Alina Volkov was a stunningly pretty blonde in her early thirties, whose parents had fled Russia when she was a baby, but her Russian roots and fluency in multiple languages had taken her from a position in the State Department to the FBI. Next to Alina was Tyler Brennan, who had started his intelligence career with the Army's Delta Force before joining the FBI two years ago, working in both LA and Chicago. He had rugged good looks and an abundance of confidence.

  As she opened the door, all eyes turned to her.

  "Kara," Jason said with a nod. "How are you feeling?"

  "I'm doing all right." She had some cuts on her knees and hands and a deep scratch on her forehead from some glass, which she'd put a small bandage over, but otherwise she was okay.

  "You look better than I expected," Alina said, offering her a warm smile. "Considering you were at ground zero."

  "Why were you in the café?" Tyler asked. "Were you meeting someone?"

  "No. I had to drop off a file at the courthouse for my last case. I was just grabbing a coffee before I headed here. I've been to that café many times. It's still difficult to believe what happened."

  "Did you get any more information?" Jason asked.

  "The fire chief told me the explosive device was small and placed in the garbage can next to the restroom. Special Agents Greer and Barash from 26 Fed were at the scene, as well as NYPD." She pulled out a seat at the table, noting the monitor behind Jason contained photos from the scene, including a photo of a woman, the same woman who'd given her a dark look when she'd gotten too close to her. "Who is that? I saw her in the café."

  "Samantha Barkley, federal prosecutor," Jason replied. "She was pulled from the restroom in critical condition."

  "Oh my God," she murmured, her gaze locked on Samantha's professional headshot. "She went into the restroom because a man spilled his coffee on her."

  "Deliberately?" Tyler asked sharply.

  "I didn't think so, but…maybe."

  "Who was the man?" Jason asked.

  "Middle-aged. He had on dirty jeans and a Knicks sweatshirt. His hair was a mix of brown and gray, not styled, long and messy. He apologized to her after spilling his coffee. She reacted with extreme annoyance. He shrugged and walked away."

  "Did he stay in the café?" Tyler asked.

  "No. He left. And Ms. Barkley went into the restroom. To be frank, she was irritated before the coffee spill. She was on the phone with someone, and when I got close to her, she gave me a glare and moved away. That's when I first noticed her, and their collision occurred right in front of me." She paused, wondering where this was all going. "Are we working this case?"

  "Yes. Damon has asked us to take over," Jason replied, referring to Damon Wolfe, who ran the New York field office, commonly referred to as 26 Fed. "Apparently, Ms. Barkley has had conflicts with agents in Damon's office, and he wants a clean investigation. Since you were at the scene, Kara, you'll take the lead. You and Tyler can work with NYPD. Alina will connect with ATF. We need to find out if Ms. Barkley was the target, with the others as collateral damage, or if she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

  She nodded, surprised but also excited to have the lead, especially for a case that had literally exploded right behind her. "Sounds good. There was another individual who stood out to me, besides the one who spilled the coffee. A man entered the café just after Ms. Barkley went into the restroom. He came inside and scanned the scene as if he were noting every detail. Then he walked out. He was probably inside for less than a minute. That said, after the bomb went off, he came back to the café to help rescue people. If he were connected to the bombing, he probably wouldn't have done that."

  "Unless he wanted to throw suspicion away from himself," Tyler suggested.

  "Possibly," she conceded. "I'm sorry I didn't get his name. I was helping someone when he went past me. We were both ordered out when the fire department arrived. I looked around for him later, but he had disappeared."

  "Wes is pulling security footage from the scene," Jason said, referring to the head of their tech team, Wes Paulson. "Let's see if either of the men you described was caught on camera leaving the scene. If not, Kara, I'd like you to sit down with Elliott Briggs. He's not only an analyst; he's also an excellent sketch artist. Any kind of description would be helpful going forward. Let's get to work." As the others got up, he added, "Kara, hang back."

