by Diane Capri
FALSE TRUTH 8-10
THREE JORDAN FOX MYSTERIES
BY
DIANE CAPRI
WITH
BETH DEXTER
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Also by DIANE CAPRI
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The Heir Hunter Series:
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Fatal Game
Fatal Edge
Fatal Fall
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The Hunt for Jack Reacher Series:
Deep Cover Jack
Jack and Joe
Jack in the Green
Get Back Jack
Don’t Know Jack
Jack in a Box
Jack and Kill
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True Justice (Judge Willa Carson)
Fair Justice (Judge Willa Carson)
False Justice (Judge Willa Carson)
Cold Justice (Judge Willa Carson)
Wasted Justice (Judge Willa Carson)
Secret Justice (Judge Willa Carson)
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False Truth 8-10 is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 Diane Capri, LLC
All Rights Reserved
Published by: AugustBooks
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eISBN: 978-1-940768-90-8
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Reviews
Books by Diane Capri
Copyright
Cast of Primary Characters
FALSE TRUTH 8
FALSE TRUTH 9
FALSE TRUTH 10
Excerpt from FALSE TRUTH 11
More from Diane Capri
Dear Reader
About the Authors
CAST OF PRIMARY CHARACTERS
Jordan Fox
Nelson Fox
Brenda Fox
Claire Stone
Clayton Vaughn
Tom Clark
Terry Ryser
Drew Hodges
Richard Grady
Patricia Neil
Theresa Parma
Antonio Vega
Jenny Lane
Evan Groves/Aaron Robinson
Hugo Diaz
Alden Walker
FALSE TRUTH 8
A JORDAN FOX MYSTERY
BY DIANE CAPRI
WITH BETH DEXTER
CHAPTER 1
Moments before his Cessna 172 plunged to the bottom of Tampa Bay, the pilot’s final words radioed to Tampa Control. Jordan Fox stood behind the assignment desk in the newsroom at Channel 12, head bowed, eyes squeezed tight, exhaling deeply again and again and again while the short clip replayed on a competing Tampa news station.
She wrapped her tan cardigan tighter and held it there, as if she could squeeze the icy chill from her body.
Pilot: Hey departure, you got any traffic in the area?
Control: I’m not painting anybody in your area at the moment.
Pilot: Departure? It’s a big white…machine. White possible UAV with a purple and green pattern—Holy shit!
Next came the sickening impact, splintering the acrylic windshield. Then, screaming, too brief. All combined in a visceral instant as if the space between Jordan’s ears had actually splintered with the windshield and the pilot’s final screams.
The next thing she heard from the audio was unnatural silence.
In the few hours since the crash, Jordan already knew the plane was registered to and could be operated by Dennis Raine, although his identity wouldn’t be officially confirmed until his wife and daughter were notified.
Jordan shuddered. His wife was pretty and his daughter looked about fifteen in the pictures Jordan had found on his Facebook page, too close to the age Jordan had been when her mother was murdered.
At least Jordan wasn’t working at a local Miami news station. She wouldn’t be assigned to knock on his do
or and ask surviving family any questions.
All the tiny hairs standing straight up on her neck meant she knew what caused the crash. Knew in her gut the pilot was right.
Jordan had been working on a drone story. She’d discovered things other journalists didn’t know. Yet.
The object that downed Raine’s Cessna was an Unmanned Arial Vehicle, just like he said. But authorities didn’t suspect it right away.
No official UAV was purple and green. There were standards that governed drones. Purple and green were not authorized. This UAV was highly unusual.
Which meant this one that downed Raine’s aircraft was a handmade drone. Designed and crafted by some sort of flying fanatic.
It had to be.
Probably.
Maybe.
Jordan’s News Nose insisted that those drones were dangerous when they’d almost decapitated her yesterday. The same News Nose Drew Hodges had teased her about.
But he’d been wrong and she’d been right.
And now a man was dead.
Which didn’t please her at all.
Patricia Neil, the assignment editor, had sent her favorite reporter, Antonio Vega and Drew to the crash site to compete with all the other news stations in town. Drew got the assignments that would make him visible and give him a chance to shine. Patricia stuck Jordan at the assignment desk. Again.
If Patricia had her way, Jordan would never get any good stories or air time.
Slowly, Jordan controlled her feelings about the pilot and realized Drew was gaining ground every minute in the competition that would determine which one of them got the next real job that opened up at Channel 12.
Which was precisely what Patricia intended. She wanted Drew to win. She’d made that plain enough.
Life is unfair. Deal with it.
There was nothing Jordan could do now for the pilot. But she could help his family, and beat Drew in the process, if she discovered exactly what went wrong and who was responsible.
When Raine’s Cessna was recovered from Tampa Bay, probably early tomorrow if the weather held, divers would find the drone and everyone would know what caused the crash. Everyone would see the purple and green.
Until then, Jordan had a slim chance to get a package ready to air before Drew scooped her. If she pushed hard enough.
She knew the best place to start. Keith Simpson.
She watched the clock, willing it to click over to 11:33 p.m.
Keith had left the building five minutes before her. She could catch him.
Jordan sprang into action. She grabbed her stuff and hustled down the cement stairs, through the deserted lobby, and to the exit. She jogged along the sidewalk that led to Page Street and across to the parking garage.
Keith Simpson was a Channel 12 engineer, geeky and loveable like an overgrown kid. He was always running around in faded blue jeans fixing mechanical and software issues for her and everybody else.
