Page 28 of Smoke Screen
When silence cluttered the room, Phin stared at the phone wondering if his brother had, perhaps, fallen mute.
Phin leaned in. “You still there?”
“I’m here. Picking myself up off the goddamn floor. Hold on.” A rustling sound came from the other end, then a few seconds later, the telltale click of a door closing.
“Dude,” Zeke said, “where are you?”
“I came into the conference room. I don’t need my coworkers hearing this. Is that why you called me yesterday? Pumping me for information.”
Phin winced because, yeah, it probably looked that way. “We werenotpumping you for information. Well, not totally.”
Ash made a strangling noise and before he could launch into a lecture, Phin bulldozed right over that. “It was more like a warning shot.”
“What the hell does that even mean?”
“Don’t get pissy,” Zeke said, his voice holding zero heat. “We weren’t sure if the job would pan out.”
“You can’t take this job.”
Hey, now,that’snot happening.
Before Phin could speak, Zeke held up a hand. “Not your call,” he told Ash. “We’ve taken the job. This is a courtesy call.”
Another few seconds of silence ensued. Probably, if Phin knew his brother at all, Ash was getting his thoughts together while absorbing the fact that chasing his dream meant his say in BARS went buh-bye.
“Okay.” He let out a hard breath. “How much do you know?”
“All of it,” Zeke said. “The Pierre pieces. The queen’s jewels. We’re still collecting intel, but we got a dump of security footage this morning. Cruz and Rohan are on that. If you have anything, you can save us time.”
“Ash,” Phin said, “we all know if we don’t find this stuff ASAP, they’ll get broken up and melted down. Let’s work together.”
“This is a federal investigation.”
Zeke laughed. “What’s your point?”
His brothers. Pissers.
“Mypointis there are laws regarding a suspect’s rights. Anything I tell you could jeopardize our case. You want me to do that?”
“Hell no,” Zeke said. “Butit seems to me we’d be better off working together. Although, you don’t know how to do that. You only know how to manipulate situations to fit your needs.”
Already knowing where this was going, Phin groaned. A month ago, BARS and the FBI had worked together on a case. A rocky case that put Ash and Zeke at odds.
“Myneeds?” Ash said. “If this is about the Lederman case, I was protecting your ass.”
“I didn’t need your protection. I needed honesty and trust.”
When Ash went quiet again, Phin and Zeke exchanged a look. Regarding his job, Ash could be a wild card. Phin admired his dedication, his determination to separate right from wrong, but sometimes playing outside the lines got things done.
Phin dropped into one of Zeke’s guest chairs and slouched. “More dead air. Excellent.”
“Thinking,” Ash said, his tone sharper than a straight razor.
Okey-dokey then.Zeke held his hands wide, his frustration with their brother clearly mounting because, yes, they were supposed to wait while Ash’s moral compass dictated a path.
“We’re following up on something we saw in the footage,” Ash finally said.
Phin perked up. “What’s on the footage?”
