“Thank you, but I didn’t have a choice. It was us or him, and I was determined it was going to be him.” Aleta knelt in front of Jack, pressed her hands onto his knees, and looked up into his face. “I wasn’t going to let him take you from me. No way. I lost everything that day. He’d already taken everything from me that I’d allow. You’re mine, Jack Fletcher, and I protect what’s mine.”
Jack took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead softly. There were no words to tell her what she meant to him and how proud he was of her bravery and resolve. All he could do was press his forehead to hers and hope she could feel it all in his touch.
They’d spent two hours at the hospital, only to be told what they already knew―Jack was fine. While they sat there in the examining room waiting, Morgan showed up. “Trooper, you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. Just want to leave here, that’s all.”
“Come straight to the post when you leave.”
“But Cappy―”
“Straight to the post, trooper. That’s an order.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m going down to the morgue. I want to know for sure that Moss is really, totally, and completely dead,” Cappy told him with a grin. “Good work, little lady.”
Aleta blushed. “Thanks, but I didn’t have a choice.”
“You could’ve let your fear completely disable you, but you didn’t. You channeled it and did what you had to do.” He patted Aleta on the shoulder, and Jack could see the pride she was feeling. She’d saved the day, and she’d never forget that. Neither would he.
“And about Ortiz―” he started, but his captain stopped him with an upheld hand.
“We’ll talk about that at the post. See you as soon as possible.” With that, Morgan strode out of the cubicle and left them there to wait.
Without a car, Jack hoped he’d find somebody to take them to the post. He needn’t have worried. “My god, I got here as soon as I heard.” Amos’s voice was broken as he panted, trying to catch his breath.
Jack smiled at his older brother. “We’re fine. But we need a ride to the post.”
“Then your ride awaits,” Amos announced and swept his hand toward the exit.
The conference room was full of people when Jack got there, and a few of them he didn’t know. Cappy motioned at two chairs for him, then turned a surprised face to Jack. “Where’s Mrs. Culp?”
“Down the hall, waiting for―”
Morgan shook his head. “Go get her. She deserves to be here.”
“Okay. Sure.” In seconds Jack was back in the room with Aleta right behind him, and they took the two seats next to his captain.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Morgan said, effectively calling the meeting to order. “I’m going to turn this over to someone most of you haven’t met. This is Agent Cruz Livingston from the FBI’s San Antonio office. Agent Livingston was crucial to this operation. I’ll let him tell all of you where everything stands right now.”
Cruz stood, and Jack smiled. He’d wanted to meet the man behind the voice, and there he was! He looked exactly as Jack had pictured him too, and he almost laughed at that. But when the tall man began to speak, his voice filled the room and no one could say he wasn’t commanding.
“As Captain Seitzer has said, my name is Agent Cruz Livingston. This gentleman,” he said, pointing to another man sitting beside him, “is Texas Ranger Daxton Chambers. I invited him to come into our briefing because he was the first contact Trooper Fletcher received from anybody in any of our organizations down south, and he deserves to be here.” Cruz picked up a legal pad and looked down at it. “At this time, we have five agents dead. Five are wounded, none mortally. Two unscathed, which were unit one. The subject, Blake Moss, is also deceased. His boss, Diego Ortiz, is in custody, as well as eight of his associates, all with no casualties. The juvenile, Kennedie Stone, is also in custody. She’s being treated at Santa Clara Regional Hospital in Austin for several injuries, including injuries resulting from a sexual assault and one from a broken leg that went untreated from the original accident. No word on her condition as yet―she’s still in assessment. Charges against Ortiz are being filed as we speak, and they’re a wide-ranging assortment. Blake Moss’s death leaves us with no one to charge with the deaths of Mrs. Culp’s husband and child, but we can charge Ortiz in connection to Frankie McIntosh’s death, and we intend to do so. He’ll also be charged for the kidnapping of the minor. Since that was across state lines, we are filing the charges, but KDCI will also have a hand in that under their sex trafficking investigative team, since she was assaulted. Unfortunately, she will also receive drug charges, but under the circumstances, we expect that will be worked out with her attorneys.”
