Chapter Nineteen

EOGHAN

Eoghan was hopping mad. Even if Ari was wrong—and he was pretty sure he wasn’t—he’d somehow let that bastard, Kellen McGillis, get under his skin again. Worst of all, he had no one to blame but himself. He’d seen the handsome fa?ade of the man and allowed himself to fall into his trap. He’d had a long affair with him and only ended it after learning that Kellen had been cheating on him, probably the whole time. That hadn’t been the worst part about their relationship, though.

He’d allowed Kellen to push his buttons over and over again, feeling jealous when he’d come onto Ari even though he’d known Ari was loyal and loved him. Kellen made him feel dirty. How he could’ve ever trusted the black Irish beauty to be true to him was a mystery. He knew Ari wouldn’t respond favorably to Kellen’s advances. He was a good man and didn’t deserve his loyalty to be questioned, even for a second. To top it all off, the very idea that Kellen or someone else at the Agency might have been in his house planting listening devices or God forbid, cameras, made him step harder on the gas, matching the tempo of his boiling blood.

“Sweetheart?” Ari’s hand on his shoulder made Eoghan jump.

“What?” he asked, then noted the worry in his lover’s expression. He held his gaze for only a second before turning back to the road as tears of frustration welled up behind his eyes.

“Easy does it, Eoghan. We’ll get there. No need to get pulled over by a cop.” Ari was smiling in that teasing way Eoghan loved when he darted a glance back at him. He felt himself blush as he dragged his gaze away. “I know you want to get home,” Ari went on. “I know how you feel, baby. The very idea that someone could have been in the house makes me want to scream but it might be nice if we got there in one piece. What do you think?”

Eoghan nodded emphatically, and instantly took his foot off the gas. “Yes. I’m so sorry. You’re right. I just don’t seem to be able to gather my emotions together today. I’m not really sure why.”

“I know why. It’s because you think that asshole might have been in the house and everything said between us could have been overheard which would somehow make our peaceful refuge less than it should be because of the trespass.” Ari squeezed his hand, punctuating his words. “Eoghan, I’m here to tell you none of that matters. I know you think if anyone has been in the house, it’s a violation of not only our privacy but our sense of wellbeing. If it’s happened, it doesn’t mean those fuckers win, Eoghan. No way.” Ari shook his head. “In fact, when this is all said and done, I’m going to talk to our landlords to see if they’ll let me give back the unit next door so I can move in with you…if you want me that is.”

“What?” Eoghan turned to look at him, feeling his eyebrows shoot up.

Ari smiled, reached over, and pushed his jaw shut with a finger under his chin. “You heard me. When Al and Ted first offered it and we were new in the relationship, it made sense to take on my own place, but the truth is, I haven’t felt like the unit next door was ever mine. I haven’t spent more than four or five nights in it, and only then, when you were so dead on your feet, you couldn’t stand upright, did I not share your bed. Sometimes, I felt compelled to go over there just because I wanted to give you your space. But I recently came to the conclusion that none of that was working for me. The truth is, Eoghan, I want to be in your bed every night. I want to sleep with you even if you have a lousy fever. I’m even used to the fact that you have another man living with you even though he spends most of his time sitting in a cat tree or chasing mice.”

Eoghan chuckled as he shot a quick glance over at Ari. His beautiful, bearded face was split wide with a grin and his eyes were dancing as he spoke. “Do you mean that? You really want to live with me?”

“Yes. Besides, with the money I save on rent, we could plan a damned nice vacation like we talked about.”

“If I remember correctly, we talked about how you don’t take vacations,” Eoghan said.

“Yeah, well, that was before I met the love of my life.” Ari squeezed his hand again making warmth flood through Eoghan. “So, what do you say, baby? Would you like a permanent roommate?”

Eoghan smiled broadly as he quickly glanced at the rearview mirror and changed lanes to turn onto the main road near the house. He tightened his grip on Ari’s hand, giving him an affectionate squeeze. “I’d love to have you in my bed every night, Ari Brown.”

“Good.” Ari said.

Eoghan decided that they should be equally cautious as they approached his house. If anyone was watching, his yellow Prius would stick out like a sore thumb. When he pulled into his neighborhood a few minutes later, he chose to park a couple of blocks over on a street with easy access to an alley behind their house. They got out of the car and darted down the alley which bisected their tract of homes.

