On Her Master's Secret Service (Masters and Mercenaries #4)(87)

Adam yawned, stretching in the early morning light. Apparently he’d been up all night dealing with the horror of 1s and 0s. “It’s weird. If this particular file had been classified, there would be something here I could find, but it’s just gone. Someone deleted this file.”

“Why the hell would they delete a file?” Alex couldn’t understand it. “Do you think Evans did it?”

It was the only thing that made sense. The feds needed every single bit of information they could get. It was precious and to be hoarded like gold. How had they not seen it? Had they let this case go cold? No. He wouldn’t believe it.

There was no way Warren allowed it to happen.

Adam shrugged. “I don’t know, but someone did and they did it from inside the Bureau. If someone had done it from the outside, there would be footprints. I can’t exactly figure out where the deletion comes from. This computer used to be registered to a Tommy Guinn, but now the system is deemed inactive.”

Tommy. God. Tommy had died in the attack on Eve. “Can you tell what the date is?”

Adam pressed a few keys.

“March 15th. Does that date mean anything?” Adam asked.

It was ten days after he’d quit the Bureau. “Not really. I wasn’t there anymore. I don’t know. I need to call some of my contacts. I’ll figure it out.”

Adam stood. “Don’t. Don’t call them. Let’s take a look at this on our own.”

Alex sighed, closing his eyes. “You think this is an inside job.”

“And you’re too close to it.”

Adam was right. “Okay. Let’s go over all the reasons someone on the inside would delete that file. Get Sean out here. Eve is in the shower. She shouldn’t be too long. We have a couple of hours before we have to be at the club. I want to think this through. Text Ian.”

Ian was his damn sounding board. He needed Ian. Damn it. How the hell had Nelson picked the perfect time to separate him from Ian?

“Already did. He’s going to Skype in soon. I’ll put it through the big TV. He can yell at us in HD.” Adam seemed relieved to have something to do. He started gathering wires and cords.

Alex looked down at the files. Was Carmen Garcia a rabbit hole he shouldn’t go down? “What did you find out about her?”

Adam was attaching cords to the big TV in the living room. “Favorite daughter of a high-profile San Antonio family. Her father has been in the Texas state senate. Her brother played college ball for the Longhorns. She had damn near perfect LSATs. Picked Georgetown over Harvard. Not sure that was a great decision, but she wanted to be close to Washington according to the articles I read on her.”

Why was she important? In all the years he’d spent with the Bureau, he’d never had a problem with someone deleting files. No. This was deliberate. It might be a rabbit hole when it came to Evans, but something about it was making his every instinct light up.

Sean walked out, yawning but already dressed for the day. He had his knives rolled up and in his left hand. “Jersey Carl is swimming with the fishes and hopefully catching a nice current toward the North Atlantic. I have to head in early. I’m going to talk to some of the dishwashers and see if I can get anything out of them about the upcoming meet spot. Chazz talks a lot, and he doesn’t understand that most of these guys have picked up some English. He talks in front of them like they’re not there. Call me if you need anything.”

“Like breakfast?” Adam asked.

“Ain’t happening today.” Sean shut the door behind him.

Eve walked out of the back of the condo wearing pajama bottoms and a T-shirt that couldn’t hide the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her hair was up in a haphazard bun and she had little fuzzy pink flip-flops on her feet. She wore no makeup, and he’d never seen her more beautiful. Even after all the sex from the night before, his cock was at full attention the minute she entered a room. “Where did Sean go?”

“To get some information from his staff. He thinks they might know more than they’re saying. What’s your take on Carmen Garcia?” Alex asked, walking to the coffee maker to get it started.

“I don’t know. There are only so many reasons a girl with her money and ties to the community would go to a free clinic if she wasn’t volunteering. My bet is she didn’t want her people to know she needed the services of an ob-gyn. She was pregnant. Whether she was looking for confirmation of the pregnancy or she was seeking to terminate it, we may never know.”

“But why does it matter? Why delete her file?” He fumbled with the storage case at the bottom of the coffeemaker. It was completely empty. “Damn it, Adam.”

“Sorry. I was up all night. I needed fuel.” Adam was lost in a tangle of wires that ran from various computers.

Eve needed coffee. She was a little touchy until she’d had her morning joe. And now it was Alex’s formal job again to make sure she got it. “I’ll go buy some.”

A soft hand touched his back and then he felt her all along his spine, her face resting against his shoulder blade. “Don’t, babe. There’s a common area downstairs. Kristen showed it to me. There’s one of those single cup coffee makers. I’ll go and make a cup.”

“I can do it.” Taking care of her was his job, and now that she was allowing him to, he intended to take it damn seriously.