In Plain Sight (Covert Justice Book 3)

by Mary Alford

  Justin.

  Even as a child of seven, I understood my brother was involved in something bad. My parents told me Justin had emotional problems, but from the scraps of conversation I’d overheard through the years, I was able to piece together the truth. My brother had had a serious drug addiction.

  By age seventeen, Justin graduated to the hard stuff. My parents and my brother argued all the time about it, which usually ended up with Justin storming out of the house. He would stay away for days on end. My parents tried to get him help. Shortly before he went missing, they’d booked him into one of the foremost drug treatment centers in the state. But then one night, my brother simply vanished in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again.

  My parents spent the rest of their lives and thousands of dollars searching for the truth behind Justin’s disappearance. I’d always believed Justin was dead and my parents had died without ever knowing what happened to him. But what if I was wrong?

  I parked the Expedition in a well-lit parking lot close to the spot where I was supposed to have met my brother last night.

  With my newfound faith, I wanted to have a chance to reconcile with my brother, even if he turned out to be Jeremiah Silvers. With God’s help, I believed I could change his life for the better.

  As I started walking, a threat of rain hung heavy in the air, keeping the crowds to a minimum. I glanced up as the moon went behind a cloud, bringing the world around me into shadows. I looked around me in surprise. I’d long since left the lights of Wisconsin Avenue behind. It was then that I felt the first uneasy prickle at the base of my spine.

  From somewhere close behind, a noise brought my attention back to my current situation. I was alone and in unfamiliar territory.

  It was then that I saw him standing there. My brother. Even from a distance, I could see he was no longer the confused young kid who walked out into the night all those years ago.

  “Justin?”

  The sound of my voice appeared to startle him for a moment. He watched me warily, not attempting to answer me.

  “Justin? It’s really you. You’re alive. Mom and Dad were right all along. They never stopped believing they’d find you alive someday.”

  I’d taken another step closer when it hit me. The man standing before me was nothing like the gangly teenager I remembered from the past. A boy of seventeen disappeared into the night; the man who watched me now held only a faint resemblance to that boy.

  “Justin, it’s okay. I can help you. Whatever you’ve done, I can help, but you have to trust me. You have to turn yourself in.”

  “Stop. Don’t come any closer, Lena.” Even his voice sent me back into the past. It held a thin reminder of the troubled kid who had very little patience for the sister who always wanted to tag along.

  But the fear behind Justin’s words was real enough and hard to deny. I did as he asked, stopping a few feet away from him.

  I studied my brother carefully, looking for any familiar telltale signs. I didn’t trust him. After all, what did I really know about the man he’d become? The things I’d read about Jeremiah Silvers made it hard to believe this could be the same person standing before me now.

  “Justin, I promise I won’t let anyone hurt you. Whatever’s happened, whatever you’ve done, I promise we can work this out. I’ll help you.”

  The sound of his laughter sent an uneasy awareness along my spine.

  “You can’t help me. There’s nothing you, or anyone connected to you can do to help me now. It’s too late for me, Lena. I came back for you. To warn you. There are things happening here that you don’t understand. Walk away from this while you still can. Get out before it’s too late for you as well.”

  “Justin, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Let me help you.”

  “Don’t worry about me, let me go. You don’t know who I am anymore. Let go of the past, Lena. It doesn’t exist for either of us.”

  “Justin, I don’t understand. What are you talking about?” I took another step closer, desperate to make eye contact. If I could force him to look me in the eye, I believed I might be able to reach him. The young man he’d once been was still in there somewhere. Our parents would want me to do whatever possible to help him.

  Yet what he said next stopped me cold in my tracks.

  “You’re on the wrong side of this thing, Lena. You’re fighting the wrong enemy and you can’t win. What you are doing is destined to fail. Walk away before it costs you your life. You think you know what’s happening. You have no idea what the truth really is.”

  I didn’t understand what he meant by this but there was no denying Justin’s fear. His eyes constantly searched the darkness around us, looking for something, or someone. My brother was afraid for his life.

  “Justin, what are you trying to tell me? Help me understand what you mean. What are you afraid of? What happened to you? Where have you been all these years? Justin, tell me—”

  I didn’t finish because Justin was no longer listening to me. Something caught his attention off in the distance. He was ready to flee.

  “Wait, Justin. Don’t go. Let me come with you. I can help you.”

  “No!” For a moment, his eyes met mine. The emptiness in them was hard to take.

  Something drew his attention from me once more. “Don’t try to follow me and don’t try to contact me again. Stay out of this. Leave while you still have the choice. And don’t trust anyone—not even the people closest to you.”

  Without another word, Justin disappeared into the shadows. I went after him, weapon drawn, but he was nowhere to be seen. I’m not sure how long I spent searching the darkness, hoping Justin would return to dispel all of my doubts. It was well after midnight when I finally gave up and went home to my apartment, but my night had only just begun.