Most of the houses on his block had garages which were accessible only from the front, Ted and Al’s included, but the neighborhood had jointly decided trash should be collected from the narrow alley running along the backside. That way, residents could put their unsightly cans out of sight. When the homes had been built in the 30s, very few people had cars, so the alley had served for horse and buggy delivery of perishables like milk. These days, it was just wide enough for a trash truck to drive down to gather cans.

They took advantage of the design and ran down to Al and Ted’s backyard before easily scaling the fence behind the triplex, not making any noise as they dropped soundlessly into the grassy yard. He blew out a sigh of relief and headed for his front door, protected from the street view by their landlords’ larger dwelling. As he pulled out his key to unlock the door, Ari grabbed his shoulder and squeezed hard. With a strangled “oof” he stopped moving as Ari clamped a hand over his mouth, pulling him back against his body. He pointed at the blinds which had been closed when they left the house that morning. Sure enough, they were cracked open the tiniest sliver and were moving as if someone had hurried away from them.

“Open with caution,” Ari whispered into his ear. “It might be Bear but someone is watching us.” Eoghan nodded as Ari’s hand slipped away. They pulled their service weapons as he unlocked the door. The moment he opened it the slightest crack, he felt someone’s presence, someone other than his beloved Bear.

“It’s me, Sapphire,” the female voice whispered. “Come inside quickly and shut the door.”

Instant relief at the sound of the chief’s voice washed through him and they quickly stepped inside. He turned to find Priest there looking quite Laura Croft-y in camouflage tac pants and a black tank which clung to her shapely body. He grinned widely and scooped her into a massive bear hug before releasing her. When Ari did the same, the look on her face made Eoghan laugh. As Ari set her back on her feet, he grabbed her shoulders, holding her at arm’s length.

“Lordy, woman, you had us worried as hell,” he exclaimed.

She grinned and looked down at her clothing, which was a far cry from her standards of professional business attire and conservative length skirts. Today, her hair was pulled back into a long braid, and she sported well-worn black Doc Martens with two thigh holsters—both of which held twin Glocks. On her low-slung belt, she wore a black, leather knife sheath and Eoghan knew the nine-inch blade snugged inside would be sharp enough to carve up a few bad guys like butter.

“How’s it going, Laura Croft?” Eoghan asked.

“Holy crap, you do look the part,” Ari said with a grin.

She chuckled.

He dropped his hands from her shoulders as Eoghan spotted Bear in the kitchen making coffee, thankfully in human form and thankfully clothed. “We’ve been looking for you.”

Eoghan quickly shushed him, putting his finger to his lips before mouthing “bugs” as he remembered what he’d been thinking on the way home.

“It’s fine. I swept the place. It’s clean, Eoghan,” Priest said.

He breathed a sigh of relief. “What the hell happened? We’ve been trying to reach you since last night. The doc and Kellen McGillis are at your place right now. It’s been tossed.”

She sighed. “I know. I tossed it.”

“What?” Eoghan asked, perplexed.

“Yeah, I had to make it look like I was taken. I had to know who I could trust, and it was the only way. Unfortunately, McGillis is one of the spies we’ve been hunting. He’s been working with the mole at the Agency and until last night, I didn’t even know who that was. Him being the one to respond to your call for a forensic team, simply confirms my suspicions…I mean, I knew it was him. But the fact that he’s there to make sure he collected anything I might have accidentally left behind, speaks volumes. Doc Patterson is there supervising everything, I presume?”

“Yeah,” Eoghan said, suddenly frowning as he thought of something. “Please tell me she’s not a spy as well.

“She’s not. I know who is and who isn’t,” Priest said.

“You have some ‘splainin’ to do, lady,” Ari said, doing his best Ricky Ricardo imitation.

“I know and I’ll tell you all about it.” She glanced at her watch as Bear came into the room carrying a tray of coffee mugs. She looked up at him and smiled. “Coffee. Thank God.” She picked up a cup and took a long drink. “Thank you so much, Bear. That’s great.”

“My pleasure,” the cat said, setting the tray down on the coffee table before bending and picking up Eoghan’s favorite “I pooped today” mug, and handing it to him.

