Luke stepped from behind the doorjamb, his gun pointed at Cade. Cade saw the movement and turned his head.
“Drop your gun,” he screamed. He jabbed the hand canon in Luke’s direction. It shook violently.
Slow and deliberate, Luke holstered his Glock. From the corner of his eye, he saw Thad shift and take his old spot to cover Cade from the hall. Luke stuck both hands out. ”Alright, no gun. See? Will you talk to me now? Before you do something you can't take back."
Cade sniffed again. “Ok." He calmed a little and seemed grateful to have someone besides his wife to listen. "It's not fair.” He sounded like he would start crying again.
Sirens sounded in the distance as Luke stepped into the great room.
Cade’s panic kicked up at the sight of the FBI agent coming closer. "That's far enough,” he squeaked, wagging his gun around. Now that he had two targets to cover, he wasn’t sure where to point it.
Luke scanned the room. To his right French doors led out to a stone terrace overlooking the river. A woman cowered next to them. Her red silk dress was torn at the shoulder revealing angry red scratches on her pale skin. She had been pretty once, but now her bleached hair and botoxed face gave her a stretched out, secondhand look. Mascara ran down her cheeks as she lifted pleading eyes to Luke.
Luke’s stomach hit his feet. In her arms Helen Cade clutched a young boy. He couldn't have been older than ten. He wore superhero pajamas, and his head rested on his mother's chest with his eyes slammed shut. The boy must have run down to investigate the commotion after the nanny left. Without thinking, Luke took a step toward him.
“I said that's far enough," John screamed, hysterical.
Luke stopped and put up his hands. “John," he warned, “let your son leave."
John shook his head, but doubt crept into his expression.
“You're wrong, John.” Luke pointed to the corner, his voice hard. “Tell me to my face he bears as much blame as you or Wynn, and I will walk out right now and let you shoot him."
Cade flinched at Alex’s name. Then he looked at his son.
“Say it. Say it to me,” Luke roared.
The Desert Eagle dipped, and Cade looked back to Luke. His nod was almost imperceptible.
“Noooo,” wailed the woman. There was no relief in her face as she rocked back and forth clinging to her son, terrified of being left alone.
“Brice, come here,” Luke commanded. He took another step toward the boy. Brice Cade struggled to obey as his mom clung to him.
“No, no, no,” she whispered over and over, her eyes locked on her husband. Suddenly she released the boy and covered her face with one hand like she couldn't bear to look at him anymore.
Brice pulled away hard, breaking her grip. He hesitated beside his mother, but she had already curled into a tight ball. Luke grabbed him by the arm and yanked him toward the door.
Sirens wailed to a stop outside the door. Luke guided the boy to the arch and shoved him out into the foyer. He saw Thaddeus' hand reach out ready to shuffle him outside. Luke turned back. Cade’s face had grown less panicked and more uncertain as boots pounding on the porch made the walls shutter.
“Now Helen,” Luke kept his voice even.
“No.” Cade raised his gun and pointed it at her. This time his voice was steady. “She doesn’t go anywhere,” he said.
She cowered obediently.
“John,” Luke said, “be reasonable. Let’s work this out.”
“She's not going anywhere.” Sweat broke out on Cade's upper lip. He rubbed his forehead sloshing more liquor. “She’s…she’s…this is all her fault.”
“You bastard, don't you dare blame this on me.” Helen Cade forgot her fear and came out of her fetal position shrieking at her husband.
“You told me to go to the FBI,” he yelled back.
“He hacked us, John. He was tracking you and me,” she yelled back. “And you didn’t even know it.” She stopped yelling but her voice oozed disdain. “And you thought he was your friend. I was trying to save us. I am trying to save us.”
Cade shook his head vigorously trying to clear it.
“This is why he never had any respect for you.” Helen struggled to her feet.
“Fuck you,” Cade screamed jabbing the gun in her direction making her back against the wall. His head swiveled to Luke. “He lied to me. After all I did for him. They told me he was reading emails and texts. Spying on me.” He didn’t sob, but tears welled in Cade’s eyes. “He wouldn’t have known Twomey hacked him if it wasn’t for me.” The tears broke loose and dripped down Cade’s nose.