  She waited as Tyler and Alina left, then gave Jason a questioning look.

  "How are you really doing?" he asked, his sharp blue gaze running across her scratched-up face. "And I want an honest answer."

  "Honestly, I'm fine."

  "You were in an explosion, Kara. It's okay to not be fine."

  "I know. But aside from a few scratches and bruises, I'm in good shape, physically and mentally. You don't have to worry about me."

  "Good. But I want to reiterate that needing time to process an attack like this is not a sign of weakness. This team will only succeed if we trust each other to tell the truth."

  "I agree. And I'm energized to get to work. I have skin in the game—literally."

  "Thankfully not too much," he said with a small smile.

  "Thankfully," she echoed. "And I appreciate your confidence in me to lead this case."

  "Damon told me you're a superstar in the making."

  "That's a lot to live up to."

  "I believe you're up to the challenge."

  "Thanks. I won't let you down."

  His words pumped up her confidence, making her believe this unit would be the right place for her to develop her career. But she would have to do good work to make that happen. And that work would be with people she'd only met in the past week. Trust might be key, but they barely knew each other. Still, she was used to hitting the ground running, so that's what she was going to do.

  After leaving the conference room, she made her way into the operations center where Wes and Tyler were already reviewing footage from security and traffic cameras near the café and around the courthouse on several large wall monitors.

  Wes had come from the San Francisco office, an expert in technology and cybercrime. He was in his late thirties and seemed to have an intense, private personality. She knew next to nothing about him, except that he was supposed to be very good at his job.

  Tyler was a mystery as well, which probably wasn't surprising since he'd spent years working covert operations in the military and during his first two years in the FBI.

  When Jason had hired her for the unit, he'd told her that he'd assembled a team of agents who would be the best of the best. She was still a little shocked she fell into that category, but apparently her history with the NYPD and Damon Wolfe's support had made her a good candidate for the team, and she intended to prove Jason had made the right decision in hiring her.

  Taking a seat at an open computer in front of a blank monitor, she spent the next thirty minutes looking for the two men who had stood out to her. Finally, she caught a break, squinting her eyes at a grainy image of a man in jeans and a sweatshirt three blocks away from the café. "Got something," she said. "This could be the man who spilled the coffee. The clothes look the same, but unfortunately, his back is to the camera."

  "And his clothes are fairly standard," Tyler commented, as his gaze moved to her monitor.

  "True. I can't see if the sweatshirt has a Knicks logo, but I think this is the guy." She saved the frame as a screenshot and sent it to her phone. If anything, she could use it when she sat down with Elliott to draft a sketch.

  "We'll see if we can get another look at him," Wes said as he and Tyler went back to work.

  Fifteen minutes later, she spotted the mysterious, good-looking stranger who had acted both suspiciously and heroically. He was standing about two blocks away from the café, on the other side of the street. The timestamp appeared to be a minute before the explosion. He was talking on the phone, but he froze when the flash of fire could be seen in the screen's corner. He said something else, and then put his phone away and rushed out of sight.

  She froze the video. "This is the man who went in and out of the café without ordering anything."

  Both men looked at the image, then Wes's fingers flew across the keyboard as he picked up the same image and ran it through their system. "Got him," he said.

  She looked at his monitor as a man's image appeared with the name: Max Malone. He was the owner of a company called MG Security, based in Manhattan. It looked like the company had only been in business for about nine months.

  "This is unusual," Wes commented. "Max Malone has a big gap in his life. Before the creation of his current company, there's no employment history for the previous twelve years. At that time, he worked as a journalist for the Associated Press after graduating from Northwestern the year prior to that."

  "And then he's a ghost," she murmured, staring at his image.

  "He has no social media," Tyler interjected. "I'm thinking he works in intelligence, maybe undercover work."

  "For what agency?" she asked.

  "Could be CIA, NSA, DEA. Hell, it could be the Bureau."