  Chapter Four

  I unlocked the door to the sound of a ringing phone. Even before I answered the call, I guessed it would be Roc. The flashing red light on my answering machine told me this was not the first time he’d tried to reach me tonight.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

  “Where have you been? I’ve been texting you for a while. I was almost ready to call out the team to search for you. What up with you, Lena?”

  “Nothing…nothing. I just needed to think.”

  “You needed to think? About what?”

  “About nothing…about everything. I don’t know. Look, I’m sorry I worried you, Roc, but I’m okay, really, and it’s late and I’m tired and I have to be up early tomorrow.” At this out-and-out lie, I crossed my fingers and said a silent prayer for forgiveness. But I just couldn’t face the inevitable with Roc tonight.

  “Lena, don’t hang up on me.”

  “I’m not…but I don’t want to talk about this right now Roc, so…goodnight.” At this point, I did hang up on the man who had been there for me through so many bad moments in my life.

  I was stunned, ecstatic, frightened. Restless. All these emotions crowded in as I went back over every little detail of my first face-to-face meeting with my brother in over twenty years.

  Surprisingly, there were tears as well. I hadn’t cried since my parents’ deaths. I wasn’t sure what to do next, but I’d have to do something soon.

  Surely, the very fact Justin was back in my life after all these years meant something. A sign that it was time for me to take a new direction in life.

  I glanced down at my hand that still held the phone and realized I was trembling. Tonight had shaken me beyond what I wanted to admit.

  I made coffee, more to give myself something to do with my hands, and hopefully stop them from trembling, than anything else. My mind worked overtime. I certainly didn’t need any more added stimulation. I’d been working off sheer adrenaline for hours as it was.

  Because I couldn’t make sense of it no matter how I tried, I took out the Bible I’d purchased online and looked up the word comfort. I turned to the scripture indicated.

  Psalms 55:2
2. Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.

  I need You. I need Your strength and wisdom. I don’t know what to do, I prayed with all my heart but tonight, the only answer was the silence of my apartment.

  “My brother is my enemy,” I said aloud, barely registering that I’d spoken at all. “But how can that be possible?” Against my will, I remembered all the terrible details The Agency had uncovered about Jeremiah Silvers. One fact stood out above them all: Jeremiah Silvers was a cold-blooded killer. The man I believed was my brother possessed the same cold, empty stare of a killer.

  Outside, the clouds had disappeared entirely. The light from the moon, rising above the neighboring apartment complex, spread its light into the small window of the dining room where I sat. Its allure was too powerful to resist. The second I stepped out onto the balcony, I became aware of a certain electricity in the air. As if something unstoppable had been set in motion tonight.

  I found myself searching the shadows of the lawn outside my first floor apartment.

  “Justin?” I called out, but my only answer was silence. A strange, uneasy silence that precedes something about to happen.

  It was a long time before I slept that night and even then, my sleep was broken with uneasy dreams that disappeared with the light of day.

  ~

  When I awoke the following morning, all the previous night’s transgressions came back to haunt me.

  I’d lied to Roc, the man I was in love with, driving a deeper wedge between us. I’d been dishonest with my team—the people I counted on to have my back—and I’d failed to disclose a valuable piece of information in not letting Roc know about my suspicions about Justin, which might someday be responsible for getting myself or another one of my team killed.

  By keeping silent, I’d committed what amounted to subversion.

  The usual nausea followed me throughout the day. I was sick most of the time now and yet I had been avoiding facing the truth until today.

  I’d stashed the pregnancy tests out of sight underneath the bathroom sink in case Roc should drop by, but even after having confirmation of my pregnancy in my hands, I still couldn’t accept it. I was pregnant. My future was all but sealed. I had to get out for my child’s safety.

  But even if by some crazy miracle, I was able to walk away from The Agency, which meant leaving Roc, I’d spend the rest of my life looking back over my shoulder. Wondering at every unnamed sound, every strange bump in the night, if this was the moment. Payback for the type of work we performed might prove to be fatal.

  I’d wanted out for a long time now. Learning about the baby just made the decision final for me.

  This was Roc’s biggest concern when he’d recruited me to The Agency. How many times did he tell me, ‘Lena, don’t rush into this decision. You’ve been through a lot lately, losing your parents suddenly. Take all the time you need before giving me your answer. You have to be willing to commit your whole life to The Agency. There is no getting out.’

  He’d been right, of course. Dealing with my parents’ deaths, which happened very mysteriously in the small North Carolina town they’d gone to searching for clues to Justin’s disappearance, would have been impossible to get through without Roc’s help.

  But there was the baby to consider now and my heart was no longer in the work we did.

  Roc and I never talked about having a family. Our world existed in the here and now. There was no room for talk about the future. Would he be happy about the baby? Roc didn’t like to talk much about his childhood, but I suspected it hadn’t been a happy one. He told me once that his parents split up when he was still very young and he’d been shuffled off to his grandparents’ home in Anchorage, Alaska where he’d been brought up.

  The only question remaining now was when or if I were even going to tell Roc.

