Chapter Twenty-Eight
Galen paced around the conference room, right hand resting on the butt of his gun, his stomach twisted into an anxious knot. His phone had been vibrating in his pocket for the past hour and he had a feeling that he wouldn’t be able to dodge Monroe’s phone calls for much longer. And the text messages coming in from Landon weren’t much better:
I can’t believe I’m leaving on assignment right as
you’re about to get your ass in a sling. They’ll
probably put the flag at half-mast. Ha!
Is there a US Ambassador to Tasmania? Because I’m
pretty sure that’s where your next job will be. Did
you know the spiders there are as big as small
dogs? And don’t even get me started on the
snakes.
Is Harper good in bed? It’s not relevant to
anything. I’m just curious.
He thought about pulling out his Glock and putting a bullet hole through his phone, but that probably wouldn’t earn him any points with Monroe. Then, he thought about doing the same to Landon. Nothing too severe, maybe his foot or the fleshy part of his calf. But he figured Landon was getting what he deserved, chasing after a sixty-year-old fugitive and living out of his car while he staked out the daughter’s house. With any luck, the assignment would suck the sarcasm right out of him.
Galen’s gut was usually spot-on, and something about what Harper was about to pull left him feeling less than confident everything would play out the way she wanted it to. If this were any other case, Galen would have slapped the cuffs on the witness before the FBI even had a chance. Obstruction of justice was a serious charge, and by helping Harper post her story behind Davis’s back, Galen had probably secured a conspiracy charge for himself. It could be that the roiling knot in his stomach had more to do with his own concerns over losing his job. Because one thing was certain: Davis wasn’t going to take this lightly. He’d be after Galen’s badge for this, and if it didn’t get him kicked out of the Marshals Service entirely, it might get him axed from the SOG.
He looked over at Harper, her forehead creased in concentration, eyes trained on her computer screen. She worried her bottom lip between her teeth, clicked away on the keyboard for a moment before she continued to read. When she paused and looked up from her work to give him a brilliant smile, he knew that he’d do it all over again. Risk his career and his reputation for one of her smiles. His chest ached as he took her in. He loved her so damned much it hurt.
“Excuse me, Deputy Kelly?” A man peeked his head in the conference room door. “There’s a phone call for you at reception. Would you like me to transfer it here?”
Well, shit. Apparently Monroe had tracked him down. Maybe he should have turned his phone off. He was willing to bet they’d tracked the GPS. Rookie mistake. Of course, it could be Davis, but did it really matter at this point? As Landon had so helpfully pointed out, Galen’s ass was in a sling and there was no use trying to get out of it now.
“I’ll take it at your reception desk if that’s all right.” He didn’t exactly want Harper to overhear his conversation. She’d only worry if she knew what kind of trouble they were in. And he needed her focused and her story finished. They had no choice now but to see this through to the end. He’d stall his superior and the FBI for as long as possible. He just hoped it was long enough.
“Sure. There’s a public phone on the reception counter. Jess can transfer the call to that phone for you.”
“Thanks.” Now came the hard part. Leaving Harper unprotected. It was going to take a real physical effort to pry himself away from her and walk the hundred or so feet to the reception desk. She was like the sun and he was caught in orbit, circling around her, held in place by her gravitational pull.
“I can keep an eye on her if you want.” The guy standing there like a squirrel poking its head out of a hole jutted his chin toward Harper. Jesus, was his reluctance to leave that obvious? Awesome. “I’m sure she’ll be fine.” Squirrel Guy laughed. “She’s totally oblivious to anything going on around her anyway. I doubt she’ll even realize you’re gone.”
Galen noticed that she hadn’t even broken stride, eyes still scanning her screen, interrupted by the occasional tap of her keyboard. “All right.” After all, how long could it possibly take for Monroe to say, “You’re fired.”
“No worries. I’ll hang out until you get back.”
Galen relaxed a little and headed for the door. “Thanks. I shouldn’t be more than a couple of minutes.” As he walked toward the reception desk, Galen smiled to himself over his own overprotectiveness. How much trouble could she possibly get into in the conference room? His step faltered. Then again, this was Harper Allen. He quickened his pace and picked up the phone at the reception desk. Damn it, he shouldn’t have ignored Monroe’s phone calls.
