The Intelligence Unit Series
The Guardian Chapter 20

Delia replayed Matteo's words in her head for the ten thousandth time, and for the ten thousandth time, they didn't compute. She'd managed to robot her way through her shower/get ready routine, taking only the briefest of breaks to empty the contents of her stomach (once), cry (twice), and email the head of HR to let him know she wasn't feeling well and wouldn't be in this morning (not a lie). She and Peyton had never been particularly close, and yes, her alleged but still pretty obvious involvement with the money laundering operation that had landed Delia in the hospital had put a damper on Delia's opinion of the woman. But still. Peyton had been her boss. Someone she'd known well. Talked to nearly every work day. And now she was dead? As in, no growing old, no "I'll do that tomorrow", no more laughing or eating or breathing ever again, dead.

Delia's brain refused to process it.

"Could you tell me again, please?" she asked Matteo from the passenger seat in his car, and God, had they really been sitting here an hour and a half ago, talking and laughing as if everything would be okay? "I'm sorry, it's just...I'm having trouble...you know..." "Processing. I know. It's normal," Matteo said. He took another minute to maneuver through traffic before continuing with, "We're still piecing things together, but what we know right now is that Peyton got home last night at about eight. The doorman at the Metropolitan confirmed her arrival. This morning at seven thirty, her cleaning lady let herself into the apartment to work and found Peyton unresponsive in bed, with half a liter of Grey Goose and two empty prescription bottles-Xanax and Oxycodone-on the bedside table. Paramedics said she'd likely been gone for a few hours at that point, but we have to wait for the M.E. to confirm time and cause of death."

"So, what?" Delia's stomach knotted. "You think she overdosed?"

Matteo shook his head and parked the Charger outside the Thirty-Third precinct. "I don't know what to think yet, but it is possible. Her social media shows a lot of pictures of her out at nightclubs. She may have had a drug problem we don't know about." Delia thought about all those Monday mornings when Peyton had come to work on the later side of morning, designer sunglasses in place and twelve-dollar detox smoothie in-hand. Still... "But you don't think that's what happened." "I don't," Matteo agreed.

"You think she was"-Delia swallowed. Made herself say it-"murdered."

His stare glinted in the bright sunlight filling the car. "I think it's possible. But here's what I know. I'm going to keep you safe, Delia. Nothing's going to happen to you. Not on my watch."

"Okay," she whispered, relief unfolding in her chest for the first time since he'd gotten that phone call. If Matteo said he'd keep her safe, she believed him. "I guess we should go in."

They made their way to the precinct, then through security, with relative ease. The rest of the Intelligence Unit was already gathered in the main office space, and Isabella looked up from her desk as soon as Delia and Matteo walked through the door. "Hey. Heard you had a bit of a scare this morning," she said to Delia, the concern in her eyes obvious. "You okay?"

God, had all that weirdness with her door and her things being moved been this morning, too? "Yeah. I left my cat with my neighbor, Mrs. Wong. Told her my apartment was being fumigated." It had been better than chancing Al's safety, even though she'd also booked a locksmith for the first available appointment today.

"Good," Maxwell said. "We'll work that as the cover story when we send the crime scene techs to your place. We'll have to let the management company know who we are. Disclosure, and all. But it's better not to freak out the tenants, if at all possible."

Delia nodded. Matteo had told her the likelihood of a crime scene unit needing to go over her place was pretty high, even though he'd also indicated that he doubted they'd replace a damn thing. Nicky Bianchi was hardly an amateur. But whoever he'd gotten to break in and poke around might've left behind some tiny clue by accident, and right now, they needed anything they could get.

"Did we get anything else on Peyton?" Matteo asked, and Hollister shook his head.

"The timing is for shit. Tara had just okayed the arrest warrant. The M.E. is running a full tox screen with the autopsy. We're pulling footage from the Metropolitan, but-"

"That'll probably end up under my jurisdiction."

Delia turned toward the owner of the unfamiliar voice coming from the back of the room. The man, who was in his early to mid-thirties with dark brown skin, a face that belonged on the cover of GQ, and a highly fit body beneath his light blue button-down shirt and black dress pants, stood beside Sergeant Sinclair.

