“Hey, McKee. How are you holding up?”
Ollie jumped, realizing that he’d gotten lost in his own thoughts, because the man standing in front of him was entirely out of context.
“Brax? What on earth are you doing here?” He’d become friends with Braxton Reed at the Academy, and then they’d both gone their separate ways.
“Transferred to LA last week,” Brax said, dragging his fingers through his thick, blond hair, the kind that any surfer would be proud of. Except that Brax didn’t surf. Born and bred in Denver, Brax would probably be hard-pressed to even identify an ocean.
“LA? You? The man who used to rave about his time on the slopes. You do know that LA is pretty much sea level, right?”
Brax shrugged. “What can I say? They made an offer I couldn’t refuse, and I came running. Besides, there’s Big Bear. Mt. Baldy. Mammoth. California’s not totally lacking for skiing.”
“Not totally,” Ollie repeated. “But say again? An offer you couldn’t refuse?”
“Today’s my first day at Stark Security,” his friend announced. “I’m sorry about the circumstances, man. But I’m glad to be helping. I like Courtney. She doesn’t deserve this shit.”
“No,” Ollie agreed. “She doesn’t.” He shook his head, still slightly bewildered. “Damn, though, it’s good to see you.”
“You, too. Despite the circumstances.”
Trevor joined them and for a moment, Ollie caught a hint of something both harsh and vulnerable in his expression. But then he was beside Ollie, and he flashed that ridiculously handsome smile at Brax.
“You two getting acquainted?”
“Re-acquainted,” Brax corrected. “We were at the Academy together.”
“Roommates?” Trevor asked, and Ollie thought he heard an odd sort of tension in Trevor’s voice.
“Just friends. You roomed with Dustin, right? Where’d he land?”
“Not sure,” Ollie said. “We lost track after he got married. I heard he quit the FBI. Apparently the job made his husband too nervous.” He shook his head, scattering the memories. “Seriously, it’s great that you’re here. The SSA’s a stellar operation. You’ll enjoy working in the private sector.”
“So far, so good. I’ll keep you posted.” He turned to Trevor. “Assignment?”
“Check in with Liam.” Trevor pointed to Liam Foster, a tall Black man with military bearing.
“On it,” he said, then turned his attention back to Ollie. “We’ll catch up more later.”
Trevor stepped closer as Brax headed away, then tilted his head, indicating that Ollie should walk with him.
“Update?” Ollie asked.
“Nothing yet. But everyone has their assignments. I have you set up at station seven.”
“Got it,” Ollie said, starting to turn back toward the work stations. First order of business was to get into her electronics and see if she’d had a stalker, someone she was seeing, anything suspicious. And, of course, getting into her condo and seeing if there was anything telling there.
Trevor’s hand on his shoulder stopped him, then steered him into the back hallway. “So, Brax?” His voice was low. “Just a friend?”
“Probably my closest friend at the Academy. We went through a lot of shit together.”
“Anything else? A crush?”
Ollie narrowed his eyes. “No. And that’s not the issue right now.”
“No,” Trevor said. “It’s not.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “Sorry. This whole thing—us—has spun me a little. You, I imagine a lot. We didn’t have time to, um, debrief.”
“Pity,” Ollie said. “I think I’d enjoy debriefing you.”
Trevor grinned. “Very glad to hear that. Seriously, though. You okay? Not with the Courtney situation, but with—”
“Yeah,” Ollie said, forcing himself not to reach out and brush Trevor’s arm. “I’d say that on that side of things, I’m doing just fine.” He took a step closer. “And yeah, maybe there was a crush. But I didn’t know it at the time.” He looked up to meet Trevor’s eyes. “And I’m very, very over it.”
Trevor nodded, that adorable smile tugging at his mouth. “Glad to hear it, Agent McKee. Now you should probably get back to work. We both should.”
“Yeah,” Ollie said, wishing he had the balls to step even closer and kiss him. “I guess we should.”
Chapter Seven
Hours later, Trevor watched as Ollie paced the third-floor kitchen, a cup of cold coffee in his hand as he talked aloud.
“She doesn’t have money. She doesn’t have power.” He turned to look at Trevor, pain evident in his face. “Why take her for ransom? It doesn’t make sense.”
“She’s a journalist, right?”
“Yeah, for the last few years. She used to be in marketing. Big corporate marketing. Traveled all over the place, and the job was driving her into the ground. She quit, then was living on her savings for about a year. I think it was about four years ago that she picked up the journalism gig.”
“And you two kept in touch after you broke up?” He heard the hint of jealousy in his voice, and hoped that Ollie didn’t pick up on it.
“Yeah. We’re still friends. I thought she’d run far and fast from me after what I did, but she’s got a good heart.”
But do you love her?
He didn’t ask it. Why would he? He already knew the answer. He’d overheard Ollie himself saying it to Damien: You’ve had someone you love kidnapped, too.
Love. Not loved. The present tense.
He shook himself. A woman had been kidnapped. What the fuck kind of asshole was he for dwelling on how Ollie felt about her?
With no small amount of effort, he forced himself to regroup, then turned his attention back to Ollie. “What about family money? Could that play into this?”
Ollie shook his head. “There used to be. But they hit hard times a few years ago. As far as I know, they’re leveraged to the hilt. Probably beyond.”
Trevor nodded, thinking. “The kidnapper might not know that.”
“True enough. We’ll work that angle.”
“What kind of journalism? Investigative? Maybe she stumbled across something.”
“No, nothing like that. Assignments for entertainment magazines, mostly. That kind of thing. Puff pieces.” Ollie checked his watch. “I need to call her parents, but I’m going to wait another hour. They’re on vacation in London, and I don’t want to wake them up with this news.”
He started pacing, shock and grief etched on that face Trevor had come to know so well.
“What a conversation that’s going to be. Hey, it’s the asshole who kicked around your daughter, and by the way, she’s been kidnapped. Don’t worry, the ransom is taken care of, but so far we don’t know shit.”
Trevor took a step toward him and held out his hand. Ollie didn’t take it. Slowly, Trevor pulled his hand back. “We’ll get answers,” he promised.
“Yeah, but it doesn’t feel like it right now.”