Janie Crouch - Untraceable

She and Evan had worked together for years. She’d known him most of her life. He was her brothers’ best friend. Hell, he was one of her best friends—more, if she was honest. Or had potentially been more. It seemed so long ago that she and Evan used to flirt with each other, secure in the knowledge of someday.

But someday never came.

Now whenever she thought of Evan all Juliet could recall was that moment when he’d found her. Of how he’d covered her broken, mostly naked body with his own clothes, actually crying as he had radioed in for an ambulance.

Juliet knew it was unfair to keep Evan frozen in that moment. To keep herself frozen there. But she couldn’t seem to do anything about it.

So she’d basically avoided him for the past year and a half.

Which hadn’t been too difficult, considering her cowardly choice to leave active work and stick herself behind a desk instead. Part handler, part analyst, part strategist. A little too good to be any of them, but not fit to be back out in the field. Juliet couldn’t see a time when she would ever be ready for agent work again.

Her job might not be thrilling, but it was safe. And safe was the most important thing to her right now. Although she wished those job changes hadn’t hurt Evan.

Juliet made her way to the locker room, showering and changing into her work clothes of black pants and a matching black blazer over a white blouse. The jacket was specially fitted to hold her shoulder holster and firearm. Although Juliet wasn’t an agent and wasn’t required to be armed at all times, she was rarely without her Glock 9 mm.

Normally she wouldn’t be dressed this way. Unlike the FBI, with their daily suits and loafers, Omega tended to be a more casually dressed workforce. But today Juliet had an important operational-specifications meeting. Her boss, Dennis Burgamy, would be there, which made her a little uneasy. Burgamy did not tend to dirty his hands with the day-to-day planning of undercover operations. Thus her more professional suit: armor for battle.

Something was up; she knew it. Juliet was going to need as much armor as she could get.

Chapter Two

Juliet already sat in the conference room between her brothers Cameron and Sawyer, chatting with both, when Evan arrived at the meeting. He wasn’t surprised to find the two men flanking Juliet. If Cameron and Sawyer had their way, she’d be wrapped in cotton wool and hidden away somewhere.

The Branson men were brothers to Evan in every way but blood. He’d known them most of his life—Sawyer, Cameron, and their older brother, Dylan, who no longer worked at Omega—and would do anything for any of them. But their overprotectiveness when it came to Juliet frustrated Evan.

Juliet had strength none of the Branson family wanted to admit, including herself. Right now it lay hidden under layers of fear and regret. But the strength resided inside her. He’d seen it multiple times during their tenure as partners in the field. He wished Juliet would trust him to help her find that strength again, but he couldn’t force it to happen. Could only wait and hope.

Evan deliberately took the seat directly across from Juliet. She nodded at him and gave him a polite smile before looking away. He decided to engage her brothers instead.

“What’s up, Tweedledum and Tweedledummer?”

Neither brother was up to his normal speed. Both were recovering from gunshot wounds received in action over the past few months, Cameron from an undercover operation gone wrong, and Sawyer from an attempt to fix that. They would recover fully, but were manning desks until they were cleared for field duty.

Not that either seemed to mind desk duty right now. It gave them each more time to spend at home with the loves-of-their-lives, also recently acquired in the cases. Having met Cameron’s Sophia and Sawyer’s Megan, Evan wholeheartedly supported his friends wanting to stick close to home.

“Watch it there, shorty. I can still kick your butt even with my arm in this sling,” Sawyer told him. The “shorty” barb had been around since they were all teenagers and Evan had been the last to hit his growth spurt, so he’d been a head shorter than the Branson boys for a time. Even though they now were all around the same height—each over six feet— Evan still got called shorty from time to time. But it brought the slightest of smiles to Juliet’s lips, so he let it slide.

“Yeah, I’d hate to put your other arm in a sling,” Evan retorted.

“Why are we having a big powwow with Burgamy?” Cameron cut in, referring to their boss, Dennis Burgamy. “Since when does he sit in on normal op-specification meetings?”

“I was wondering the same thing myself.” Juliet glanced briefly at Evan before turning away.

Evan knew he had to tell her about him going back undercover as Sinclair. He didn’t want her to hear it for the first time in the middle of the meeting.

“I don’t know why Burgamy wants to be in the meeting exactly,” Evan said. “But you guys should know that I’m going back under as Bob Sinclair.”

Cameron muttered a curse. Sawyer didn’t say anything. He’d already been aware that the Sinclair persona had been resurrected a few weeks ago. Evan had posed as Bob Sinclair to help Sawyer out in a case.

The color washed out of Juliet’s face and she stood, her chair rolling back from the table forcefully. All three men stood, as well.

“Excuse me,” she murmured.

“Jules—” Sawyer reached for her, but stopped when she flinched away.

“No, I’m all right. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Evan watched as she all but fled from the room. He gave a heavy sigh and sat back down.

“Should one of us go after her?” Cameron asked.

“No, let her go,” Evan said. “She just needs to pull herself together.”

Sawyer and Cameron looked as though they might argue, but decided against it. Evan knew he was right. Juliet would not want any of them coming after her, crowding her space. She’d be back when she was ready, which would probably be sooner than either of her overprotective brothers suspected.

Evan hated Juliet hearing about the Bob Sinclair situation this way, but knew it would have upset her no matter when or how she heard about it. There was no way around that.

Dennis Burgamy, head of operations at Omega, entered the room along with his assistant, Chantelle DiMuzio, who looked harried. Of course, poor Chantelle always looked harried. Anybody who worked that closely with their boss day in and day out couldn’t help it.

Burgamy took the seat at the head of the table, glanced around, and turned to Evan. “Where’s Juliet?”

“She had to step out. She’ll be back soon.”

Burgamy, dressed impeccably in a dark suit, sighed impatiently. Everyone knew there was no love lost between him and the Branson family. Each side tolerated the other, but only barely. Usually Burgamy didn’t have much problem with Juliet, however. Why had he even asked about her?

“Well, I don’t have much spare time, so we’ll need to start without her,” Burgamy barked.

“Okay, to get everyone up to speed,” Evan began, trying to stall to give Juliet time to return. “In the midst of Sawyer’s operation last month with Dr. Megan Fuller and DS-13, we weren’t sure if the Ghost Shell hardware system was going to be sold on the black market. Or if we would have the means of stopping it if it was sold.”

“A disaster on all counts,” Burgamy said.

Everyone nodded. Evan continued. “We were in a time crunch so I put feelers out on the street using some past covers, in case I needed to infiltrate any black market weapons groups.”

Evan looked over at Sawyer. “Fortunately, Sawyer was able to acquire Ghost Shell and arrest or eliminate most of DS-13, whom we are considering permanently disbanded.”