wearing at their meet that afternoon. He hadn’t aged much over the years, she noted. She thought that she had detected a small scar near his eye, but his sun glasses had obscured it. She took the glasses off of the picture and tried to imaging what the scar had looked like.

Backtracking a little, she started to do a search on Post’s personnel file. She was fairly sure that the feds would have an updated photo especially if a person’s facial features had been altered by scarring. “That’s weird,” she said to herself.

“What’s weird?” Nash asked as he passed by her desk on the way to his own.

She jumped slightly at having been overheard. She talked to herself so much when she was trying to work through something that it startled her when someone answered back. “I was just trying to pull up Post’s personnel file, but its not here.”

Nash tossed the files he was carrying on his desk, then walked back to Rachel, leaning over her shoulder as she continued to search. “Have you checked the inactive list yet?” he asked. She was an expert computer hacker so he didn’t bother asking her if she was in the right area. If it was on line, Rachel would find it.

“Not yet,” she returned and started to make her way there.

“We finally got a hit,” Harvey interrupted as he stretched his phone cord to it’s furthest length, trying to end the conversation. “I don’t care about the cost. Just get back with me when you have something.” He practically tossed the receiver back onto the cradle, then walked over to Rachel’s desk as well. “It turns out that the warehouse is a holding site for an online auction company. Auction Up dot com. And guess who’s on the board of directors of the company.”

“Edward Sinclair,” Rachel said with a smile.

“The man himself,” Harvey returned. “Along with two other known dealers.”

“Excellent work, Harv,” Nash congratulated him.

“There is a down side, though. Unfortunately, the auction company does not actually own the warehouse, it’s rented space for auction merchandise, but I’ll bet if we run a list from their employment records, that we’ll find our connection.”

“Okay. Give Rachel the list and let her handle that,” Nash suggested. People searches were her specialty. “You keep working on finding those other warehouses. A guy like Sinclair doesn’t do anything small. I’m willing to bet that there are several more out there somewhere.”

“So we’re not going after Sinclair yet,” Rachel asked.

“It’s too easy for him to worm out if we go after the company itself,” Nash replied. “We’ll go ahead with the deal and, hopefully, Sinclair will fill us in on his scheme.”

“Nothing better than a full confession,” Harvey joked.

“Captain, Barry, our man on Sinclair just phoned in,” Ronnie interrupted. “Griggs just left the house. He wants to know if he should follow.”

“Definitely,” Nash returned. “Harv, take Rachel with you and meet up with our guy so that he can get back to Sinclair. Hopefully, you will get the chance to talk to Griggs alone.” He gave Rachel a pat on the shoulder. “You can follow up on the employment files when you get back.”

* * *

Rachel and Harvey sat in his car outside of an expensive men’s shop as they waited for Griggs to make an appearance. “What do you think about grabbing a bite to eat after we chat with Griggs?” Harvey suggested. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starved.”

“Sounds good to me,” Rachel returned. “I can definitely use a break from the computer. I was ready to bounce off the walls in the office. I hate it when there’s nothing to do in a case except wait.”

He thought about the moment that he caught her staring and a mischievous smile rose on his face. “Yeah, you mind tends to wander. You’re eyes drift off to stare at others in the room.” He leaned towards her. “You do turn a lovely shade of red, though.”

“Busted,” she said succinctly. She had to laugh about it because she dread the thought of actually blushing again.

He chuckled, then reached over to give her hand a squeeze briefly before releasing it again. He turned his attention back to the business they were watching. “The DEA must be paying their agents better. I couldn’t afford a tie from this place.”

“I think too much emphasis is put on clothes these days anyway. If you’re not a clone of the next guy, you’re not in,” she said, using her fingers to mockingly accentuate the word in with quotes.

“A woman that doesn’t care about clothes. Are you sure you’re not a guy?” Harvey teased.

“Keep talking like that and you may never find out,” she warned jokingly.

“Shutting up now.”

