Page 81 of Shadow Burn

“We’ll transport the Vance materials under federal evidence protocol. You’ll ride with Agent Ramos and me to the airport. Your statement will continue in Langley tomorrow morning.”

Jasper’s jaw tightened before he could stop it.

Katherine didn’t look at him. “Understood.”

Porter’s gaze flicked briefly toward Jasper, as if she’d felt his objection from across the room. She probably had. “Mr. Perault, Shadow Point’s cooperation has been noted. Your footage, chain-of-custody logs, and assistance in preserving the Vance papers will be included in the investigative file.”

“Noted by whom?” he asked.

One corner of Porter’s mouth twitched. “The people currently deciding how many careers this case ends.”

“Upton?”

Her expression cooled. “Associate Deputy Director Richard Upton has been placed on administrative leave pending a formal investigation. His access has been suspended. That’s all I’m authorized to say.”

“That isn’t enough.”

“And that isn’t your jurisdiction. Your video statement has been logged. If we need further assistance or clarification, we’ll be in touch.”

Katherine finally looked at Jasper, and the warning in her eyes was gentle but clear. Don’t pick a fight with the one federal agent who is actually helping us.

Fine. He could delay that particular fight.

Porter nodded to her team. “Five minutes.”

The agents carried the evidence cases out of Jasper’s office, leaving the room strangely bare and too quiet. The way it had been before Katherine Townsend had blown into his life.

The Vance boxes had occupied the wall for days, turning his workspace into Katherine’s archive, and now the absence of them seemed louder than their presence had. The coffee table still held one of her pencils. A yellow sticky note with her handwriting hung from under one of his monitors. Priss’s gray hair decorated the corner of his chair like a tiny declaration of ownership.

Katherine stood in the middle of the room, her injured wrist tucked against her body.

Jasper closed the office door. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

The silence hurt more than the wound in his arm, which had settled into an annoying pull beneath the bandage every time he moved wrong. Katherine had patched him up twice since the gate shooting. Once while trembling. Once while scolding him for not resting it. He’d let her because it gave her something to do with her fear, and because having her hands on him had become a thing he wanted too much.

Now she was leaving.

“You don’t have to go today,” he said.

Her expression softened in a way that made it worse. “I do.”

“Porter can take the papers. You can give a deposition remotely.”

“Not for this.” She glanced toward the door, where the evidence cases had disappeared. “The Vance papers are entering federal custody because of what I found, what I decoded, and what happened here. I have to testify to the chain. I have to explain the cipher. I have to sit in the room and make sure they don’t turn this into another administrative fog bank.”

“They’ll try.”

“I know.” She stepped closer. “This is my job, Jasper.”

He hated the pride in her voice almost as much as he loved it.

Love. Not attraction. Not protectiveness. Not the adrenaline aftermath of bullets and blood and fear. Those things had been there, but this was older than the kiss, deeper than the past few nights they’d spent in each other’s arms, sharper than the fear of watching her run toward danger.

This was him watching her stand in his office with a sprained wrist and a federal investigation waiting, determined to walk back into the institution that had nearly gotten her killed because truth mattered more to her than comfort.

He loved her, and she was leaving. “You might still be in danger,” he said.

“The immediate threat is contained. Upton’s access has been suspended. Cinder is in custody. Corrigan is missing but most likely dead. Even if he’s still alive, his role in all of this has been exposed. His name and face are all over the news. He can’t move without someone reporting him to law enforcement. Porter’s team will have me in federal protection while I’m in transit and until after the investigation is finished.”