Page 30 of The B-Team

“Maybe going into the special crimes unit is a kind of promotion,” Claire said.

“Who transferred him?” Ryan asked.

Julia typed some more. “The assistant commissioner of Frontline Policing. A Davina Agnew.” She speed-read thecommissioner’s profile. “Very well-respected officer, lots of commendations, no scandals.”

“So, what you’re saying,” Sarah said, “is that this move looks legitimate and probably happened solely because there was a vacancy in the special crimes division?”

“Wait a minute,” Ryan said. “They fired Tessa almost two years ago. Why wait this long to replace her?”

“As far as I can tell,” Julia said, “they had an interim commander until Tessa was sentenced, and then they filled the role permanently with Fitzwater. He’s only been in it a few months.”

“That sounds normal to me,” Sarah said. “It also explains why this is happening now. It would have taken Fitzwater at least a couple of months to gather enough evidence to justify questioning the team.”

There was a disconcerting tingle at the back of Julia’s brain. It was the same sensation she had when things around her weren’t organized properly. “No… there’s something else going on here. Ms. Patel said that the commander doesn’t appear to have much of a case at all. So why pick everyone up now?”

Sarah stilled. “Are you saying that the timing is deliberate? That it had to be today?”

“Yes.” Julia sank back into the mountain of pillows behind her. “I am. I just don’t know why.” She rubbed her temples, hoping it would bring the memory lingering at the edge of her mind just a little closer.

“So.” Ryan stepped forward, a look of excitement on his face. “There has to be something else happening right now that makes the arrests time sensitive.” He glanced around the room. “Think. Has there been anything in the news? Has anyone heard any rumors?”

A thought rushed to the foreground of Julia’s brain. “Elle!” She grinned, delight bubbling inside her as she typed on her keyboard.

“What about Elle?” Ryan focused in on her in a way that he hadn’t done before his brain injury. Like she was the sole person in the room.

“She’s the one who sent me the article. She said we had to talk about it because it was time sensitive.” She scrolled through her emails from Elle. Unfortunately, the problems with her pregnancy meant she was behind in filing her emails. Usually, she categorized and flagged everything as it came in to make it easier to find. But there were hundreds of emails from Elle that she still hadn’t gotten around to reading. Then there were the messages and texts Elle had sent her too. The reference to the article could be in any one of them—and that was assuming she’d even remembered correctly who mentioned it to her.

“Come on, Elle,” she muttered, wishing her email subject lines were a little less cryptic and a whole lot more descriptive. For a computer whiz, Elle was one of the most creative people she knew. Unfortunately, that applied to her emails too. So far, Julia had read subject lines such as “Darth would want this” and “Only a T-Rex would understand.” It wasn’t helpful. “Come on, Elle, what was it you sent me?”

“Can we help?” Claire said. “Divide things up and go through them together?”

Julia shook her head. “I’ll know what I’m looking for when I see it, so only I can do this.”

The room fell into silence as Julia began to read. There was nothing anyone could do but wait.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Please answer the question, Ms. Roberts-Knight.”

Elle folded her arms and studied her opponent in this game of chess called interrogation. He was trying to force her to make a move before she was ready, but he had no idea who he was up against. She was Ellie Blue, queen of online gaming, cracker of codes, ferreter of secrets.

If this were a live-action role-playing game, she’d be a warrior queen, riding a dragon while dressed in leather combat gear. And Commander Fitzwater would be surrounded by goblins oozing slime. He had the perfect face to play a boil-covered sycophant who thought he had the ear of the king. But his perceived power wouldn’t matter to Elle. She’d run him through with her magic sword before her dragon fried that smug little smile off his face. Then all of her subjects would bow down, and there would be cheers of j?—

“Ms. Roberts-Knight.” The commander’s voice brought her back to reality with a thud. “I would like to remind you that perverting the course of justice is a very serious offense. Please answer the question.”

She leaned forward and said, very clearly, into the mic, “I do not recall.”

The young detective sitting beside the commander looked like he was struggling not to laugh.

The commander wasn’t amused. “This isn’t an American Senate hearing. That is not an appropriate response.”

“I don’t think it’s appropriate there either.” She glanced at her lawyer, Ms. Patel, to see if she agreed.

She just cocked an eyebrow at Elle as if to tell her to stop screwing around and get on with it. Apparently, years of dealing with Rachel enabled Elle to read the minds of all the shark-like women she knew.

“What was the question?” she asked the commander.

“Do you deny illegally accessing secure servers held by the British government to obtain information to undermine the rule and stability of this country?”