Dallas always had a plan. As did I, but I'd always admired the way he could think up a solution faster than me or anyone I knew. That was another factor about him that I found to be sexy, along with his charm and wit, flawless fighting and shooting skills, the way he drove like the freeway was a racetrack... The list went on and on.

When I was younger, when I first started work with the Alpha Reconnaissance Taskforce, I'd always laughed and rolled my eyes when I encountered a woman who practically drooled over an agent who could wield the talents that Dallas had. But that was back before I knew Dallas – back before I learned what it felt like to be one of those awestricken, drooling women. Then again, there were plenty of men fawning over my talents as well, and that in itself was a pretty nice confidence booster.

"There's a half-eaten burrito in this door pocket," Dallas said, scrunching up his nose in disgust.

He was driving us a few miles from the grocery store to the bank. We'd managed to escape the parking lot with some poor unfortunate soul's BMW without being seen, thanks to my carjacking expertise.

I absentmindedly frowned at the memory of writing "grand theft auto" in the skills section of my resume. That's probably not a skill I should be proud of...

I eyed him with amusement. "Second guessing your choice in vehicles to steal?"

"Second guessing the human race's idea of cleanliness." He cringed again.

"Hey, we can't all be little neat freaks like you, Dall."

His brows drew inward and he looked like he didn't know what I was talking about.

"Remember that loft you had in Alexandria?" I reminded him. "I saw your dresser. You had your underwear color coordinated."

"I have a system!" he exclaimed with an almost embarrassed-sounding laugh.

I threw my hand over my heart and feigned surprise with an over-exaggerated gasp. "Dallas David, don't tell me you still do that!"

A loud groan left his lips and he shook his head, an awkward smile splayed across his face. That answered my question.

Nothing else was said between us until we reached the bank. Dallas pulled into the employee parking lot of a hardware store that just happened to be closed until the next day. The lot was behind the building, concealing our stolen car. A row of hedges hid us from view of the bank's security cameras until we could get them shut off.

I turned in my seat to face Dallas. "What's the plan?"

Reaching into the back floorboard, he retrieved a small iPad from his backpack.

"I'm going to hack in and override the system. There's a way I can disarm the alarm and cameras without the security monitoring company being alerted. Shouldn't take me too long. I do this a lot."

He said it like it was nothing as he tapped away at the little screen.

"You do this a lot?" I repeated his words teasingly. "Rob any banks lately, Dallas?"

He shrugged and cocked his head side to side with a sheepish smirk. "Maybe. Who knows."

I admired him out of the corner of my eye while he worked his electronics magic and I kept watch for any enemies lurking. I took note of the way Dallas had parked the car. Our position didn't allow for an easy escape in the event that we encountered a foe. Knowing Dallas, though, I figured he had a plan B up his sleeve, so I didn't bother to mention it to him.

He'd taken his jacket off before getting in the car and I was finding my focus being pulled more towards the alluring art on his arm than keeping an eye out for our adversaries. Fuck, he looked really good in that red shirt.

He looked a hell of a lot better out of it...

"I'm in. It's done." His words jolted me out of my daze.

"What's your plan?"

He slid the iPad back into his bag and started pulling his black jacket on again, his eyes scanning the area around us. Everything seemed on the up and up so far. The hedges were tall enough that we could lean down and sneak over to the bank, staying hidden behind them. No one driving by would see us and the neighboring businesses had not yet opened for the day. Maybe this wouldn't be difficult.

"We enter through the backdoor, the emergency exit. I disarmed the cameras so we can't be seen, and the alarm code was easy to crack. It's down right now, but I'm going to rearm the system once we go in in case an employee shows up early. We can't have them finding the alarm turned off," Dallas explained, pulling on black gloves to keep from leaving fingerprints. "We'll start with the computers and check for any records of Lindsey, Santiago, whoever, and go from there. I want to be in and out within twenty minutes. Sound good?"

"Let's hope we can actually find something within twenty minutes," I said with uncertainty.