Cappy cleared his throat and asked, “What’s the status on Menendez?”
“One of his guys will be arrested for soliciting a minor to commit a felony. Of course, since she never arrived there, it probably won’t stick, and we’re not going to push it. Our UCs are working well within the cartel. It’s more important to keep undercovers there and hidden than to push our luck. We’ll bide our time and eventually we’ll nail the whole damn bunch.”
He stopped, then turned to Jack. “Kentucky, I had hoped we’d eventually meet under better circumstances. Here’s what we’ve pieced together. At two hundred hours, Moss entered the rock quarry area west of your home. There, he chose a position and marked it. After that, he went from post to post of our agents, dressed in duck hunting apparel to blend in with the surroundings, apparel found in his vehicle. He planted small explosive charges near each unit’s post. We are deeming them IEDs. The agents who died were killed by flying shrapnel placed in those charges. The only unit he didn’t target was unit one, probably because he knew if he did that, everyone would catch on quickly. He then went back to the position he’d chosen in the quarry and loaded a …” Cruz stopped and looked at his notes, shaking his head. “Our technicians have deemed it a ‘homemade rocket launcher, very similar to a potato cannon.’” Jack couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. “He shoved a bag full of gasoline into the barrel, backed it with a rubber barrier, then set off the firing mechanism. When it hit your roof, it burst.”
“That was the thud I heard,” Jack mumbled.
“Yes. That was about the same time he cut the power to your house. And with the incendiary fuel on the house, he detonated the charges at the posts so there wasn’t time to react between their detonation and his next task. As the units reacted to the IED attack, he employed a flare gun. As soon as the flare from that gun hit the gasoline, it went up instantly. Based on the shot he pulled off on McIntosh’s rental car, he was an excellent marksman. There was no doubt in his mind that he would hit that gasoline and set your house on fire, thereby flushing you and Mrs. Culp out. This was very well-thought out and well-orchestrated on his part. It was quite the plan, and it worked.”
Aleta’s voice caused everyone in the room to turn. “Why didn’t he just shoot us with a high-powered rifle or something?”
“Because we ignored the most important component of this whole thing. This was a game to him. He wanted to show off, be smart and creative, dumbfound all of us. He never counted on a woman who wasn’t ready to give up.” He tossed the legal pad onto the table and sighed as his eyes found Jack’s. “On a sad note, I’m sorry, but your house is gone. With the units incapacitated, and because your power was off, there was no way to alert them and get firefighters to the scene in a timely fashion. It’s a total loss.”
Jack wanted to cry. That house … It was all he’d had of his and Heather’s life together, and it was gone. So was the portrait. He thought back to all the hours he and Amos had spent working on that house, and it was overwhelming to think he’d have to do it all over again. He was about to say something when Cruz interrupted his thoughts. “By the way, that little lady there … She’s quite a shot. Who taught you to shoot, ma’am?”
Aleta smiled. “Jack did.”
“You should ask
the department to give you a training position, Kentucky!” Cruz said, and everyone in the room chuckled. The tension was broken, and for that, Jack was thankful. “But that move, the one where you dropped and she shot? Where did that come from?”
Aleta giggled, but Jack laughed out loud and slapped the tabletop before he said, “If I tell you, you won’t believe me!”
Chapter 10
Aleta’s little apartment wasn’t very big, but it was somewhere to hang his hat, and Jack was thankful when she asked if he just wanted to move in there. He didn’t have much to move. Everything he had was gone.
Time and time again, his parents had told him he had the house over-insured, but he was glad. In a couple of weeks, there was a crew at his place, clearing the land and preparing the lot for new construction. To his delight, Amos still had the plans they’d used for the house, so building another one just like it was on the table.
