A Chip and a Chair (Seven of Spades, #5)(53)

Huffing, Levi looked away.

“Levi, these people surrendered their right to life when they decided to blow up a city.”

“Maybe.” Levi squared his shoulders. “But that doesn’t mean the Seven of Spades had a right to kill them.”

A strong argument, so Dominic let it lie. “Let’s get out of here, okay? I’m sure the FBI has a handle on this for now.”

Levi agreed without protest, which was a good sign of how much pain he was in. As they headed for the door, he glanced over his shoulder one more time. “I know Utopia provoked the Seven of Spades first, but this kind of response is exactly what I was worried about. It’s only going to make things worse for everybody.”

Looping an arm around Levi’s waist, Dominic said, “How much worse could things get?”

He should have known better.





Due to its location on the Strip, Levi’s substation had been shut down, its personnel temporarily relocated to other substations throughout the Valley. When Dominic brought Levi to work-walking him in like a parent bringing a kid to school-Levi found that he and Martine had been crammed into one shared, makeshift desk in the corner of the overcrowded bullpen.

“You okay?” she asked. This was the first they’d spoken since the discovery of the Seven of Spades’s house of horrors.

“My bruises hurt less today,” he said, although that was in no way what she’d meant. “How are the girls?”

Martine gave him a pointed look, but allowed herself to be redirected. “Scared. They begged me not to come to work, and I almost gave in. I feel like I abandoned them.”

“You can do more to protect them here than you could at home.”

“Sure, but they don’t want to be protected. They want their mom to not get hurt.” A brief shadow crossed her face, and then she shook it off. “Anyway, we’ve been reassigned to intelligence analysis, so the most dangerous threat we’re probably facing is eye strain. What about you, Dom?”

“Recon.” Dominic pulled out Levi’s chair, blithely ignoring Levi’s irritation at the coddling. “I was at UNLV yesterday, digging around to see how Utopia might have been recruiting the students there. I thought all I’d gotten was a name and a couple of phone numbers, but after comparing notes with Levi, I realized I had a lot more than that.”

“Yeah?”

“There’s a student organization there called Americans United that we can now be pretty sure is a Utopia front, because it’s run by a young woman named Bianca Olsen-who, it turns out, is Oliver Hatfield’s granddaughter.”

Martine perked up. “No shit. You think she knows where he is?”

After Bishop had thrown Hatfield under the bus, every attempt had been made to locate and arrest him, but Hatfield was long gone. It wasn’t surprising, given the man’s immense economic resources.

“That’s what I’m gonna find out.” Dominic kissed Levi’s cheek. “See you guys later. I’ll let you know if I get any good leads.”

As Dominic walked away, Levi called out, “Don’t do anything illegal!”

Dominic turned around, continuing to walk backward while he grinned. “Baby, I think that ship has sailed.”



Intelligence analysis was a lot like Levi’s job in reverse: anticipating crimes that hadn’t happened yet, rather than responding to ones that had already been committed. It was the kind of detail-oriented work he could lose himself in, and he committed every ounce of his focus to it.

The clock was ticking. Utopia had wanted to give the city time to panic, but they couldn’t wait too long. If they were planning a second wave of attacks, it would be soon.

After a couple of hours, he lifted his head from his laptop and stretched his stiff, sore back. He needed to move around a little, or his bruises would hurt worse later. “You want another coffee?” he asked Martine.

“Sure, thanks.”

“Excuse me, Detectives?”

Startled, Levi and Martine both turned toward Dr. Paquin. She was dressed to travel, an overnight bag slung over one shoulder, and was holding a few thin folders in her hands.

“This seems non-essential under the circumstances,” she said, “but my university is insisting I evacuate, and I wanted to make sure you had these before I leave.”

“What are they?” Levi asked as she handed him the folders.

“The IDs of three J. Does-the first one who was tortured, and two of the more recent victims whose fingerprints we were able to rehydrate.”

Levi’s fingers spasmed around the folders. Next to him, Martine exhaled with a loud whoosh.

Paquin gave them a rueful smile. “I would have emailed the information to you, but we were instructed not to use the LVMPD servers for anything unrelated to the current crisis.”

“Of course. Thank you for bringing it by.” Levi strove to remain professional, when all he wanted was to rip the folders open and devour everything that lay inside. The key to the Seven of Spades’s identity could be in there. He could be holding it in his hands.

“Once the situation here is under control, I’ll return with my team and resume work on the remaining J. Does.” Paquin shook both their hands, wished them luck, and headed off.

Levi looked at Martine pleadingly, clutching the folders so hard they crumpled beneath his grip. This wasn’t what they were supposed to be working on. What he should do was set these folders aside and come back to them later, when the city was no longer under threat of an imminent terrorist attack.