Page 29 of The B-Team

Sarah squeezed her hand. “The lawyer said Fitzwater appears to have priorities, and Joe isn’t one of them. So why would he want to keep holding him?”

“Then there are Rachel’s friends in high places,” Belinda added. “They can pull some strings to get him out if needed.”

“And if all else fails,” Sarah said with a wicked grin, “I’m sure the ex-spies among us will help smuggle the two of you out of the country and secure you in an exotic location that doesn’t extradite to Britain.”

Belinda squeezed her leg. “Joe isn’t going to prison.” She sounded absolutely convinced.

“And he definitely won’t be in there when this wee one makes its appearance.” Sarah gestured to Julia’s much bigger baby bump. “Just remember to keep breathing, and everything will be okay.”

The nasty tension coiled around Julia’s heart eased somewhat. “I’m so wimpy, carrying on like this. I feel like such a fool.” Her cheeks heated as she voiced her confession.

“I just saw Ryan try to take a bite out of one of those fake apples in your kitchen,” Belinda said. “At least you’re not as bad as that.”

“It looked so real,” Ryan protested. “Who has fake apples these days?”

Julia giggled.

“Are you ready to try this brainstorm?” Sarah asked with a smile.

“Yes,” Julia whispered to the two of them. “Thank you.”

“Anytime.” Sarah squeezed her hand before tossing back the blanket to reveal the room.

The space was back in order. Not only that, but every single thing in the room was now arranged in sets of three or five, including the chairs and the people who sat on them. The chaos was gone.

Julia took a deep breath. “Sorry,” she said, unable to look anyone in the eye.

“Don’t sweat it,” Isobel said. “We all cope differently. You’re no stranger than the rest of us.”

“In fact,” Claire added, “you’re a whole lot more normal than some of us.”

“Amen, sister,” Isobel agreed.

Julia was laughing when she looked up at her friends and family. There was only understanding in their expressions.

Sarah stood beside the whiteboard, pen in hand. “Ready?”

Someone had divided the board into three equal columns. “Ready,” Julia said, feeling so much better.

“Okay.” Sarah turned to the board. “Let’s put down what we know this commander guy is definitely interested in.” She titled the left column “people” and listed Elle, Evan, Callum, and Lake under the heading. Then she moved to the right column and wrote “terrorism and hacking” above that space. When she was done, she tapped the words at the top of the board: fourteen days. “Right. What do all these things have in common?”

“Apart from the commander?” Isobel was working her way through a bag of prawn cocktail crisps as she spoke.

“Actually, that’s a good place to start.” Sarah wrote the commander’s name in the middle column.

“Don’t forget his grudge with Lake,” Ryan called. He stood by the windows, and for once, he wasn’t eating.

Sarah added the grudge to the terrorism column.

Beast sat on one of the three dining chairs to Julia’s left. “I don’t get the timing on this. Why now? This guy’s had a grudge against Lake for years, so why try to take him down now?”

Isobel nodded. “He only just got the commander’s job. Maybe he needed to be in that position to make this happen.”

Sarah added “new job” to the board.

“What was his job before this?” Isobel asked.

Julia pulled her laptop closer and did a quick search. “It says here that he was a local policing commander before moving to his current post. Isn’t that a lateral move rather than a promotion?”