“Thanks, Bear,” Eoghan said as Ari picked up another mug and they all sat. Bear went back to the kitchen and brought out a tray of scones they’d picked up from Trader Joes’ and set them on the table before excusing himself and walking down the hall. Eoghan turned to the chief. “Please tell us what’s going on.”

“We’ve got twenty minutes and then we need to leave,” she said, “but I’ll get you caught up…at least as much as I can before we have to leave to meet the others.”

“Others?” Eoghan asked.

Ari reached over and set a hand on his thigh. “Let her explain or we’ll be here all day.”

Eoghan nodded at him before turning back to her. “Sorry. Please, go on. Tell us, Chief.”

“You were already on the plane headed back here or I would have caught you up yesterday,” she said, wrapping both hands around her mug as if warming them. She took a deep breath. “Just after you flew out to Colorado, I got an urgent message from King John. He said that he’d had to move and was headed down south because his position was compromised. As you know, he moves at half the speed we do because he can only travel at night. He decided that hitching a ride would be the best way to travel since he didn’t trust that he wasn’t being followed.”

“When was this?” Eoghan asked.

“Three days ago. I expect he’s here by now.”

“He’s one of the others you talked about?” Ari asked.

She nodded, sipping her coffee. “Yes, Townsend, the dragons, the werewolf clans, and some others.”

“Where are we meeting them?” Eoghan asked.

“In a warehouse in Sun Valley. Severin and Invictus found it for us and then they notified the rest of the clans you’ve been talking to. The grizzlies would have received a message from them when they got home from Colorado too,” she said. “By the way, Rana is coming along with Andy Red Crow. They’re bringing another thirty from their two tribes and they should be arriving in the next twelve hours. They booked flights out of Colorado Springs, Kansas City, Denver, and Salt Lake City. Just in case the Agency mole is watching, they won’t see tons of clan members boarding planes all at once. They’re staggering all their flights at those individual airports and arranging their own transportation to Sun Valley from LAX, Ontario, and Burbank where they’re scheduled to land.”

“Smart. You split up the arrival airports as well as the departures,” Ari said.

“That was all Rana’s idea and I thought it was great,” Priest said. “I got an urgent call back on my burner from her once I learned who the moles were. I still feel guilty for leaving her sort of a frantic message…before I knew you’d taken off and that’s when she informed me that you’d already boarded and I’d have to get a message to you once you got home. By the way, I would have been here last night but they were watching me. I tossed the apartment and finally slipped out.”

“First, Rana’s idea was fantastic,” Eoghan said. “Do you know who was watching you?”

“Not for sure. I think it must have been Kellen. The truth is, he’s not too smart and he’s most definitely not a field agent. I took a load of laundry down to figure out how to slip out of the building and be on my way and found an exit door to the back alley which I’d never seen before. And, I’ve lived there for nearly two decades. Once I figured my way out, I went back up, staged my kidnapping, waited for a chance, and fled.”

“Yesterday?” Ari asked. “Where did you sleep?”

She grinned. “Well, I came here first and when I realized your unit was going to be empty, I slept next door last night.” She shrugged. “Sorry.”

Eoghan laughed. “Are you serious? You were next door the whole time? Why didn’t you answer your damned phone or knock on the door?” He was feeling a little upset.

“I fell asleep on the couch after I let myself in. I sleep with earplugs so I didn’t hear you.” She looked at Ari and so did Eoghan. The man’s mouth was hanging open.

“You didn’t notice our boss sleeping on your damned couch when you went over there yesterday?” Eoghan asked, shaking his head.

“I-I didn’t look at my couch. I was solely focused on gathering up any unwashed clothes to add to what was in the bundle and check to see if the new garbage disposal was installed in the kitchen. I swear to God, I never looked at the damned couch.”

Eoghan shook his head, laughing. “You walked right by it when you went to the kitchen.”

Ari growled. “I didn’t notice…okay?”

Eoghan shook his head again. “What a tool.”

Priest held up her hand and smacked his. “Word.”

Ari chuckled, and Eoghan was certain he could detect a blush on his dark skin. It was pretty funny when you thought about it.