She laughed at him, then scanned his profile for a long moment while he watched the men’s store. She was amazed by him. Their relationship had changed so much and so little at the same time. They were still efficient partners, bantering back and forth as they always had, but now there was subtle touches or a knowing smile from across the room. Nothing obvious, but the undercurrent of tension was very real. The brush of his hand against her skin, the smell of his spicy cologne, even casual conversation had a new edge to her. For years she had pushed aside the electric charges he sent through her system, but now that she knew he returned her feelings, she was able to indulge in the sensations.

“How does Mama Z’s sound?” he suggested a restaurant, tossing a glance in her direction as he returned to the original topic, unaware of her admiring glance.

“Perfect,” she agreed. “I haven’t been to Mama Z’s in weeks.” Her eyes darted over to the men’s department store quickly when she saw Harvey reaching for the door handle. Griggs was walking out of the store.

“There’s our guy.”

Both of them crossed the street quickly and reached Griggs just as he was inserting the key into his car door less than half a block away. “We need to talk,” Harvey told him as Rachel stayed a few feet behind, continuously scanning the area for signs of Sinclair’s men. A public street wasn’t their first choice for discretion, but they had no other options when Griggs didn’t turn up on any of their searches. They couldn’t even establish a place of residence.

Griggs looked him up and down. He didn’t recognize Harvey at first. He had only seen him in business suits. The psychedelic vest and beret gave him an entirely different look. “Mr. Glass,” he said with some surprise. “I know you have business with Mr. Sinclair, but I can’t imagine what we could possibly have to talk about.”

“Does the name Wrath ring any bells?” Harvey asked and was impressed with the blank look he got in return. If he didn’t know that Griggs was DEA, he would have believed that he genuinely didn’t have a clue who he meant.

“Not particularly, but it sounds like it might be an interesting conversation.” He glanced around then. A public sidewalk wasn’t exactly the best place for that kind of conversation, but he was curious to hear what this pair had to say. “I’ve got an appointment in fifteen minutes that I simply can’t miss, but I can meet you later this evening. About an hour, down on the docks,” he suggested.

“We’ll be there,” Harvey returned, then he and Rachel quickly walked away.

* * *

Harvey tossed a wave to one of the waiters as he walked through the main dining room of Mama Z’s with Rachel. They were headed to the back of the restaurant where they knew Mama would be, hovering over the kitchen staff. Before Harvey could even say a word, Mama had spotted him across the room and threw her arms up in the air in greeting. “Where have you been all of my life?” he asked teasingly when she gave him a hug.

“Spanking your diapered butt,” she returned saucily, wagging a finger at him for flirting. “You wouldn’t give me a second glance if this pretty young thing winked once in your direction.”

When Mama gave her a hug as well, Rachel couldn’t resist giving Harvey a wink over Mama’s shoulder and his smile broadened. “He should be so lucky, Mama,” Rachel joked.

“Don’t torment him,” Mama countered, a finger wagging in her direction now. “You should wish you were lucky enough to find a good man like Harvey.”

Harvey couldn’t stop the chuckle then, but quickly changed the subject. “We need a hole in the wall, Mama, and a table full of your best eats.”

Mama glanced around quickly, gesturing for them to follow even further into the restaurant, to a small room behind the bar. Few clients were allowed in the private sanctum, but Mama understood the need for privacy. When they were working undercover, she never hesitated when they needed a place to eat. She waited until the couple was seated before she spoke again. “I heard about Evan,” she said in a conspiratorial voice, reaching out to take Harvey’s hand when her throat closed suddenly. “I know you loved him like a brother,” she choked out, then dashed away a tear with her finger.

Before Harvey could even respond, Mama squeezed his hand between both of hers, then quickly walked off. Harvey sighed heavily, then looked across the table at Rachel. The silence hung in the air for a long moment until he could bear it no longer. “You know, I can almost forget what happened this last week for about two seconds, then it comes jumping back up again.”

She gave him half a smile. “At least you know that you’re not alone when it comes to missing him.”

