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could be; she was adept at covering her tracks. Krause began running through possible scenarios with the young, cocky Brackett at their center. The fact that the she had been responsible for the retrieval of the Cesium he and Alex had been attempting to track down for months concerned him. Tensions of late were higher than the usual off the charts strain embedded within the intelligence complex. It would have been an understatement to say that the situation had become volatile. The protocol that he had established with Brian Fallon was something he had hoped would never be needed. Dealing with Claire Brackett as the fringe operative she appeared was one thing; managing her as an agent whose ties remained secretly and deeply embedded in the agency or NSA could prove to be a nightmare.
    It was clear to Krause that the admiral’s plan to call in his daughter and plant a seed of worry had worked. She ran to someone. It was where she found that someone that now concerned Krause the most. The warehouse in Baltimore had long functioned as Krause’s home base. The facility housed what was once the nerve center of the agency’s most secretive operations. It was comprised of a collection of NSA, CIA, and DOD experts and analysts. It had been The Collaborative’s living room. It was, until this moment, a location he had met with both Brian Fallon and Alex Toles.
    Krause shook his head and groaned. He was anxious to get to Paris and speak with Edmond Callier, and this time he was determined to be unrelenting. It was time for some answers, long overdue answers. He had grown tired of researching The Collaborative’s money trail. That provided clues, many clues, but to date it produced no actionable intelligence. There was one question that was nagging at the back of his mind; was this focus on the money trail deliberate? Had the admiral and Edmond Calliermerely been stalling his efforts with Alex? It left a bitter taste in his mouth. Alex needed to know if Fallon was compromised in any way. He silently cursed the need to disrupt his new partner’s life again and the need to delay his flight overseas temporarily. “Sorry, Alex,” he sighed as he turned the key in the ignition.

Saturday, December 6th
    lex woke up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She felt the space next to her and shifted to Cassidy’s side of the large bed, inhaling the faint scent of her wife’s perfume on the pillow. Cassidy reached the doorway and smiled at the sight before her. Normally, Alex was up well before her wife. On the rare occasions that Cassidy vacated the bed while Alex was sleeping, she often returned to find the agent hugging her pillow tightly. “Miss me?” Cassidy called playfully.
    Alex made no effort to move and mumbled her response, still clinging to the pillow. “Why are you up?”
    Cassidy giggled and made her way into the room with a cup of coffee. “It’s 9:00 a.m.” Cassidy laughed a bit harder as Alex reluctantly pulled herself to a sitting position, holding Cassidy’s pillow to her chest and pouting like an overtired child. “You are going to have to let go of squishy me, if you want this,” Cassidy winked and gently pried the pillow from Alex’s grip, replacing it with a cup of coffee.
    “Squishy you?” Alex asked.
    “Thought I didn’t know about that, huh?” Cassidy raised her brow. Alex suddenly found the contents of the cup in her hand fascinating. Cassidy could not help but laugh. She had gotten up one night after Dylan had come into their room. When she returned, she found Alex cuddled up to her pillow. Listening to Alex mumble, she decided to ask her wife what she was doing. In Alex’s sleep induced haze she had muttered,“cuddling squishy you.” Cassidy kissed Alex’s cheek and whispered in her ear. “I’m not sure how I feel about being called squishy, but I think you are adorable.”
    Alex gave a slightly embarrassed groan and took another sip of her coffee. Cassidy took the opportunity to sprawl