But Jack thought maybe he shouldn’t. They could do something similar, but with Aleta, he needed something fresh, something different. They pored over plans in books from the home improvement store and things they found online until they found something that looked perfect.
It was back to his old routine for Jack. Two agents had managed to slip his cruiser into neutral and push it away from the house, so it was unscathed. The radio equipment had been lost in the fire, but that wasn’t hard to replace. In a few days, his shop was back in order, and he couldn’t have been happier. It was a relief to show up every morning, listen to the assignments, and then slip behind the wheel of the cruiser and go back to business as usual.
But he didn’t think it would ever again be business as usual. That morning on that foggy highway had changed his life forever. From time to time he still saw Jorie in his memory, his tiny body lying motionless on the rocks, and he remembered how Aleta looked as he saw her sitting there, covered in blood and crying. Those visions would never leave him, he knew, and he worked to make peace with them when they came up. He was lucky to have a department-provided counselor to walk him through that process, and he could say the sessions really were helping.
Aleta had insisted on going back to the pancake house, but he noted when he was there that she was getting a lot more respect than she had previously from the other employees. They actually laughed and joked with her, and he managed to get a smile from the surly manager. That was a real feat, he could tell, so he felt special in a weird kind of way.
He picked up dinner on his way home that Tuesday evening and carried it into the apartment. “Hey, babe!”
Aleta rounded the bedroom doorway and smiled. “Hey! What did you bring?”
“I’ve got spaghetti and meatballs, plus some of those awesome breadsticks they have. Oh, and a little salad. You know, something healthy,” he said with a wink.
“Good! Let’s eat.”
Dinner finished and cleaned up, they sat on the sofa, her legs across his lap, and watched some silly show on TV. He told her about a crazy man with a tin foil hat he’d picked up earlier in the day, and she told him about the guy who came in and tried to sell all of them timeshares. They laughed and talked until bedtime.
Ah, bedtime. That was Jack’s favorite time of the day. Aleta was always ready for a good roll in the hay, and he wasn’t one to deny her. It was a rare night that they didn’t spend at least an hour making love, maybe two. Feeling her skin against his was the highlight of his day, and he hoped the smile she always wore as they held each other meant it was hers too.
He’d stopped to get a cup of coffee when his phone rang the next morning. “Fletcher.”
“Kentucky!”
“Dax! How’s it goin’?”
“Good. Hey, I wanted to know if you have some kind of area around there that would be a fun vacation location.”
“Sure. Down in the western end of the state. There are three resorts on the lakes and they’re all really nice. Thinking of coming to the Bluegrass State?”
“Yeah. I think I’ll bring Mack. She said she’s never been there and she’d like to go. Might take a trip from there to Nashville. You know, country music,” Dax said with a chuckle.
“Maybe we could meet you in Nashville for an afternoon or overnight,” Jack offered.
“That would be great! Can you shoot me some info on the places you’re talking about and let me see what I can arrange? And I’ll let you know.”
“Will do! And hey, Dax,” Jack said, his voice soft, “thanks for everything.”
“You’re welcome. I’m just glad I picked up on the connection. Otherwise … Well, let’s not think about otherwise. It’s over. Live your life.”
Jack nodded there in his car alone. “Yeah. Live my life.” He knew exactly what kind of living he was going to do next.
And it all hinged on Aleta.
“And I got these,” Denise Fletcher said, “and these, and these.” The boxes were full, and Jack looked down into them. Dishes, towels, curtains, flatware, pots and pans―his mother had outfitted their whole kitchen.
“Thanks, Mom! Although don’t you think it would’ve been better if Aleta had been able to choose―”
“Oh, don’t pay any attention to him, Mrs. Fletcher,” Aleta chirped. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for us.”
“See?” his mother scolded. “Your girlfriend is grateful.”