  "We need to find out," she said, getting up from her chair. "I'm going to see what else I can dig up on him."

  "I doubt you'll find much," Tyler said. "His slate has been deliberately wiped clean."

  "Until nine months ago," she reminded them. "Maybe his reappearance in the world will provide some clue as to why he was in the café this morning." She returned to her desk, getting onto her own computer, as her mind raced with questions about the mysteriously good-looking man.

  An hour later, she'd found little beyond what Wes had discovered in two minutes. Max Malone was thirty-four years old, a little over six feet tall, with dark-brown hair and green eyes. He'd been born in Chicago and had gone to college at Northwestern, where he'd played on the baseball team and graduated with a degree in journalism. His first job had been with the Associated Press. And then there was nothing until last year.

  His company was also shrouded in secrecy. No official website. No employees. No known clients. He had a business bank account, a post office box, and a phone number that had gone to voicemail when she called. It wasn't much to go on, and she couldn't afford to spend all her time on someone who might not even be important, so she put him aside and turned to Samantha Barkley.

  Samantha Barkley's job as a federal prosecutor could certainly have made her enemies. And Kara couldn't help wondering if Max Malone fell into that category. The timing of his entrance and exit was certainly suspicious, and raised the question: Had he been looking for Samantha when he'd come into the café the first time, or when he'd come back?

  Chapter Two

  An hour later, Kara and Tyler headed to the DA's office to talk to Samantha's boss and coworkers. The DA, Clayton Montgomery, a smooth political operative in his fifties, described Samantha as fearless and ruthless, someone who wasn't afraid of anything or anyone. The bigger the challenge, the more she loved it. She'd received threatening messages off and on for years, but that had never made her shy away from a case.

  Montgomery encouraged them to speak to Melanie Daniels, Samantha's legal admin, who told them Samantha was currently working on a financial fraud case, but it was in early discovery, and not all the players had been identified.

  As they talked to Melanie, Kara couldn't help noticing that Tyler had a way with women. While the DA had focused on her, Melanie couldn't stop staring at the rugged man beside her, and Tyler leaned into her attention with a smile so charming, he convinced Melanie to show them Samantha's emails from the last twenty-four hours. Unfortunately, there was nothing noteworthy in that time period, and without knowing if Samantha was the actual target of the bomb or an innocent bystander, they couldn't dig too deep into her life without more evidence. Unless, of course, Samantha was able to give them permission.

  With that thought in mind, they headed to the hospital, only to discover that Samantha's condition was critical. She'd made it through surgery, but she had suffered burns across her body as well as serious lung damage. She'd been placed in a medical coma, and the doctor was somber in his remarks about her long-term prognosis. He also told them he'd spoken to Samantha's sister, who was flying in later tonight. Julia had given him permission to discuss her sister's case with the FBI, but they might want to speak to her directly once she arrived.

  As they made their way out to the parking lot, she said, "The doctor didn't seem optimistic."

  "Even if she survives this critical stage, she's looking at a long recovery," Tyler said. "I don't know that her life will ever be the same."

  "It definitely won't be." She shivered, thinking about how she could be in the same position as Samantha. If her drink had come a second later, if she'd gone into the restroom, if she'd been standing closer to the wall…so many ifs. But she couldn't focus on what hadn't happened. She needed to find out who had put Samantha into the hospital bed before they struck again.

  "It's almost five," Tyler said as he drove out of the lot. "Do you want to go back to the office? Or I can drop you somewhere."

  "The office is fine. I need to get my car. My uncle is a battalion chief with the fire department. He was on the scene this morning. Maybe he can tell me something we don't already know."

  "So, you were a cop before you became an agent, and your uncle is a firefighter. Sounds like you come from a family of first responders."

  "I do, and I know the best cop and firefighter bars in the city," she said lightly.

  "Which group has the better bar?" he asked.

  "I'll have to take you to a couple, and then you can decide."