"If we can't find it on our own, we'll opt for plan B later. Right now, let's just focus on getting the job done as quickly as possible."

I nodded, slipping on my own gloves and double checking my side arm.

We took one more survey of our surroundings and decided it was as safe as it was going to get, given the fact that we were breaking into a bank during daylight hours. I grimaced at the thought, wishing we'd opted to do this at night when it would've been harder to be seen, but I understood why Dallas hadn't suggested it. We were both too exhausted to have done a thorough enough job if we'd broken in last night, and our time was too limited for us to wait until tonight. We'd already surpassed the amount of time we should've been in Leipzig, especially after this morning's police chase. We had no choice but to do it now, and I silently prayed that our enemies wouldn't get wise and guess what we were up to.

Quietly, stealthily, we sneaked over to the backside of the building. I cringed in anticipation when Dallas went to open the first of two sets of doors. When no alarm sounded, I finally let out the breath I'd been holding in since leaving the car.

Once inside the bank, we made a beeline for the branch manager's office. The clock on the wall read 8:16AM. We were cutting it almost too close for comfort.

"I'll rearm the system. You hack into the computer," Dallas instructed, retrieving the iPad from his bag once more.

I hurried behind the desk and got to work right away, easily bypassing numerous password-protected layers. It took me a minute or two to locate the bank's account records. Constantly glancing back up at the time, I rushed to type name after name into the search bar, but nothing was coming up.

"Dall, I'm having a problem here. There's no records showing up for Lindsey or Santiago. I even tried Bellucci and there's nothing."

"Did you try Santiago's business name he used at the post office?" Dallas asked, setting his iPad aside and coming around the desk to stand beside me.

"Yeah. I'm not having any luck," I grumbled, looking at the clock again.

He reached in front of me and took control of the mouse, clicking through multiple pages and landing on a log of transactions.

"Let's try looking through all the transactions the bank did during the dates Lindsey was in Germany," he suggested.

I looked at him like he had three heads. "Do you have any idea how much business this bank does on a daily basis? That'll take too long. There's too much to look through."

Dallas groaned and rubbed his temples in a circular motion. I knew the time crunch was eating at his nerves just as much as it was mine.

"Do we have a good idea of what day Lindsey would've come here?" He looked at me, hopeful.

I thought about it for a moment, scrolling through dates on the screen.

"Lindsey arrived in Munich on February 14th, and she made at least two stops before coming to Leipzig... Bellisario was killed on February 16th and Santiago would've paid her after she killed him. But she couldn't have been here on the 17th, because that's the day she broke Bellucci out in Brandenburg..." I mumbled everything to myself, continuing to search through the transactions.

"The transaction had to have taken place on February 16th then," Dallas said, having apparently listened to my muttering spiel. "Go back to the 16th and see what's there."

When I finally came across the list of transactions for that date, my eyes nearly crossed at how long it was. Dallas kept an eye on the front doors while I looked for information, still coming up empty.

"Dallas, there's nothing. This is ridiculous!"

"Damnit," he cursed under his breath, walking back into the office. "What about-"

"Safety deposit boxes." I cut him off, pulling up those records next. "Maybe there's something with – Yes! I think I've got it!"

There was a record of a safety deposit box that had been opened on February 12th, insured for five-hundred-thousand dollars, and closed on February 16th. The owner of that box was listed as Todd Lancaster – the same Todd Lancaster who was second highest in command of the London A.R.T. division.

"I knew he was hiding something huge, but I wasn't expecting this," I said in utter disgust, glaring at the name in front of me. "Why would he betray the Taskforce? Hell, the first thing he did when I met him was chew my ass for suggesting that Lindsey may have deserted. He acted like he couldn't believe that an A.R.T. agent would turn their back on the agency. What a load of shit!"

"Keep your voice down," Dallas said softly, though his eyes were just as angry as mine.

"What does Lancaster have to gain from this?"

I couldn't even figure out how he fit into the puzzle with Lindsey and Santiago. I'd thought for sure Santiago had been the one to pay Lindsey. Lancaster's involvement made no sense.

