Bonaparte's Belle: A SEALs of Honor World Novel (Heroes for Hire Book 24), Dale Mayer [read an ebook week .TXT] 📗

He studied the wall, wondering what she was getting at.

“It feels like it’s short.”

“What do you mean by short?” he asked.

“I’ve been through the rest of the house, and it just seems like that wall is off,” she said, pointing to the wall she faced, “like it should have been pushed out another six feet.”

He walked closer, studied it, and nodded, as he ran his hands over the paneling. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a panic room was on the other side.”

“Considering the money they put into this place, I could see that as well,” she said, “although I wouldn’t necessarily have put it in the master bedroom.”

“I would,” he said. “A lot of guys retreat to their bedrooms when it comes to this kind of stuff, so, in a way, it makes total sense.” He kept at it, carefully running his hands over the surface of the wall, and it didn’t take him long before his fingers felt a faint ridge. He hooked his fingernail into it and followed it up to the top. He looked at her, and she nodded, then stepped forward.

“Look. The pattern is off here too.” She reached out a palm and pressed gently. Almost instantly the section snapped closed and pushed in, then popped out.

He pulled it open and whistled. “Now this is more like it.” The two of them stepped into what looked like a very intense high-security room. Not only were security cameras all around but also laptops and workstations.

“Do you think it’s just for him in here?” she asked, “I’m puzzled because it’s way bigger than the six feet I thought it would be.”

“Well, this room certainly could handle more than one person, so it’s probably mostly for him and his buddies.”

“That would make sense too. Maybe this is the only room like this. Or do you think we have another one at Johnny’s place?”

“You know what? I suspect this will be the control center. And maybe a backup hidden room is at Johnny’s house.”

“Good to note,” she said. “If we can just get through this stuff here, it’ll be huge for my case.”

“The only thing,” he said, “and please don’t take this wrong. But do you want to bring in Denver for this?”

“I’ve already thought of that,” she said, “and I spoke to one of the council members earlier. He told me that some of them know about a file that Denver has already opened up on this crew.”

Bonaparte nodded. “Which means that you can do what you want, but chances are Denver will take it over anyway.”

“It’s still my jurisdiction, my case,” she said, glaring at him.

He held up his hands. “I know, and I’m happy to take all this back to the station and go through it myself. And, if we need any more hackers,” he said, “you know Levi’s got you covered there.”

She nodded slowly. “I think the first thing is to confiscate all of this and take it in for evidence.”

“Yet you don’t have anybody to do that for you, do you?”

She looked at him, shook her head. “Nope.”

“And what about forensics?” he said, “Do you have anybody?”

“No,” she said. “I have to go to Denver for that.”

“So why don’t you start there now?”

She nodded. “I guess that probably a good idea.” And from there, it was organized chaos, at least as organized as they could make it. They went systematically through all the equipment, dismantling everything so they could take it back to the office and reconstruct it all there.

“It seems like a waste,” he murmured.

“I can’t deal with it all here,” she said, staring around the security room. “We’ve taken photos of everything, and now we have all the equipment ready to transport.”

“What happens when Ronnie finds out what you’ve taken?”

“He’ll set his lawyers on me, which is why I wanted to get it out of here.”

Just then her phone rang. “It’s Denver.” She spoke with someone from forensics there. “Yes, we’re removing everything and bringing it back to the station.” At that, another voice interrupted, and she realized they really would take this over. She frowned into the phone. “I don’t want to hand all this off to your case, when it’s also my case,” she said heatedly, turning to look at Bonaparte, putting her phone on Speaker.

“We’re taking it over,” the man said.

“I’m not sure you have any jurisdiction to do that,” she said in a defiant voice. There was silence on the other end.

“It will be a joint task force, of course.”

“Right. Of course it will be,” she said in a dry tone. At that, she watched as Bonaparte set one laptop back down again, opened it up, and pulled out a chair. She said, “We’ll be hours yet.”

“And you don’t have the facilities there to handle this. This isn’t just about Denver,” he said. “This could go across the country.”

She winced at that. “In which case, you’re bringing in the FBI? Is that what I’m hearing?”

“It’s not typically one of their cases,” the man cautioned.

“Maybe not, but, if you expect me to be cooperative to the extent that you’re taking this over,” she said, “I want to make sure that you aren’t as corrupt as the people who started this.”

An audible gasp could be heard at the other end, and she looked up to see Bonaparte staring at her, his eyebrows raised.

She said, “No offense intended, but it’s obvious that some level of collusion has occurred, which involves some top officials in Denver,” she said. “And it’s my duty to ensure you aren’t a part of it.”

“That’s a pretty broad accusation,” he said.

“I get it, but it’s one that needs to be brought up.”

“I’ll give you that,” he said, “but I don’t know just how I’m supposed to convince you that I’m innocent.”

“Well, I’ll make a few inquiries on my own, and then I’ll call you back,” she snapped. She hung up the phone and stood there, glaring at Bonaparte.