Chapter 17

Grey had Athena drive, so he could check out Ezra Burns on his cell phone. According to everything he pulled up, the guy looked solid. Strong agency history. Excellent record. Grey knew he was just a suspicious son of a bitch, especially after what happened the night Lucky was killed, but that was how he'd stayed alive for so long. Old habits never changed.

At the hotel, they parked the car at the far end of the parking lot and entered through a side door. They rode up in the elevator in silence, Grey tense in anticipation of trouble. At the door of room 510 he knocked, and Adam opened it at once.

"Come in." He stood aside to let them enter.

Grey didn't know what he'd expected of Ezra Burns, maybe another suit-and-tie guy like Adam Wahlberg. It certainly wasn't the dark-haired man in jeans and a plaid shirt wearing cowboy boots and a deep tan. He had all he could do to restrain himself from some smartass remark.

Burns laughed. "I kind of surprise myself," he joked. "But I just