Protecting Justice (The Justice Series Book 4) (35 page)

The back door came open again and in stepped Matt. “I had someone from my office at the hospital. Jordan Lomax is dead. She died on the operating table.”

Fox lowered his hands, focused on Tony with dark eyes more than a little spooked.

“Now we got two people dead.”

And Tony had killed one of them. Shit.

Matt reclaimed his seat, shot Tony a look and Tony raised his eyebrows. The we’re-almost-there-don’t-fuck-this-up look.

“I didn’t think it would go this far,” Fox said. “It was just information being passed along.”

Come on, come on.

“What information?”

“My boss. Barnard Shaw. He’s aiming for a White House run. He wanted me to find him someone who could dig up damning information on the president. He wanted the skeletons. I hired a political operative. The guy has major contacts at State and in Congress.”

“Name?”

Fox shook his head. “If I have to give up the name, I will, but I’m not doing it yet.”

Tony nodded. “Okay. Fair enough.”

“The operative stumbled into some interesting coincidences.”

“Like what?”

“Like the president’s son flying out of MacDill hours before the CanAir flight was shot down. Like, a maintenance guy taking a photo of the president’s son climbing into the cockpit of his plane that same night. Our operative pieced it together with the CanAir disaster and ran with it. He assumed the President ordered the mission. The cherry on top was his son firing the missile that took the plane down. He didn’t have proof though. Not rock solid.”

“How does the senator play into this?”

“My boss needed proof and our operative couldn’t get it. We needed someone inside Foreign Relations and he’d made hefty donations to her campaign.”

“Foreign Relations? Because they were doing the investigation into the crash?”

“Yeah. My boss figured if he could buy off a senator, he’d be privy to whatever they had.”

If all this legwork led to them finding out Heather Pasche was on the take, Fallyn would be devastated. The best spin-doctor in the world couldn’t manipulate into something usable.

But he had to know. Had to. “He bought off Senator Pasche?”

“He tried. She wouldn’t bite.”

Jordan.

“But her assistant did.”

Fox shrugged. “I don’t know who. My boss never said. It was someone in her office though. I couldn’t stand the whole setup. Hiring an operative to investigate was one thing, nothing illegal about that. But this whole CanAir thing involved the deaths of hundreds of innocent people. The collateral damage was off the charts. There were Americans on that flight. All to get one terrorist? No way. I didn’t like it. Any of it. I resigned and called Senator Pasche to let her know she had a mole. I also gave her copies of the reports and the photos the operative had given to us. I felt it was my duty. She was on Foreign Relations. I figured she’d know how to deal with it all. She assured me she’d protect me. That was the day before she died.”

Tony sat back, somehow not believing that Heather Pasche was handed evidence that her boyfriend had shot down a plane filled with Americans.

Chapter Twenty-three

One day later

Fallyn ran a comb through her hair and tried to get her thoughts together. Her team was due at the hospital any minute. She’d told them not to come, but they wouldn’t listen, insisting on driving down from New York City.

She hated them seeing her like this, in a hospital bed, barely able to move. Her compact mirror showed her skin was vampire white accentuating the dark circles under her eyes. One jaw sported a bruise from her tussle with Jordan.

But as long as her team was coming to see her, she planned to put them to work.

“Ms. Pasche? Fallyn?”

Fallyn snapped her head up. A tall, handsome man with light blue eyes and a military buzz cut stood at attention just inside the door, a cap in his hands.

“Ryan.” Lowering her compact, she motioned at him. “Please come in.”

He rolled the cap in his hands. “I’d like to speak to you about a couple of things, but if this is a bad time…”

The hair, the eyes, the ramrod straight posture. The bachelor article she’d buried for the president had it right. Ryan was a catch.
Oh, Heather. No wonder you fell for him.

Fallyn set her compact and comb aside. “Pull up a chair, Lieutenant.”

He did as instructed. “I’m not supposed to be here. With you. I’m in the hot seat right now, even though it hasn’t leaked to the press yet. My lawyer told me to stay away from you, because I…”

“I know all about it,” Fallyn reassured him. “Heather left me a video about you and what happened with CanAir 702.”

“Oh.” He looked worried. “You know about what I did?”

“I know it was under orders from your commander-in-chief, who happens to be your father. I would imagine that could be awkward on a good day. Throw in the target your father ordered you to shoot down and I imagine you’re having a hard time living with yourself.”

Two large hands worried the cap in his lap. “I never meant for any of this to happen. Heather’s dead because of what I did.”

Oh, these men and their guilt trips. “My sister is dead because a woman whom my entire family trusted was a money-hungry bitch. That’s not on you, Ryan.”

“Heather was so fond of Jordan. I can’t believe Jordan did that.”

“Jordan’s father can’t believe it either. Carl visited me and he’s devastated. She was his everything.”

He was silent for a long moment, his voice subdued when he did speak. “We talked about getting married, you know. Heather and I. Right before all of this happened. I was in town before she died and I had planned to propose to her. We drove to Virginia, to a bed and breakfast there, for a few days. We wore disguises so no one would recognize us, but I couldn’t do it.”

The receipts. The ones Heather had saved on her tablet. “Why not?”

“I was afraid. We couldn’t keep a lid on CanAir, it was so, so wrong.” He glanced up at the ceiling, drawing a deep breath. “My father was… He shouldn’t have done what he did. That day, when I got the orders, I didn’t know why I was going out or who was on that plane. I just did what I was told.”

That’s what good soldiers did. “It’s not your fault.”

Seemed like she was saying that a lot right now.

“We had to tell someone, but we didn’t know who. She suggested you. I had to think about it. Then I tried to end things with her. I knew she’d be flayed by the media once it all came to light, and I didn’t want that for her. She had this bright, shining career ahead of her and there was no way I could ruin that. So I told her I would go public with the information and we had to break up. She refused to let me.”

