“There she is!” I heard over the shouts and murmurs.
“Miss? Miss!” A chorus of deep baritones drew close on my heels, but I couldn’t focus on anything but Jerry, who was frozen to the floor faster than a supermodel in a throng of paparazzi.
My hands hit his tray first, flipping it up into his face. He stumbled backward, swinging the tray and nodding when it connected with my stomach, doubling me over.
An agent put a light hand on my back. “You’re going to have to come with me, miss,” he said.
I pointed. “Him. It’s him. He has a bomb.”
Didn’t matter if they thought I was crazy. I just needed them to follow the lead, and they would, because they don’t take words like that lightly.
Three other agents closed around skinny little Jerry. A different sort of murmur went through the crowd. I crumpled to the floor, turning my head in time to catch a glimpse of a perfectly coiffed trademark chignon atop a slender neck, heading for the next room.
“You’re too late.” Jerry cackled from behind the agents. “You’ll never find it before she does.”
The agents reacted as a unit, one hollering into the mic in his cufflink about securing Eagle, one twisting Jerry’s arms up behind him so hard and fast I was pretty sure I heard something crack before Jerry yelped, and the other two shoving a path clear and sprinting for the door.
I pulled in a shaky breath and looked up at the security officer.
“The guy at the police department said to find the Secret Service,” he said. “The ambulance is out front. Man, that dude is bleeding.”
I nodded.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it free.
Bob: We have a staff meeting.
I laughed. Way too loud and way too long to be in the same county as appropriate. Monday morning, and Nichelle is late for the meeting.
Normal.
I shook my head, my thumbs moving over the screen.
I don’t have a job anymore. I think. Send.
Buzz. I didn’t say I was at the Telegraph. Where are you? Coffee?
I dropped the phone and rested my forehead on my knees. I was out of words, out of brainpower for solving riddles, and just so. Damned. Exhausted.
“Miss?” That was the security guard again. I looked up to find him with his radio to his ear, three of his colleagues herding people toward the exit with calm voices. “We have to exit the building.”
I nodded, getting slowly to my feet.
He started to offer a hand, looked me up and down, and changed his mind. Couldn’t blame him.
He followed close behind me as we moved to the exit. “So . . . who are you?”
I smiled. “Nichelle Clarke.” I checked his name tag. “Nice to meet you, Frank.”
“Are you a cop?”
I shook my head. “I’m a reporter.” Whether I had a paper to work for or not.
Frank twisted his lips to one side. “You look like you just walked out of the end of Die Hard. Must have been some story.”
“You wouldn’t believe it, Frank. Right now I’m not even sure I do.”
We filed out into the light. Raising up on tiptoe, I spotted a huddle of Secret Service-issue suits, moving together and depositing President Denham into the back of a waiting limo.
“Nichelle!” I turned and practically fell on Kyle, who was ready to catch me as he pushed through the crowd of disappointed political aficionados.
His arms didn’t close all the way around me before tears flooded out of my face like a levee had shattered. Shaking my head, I tried to make words but couldn’t manage more than a string of gibberish and sobs.
Kyle stroked my sticky, greasy hair. “Joey’s fine,” he said in my ear. “He’s in recovery in the ICU, but there were no complications, and he’s stable.”
I nodded, catching my breath.
Whatever else the universe had ready to hurl at me, Joey was fine, Kyle was fine, I was mostly fine, and President Denham was fine.
That was enough for today.
37
I closed my fingers tighter around DonnaJo’s, watching the closed door. “What’s taking so long? This can’t be good, right?”
She covered my hand with her free one and returned the pressure. “Honey, I’d be more worried if it wasn’t taking a while. Calm down.”
She picked up the paper on the table in front of her, the president’s face on the cover floating over a photo of a smiling crowd waving signs for Congressman Speeks. “This was a good piece. Way to come out swinging in the new digs.”
I nodded. “Thanks. Bob makes it easy. He’s a good editor.”
“I can’t believe Bob Jeffers left the Telegraph,” she said. “It’s been the talk of the courthouse all week. Well, that and the gas leak that caused the evacuation at the president’s breakfast. Always some sort of drama.”
I tapped the cover of RVA Week, running a finger across the red letters of my name under the headline.
Gas leak.
Kyle’s idea.
The bomb was in the podium at the front of the banquet hall. Not huge, but not small—Kyle said the plastic case held enough clumsily made U-233 to take out six city blocks. Sticks and his friends were thorough. Stupid enough to give themselves likely fatal radiation poisoning and end up living out their days in a state hospital, but thorough. The agent who found their home-baked nuke was still being treated for exposure, but was supposed to recover.
Chaudry was in a private cell in the VIP block at Cold Springs with Hamilton and returning guest Ted Grayson. Treason topped the list of charges: apparently the coal company’s cash wasn’t enough, since they were ass-deep in illegal weapons trading with a Russian radical group, the leaders of which were plenty pissed that they didn’t get their bomb supplies. Plus, Grayson was on the hook for murder for hire, having paid off the inmate who got Angela Baker with a shiv fashioned from soaked and hardened sanitary pads. He said he didn’t even know she’d talked to me. He just disliked loose ends. Quite a guy, our ex-senator.
