Layla’s heart sped up. “Please be careful. I don’t want your actions to cause you any harm.”

Bailey held up a hand. “This coming from the woman who sacrificed everything to help me just months ago. Let me see what I can find out.”

“Also, play this out for a moment.” Viv leaned forward. “What if your boss is right and the bombing goes out of the equation? You’ve still felt like someone has been watching you. You can’t dismiss that feeling. Going with your gut is the best option.”

“Yeah, I’d thought about that, too, but I didn’t tell my boss about it, because after he told me I was being put on leave, my antenna went up. He claims it’s not his call, but who knows.”

“What does Scarlett think?” Viv said.

“That I need to be worried and aggressively defend myself in any Agency probe.”

Bailey nodded. “Scarlett’s right. Internal investigations can be career killers. You need to think about anyone on the inside who would want you to take a fall. What dirt do you have on them? Maybe you don’t even realize you have it, but you might know something that could jeopardize them and they decided to take preemptive action to try to sully your reputation.”

Layla groaned as Bailey’s words set off a trigger in her mind. Maybe she had been naïve. Because that was something she hadn’t thought of yet.

“Why the groan?” Bailey asked.

“My actions got a colleague fired over a year ago. What if this is some type of revenge move on his part?”

“I’d say that’s a perfect thing for a PI to look into.”

And Layla knew her friend was right.

Hunter sat at his kitchen table across from Layla. They had a lot to tackle, but from the frown on her lips, he figured she had something to get off of her chest.

“What is it?” He hoped it wasn’t something he had done. He felt like he was walking on eggshells because he didn’t want to upset her. If only she knew just how tangled their past really was, but he’d vowed he wouldn’t go there. Nothing good could come from revisiting the past. He’d made a decision, and he had to live with it every single day.

“I realized something tonight that could add another dimension to my problem,” she finally said.

As if things weren’t already complicated enough. “All right. I’m listening.”

“There was a situation at the Agency last year. I reported some inappropriate behavior by one of my colleagues. He was pocketing cash from an asset and misreporting. I went to the IG about his conduct. He got fired. It’s possible he’s the one who got me investigated.”

“But if he’s on the outside, how did he make that happen?”