Page 22 of Code Name: Harbor

Reid hops off the counter and nudges me with his hip. “Next time, McAdams, you wait for your partner, right?”

“Yeah… I got it. Enough with the recriminations.”

As a peace offering, Reid gives me another cookie and I take it. “Malik went easy on you. You know that, right?”

“Yeah. He could have fired me. I get it. My punishment is to work a counterintel case, which can be done from the comfort of my desk.”

Reid snorts and shakes his head. “There’s no way you’re not working the Russian trafficking case, McAdams. I know you. You’ve got BOB running on something right now and you’ll run leads down regardless of what Malik says.”

“I wouldn’t—”

Reid leans in closer, looks at me pointedly. “And if you do find a lead you need help running down, you call me. I’ll go with you. Deal?”

I swallow the retort that was on the tip of my tongue, because I expected him to tell me to stay out of the case. Instead, he’s sort of offering encouragement to keep snooping.

“Deal,” I say, giving him an affectionate nudge back.

Because I fully intend to do whatever it takes to bring these monsters down and save future victims. What Reid or Caroline or any of the others don’t know is I have more than BOB and my analytical skills.

I think about yesterday… the drive to Finn’s place in Magnolia and the whole conversation about Voronin while we sat on his patio and watched the sun sink into the water.

I remember the way he proposed the trade—a date for info—and that I was in no way put off by the offer.

And now I have a date tonight with the mysterious art gallery owner and possible smuggler.

Yeah… I have more than BOB.

I have the only living person outside of Voronin’s organization who has been close enough to Voronin’s operation to know names and routes and timing. And that person—for reasons I don’t yet fully understand—wants to take me out on a date.

Which is something I intend to keep to myself.

Of course, Cole knows part of this. Not the part I’m thinking about right now, but a piece of it.

My debrief happened this morning, just after eight in the small conference room on the main floor. Cole brought me a coffee, which was sweet, but there’s no mistaking he was all business. His job was to ferret out every piece of information he could so that we can use it to build a better case against Voronin.

He picked and prodded. He came at the same details from three different angles. He found the gaps Malik hadn’t found because he had the time to dig deep.

He walked me through every minute of my ordeal from the time I pulled up to the rendezvous spot until the time the Uber driver dropped me off at my house.

Cole obviously got Finn Marlowe’s name, which I knew he would. He got the name of the boat, the description of the man named Marcus who drove the boat, and the details of how they fished me out of the water.

He didn’t get out of me that Finn fired warning shots over Voronin’s men, but that’s only because he never asked me if Finn had a weapon. I know that’s because I portrayed the situation as just two guys out fishing doing a good deed.

Cole doesn’t know about the frequency scanner, the chart with the patrol-window notations in pencil or my suspicions. I glossed over the details with references to the fact I was suffering from hypothermia.

Had Cole asked if they had weapons, I would have told him the truth. If he had pushed at me for the minute details of what the interior of Finn’s boat looked like, I would have divulged the scanner and charts. But he didn’t, and it’s because I intentionally withheld my feelings that Finn might be up to no good out there on the seas.

As it stands, I’m feeling all kinds of guilty I didn’t volunteer it, but I can’t at this point. I don’t want Finn to get into trouble. He saved my life and while I know in my gut he’s probably some type of criminal, I know he’s not a human trafficker.

What I end up doing with that information is another matter, but for now, I want his intel on Voronin, so I’m willing to keep his secrets.

It has me walking the tightest line of my career. While I didn’t lie to him—because Cole would have caught a lie—I told an incomplete truth and made the gaps seem like they couldn’t be filled.

At the end of the conversation, Cole clamps down on my shoulders. “Wish I could shake Mr. Marlowe’s hand. He did Jameson a solid by saving you.”

That made me feel slightly better about protecting Finn.

“Yo, McAdams,” Reid says, snapping his fingers in front of my face. I blink at him, still holding the cookie he gave me. “Where’d you go?”