"Special Agent Kai Roman," the man said with a polite smile, and seriously, was there not one average-looking or out-of-shape cop anywhere in a ten-mile radius?

"Well, that didn't take long," Matteo said so quietly that Delia was sure no one could hear it but her.

Yet still, the agent said, "I'm sure you're not thrilled to see me. I get it. You've all clearly put a lot into this case already, and you don't want some FBI douchebag coming in to mess things up."

"Special Agent Roman-" Sinclair interrupted, but Agent Roman interrupted right back, sending everyone's eyebrows sky-high.

"We can drop the formality since I'm sure we're all about to become great friends. Roman's fine," he said. "Look, Sergeant, your unit has a great reputation. My unit has a great reputation. My boss wants to nail Bianchi, same as you, and all I really want is to do my job and make her happy."

"Peterson's not your boss?" Matteo asked, clearly surprised, and Sinclair shook his head.

"Special Agent Roman is from the FBI's fraud division."

Delia didn't know what that meant, but Sinclair's irritation was on full display, and she could tell from the tiny changes in each of the detectives' expressions that this Roman guy not being connected to their usual FBI contact wasn't what they'd expected. Not one to hold back, especially now that-oh, hi-her boss was down at the city morgue awaiting an autopsy and the man who had likely killed her might've also been inside Delia's apartment, she said, "Okay, can someone help me understand what's happening, here? Because today has been a lot, and it's not even ten o'clock yet."

Matteo was the first to nod. "We're going to look at everything we can replace to figure out what happened to Peyton, and we're going to keep digging to replace something definitive that ties her, and these crimes, to Bianchi."

Capelli pulled the case board up on the array for all of them to examine, and Roman's stare darted from Delia to Sinclair. "It's not exactly protocol for a witness to be this involved in an investigation. Especially for a case of this magnitude." Delia blinked, but of course, that made sense. "I don't-"

"She stays," Matteo said, both Maxwell and Isabella nodding their agreement.

"Delia's been instrumental in helping us with this investigation," Sinclair said, watching Roman very carefully as he spoke. "In fact, she's the one who brought the original discrepancies to our attention, so without her, there would be no case. She's been this involved from the beginning, and it's gotten us where we are. I'm not inclined to change tactics now...unless you have a problem with that?"

Roman waited out the staring contest for about two-point-two seconds before giving up a stiff shrug. "It's your show, Sergeant. But now that we're on the topic of Ms. Sutton, here, I'd like to ask a few questions about yesterday."

A few beats of silence passed before Delia realized that both he and the rest of the team were waiting for her permission. "Oh. Um, sure."

"You saw Peyton and Bianchi when you left work yesterday, right?" At her nod, Roman added, "Can you walk me through what you saw, exactly?"

Delia fought back the shiver threatening to work its way up her spine. "I guess." She recounted the argument between Peyton and Nicky, the shiver winning out as she thought of the look on his face as his eyes met hers in that fleeting second before he'd run off after Peyton.

"That argument could be a pretty strong motive," Isabella said, and Roman tilted his head in thought.

"In theory, sure. But our only proof of that argument is Delia's word that it happened."

Delia was too stunned to get a protest past her lips. But it turned out just fine, because Matteo was lightning-fast on the draw. "She took photos," he said, crossing his arms over the front of his T-shirt in a great, big, non-verbal screw you.

"No joy, Detective," Roman said, turning toward Capelli, who gave up an apologetic frown.

"We tried, but our techs couldn't get anything definitive from the pictures you took, Delia." He gestured to his screen, and damn it. There was nothing but image after blurry image of a man with his back turned or his face caught in shadow. "There's nothing clear enough for an ID, and definitely not enough for facial recognition software."

Matteo cursed. "Fine. What about security cameras in the stairwell? We can pull the feed from those."

This time, it was Maxwell who looked contrite. "We did, but neither Bianchi nor Peyton are anywhere on the footage."

