She stood instantly, all five foot nothing of her. Then she pointed at him. “Stay here.” Her high heels clicked as she headed for Mercer’s door. She was inside for—he counted—two minutes, and then she came back and told him, “Go in, he’s waiting for you.”
He didn’t let his grin break free. He was good at controlling his expression. At showing only what he wanted folks to see. People were so easily fooled.
So easily.
He entered the main office and closed the door. He made sure to hesitate as if he were uncertain.
You’re going down, Gunner. His brother had been downstairs, with his hands all over Sydney.
Right in front of me.
“Slade.” Mercer sat behind his big, fancy desk. One of his eyebrows had climbed. “Ms. Rogers told me that you had some information to give me.”
Slade glanced over his shoulder, as if he were trying to make sure that no one could hear him. Then he nodded quickly.
“Have a seat.” Mercer waved his hand toward the chair in front of him.
Slade limped toward the seat, making sure to drag his leg a bit, conscious of Mercer’s assessing gaze as it fell on him.
“You’re looking better.”
“I am better.” He’d been fine all along. That rehab had been a joke. He blew out a hard breath. “I heard about the attacks on Sydney.”
“Did you.” But the words weren’t really a question.
Again, he nodded quickly. “I want to help.” He let his hands tightly curl over the armrests on his chair. “Give me a job to do, give me something.”
Mercer shook his head. “There’s no way you’re going into the field. You have no security clearance any longer—or the training needed—for a job like that.” The man wasn’t pulling punches. “And physically, mentally, you’re far from ready for any mission.”
That’s what you think. But he didn’t let the rage slip out. “Give me a job here. I heard the techs talking—they think someone tried to break into the system. I can watch surveillance video, I can read files, I can do something.”
Mercer just stared back at him. “I thought you were here to talk to me about one of my agents being a threat.”
Slade flinched.
“Do you have intel to provide to me?”
Slade looked down at the floor. “I want to help so I can prove it’s not him.”
Silence.
He forced himself to look up and, sure enough, Mercer was still watching him with that too-assessing gaze. “Give me a name,” Mercer ordered.
“He didn’t leave me to die.” Slade forced the words out in a rush. “I was wrong. It was the drugs talking. He couldn’t have left me to die.”
Mercer leaned forward. “You’re talking about Gunner?”
“Yes.” A rasp. “He didn’t leave me to die, and he didn’t try to hurt Sydney.”
“Why does it sound like you’re attempting to convince yourself of that?”
Slade glanced at the floor, took a deep breath, then looked back up at Mercer. “Because when we were teenagers, there was this...this girl that Gunner liked. Sarah Bell. Sweet little Sarah Bell.” He could still see her in his mind. “She kind of looked like Sydney. Same light blond hair, same green eyes.”
“Why are you telling me this story?” Mercer snapped.
He jerked to attention. “Sarah Bell...she broke up with Gunner. Said he was too rough for her, too wild. Then a week later, Sarah died.”
He could still see all the flowers that had been at her funeral. Sarah had been particularly fond of roses. He’d put a dozen on her grave.
“Her whole family died,” he whispered. “A fire broke out in their house while they were asleep. Someone had disabled their smoke detector, then poured gasoline all over the first level of their home. The fire started and they...” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “The newspapers said that the family never had a chance. They didn’t wake up at all.”
“Did the police find the arsonist?”
He shook his head.
“And you think that relates to this case because...?”
Did he have to draw the guy a damn map? “Because Sarah was with Gunner, and she left him. He told me, he told me that he wasn’t going to let her go. She was his, and no one would ever take her from him.” His breath rasped out. “Now he thinks that Sydney is his...” He let the sentence trail away.
Silence. The kind that stretched too long; then, finally, Mercer said, “I thought you said you wanted to prove it’s not Gunner. Sounds to me like you’re making a case for the arsonist being him.”
“No, I—” He raked a hand over his face. “Maybe the drugs are still in my system. I’m being paranoid. I mean...the fires aren’t even the same M.O., right? I’m sure the fire at Sydney’s house wasn’t set by gasoline and the detectors weren’t disabled—”
“None of the alarms went off at Sydney’s house, and while the arson investigation is ongoing, preliminary indications are that gasoline was the accelerant used.”
He sagged in the chair. “But Gunner got her out? He was the hero last night, right? Not the bad guy. Not the arsonist.”
Mercer’s gaze gave nothing away.
“It can’t be him,” Slade whispered.
“If you’re so sure that it’s not him, then why are you in my office? Why did you tell Ms. Rogers that you had intel to give me?”
His hands dug deeper into the armrests. “Because...what if it is him? Our father...did Gunner tell you that he wound up in a mental ward? That’s where he died. He’d gone crazy, and attacked his latest girlfriend—tried to kill her.” His voice sounded hollow to his own ears. “We never saw him much growing up, but Gunner and I both always wondered...just how much like him were we?” He held Mercer’s gaze. “How much?”
Chapter Eight
Sydney stared at the computer screen before her, absolutely sure that there had to be some kind of mistake.
For six hours, she’d been working with the other techs. They’d gone back through the system, tracking their hacker. Gone through every system link they could find.
They’d narrowed down the security breach. It had happened three days ago, at 0300 hours. Long before anyone should have been in the office.
The Guerrero case file had been accessed, her personnel file had been accessed and Gunner’s file had been accessed. But according to the results she was seeing, their hacker had looked at Gunner’s file for only two seconds. That wasn’t long enough to learn any details. Just long enough to lead a cyber trail for them to follow. Long enough to show that someone had pulled the file.