“Was Paul behind the explosion in West Hollywood?”

“That has yet to be determined.”

“Have you bugged Frank’s car?”

“No. We can’t get close enough to do the actual work. We need twenty minutes, minimum, to do it, and it has a car alarm, which is another complication. Every night he parks it in the garage of his home, which is the real estate office. We can’t get to the car, and we don’t want to ask a judge to sign off on a wiretap warrant, because we’re afraid that it will get back to Frank, Kane, or Wolff. We have, however, installed a tracker on Frank’s car.”

“So where was he that night?”

“With his BFF, Sebastian,” Roland said, beaming. “The night of the explosion, they took Sebastian’s car—he drives a Jag—and drove to West Hollywood.”

“To do what?”

Roland tapped his chopsticks against his paper plate. “When you agreed to go undercover, I gave you my word I’d always level with you. So here’s the deal: we’re having what you could call staffing issues. I don’t have to tell you there are a lot of moving parts. The organizational chart we’ve created—it takes up two walls and gets bigger by the day. We’re collecting a lot of information on this Ron Wolff guy, the people who work for him—the list of people keeps growing and growing and we’ve run out of bodies on our end. It’s costing us a pretty penny, this operation, and it keeps getting bigger, along with the government’s tab.”

“And the federal bean counters got their panties in a bunch and are complaining to the top guys.”

“Not just our bean counters, but also the LAPD’s. Remember, this operation is supposed to be a joint expense. What’s happening now is a lot of people on the top of both food chains are arguing about who’s paying for what instead of splitting the tab fifty-fifty, as was agreed. You going to eat that last dumpling?”

“Help yourself,” Ellie replied, distracted. She wasn’t a stranger to bureaucratic infighting—she had dealt with it, albeit on a minor level, as a patrolwoman, and she had heard her fair share of stories around the station about the penny-pinching ways from the desk jockeys whose sole job was playing around with Excel spreadsheets. But this was the first time she had been involved in something that directly affected her—not just her career, but possibly her life.

Roland said, “It’s a minor hiccup, happens all the time.”

Ellie nodded.

“Hey, look at me. You’re our prime asset. I won’t let anything happen to you, okay? Me, the team—we’ve got your back. We watch over our own.”

Ellie wanted to believe him—had to believe him. What other choice did she have?

Roland said, “Let them argue who’s gonna pick up the tab. We’ve got more important matters—like celebrating. Remember the choker Anton took from you?”

“How could I forget?” For weeks Ellie had lived in fear that Anton had taken it apart and discovered it was bugged.