Page 180 of Red Marked

“I agree.” I nod a few times. “That makes complete sense. I think you might be on the right track.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner.” She sits back in the chair. “It’s logical. Veridian had every reason to want this buried. They were making millions off those vaccinations. Tens of millions, Flint.”

“Have you dug into them?”

“Yep, that’s what I did last night, when Veridian Bridge came up empty.” She scrolls through a page of photographs. “I’ve been looking for him. The male I saw the day of the raid. I’ve been through everything I can find on the staff at Veridian Pharmaceuticals. The HR manager was at a fundraiser last year and got photographed holding a glass of champagne. The sales team is all over the place. Conferences, award dinners, golf days.” She scrolls faster. “Their board was on an old website I found. He wasn’t among any of those people I just mentioned. But that’s it. Out of all the staff who worked there, I only found those faces. There’s no full list of employees anywhere. Not that I can find or rustle up. If I had names, I could look into them.”

“It isn’t available to the public, then, which is pretty normal for a big corporate company.”

“You’re right. And it gets worse. Three-quarters of the staff were laid off a year ago when the vaccination scandal broke. Most of Veridian’s income came from those vaccinations, so when that dried up, the company gutted itself. That male shifter I saw might not even work for them anymore.” She makes a face.

“That’s if he worked for them in the first place,” I point out. Star might be chasing her tail on this.

“Exactly.” Her shoulders drop. The fire she gets in her eyes when she’s arguing with me is gone, which I fucking hate.

I find that I want to fix it. I want to make her feel better.

“We have more to go on than we had yesterday,” I tell her. “A lot more. We’re looking for a dark-haired, middle-aged shifter who may have worked at Veridian Pharmaceuticals and who was senior enough to call the shots. We know he isn’t a board member or on the sales team. That narrows the field. I think you’re onto something here, Star.”

“I hope so.” She runs her thumb along the edge of the notepad. “Why did he say Veridian Bridge, though? Why Bridge? I’m beginning to think Holt got it mixed up. He’s been out there for five years. Maybe he got it wrong. Maybe he got the Veridian part wrong too.”

“He seemed very sure. I was there. I heard him.”

It isn’t to blow smoke up her ass, either. Holt was steadfast when he said it.

“I’ll ask Magma to get me a list of everyone on Veridian’s payroll at the time of the raid. The hacker he’s been using should be able to pull it without breaking a sweat. If he worked there, we’ll find him.”

“I hope so.”

Wait.

Hold on a minute.

I get an idea, and I know before I open my mouth that she isn’t going to like it.

“Didn’t you say your ex worked for a pharmaceutical company? In accounts or something?” I watch her face. “Was it Veridian?”

Her eyes narrow and then cloud, but she nods. “Yes. He worked for Veridian in the accounts department.” She says it slowly. “But I don’t know if he still does. I don’t know if he even knew this male.”

“Accounts see everything, Star. Who gets paid, how much, and what for. We’ll see what we can find on our own first.” I keep it matter-of-fact. “But we might need to go and talk to him. He could blow this wide open. He’d have inside intel no hacker is going to find.”

She’s shaking her head before I finish. “No. It’s too risky.”

“Star, we⁠—”

“He can’t know I’m alive.” She stands. “If he accidentally slips up, then I’ve put a target on his back. I’ve spent five years keeping every single person I care about out of this. I’m not going to walk up to Jett’s front door and hand him a reason to get killed. It would be wrong on every level. If something happened to him, I would never forgive myself. If he told my parents…” She looks horrified at the mere thought. Her cheeks have turned pink, and she’s hugging herself.

“Okay,” I say. “Fine. We’ll leave him out of it.”

“Thank you.” She huffs out a breath.

“Let me get that list of staff. Maybe we won’t have to go that route at all.”

“It would have to be an absolute last resort.” She doesn’t sit back down. “And even then…” She shakes her head some more.

“Understood. I get it, I do.”

I pull out my phone and type a message to Magma, telling him I need a full staff list for Veridian Pharmaceuticals, Mistveil City branch, at the time of the vaccination center raid. Names, roles, shifter or human. I tell him it’s urgent and hit send.