Jordan was sure he’d be able to confirm her suspicion that the possible UAV was a drone before divers brought it out of Tampa Bay.
But Jordan’s feeling was that Raine’s Cessna had been deliberately attacked. Call it a hunch or intuition or her News Nose.
She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter what you call it. What matters is you know it. Know. Not feel.”
If she was right, she’d scoop Drew for sure. She grinned.
“Patricia will be so pissed. Yes!” She fist pumped the air and hopped a little off the ground at the same time.
The cool October night breeze chilled her skin. She held the cold phone to her ear and jogged faster across Page Street.
Keith picked up on the first ring. “J-Fox. What’s up?”
She knew he was big into computers and technology because he had a whole stash of spare parts and wires in his little shop at the back end of the newsroom. He’d be interested in the Boden High School drone club and the plane crash and all things geeky.
“So, you know that Cessna crash a couple hours ago?”
Keith could help her figure out if a drone did the damage, with zero risk that he’d steal her scoop.
“How could I miss it?”
Jordan jogged up the parking garage stairwell, two steps at a time, to the third floor.
Maybe she’d sound like an idiot, but Keith would say so if her theory was preposterous. “Could the green and purple paint pattern the pilot reported on a white UAV have been a drone? Er, amateur multirotor?”
“What altitude was the plane at?” In the background, gear clanked and Keith grunted as if lifting the weight of a heavy object.
Jordan pressed the keyless entry button on the key fob and rushed into Hermes’ driver’s seat. She buckled her seatbelt and started the car and backed out. “About two thousand feet, give or take, is what I heard.”
“Possible.” A trunk lid slammed closed. Keith must have arrived at home faster than she’d expected. “Nothing else would be flying that low except birds. I mean, it was either a drone or an alien space vehicle.” He snorted twice. “But why don’t you come over? We’ll talk.”
Precisely the invitation Jordan had hoped for, so she pulled out of the garage and headed in that direction. It was a Saturday night, and most of her friends were at the bars. Theresa had invited her to Infidel Brewery because Tom Clark would be there.
But that was hours ago, before the crash. Theresa would be working past midnight to follow up on the plane story until she could hand it off to the morning producers and reporters. Infidel and Tom Clark would have to wait.
Jordan’s GPS signaled the way to Keith’s address. Turn by turn, Hermes traveled away from the parts of town she knew well. Each dark, deserted street led farther from home. She gripped the steering wheel a little tighter and flipped the automatic door locks open and closed, to be sure.
She was just a couple blocks from Prostitute Row, considering turning back, when the Australian voice inside the GPS announced that she’d reached her destination.
She braked and looked around. She had stopped in something like a back alley—not a normal residential neighborhood.
Jordan peered out of her windows, left and right. Nothing but bushes and piles of leaves and the eyes of a stray cat visible in the dark. She backed up and shined her headlights to the left. A driveway was revealed.
CHAPTER 2
She reversed a bit farther, maneuvering the headlights. No house number, but she spotted Keith’s little red sedan in the few shadows cast by moonlight. Beyond the sedan, she made out a flight of wooden stairs.
Why hadn’t he told her he lived in a garage apartment? Because he was Keith Simpson, that’s why. He was focused on hidden details, not on obvious facts.
Which was exactly why he’d be helpful tonight. She grinned. She might actually beat Drew this time after all.
Jordan pulled in behind Keith’s red sedan and shifted Hermes into park. She opened her door, and the stray cat bounded off the leaf pile, stirring up the scent of decomposing oak.
Her feet touched down on the makeshift dirt driveway, and at that moment a deep-throated dog barked wildly. Her heart leapt and pounded hard. The barking continued, deep and fast, like a vicious tattletale.
Jordan eyed the dog. Medium sized with brown shabby hair. “It’s true what they say about dogs resembling their owners.”
The dog continued barking.
A wire fence marked BEWARE OF DOG contained him. She held her breath and loosened her grip and closed Hermes’ door as softly as possible.
The wire fence was probably good for safety, but not welcoming to guests. The wooden stairs leading to Keith’s door were also behind the fence.
Jordan pulled her phone from her sling bag and called Keith. Two rings. She stepped close to the fence, craning to get a look inside the apartment windows. The night air weighed more heavily around her and the smell of oak compost settled into her pores. She sneezed.
Two more rings. No answer. Ugh. Keith was probably distracted with his electronic gadgets alre
ady. He could be a bit absentminded.
Okay, very absentminded.
Jordan approached the closed gate and fondled the metal latch. The dog snarled and growled and barked until she snatched her hand away. “All right, all right. Calm down. What are you, some kind of hellhound?”
She crouched down at the edge of the fence. Dirt dusted the tops of her black flats. She waited. Slowly, his growl faded away and his stance relaxed.
“There, see?” The dog paced closer to the fence. She could smell him now. Her nose wrinkled. She gagged. He must have rolled in a skunk or something. “It’s okay.” She fingered the medallion on his collar. “It’s okay, Smithers. It’s just me, Jordan. See? Nice to meet you. Friends?”
She considered putting her fingers through the metal lattice to let Smithers sniff. As if he read her mind, he bared his teeth and growled in her face. She jerked her hand back. “All right!” Option B?
Jordan cupped her hands. “Keith?” She called loudly enough that he might hear if he had an open window, but softly enough to not disturb any neighbors.
