He burst out laughing. “Nice to have so much self-confidence that you didn’t think you had anything to do with it.”
“Oh, I figured I had a lot to do with it, but only so much I could do about it. That was your problem, and you would have to solve it, one way or another. I did talk to Terk at one time, saying I wasn’t sure I could be part of the team because of you.”
Damon stared at her in shock.
She nodded. “I mean, everybody talks about teamwork, and yet, with you, I felt like I was completely shut out.”
He slowly sank into the chair. “Good God. I had no idea.”
“Nope, I figured you didn’t.” She smiled. “But Terk told me that you had some issues to work through and promised that it had nothing to do with me. So I trusted him then, and, well, I’m trusting him again now,” she said. “I couldn’t understand what the hell your problem was.”
“Sorry, I was trying hard to keep the family together.” He raised his hands in surrender. “I’m not sure you know how I felt.”
“Which is ridiculous,” she muttered. “For a supersmart guy, you were really stupid.”
And, with that, she turned and walked away.
Chapter 7
On the other side of the warehouse Tasha chuckled softly, trying to keep the noise down, because she could see Terk was off in the corner doing something. Unsure what, and not wanting to disturb him, she sat down at a computer to check on the information she’d been running. She printed off the list of license plates, only to realize something.
She walked back to Damon, took one look at his, then smiled. “So, we have a little bit of information. The vehicles seen outside Wilson’s and Mera’s were stolen.”
“Of course they were.” Damon shook his head. “What about at your place?”
“Still no sign of anything abnormal,” she murmured. “But, while I’m not sure what to expect, it seems unlikely they would change their pattern at that point.”
“Any personnel movements back at home base?”
“Two promotions and one person quit. I don’t know that you know any of them,” she said. “I’ll print it off for you.”
“Are you keeping track that closely?”
“Damn right I am,” she stated, with a fierceness that surprised her. “Somebody did this to us. I kind of liked the idea of it being our boss, but I really don’t like the idea, if you know what I mean.”
“I get it,” he agreed, “but it still comes back to the fact that we probably know too much.”
“They didn’t have to do it this way,” she murmured. “We’ve been loyal the whole time.”
“And we can’t jump to conclusions,” he reminded her.
She rolled her eyes at that. “Of course not,” she muttered, “but it’s okay for everybody else to?”
“Nope, it sure isn’t,” he said. “But hold your horses, we’re getting somewhere.”
She grabbed the printout with the names of those who had shifted within the department. He looked at them, frowned, “I don’t know any of these people.”
“I even printed off the faces in case that made a difference.” She handed him a new set of paperwork.
He looked at it, shrugged. “Nope, nobody I know.”
“So, whether that’s good or bad, I don’t know,” she continued, “but those are the changes this week for our bosses. Well, in the entire department,” she corrected. “So maybe nobody is doing anything right now.”
“I rather imagine they’re in panic mode, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.”
“Do you think they even know?” she asked Damon.
“They don’t have bodies, so their panic is escalating,” Terk said from the doorway, his hands on his hips, studying Tasha. “In which case, they’ll be trying to contact us. Yet they’re the ones who shut everything down. So I’m not sure how much communicating they’ll do.”
“Do we want to reach out?” she asked quietly.
He shook his head. “No, we don’t. I’m waiting for them to reach out first.”
“Will they though?”
“Yeah, eventually they’ll get desperate enough and probably contact Levi.”
“Why do you think they’ll contact your brother’s boss?”
He gave her a hard grin. “Anybody in the industry who knows we are twins will know that my brother and I are close, and, if anybody will know anything, it’ll be him.”
“Well, in that case, they’ll be tracking his phone lines and checking all communications, trying to find you through him then.”
“Absolutely,” he agreed cheerfully. “We’re working out a way to trap them.”
“If somebody shows up here, are you planning on”—she stopped, winced—“are you planning on talking to them?”
“Wouldn’t that be a good idea?” Terk studied her face. “Is that a problem for you?”
“Well, the trouble is, if you talk to them, they’ll tell everybody that they saw you, alive,” she said quietly. “And that’s something we can’t have happen.”
“Nope, we can’t,” he murmured. “Whether there’s a connection to the US government or not, somebody out there knows something, and they’ll do whatever the hell they can to get the rest of the information they need. And that includes taking down our own men. So, whether we’re protecting our old group or we’re protecting just ourselves, talking to these others means finding a permanent solution afterward.”
“I don’t want everybody killed,” she said instantly.
“Neither do I,” Terk agreed. “As a matter of fact, I don’t want anybody killed. That includes our own people. Do you have a suggestion on how to handle that?”
“I don’t know,” she cried out in frustration, “but there has to be another answer than murder.”
“Is it murder?”
“Of course it’s murder,” she declared. “They’re our team too. Well, used to be our government team. We can’t just go and kill everybody because we want answers.”
He smiled. “No we can’t, but you also have to consider that, if they know we’re alive, it just launches round two of the assassination of our team.”
“In that case, it becomes self-defense, and that’s a different story. But we’ll not just go around killing anybody.” She caught the glint of laughter in Terk’s gaze. “You were just testing me, weren’t you?”
“You’re a very fierce personality,” he muttered. “I just wanted to see what side you truly were on.”
“You mean trust?”
“No, not at all,” he corrected. “I already trust you, but I also know, in these circumstances, honor and ethics can go out the window in a heartbeat. And I had to know which way you were leaning.”
“I’m leaning to keep everybody alive,” she clarified, “and, barring our ability to do that, I want to make sure that it’s only the bad guys who die.”