Free Stolen by Allison Brennan Page B

forget if he wanted.
    “Noah came to me with an off-book investigation—”
    Sean couldn’t help but smile. “Noah, I’m impressed.” When Noah looked at him quizzically, Sean added, “You aren’t usually one for breaking the rules. There’s hope for you yet.”
    Noah scowled, but Rick almost cracked a smile. The assistant director continued, “I listened to his suspicions, and because I had additional information regarding the suspect, I decided we had more than enough to warrant an investigation. But the problem is information channels. The investigation needs to be quiet.”
    “Meaning you’re investigating someone internally and you don’t want them to find out. Got it. But don’t you guys have a federal IA or something?”
    “I decided to keep this completely out of our system. The director approved my operating plan, and he and Dr. Hans Vigo are the only other people who know who we’re investigating and why. The director has given me blanket authority to run it as I see fit.”
    “Don’t keep me in suspense.”
    “We’re looking at two people, one we know and a mole in the FBI that we’ve narrowed down to someone in the New York City regional office.” He paused. “We’re investigating Senator Jonathan Paxton.”
    Sean almost laughed. “It’s about time.”
    Paxton was someone Sean would love to make disappear, if he did those kinds of things.
    Rick motioned for Noah to explain. “Last January, after we arrested Fran Buckley, a white-collar and cybercrime task force was created who went through all the records of her organization, Women and Children First. She claimed during her plea agreement that all activities were funded through legitimate contributions made by law-abiding citizens who wanted to help stop violent crime—that none of their donors knew what they were doing with the money. There were enough legal successes with their program that everyone was deceived until Lucy found the connection to the vigilante ring.
    “There’s nothing in the financial records that screams murder for hire. But I interviewed Senator Paxton because he was the de facto head of WCF and he had been raising money for them around the country. I got the feeling that he was holding back. He was definitely angry, but it didn’t seem directed at Buckley. I started looking into some of the donors who had given to both Paxton’s senatorial campaign and WCF and realized that many had lost a loved one to violence. The donations were all across the board, from a hundred dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. I don’t think that any of the donors hired WCF to specifically target a killer, but I suspected that Paxton had his own hit list, created from people he’d met—people he might have bonded with because they shared a tragedy.”
    Sean didn’t say a word. Noah was very close to the truth, but Sean had never been able to prove it. Knowing someone was guilty and having the evidence to prove it in a court of law were very different. And while Lucy had cut ties with Paxton, she had suspected he’d been involved as well. Had Noah talked to her? Had she fueled these suspicions?
    Noah was watching Sean closely, and Sean kept his face as blank as possible, though talking about Paxton angered him.
    “But I couldn’t find anything substantive,” Noah said. “I put my suspicions aside until the senator put himself in the middle of the Wendy James investigation.”
    Sean knew far more about that investigation than Noah thought he did, so he kept to the minimal facts. “Lucy said he was the one who turned the photos of Wendy and the congressman over to the media.”
    “He started the ball rolling, though I think he was far more involved in manipulating events. I don’t have a good grasp on his psychology, but Hans is writing up a profile for me.”
    “I can tell you exactly who Paxton is,” Sean said. “He’s a narcissist with a god complex.” He almost said more but cut himself off.
    Rick said,