Protecting Justice (The Justice Series Book 4) (2 page)

Hustling upstairs to Heather’s bedroom, she placed a call to an old college friend, Caroline Foster. Recently, Caroline had left her position with the FBI and now worked for Justice “Grey” Greystone.

Greystone ran a secret agency specializing in bringing certain criminals to justice. Specifically to people who thought they were above the law. One of Fallyn’s clients had run afoul of Greystone’s team last year, and after seeing the evidence on her client—and the confidence in the former FBI profiler’s eyes—Fallyn had advised her client to get a lawyer rather than a spin doctor.

“Fallyn,” Caroline said after she answered, “I’m so sorry about Heather. What can I do?”

This is what friends—real friends—did. They dropped everything to help. “The press is creating chaos on the lawn. Where do I get decent security guys in this town? Mean ones who aren’t afraid to get their feathers ruffled?”

“Give me a few minutes and I’ll have the best in the biz on your doorstep.”

Had she been in New York, on her home turf, she’d have the situation rectified already. Here in DC things took longer. “Thank you. One more favor.”

“Anything.”

“Can I borrow your hacker? There are files on my sister’s tablet I need help with.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you. I owe you.”

Fallyn disconnected, tossed her cell phone on the bed. Heather’s bed. The one she’d died in.

Her breath became ragged, her vision tunneling to the intricate pattern of the comforter.

Five hours. It had only been five hours since Heather’s body had been discovered.

The thought, mixed with the sensory overload, brought a flood of memories. Some good, a whole lot bad. She glanced around the bedroom. Small, conservatively decorated like the rest of the place, it drew Fallyn in. Her gaze landed on the framed 4x6 photo on her sister’s nightstand. Fallyn’s knees buckled and she lowered herself to the bed, her eyes still on that damned photo.

The two little girls, cheeks rosy from the heat of a summer day, stared back at her. Back then they were naive and blameless, Heather’s curls tangled in the breeze with Fallyn’s as they tipped their heads together. Arms around each other’s necks, the girls in the picture seemed happy. The best of friends.

Identical twins, yet the two of them couldn’t have been more opposite.

Heather was dressed in a cute sundress and matching sandals, Fallyn was barefoot. Her shorts and favorite ragged t-shirt were dirty and stained. In her eyes was the rebel already taking hold.

How could you leave me, sis?

A tear puddled at the corner of her eye and Fallyn brushed it away, setting the photo back on the nightstand. The doorbell downstairs rang again and her father’s voice echoed over the din of the crowd downstairs.

I should go to him. Be by his side
.

But Eric Pasche didn’t want her comfort.

He wanted his favorite daughter back.

Jordan and her father, Carl, were by his side, sentries ready to do battle for him. They’d loved Heather too. Carl, Eric’s longtime friend, and Jordan, personally knew everyone coming through the door. While Fallyn had built her career on fixing problems, this was one problem those two were better at.

Early indications were that Heather had suffered a myocardial infarction, but Fallyn’s bullshit meter was pegged. What twenty-seven-year-old woman in good health had a heart attack while sleeping? Sure, Heather had put on a few pounds since being elected to the Senate, but she was hardly overweight. She never smoked, rarely drank, and had never had so much as heartburn.

Maybe the stress got to her.
Maybe if I’d been more supportive…if I hadn’t moved to New York…

The words whispered through Fallyn’s thoughts, an endless loop of guilt tormenting her. Her overactive brain circled back to those three little words.
It’s my fault.

She should have known Heather was stressed. Should have known she was on the verge of having a heart attack. They were twins, for God’s sake.

Out on the lawn, the muffled sounds of arguing rose to the second floor.
Damn reporters
.

Part of her wanted to go off on the media for acting like children. A part of her—the fixer in her—wanted to walk out and use her skills to turn them into her allies. Give them the story they were chomping at the bit to run on the six o’clock news.

Heather Pasche: The Senate’s ‘It Girl.’

A strong proponent for women’s healthcare and equal pay, Heather had also campaigned strongly for many of the economic issues American males held dear. She worked tirelessly on the Foreign Relations Subcommittee, and before that, the Ethics Committee, squaring off across the table from a couple of Fallyn’s most elite clients.

Heather might have only been twenty-seven, but she was going places, making a name for herself in the world of politics. Some said she’d be the first female president if Hillary didn’t beat her to the West Wing.

Now, all that was gone. Heather wasn’t going anywhere but into a box in the ground.

Enough
.

Fallyn hopped off the bed, ran her hands over her forehead. None of this self-pity accomplished anything.

Work the problem
. That’s what she’d do. Tend to the details and give her sister the send-off she deserved. Starting with her appearance. Heather would want to be buried in something nice.

She strode to the closet, scanned the modest selection of her sister’s suits. Dark blue, gunmetal grey, more blue. One black. Several skirts and a bevy of matching slacks. Two-inch heels in the same monotone colors.

How professional.

How boring
.

Blouses offered a bit more color. Pink, purple, red. A dozen different white ones. Several black and blue. Fallyn was fingering a red blouse, holding the sleeve up to the gunmetal gray jacket, when she heard movement behind her.

“Thought I’d check on you,” Jordan said, filling the closet doorway. She handed Fallyn a cup of tea and the scent of lemon drifted to her nose. “See if you needed help with anything for tonight. You’re staying here, right? That’s what your dad said.”

The woman had been crying again, her red-rimmed eyes and the dark shadows under them a testament to her loyalty and devotion to Heather. While she might have landed the job with Heather because their fathers were friends, Jordan had proven to be a genuine ally.

“I was deciding on a suit,” Fallyn said, kicking off her heels and sipping the tea. It was good. Refreshing. Just what she needed right now. “Maybe you can give me some direction. Which one was Heather’s favorite?”