“I already knew that,” he returned, his finger tapping out an irregular beat against the table a few times as he sought to find the words to describe his emotions. “I just can’t get those few seconds out of my head. It’s like a nightmare I can’t wake up from. I still catch myself turning to him when I hear something funny. Or expect to see him sitting at his desk every time I walk into the SIU. I know I couldn’t have done anything even if I had seen the car coming, it’s just that...”

“That’s normal,” she interrupted, placing her hand over his to still his nervous rapping. She knew that he felt guilty for Evan’s death. There was no way to avoid the feeling especially when Evan’s brother practically accused Harvey of getting Evan killed. “Don’t hang that guilt trip on yourself, Harvey. You’re a good cop.”

He turned his hand into hers and grasped her fingers lightly. How could he feel so bad and so good at the same time? Memories of Evan were like a knife in his gut, but a simple touch from Rachel or the sound of her no-nonsense voice would banish the dark pains of the recent past, even if it was for just and instant. He felt like a coin someone was tossing into the air on a whim. One toss brought the ache, then the next toss would bring the joy. “I don’t know if I ever told you,” he said softly as his eyes looked directly into hers. “I really appreciate you being there for me through all of this. You’ve always known exactly what to say or do.”

“I’ll always be there for you, Harv,” she whispered in return, putting aside the need for a casual persona and letting her love show through the warmth of her eyes. Her breath caught in her throat in the next moment when he raised her hand to his lips. Shock waves danced over her fingers. She wasn’t use to seeing the romantic side of Harvey so it caught her by surprise. He had a way of making the smallest gesture seem grand.

“What is this?” Mama asked incredulously as she stared down at them, her eyes drinking in the intimate air between them. She hastily put their glasses of water on the table, nearly spilling them both as her eyes danced between them. “Don’t tell me the two of you finally realized how perfect you are for each other?”

Harvey captured Rachel’s hand between both of his when she would have pulled away and lowered them to the table. “Keep it under your hat, Mama,” he said with a smile as he held Rachel’s gaze.

“That is just wonderful!” Mama gushed. “I am so happy for the two of you. I’ve got to tell cook. He will fix up something extra special for you.”

“Ah, Mama,” Rachel tried in vain to get the restaurant owner’s attention, then Harvey stopped her when she would have stood to follow.

“Don’t worry about Mama,” he told her. “We’ll make sure she understands before we leave that we don’t want it getting around. I figure we have about thirty minutes before one of us gets a call from the office and we’re not going to waste a single minute of it.”

Rachel looked at him suspiciously, her mind rapidly assessing and processing. “You don’t care if everyone knows.”

He hesitated a moment, half-heartedly shaking his head. “Let’s just say that I wouldn’t want to be a topic of office gossip, but I’m not going to sneak around either. I want to take you out and show you off, woman. I plan on wining and dining you until you can’t stand the sight of me.”

For a moment, she didn’t know what to say or how to react. This was a side of Harvey that was new to her. One part of her wanted to remind him of how precarious their lives would be if they rushed into anything, then the other part of her wanted to toss caution into the wind. She chose the latter. With both of their hands joined in the center of the table, she leaned closer to him. “Now that sounds like a challenge,” she baited him with a teasing smile.

His eyes brightened. “Do you think you are up to it, McCabe?” he returned

A knowing smile appeared even though she bit at her lower lip to stop if from curling. “Bring it on, Leek,” she whispered in return. She was a bit leery of bringing their blossoming relationship out into the open too soon, but the temptation of seeing of the romantic side of Harvey more often was too great to resist. To show her commitment to the challenge, she closed the remaining distance between them and kissed him over their clasped hands.

“Aw, look. Aren’t they beautiful together?” Mama asked the man standing next to her as she looped her arm around his waist.

“Beautiful, Mama,” the cook agreed, giving her half a hug as they witnessed the kiss.

Rachel and Harvey looked over to the kitchen door where the pair there gazed longingly back. Then they began to laugh at having been caught so quickly.

* * *

As he stared at the security monitor, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Rachel McCabe. He had stilled the picture so that he could make absolutely sure, then he couldn’t bring himself to shut it off. Hers was a face that he never expected to see again. The arrogance she showed by sitting outside of his office building did little to impress him. He knew why she was there and it wasn’t to see him.

