Licensed to Thrill: Volume 2

by Diane Capri

  Jess immediately understood Helen’s position—she, too, had seen the horrible video of Eric Sullivan’s last moments on earth and recalled every frame. But as a mother, Jess disagreed: For her, not seeing the images of Peter’s kidnapping was infinitely worse. Her imagination produced powerful, terrifying images whenever she closed her eyes. She’d have preferred knowing exactly what had happened to Peter instead of being tormented by questions that could never be answered.

  Jess didn’t push but instead tested Sullivan’s poise with a more provocative question. “The execution of Tommy Taylor is set for Friday at six p.m., twenty-seven hours from now. Yet, you’re attending a ball this evening to celebrate the end of your final term as Governor. Doesn’t that seem in poor taste to you?”

  Sullivan remained still, hands clasped in front of her, holding a linen handkerchief embroidered with her husband’s initials. She didn’t look away or avoid the question. Nor was she provoked to rash comments.

  “Executions are difficult for all of us. It wasn’t right to avoid the problem by leaving for my successor, and the date and time couldn’t be set until after the appeal process was exhausted. There was simply no alternative.”

  Too controlled, Jess wrote on her pad. She gave the effort one last shot, not really knowing what she was trying to accomplish but operating purely on instinct. Something told her there was an issue to uncover here, and Jess needed to know she’d looked under every rock before she allowed a man’s life to be extinguished. Even if doing so got Jess thrown out into the cold with Manson.

  “Some people say you’re too close to this case, Governor. You were on the team that prosecuted Taylor for the fifth murder, the one for which he will be executed.”

  Sullivan waited for Jess to finish the question. Much too cool, Jess thought, watching closely as she tried again to get a rise out of the self-possessed woman.

  “They say that you believe Taylor had your son killed as an act of vengeance,” Jess said, “payback for his death sentence.”

  Was there a slight tension in the clasp of Helen’s hands that hadn’t been there before?

  “Is that true?” Pen poised, recorder running, Jess waited. Eventually, Sullivan would talk, and what she didn’t say might be as powerful as the carefully crafted answer she might eventually offer.

  The murder of Eric Sullivan and Ryan Jones remained an open case. Law enforcement agencies might well know more than they could prove about the unsolved crime, which meant that Helen could be motivated by knowledge about Eric’s killer that had never been made public.

  After several empty seconds, Jess cleared her throat. Governor Sullivan blinked, seeming to realize where she was once again after being captured by her own thoughts. When she did respond, her stilted statement suggested another rehearsed answer.

  “I was a junior member of the prosecutor’s team when Mr. Taylor was tried for the murder of Mattie Crawford. The question of my disqualification to act on his case as governor was fully explored during his appeal process and decided by the courts. The suggestion that I might be disqualified is incorrect on both the facts and the law.”

  Another question transparently dodged with a prepared response.

  By reputation, Jess was a bulldog interviewer who never, never gave up on a sensitive question in pursuit of truth. She opened her mouth to rephrase, but something about the set of Governor Sullivan’s face stopped her words before she voiced them. Instead, Jess asked a question she’d designed to support the final paragraphs of her article and wrap everything up.

  “Why do you think justice is best served by Tommy Taylor’s execution, Governor? Why not issue a pardon?”

  Before Sullivan could answer, the cell phone on the table rang. She glanced down at her watch, apparently surprised to notice it was already past four o’clock.

  She said, “Excuse me, please,” picked up the phone, stood and walked into the adjoining private chambers. Jess reached over and pressed the off button on the recorder and settled in to wait by reviewing her notes.

  During the research phase of the case, Jess had learned that the cell phone was never far from Governor Sullivan’s right hand. Its omnipresence was, by tacit agreement, ignored by the press because it seemed cruel to comment. But everyone knew that the phone connected Helen Sullivan directly to her husband who’d kept an identical one with him at all times since being released from the hospital three years ago.

