Then he thought of Gabi Deshpande, whose blood was on his hands, and the other people in quarantine. He had to take the chance for them. He had to trust.

“Allanon,” he said. “Please do a deep search for Black Dog Protective Services.”

Carter raised his eyebrows. “You didn’t just pull that name out of thin air. What is Black Dog?”

“Remember when we were back at the GoBox location in North Vegas? Before I went to use the bathroom, I stole Ty Loria’s wallet, snapped some pictures of the contents, and slipped the wallet back in his jacket before we left.”

“Where did you learn to pick pockets?”

“I grew up in Vegas.”

Nic chuckled. “You’re full of surprises, Dr. Burke. I’ve heard of Black Dog, but from what I know, they’re mostly rent-a-cops with a few former spec ops guys who do protection work for high rollers. Something from the wallet led you to them?”

“Loria had one of their cards. There was a handwritten number on the back.”

“Makes sense. Loria may use them for his private security or covering some of his properties.”

Burke worked on his iPad and said, “Allanon, I just sent you a picture of a keycard that I also pulled out of Loria’s wallet. I’ve tried to do a quick search on the logo, but I didn’t have time to go deep with it.”

Allanon smiled. “Wands are only as powerful as the wizards who use them.”

“Don’t quote Potter at me,” Burke snapped. Allanon frowned, and Burke turned back to the others. “That’s not the only connection I found with Black Dog.”

He pulled a black leather wallet from his jeans and held it out to Carter, who opened it and said, “Where the hell did you pinch this one?”

“I took that from one of the guys with Yoshida who were pretending to be CIA. There’s a Black Dog ID in there, and several business cards for the company.”

Nic ran a hand through his dark hair and sighed. “Yoshida’s using mercs, which means he’s definitely off-the-grid here.”

“Not necessarily,” Carter said. “CIA uses contractors all the time, especially on US soil.”

Nic shook his head. “When were you planning to share this information with us? You didn’t think this could be important.”

“I was waiting for the right time,” Burke said. “I honestly wasn’t sure how you’d react.”

“We need to trust each other, kid.”

“I don’t trust anyone any more than I absolutely have to. The more you trust, the more you let your guard down, the more you get burned.”

“Any other illegal activities we should know about?” Carter asked.

Burke looked at the floor. “Yeah, but I’m pretty sure this one’s a federal offense.”

“What did you do?”

“I noticed that Yoshida was using an Android phone, which was definitely not CIA-issued. So, while Nic and Yoshida were arguing in the vault room, I may have, hypothetically speaking, hacked into his phone and installed some tracking and logging software.”