Page 44 of Dozer

And the truly alarming part is that I'm starting to understand why.

CHAPTER 13

Dozer

I clock the shoes first.

We're three states closer to D.C. than we were that morning, moving through a mid-sized transit station because Hunter's contact has routed us onto a train for the next leg. Fewer cameras on foot traffic than on highways. More bodies to disappear into. More noise and more movement, which means opportunities for someone watching us to lose track of exactly which two people they're supposed to be following.

Kenzi is beside me, laptop bag slung crossbody, one hand wrapped around the strap. She's doing the thing she does in crowded places where her whole demeanor shifts subtly toward alert without ever looking alert, a trick I suspect she learned in the same place I learned mine, by needing it. She's talking about something on the laptop, probably a security flaw she found in the lab's network that I only understood approximately thirty percent of, and I'm listening to about half of it while watching reflections in the glass. I find comfort in her babbling.

Then I see the shoes.

Two men peel away from a support column near the ticket kiosks and start toward us at an angle too direct to be coincidence. Suits, good ones, tailored enough to pass a glance. Federal-issue haircuts. The kind of posture that reads, on the surface, exactly like every real agent I've worked alongside during joint operations. I’ve worked closely with all of the major three letter government agencies and even some the public aren’t aware exist. This isn’t my first rodeo.

There’s one real big problem with the men headed this way. Their shoes are wrong. Real federal agents wear shoes built for standing eight hours a day and running when it matters. The agents I’ve worked with choose shoes for function over anything else. These two wear shoes that have never once been broken in by an actual job. Too new and shiny. The kind somebody buys the same week they buy the suit, because somebody tells them to look the part and nobody tells them the part includes function. The kind of shoes that will pinch their toes and give them blisters within an hour of wearing them.

I don't like it. My body makes the decision before my brain finishes explaining it.

"FBI," the lead one says, badge already coming up, voice pitched for authority in a way that lands wrong. It’s way too rehearsed. The cadence is half a beat off from the dozens of real agents I've stood across from over the years, all of whom have said the exact same word so many times it comes out flat, bored, procedural. This man says it like he practiced it in a mirror.

"We need to speak with you both. Now."

I don't reach for identification. I don't slow down either. "Copy that," I say, easy, unbothered, the tone of a man complying while every part of me not currently performing compliance calculates the exits, the crowd density, the security cameras, the six feet between us and a service corridor that will put a wall between Kenzi and a clean shot.

"Sir, I need you to stop."

"We're stopping."

I grab Kenzi's hand. Her fingers are warm, and for one fraction of a second, they tighten around mine before instinct takes over and I pull her sideways into the crowd instead of toward the men. She doesn't question it, that matters because it means she trusts me. If I’m leading her away from the FBI I must have a reason, and she doesn’t even hesitate to believe in me. We move fast enough that it looks like panic and functions like tactics.

Behind us, the pretense drops in about a second and a half. Feet, moving fast. No more badges, no more scripted authority. Instead, there are two men who have blown their cover, chasing two targets through a station full of witnesses because whoever sent them values speed over subtlety. They’ve given a lot away in a short amount of time. Whoever is behind this doesn’t care as much about witnesses as they do silence. The only people who feel that way, who aren’t scared of being caught, are extremely powerful or extremely rich. In my experience, it’s both.

"Fake?" Kenzi asks, already moving with me.

"Shoes were wrong."

"That's it? Shoes?"

"That's usually it."

"That is the most Dozer answer you've ever given me."

I almost smile. Almost.

We cut through a group of commuters exiting a platform, using the crowd as cover the way I've used crowds to do the same before. We’re not hiding in it, moving through it at an angle that makes following difficult without shoving civilians aside, which even fake federal agents apparently aren't willing to do in front of this many phone cameras.

Kenzi stays with me. I put my hand at the small of her back to guide her through a gap between two slower-moving bodies, and her body shifts beneath my palm, moving exactly where I steer her without breaking stride. No hesitation. No argument. Nothing but trust.

The contact lasts maybe two seconds. My hand is there long enough to register the curve of her waist beneath her jacket, the warmth of her through the fabric, the way she leans into the pressure without seeming to realize she's doing it and the way her breath catches, at exactly the moment my palm settles flat against her spine. My brain has no business noticing any of that right now. I should be in survival mode and survival mode only. It notices anyway. I’m suddenly, absurdly aware of exactly what it is I’m touching.

I pull my hand away as soon as the crowd opens, because apparently there are still some lines between professional judgment and personal stupidity that I know better than to cross. She glances back at me when I do it, like she felt the absence of my hand as clearly as she'd felt its presence. I know I do. I want to return it to the small of her back. I instantly miss the connection between us but remind myself this is a professional job. Like before, my gut and my brain disagree. My gut says it’s so much more. My brain says, don’t be stupid.

We hit the service corridor door. I put my shoulder into it, hard, and it gives onto a maintenance hallway lit by half its fluorescent tubes, narrow enough that the two of us fit through single file.

"Go."

Kenzi goes. I’m proud of how she’s following my directions without hesitation. She’s doing better than some of the men who’ve served under me. My hand finds her back again for half a second as she clears the doorway, then I drop it and fall in behind her, weapon out now that we're off the main concourse and past civilian eyes.