THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

The FBI and local police had cordoned off the marina, but people who’d been on their boats when the shooting started couldn’t leave, and were milling around.
    Everyone was talking about the explosion.
    No one had been near Zane’s boat when it blew. Angel had been running the boat down the undeveloped side of the canal so the casualties were low.
    Just one dead Angel and an emotionally destroyed pilot.
    Zane had been numb as he’d gone through the motions of crime scene wrap up as if caught in the world of the walking dead. He’d answered questions over and over.
    Yes, he had a permit to carry his weapon.
    No, he shouldn’t have been firing it in a public area.
    Yes, he knew who had been on his boat. No, he didn’t know the actual identity of the man the FBI had shot.
    And all the time he kept waiting for somebody to slap handcuffs on him for taking the first shot at the hulking kidnapper. Carrying a weapon with a permit was fine in Florida.
    Using it to shoot another person?
    That got a lot more complicated.
    Turns out Ben and the DEA had let the FBI know that Zane was one of them . Zane had no clue how they’d pulled that off, or whether that would end his gig as an informant.
    Finally Ben had arrived at the scene with Dan MacPherson, the boss they called Mac, and he’d pulled some strings with the local police, not-so-subtly hinting that they, too, should back the hell off. Ben swore they’d done it all without blowing whatever was left of Zane’s informant cover, but Zane had his doubts.
    Then Mac did the oddest thing. He hung around and talked to Zane about nothing in particular. As though Mac wanted to console him. Maybe because at that point, FBI agents and emergency personnel had pulled back from him, as though he were a rabid wolf to be avoided.
    Understandable. They’d watched him howl like a wounded animal at the end of the dock, after all.
    He didn’t care.
    His cell phone had chirped one time too many. It had sunk faster than CK. He now knew the street name of the bastard who’d taken Angel from Zane’s apartment.
    Useful information. He supposed.
    Mac talked quietly. He’d heard about the High Vision shipment and how the bust had fallen apart. Zane needed to come in for a debrief, but that could wait for a couple days.
    Zane nodded every so often. He wasn’t processing much, but he owed Mac for pulling the strings to keep him out of one hell of a red tape snarl. Ordinarily he’d have to go in for questioning.
    Still, nodding was the best he could do when he teetered so close to losing his mind.
    Speaking softly, Mac shared what he knew on Angel that he’d put together between Ben’s information and talking to the FBI. Once Ben had told Zane that Angel was probably innocent, he’d made a judgment call and gone straight to Mac for help. That had paid off, but Ben had clearly been worried that his best friend would take it as betrayal.
    No way in hell. Zane had told him so, but Zane sucked at putting words together right now. He’d explain better later.
    “The FBI didn’t want Angel caught in the crossfire,” Mac explained.
    Zane surfaced from his semi-catatonic state at hearing her name.
    Mac continued in that same even cadence. “FBI knew she wasn’t involved with Mason. They’d had her under surveillance for a while, planning to approach her as a possible way into Mason’s illegal activities. They assumed when she disappeared from her job at the warehouse that Mason was likely the reason. They’d had agents watching for her all over the southeast. One of their local men reported seeing her the night she was at De Nikki’s with you.”  So that’s why she ran – that time . Zane nodded at Mac. “She spotted the agent even when I didn’t,” he said, drawing on his ingrained discipline to function or they’d drag him off in a straightjacket. “She took off out the bathroom window.”  
    And Zane had assumed she was being irrational. Oh how the mighty had fallen .
    Mac nodded. “Sounds like she was running scared from everybody, including Mason.” 
    Somehow, that bastard Mason had slipped away from the marina when all the action started, but the FBI believed they could still nail him.
    It would have made their lives easier if Angel had lived.
    Mine, too .
    The FBI had uncovered enough about her one conviction to prove she hadn’t intentionally delivered drugs, Mac had told him. She’d been set up.
    Hmm, that was also good to know , Zane mused, not giving a