“I haven’t hired her. Not officially, anyway. We still have to meet with her. But she’s the best candidate for the job. So, stop getting your knickers in a twist over nothing.”
Hunter stopped and turned to him, raising his eyebrows. “What the hell has gotten into you lately?”
“What? Because I’m not catering to your hissy fit something has to be wrong with me?”
“Hissy fit?” Hunter half-shouted.
The door to his office suddenly opened, and Cady stormed inside. She shut the door then glared at them both. “What is going on in here? I can hear you out in reception. And if I can hear you so can Mrs. Stepman, who has come in because her son has been missing for five days and nobody is helping her. So you want to tell me what the hell is going on so I can knock some sense into both of you?”
“Hunter objects to us hiring Lacey.”
“Us?” Hunter turned to Cady. “You knew?”
Gray winced. Whoops. Cady sent him a look, and he shrugged apologetically.
“Yes, I knew. We need someone with profiling experience. She has it. She was available. So I sent her information on to Gray. He said to ask her in for an interview, so I did.”
“What?” Hunter placed his hands on his hips and loomed over his small fiancée. “How come she came to you? Have you met her? What happened to hiring that guy with the CIA?”
“She didn’t come to me. No, I haven’t met her, and I called that guy and told him sorry, the position is filled.”
“What made you think you had the right to do all that without speaking to me?”
“She talked to me,” Gray said quietly.
Hunter turned back to him, fury filling his face. Gray sighed. He’d known Hunter was going to blow up after finding out about Lacey. But experienced profilers were few and far between. And that guy from the CIA was a real dick.
“Have you even done a background check? Do we know anything about her?”
“Lacey Andrews. Thirty-five. Graduated high school at sixteen. Has an MA in forensic psychology. Worked as a counselor in state prisons until the FBI recruited her as a profiler. Quit the FBI two months ago and is now looking for a job.”
Gray paused and looked over at Cady who shrugged. “Better tell him all of it.”
“Tell me what?”
“She’s also Travis Andrews’s cousin.”
“What?” Hunter roared. “I’m not having some relative of that bastard work here. What if he’s sent her to spy on us?”
“He’s not sending her to spy on us,” Cady said with exasperation. “And I happen to think he’s a good guy. A straight-shooter.”
“You spoke to him?”
“Yeah . . . well . . .” she glanced over at Gray.
“Don’t look at me for help.”
Gray didn’t have any energy left in him to help anyone. He’d been woken up by his mother at four this morning, in hysterics because his youngest sister hadn’t answered her phone in twenty-four hours and the police wouldn’t go around to her apartment to check on her.
Two hours later, Gray had managed to track Rory down. She’d spent the night at a friend’s house and turned off her phone. Gray wasn’t certain if the friend was male or female and he’d decided there were some things a brother didn’t need to know about his baby sister. Whether or not she was having sex was one of them.
By the time he’d gotten off the phone with Rory then called his mother to reassure her that her youngest baby was fine, and no, she didn’t have to fly out to New York to check on her, and yes, Gray was taking his vitamins and getting enough sleep, Gray had been running late for work.
So, yeah, today he really didn’t have the patience to deal with Hunter’s temper tantrum.
“He called you,” Hunter whispered. “My woman? He called my woman to get around me because he knew damn well I wouldn’t hire his cousin. How come he has to get a job for her, anyway? Can’t she get a job for herself? Did she get fired?”
“She wasn’t fired, she quit,” Gray said tiredly. Although from what he’d heard if she hadn’t quit she’d probably have been not-so-subtly pushed out the door. “But you’re right.”