"What?" Shock smacked into Delia from all sides. "But that's impossible. They were both there." For God's sake, she'd seen them right in front of her!

Capelli clicked through a few screens to pull up a black and white video feed. "Unfortunately, Maxwell's right. All we have is Delia in the stairwell at 5:56 p.m., then nothing until Garza comes through eight minutes later."

He sped up the time lapse, but still, the footage was crystal clear.

"Jesus. Bianchi had the footage altered?" Matteo asked, incredulous.

"Or he was never there," Roman countered, and before Matteo could launch the less than cordial response his body language said he was brewing up, Isabella spoke.

"Listen, Roman. I get that you're not part of the team. You don't know us, so you don't trust our work. That makes sense." She stepped around her desk, moving closer to the spot where Delia stood beside Matteo, right in the center of the room. "But Delia put her job on the line when she came to us with this case, and she risked a whole lot more than that yesterday when she helped us access Peyton's laptop. So how about we all put our penises aside, just for a sec"-she paused to look at both Roman and Matteo, here-"and work this case like professionals so we can figure out how to take Bianchi down, yeah?"

Roman and Matteo scowled, but both nodded slowly, and Delia's girl crush on Isabella was complete.

"I'm not trying to point fingers at you, Ms. Sutton," Roman half-grumbled. "It's just SOP to look at every angle, and you have to admit, it's a lot of trouble to go to just for a little footage of him in a stairwell."

"Not if he was in that stairwell with Peyton, and their argument started there, then snowballed into murder," Matteo said. "Plus, our case against her can become a case against him if we can prove they know each other."

Roman's slow nod translated to that's true. "Still. Bianchi has a good thing going with Peyton moving all that money around for him. He'd need a hell of a good reason to kill her. Not saying he didn't," he added. "We all know what the guy is capable of. But why risk the heat? And why now?"

They were, Delia had to admit, good questions.

"He's clearly been able to slide under the radar, so far," Hale said, taking a draw from a hot pink coffee mug emblazoned with the claim I Sweat Glitter. "I know he's cautious, but he's also smart. So far, this looks like an overdose."

Hollister took up where she left off. "Or a suicide. You think she knew we were on to her?" "Maybe," Maxwell said, but nope. No way.

Delia said, "Peyton might've done a lot of things to avoid prison, but killing herself isn't one of them. Her ego would never let her get that far. She'd have turned on Nicky first. Even if it was dangerous."

"Agreed," Matteo said, punctuating the word with a frown. "But it leaves the door open for reasonable doubt. If Bianchi knew we were on to him and Peyton, he might be trying to push the whole thing off on her. She got caught embezzling, knew she'd get busted, killed herself before we came to scoop her up for it. Easy. Done."

"It's easier than risking her turning on him," Sinclair said. "But, like Roman said, he was bringing in a lot of money with Peyton as a partner. Money he hadn't been able to get his hands on until now. Killing her eliminates the access she provided to those accounts." Roman shook his head, leaning against Maxwell's desk. "Not necessarily."

It took Delia a second to follow his train of thought, but then... "You really think Kent is in on this?" Embezzling was one thing. She'd had to admit there was at least a statistical possibility that Kent was stealing from his own company. But murder? No way. "I think it's possible," Roman said. "Bianchi's a businessman. He wouldn't kill Peyton if he didn't have one hell of a backup plan."

Hale looked at the images of Peyton and Kent on Capelli's screen, brows tugged downward in thought. "What about a third option? Someone outside the company who could be bought. A government official, maybe? Someone smart, with access to the technology that would keep him under the radar and still let him into those accounts."

"Like a Federal agent," Matteo said.

To his credit, Roman didn't flinch. "You want to waste time digging in to me and my team, be my guest. I'll be over here chasing real leads. Can we get a warrant for Cromwell's laptop?" "Probably," Sinclair said. "But in light of the fact that his CFO was just found dead and possibly murdered, not to mention skimming money from his company, he might just cooperate."