“Anyway, that’s what happened,” she said. “I gotta tell you guys. I’m really impressed by the work you two have done with these clans. I couldn’t have done it without you, so good going.” She reached out and patted Eoghan’s shoulder.

He blushed. He’d never expected so many would join in their fight. If the two werewolf clans they’d met up north also came down, as well as whoever the dragons went to meet in Wyoming, then hopefully they’d have enough paranormals to win John’s tribe back and free his people. He was beginning to feel like they might actually stand a fighting chance against Tillis Bradshaw and his evil vampires. It was welcome news that this thing might actually be coming to an end and that things might be playing in their favor.

“Who’s the mole at the Agency?” Ari asked, interrupting his thoughts which had begun to do a body count of allies. “You said you know the guy?”

“Yes, but it’s no guy. It’s a woman. Deputy Chief Washington helped me pinpoint her. He’s a good friend and I confided in him about the situation early on. He suggested if I should suspect anyone in the Agency of being the mole, she’d be his first guess. She worked under him and he told me though he couldn’t prove it, he always suspected her to be working an angle for herself. When she got promoted from his office over another marshal who she fingered as dirty, he knew he’d have to watch her. As it turns out, he was right.”

Eoghan nodded. “He told us he was helping you.”

She shrugged. “I had to confide in someone I trusted…someone I knew had been with the I.S.R. a long time. He was right about this woman. We’ve met once or twice and needless to say, I’m not a fan,” Priest said. “Her name is Katerina Rojas. She’s well placed in the organization. She’s a snow leopard half-breed, one of the few nonhumans who works for the Agency and certainly the most highly placed in the organization.”

“A snow leopard, like Night?” Ari asked.

“Yes.” She nodded. “And before you ask, Night is clean. As soon as I figured out who our mole at the Agency was, I cross-referenced any communications between her and our office. I’ve been monitoring Night’s computer for some time now and I installed some spyware in her system that even she wouldn’t be able to detect.”

“Why Night?” Eoghan asked, frowning. “What made you look at her as the possible internal mole?”

“She’s one of the few people who knew the kind of relationship we had with John Townsend and what was going on with Tillis Bradshaw since she was the person we initially relied upon to do information gathering about him. As soon as I realized someone was listening, I installed the spyware. Hers wasn’t the only computer I spied on.”

“McGillis?” Eoghan asked, hating the way Kellen’s name tasted in his mouth.

She nodded, chuckling. “I did Kellen because I just don’t like him. To be truthful, he was always going to be one of my targets because of how many people he screws in the office. I figured I’d use his promiscuity to work for us. Eventually, he would be stupid enough to give himself away. He’s wet his dick in men, women, just about every susceptible person he could. The man really gets around.”

Eoghan flushed with embarrassment, staring down at his coffee cup, afraid to meet her eyes, and wondering how long she’d been looking at the man’s lovers. When the air in the room became uncomfortable, he glanced up and found both Ari and the chief staring at him. He shrugged. “I guess you know I—”

“I know about you only because of the software I used to tap into his home computer. Sorry, Eoghan. I pulled up some chats you’d had with McGillis way back in the day,” she said softly. “Don’t worry. I never questioned your loyalty for a second. I know you’ve got nothing to do with this plot. I looked at a lot of others in the office.”

“Just curious,” Ari said. “Who’d you look at, Chief?”

“As I told you, I looked at Night. I looked at Wordy—”

“Wordy? Why?” Eoghan asked.

“The mix up with the lethal rounds when you faced the werewolves bugged me a little. Don’t worry. He was clean, though. I looked at the Doc, like I told you. She came up clean. All the marshals. All clean—with the exception of Ted Acres—that man just smells fishy.”

They both laughed.

“Anyway, just joking. Ted was clean as was Brady, Jones, Marks, and all the others. I was almost hoping Frank Buffy would come up dirty. That guy’s an ass.”

Eoghan laughed. “That’s exactly what Elroy said about him.”

“Who’s Elroy?”

“A little alien Powmay.”

“Oh, yeah. Anyway, I also looked at the computers from practically every single desk jockey in administration and IT and nothing else turned up. I will say this, after this case, I’m going to have a talk with a few of those guys down in the garage. I’ll be instituting some new rules against barnyard porn. Just saying.” They laughed as she concluded. “I just thank God the spyware was so thorough.”