“The gray.” Jordan reached down and lined Fallyn’s Louboutins up alongside Heather’s more conservative footwear. “She loved to wear the red blouse you were just looking at with it.”

Well, at least there was something I had right
. “I hate these suits. I want to remember her as the kid she was in that picture.” Fallyn pointed to the framed photograph next to the bed.

Jordan studied the photograph. “That was her favorite photo. Maybe you should bury her with it.”

Why hadn’t she thought of that? “You’re right. I should.”

A soft silence engulfed them as they worked together to lay out Heather’s burial clothes. Jordan attached a flag pin Heather always wore to the suit’s lapel. Next came jewelry—a bracelet from Nepal, a pair of earrings from Brazil. Her sister had collected jewelry from every country she’d visited. Hose and shoes, and the outfit was complete.

Downstairs, she heard her father laugh. Carl’s laughter joined his.

It seemed disrespectful in a way, and yet, Fallyn knew Heather wouldn’t want them moping. “How’s your dad, Jordan?” Fallyn asked.

“He’s not following the doctor’s orders to slow down. He retired from State, but ends up ‘consulting’ all the time.”

A text came in on Fallyn’s phone from Caroline.
Cavalry is on its way. His name is Tony Gerard. You’ll like him.

One guy? That was it? The group of reporters outside would eat him alive.

Fallyn pocketed her cell phone and headed for the safe at the back of the closet. She wanted to finish up here and head downstairs for a front row seat when this Tony character arrived. “I was going to ask you about my sister’s safe,” she said to Jordan. “The funeral home said to bring the insurance papers and I…”

“Need the combination?” Jordan was always finishing her sentences. Had she done that with Heather too? “Sorry, I don’t have it.”

“Surprisingly, that is one thing she shared with me. It’s not that. When I was going through the items in the safe earlier looking for the insurance policy, I came across a computer tablet.”

Fallyn retrieved it from the safe and held it up. “There’s a passcode for the files. I tried a bunch of obvious ones, but none of them worked. Do you know it?”

Jordan stared at the tablet, reached out and touched the edge. “Funny, I never saw her use that. Are you sure it’s hers?”

She’d asked her dad about it and he’d been clueless as well. “Who else’s would it be? It was in her safe.”

“It’s just, she wasn’t big on technology. A total throwback like my dad, but I could take it and try a few ideas with the passcode tonight after Dad goes to bed.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. I’ll figure something out.”

They went downstairs and found the last of the crowd moving out the door. Carl helped Eric put his coat on. “Going to run your dad home,” he said. “You need anything, call us.”

Jordan reached to hug her and Fallyn automatically stepped back. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

If the brush-off offended Jordan, she didn’t show it. She knew Fallyn wasn’t the touchy-feely type like Heather had been.

The woman stepped back, nodded. “I’d be glad to order the floral arrangements or line up the caterer if you need help.”

While it was tempting, Fallyn needed to stay busy, keep her mind occupied. “I appreciate that. I can handle the flowers, but I’m not sure which caterer to use for the gathering at the church after the interment. Are you able to take care of that?”

Jordan’s face lit up. “I’m on it. I’ll get the one Heather liked.”

No wonder Heather had hired Jordan as her assistant. She glanced between Carl and Jordan. “You two are welcome to ride with us to the funeral and the cemetery, if you like.”

Carl nodded, all business. “Of course. Thank you. Let’s go Eric. You’ve had a rough day.”

They said their goodbyes, Fallyn accepting a brief hug from her father before the three of them tackled getting past the reporters. She withdrew, after a moment longer than she would have liked, and saw his face, the harsh lines, the sorrow. And now he had to deal with another crowd.

Those damned reporters.
What she didn’t need was Dad more upset. Time for a diversion. It was, after all, what she’d built her business on—statements that said a whole lot of nothing, but kept the reporters occupied while people slipped away.

“Hang on, Dad. Let me distract the reporters so you can get to the car.” Throwing her shoulders back, she marched out the front door, headed down the sidewalk to give the media what they wanted—and maybe the full Fallyn Pasche brow-beating they deserved—when a big guy in a dark trench coat, wearing mirrored aviators and looking like a one-man army, emerged from the alley and every person on the lawn came to attention.

Well, hello, big boy.

Fallyn’s pulse did a funny
thudthud
under her skin as she watched him close in on the reporters. A cameraman made a move toward her dad but the hunk in the aviators beelined, blocking his path and sticking his hand over the man’s camera lens.

A female reporter next to him was courteously forced back several steps.

Fallyn returned to the house, where she watched, fascinated.

In under a minute, the hunk had every last one of the media backing away, herding them to the curb, several of them running for their news vans as fast as their footsteps would carry them.

Damn. Who was this guy?

* * *

After dealing with the press tearing up Senator Pasche’s lawn, Tony rang the bell. Grey had called him less than an hour ago, told him to hot-foot it over to the Senator’s place and bust up the collection of reporters turning the woman’s death into public fodder.

The door opened and a woman answered.

It might as well have been Heather Pasche standing there. He’d known Heather. Not well, but he’d met her a couple of times when she’d interacted with the chief justice, and Tony, being assigned to the chief’s protection detail at the time, had accompanied him.

Now, the good senator, as well as the chief, was gone and that same burn, that reminder of his failure, crawled up his throat like acid.

Don’t go there.

He bit down, focused on the woman’s high heels, her long legs, any goddamn thing that would take his mind off the chief. Any goddamn thing that would keep the panic, the absolute burning from inside out, at bay.

“Hello,” she said, waving him in. “If I thought it was appropriate, I’d kiss you for chasing off those reporters.”

“Appropriate?” he shot. “Who cares about that?”