  Oliver Sullivan’s gunshot wound had healed without serious complications, but he’d suffered a severe stroke following the surgery to remove the bullet. Through months of physical therapy, Governor Sullivan had remained by his side as much as possible.

  Now Oliver spent most of his time at their cattle ranch, some forty miles from Tampa in Thornberry, where he’d grown up next door to his high school sweetheart Helen Carter. The ranch was and always had been their only private residence.

  Almost fifteen minutes later, Sullivan returned to her seat across from Jess.

  “I’m sorry for the interruption,” the governor said, then frowned over the noise from Manson’s protestors that had increased in volume, suggesting more people had joined the group outside.

  Regular chanting, difficult to discern at first, became clear with repetition: “DNA. DNA. DNA.”

  Manson must have arrived, Jess thought, kicking the protest up a few notches by his very presence. The five o’clock news would be starting soon and Manson would find some way of ensuring the journalists deemed his spectacle worthy of air time tonight. He’d started a countdown to Taylor’s execution and would stop at nothing to provoke constant attention until Taylor died.

  Jess watched as Sullivan glanced over at Florida Department of Law Enforcement Special Agent Frank Temple and inclined her head. Temple, who typically kept within ten feet of the governor, opened the room’s door and invited Jess’s photographer Mike join them.

  Now what’s that about? Jess wondered as she turned the recorder back on.

  Mike quickly set up his camera and began shooting as the chanting from outside grew louder, angrier.

  “Do you hear that, Governor?” Jess asked, knowing the video would pick up the chants as clearly as she could hear them. “The Manson Abolition Project is saying that Taylor didn’t kill Mattie Crawford. They say you should stay his execution pending new DNA evidence. Why have you chosen not to do that?”

  Jess knew the facts surrounding Manson’s DNA argument, but Sullivan’s detailed knowledge of the case would impress the magazine’s reading audience with the level of care the Governor exercised when dealing with a stay of execution request.

  Sullivan leaned forward in the chair, raising her voice a bit to be clearly heard. “Because there is no new evidence to test. They claim that newer DNA techniques used on the old evidence might reveal Mr. Taylor’s innocence, but they’re wrong. Everything was tested before the trial and twice more during his appeals.”

  “Could newer techniques reveal a different result?”

  “They might,” Sullivan acknowledged. “But only if there were any new evidence. I’ve granted a stay of execution twice before to allow the defense to find such evidence. They haven’t found it. Mattie Crawford’s family deserves our consideration too. They deserve closure for the long, painful process of moving on with their lives.”

  Sullivan stopped a few moments, cleared her throat, and raised her voice to be heard over the chanting. “We can’t wait any longer for evidence that may never be found and, if it were found, would no doubt confirm what the prior tests already revealed and two juries already concluded: Mr. Taylor was Mattie Crawford’s killer.”

  To be fair and objective, Jess raised the obvious counter-argument. “But many ask what the rush is. If Tommy Taylor is guilty, he can be executed later. You’re not concerned that the next governor will pardon him, are you?”

  Sullivan looked at Jess for a long moment before settling back into her chair and refolding her hands on her lap. If her composure had slipped a bit earlier, she ha
d herself well under control now. She glanced briefly toward Frank Temple, for what? Assent?

  Jess leaned in closer to hear every word.

  “You and I have worked together before, Jess. We don’t agree on these death penalty cases, do we?”

  Jess held her stare. “No, Governor, we don’t.” And most of the country sides with me, she thought but did not voice.

  Helen nodded. “Right now, you’d think I’m committing political suicide by admitting that I don’t support the death penalty, especially when I’ve managed to avoid that answer in the past. Wouldn’t you?”

  The chanting outside grew louder and seemed to be moving in a sound wave closer to the room where they sat. “DNA. DNA. DNA.”

  Jess noticed Frank Temple reach into his pocket and pull out a cell phone. He pushed a button and held the phone to his ear. She read the slight furrow in his brow as concern, but not alarm. He pushed a button, and dropped the phone back into his pocket, then moved closer to Sullivan, but remained out of the camera’s view.

