False Truth 8-10: 3 Action-Packed Romantic Detective Mystery Thrillers To Keep You Up All Night (Jordan Fox Mysteries Series)

by Diane Capri

  Until Fox had seemed to come out of nowhere and thwarted El Pulpo business too many times.

  Now, Walker knew everything about Jordan Fox down to her underwear size. He’d monitored her every move since she first reported on the body in the aquarium. The thorough dossier he’d ordered revealed the problem with his soldiers in the field. A problem he could have easily eliminated, if he’d only known.

  After that, he’d tapped her phones, her computers, everything. Cameras in her house, at her work, everywhere. Walker’s people had been on her twenty-four seven, yet unable to stop her.

  She hadn’t slowed. She was either the luckiest bitch on the planet, or the most stubborn. Or both.

  Enough.

  “Dial Shane.” Shane was El Pulpo’s local attorney. Lawyer for Evan Groves and Hugo Diaz, and the late Pipo Sanchez, too. Same lawyer El Pulpo always used. He always delivered.

  Shane answered on the first ring. “How may I be of service to you?”

  “Why am I watching that vixen screw up my delivery right now?” Walker’s voice was low. Steady. No indication of urgency. The mere fact that he’d called was enough.

  Shane said nothing.

  “She should be dead already.” Walker heard dinner party sounds in the background.

  “She’s guarded day and night.” Shane’s tone was low, too, but less steady. The party sounds diminished as if he’d walked a few feet away. “Too visible.”

  Exactly. Walker glared at the Channel 12 truck and watched the government’s black ants march all over his plans. “Forty-eight hours. No more.”

  Shane paused, as if he might argue and thought better of the impulse. “Understood.”

  “The father, too.” Walker was through with Jordan Fox. The hyenas might be slowed a bit by fresh kill in his wake. He wiped his palm over his face.

  A longer pause this time before Shane said once more, “Understood.”

  “She screws up the typhoid deal and you’re done.” Walker clicked off and destroyed the single-use phone. He leaned back in his seat and watched Jordan Fox a bit longer from a reclined position.

  Tequila had slowed his heartbeat and decision had cleared his head. He settled into the familiar rhythm of a well-structured operation. The typhoid plan was already in play. Simple. Fool proof.

  With Fox out of the way, everything would unfold easily. El Pulpo would receive half of the money after the World Cup location vote. The other half due after the result was announced—assuming the vote favored Walker’s client.

  Eliminate the U.S. and the client would win. They’d bribed enough people on the voting committee to make it so. The client reigns on the international soccer stage. El Pulpo and Walker collect their fee.

  Then, he’d walk away. Leave El Pulpo to the hyenas. But only then.

  He patted his front pocket absently as if the money for his retirement rested securely there now.

  Walker noticed Jordan Fox stood in front of a camera now, reporting her victory and another El Pulpo defeat. He could listen to her on the feed, but the soldiers would do that. Nothing she reported here mattered now.

  Felix was done.

  Fox was done.

  Groves and Diaz? Done.

  Shane was done, too.

  One last operation to complete.

  After that, he’d be gone.

  Walker shrugged and drained the flask. “Let’s go. I’ve seen enough.”

  CHAPTER 2

  After Jordan’s last media competitor departed the scene of the raid at The Grove, Tampa Police Officer Clayton Vaughn, who fancied himself as her personal guardian angel these days, said, “Grab some sleep.”

  His bossy nature raised her temper, as always. “I’ve got work to do yet.”

  “Let Theresa do it. Sleep while you can.” Clayton’s tone sounded more like a stern parent than a friend before he returned to his team. “There’s a good chance detectives will be calling you first thing in the morning, or before.”

  Truth was, Jordan felt exhausted all of a sudden. Cold, too. An October breeze chilled all the way through her skin. She rubbed the gooseflesh on her arms, trying to warm up. Clayton was right. She needed sleep. In her own bed. “But that’s not gonna happen.”