"We'll brainstorm it once we get out of here," Dallas interrupted my tornadic thoughts. "Let's take pictures of everything on the screen so we can refer back later. We need to go. I think we've found all there is to find."

I looked at the clock again. 8:22. Time was running out. Someone would be arriving for work any minute.

I quickly took pictures and started closing out every open tab. On a hunch, I went back to the accounts page and typed in Lancaster's name on the off chance that something else might come up, but there was nothing. I shut down the computer and put everything back the way I'd found it.

8:25. It was time to go.

"We can get Alana to do some extra digging in the bank logs for us later," Dallas told me as he disarmed the alarm system once again.

Keeping a careful watch on both entrances, we started on our way to the door we'd come in through. I followed along right behind Dallas, eyeing the front doors as we moved silently through the lobby along the wall. Seconds later, I stumbled into his back, realizing he'd stopped moving.

"What are you stopping for?" I asked, but the sound of a door being unlocked answered my question.

There was a short, brunette woman in a pantsuit letting herself in through the back entrance. We'd cut it too close.

I grabbed Dallas by his jacket and jerked him into the closest office, both of us hunkering down behind a desk. He had just enough time to turn the alarm back on before the woman unlocked the second set of glass doors.

We held our breath and waited. She entered the lobby and went straight to the control panel on the wall, turning the alarm system off, clearly oblivious to anything we'd done. Her heels clicked loudly on the tile as she headed to the manager's office next, setting her purse on the desk and then, to our advantage, going to the bathroom.

"Well, that makes things easier," I whispered, looking at Dallas and realizing how close our faces were.

Suddenly, all I wanted to do was pin him down on the floor and kiss him, but I knew that would have to wait. I could tell he was thinking the same thing, his eyes darkening with lust. God, that was hot.

"Let's go," he said, and we raced out of the building as quietly as we could before the manager could catch us.

Upon reaching the car, Dallas made quick work of turning the security cameras back on. When we started to leave, he made sure to back the BMW up until we could turn around and exit from the opposite side of the hardware store, staying out of the bank's camera views.

"Where to next?" Dallas looked to me with raised brows once we'd made a few turns down the main road.

I'd been sitting in the passenger seat, stewing in my disdain for Lancaster, almost too caught up in thought to hear his question.

"Tali?"

I huffed, pulling my phone out and eyeing Lindsey's route. "Looks like she went to some shitty apartment complex before going to the bank."

I zoomed in on the image to see the name of the apartments.

"Cranberry Village Apartments in Nuremberg," I clarified.

Dallas nodded, getting in the turn lane to get on the highway. "That'll take about two and a half hours to get to if I follow the Autobahn."

"Okay," was all I could think to say, still hung up on Lancaster's involvement.

I decided to kill time by reanalyzing the Lindsey file and trying to put the missing pieces together regarding Lancaster's collusion. I was furious at the idea that an A.R.T. senior agent would be so audacious as to turn his back on the agency like this. It was unfathomable for someone with his clout and integrity to do such a despicable thing. This was the first I'd heard of a high ranking official within A.R.T. double crossing the Taskforce. It just didn't happen.

Dallas regularly glanced over at me while I was retrieving paperwork from my bag.

"You okay over there, Tali?"

I shook my head in frustration. "I just don't understand it, Dall. I know there's more to the story that we're missing, but I can't think of any logical reason why Lancaster would be involved in this. It just doesn't make sense."

"Maybe someone's paying him off," he suggested. "Maybe this Santiago dude made him an offer he couldn't refuse."

"But for what purpose?" I scowled.

"They say everyone has a breaking point. Maybe that extends to loyalty. Money is the root of all evil after all, right? Maybe money trumps loyalty in Lancaster's mind."

I was pretty confident that Raul Bellisario had had an apartment at Cranberry Village, and I was more than willing to bet that that was where Lindsey had murdered him. That news article had stated he was killed in Nuremberg, though it hadn't said where, specifically. While we had the extra time on the way there, I decided to have Alana look into Cranberry Village's records.