shrinking back from him.
Damn it.
Skilton closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
The fools must have ignored his orders to dump old identities. This was going to be a problem. Especially if Obran had rolled over on Skilton. He hadn’t thought the forger would do such a thing. Why had he waited? What did they have on the old man to get him to turn like this? Was loyalty worth nothing anymore?
Skilton beat his fist on the arm rest. It was the only expression of anger he allowed himself.
This could be handled. He could still manage this.
How would Obran have known what identities to warn the Americans about?
The forger had created hundreds of credentials for Skilton and others over the years. Maybe thousands. How could he have known to pull that exact name?
If Skilton didn’t know better, he’d have thought it was the hacker child, Valentino, at fault here. But he’d ensured her death. Oh, she’d done her best to mask her identity, but in the end Skilton had learned who was the real power behind the name and it wasn’t her idiot brother.
Could it be the brother?
Damn.
Skilton needed more information. How was it he was suddenly so behind on this?
It was time to pay this task, force some attention and make them wish they’d ignored his dark corner of the world.
5.
Thursday. Senate Office Building. Washington, DC.
Kelsey kept her eyes on her desk. She was expected to clean of anything personal before she left. The only things allowed to remain were the monitor and a few essentials too big to store in the slim drawers of the ultra-modern desk.
What a pain.
It also meant that the flowers that had been delivered to her that afternoon couldn’t stay. In fact, she’d gotten a stern talking to when they arrived. Who didn’t let their employees keep a vase of flowers on their desk?
Talk about a killjoy. She was beginning to understand why there were so many vacancies.
She didn’t yet know if the order came from the senator or his chief of staff, but one of them really needed to remove the stick from their ass. At this rate, they’d always be filling one position or another.
Then again, the senator was working out of his home office tomorrow and she’d been hand selected to assist with tomorrow’s work-from-home day. It seemed unusual to her, but what did she know about how senators operated? Besides, there wasn’t a lot of activity going on, what with other offices trickling back in after Thanksgiving.
Logan was very lucky no one had wandered into the bathroom during that scuffle. It could have turned out to be a disaster.
What the hell was Oliver’s objective, anyway? Why a knife? If they were concealing a weapon, it would have been just as easy to hide a gun, too.
Well, maybe not. Men’s bathrooms were sparse compared to women’s. For all she knew, a knife was all that Oliver’s people could hide for him.
The presence of the knife created a new issue. They hadn’t known to suspect someone who already had building access. Which meant they needed to be aware of everyone and not just those on their list.
She darted a look around the office, peering into all the doorways, nooks and crannies.
Logan was nowhere to be seen.
Had he finally left?
She didn’t need to know that.
This was her chance. If he hadn’t left, it might be her only chance.
Kelsey shoved her arms into her coat, shouldered the tote and grabbed the flowers. With luck, she’d slip out of the building before Logan got back from his last round of whatever he was doing. He’d been hanging around despite the senator ducking out early and only taking one bodyguard with him. The rest of the security team had trickled out since then until Logan was all that was left.
She knew he was hoping to glean information somehow, but the problem there was that other than the list she’d gotten in the senator’s office, nothing else was out of line.
He was a hit with the other two women in the office. Kelsey was already annoyed at having to listen to someone else extol his physical virtues. Every time those women opened their mouths to make a comment, she wanted to staple their lips shut. It was an irrational reaction. Logan wasn’t hers. They weren’t anything to each other. And she needed to remember that.
One last glance at her desk and Kelsey was off the hook. For tonight, at least.
Everything was tucked away. She’d even wiped it