Doubt crowded Delia's chest. "He might not, though. He's very protective of our clients' privacy. I mean, we're an acquisitions and mergers company. We have access to all of their financials, right down to the last dime." Maxwell shrugged his massive shoulders. "It probably won't matter. Either he's innocent, in which case we'll get nothing from his laptop anyway, or he's not, in which case he's not dumb enough to leave any evidence on it."

"What about Peyton's?" Delia asked. "I mean, now that she's..." Not thinking about it. Counting by multiples of seven and totally not thinking about it. "Can't you get her laptop now as, like, part of the investigation?"

Apparently, Sinclair was two steps ahead of her. "Her apartment has been sealed off while the crime scene unit goes over it. If the laptop is there, they'll process it. But just to be on the safe side, Isabella, why don't you and Hollister head over there. I want a canvass of the neighbors, anyway. See if anyone saw or heard anything unusual."

"You got it, boss," Isabella said, flashing Matteo a look that Delia couldn't decipher as she and Hollister headed for the door.

"Roman, you wanted that footage of the Metropolitan's security cams from the lobby." Sinclair waited until the agent lifted his chin in a nod. "It's all yours. Let's see if we can replace anyone who might've gone to Peyton's apartment, either before or after she got home last night. Capelli, put the footage from the garage under a microscope to see if it's been altered, and check to see if there's another set of cameras that might've caught Bianchi and Peyton together. Maxwell"-he turned toward the detective-"you and Hale go tell Kent about Peyton. I want a direct read on his reaction. And ask about his laptop while you're there. We might get lucky."

"Copy that," Maxwell said, grunting a curse as Hale swiped the keys to their unmarked vehicle before he could get his hands on them.

Delia didn't catch Sinclair's serious stare until it had already pinned her into place, full-force. "And you two. In my office." He shifted his stare to Matteo, where it only gained steam.

"Right now."

***

In hindsight,Garza should've known this was coming. He worked with some of the most highly trained detectives in Remington, and they were led by a man with decades of experience in reading every nuance of any given situation. But now that he sat in one of the two chairs across from Sinclair's desk with Delia beside him like they'd both been sent to the principal's office for skipping school, reality was all sorts of up in his face.

She was in danger. He cared about her.

He needed to keep her safe, no matter what Sinclair was about to say or do.

True to form, the man got right to it. "I'm not going to beat around the bush, here. It's obvious you two have a personal relationship outside of this case."

Garza couldn't deny it, and even if he could, he wouldn't. "We didn't act on it until after Delia was done helping us gather intel," he said, because that, Sinclair needed to know. Working with her as an informant had been on the up and up. "Anyway, it won't affect how I do the job now." Sinclair scoffed. "I see you haven't learned much from your unit-mates."

The reminder that both Isabella and Kellan and Capelli and Shae had started their relationships during active cases tagged Garza right in the sternum, but still, he shook his head.

"Delia's in danger, and Bianchi's behind this. I'm not standing down."

"You don't get to make that call," Sinclair said, each word covered in frost.

"Do I get a say?"

Delia's voice, both soft and calm, brought the argument skidding to a halt. "Sergeant, I mean no disrespect. I know everyone in the unit will do all they can to catch Nicky. But this is my well-being we're talking about. If I get to choose who I feel safest with, it's Matteo. No question. That's not because he and I have a personal relationship-which, yes, we do." She didn't blink. Didn't budge, and Christ, Garza felt things for her he couldn't explain. "I feel safe with him because he's that dedicated, to both the job and this case. He's a great cop. Shouldn't that be what matters, here?"

Thankfully, Sinclair took a minute to digest what she'd said, because, holy f**k, Garza's brain had pretty much shorted out from shock.

"Talk to me about this morning," Sinclair finally said. Garza bounced back long enough to give him the bullet, with Delia nodding her agreement at the facts.

"I'm telling you, something's off, here," Garza said. "Why would Bianchi break in only to move a few things around and mess with Al? It doesn't make sense."

Sinclair shook his head. "I don't know. But considering that Bianchi saw Delia yesterday in that parking garage, and the fact that Peyton's death may well have been murder, I'm through taking chances." He looked at Delia. "I'd like to put you into protective custody for the time being."