Fallyn smiled. “Bullheadedness runs in our family.”

Ryan’s eyes shone with tears. “I hate to ask you this, but I need your help.”

Of course he did. He needed a fixer the size of King Kong. “My sister loved you, Ryan. I’ll make sure you get a copy of her video, so you get to hear her gush about what an incredible man you are. You were a hero in her eyes for wanting to do the right thing, and I agree. Going up against your father, testifying to what he ordered you to do, will be the hardest thing you’ve ever done in your life, and even though it’s the right thing to do, you’ll never forgive yourself, so you need to be prepared to live with that. He may have committed a terrible act, but he’s still your father.”

“I have to do this.” His face contorted with anguish. “For Heather.”

She had to do this for Heather too. “I know someone at Justice who can help you, and I’m friends with one of the best JAG lawyers in the Northern Hemisphere. You’re done with the old one. Don’t talk to him any more today. Give me and my team until tomorrow morning and we’ll have a game plan for you, okay?”

Ryan Nicols stood and stretched out a hand. “Thank you.”

Fallyn eyed his hand for a second before shaking it. “Thank you for loving my sister. She was happy, Ryan. Even with this horrendous situation the two of you were dealing with, she was happy. She loved you so much, and I can understand why.”

A brief smile passed over his lips. “She loved you, too, you know. Talked about you nonstop. She was pretty proud of you.”

Fallyn’s heart clenched. Her father had said the same thing to her earlier that morning. Their relationship seemed to be morphing, growing. Fallyn realized she might not have been the easiest child to handle and maybe—awful thought—she had reminded him of his wife. There was still space between them, but the gap was closing. “I appreciate you telling me that.”

He released her hand and returned the chair to its original place. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, then?”

She nodded. As he left, her team started piling in.

“Was that…?” Maureen said, pointing over her shoulder as the door closed silently.

“Yep. Lieutenant Ryan Nicols. First Son. He’s our new client.”

“We come to see you, and what do you have us doing?” Dani slouched in a chair and set her laptop on her knees. Her hair was shocking pink today and the multitude of rings on her fingers clinked against each other as she typed. It looked like she had a new tattoo on her left wrist. “Working.”

“I agree,” Maureen said, eyeing Fallyn over her reading glasses as she brought out her notepad and pen. “You almost died. This is a bit extreme, even for you.”

Fallyn sat up in bed—as upright as she could stand, anyway, thanks to her sore chest and back—and ignored their complaints. Work was all she had right now. Work and a steady supply of pain pills.

Neither of which was keeping the pain away. Her body ached all over, her chest was still taped, and she was fucking sick of the antiseptic smell in the air.

Maureen, Tabitha, and Niles hovered around the bed while Dani played on her laptop. Katrina was still in New York, handling the office.

Tabitha held up a gold box with a red ribbon in her hands.

“Tell me you brought chocolates,” Fallyn said.

Tabitha opened the box from Fallyn’s favorite shop on 5th Avenue and handed it to her. Fallyn dug in.

The first bite of chocolate nearly made her pass out, it was so good. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. “Chocolate. Better than painkillers.”

The box made the rounds so everyone could take a piece. “Do you have the lease agreement for the new office?” she asked Maureen.

Their client load had expanded exponentially after the press got wind of the fact Heather had been murdered and Fallyn had been shot by the killer.

If it hadn’t been for Tony, I’d be dead too.

The thought of Tony sent a spike of pain through her chest. She gritted her teeth and ignored it.

“Just came in,” Dani said. “I’ll sign it electronically for you if you want.”

“Are you sure about this?” Niles asked. “A second office here in DC? Moving?”

He wasn’t worried about her moving back to Washington. He was worried about taking over the New York office. “We need a presence here.” She finished chewing her chocolate and swallowed. “No more constant commuting for me, and you’re more than capable of taking over the New York office. Need I remind you, you have an excellent staff.”

The ladies all smiled at him and Niles rolled his eyes.

“Go ahead and sign for me,” she told Dani.

Maureen wrote something on her notepad. “Will you be moving in with your dad?”

“I’m keeping Heather’s townhouse for now. It’s an easy commute to my father’s and I need…”

What
did
she need? Time to process everything. Time to mourn. Time to work out things with that bullheaded lug who hadn’t been to see her yet. “I feel close to Heather there,” she admitted.
The memories of Tony aren’t bad either.

Tony, Tony, Tony. Her damn brain wouldn’t let up on him. Where was the bastard anyway? He’d told her he loved her, then disappeared to work the case.

Don Fox had been questioned and given up the information needed to arrest Barnard Shaw, a billionaire businessman with a boner for the West Wing. He’d bribed Jordan to find dirt on Ryan’s dad once he’d found out Heather and Ryan were meeting in secret. Grey, who was in a matching room down the hall, had told her all about it. So Barnard was toast and Fox was free. Metro had turned everything over to the FBI since they now knew the whole thing involved the murder of a senator and the FBI had taken over slogging through the details of Heather’s death while working with Justice on how to sort it all out. What did Tony possibly have to do?

Of course, he’d killed Jordan, who’d tried to finish what she’d started and had shot Fallyn in the back. Granted, it was self-defense, but still. He might be tied up with the police.

He’s not coming back.

Just like Mom.

Everyone was always leaving her.

Or maybe, I just keep driving them away
.

Beep, beep, beep.
Her heart monitor sped up, echoing in the room and drawing everyone’s attention. Fallyn’s eyes seemed too tight, tears threatening.

“You okay, Fallyn?” Tabitha asked. “Maybe you should pass on the chocolates.”