Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 147789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Not quite finished with his food, Aaron laid his fork down on his plate. He picked up his napkin and wiped his mouth before laying that out on the table. He pushed the plate back a little dramatically. “Spill it, Sin.” Relief seemed the most dominant look on Kreed’s face, but he held firm to the quiet. “So you’re just gonna let me go over there blind and not tell me whatever’s eating at you?”
“I texted Connors. He’s checking on a few things. I need an update from him before I know for sure,” Kreed said vaguely.
“Tell me what you know,” Aaron demanded, placing both elbows on the table as he leaned forward, going for the tough-guy routine.
“I only know enough that it sounds dangerous,” Kreed said as he seemed to look over Aaron’s intimidation tactic. Amusement flashed in Kreed’s eyes, but the handsome deputy marshal quickly covered it with a smile. Aaron rolled his eyes. So much for being the tough guy.
“Well, isn’t that what the alphabet boys do best? Make everything way more dire than it really is?” He tried to bait Kreed into telling him what he still wouldn’t say.
“Not this time, Stuart.” Kreed stood, picking up both their plates and taking them to the sink. He rinsed them and wiped down the counter before turning to face him again. Kreed rested back against the sink, crossing those brawny arms over his chest. “They’re escalating the church’s status from hate group to a domestic terrorist cell. That’s significant. Hate group implies verbal spewing. A terror cell indicates desire to harm. That tells me that it’s not only isolated to the single agent and perhaps someone rogue on the inside. And it’s probably not isolated to that building across the street. But while I have thought of them as homegrown terrorists, now everyone’s on the same page, and the intel points to it starting there. From what they’ve been able to glean from the access you were able to grant them, they had enough to take the IT manager into custody. They’ll hold him and his family until this case’s resolved, but it sounds like he’s part of the problem, and they felt, with his background, he could figure out what you’re doing.”
“So Hasselbeck won’t be there today?” Aaron asked, trying to follow all the information given. Once the term terror cell was mentioned, he wasn’t certain he’d heard much else Kreed had said.
“No, he’ll be on medical leave with no access to the church. Those calls have been made to excuse his absence. He’s in federal custody under lock and key. His background reports are shady at best. He knows his shit. Skinner compared him to your skill level. They feel like he was hired for the specific purpose of keeping people out of the church’s shit. Regardless of all that, you’ve been an unexpected asset. They’re afraid he’ll catch what you’ve done, and they want to protect against that for as long as possible,” Kreed explained a little further. Now he got why Kreed had been so weird this morning.
“He wouldn’t,” Aaron said absently, looking down at his hands. A terror cell. Wow. Okay.
“You don’t know that,” Kreed started, and Aaron lifted his head.
“Kind of I do.” He wasn’t being cocky when he said that. There weren’t too many people on this planet that did things like he did.
“That cocky attitude’s my biggest concern.” Kreed sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “At this point, we assume nothing.” Kreed shoved off the sink counter and paced into the living room. Aaron had noticed Kreed’s pent-up energy during the meal and knew the man needed a direction for it. He seemed larger than life right now as Aaron watched the guy walk across the room.
“It’s not arrogance that leads me to say that. In really basic terms, I set it up and masked the hell out of it—actually several times. It appears somewhat simple to remove, kind of basic. So if they search, it just looks like the breach is a little better than an amateur move. If I found it, I wouldn’t look further,” Aaron said, trying to explain while also trying to calm Kreed’s nerves. “I don’t take any of this for granted. Trust me on that. I’m not trying to play hero here.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear.” Kreed spun around and headed back his way. “I assured Skinner we’re solid.”
“We are solid,” Aaron said, confused. Where had that come from out of everything just said?
“But without being in DC, I can’t know for sure what they’re looking at. I only get bits and pieces of information that they feel are important. There’s too much left unsaid, but what they think they’ve found is big. You’re green, and I’m fresh off bereavement leave. We aren’t ideal,” Kreed explained.
Yeah, okay, so he got that. He’d argued that exact point before they threw him into the middle of all this.
“The terrorist thing’s weird to me, but I always had a feeling it was big.” Aaron pushed his fingers through his hair, the weight of the situation starting to take hold. These people killed because they hated another group of people that they saw as an abomination to their God. Those were extremely archaic and barbaric ideals and spoke volumes toward the findings he’d uncovered so far from that church.
“I honestly downplayed it in my head. I’m pretty certain Connors did too. I had a feeling we would find answers here, but I didn’t realize how far this thing actually reached and how organized it truly is. We’ve got backup, but my first thought was that I didn’t want you back in there,” Kreed said quietly, now standing less than a foot away from him.
Kreed extended a hand to touch his face, but stopped mid-reach and dropped his hand to his side. It didn’t matter that Kreed didn’t follow through with the touch, Aaron had caught the flash of intense concern in his eyes before Kreed took a step backward. Aaron realized that was Kreed’s way of putting barriers back between them, and that was okay. He could deal with that. It seemed crazy, but if Kreed had grown attached to him over the last twenty-four hours, Aaron needed to allow him to create distance, at least for the time being. Kreed needed his mind on the case and not on Aaron. It seemed a reasonable coping mechanism.