The King of Fear by Drew Chapman Page A

had—but the two of them were connected. Emotionally connected. And she could not ignore that. Not yet, at least.
    She walked downstairs and through a hallway to the parking garage. Thedrive to DIA headquarters was ten minutes, and barring traffic, she’d be there at eight sharp, as she always was. Alexis liked order and predictability. She punched the unlock button on her car-key fob and smiled at the reassuring chirp of her Honda Accord. She was halfway to her driver’s-side door when a voice rang out.
    â€œAlexis.”
    She practically jumped out of her skin.
    Garrett Reilly stepped out from behind a concrete support beam. He was wearing a gray I ♥ DAYTONA BEACH sweatshirt and jeans, but he had on black wing-tip shoes, as if he’d changed out of most of his clothing from the previous business day, but not all of it. He looked strung out, exhausted, as if he’d aged years since she’d last seen him, not months. She felt a pang of guilt: Had she done that to Garrett? She had recruited him. She had seduced him. Maybe she had broken him as well.
    â€œJesus Christ,” Alexis hissed. “You cannot be here, Garrett. It’s not safe. And how the hell did you get here in the first place?”
    â€œThere’s an attack coming.” He moved closer to her, talking quietly, his eyes dancing back and forth, scanning the empty garage.
    â€œI’d say the attack’s already happened.”
    â€œThat’s just the beginning. Tip of the spear.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou heard me,” Garrett said much too loudly for Alexis’s comfort. “It’s part of a pattern.”
    â€œOkay, okay,” she said, trying to stay calm. Her eyes flashed across the garage as well. She guessed that the FBI had not put her under surveillance, but that was just a guess. “Tell me about it. But quietly. And fast.”
    â€œI’ve found an investment pool that’s tied to illegal activity.”
    â€œExplain.”
    â€œA fund. A secret fund. Pretty big—a couple of billion dollars. It only trades in dark pools—”
    â€œDark pools?”
    â€œInvisible exchanges where investors buy and sell stock out of the mainstream. So no one knows they are doing it. Thirty percent of the stocks traded in the US right now are done outside of the major exchanges.”
    â€œThat’s legal?”
    â€œIt’s finance. Legal is a secondary concept.”
    â€œOkay,” she said. “What’s the name of the fund? Who runs it?”
    â€œI don’t know. I can’t even prove definitively that it exists.”
    Alexis crossed her arms. In the distance, thunder rumbled. Or perhaps it was just a truck lumbering across the city. She studied Garrett. His skin was pale, his eyes were lined with red, as if he hadn’t slept well in a long time. Alexis could feel the anxiety radiating off his body, as if his paranoia were a physical thing, a second skin that enveloped him. Some part of her wanted to wrap him up in her arms, put him to bed, let him sleep for a week.
    Another part of her wanted to run screaming for safety.
    â€œDon’t worry,” Garrett said, as if reading her mind. “Mitty drove me. And we stayed off the highways. We watched for cop cars. No one followed us.”
    If Alexis were caught with Garrett Reilly, not only would her career be over, but her life would be as well. Kline had already warned her once. She was breaking any number of federal laws, consorting with a suspect in a capital murder case, and now the proof of her complicity was standing in her garage.
    â€œWhy do you think this fund exists?” she asked, trying to keep Garrett’s eyes on hers.
    â€œI can see ripple effects. When it sells equities and derivatives. Little variations in price that don’t make sense on the open exchanges. Repeated patterns—”
    â€œPatterns.”
    â€œWhat you pay me to find.”
    â€œ Paid