Lakshmi Drake was in fact dead—according to the United States Government, anyway. She and her folks were on a beach in Florida with new identities, faculty jobs waiting for Lakshmi and her dad at Florida State after their hard-earned vacation.
Governor Baine had made the rounds on the major local morning shows airing his family’s dirty laundry, apologizing for denying that Lakshmi had been found dead in his office, and twisting the week’s events around to make himself the victim, which might be the most honest thing anyone was saying about the whole damned mess: turned out Hamilton had set an alcoholic congressman with a penchant for violence from the southwestern corner of the state on a bender and tricked Lakshmi into meeting him, with every intention of framing Governor Baine for her murder. Once Hamilton had his weapon, his key to getting it had become a liability. But Joey, who had been at the capitol chatting Bledsoe up trying to get Kyle an in on the weapons ring, threw a massive wrench into Hamilton’s plan. And then I tossed in the rest of the toolbox.
People seemed eager to forgive their governor for what Dan Kessler called “being human” at his sit-down with Baine: the governor’s poll numbers were steady in the fifties.
The general public went about their lives with no idea how close we’d come to the unthinkable—with a little help from me by way of my new job. Bob had in fact gone hiking—with the new publisher at the local newsweekly, an independently wealthy venture capitalist who wanted to invest in meaningful reporting from people who cared about good journalism. Bob agreed to take the job as editor in chief, as long as he could bring Parker and me along with him.
And the first story I wrote for them was a thirty-five-hundred-word lie about the president’s visit to Richmond and the upcoming midterms.
I put the paper down, my eyes going back to the closed door, then to the shot of the smiling crowd from President Denham’s speech on our first cover.
Kyle was right. Aaron said so, too—he’d worn a wire to our meeting because Baine gave them secu
rity footage showing Lakshmi walking out of the capitol in the predawn hours Friday, so he thought someone was lying to me. Since he needed Baine to think they were still on the same team, he figured coming in with the wire and making me think he was after Kyle would get me to give up the real culprit. Smart play, but looking back, I wished he’d just asked straight out. But Kyle and Aaron were right about the endgame: sometimes, people don’t need to know how close they come to death erupting in waves of fire on a sunny Monday morning.
The truth folks believe is the one that counts.
Now I just needed to know which one the prosecutors in that room were going to choose.
“Are you sure? Why is this a hard question?” I uncrossed and recrossed my legs.
“A sitting United States congressman disappears for three days and turns up dead in a burned-out car, drunk off his ass with a fifth of whiskey in the passenger seat—and your friend’s DNA under his nails,” DonnaJo said. “They want to know why they were having dinner. Why your friend let the congressman leave. How he got scratched. And why he was in the hospital for three days last week.”
Joey got scratched by flailing defensive slaps as he punched the congressman’s face in. But of course, nobody else knew that. He’d called Kyle from his cell when the congressman stopped breathing, and Kyle ducked in and hustled Joey out before anyone started asking questions.
“I told them he was with me Thursday night,” was all I said to DonnaJo.
Kyle had helped us work out that story, sitting around Joey’s bed in the ICU. Funny how abhorred I was at the idea of him covering Lakshmi’s murder for Baine, but I didn’t blink when he offered to do it for Joey. Perspective changes the rules.
“Having our relationship compromised at this point won’t be good for either of us,” he’d said, alternating his pointing finger between himself and Joey.
Their pretty long relationship, it turned out, had started after Kyle shot Don Mario more than a year ago. Joey asked Kyle to lunch and offered to play double agent inside the Caccione organization in exchange for immunity when Kyle eventually busted them—so he could stay with me. When I thought back over the past fifteen months, I felt like Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense: astounded at everything that one truth explained.
“All we need is for the prosecutors to dismiss the case,” Kyle had insisted. “This will work. It costs money to bring these kinds of charges, and with an alibi from a respected journalist and a superstar federal agent”—he smiled—“they won’t do it.”
I’d squeezed Joey’s hand and nodded, shushing his objections to me perjuring myself to save his ass. I’d done worse in the name of keeping people I loved safe, and after a week of too many nightmares and too much coffee and a lot more introspection than was likely healthy, I was still wrestling the demons, but there wasn’t a single choice I wouldn’t make again to get to the place I was sitting.
Provided that door opened to smiling faces, anyway.
DonnaJo patted my knee. “It will be fine,” she said, her eyes sliding sideways. “You know, I don’t remember you saying anything about a date. On Friday, when I saw you at the courthouse.”
I shook my head. “Do you tell me about all your evening engagements? We were watching TV.”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
We sat in the quiet for a few beats. “Did you know that Jerry Stickley was running guns for Hamilton Baine? During the trial?” she asked.
“I would’ve told you,” I said. Every word true. “You know me better than that.”