  “What’s not gonna happen?” Theresa Parma, her best friend at work and a great reporter, walked up. “Cut the guy a break. He wants a date. You know you like him. And Tom Clark could use the competition. What’s the problem?”

  “I thought you were rooting for Tom.” Jordan smiled, still weighing her options. Sleep was sounding better and better.

  “I am rooting for Tom.” Theresa could take the video back to the station, load everything into the system and edit to make their night’s work look its best for the early morning news. “But that doesn’t mean I think he should take you for granted, does it?”

  “Exactly.” And just like that, Theresa’s constant support made Jordan’s decision. If she couldn’t trust Theresa, then she had no one at Channel 12 on her side. So Jordan handed everything to Theresa and headed to the only bed expecting her tonight, her boss’s waterfront mansion where she’d been house-sitting since Thursday.

  Jordan pulled Hermes into the driveway at the mansion a few minutes after one in the morning. The Tampa police cruiser had followed her and parked in the driveway behind Hermes where the two officer protective detail Clayton had arranged would stay the night again.

  She turned off the engine and scooped up her bag and her yellow water bottle. She brushed the hair from her face and tried to shake off nerves that were creeping up her chest. “So you’re scared of the dark now, Jordan? Go to bed. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

  Jordan squared her shoulders, waved to the police officers, and walked around to the back of the mansion. Everything about this place had so delighted her two days ago when house-sitting for her boss had seemed like a vacation. Now the mansion felt huge and cold and dark and empty. The neighborhood was unnaturally quiet, too.

  “Suck it up. Get inside. Get some sleep.”

  She unlocked the back door, pushed it open and felt a breezy draft assault her skin. Her blouse wafted in the wind. She shivered. Where was that blast of air coming from?

  Had she left the air conditioning on high? In October? No way.

  The usual citrus and old wood aroma inside the house reached her nose mixed with unfamiliar scents. What was that smell? Something like bleach and tobacco, almost. An electric tingle ran straight from the base of her spine to her scalp.

  She felt another rush of cold air blowing across the cavernous room. She turned toward the source and spied it. Dim ambient light from the pool outside revealed one of the French doors, wide open.

  Her heart rate doubled instantly.

  She’d stood there often over the past few days. In daylight, it was one of two doors that offered spectacular views of Tampa Bay beyond the property’s edge.

  She hadn’t opened those doors this morning.

  She reached into her bag for her phone as she stepped cautiously toward the door.

  She grabbed the brass door handle with one hand and, at the same time, pressed the speed dial Clayton had set up to connect her quickly to the officers out front.

  Heavy footfalls echoed from across the room before she could do anything more.

  He closed the distance fast.

  His thick right arm circled tight around her waist and lifted her straight off the ground. His clothes and skin emitted an aroma cloud of fine tobacco.

  Jordan thrashed wildly and screamed. “Let me go!”

  He knocked her phone out of her hand and it slid across the polished wood floor.

  She was five-feet-seven-inches tall and she weighed one forty. He couldn’t hold her like this forever. She thrashed and yelled and thrashed again.

  He clenched her waist tighter and jerked her back against his chest in an effort to stabilize her.

  Her movements were restricted now, but she kicked his legs and punched with her fists and screamed and
wiggled as much as possible. With the French door open and the neighbors asleep, maybe her voice would carry all the way to her detail out front.

  He seemed unfazed. His left hand reached into a pocket. He pulled out a cloth liberally dosed with pungent chloroform.

  The bleachy odor. She knew what was coming. She pressed her lips closed.

  He and clapped the cloth over her mouth and nose and held it there as he forced the back of her head against his chest. Her lips were pressed tightly against her teeth by his huge paw holding the cloth over her mouth.

  No more yelling was possible.

  The bleachy fumes irritated her eyes and saline tears rushed down her cheeks. She blinked rapidly, but the fumes stabbed her corneas every time her eyelids opened.

  She wiggled and thrashed and tried to make noise without breathing.

