Alibi (Brantley Walker Off the Books #5) - Nicole Edwards Page 0,3

stared like an idiot. He hadn’t been sure what to expect, but having spent his entire career working for the government, where the wheels turned slowly when it came to decision-making, he damn sure hadn’t anticipated a full-on welcome by the end of this meeting, much less just half an hour in.

“Seriously,” Hunter tacked on. “We’ve taken our fair share of missing-persons cases over the years, but we’ve never had the manpower to dedicate full teams to it. However, there is one caveat.”

Of course there was.

Brantley waited patiently for the bad news.

“Man, don’t look like someone punted you in the balls. It’s not that bad,” RT said with a choked laugh.

“In my experience, it usually is,” he admitted.

Hunter glanced between them, his gaze landing on Brantley when he said, “We’re aware you’re both accustomed to bein’ boots-on-the-ground leaders”—Hunter held up a hand, thwarting Brantley’s prepared argument—“which you will remain.” He exhaled with a smile. “However, you’ll also be considered executive management within our infrastructure. With that comes a few additional responsibilities. Financials, sales, whatnot. But you’ll be assigned a personal assistant and a bookkeeper to deal with your office work. If the need arises, we can get you a spot for an office manager, as well. A complete clerical staff’ll free up your team, allowing them to dedicate one hundred percent of their time to the cases.”

Brantley knew JJ would be pleased with that.

“The assistant I just hired…” Brantley glanced between RT and Hunter. “If it’s all the same to you, we’d like to utilize her.”

“Hire whoever you see fit. You will maintain operational control.” RT got to his feet. “But what Hunter’s leavin’ out is the other executive responsibilities. You’d be required to show up a couple of times a month for meetings, keep the board and the other teams up to date on what you’re focused on and how you’re spendin’ your money. As well as the paying clients you’re accumulatin’.”

“Payin’ clients? The ones we help don’t usually need our services again.”

“If they’re lucky, that’s true. But they’re not the clients we’re lookin’ to deal with. However, we provide myriad services.”

Brantley nodded, understanding.

“As for spendin’, we’ve got a relatively foolproof budgeting system, which we’ll go over so you know where your funds are allocated.” RT motioned to the barn. “And if you’re in agreement, we’d like to rent some space for some of our agents.”

Brantley glanced at Reese, looking for confirmation he was in agreement with any or all of it.

“We can move those funds around in the budget,” Reese said, which Brantley took as full agreement.

RT pulled out his phone, tapped something on it. A second later, Brantley’s phone chimed, as did Reese’s.

“Those are your individual welcome packets, outlinin’ salary, benefits, and the like. We can discuss those further whenever you’re ready. We’ve got the same packets for each of your current team members, with the exception of the new assistant since we weren’t aware. But we can have it by early Monday mornin’. It’s all covered. Like I said, we’re thrilled about this expansion. And I personally think it’ll benefit all of us in the end.”

Brantley agreed. He knew they’d have access to resources they hadn’t even had with the state. Plus, and probably most importantly, they’d have some organization. As much as he loved his team, that was one thing they’d yet to master.

When the rest of the team arrived, Brantley had regrettably informed them of the governor’s decision to disband the team. He was surprised there hadn’t been too much pushback. Aside from Baz and Charlie asking about the pensions they’d been promised they could keep, which he’d told them he would have to follow up on.

Once everyone had settled down, they spent a couple of hours mapping out what the new task force would look like under the umbrella of Sniper 1 Security. RT and Hunter had stayed under the guise of offering their insight, but Brantley got the feeling they stuck around because they wanted to see how the team meshed.

It’d been slow going in the beginning, what with Jessica James—known simply as JJ—having a tantrum after learning not only had her personal life gone up in flames, her professional one was in a state of chaos as well. Luckily, they’d managed to talk her off the ledge, and once she was on even ground again, it didn’t take long before she was leading the charge.

As for Charlotte Miller and Trey Walker, the newest members of the task force, they were still