An indignant huff came from the alternately terrified and enraged woman. “Don't play dumb. You were a means to an end,” she barked. “Why don't you grow a pair and tell him the truth. We can fix this,” her voice turned pleading, “together. We've got an ace to play. We can get immunity for testimony or something. You're a fool if you don't use it.”
“Shut up,” Cade screamed.
Helen Cade wasn't done berating her husband. Her sneer returned. “We're done if you don't man up.”
“Shut up,” Cade screamed as he continued to cry.
“Henry's not going to be President now so you can stop blowing him for your precious cabinet position. Twomey ruined everything when his spooks hacked Henry’s email. It’s only a matter of time before everyone knows about that reporter and the soldiers.”
Luke couldn't believe what he was hearing. Henry. Henry Onessa blackmailed the Washington elite, and Congress, with the dead soldiers. Not Cade.
Helen turned to Luke who couldn’t tear his eyes away from her. “Twomey hacked Henry's email in April. He found out Henry knew about the reporter, and then leveraged it to collect campaign money and favors. Twomey threatened to expose him, so Henry made John order a hit on….”
“SHUT UP.” Cade dropped the crystal glass and wrapped his free hand around the shaky one clutching the gun.
“He’s cleaning house, John, which means us too. He knows you went to the FBI today. Why else would you get an anonymous call saying I’m an FBI informant. You know perfectly well I’m not. He’s trying to wind you up. We have to do this, John. It’s the only way now.”
Cade shook his head. “No, I can’t. He’ll kill me.”
“Please, John. He was going to kill us anyway, if you didn’t do it first.” Helen now shared his panic as she tried desperately to persuade her husband. “You know as well as I that shrink and his little cop aren’t the only….”
At the mention of Wynn something snapped in Cade. His finger tightened on the trigger as his hand clenched.
Luke's hand flew to his hip. In one smooth motion his finger pressed the holster release and he drew smoothly. He brought his Glock up to plane and his finger found the trigger in one smooth movement.
It took a millisecond to draw, but it might as well have been a year. The blast of his own gun married with the louder report from Cade's. Helen cut off mid-sentence and staggered backward, her face frozen in surprise. She hit the wall next to the French doors and sunk to the floor, eyes round and vacant.
A wide cone of blood droplets splattered the stone hearth as Luke’s round entered Cade’s temple and exited out the other side. John Cade died before he hit the Persian.
The scene went quiet. The Savannah Police Department SWAT team stormed through the front door, swarming past Luke into the living room. Luke heard thumping, but whether it was boots or his heart pounding he didn’t know.
In slow motion he looked over at Thad. Thad gaped back at him, his own gun hanging limp. He heard everything.
“Luke, you okay?"
Luke didn’t answer. All he could manage was holstering his gun. He turned, dazed, to the front doors making his way stiffly past the men in black fatigues. Out in the sticky night, he trudged to the car and sunk into the driver's seat cradling his head in his hands.
Minutes later footsteps crunched on the gravel next to him. “I called Steve,” said Thad. “He's coming to work
the shooting. He doesn’t trust Lawrence.”
When Luke didn’t answer, Thad shifted his weight. “We’re gonna have to tell him everything.”
THIRTY-THREE
Luke made Thad drive back to the office. He needed to think through this. The dam had broken and by morning this story would be swamping news feeds. Nothing could stop it.
Henry Onessa built his reputation and career on the corpses of dead American soldiers. America’s sweetheart politician was a swindle and a fake. And now he was a murderer.
And Twomey found it. He found everything. Politics as usual had him searching for something to blacken his opponent’s eye. Instead, Twomey found a scandal that could reach as far up as the Presidential Cabinet and Congress.
With Cade smack in the middle. It didn’t matter what he intended to tell Luke that morning when he came to the office. After tonight, search warrants would flow freely. Luke’s only limitation was how fast he could get search warrants to a judge before the involved parties wiped their servers and powered up their shredders.