  There was only one person I could trust with the news. The woman who had been my friend since our days back at the University of Virginia and my doctor since she’d obtained her license to practice medicine. Margaret Evans.

  With the exception of Roc, Margaret knew me better than anyone did.

  “I’m coming over there right now.” When Margaret heard my voice, she knew something was wrong. She didn’t even give me time to say hello. Half an hour later, she was ringing my doorbell.

  “What it is? Has something happened to Roc?” Margaret rushed inside the apartment, tossed her purse and jacket on the nearest chair, and looked me square in the eyes.

  “No, Roc’s fine.” I went to the bathroom, retrieved the pregnancy tests, and held them out to her.

  “You’re pregnant? That’s great!” My expression must have told a different story.

  “You don’t want the baby?”

  “I do, I really do, but I don’t know what to do.”

  “Roc,” she said, guessing the truth. “He told you he doesn’t want the baby.”

  “No, I haven’t told him yet.”

  “Lena, tell him! This could be a great thing for both of you.”

  “No, it won’t be. It’s the worst possible thing that could happen. This is the last thing either of us need right now.”

  “It happens, Lena.” She spoke in a calm voice. “Look, just talk to him. You might be surprised by what he has to say.”

  “Margaret, I can’t, okay? There are things you don’t know.”

  “Ah, you mean spy things.” Margaret was the only one of my friends who fully understood the extent of what I did for a living. She knew all the reasons why I’d joined The Agency. Margaret had been there with me the day I buried my parents. She knew all about my quest to find out the truth behind their deaths.

  The official cause had been listed as an accident. Local authorities believed my dad had simply fallen asleep at the wheel and lost control of the car, plunging through the railing and down an embankment, killing him and my mother.

  I didn’t believe that version for a minute. My dad never took chances. If he were the least bit sleepy he would have pulled over, stopped for coffee—something. He would never put himself or my mother in harm’s way.

  I received the call about their deaths from the local constable assigned the task of notifying the next of kin. The guy was from a small town on the North Carolina border where my parents had been staying at the time of their deaths.

  It wasn’t so much what the constable had to say about the accident, but what he wasn’t saying.

  It took me all of two minutes talking to the uncooperative constable and the equally unfriendly coroner to realize things were not as they seemed. After I read the accident report, I was certain of it.

  The day after Margaret and I buried my parents, I went back to that town and pretty much wore out my welcome. I was told point-blank to leave but not before I understood a little bit more about what I was dealing with—sheer paranoia spread throughout that whole region. No one trusted anyone, especially outsiders. And no one was talking, including the constable and most of the town folk. Something had them spooked. It was a long time before I found out what that something was. After I joined The Agency, I learned the FLA had a stronghold on the town.

  And that was how I first met Roc Branson and learned about his work with The Agency.

  “Look, maybe this is just a mistake. I mean, those tests aren’t always dependable, are they?” I said.

  “Lena, they’re over ninety percent accurate and you have three positives. You’re pregnant.” When she saw my reaction, she added, “Look, come by the office tomorrow morning and I’ll be able to put your mind at rest. I can confirm if you’re pregnant without a shadow of a doubt. We’ll go over all the options, and then you and Roc can talk to each other. Lena, he needs to be in on any decision concerning his child. Tell him the truth.”

  “I will. I promise.” When Margaret looked skeptical, I added, “Don’t worry, I’ll talk to him.”

  Her company was better for me than any medicine. We talked until late that
night and I couldn’t remember when I’d actually laughed so much.

  ~

  I met Margaret at her office before seven the following morning. Within half an hour, I had the final proof. I was pregnant. Margaret talked about my options and left me with a handful of brochures outlining the different choices.

  Once I left her office, I must have picked up the phone at least a dozen times to call Roc. He needed to know about the baby, but whenever I got my courage up, I couldn’t make the call. Too many things were unsettled in my mind. The biggest one of all was what I was going to do about my brother.

  Justin hadn’t been very receptive to the idea of turning himself in last night. My brother was afraid of someone. That much was clear. Somehow, I would have to find a way to convince him to turn himself in before it was too late. Time was quickly running out. I had only a small window of opportunity to work with before the team put two and two together and figured out my connection to Justin, if Roc hadn’t already.

  By keeping information of this magnitude secret from my commanding officer, I’d all but committed treason against the country I’d sworn to protect. Would Roc ever forgive me if he knew what I was up to? He certainly wouldn’t let me go through with it alone, which was even more reason why I couldn’t tell him the truth until I’d made one final attempt to reach Justin.

  Going out on my own, I ran the risk of encountering someone who knew who I was, but that couldn’t be helped. I was dressed and ready to leave the apartment by eight. When I opened the door, I came face to face with Roc, who had apparently been waiting for me.

  Silently, I moved aside and let him pass through.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, hoping he didn’t suspect the truth.

  “I’ve come to talk. Are you going somewhere, Lena?” He closed the door and stood waiting for my answer.

  “I’m just going out for coffee.”