on Christmas Eve. “This building is supposedly more secure than the Cattleman’s Bank. So how did someone get into my office and put this here without anyone seeing the perp, or capturing the intrusion on one of my cameras?”
Trip Jones, the big guy with the electronics scanner, rose and circled the desk, with David Damiani, the GSS security chief, right behind him. “I can’t see anything that’s been tampered with on this end, Captain. There’s no indication on the key cards that anyone other than Mr. Gallagher has entered this office in the last twenty-four hours. If there’s no record of a break-in to leave the present, then the perp found another way in and covered his tracks.”
Officer Murdock climbed down from the file cabinet where she’d been inspecting the other camera. “There’s no indication that either of these cameras has been compromised.”
Trip nodded. “Then the tampering must have occurred at the monitor end of things. Digital recordings can be altered as easily as a videotape.”
David Damiani’s team had already determined as much. “That means you’re accusing one of my people of delivering that threat.”
“No one’s accusing anyone of anything.” Michael Cutler coolly defused the growing tension between the two security forces. “Yet. Let’s just get all the intel we can first. Arm ourselves as best we can so we know what we’re up against.”
“Sounds like a smart strategy,” Quinn agreed. He nodded to David. “Check it out.”
“Quinn.” David Damiani was right to protest. GSS wasn’t a billion-dollar corporation because it gave away its secrets to outsiders. “There’s classified equipment in my offices.”
Michael Cutler refused to back down. “You’re obstructing a police investigation?”
“He’s obstructing nothing,” Quinn countermanded. When the threat involved his three-year-old daughter, nothing else mattered. “David, go with him. Give Trip full access. Maybe between the two of you, you can spot something your guards missed.”
“Yes, sir.”
While Quinn impatiently waited for the info that could give him the answers he needed, his gaze strayed once again to the woman with the flak vest, Glock strapped to her right thigh and sniper’s rifle secured over her shoulder. She was over at the windows now, trailing her fingers along the chrome trim.
Louis Nolan had followed her to the windows, his bushy silver brows knitted together with the same perplexed interest plaguing Quinn. “They’d have to rappel from the roof and cut a hole in the glass to get through that way.”
She nodded, studying the seam of the window from top to bottom. “It could be done. I could do it.”
“Unless you had a fear of heights,” Louis teased.
“Fortunately, I don’t.”
“I’ll bet you don’t fear much, do you, darlin’?”
The blonde officer’s cheeks flushed a delicate shade of pink. Carrying numerous deadly weapons and crawling across his furniture didn’t fluster her, but a darlin’ from a good ol’ Texas charmer did?
Quinn stopped the conversation. This wasn’t the time for Louis’s flirting. Or his own scientific observations. “I think we’d see the evidence if someone had come through the window. Beyond the fact that it’s tempered, shatterproof glass and the condensation outside from the freezing temperatures would make any kind of traction for your climber almost impossible, there’s no way to replace that specific kind of window overnight.”
She turned her wide green eyes from Louis, seeming to understand his facts better than his COO’s flirting. “Is there another exit to the roof besides the stairwell next to the elevators? Anything with direct access to your office?”
“No.”
She tipped her chin up toward the ceiling “What kind of duct work do you have running up there?”
Officer Murdock was definitely an odd sort of woman, certainly nothing like the polished beauty of his executive assistant, Elise, or any of the other poised and tailored belles he escorted to society events. “Standard issue, I suppose. Although the access panels do have sensors to monitor whenever one opens or closes.”
Michael Cutler seemed to think she was onto something. He looked up at the air-return grate over Quinn’s desk. “Murdock. Call Taylor down and scout it out. Looks like there’s more than one way to get into your office, Quinn. The right perp could even lower the package through that grate without ever setting foot in here.”
The bothersome blonde paused by the desk on her way out the door. “Couldn’t the break-in be something more simple? Like, someone you know—someone who wouldn’t raise any suspicions if they were caught on camera walking into your office?”
Quinn bristled at the accusation. “The people who work at GSS are family to me. I surround myself with people I trust without question.”
“Well, that’s a problem, then, isn’t it?” She flipped her ponytail behind her back, looking up at him with an earnest warning. “You may be trusting the wrong guy.”
“Randy, go.”
Her captain’s brusque command finally moved her out of the room. “Sorry. Climbing into the rafters now, sir.”
Apparently, Louis’s interest in waiting for answers on the break-in—or for the promised text message—waned once she’d left the room. “I’ll be in my office if you need me,” he excused himself, “and do call as soon as you find out anything.”
“Randy?” Quinn asked after they’d both gone and he was alone in the office with Michael.
“Miranda Murdock.” The police captain shook his head, as if Quinn’s wasn’t the first curious reaction the SWAT sharpshooter had garnered from the people she met. “Believe me, what she lacks in tact, she makes up for in sheer determination. There’s not a task I’ve given her yet that she hasn’t accomplished.”
“Other than successful public relations.”
“She’s raw talent. Maybe a little too eager to get the job done at times. She matched the highest score for sharpshooting on the KCPD training range.”
“You have faith in her.”
“She wouldn’t be on my team if I didn’t.”
“Quinn?” The familiar knock at his door told Quinn that his assistant, Elise, had an important message for him.
“What is it?”
Elise tucked her dark hair behind one ear, hesitating as she walked into the room. Quinn braced for whatever unpleasant bit of news she had to share. “The current nanny has gotten wind of the threat against Fiona and wants to quit.”
He adjusted his glasses at his temple, snapping before he could contain a flash of temper. “I’m having a Mary Poppins moment here. How many nannies do I have to go through to get one who’ll stay?”
“She’s afraid, Quinn.”
“There’s a guard with