No one would be untouched by this.
And Tully. He needed to get to Tully and make her tell him what she knew. Force her to tell him about her partner. Tell him everything. Luke stopped lying to himself the moment Helen Cade spoke those words. If she knew, there was no way Tully didn't know. Shielding her would not be enough. Now he had to keep her out of jail.
Thad was right. Blinded by emotion and desire, he was willing to sacrifice everything to keep his girlfriend happy. Maybe he could still protect her if he moved fast enough. There would be plenty of blame to spread around, but he had to get to her and soon.
He looked down at his phone. The screen was black. He had dialed Tully three times to wake her up. She hadn’t answered.
Thad flew into the deserted parking lot by the FBI office and screeched to a stop. Without a word both men jumped out of the car and ran into the office. Thad continued on to the broom closet, but Luke stopped in the break room. He needed a minute alone. And he needed Tully to pick up the phone. The words ‘call ended’ flashed on the screen again. She still wasn’t answering.
What was he even going to say to her? How did he start that conversation from hell?
Hey, babe, I need you to tell me what you knew about this massive conspiracy and your homicidal partner. I was gonna run away with you, but now you may be going to jail. Wanna get married?
She lied to him. Every time she spoke so reverently of her partner, she had lied. Could he trust what she said now? Still hyped on adrenaline from his shooting an hour ago, the rustle behind made him wheel, tensed.
It was Thad winded like he had sprinted to the break room. Sweat beaded on his upper lip, but it couldn’t be from exertion. The broom closet was ten paces away.
“What is it, Thaddeus?”
Thad closed the distance and thrust a stack of papers into Luke's hand like it was on fire. “This was on the fax machine.” He backed away running a shaky hand over his mouth. “Remember how I told you the smaller police agencies were trickling in? Well, this one must have trickled in right before we left.” Thad threw himself down on a break room chair. “It must have been the one that came before we went to Cade’s house.” Thad cursed under his breath.
Luke looked at the paper in his hand. It was a photocopied handwritten police report dated April 4, 1987. Wilkes County, Georgia. He skimmed down the distorted lines until a name snagged his attention. Samuel Meara. This was the official report of his death. Luke knew this. Why had Thad sent off for a copy of this?
Luke glanced back at Thad who now had his forehead mashed against the tabletop. His blood ran cold. Thaddeus hadn’t known. He just found out about Tully. He knew nothing of her past.
Shuffling to the last two pages, Luke read faster. On the bottom was a typed police report in a newer format dated ten years ago. Same town. The name Charlie Hayward was typed in the ‘victim’ block. Luke knew that name too. A quick check of the old report confirmed it. Charlie Hayward killed Samuel Meara in 1987. His throat went dry.
Charlie Hayward served fourteen years for the murder of the Wilkes County Deputy. He was released a few weeks before the second report was taken. He had been diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer and released to die at home.
They found Charlie Hayward shot through the head in the backyard. Cocaine in the bloodstream of a non-user and no alcohol. Toxicology was the same as Twomey and the Labor Boss. And God only knew who else.
The room went out of focus. It wasn’t similar. It was exact, but crude. The report noted there were signs of a struggle. The victim had been so hated that nobody cared to investigate further.
Luke leaned against the wall struggling to comprehend what he was reading.
No one ever noticed. There was no national database for suicide specific toxicology. No one would ever notice the pattern unless they were looking for it.
She knew that. She knew this pattern would remain undetected for a very long time. Forever maybe. She knew a lot of things it seemed. Not least was how to manipulate him.
The paper yielded as Luke’s hand clenched down so tight his knuckles turned white. He threw the paper at the wall.
“Luke. Luke, this whole thing is messed up….” Thad trailed off, his voice steady. “Say the word and this whole thing disappears. Nobody knows but us. If we say the senator killed himself, that’s what happened. We can come up with an explanation for Cade.
Luke kept staring out the window. He suddenly couldn’t look Thad in the eye. Moments ago, he was trying to save her. Now his partner was trying to save him. Luke looked at his favorite square aglow in the familiar orange streetlights, only now he hated the sight of it.
