False Truth 1 (Jordan Fox Mysteries)
Page 1
FALSE TRUTH 1
A JORDAN FOX MYSTERY
BY
DIANE CAPRI
WITH
BETH DEXTER
Presented by:
AugustBooks
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Also by DIANE CAPRI
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Twisted Justice (Judge Willa Carson)
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False Truth 1 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 © 2014 Diane Capri, LLC
All Rights Reserved
Published by: AugustBooks
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eISBN:
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Reviews
Books by Diane Capri
Copyright
Cast of Primary Characters
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Excerpt from FALSE TRUTH 2
More from Diane Capri
Dear Reader
About the Authors
CAST OF PRIMARY CHARACTERS
Jordan Fox
Nelson Fox
Brenda Fox
Claire Stone
Salvador Caster
Clayton Vaughn
Chester Flynn
Linda Pierce
Richard Grady
Patricia Neil
Theresa Parma
FALSE TRUTH 1
CHAPTER 1
He breathed heavily, grunting as he worked long past midnight. Sweltering summer heat still saturated the air and the big man’s entire body was sweat-soaked under lightweight fishing clothes now drenched, too, with the dead man’s sticky blood.
He was almost finished. Soon, he’d be ready to head out into the Gulf.
He checked the inky sky once more to confirm the hour. Shrimp boats always set out to sea in the black of night. No one would notice his departure as long as he left before dawn. Returning after daylight was normal, too. The boat’s behavior would not be noticed. Still, he’d stocked the freezers earlier with fresh shrimp just in case someone asked to see tonight’s catch.
The processing of a human body was harder than he’d remembered. He hadn’t worked the docks in years and he was out of practice. He’d been delegating to his crew far too long. This job, he’d handle himself. Perfection was required. The boss had made that much crystal clear.
All the identifying parts were finally chopped and ready for the chum buckets.
The largest freezer chest in the cargo hold was a perfect fit for the torso. It would store well enough until he needed it. To be cautious, he’d covered it with fresh shrimp, too.
He’d return in a few hours to dispose of the torso, as planned. A grin spread across his face and reached up to crinkle the corners of his eyes because he planned to be there, watching when they discovered the torso. No one would notice him because the large crowd would be watching the speech.
It was the head that slowed him down at the end. Tools that handled shrimp and fish swiftly weren’t as useful for human decapitation and amputation, he’d found. He’d bring better ones next time.
The work was done by three a.m. Less than an hour after that to clean up, hose down the boat, sterilize his tools, and he was ready.
He didn’t expect anyone to examine the boat too closely, but he was thorough by nature. He didn’t like loose ends.
Everything that had been on the dead man’s body fit easily into one garbage bag. The man’s clothes weren’t too bulky, right down to his canvas slip-on shoes. Burning would suffice to destroy all remaining evidence, and he’d do that once he was far enough off shore.
On his way out of port, he opened a cold beer and congratulated himself for a job well done. He felt confident he hadn’t left anything that would tie him to the murder back on the docks. And he’d scrub himself down well before he returned. He knew how to contaminate and destroy the evidence. Some things you never forget.
The only thing left to do after the burning tonight was to feed the sharks.
CHAPTER 2
The day her new life fell apart, Jordan Fox rushed into the News Channel 12 parking garage and maneuvered around the curves and up the floors already packed with luxury vehicles. Adrenaline kicked up her desire to whoop and vomit at the same time.
She couldn’t be late. Not on her first day. Not ever.
She pressed the accelerator and plowed up another floor. Hermes, her electric blue subcompact Honda, wasn’t half as zippy as the Olympian god. He wasn’t the best car in the garage by a long shot, either.
But no one was judging her car. She’d rely on honesty and a triple dose of determination to bring her the success she craved from the news world. Surely that would be more than enough.
At least until she could afford a Ferrari. She grinned. Like that would ever happen.
She pulled Hermes into a parking spot on the incline to the covered seventh level and checked the digital clock. Two-twenty-six p.m. Only four minutes to report for duty. She could make it.
She jumped out, slammed her door and pressed the remote. Hermes beeped in response and Jordan grinned at the saucy sound. She turned to hustle toward the News Center, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
Euphoria carried her another half a moment before the bad luck landslide started.
As she rounded her bumper, a black Mazda 3 backed expertly into the slot directly beside her.
“Hey Jordan!” The blonde and tanned Andrew Hodges poked his head out his door. “Wait up!”
Disappointment wilted her enthusiasm faster than the humidity wilted her shirt. She hadn’t seen Drew since graduation three months ago. She’d left that world behind and hadn’t once looked back.
She’d planned a fresh start, away from frivolous people like Drew Hodges.
“What are you doing here?” She and Drew hadn’t exactly run in the same circles during college. He’d been on the golf team and dated the brainy and beautiful Alice Ripper, while Jordan had been all wrapped up in dealing with her mom’s death and just went along with whatever interested her ex.
“It’s my first day. Gave up the pro tour. I’m an MMJ,” Drew flashed his perfect white smile. “You work here, too?”