“Yeah. We’ve seen a lot, haven’t we?” Another pause. “I just can’t figure out why he’d be running drugs for the meth outfit if he had that going. There’s way more money in weapons.”
“He’s not the smartest guy I’ve ever met.” I kept my voice even.
She was smart. Really smart.
And she didn’t quite buy our story.
I hated lying to her, but there was too much at stake for me to slip now. DonnaJo was my friend. If her boss and the federal prosecutor on the back side of that door believed us, she’d let it go. I hoped.
The doorknob rattled. I sat up straight. Her fingers squeezed mine. “It’s fine.”
The door swung inward and Kyle stood aside as Joey walked out, shooting me a wink.
“Gentlemen, thank you for your time,” Kyle said, putting a hand out for commonwealth’s attorney Jonathan Corry to shake.
The dark-suited lawyers nodded. “Sorry to drag you through all this, Mr. D’Amore,” The one who wasn’t Corry said. “I hope you understand.”
I blew out a long, slow breath.
We did it.
They traded a few more pleasantries and the lawyers turned for the elevators. DonnaJo squeezed my shoulder and followed them. I jumped to my feet, my Manolos clicking on the marble floor as I scurried across the hall and threw my arms around Joey, careful to avoid jostling his sling.
“Thank God,” I said, the words muffled by his jacket.
He hugged me tight with his good arm, his lips landing warm and soft on the top of my head.
I stepped back, smiling at Kyle. “Thank you.”
He and Joey exchanged a look over my head. The kind that said there was something I didn’t know. Again.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Kyle said, shuffling his feet and folding his arms across his chest.
I stepped back, putting myself across from the two of them. “What?”
Joey reached for my hand. “I just have to go away for a while, is all,” he said. “It’ll be okay, princess.”
Wait.
My eyes shot back and forth between their faces, panic twisting my middle again. “But they believed you. I heard the guy apologize to you.”
Kyle nodded. “And that’s good. But we’re not the only people who know what happened—and didn’t happen—with this case. There are loose ends to tie up, some legal and some . . .not so legal. Joey could be in danger until we get any potential Caccione leaks taken care of. Now that he’s out of the hospital, we need him to be somewhere safe for a while.” He rocked back on his heels. “I’ll work fast, Nicey. I promise.”
My hand flew to my lips, my head nodding even though all I wanted to do was scream no until Kyle stopped talking. I fluttered my lashes. Lowered my hand. Tried to smile.
“I’ll be back before you know it,” Joey said. “You have your new job, and your friends—when’s the last time you and Jenna had a girls’ night?” He grabbed my hand and raised it to his lips. “I’ll see you soon.”
Kyle patted my shoulder and turned with another look at Joey. “We should get going.”
Joey pulled me close and kissed me until I almost forgot what was happening, Kyle shuffling his feet and clearing his throat next to us.
Pulling his face up from mine, Joey dropped another kiss on the tip of my nose. “I’ll see you soon. I love you.”
“I love you.” I managed to get it out without sobbing, trying for a smile. “Be safe.”
They turned for the elevator.
I watched them go before I squared my shoulders and picked up my bag.
He’d be back soon.
I’d settle into my new job, which was actually pretty cool so far: Bob and Parker and me getting to run what we pleased and write what we cared about, without Rick Andrews or Shelby Taylor or a money-minded board cutting another position every week. The only downside was that Rick had, of course, given Shelby my old beat. But even that was merely annoying. Shelby couldn’t beat me to a headline with four interns and a caffeine IV.
Life would return to normal. A new normal, maybe, but not a worse one.
That was the truth I chose.
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About the Author
LynDee Walker is the national bestselling author of two crime fiction series featuring strong heroines and “twisty, absorbing" mysteries. Her first Nichelle Clarke crime thriller, FRONT PAGE FATALITY, was nominated for the Agatha Award for best first novel, and in 2018, she introduced readers to Texas Ranger Faith McClellan in FEAR NO TRUTH. Reviews have praised her work as "well-crafted, compelling, and fast-paced," and "an edge-of-your-seat ride" with "a spider web of twists and turns that will keep you reading until the end."
Before she started writing fiction, LynDee was an award-winning journalist who covered everything from ribbon cuttings to high level police corruption, and worked closely with the various law enforcement agencies that she reported on. Her work has appeared in newspapers and magazines across the U.S.
Aside from books, LynDee loves her family, her readers, travel, and coffee. She lives in Richmond, Virginia, where she is working on her next novel when she's not juggling laundry and children's sports schedules.
You can find her online at www.LynDeeWalker.com, and connect with her on Facebook at lyndeewalkerbooks or Twitter @LynDeeWalker.
FEAR NO TRUTH: Faith McClellan #1
After a series of murders, newly-minted Texas Ranger Faith McClellan races to unmask a killer lurking in one of Austin's most sacred institutions. But the insidious truth at the heart of this case is darker and more dangerous than she ever imagined.
Deadly Politics Page 30