He showed his badge to the receptionist and said, “I’m Deputy Kelly with the Marshals Service. I was told I have a phone call.”
“Just hit line three,” the receptionist said with a smile.
He pressed the corresponding button on the enormous phone base. “This is Deputy Kelly.”
“I’m going to assume that you’re ignoring my phone calls because
The Oregonian
is under siege and your phone was taken by assailants. Is that correct?”
Sarcasm. Probably not a good sign. Monroe didn’t sound happy and Galen couldn’t blame him. No one liked a rogue deputy and sneaking Harper out of the hotel had been about as cowboy as you could get. “Actually, no. I’d consider this a pit stop before I turn custody of Harper over to our office. She’s going to turn herself in.”
“You don’t say?” Monroe didn’t sound any more at ease with the revelation. Huh. Go figure. “This pit stop wouldn’t have anything to do with the alleged evidence Harper is withholding from the feds, does it?”
“Curt—”
“That’s Chief Deputy Monroe. You’re in a shitload of trouble, Galen. If Harper isn’t delivered to our office in thirty minutes, I’m gonna help the FBI arrest your ass. Understand?”
Oh, yeah. He was so fired. “Yes, sir. We’ll be there.”
“And Galen,” Monroe added. “Cuff her. If the feds see her walk in as anything less than a suspect in custody you’ll be turning in your badge when you hand her over.”
Great. Davis had to be responsible for Monroe’s nasty attitude. He liked Harper. No way would he want her cuffed. “She’s in my custody now. We’re wrapping up a few loose ends.”
“Get the kid a donut on the way over,” Monroe said in a low voice. “We’ll get her out of this.”
“Will do.”
Galen hung up feeling a little better than he had a moment ago. Despite the fact that Monroe was pissed at him, he knew that his boss was ultimately in his corner. There was no love lost between any of them and Davis. Hopefully, Harper wouldn’t put up too much of a fight when it came to cuffing her. To be honest, Galen was more afraid it would turn him on than anything—they couldn’t afford another pit stop.
As he made his way back to the conference room, Galen was hopeful that Harper had put the finishing touches on her story. He pushed open the conference room door, prepared to give her an update, but the words died on his lips. Harper’s chair was empty, her laptop gone, and lying on the floor, unconscious, was one
Oregonian
employee. Galen reached for his gun as his heart jumped up into this throat. How could he have been such an idiot to think that Harper would be safe anywhere?
A low moan issued from the guy on the floor and Galen rolled him over onto his back and gave his cheek a light slap. He blinked a few times and stared up at Galen as if he might be seeing more than one of him. Great. “What happened? Where’s Harper?”
“I tried to stop him, but the guy slammed my head with the butt of a gun.” He sat up and rubbed the back of his head. “After he hit me, I think he told Harper to head for the roof, but I’m not sure. It’s all sort of fuzzy. He said if any of us made a sound, he was going to put a bullet in her head.”
Fuck. Panic swirled in Galen’s chest and his brain buzzed with anger so intense he was seeing red. He pushed himself off the floor and said over his shoulder as he flew toward the door, “Call 911, Special Agent Davis at the FBI, and Curt Monroe at the U.S. Marshals Service. Tell them to get down here, now.”
Being held at gunpoint wasn’t much of a shock to Harper’s system at this point. The fact that it was Jason Meader on the other end of that gun, however, was a different matter altogether. She’d always figured him to be more of the brains of the operation. His pricey suits and manicured hands didn’t shout, “I’m the muscle here!” She was going to have to rethink that assumption now, though. Because the way he hauled her around like she weighed nothing at all gave her a glimpse into a side of Jason that she hadn’t known existed.
“The first thing they teach you in special ops is that mercy is for the weak. In a combat situation, it’s kill or be killed. Sorry, Harper, but you stepped right onto the battlefield.”
Ugh. If he really wanted to get rid of her, he should try talking her to death. She didn’t think she’d be able to stand much more of his arrogant banter. It wasn’t like he was talking to her, really. Just at her. Either way, he liked the sound of his own voice. That much was obvious. She hadn’t realized he had a military background. Another failure in the investigative department.
