Mick swirled his whiskey, the ice clinking against the glass. “Ran both names like you asked. Agent Keller first—Nelson Keller, fifteen years with the Bureau. Organized crime unit, mostly Northeast corridor. Clean record, good evaluations,commendations out the ass. His partner Cooper was the same. Solid agents, both of them. Whatever got Cooper killed, it wasn’t because either of them were dirty.”
“And Shaw?” Jo asked.
Mick’s expression shifted—that look he got when he’d found something interesting. “Shaw’s a different story. Lennox Shaw, twelve years in. Currently assigned to some classified unit I couldn’t get details on. The file’s locked down tight—the kind of classified where even asking questions gets you noticed.”
Sam set his beer down. “But?”
“But here’s where it gets interesting.” Mick leaned in, lowering his voice. “I checked her status. She’s on leave. Personal leave.”
Jo frowned. “Personal leave?”
“No active assignment. No official case.” Mick took a sip of his whiskey. “Whatever she’s doing in White Rock, it’s not Bureau business. At least not on the books.”
Sam and Jo exchanged a look. An FBI agent on personal leave, showing up at a murder investigation with her K-9 partner. That wasn’t vacation.
“There’s more,” Mick continued. “I tried to dig into her previous cases. Most of it’s redacted.”
Sam was quiet for a moment, turning his beer bottle slowly on the bar. “And you saw her taking photos of the station today,” he said to Jo.
“Back entrance, parking lot. Fed me some line about establishing shots when I caught her.” Jo shook her head. “She’s using us.”
Mick gave a low whistle. “So you’ve got two FBI agents in town. One’s legit—grieving partner trying to get justice. The other’s off the reservation, running some kind of vendetta operation.” He raised his glass. “Sounds like a party.”
“The question is what she’s really after,” Sam said. “And whether she’s going to get someone killed finding it.”
Jo thought about the surveillance photos. The questions Shaw kept asking about Wyatt. The way she’d deflected when caught, smooth and easy, like she’d practiced it a hundred times.
“What do we do?” she asked.
Sam’s jaw tightened. “For now, nothing obvious. We keep working the case, keep her close, see what she’s really hunting. But we watch her. Everything she does, everywhere she goes.”
“And if she’s dirty?” Mick asked. “If she’s connected to the people who killed Cooper?”
“Then we deal with it.” Sam finished his beer and set the empty bottle down. “But we make sure we’re right first. Because if we’re wrong and she has a legit reason to be here, we’ve made an enemy out of someone who should be an ally.”
Jo nodded slowly. It wasn’t the answer she wanted, but it was the right one.
Mick raised his whiskey in a sardonic toast. “To the truth. May it be less complicated than it looks.”
Jo clinked her bottle against his glass, but she didn’t share his dark humor. Too many threads were tangling together—Shaw’s secret investigation, Keller’s grief, Kevin’s deleted files, Wyatt’s strange behavior. And underneath it all, a syndicate that killed people who got too close.
They finished their drinks in something close to comfortable silence, three people carrying the weight of too many questions. Outside the stained glass windows, the night settled over White Rock like a held breath.
Whatever was coming, Jo had a feeling they’d know soon enough.
Jo only stayedfor one drink at Holy Spirits, then went straight home. The drive was quiet. No radio, no podcast—just the hum of tires on asphalt and the thoughts she couldn’t shake. Wyatt. Kevin. Keller. Shaw. Whatever was rotting under the surface of her department, she was going to find it. She just hoped she wasn’t already too late.
The cottage was warm when Jo got home, the smell of something savory drifting from the kitchen. Bridget was at the stove, stirring a pot, her back to the door.
“Hey,” Bridget called without turning around. “Figured you’d be hungry. Made beef stew.”
“Smells amazing.” Jo hung up her jacket and moved into the kitchen, dropping onto one of the stools at the counter. A normal evening. A normal meal. Everything exactly the way it should be.
Except Jo couldn’t shake the feeling that had been crawling under her skin all day. The sense that everyone around her was wearing a mask, showing her a version of themselves that wasn’t quite real.
She watched Bridget move around the kitchen—reaching for bowls, ladling stew, setting down spoons. Easy, practiced movements. Her sister seemed relaxed, content. The same Bridget who’d rebuilt her life here, who’d found work at the bakery and friends in town and a place that finally felt like home.
But Jo had been a cop too long to take anything at face value.