Backblast by Candace Irving (brene brown rising strong .TXT) 📗

Forgive me.

For fathering a child outside of his marriage? Or for infecting that child with a deadly virus to cover it up? Or had Thomas Crier been alluding to the investigation he'd come to suspect she was really here in Islamabad to pursue? The one involving their nation's latest, and perhaps deadliest-to-date, traitor?

Regan pondered the questions as she wrapped up her close-up photos of the victim and his immediate surroundings. She'd taken no photos of the weapon Crier had used, though, because she'd yet to spot it.

Had it bounced beneath the desk?

She reached out to grasp the left arm of the executive chair. The leather monstrosity did possess wheels, but with her recalcitrant hand, there was no way she was going to risk losing control of the chair and accidentally spinning their victim out onto the floor. "I'm done photographing the body. Can you help—"

"Let go. I've got it."

The spook's filthy frown returned when she failed to obey, though this one resembled John's when she'd tried to take her kit from him as they were leaving the Serena hotel earlier tonight, rather than the others Riyad had been bestowing upon her since her arrival aboard the Griffith.

She released the arm of the chair and let Riyad roll Crier's body several feet back.

And there was the gun.

Crier's right hand had hit his thigh following the 9mm's retort, sending the Glock he'd used to blow his brains out skittering underneath the desk.

She crouched down and took the requisite photos, then reached down to retrieve the Glock. "Can you grab an evidence—"

"Right here."

"Thanks." She slipped the 9mm into the paper bag already open in Riyad's hands.

He filled out the evidence label, but left the bag unsealed as she'd yet to dust the Glock for prints. The label finished, he walked the bag across the office to lay it on the conference table beside her stainless-steel case.

"I've got a gunshot residue test kit in the second drawer—"

"Got it."

Damn. The man might make a decent investigative colleague after all. He'd even spent his time while she was photographing the scene splaying her kit wide on the table so he could root thought its contents and set out items he thought she might need. She turned back to Crier's body as the spook reached her side. Ignoring that glassy, vacant stare as best she could, she accepted the GSR swab for the lab's sample. She used her steady hand to dab the swab down the victim's right index finger and along the inner webbing, then up to the tip of his thumb.

Fortunately, that vacant gaze was green, not blue. And while the rest of those misshapen features were baby-faced, they were definitely male.

It helped.

She finished dabbing Crier's right hand and moved onto his left as Riyad took care of packaging up the initial samples. Once both hands had been dabbed for the lab's definitive test, she retrieved the small square of white cotton, swiping the entire inner webbing of Crier's right hand once more with the material.

This second round of swabbing was for herself.

She set the square of cotton into the plexiglass developing chamber, then accepted the dropper from Riyad and popped the ampule within. Once the square was soaked with the testing solution, she sealed the plexiglass box and handed it to Riyad so he could set it on the conference table along with the rest of the materials she'd expended.

And now, the wait.

Within five minutes, they'd have the results.

Though really, given that she and Jeffers had been outside the office when the Glock had gone off and that no one but Crier had been inside when she'd entered, the pending results of their GSR field test were significantly less of a mystery than the contents of the man's imposing executive desk.

Riyad returned to her side. "Now what?"

She pointed toward the column of drawers on either side. "We search." Unfortunately, the drawers were locked. Had her hand been cooperating, it would have been easy enough to pick the main lock. But they didn't have time. Not with that mob outside the gates, swelling even now, as her watch closed in on 0230. "There's a small crowbar at the bottom of my kit."

Moments later, the spook returned with the iron bar and performed the destructive honors.

She pointed toward the far column of drawers as he turned to lay the crowbar on the windowsill behind them. "You take the right side; I'll take the left."

"Will do."

They searched in silence for several minutes, sifting through a mind-numbing amount of bureaucratic paperwork until she hit the bottom of the lowest drawer in her assigned column—literally.

Odd. Her trembling hand continued to smack into the base of the drawer with a steady rhythm—but both the sound and the feel were off.

Riyad shifted his suit-clad bulk to her side. "What's wrong?"

"I think we've got a false bottom." Was this why Crier had created one in that pack of Pakistani smokes? Because he'd used one to conceal something else?

The spook turned to the window, then back, crowbar in hand. "Step aside."

The bar went into the drawer. A solid pop filled the air around the desk. Regan reached in with her steadier hand and lifted the damage piece of wood.

Definitely a false bottom.

A tantalizing, smooth brown envelope lay in the space beneath.

She pulled the envelope out with her right hand. Riyad waited patiently as she worked the stiff brass brad on the reverse so she could lift the crisp flap and tip the significantly less crisp contents out into her waiting palm.

She sucked in her breath as she skimmed the header of the upper sheet.

Her colleague wasn't nearly as polite. "Holy fuck."

The spook appeared fond of that phrase. But in this case—as Regan continued to flip through the papers beneath the upper sheet—she couldn't argue with it.

"Ah, shit." John.

She glanced across her latest crime scene to find the man's dark gray suit filling the doorway of the office. John hadn't been kidding.

He had found her.

Though clearly not where and how