  If she inhaled the chloroform she’d quickly be unconscious. He had to be counting on that because she was heavy and thrashing as if her life depended on it.

  “You’re done. Give it up,” He said.

  She didn’t recognize the smoke-roughened voice.

  He was right, though. He was taller, heavier, and stronger. He would win. Eventually. Her only hope was to outlast him.

  Jordan held her breath and continued to struggle.

  You’re an athlete, Jordan. A high school swim champ. A runner forever.

  Her arms flailed and her legs kicked. She punched his sides and slammed his shins. All to no effect.

  Don’t give up. You can hold your breath a good long time.

  But how long had she been holding her breath already? She felt her body weakening with fatigue.

  You can break free.

  She could.

  She would.

  Her head felt woozy, maybe from lack of oxygen, maybe exhaustion and fear. She squeezed her eyes closed against the nasty fumes.

  His grip held her tight and hard. She noticed the back of her head was pressed against something harder than his chest. Body armor, maybe.

  Keep fighting, Jordan. You can do it.

  Her arms felt rubbery. She dropped them to her sides.

  Her torso was tired.

  His thick vice-like grip on her waist squeezed her diaphragm painfully.

  Kick, Jordan. Kick.

  She felt lightheaded. Behind her closed eyelids, multi-colored light circles seemed to pop like flashbulbs on an old fashioned camera.

  Is this it, then? After everything she’d been through? Would she die here?

  Who would take care of her dad?

  Dad!

  The idea infused her with a brief spurt of renewed strength. She managed a few more weak kicks.

  Tired. So tired.

  Her thrashing had not loosened his grip. She’d use a different strategy.

  She stopped struggling.

  Her body relaxed. Her eyelids remained closed.

  He didn’t release her. He wasn’t fooled.

  She waited.

  She’d lost track of time, but maybe he’d pressed the chloroformed cloth to her face her less than a minute ago?

  She could suppress the urge to breathe for four to five minutes before she passed out and her body resumed its normal functions.

  She had to bet that he couldn’t hold her weight off the ground another three minutes.

  As her last act of self-defense, she refused to inhale.

  CHAPTER 3

  The French door slammed open. “Let her go.”

  Jordan’s eyelids popped open but she dared not breathe. The chloroformed cloth was still pressed hard to her mouth and nose.

  The police. Guns drawn and pointed straight at her. One officer also held a flashlight. The beam illuminated his beefy arm around her waist.

  From the shadows by the curving staircase, a single shot rang out. The two officers took cover. Another shot was fired.

  Nonsensically, Jordan wondered why the shots were so much quieter than the practice rounds she fired at the gun range with Clayton.

  Jordan’s oxygen-deprived brain finally registered that there were two men, in the house, not one. Why hadn’t she noticed that before?

  One of the officers fired toward movement behind Jordan somewhere. The man holding her off the ground seized the chaotic diversion to release his grip.

  Jordan fell to the floor. The cloth fell away from her face and she shoved it across the floor before she gulped great mouthfuls of air.

  Her attacker bolted out the open back door.

  The shooter followed, firing again.

  Both officers ran after the two men. She heard one officer shouting for backup into his radio.

  More shots were fired, but Jordan couldn’t see who fired or where the shots landed. She remained prone on the floor, drawing oxygen into her body. She began to feel light headed before her breathing fell into a normal rhythm again.

  From her vantage point on the floor, she saw her phone under a table. She scrambled to pick it up.

  Then, she heard a splash. She rushed out onto the patio see what was happening at the water’s edge. A speedboat at the dock, two men on board.

  “Call the boat patrols!” One officer yelled to the other.

  Twin outboard engines roared to life in quick succession and the boat leapt into the darkness.

  Jordan pushed two buttons on her phone to call Clayton.

  “Hang on. I’ll be right there.” Like he could sense the problem, almost. But he’d probably heard the officer radio for backup.

