Free Passion's Prey: The Shadow Shifters by A.C. Arthur

with bullshit. He shrugged.
    “So she had a business card.”
    “She had your business card. A special agent with the fuckin’ FBI. You want to explain that to me?”
    So Wilson’s calm, cool, and collected exterior could be ruffled. X had figured as much. They’d both been taught to bluff with the straightest face possible, to play everything close to the vest and remain professional. X would hold up his end of the bargain.
    “No. I don’t want to explain it to you. I told you I met her one night and didn’t see her again after that. There’s nothing more that I have to say.”
    X stood as he spoke. “Now if that’s all you wanted to ask.”
    Wilson stood as well. “You’re really going to make me take this route?”
    Again X shrugged. “What route would that be?”
    “I can get a warrant, search your place. Then I can arrest you, have you indicted in a capital murder case. You’d lose your career, your life as you know it now, everything.”
    “Or,” X said, taking a step closer to the agent, “you can put that card back in your pocket and walk your ass out of my house. I’m done talking to you.”
    “If it was personal, I can try to help you. Maybe we can work something out with the director,” Wilson insisted.
    Dorian Wilson was about six feet tall. He had a deep brown complexion and dark, generally honest eyes. His frame was strong; he worked out regularly. He was a damn good agent. X was also willing to bet his next paycheck that Dorian was here with more than suspicions about Diamond Turner’s murder.
    “I don’t need to work anything out. But you definitely need to go.”
    Wilson shook his head. “This isn’t going to go away just because you don’t want to deal with it. I’m going to keep digging because I know something’s going on with you.”
    “Then get out your best shovel and have at it” was X’s flip retort.
    He was very close to losing his cool with this guy. How dare he come up in his house asking him everything but if he’d killed Diamond himself? Obviously he had nothing besides that business card to go on, so X wasn’t giving him the time of day.
    Just as they reached the door and X opened it, Nick was strolling down the hallway, sporting one of his designer suits and a royally pissed-off look on his face.

 
    Chapter 9
    “Do you have a warrant?” Nick asked Agent Wilson.
    “Not yet” was Wilson’s tight reply. He wasn’t looking very pleased with the new arrival.
    Nick nodded. “Then you were just leaving. Here’s my card. If you need to speak to my client again you go through me.”
    Wilson took the card Nick extended to him, giving both Nick and X a very pissed-off gaze.
    “I’m not through with you yet,” he told X.
    “Fine. But you’re wasting your time,” X told him with a serious glare.
    “Like I said, get in touch with me if you need something else from my client.”
    Nick was using his best lawyerly voice. X would have laughed at how polished and professional his friend sounded, when his usual dialogue was about kicking somebody’s ass. But he refrained.
    “Right,” Wilson said, giving Nick a nod, then walking out the door.
    The same door that Nick subsequently slammed so loud X thought the windows that lined the entire side of his apartment might break. He didn’t bother to stand there and wait for Nick’s tirade. Instead he walked into the kitchen and reached into the fridge. It was still early, but he definitely needed a drink to deal with what was about to take place here.
    X pulled out a bottle of beer and twisted the cap off, taking a deep swallow as about two minutes later there came a quiet knock at the door. On a curse he heard Nick’s dress shoes clicking across his wood floors. Then he heard the door open and close once more. X began counting, had only gotten to five when Nick and Rome walked into the kitchen.
    “What the hell’s going on?” Rome asked first.
    Nick was shaking his head. “More important, where the hell is my