Chapter 10

TEN

The conference room door swung open, and Aidan glanced up from the printouts he was filing into Jamie's colorful folders. Dressed in jeans and a horrifically glorious ugly sweater, Agent Kim was the picture of holiday harassed, all the way to the grimace that turned down the corners of his mouth.

"Not one word about the sweater," he said as he yanked off the lime green, orange, and beige tiger-adorned tufted travesty and tossed it in a chair. "Breakfast with the family this morning." He pushed up the sleeves of the shirt he'd had on underneath. "Then on my way here I had the loveliest phone call with the prosecutor on Angel's case."

Not lovely at all judging by his tone. "He wouldn't budge?"

Matt dropped into the chair across from him. "Not without more."

"Angel's just a kid."

"With a record." Matt held up one finger. "Who committed a felony." Held up a second .

"Superficial," Aidan said, waving them away. "Both counts."

Matt leveled him with his dark gaze. "Not everyone is besties with their local US Attorney." And didn't flinch at Aidan's answering glare. "Facts, Talley." He wasn't wrong, said bestie of Aidan's married to Matt's former Bureau partner, who was Jamie's best friend. Yes, it was a tangled web that usually worked in Aidan's favor. None to be had here, it seemed.

"Do I need to call said bestie?" It wouldn't be the first time Nic had flexed outside his jurisdiction.

Matt shook his head. "Save the juice for a battle you can win. Rooster won't budge."

"Rooster?"

"Henry Roos," Matt explained. "The AUSA assigned to Angel's case."

"Is his last name the only reason he's called Rooster?"

"Unfortunately not," Rick said as he entered the room. "He's got the big hair, puffed-out chest, and strut to match." If the maybe-former model with a headful of blond waves and a chest almost as broad as Jamie's was saying that about someone else, Aidan could only imagine the prosecutor they were up against, confirmed as Rick carried on. "He's also meaner than any of the real roosters we have on the farm back home."

"Lovely." Just what Aidan needed on a case that mattered more than most, at least to him. "So, then, we need to get Angel talking."

"Which Tricia won't let him do without a deal."

"There's a tipping point for everyone." Leverage. Aidan had used it before to turn suspects into sources. "We need to solve for why. "

Matt nodded to his folders. "That what you've been printing all morning?"

"A certain consultant went hacking for us overnight." Aidan spread the folders out, same as Jamie had done that morning, then spent the next twenty minutes walking Matt and Rick through Jamie's findings and the connections they'd already drawn that morning.

And those they'd noted were absent.

"So," Matt said, after Aidan finished the overview, "if it's not financial distress driving Angel's actions, what then? He did it for kicks? He's acting out?"

"Can't be dismissed," Aidan admitted. "He is a teenager, but I don't think that's it. When you go back through his record, those suspensions, the truancies, the larceny even, there's a reason for his actions. Despite what he wants us to believe, he's not a kid who acts out."

"Drugs, then?" Rick said. "Causing him to act out of the norm?"

Matt shook his head. "Test results came back negative for any controlled substances. Kid didn't even have caffeine in his system."

Pushing back from the table, Aidan stood and walked to the whiteboard he'd started scribbling notes on, three parties listed at the top.

Parsons. White. X.

Then two underneath them.

Angel. Y.

"Where's the connection?" he said. "Or better yet, who?" Aidan tapped a knuckle against the Y , one of two unknown variables on the board, but, he sensed, the more important one to Angel. "Y is someone Angel knows, and that person knows one or more of them," he said, pointing at the top line. "Any word on White?" he asked Rick.

"Still no sightings."

"As for Parsons," Matt said, "no known connections to White or Angel. He's cooperated fully and is conducting an in-house investigation to find out who might've leaked the shipment contents. So is Danny on the Talley side."

Aidan drew a single hash mark through Parsons's name. Not a full exoneration yet, but he agreed, it seemed Parsons was a victim more likely than a suspect. "We need to find White."

"He's due to check in with his parole officer tomorrow morning," Rick said. "He knows to alert us if he does."

They were halted from speculating any further by a knock at the door. "Come in," Matt called, once Aidan had moved to stand in front of the board.

The weekend receptionist who'd greeted him that morning stuck her head in the room. "Tricia Harris is here. Interrogation room two with Angel."

"We'll be right there," Matt said, then to Rick, "Keep digging."

Aidan circled the table, meeting Matt by the door. "Let's go get him to talk."

They'd barely closed the interrogation room door when Tricia made it clear how difficult that would be. "Do we have a deal?" she demanded.

"We're working on it," Matt replied.

"Well, until you have it, he's not talking."

He was looking as ragged as Aidan felt this morning—bloodshot eyes, pale skin, his curls gone flat. If Aidan had to guess, Angel had gotten even less sleep than him last night. Unsurprising, as his options had been a metal bench or the cement floor. He wore the clean clothes Izzy had brought for him, but given his otherwise drawn appearance, the slacks and button-up looked more ill-fitting than yesterday's jeans and hoodie.

"The AUSA isn't going to dismiss a felony without something in return," Matt said, continuing to volley with Angel's PD.

"But he's willing, if there is something?"

"It's Rooster, Trish. Of course he'll make a deal." The slip of a nickname, of Matt's usual formality in the interrogation room, made Aidan do a double take, but before he had time to ask what that was about, Angel lobbed a new grenade into the mix.

"I don't care about no deal."

"Angel, we should—" Tricia started, only to be cut off by her client.

"No," he said, voice sharp. Uncompromising. "I'm not talking. No deal."

"Because you do care about someone," Aidan said, and Angel's gaze snapped to him.

"Agents," Tricia said, standing. "Can we have a moment outside, please?"

Matt rose, but Aidan remained seated, gaze still locked with Angel's. "Whatever it is, whoever it is, we can help."

"Like I believe you," he said with a sneer, yesterday's default still in effect, but beneath the anger, distrust, and hurt, Aidan also detected exhaustion, worry, and a quiet hum of desperation.

Playing into that, he slid out of his chair and around to Angel's side of the table, kneeling beside his godson. He almost reached for his knee but caught himself, afraid to overplay his hand. "I told you last night, I'm here for you now. And I'm not going anywhere."

"We—" As fast as he'd snapped his gaze to Aidan's before, Angel jerked his chin the opposite direction now. "I'm fine," he corrected.

He was done talking. For now. But Aidan carried that telling slip— we —into the hallway with him. Angel wasn't done talking for good, and Aidan used that against Tricia's very valid "This is a conflict of interest."

"You heard him just now, right?" he said. "I am?—"

"The best chance of getting him to talk. Yes, I heard that too." She ruffled her brown bangs with a heavy sigh. "I maybe even agree with you," she conceded. "But if this backfires, Rooster will have all our asses." She gestured between the three of them, then turned back toward the interrogation room, pausing at the door. "I'll work on Angel. Spell things out, legally, so he understands the consequences next time you talk."

"Which leaves us," Aidan said, "to find out who the other part of we is."