  “Come fast. Send boat patrols. Helicopters.” She forced her chest to rise and fall rapidly enough to reclaim speech. “Two men. Speedboat. Two engines. Headed toward the Gulf.”

  She listened for helicopters and patrol boats, but didn’t hear them. The two men were probably too far away by now. The search would be offshore. She continued watching the water, trance-like.

  Five minutes later, Clayton arrived. He ran around the house to the pool patio and hugged her with all his muscles. “You okay?” He pushed back and held her shoulders, looking her in the eye.

  She nodded. “Thanks for coming.”

  He looked around. “You’re here alone?”

  “Me and the officers. They’re out back. Waiting for crime scene techs or something. Who else would be here?”

  He shrugged. “I dunno. I thought maybe—well, I’m staying here tonight.”

  She pushed his arms back gently, but firmly. “Clayton, there are two officers outside already. You’ve got more on the way. I think they can handle my security.”

  He was shaking his head even before she finished talking. “Those guys were pros. They were inside the house, Jordan. You don’t even have a gun here, do you?”

  Clayton had been pushing her to improve her shooting skills and apply for a concealed weapons permit. But like so many other things she’d promised to do, that one hadn’t been accomplished, either.

  “Look, be smart about this.” He’d changed his tone from bossy to persuasive. “I’m staying on the couch and I won’t take no for an answer.”

  “Thank you.” Jordan was too tired to protest any more. And besides, extra security sounded pretty good right now. “Who were those two men? El Pulpo?”

  “Don’t know yet. Probably. We’ve got work to do, but you should sleep. You’ll have another long day tomorrow.” Clayton grabbed bottled water from the fridge. “We’ll take a statement from you in the morning. Detectives from the human trafficking bust will interview you before work, too. They’ve got questions.”

  She considered arguing with him, but she couldn’t muster the energy. Whatever they learned tonight, she’d ask about later. The house and grounds were well guarded now. Maybe she could sleep. She trudged up the stairs and fell into bed still wearing her work clothes.

  CHAPTER 4

  Jordan’s phone rang not three minutes past five a.m. She groaned, rolled over, and buried the phone under her pillow for a half a moment before picking up after the third ring.

  “Jordan Fox.” As she said
her name, she realized she hadn’t checked to see who was calling.

  “Ms. Fox, this is Detective Edward Grey from Tampa Police. We met briefly last night.”

  “Um hm.” Jordan’s eyes were still closed and her head filled with sleep fog, but she remembered him. Early- to mid-fifties. Full head of gray hair. Which was how she remembered his name. When she’d introduced herself, he’d said he remembered her mother’s case. He’d offered condolences. Nice guy. He’d brought her a cup of black coffee about midnight. She’d exchanged cards with him because she wanted to ask about her mom at some point.

  Detective Grey was still talking. “I’m sorry to bother you so early. We’ve got a narrow window of opportunity here and we’d like your help. It’s a little complicated.” His voice trailed off, perhaps expecting a response.

  “Um hm. I see.” Jordan didn’t see. Her eyes were still closed, for one thing. She would be so much more helpful after another three hours sleep and a caffeine IV.

  “We’re holding this ship in port, but we can’t hold it much longer without a court order, according to the prosecutor’s office. We’ve got Maria Ortiz here with us. We think she can help us get the facts we need, but the poor girl is terrified. She seems to trust you.” He paused again.

  If Jordan had been more alert, she might have understood what he was hinting about. As it was, she mumbled a little white lie. “I see.”

  His voice was less tentative when he spoke again. “Look, I hate to ask. But could come down here? Help make Maria feel more comfortable so she’ll help us find the evidence?” When Jordan didn’t answer immediately, he said, “It shouldn’t take long. An hour, tops.”

  Jordan’s entire body seemed to scream in protest when she struggled to wake up. She pushed herself upright and sat on the edge of the bed. She glanced out the window where she saw nothing but darkness. Too early to get up. Need more sleep.

  What did he want her to do? She barely knew Maria. She shook her head as if to clear her confusion.