Capture (Restless Motorcycle Club Romance) by Julia Marie Page B

touch. There was a figure waiting in my chair.
     
    I relaxed and stood up. “McCrown. You’ve made yourself at home.”
     
    The short man was reclined, feet up on my desk, facing towards the door.
     
    “Well I had to wait for a little while, I figured you’d get back from lunch a long time ago.”
     
    It was a lie, of course. He would be directly wired into the agents outside, and he’d know the second I left the restaurant, any traffic lights I hit on the way here, and the moment that my car’s engine turned off in the parking lot outside.
     
    I decided to ignore the statement. “To what do I owe the pleasure? What could have possibly happened overnight that you felt the need to come and see me? You obviously know that I never left here last night.” It wasn’t uncommon enough of a circumstance that it would have raised suspicion on its own.
     
    Of course, there is a lot more to last night then that, and we both know it.
     
    The look he gave me was shrewd, and calculating. I remained impassive, unwilling to give him any shred of information that he didn’t already have. If he was going to try and pin Jackie’s disappearance from the FBI’s safe house on me, I wasn’t going to do anything to help him.
     
    That didn’t mean I’d be able to resist prodding him a little.
     
    “You’d said that Jackie was in danger when I questioned you yesterday,” McCrown said. “What kind of danger did you mean?”
     
    So you’re going to beat around the bush, are you?
     
    “I think it’s pretty clear,” I said. “You’ve escalated her from just working a job here at our legitimate shipping business to spying on a motorcycle club. I know that she’s blameless, but I can’t tell the other leaders of the club that without revealing some things that neither of us really want them to know.”
     
    McCrown raised his eyebrows. “You expect me to believe that you aren’t a fully-fledged criminal now, Hamilton? If that’s your explanation, then you may as well admit right now that Jackie disappeared because of you.”
     
    “Disappeared? You fucking lost her?” I knew the revelation was coming, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to feign true surprise. Instead I used anger as my crutch, and let loose some of the feelings I’d kept pent in during my meeting with McCrown the day before. “What the fuck did I say to you, McCrown? I told you the woman was going to be in serious danger, and you let something happen to her that same day? ”
     
    The FBI agent was caught off guard. “We didn’t lose her. Someone killed our man and took her. Whether she’s alive or dead right now I don’t know, but there’s no trace of her at the safe house.”
     
    “And because you lot are so utterly incompetent, you had to turn to the one man who warned you that she was in danger instead of figuring out who actually might have good cause to want her dead, is that right?” Loathing and contempt dripped from my voice, and I only hoped that McCrown wasn’t too dull to recognize it.
     
    Then again, if McCrown isn’t just too stupid to realize how little sense his line of reasoning makes, then there is only one other possible explanation. Maybe he’s the plant put into the FBI by the enemy.
     
    It was a sobering thought. McCrown had a lot of influence inside the agency, and it would explain why my star had dropped so rapidly there and why everyone had been so ready to distrust me.
     
    “Jesus, Shane. It’s not like I hauled you downtown this time, alright? I know you were heree last night and that you didn’t contact anyone. I came out to your office since there was a big development in the case.”
     
    “Yeah, well thank you but get out, I have work to do.” I steamed, waiting to see if he would actually go or whether I’d pushed him just far enough that he would take me into custody out of spite.
     
    After a tense few moments, McCrown got heavily to his feet and walked past me out the door, not saying