A Santini's Heart (The Santinis Book 10) (19 page)

“You know we have the authority to just question their people.”

“Yes, but if you do that, you might scare off Foley,” Remington said.

TJ heard the unwavering tone and knew he was definitely screwed. If he didn’t go along, they would order him to do it. Then, he would either have to comply or get written up for insubordination and asked to hand in his badge.

“Who’s the target?” he asked.

Tsu handed him a file. He opened it and found the picture of a stunning woman. Brown skin, sea-green eyes, and a thousand-watt smile.

“This is my target?” he asked as he tore his attention away from the picture. “She looks like a sorority girl.”

“Don’t be so fooled,” Tsu said. “I’ve been to a few of her lectures. She regularly gets asked to write articles and, on top of that, the University of Hawaii has been after her to teach a class. She’s sharp as a tack.”

“She also has a record,” Remington said.

That definitely caught his attention. “She has a record? How is she working at TFH?” TJ asked.

“She was a juvenile. Broke into the school to change grades.”

“Sure, every hacker thinks of doing that at one time or another,” TJ said. In fact, TJ’s three brothers had bugged him often once they reached the age to understand their brother’s abilities.

“Not hers. Woman had straight A’s through high school.”

“But she broke in to change her grades?”

“Yeah. Doesn’t say why since it was juvenile, and apparently her father’s family has a lot of pull in the town, so the charges were dropped. Then she went to University of Georgia. Dropped out her junior year.”

“Dropped out?”

There was a beat of silence. “Happens sometimes, you know that with computer geeks.”

“But this says she is a forensics tech.”

“Yes, and she is very good at her job. She can handle all of that and hack like a damned expert. She wrote a few papers, and they got noticed by several agencies. We tried to recruit her—as did the NSA—but the CIA snapped her up before we could. She worked there for a while before she headed off to a few other places before landing in Hawaii. Seems to be settling in since she bought an apartment.”

The itch was getting worse. Damn, this was going to be beyond a shit assignment. “Great. She’s going to smell this a mile away.”

“What I need you to do is just be the liaison,” Tsu said. “It will be a few days, tops.”

“And then I just disappear? That’s going to go over well.”

“They’ve been screaming for a liaison for months. It won’t raise any flags.”

He studied Tsu. “So, I’m the lamb to the slaughter, is that it?”

He shrugged. “In a way. I couldn’t get a designation for someone to work with them until now.”

“Until you think one of them broke several federal laws and is working with a criminal, who not only has been fucking us over for three years, but likes to profit off the deaths of our agents. Gotta love the FBI.”

“I’m using it the best I can,” Tsu said. “If nothing comes of the investigation, you can keep working with them. We’ve needed someone over there for more than a year, but the Bureau wasn’t happy when Hawaii decided to form a task force like this.”

Of course they weren’t. The FBI thought they ran the entire country and everyone should bow to their power. It worked sometimes, but even in the few months TJ had been living in Hawaii, he’d learned you couldn’t force Hawaiians to do what they didn’t want to. It was one of the things he loved about living there. They were the epitome of dancing to the beat of their own drum.

“So, instead of working with them, and taking some of the load off us, the Bureau decided to be assholes and not give them a liaison?”

“Until now. And, we can justify it now that you’ll have the job,” Tsu said.

“Doesn’t really matter in the end,” Remington said.

“Why not?” TJ asked.

“If their forensics tech is working for a cyber-criminal like Foley, then I doubt TFH will survive.”

And TJ was going to be the lucky bastard who got to rip it apart.

D
rew Franklin and Cat Kalakaua
come together to catch a killer hellbent on making men pay for their sins with their lives.

F
rom an early age
, USA Today Bestselling author Melissa Schroeder loved to read. First, it was the books her mother read to her including her two favorites, 
Winnie the Pooh
 and the 
Beatrix Potter 
books. She cut her preteen teeth on 
Trixie Belden
 and read and reviewed 
To Kill a Mockingbird
 in middle school. It wasn’t until she was in college that she tried to write her first stories, which were full of angst and pain, and really not that fun to read or write. After trying several different genres, she found romance in a Linda Howard book.

Since the publication of her first book in 2004, Melissa has had over sixty romances published. She writes in genres from historical suspense to modern day erotic romance to futuristics and paranormals. Included in those releases is the bestselling 
Harmless
series. In 2011, Melissa branched out into self-publishing with 
A Little Harmless Submission
 and the popular military spinoff, 
Infatuation: A Little Harmless Military Romance
. Along the way she has garnered an epic nomination, a multitude of reviewer’s recommended reads, over five Capa nods from TRS, three nominations for AAD Bookies and regularly tops the bestseller lists on 
Amazon
 and 
Barnes & Noble
. She made the USA Today Bestseller list for the first time with her anthology
The Santinis.

Since she was a military brat, she vowed never to marry military. Alas, fate always has her way with mortals. Her husband just retired from the AF after 20 years, and together they have their own military brats, two girls, and two adopted dog daughters, and is happy she picks where they live now.

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