Sharpshooter (Shadow Agents #3)(37)
Author: Cynthia Eden

He blinked at her.

She smiled at him. “But I’m rather fond of your eyes.”

No way were his cheeks flushing right now. Okay, perhaps they were, and he was very grateful for the olive skin that had to hide most of that flush.

Then her smile slipped away. “What did you find out at my house?”

He wasn’t real eager to start sharing that, so he said, “What have you found out here?”

“Here?” Her lips tightened. “Here I’ve found out that it looks like someone used your old access code to gain entrance into the system.”

“Mine?”

“Yes. Your personnel file was accessed, too, but only for a few seconds, not nearly as long as my file and the Guerrero file were.”

His muscles locked. “Someone’s setting me up.”

She nodded. “That would be my thought.” She pushed out of the chair and closed the distance between them. “Now tell me what you found at my house.” Pain flickered in her eyes. “Was anything left?”

“No, Syd, I’m sorry.”

Her chin lifted, the way it always did when she was trying to pull her strength together. “That place…it was my retreat while I was in D.C. My home has always been in Baton Rouge. I’ll get over this,” she said with a firm nod. “I will.”

He believed her, but there was still more to tell. “I tracked through the woods, looking for a sign of the arsonist.”

“And?”

“I might have a lead.”

She sighed. “Don’t play this game. Tell me what you’ve got or I’ll just go straight to Logan.”

“I think it could be Slade.” Harsh words. Words that he hadn’t wanted to say, but she needed to be aware of the danger that could be right beside them both.

Her eyes widened. Not doubling in size as Hal’s had, but still showing her surprise. “What?”

This was where he got to tell her that a few pieces of straw were making him suspect his brother. Flimsy evidence that hadn’t exactly convinced Logan. “He was trained to leave no trail, just like I was. He’s good, but…”

“Not as good as you,” she finished quietly.

“He could never just sit still. He always had to do something to keep his hands occupied. He’d take pine straw, twist it, braid it.” Gunner almost thought of the twisted straw as his brother’s signature. Whenever they’d been kids, and he’d found the straw in the woods, he’d known that Slade had been there. “I found some of that braided straw in the woods near your house.”

“But he had a guard on him. You told me—”

“Logan’s checking with the guard to make sure that Slade didn’t slip away.” Once Logan had questioned the guard, then they’d have a better idea of where they stood. Right now Gunner just had a dark suspicion boiling in his gut.

“You really think Slade would try to kill me?”

Slade had attacked her once. The sight of the bruising on her jaw had enraged him. If Slade thought that Gunner was taking Sydney away from him, well, Gunner wasn’t sure just how his brother would react.

The man he’d been years before…no, that guy wouldn’t do something like this. But the guy who’d came out of the jungle, addicted to muerte, he just might.

“What about the man who took the shot at me? Do you think he’s somehow linked to Slade? To the hacking?”

“I don’t know.” All he had were his instincts, screaming at him. “There isn’t enough evidence yet to know what’s happening.” And the fact that she was turning up evidence to implicate him? That was even worse for the situation. “I just want you on guard. I don’t want you ever alone with him.”

She stared up at him. “My personnel file…whoever accessed it knows about the pregnancy.”

The pregnancy could have been enough to push Slade over the edge. Gunner could see Slade hacking in to Sydney’s file, wanting to learn everything about her, but there was no reason for Slade to hack in to the Guerrero file, if he even knew how to hack. “When was that access code of mine used last?”

“It’s one that went obsolete—or should have gone obsolete—over two years ago.”

When Slade had still been around.

The phone on Gunner’s hip vibrated, right at the same time that Sydney’s vibrated, too. Gunner pulled out his phone and read the text. “Tina?” he asked Sydney, sure she’d just gotten the same message from the doctor.

Sydney gave a nod, then quickly signed off on the computer, securing the machine.

Tina’s text had said that she had blood test results that she needed to share with them, ASAP. She wanted them in the med room.

He knew that she’d been assisting with the autopsy on the man he’d shot at the James Fire Building. Tina didn’t normally handle autopsies, but Mercer had ordered her in on this one because he wanted one of his close staff members with eyes in that morgue. And when Mercer gave an order, few folks ever refused.

Sydney was silent as they entered the elevator. Gunner felt too conscious of her every move. He wanted to talk to her about last night, but since he’d just dropped the bombshell of his suspicions on her, he wasn’t quite sure how to lead into that.

He wasn’t the guy with the smooth lines and easy conversation. He never had been. He actually found it hard to talk to people outside of his team. The rest of the world just didn’t seem to understand him.

Especially women.

When he’d been a teen, there had been one girl he liked, a little blonde with green eyes. But when she’d talked to him, he’d pretty much wound up replying in monosyllables, and she’d started to date his brother instead.

What had her name been? He wasn’t sure.

The elevator dinged. The doors slid open. Sydney walked out, and Gunner realized he hadn’t said a word to her that whole time. Smooth. Gritting his teeth, he followed her into the med room.

Tina was waiting there with Mercer. Mercer had his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned back against a filing cabinet.

“Dr. Jamison has found some interesting results for us,” Mercer murmured. Gunner noticed that the man’s assessing stare drifted to him, then returned to Tina.

“It’s the blood work.” Tina pushed a report toward him and Sydney. “I found muerte in the man’s system.”

Muerte. “The same drug my brother was on?” His gaze snapped to Mercer. “I thought you said the drug hadn’t made it to the U.S.”