Way to go, Harp
.
“You must be some kind of magician, Jason. Either that or you have an eviler twin I don’t know about. I’m assuming your alibi was checked, yet there’s no way you could have gone back to the office to get Ellis’s phone
and
stuck around to shoot him.”
Jason graced her with a self-congratulatory smirk. Arrogant jerk. “Always the nosy reporter, aren’t you, Harper? I was almost around the corner when I heard you grilling Ellis. He’d been hard enough to contain; I wasn’t going to risk him running off at the mouth. So, I doubled back, took care of business, and when those idiot security guards chased me off, I headed for the office. Lucky for me Ellis’s secretary was a flaky air head who couldn’t remember the exact time I’d come in. Davis was already hot for you as a suspect so it wasn’t tough to placate the FBI. Besides, with my military record, I was above reproach as far as Davis was concerned.”
Davis. Ugh! Harper was going to smack him in the face if she lived through this. “You know, killing me isn’t going to do much for your campaign, Jason.”
He gave her a rough shake as he ushered her up the last flight of stairs to the door that opened up to the roof. He might not like what she had to say, but hey, it was still the truth. In a few minutes he’d be on everyone’s most wanted list and he could kiss his future political career good-bye. She’d published her story the moment he’d come through the conference room door, gun pointed straight at her face with a threat to unload the clip into her head if she made a sound. Meader was a real tough guy picking on a girl. Asshole.
“You called me, Harper.” Jason spoke as though trying to rationalize with her. “You were feeling guilty about all of the problems you’ve caused in my life. Throwing accusations around in an effort to further your career.” He shook his head solemnly. “The stress was simply too much for you.”
His fingers bit into Harper’s arm and the cold metal of the gun barrel jammed into her ribs with enough force to cause her to cry out. She’d have a nasty bruise from that one, no doubt. “No one is going to believe that.”
“Women like you sometimes do stupid things to get attention,” Jason replied. “It won’t be much of a stretch.”
Harper didn’t know what offended her more. The
women like you
bit or the fact that he thought she was some attention whore out to snag the spotlight at any cost. What a jerk. Harper looked away from Jason’s smug expression and her stomach took a dive to the soles of her feet. The edge of the building was only thirty or so feet away now and it appeared that they weren’t going to stop for an in-depth chat any time soon. “The guy you hit in the conference room can identify you, and my boss has Ellis’s flash drive,” Harper blurted in an effort to buy some time. “I told him everything. About the money, the embezzlement, the Mobile Hazard Assessment. Whatever you do to me will be a waste of your time. You can’t kill everyone here.”
“I’m a problem solver, Harper.” Jason said. “The SEALs used me to clean up messes for them and so did Ellis. The man was a serial sinner. He thought admitting to a couple of affairs would clear his conscience, but the thing is, he never really stopped with any of it. He slept around, drank like a fucking fish. Who do you think cleaned him up and kept the media far enough away that they couldn’t smell the liquor seeping from his pores? I managed to keep that ex-Ranger FBI idiot off my back, too. You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to lull someone into a sense of comfort when you have similar backgrounds. All I had to do was share a few combat tales with good ol’ Agent Davis and he looked the other way. I spent two years cleaning up after Ellis, and that money was supposed to be my bonus for a job well done. And just when we were close to a payday, that asshole has a change of heart?” Harper dug her heels into the asphalt roof, desperate to slow their progress. The edge was only ten feet away now, and she didn’t like where this was going. “I knew when you ambushed us in that parking garage that he was going to spill it all to you. The timing couldn’t have been worse. So I shot him. Kremer should have taken care of you at the museum. The guy can’t shoot for shit, though. I guess if you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself. And once I get rid of you, I can get back on track to getting my goddamned money.”
Harper guessed she could be thankful the fire marshal was a terrible shot, but it didn’t do much to put her at ease right now.
“You don’t think someone’s going to hear the gunshot?” Harper’s heart beat wildly in her chest and her vision darkened at the periphery.
Please, oh please don’t let me pass out before he kills me
. “This isn’t a very stealthy move, Jason.”