“I am too, Mom. Really, I am. I just don’t want Aleta to feel like she has no say.”
Aleta shook her head. “I’m fine, really. It’s all fine.” She began unloading the boxes and laying things out on the counters.
“All the dishes, flatware, and cookware have been washed, and so have the towels. Everything’s ready to just be put away. If you’ll tell me where you want things, I’ll help you.” Denise pulled more items out of the boxes, and Jack watched as the two of them laughed and chatted together, working shoulder to shoulder.
Jack ducked his head into the bedroom. The painters were working to get it finished that afternoon, and if they could, it would be dry by bedtime. The new bed and bedroom suite were out in the garage, covered with plastic, and he really wanted to get it all moved inside. It seemed like every time he walked into it, the apartment got smaller, and it had become claustrophobic to him. Christmas there had been almost intolerable. They’d bought a tiny two-foot tree, but there really hadn’t even been a place to put it. His mom and dad had invited them there, and that was the only thing that saved the holiday, but there was one thing that made it exceptional. They were together. They were safe and healthy. That was what really mattered.
Still, it would be nice to be able to relax in their own home. It was almost finished, and they could just walk right in. He wandered through and looked at the hewn beams in the cathedral ceiling of the living room, the chandelier in the dining room, and the matching fixture in the hallway. And the bathroom was nicer than the one he’d had before. They were walking around on subfloors, but the installers would be there the following Monday to do the floors. The house was beautiful, and it was theirs, one that was built by the two of them, their own design. In some ways, he was glad Aleta had gotten the chance to pick out everything. She deserved things that were hers, not things Heather had picked out.
He’d had a little trouble with his parents at first. They’d loved Heather, but she was gone, and he made sure to remind them of that every time he mentioned Aleta. But it wasn’t until they actually met her that they fell in love with her just as he had. She and Denise had become fast friends, and his dad liked her too.
And then there was Amos. Who gave a shit what he thought? But Jack laughed. Amos liked Aleta. That had been obvious when he’d been around her. If they were lucky, maybe his older brother would find somebody. Oh, who was he kidding? Nobody wanted that dickhead! The thought made Jack laugh.
He was nearing the kitchen doorway when he heard Aleta say, “I don’t know. He hasn’t asked me. So I’m just waiting.”
There was no doubt in his mind―his mother had asked when they were getting marr
ied. God, she just couldn’t give it a rest! Even his dad had been on his case about it. Couldn’t they understand that he wanted everything to be ready before he did that?
Everything had to be perfect. Everything had to be ready. And when all the stars aligned, Aleta Culp would be his wife. He could barely wait.
“Oh! They’re here!” Aleta was darting around the big kitchen, pulling things from the refrigerator and uncovering them, placing them just so-so on the dining table, wiping here, picking up there.
“You want these out?” Tiki asked, carrying a tray of deviled eggs into the dining room.
“Yes! Thank you. Right over there,” Aleta said and pointed.
“Babe, calm down,” Jack told her and kissed her on the cheek as he passed.
She didn’t even look up when she asked, “Did you get that picture hung like I asked?”
“Yes. I did. And it’s perfect. I promise. Enjoy this, babe. It’s not every day we get to have an open house for a new home.”
“I know, I know, but I want it all to be perfect. I want you to be proud,” she said, still not looking at him.
“Too late. I already am,” he replied and laughed.
One car after another pulled up and friends and family got out. Fifteen minutes after Jack had hung the picture, the house was full of laughter, beer, and food. Aleta led one tour after another through the place so their guests could ooh and ahh over their hard work. But Jack kept an eye out. He was expecting some special guests.
Thirty minutes after the open house had begun, a car pulled into the drive, followed by another, just as Jack had planned. An older couple got out of the front one, and a younger couple from the second, the woman packing a toddler on her hip and the man leading a preschooler. Jack met them at the bottom of the stairs. “I’m so glad you guys could come. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Justice for Aleta Page 16