  What was going on?

  Jess turned the question back on the governor. “I take it you don’t think so?” She was almost shouting to be heard over the protesters’ racket.

  “I’ve worked within the legal system my entire career,” said Sullivan, looking directly into the camera, “and I believe in it, even though the system is not infallible. But the older I get, the more I understand that we don’t know everything. Crystal balls are rare. We don’t see all the nuances. We make mistakes, some impossible to correct, for which we can never atone. We can’t bring people back to life.” Sullivan glanced down a moment, but quickly returned her steady gaze toward Jess, who had all but gasped.

  Emboldened by Sullivan’s candor, Jess pressed harder: “Tell us why you’re going out of your way, then, to ensure Tommy Taylor is executed before you leave office, Governor.”

  Although her run for the U.S. Senate hadn’t been confirmed, speculation had been rampant for weeks that Sullivan would declare her candidacy tonight. Everybody knew she had the full weight of the party machine behind her. Helen Sullivan was the people’s politician. Voters in this state loved her, perhaps more so since her son was killed and she’d continued to serve selflessly, but it seemed foolhardy to test that devotion when she didn’t need to.

  Again Jess wondered what made this woman tick. Why? She jotted on her pad.

  Sullivan’s straight posture and squared shoulders projected strength, invulnerability. If Jess’s question angered her, she gave no outward indication but simply nodded again.

  “Fair question. If Governors made the decisions of office based only on our personal opinions, the job would be too hard, Jess. No decent human being could survive the weight. We’re not God. The people didn’t elect me to substitute my own judgments for the laws on the books. I promised I would follow the law because it’s the right thing to do, and—” her breath caught momentarily “—it’s the only way I can carry the load.”

  “DNA. DNA. DNA.”

  The crowd seemed to be directly outside the window, on the lawn. But Jess knew that was impossible. Security would have stopped the protestors long before that point. Manson must have some sort of amplification system set loud enough to deafen them. The volume pulsed stronger than a rock concert. Jess could feel the vibrations as voices shouted, “DNA. DNA. DNA.”

  Jess kept her tone raised to be heard over the din. “Are you saying governing isn’t a matter of individual conscience?” As Jess awaited the governor’s answer, she lowered her eyes to avoid the naked pain in Helen Sullivan’s gaze.

  “To answer you simply, Jess,” said Helen, “those who govern must abide by the law. Despite our best efforts, humans sometimes make mistakes in its application. That is what I would change if I could.”

  Helen glanced toward Agent Temple, perhaps concerned about the rising volume of the protesters, before she continued. “But the law is all we have to separate us from the criminals. I intend to enforce the law of the State of Florida as long as I have the job. That’s exactly what I have done and will do until my term ends next week. I have to. It’s who I am: a woman who does the job she’s elected to do, whether she likes it or not. In the end, that’s all I have to offer.”

  Governor Sullivan’s last words were almost lost in the deafening explosion that seemed to shake the entire room. As the floor vibrated, the walls moved, and a heavy picture fell onto the floor, breaking its frame and glass into pieces.

  Agent Temple rushed toward Sullivan, simultaneously pulling out his service weapon. He grabbed the Governor’s arm and almost lifted her from the chair, pushing her in front of him toward her inner chamber. He opened the door, pushed her into the room, and swept inside behind her.

  Jess squeezed the arms of her chair until it stopped rocking, then she knelt on the floor next to Mike, her photographer. He’d fallen and the skin over his eye was bleeding where the camera’s viewfinder had struck him during the explosion. A rivulet of blood trickled down the right side of his face.

  In the deafening quiet, she asked, “Are you okay?”

  “I think so,” he said. He wiped the blood off with his hand, glanced at it, then looked around the room at the chaos. “But what the hell was that?”

