Lauren and Felicity exchanged somber glances. “You’re not alone, Isabel,” Lauren said.

Felicity lowered Isabel’s right hand, tipped up her left, until the scales were even. “You’re surrounded by friends, too. And Joe’s a really lucky guy.”

* * *

Joe tried to keep an ear out to hear what the women were saying in the kitchen, but their voices were too low. At first he’d heard Felicity and Lauren gushing about whatever miracles Isabel had baked. And then they started talking and he couldn’t make anything out.

He also had to pay some attention to the game. He had a natural bent for card games and enjoyed the strategy and dealing with the element of chance. He could also count cards in his head.

He’d have gladly sacrificed a few hands to be able to listen in on the conversation in the kitchen but pride kept him in his seat.

One thing for sure, there was a friendly atmosphere.

Bless Lauren and Felicity. And bless Suzanne. He knew for a fact that once Isabel met Allegra and Claire, the wife of their homicide detective buddy, they’d become friends too.

She was lonely. He could read it in her face. She’d been through something so horrendous it was hard to fathom. Joe had been in battle, but he was trained and prepared. The Massacre had been horrible beyond belief, and Isabel had lost her entire family.

Joe knew that he was there for her. She was the one, the one he didn’t know he’d been waiting for. But friends were important, too, and now Isabel was going to be surrounded by the finest women Joe had ever met.

She deserved it.

“Fuck, man.” Jacko threw his cards down in disgust. “Who the hell are you bribing?”

“That’s why they call it the luck of the draw.” Joe gave a quick check of his chips. He’d won two hundred and twenty dollars. Jacko wasn’t complaining about the money—he had plenty of money. He was complaining about losing, which he didn’t do gracefully.

Tough shit. Joe smiled to himself but he knew absolutely nothing showed.

Time to make up for the losses. “I bought myself a sweet karambit. Wanna see it?”

It was a peace offering. Metal grinned. “How long?”

“Five inches. So, it’s over at my place if you want to see it.”

The two men were getting up. “Okay. The least you can do after taking all our money,” Metal said.

Joe went into the kitchen, stopped at the threshold.

Isabel, Felicity, Lauren. Three beautiful women, smiling at each other. But though both Felicity and Lauren were good-looking women, they couldn’t hold a candle to Isabel. It was like she had a special aura around her.

Felicity and Lauren stopped talking and Isabel turned around and saw him. And she smiled at him. It was almost staggering. Joe rubbed at his chest where his heart had thumped—hard—inside his rib cage.

He swallowed, hooked a thumb. “Going over to my place to show the guys something. We’ll be back soon.”

Lauren cocked her head. “I’m glad you’re quitting early. Jacko and I want to take a vacation to Europe next summer and we won’t if he keeps losing money to you.”

Felicity, who understood her man, said, “What you’re going to show the guys. How many bullets does it shoot?”

Joe smiled. “None.”

“A knife, then. Don’t be gone long, we have to stop by the Apple store on our way back home.” Felicity often stopped by the Apple store where she had nerd friends who could use her help. Felicity was persona very grata there.

“You got it.”

“Fixed or folding?” Jacko asked as Joe pressed his thumb to his front door. He’d seen a movie where the security depended on the DNA contained in a drop of blood. Very cool. But not practical. The door gave a discreet click and he pushed it open. He would need to program it to recognize Metal, Jacko, maybe Midnight and the Senior. It already recognized Isabel.

They walked in. Joe had a really weird sensation walking into his own home. It felt...odd. Cold. It was clean because he was clean and neat—you couldn’t be anything else in the navy—but there were no nice smells, just bleach and detergent. He hadn’t paid any attention to decor, just shoved the pieces of furniture he needed against the walls. Unlike Isabel’s house that smelled of spices and flowers, full of colors and pleasing shapes.

“Folding. Make yourselves at home. I’ll go get it.”

He’d left the karambit in its box, in the closet. He opened the closet door, pulled out the box, placed it on his desk—and froze.

“Guys.” He kept his voice steady. “Get in here.”

Metal and Jacko came. Whatever they’d heard in his voice made them move fast.

They both held weapons in their hands, coming in high low, Metal to the right, Jacko to the left, as if they’d rehearsed it. Which, of course, they had, in the Teams. Thousands of times.

When they saw what he was pointing to, both of them holstered their Glocks and came closer to his monitor.

Do you know anyone in the FBI you trust absolutely?

“Same guy?” Metal asked quietly.

“Yeah. I think so. But this is new. He just took over my computer. Letters that appear on my desktop. Which means he really knows what he’s doing.”

Jacko was studying the monitor but beyond the words in caps, Arial 40, there was nothing to see. “We don’t know when he sent this.”

“Or she,” Joe answered. “But no. I was at Isabel’s all night. I came over at about nine to grab some fresh clothes and it wasn’t here. It’s seventeen hundred hours. It could have arrived at any time over the past eight hours.”

“He didn’t ping your cell. If he can do this, he can find your cell phone number.”

“Absolutely.” Joe nodded. “So I gotta go with the idea that he wants to communicate this way instead of texting me.”

Metal cocked his head. “If you let me, I’ll ask Felicity. But I get the sense that this is more private and less traceable than sending a text.”

Joe grunted. This was someone who was connected to Isabel in some way. The first message had been to protect her. And now this.

“Dude.” Jacko elbowed him. “You gonna answer?”

Joe sat down and typed:

Yes. Nick Mancino. Former SEAL. Now FBI HRT.

An old buddy and a real stand-up guy. He’d helped find and rescue Felicity’s old mentor, retired FBI Special Agent Al Goodkind.

“He’s answering.” Metal’s voice was quiet. He knew he owed Nick Mancino, big-time. They all did. Was Joe getting Nick into trouble?

Can’t be bought off?

Whoa. Joe sat still. After a moment, he typed:

No. And neither can I.

A couple of minutes passed. None of them spoke. Whoever was at the other end had his own agenda. Joe had no idea whether he was a good guy or a bad guy. All he could do was wait and gather more intel.

Finally, words appeared on the screen.

Good. Call Nick and tell him to meet you in Portland.

Fuck this. Joe’s answer was swift.

Why should I?

And the answer, when it came, was like a punch to the stomach.

The Washington Massacre was homegrown terrorism, directed by someone in the CIA. Our guys. They are going to strike again. We need to stop them.

“Fuck,” Joe breathed.

“Can I talk to Felicity?” Metal asked. “She’s got a higher clearance than any of us have anyway.”

Felicity had done work for the FBI before joining ASI. And Felicity was of Russian blood and had grown up in the WITSEC program. She knew how to keep secrets.

“Yeah, man. Absolutely. We need all the help we can get.”

This was serious stuff. If the Washington Massacre had really been carried out by CIA guys, and Isabel was one of the very few survivors, then she was an eyewitness to one of the greatest crimes in the country’s history. And a real threat to the perpetrators. She didn’t remember anything but memories were notoriously unstable.

Was there an immediate threat to her? Because that was the point of the first message from Mystery Man. PROTECT ISABEL. Had this guy been tipped off somehow that the Massacre wasn’t carried out by jihadists?