Mentally recoiling at the chance he’d taken by coming here, Daniel fitted the earbuds back into his ears and retraced the route he’d taken. Once back at the generic sedan he hated driving—what he wouldn’t give to slide behind the wheel of his 4x4—he called in an order to Franklin Barbecue, picking it up on the way to the square box he’d called home for the past two weeks. The two-bedroom apartment in the area of Austin known as the Triangle was one of many sprinkled throughout the country that was leased by the government under various guises. Even though his supervisor had registered him for a four-month stay, Daniel had all but convinced himself that he would be out of there within a matter of weeks. A month at the most.

Talk about a misread. If the first four days at Trendsetters had shown him anything, it was that this job would be much harder than he first thought. That’s what he got for being cocky.

Shoving the key in the apartment door’s dead bolt, Daniel shook his head at his own naïveté. He could hear his Marine Corps drill instructor back at basic. So young, dumb, and full of—

“You here already? Thought you were going for a run,” Quentin Romero called from the living room sofa, cutting off Daniel’s train of thought. Sheaves of paper covered the area that wasn’t occupied by the federal agent’s stocky build. A bottle of Powerade looked perilously close to falling off the edge of the cheap Ikea coffee table.

“I cut it short,” Daniel said, rubbing at the goose bumps that had already formed on his arms. Quentin always turned this place into an icebox. “I’ve got two reports I need to file with HQ before the end of the day.”

Filing reports was always a good excuse. It was a requirement of everyone in the field, no matter which government agency you called home. And everyone hated it.

“A call just came in. I need to head down to San Antonio for a couple of days.”

Daniel paused before setting his running shoes in the closet, then turned. “Anything I should be worried about?”

Quentin waved him off. “It’s not related to the Trendsetters case. It’s an old investigation that’s been a pain in my ass.” He huffed out a laugh. “Probably since you were still in high school.”