A twisted smile curled up the corners of his mouth. He had prayed for the opportunity to return all of the torment that he had suffered at her hands. No one had ever caused such a traumatic rift in his family and lived. No one accept her.

He glanced to the door that he had shoved his grandson thru moments before. He knew that he shouldn’t have pushed him out of the room when her image came across the screen, but he couldn’t bear it when his grandson began asking questions. He wouldn’t lose his grandson again. She wasn’t going to take him from him. He wasn’t going to allow that.

* * *

“Are you there now?” Nash asked Harvey on the cell phone.

“Yeah,” Harvey returned. “I just circled the area. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Rachel tapped him on the shoulder to draw his attention to a gold tone jaguar pulling onto the deserted docks. “Not at all conspicuous,” she joked.

“He’s pulling in now, boss,” Harvey informed him.

“Keep your eyes open and report back here when you’re done. I’m going to be in the office for at least another hour.”

“Will do,” he promised, then flipped his phone closed. “Seen anything else?” he asked, his eyes already scanning the area one last time.

“No. Clear.”

Harvey flashed his headlights twice from the dark corner of the docks that they had chosen and the jaguar immediately came towards them. Rachel and Harvey exited their car and approached Griggs as he got out of his. “Thanks for meeting us,” Harvey began.

“I’m a busy man, Mr. Glass. What is this about?”

“The name’s not Glass,” Harvey told him. “I’m Inspector Leek and this is Inspector McCabe.”

“You’re cops?” he said nonplussed as he folded his arms over his chest. He had suspected, but hadn’t been able to pull up anything concrete on the duo, which was a first for him. “I’m impressed. Whoever buried that fact and did your wrap sheets is very good.”

“Thank you,” Rachel returned and received a nod from Griggs in acknowledgement. “Of course, your non-existence speaks volumes about your programmer as well.” The lift of the corner of his mouth in somewhat of a smile told her that he was the eraser himself.

“We’ve spoken to your boss at the bureau and we have reason to believe that your life may be in danger,” Harvey warned him, cutting to the quick of their precarious meeting. None of them were safe out in the open.

“Is that where you heard the name Wrath?” he countered, without regard to the thought of someone trying to kill him.

Harvey and Rachel exchanged a confused look. Griggs was playing it too cool for someone who was just told that he was a mark. “Look,” Rachel tried once more. “Our boss has worked with Agent Post in the past and he was concerned that you were not being informed of the circumstances. That’s the only reason we’re here.”

“Agent Post?” he said with a note of surprise in his voice. The first indication that he was not who he pretended to be.

“Yes, Post,” Harvey confirmed, wondering why their conversation was so stilted. Didn’t Griggs realize that he was endangering all of them by answering questions with questions? The sooner they got out of there, the better. “He said that your old partner, Wrath, had a grudge against you and was the shooter from the parking garage the other night.”

Griggs shook his head. “Okay, we have a definite problem here folks.”

“Glad you think so,” Rachel countered, satisfied that they were finally getting through to him.

“No. You don’t understand.” He shook his head, self-consciously looking around although nothing could be seen outside of the street light at the end of the docks and a few twinkling lights of boats on the bay. “I don’t know who you were talking to, but it wasn’t Post. And Wrath can’t be your shooter, because I’m Wrath and I was in the car with Sinclair.”

Rachel and Harvey shared a questioning glance between them. “Maybe we misunderstood?” Harvey suggested, but Rachel shook her head.

“It was all pretty intense, but I’m certain of what was said,” she confirmed. “Post said that Wrath killed two suspects and let Sinclair get away.” She looked back at Griggs, moving her hand discretely to grasp the butt of her gun at the small of her back, knowing instinctively that Harvey was doing the same by crossing his arms to reach the holster strapped beneath his shoulder. “How do we know that you aren’t the guy we’re looking for? How do we know that Post isn’t telling the truth?”

Griggs leaned toward them. “Because Post is dead.”

* * *