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  CAST OF PRIMARY CHARACTERS

  Kim L. Otto

  Carlos M. Gaspar

  Charles Cooper

  Lamont Finlay

  Beverly Roscoe

  Jacqueline Roscoe

  Sylvia Black

  Harry Black

  Michael Hale

  Marion Wallace

  Archie Leach

  Jim Leach

  and

  Jack Reacher

  CHAPTER ONE

  Monday, November 1

  4:00 a.m.

  Detroit, Michigan

  JUST THE FACTS. AND not many of them, either. Jack Reacher’s file was too stale and too thin to be credible. No human could be as invisible as Reacher appeared to be, whether he was currently above the ground or under it. Either the file had been sanitized, or Reacher was the most off-the-grid paranoid Kim Otto had ever heard of.

  What had she missed?

  At four in the morning the untraceable cell phone had vibrated on her bedside table. She had slept barely a hundred minutes. She cleared her throat, grabbed the phone, flipped it open, swung her legs out of bed, and said, “FBI Special Agent Kim Otto.”

  The man said, “I’m sorry to call you so early, Otto.”

  She recognized the voice, even though she hadn’t heard it for many years. He was still polite. Still undemanding. He didn’t need to be demanding. His every request was always granted. No one thwarted him in any way for any reason. Ever.

  She said, “I was awake.” She was lying, and she knew he knew it, and she knew he didn’t care. He was the boss. And she owed him.

  She walked across the bedroom and flipped on the bathroom light. It was harsh. She grimaced at herself in the mirror and splashed cold water on her face. She felt like she’d tossed back a dozen tequila shots last night, and she was glad that she hadn’t.

  The voice asked, “Can you be at the airport for the 5:30 flight to Atlanta?”

  “Of course.” Kim answered automatically, and set her mind to making it happen.

  Showered, dressed, and seated on a plane in ninety minutes? Easy. Her apartment stood ten blocks from the FBI’s Detroit Field Office, where a helicopter waited, ever ready. She picked up her personal cell and began texting the duty pilot to meet her at the helipad in twenty. From the pad to the airport was a quick fifteen. She’d have time to spare.

  But as if he could hear her clicking the silent keys, he said, “No helicopter. Keep this under the radar. Until we know what we’re dealing with, that is.”

  The direct order surprised her. Too blunt. No wiggle room. Uncharacteristic. Coming from anyone lower down the food chain, the order might have been illegal, too.

  “Of
course,” Kim said again. “I understand. Under the radar. No problem.” She hit the delete button on the half-finished text. He hadn’t said undercover.

  The FBI operated in the glare of every possible spotlight. Keeping something under the radar added layers of complication. Under the radar meant no official recognition. No help, either. Off the books. She didn’t have to hide, but she’d need to be careful what she revealed and to whom. Agents died during operations under the radar. Careers were killed there, too. So Otto heeded her internal warning system and placed herself on security alert, level red. She didn’t ask to whom she’d report because she already knew. He wouldn’t have called her directly if he intended her to report through normal channels. Instead, she turned her mind to solving the problem at hand.

  How could she possibly make a commercial flight scheduled to depart–she glanced at the bedside clock–in eighty-nine minutes? There was no reliable subway or other public transportation in the Motor City. A car was the only option, through traffic and construction. Most days it took ninety minutes door to door, just to reach the airport.

  She now had eighty-eight.

  And she was still standing naked in her bathroom.

  Only one solution. There was a filthy hot sheets motel three blocks away specializing in hourly racks for prostitutes and drug dealers. Her office handled surveillance of terrorists who stopped there after crossing the Canadian border from Windsor. Gunfire was a nightly occurrence. But a line of cabs always stood outside, engines running, because tips there were good. One of those cabs might get her to the flight on time. She shivered.

  “Agent Otto?” His tone was calm. “Can you make it? Or do we need to hold the plane?”

  She heard her mother’s voice deep in her reptile brain: When there’s only one choice, it’s the right choice.

  “I’ll be out the door in ten minutes,” she told him, staring down her anxiety in the mirror.