Her pretty green eyes flew wide with surprise that Garza should've prepared her for, and shit. "It's the safest play," he said as the "what?" whispered past her lips. "He was in your apartment, Delia. It's not safe for you there. Not until we can get to the bottom of this." "Okay," she said after a beat, although, damn it, her voice still trembled. "I trust you both, but...how does that even work?"

Sinclair replied, "We secure a safe location, where you'll stay under our protection until we replace enough evidence to charge Bianchi. It's impossible to say how long that will be. We obviously want it to be for as little time as possible, but your safety is our first priority."

"What about work? My dad? Camila? What do I tell them?"

"We'll have to be careful, since Kent could still potentially be involved," Garza said. "But we'd come up with a cover story. Your dad is in Puerto Rico for another couple of weeks, right?"

She nodded, and thankfully, Sinclair caught on quick. "You can tell Kent and Camila that he had an emergency-nothing life threatening, but enough that you've got to go to Puerto Rico to be with him for a little while. Then, tell him you're stuck on a huge work project and you'll probably be hard to get a hold of."

"I guess that part is technically true," Delia murmured.

Garza's gut tugged in unease, but he had to tell her the rest. "You'll have to turn off your phone and laptop and leave them behind. We have to take you off the grid entirely to keep Bianchi from replaceing you."

"Okay, but what if there is an emergency with my dad?" she asked, then paled. "You don't think Bianchi would-"

"No." Garza stopped her thought before she got it all the way out. "He's got a lot of power in Remington, and even enough to be dangerous on the East Coast. But another country? No way. Your father's safe in Puerto Rico."

"We'll have Capelli keep tabs on him, just to be one hundred percent sure and give you peace of mind," Sinclair added. "I'll call WITSEC. They should be able to get you settled by lunch."

Annnnd just like that, they were back in f**k no territory. "She stays with me," Garza said. Yeah, he knew he was pushing nine kinds of boundaries with his boss, who-spoiler alert-could not only demote him, but probably kick his a*s from here to North Point without breaking a sweat. But Delia had already been assaulted once, and he hadn't listened to her fast enough then. She was scared, rightfully so, and Garza wouldn't leave her. He'd be her guardian, no matter what. "We have WITSEC at our disposal now that Roman's on board," Sinclair said, but if anything, Garza stood firmer.

"Right, Roman. The guy we don't know, from the agency we don't want to work with." Plus, the guy was a self-righteous d**k weasel, but Garza knew saying so wouldn't earn him any points. "Sorry, boss. I don't trust him." "Those are pretty bold words from a detective who never steps out of line."

Whether it was the fear that Sinclair might tell him no or the fact that Delia was in such grave danger to begin with, Garza didn't know. But something pushed the words right out of his mouth and into reality.

"I don't want to step out of line. I want to do my job, and right now, that means nothing more than keeping Delia safe. So I don't care if you need to put me on her security detail, or clear me with WITSEC, or whatever it takes to make that happen. But I'm not trusting her safety to anyone else. I'm not leaving her."

Roughly a hundred years passed before Sinclair tilted his head and said, "Okay."

Delia blinked. "Okay? As in..."

"As in, Detective Garza is a damned good cop, and when he's got his mind set on something, he does it. If he's determined to stay with you and you agree that's what you want, I'm not inclined to argue."

Garza exhaled, and huh, guess he'd been holding his breath. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet," Sinclair said. "You can stay with Delia in the safe house, but you'll be there in an unofficial capacity."

Garza's pulse ratcheted in his veins. "You're taking me off the case?"

"On paper," Sinclair clarified. "You'll stay with Delia as her primary security detail, and Maxwell, Hale, Hollister, and Roman will rotate as backup. We'll work the case from this end and keep you updated, but if you want to stay with her, it'll have to be for the duration. You're either in or you're out."

Shaking her head, Delia looked at him. "Matteo, you don't have to-"

"I'm in," he said.

A whole lot farther than he'd thought.