“Where’d it come from?” Eoghan asked, more relieved than he could imagine and happy as hell he wasn’t forced to explain his own bad judgment with Kellen. He wasn’t sure he could hold his head up if he did. How desperate he must have been to have trusted a dog like Kellen McGillis. He shook himself as he heard her response.

She smiled. “The architect of the Agency’s new spyware is none other than Derwin.”

“Derwin, the honeybee?” Ari asked.

She nodded. “Yes. When he was here several months back, I told him I had a bit of a problem and what it was. As it turned out, he’d recently developed undetectable spyware that might help us. I took it and ran with it. The brilliance of that honeybee is going to save the day. The sheer volume of data the software has compiled has not only flushed out the moles quite nicely, but its design has allowed it to evolve as the case went along.”

“How so, Chief?” Ari asked.

“Every time you met with a new clan and got them to agree to help us, I inputted the latest new data and it popped out a new line of attack. It’s how I knew which tribes and clans might be willing to help our cause and where to send you.”

“So, you’ve been working on this for a while,” Ari concluded.

“Well, just before you met with the Tahoe clan. After they agreed to help and then put you on the trail of Severin and Invictus, I’ve been fooling around with it, running different scenarios. The software was designed to predict outcomes based on every new piece of data so I had to keep it up to date. It was what made me decide to send you to meet with the werewolves and after that, to Denver and Cheyenne. The program was what told me we had a pretty good chance of winning those shifter clans over and it was right about the Denver and Colorado Springs clans. Unfortunately, the dragons didn’t have any luck getting the Cheyenne shifters to sign on.”

“Wow, boss, I had no idea about Derwin,” Eoghan said.

“It wasn’t only the program, Sapphire,” she said. “It was the two of you who were responsible for the success of bringing all those tribes on board. The program gave me predictions and probabilities, but you were the ones who made it happen.”

Eoghan exchanged a glance with Ari who dragged his gaze away from the chief who he’d been watching with a cross between awe and great respect. “That’s fantastic, boss.”

She nodded. “I must agree. Derwin built a great system, but you made it work. Actually, the timing of his dilemma with his former queen and our current mole problem was uncanny. So, before he and Sheldon left for WITSEC, I asked him if he thought he might have something that could help. I figured having done him a good turn would pay off and as it turned out, it did.”

“I’ll say,” Eoghan replied. “That’s great. I just wish we knew who our traitors were a long time ago.”

“Well, I think the knowledge came at just the right time, Chief,” Ari said.

Eoghan turned to look at him and nodded. “You’re right. At least this way, we’ve had time to make alliances with all our friends.”

The chief glanced at her watch before setting down her coffee cup. “Speaking of which, we need to roll out. I want to be there when the others start arriving so I can alleviate as much tension as possible between the groups who don’t know each other yet. The vampires won’t be arriving until nightfall, but we should get all the tribes and clans together and make introductions. I’ll need you there to help lay down ground rules with the clan members you don’t know yet. I want to make absolutely sure no one will have a problem working with vamps. I know their clan leaders told them they’d be part of this operation but until you get those groups in a room together, you never know what can happen. Reality is often different than the abstract as you well know.”

“You’re right, Chief,” Eoghan said, patting her on the back. He stood and Ari did the same. He had to admit, there was a lot to admire about his boss. Eoghan wasn’t sure what he should have expected when it came to her but this fierce take-no-prisoners version of her was new to him. He liked it. He glanced at Ari who turned to look at him.

“We should get changed, make sure we’re totally stocked up on ammo, and bring along extra firepower.”

“I have some next door,” Ari said. “I’ll go grab that and change clothes while you gear up.”

“I’ll just make a couple of calls,” Priest said, digging her phone out of her tac pants. Eoghan recognized it as the burner they all carried. He was so thankful she’d figured out who their mole in D.C. was.

“Hey, Chief.”

She looked up from her phone and twisted to look at him. “Sapphire?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I was just wondering…this is gonna be over soon, isn’t it? I mean really over.”

She smiled. “Yes, Sapphire. It’s really going to be over. And, not only that, I still have a few more tricks up my sleeve.”

Eoghan nodded, smiling back at her and feeling more excited than anxious for the first time that day.