Jordan had also been hired as a Multimedia Journalist. Reporter, photographer, editor, all-in-one. Also known as a one-man-band. Or, as Jordan preferred to think of it, the woman who does it all. Her dream job. She nodded and forced a smile. The last thing she needed was to be compared in the new job to someone as charming as Drew. “What are the chances?”
He laughed. “Pretty good, since we both went to journalism school right here in Tampa.”
Drew easily kept up with Jordan’s rapid pace down six flights of stairs to the outdoors. The News Center was on the opposite side of the street. A three-minute trek across the adjacent visitors’ parking lot. Heat radiated off the asphalt, suffocating Jordan in a bubble of sticky air. She slid her palm and over her flat brown hair to smooth the threatening frizz.
“So you’re on the nightside shift?” Drew asked. “Two-thirty to eleven-thirty? Or I guess technically eleven-thirty-three since that’s when the eleven o’clock news ends.”
“Thursday through Monday,” she replied, eyes ahead, striding quickly, focused on reaching the newsroom on time.
“That means we’re both working weekends,” Drew said. “We’ll have to band together to keep up our social life.”
Drew had been a popular party boy in college before Alice. Jordan said nothing, but she wondered what happened to his relationship. Maybe his had blown up as spectacularly as hers. Unlikely. Most college breakups are not that catastrophic.
She didn’t have time for more socializing. Caring for Nelson, her disabled dad, consumed most of her free time. It was the reason she was twenty-two years old and still living at home while most of her friends were getting their first or second apartments. Besides her dad and, now, her job, the rest of her time was split between her best friend, Claire Stone, and the two or three other friends she could barely manage. She planned to push aside even those few extra hours now that she’d finally embarked upon a more important mission.
Working as a Channel 12 MMJ was a means to an end. She could finally solve her mother’s murder and she intended to make the most of every free moment to do exactly that.
Drew pulled open the heavy glass doors of the contemporary media building and let her enter first. Frigid air blasted through the lobby and raised gooseflesh on Jordan’s arms.
“Man, why didn’t someone tell me to bring a parka?” she shivered and walked a little faster to warm up. Tomorrow, she’d wear a jacket even if the outside temps were suffocating mid-nineties and one-hundred percent humidity.
“Are you ready for our trial by fire?” Drew asked, both hands lounging in his pockets while he strolled alongside her.
“The afternoon meeting? How bad can it be? As long as we have a story to pitch, we’ll be fine.”
“Do you have an idea?” Drew asked.
She’d spent hours crafting her pitch for a story on a major construction project set to begin that night. Her dad and Claire said it was a perfect news story because viewers were perpetually interested in traffic and weather. With luck, her new bosses would feel the same.
Fake it til you make it, she thought, putting as much confidence into her tone as she could manage. “Of course. How about you?”
Drew wiggled his eyebrows and flashed a coy little smile that made her grin. “Maybe.”
At the elevators, she pressed the up arrow to take them to the second floor, tapping her foot on the carpet. Thirty seconds until she’d be classified as late. Her stomach was doing backflips and cramps wracked her abdomen. Should she dash up the stairs instead?
The elevator settled and lumbered open.
“Here we go. Ready?” Her voice sounded slightly breathless.
He straightened up, waved her in first, pushed the button for the second floor, and shrugged. “Sure, why not?”
CHAPTER 3
The doors opened into Jordan’s idea of career nirvana. Her chest swelled with pride and she felt a genuine smile light up her face. She almost couldn’t believe she was actually employed here.
The state-of-the-art newsroom’s expensive gleaming technology was displayed everywhere. Channel 12 boasted the best personnel to operate it, along with the most respected anchors on the air. Ratings consistently put the station at the top of the Tampa market and salaries were better than anywhere else in town.
And now, she was a part of this well-paid team. She felt she’d conjured the most perfect job on the planet from nothing more than sheer force of will.
Plus, her mom’s high school friend Linda Pierce was the Assistant News Director here, which had already helped Jordan immensely. Linda had blown open the door for Jordan and allowed her to stick her whole world inside. While many of her classmates were still looking for jobs, she’d landed the fairytale beginning.
Quality, location, and salary were the reasons she gave anyone who asked her. But Jordan’s satisfaction was deeply personal.
Channel 12 had been her mother’s favorite station. And Channel 12’s coverage of Brenda Fox’s murder had been the most thorough. Which meant Channel 12’s archives held more of what Jordan needed than other Tampa stations.
She intended to make the most of her chance.
Jordan walked acr
oss the newsroom to the conference room and took her seat on one side of the long shiny table. As producers, reporters, and photographers trickled into the meeting, Jordan was introduced to two of her many bosses, Executive Producer Richard Grady and Assignment Editor Patricia Neil. Their names made Jordan think of Richard and Patricia Nixon, big names she’d heard repeatedly in journalism school because of the Watergate scandal that produced one of the biggest journalism achievements of the twentieth century.
Taking a seat on the far side of the table, near the back of the room, Jordan checked her watch. She’d started wearing it on the advice of a Luddite college professor. “How are you supposed to know when your live shot is if your cell phone dies?”
Students had scoffed…but he had a point. Jordan could never be too well prepared.
The moment the second hand ticked into place at 2:45 p.m., Patricia started the meeting. Jordan made a mental note to obey the second hand when Patricia was at the helm.