  "I'm in," he said with a smile. "Did you grow up in New York?"

  "In Queens. How about you?"

  "Small town in Iowa."

  "Really? I wouldn't have guessed that."

  "I enlisted in the Army when I was nineteen. The recruiter told me I could see the world. Of course, he didn't tell me what else I would see." His tone turned dark, then he cleared his throat. "That was fifteen years ago."

  "Do you still have family in Iowa?"

  "I do, but I don't go back very often."

  "I heard you were recently in the Chicago office?"

  "Yes. I liked the Windy City, but I was excited to come to New York and work with Jason. We spent a year together in LA, and he is very good at the job." As Tyler finished speaking, he turned into the garage under their building. He parked, then said goodnight and headed to his Ford Bronco, while she got into her small KIA SUV.

  She'd asked her uncle to meet her back at the café. It felt a little eerie to return to the scene, but she needed to see it again without all the chaos of the morning. She parked at the end of the block and got out, her steps slowing as she walked down the street, each step taking her closer to the destruction.

  What had been a bustling morning coffee shop was now a gutted shell. The large front windows were completely blown out, jagged shards of glass still clinging to the frames. Black scorch marks spread across the cream-colored brick facade in a starburst pattern, darkest near what had been the entrance. The cheerful red awning that had stretched across the storefront hung in tatters, one side completely torn away and the other dangling.

  The buildings on either side were dark, their windows boarded up—collateral damage from the blast. The entire block felt abandoned. But as she drew closer, her uncle got out of a pickup truck he'd left in a loading zone and met her on the sidewalk. He was off duty now, wearing jeans and a jacket, his messy pepper-gray hair and weary eyes suggesting a long shift.

  "Thanks for meeting me, Uncle Danny."

  "Whatever you need, although I'm sure you'll see all the official reports from the investigation," he said.

  "I will. Some reports have come in already, but I just want to go inside again, see it for myself without other officials around."

  "Then that's what we'll do." He grabbed a crowbar from the back of his truck and walked to the entrance, where plywood had been nailed across the shattered doorway. Pulling the plywood off, he set the crowbar down and turned on a powerful flashlight before leading her inside.

  As she stepped into the structure, a beam of his flashlight caught the charred walls and collapsed ceiling tiles. Everything was covered in soot and the chemical residue from fire suppression. The potent smell of burned plastic and wood made her eyes water. She had trouble even knowing where they were standing. All the familiar things were gone, turned to ash.

  "The explosive was there," Danny said, directing the beam toward the back hallway where the restrooms were located.

  She followed the beam of light, her mind reconstructing the morning, trying to remember who had been standing where, whether she'd overheard any conversation, whether she'd seen anything.

  Samantha Barkley jumped into her head, her beautiful black suit, her impeccable style, her sharp, irritated gaze. She had spent time on the phone. Had she been angry with whomever she was talking to? Was that why she had been so short-tempered? They needed to get her phone records, find out who was the last person she'd spoken to.

  Turning around, Kara tried to guess where Samantha and the man had collided. But that probably didn't matter, because she knew Samantha had gone to the restroom to clean up.

  The man had immediately left the café. The other guy had come in and looked around. Her name had been called by the barista, and she'd picked up her coffee. She'd left a minute later, and the bomb went off.

  She sucked in a quick breath, her body still feeling the reverberation and shock of that moment.

  "Everything okay?" Danny asked as he turned the light toward her. "Are you reliving it?"

  "Yes, but I'm fine. What do you think about what happened here?"

  "It feels targeted. Big enough to do significant damage but not take out more than the immediate area. It also would have had to be small enough to fit inside a trash can and be placed there without anyone knowing. I assume there's no security footage from inside the building?"

  "Not in that hallway, unfortunately. There were also many people who entered the café the previous evening and earlier this morning who had backpacks with them, including plenty of them who made a trip to the restroom. It could have been anyone."