He had been a fool. She seduced him as thoroughly as he'd fallen for it. The truth crashed over him. He was the reason this case never went anywhere. It was right under his nose, but he was too distracted to see it. Humiliation and fury churned inside him, and he heard someone yell. It sounded like him.
Sharp pain seared through his hand as he punched the wall over and over. He didn’t stop until he felt the drywall give way under his bleeding knuckles. The crumble satisfied his rage for the moment. He shook his hand. Pain spiked up his wrist and into his forearm, clearing his mind.
His time playing the fool was over. That woman had no idea the depths he would send her to. He would pay hell itself a visit if that’s what it took to drag her there.
“No,” Luke said over his shoulder. “This ends tonight.”
The menace in his partner’s voice made Thad’s head swing up. Worry clouded his face, and he opened his mouth to speak. Luke cut him off.
“Get on the phone to Steve. I’m gonna need everybody from the Atlanta office that he can spare. Especially the Forensic I.T. guys. I don’t care if he has to steal a chopper to get them here,” Luke ordered. “And I want our Tactical Response Team mobilized and here within two hours.”
“Why do you want TRT?”
“Just do it.”
Thad nodded at the same time his phone chirped. He pulled it out of his pocket. “Yeah.” His face was vacant as the voice on the other side jabbered.
“Where? Ok, thanks, Tonya.” Thad sounded more deflated than he did when he handed Luke the fax. He hung up. “Alex Wynn is dead, Luke. They ID'd his body. He was shot at a member's only club on Abercorn Street.” Thad fiddled with his phone as Luke stared out the window.
“Luke, it was Tully. They've got like ten eyewitnesses that put her on the scene while we were at Cade’s place. SPD has been there for about twenty minutes.”
A perverse sense of relief flooded Luke. This would make it easier to run down that lying bitch. Calmly he turned to Thad. “Let's go.”
THIRTY-FOUR
She was born May 22, 1980, to Samuel and Alice Meara in Prickett, Georgia. They lived a contented life in a small farm town. The kind of place where everyone waved to each other and front doors were never locked. Where mud pies were an acceptable form of currency for a popsi
cle, and crawfish from the creek made it to the table. Life was insulated and happy. Evil lived in a far away fairy tale, not Prickett. Or so she thought.
Tully was seven years old the night she found out evil didn't have a zip code. More than one life was destroyed the night her father died, but none as completely as hers.
Her mother lapsed into a protective depression. For the next ten years, Tully cleaned the house, shopped for groceries, got herself ready for school and did her homework, all while caring for her bed-ridden mother. Until Tully buried Alice Meara too. Her mother’s death had been calm and peaceful, surrounded by people that loved her. Cancer was a far gentler executioner than the one that took her father.
Tully thought she left it behind when she left for college the next year. But she had no sooner started her first year when the past began to crush down on her.
That’s when she met Alex Wynn. A popular professor, he was handsome and smart. She showed up late to his first class and had to sit in the front. He approached her at the end of class and every class after. It seemed to Tully that he always knew what to say. What she needed to hear. She thought it was a miracle when he showed up at her door the night she reached the end of her rope.
At first, he was gentle. Every whisper sounded like gospel. It took very little to convince her to kill for the first time. A life for a life. Charlie Hayward took her father's life so she would take his. Her first lesson. She learned a lot that freshman year. Like how quickly gentleness can tarnish into abuse. And how unforgiving the wrong choice can be.
For the next fifteen drunken, wasted years she managed to arrange his manipulation into something that resembled security. Who else did she have? Alex protected her. Now and then she would wake up from a guilt-induced bender and try to break free of his domination. He would fold her entire life into one tidy, but macabre paragraph and throw it at her. It worked every time.
Until two months ago. She left the phone in the senator's pocket as an act of rebellion. A loud warning to Alex that she had the power to take him down if he didn’t let her go. She was determined to see it through this time, even if it killed her. It probably would, but she didn't care. She would be free of him.
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