Spread Your Wings: Men in Blue, Book 4 (35 page)

So he did.

It didn’t budge.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Clint slapped the sold iron box stymieing them.

For a moment it looked like Matt might crush the phone in his grip. Jambrea hugged him. Even Shari tried to calm him with a pat on the shoulder.

Jeremy regrouped. “I have one other thought. Jambrea, what’s the quote from your other tattoo, on the opposite wrist. It’s by the same poet, right? Maybe if we concatenate them.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Shari asked.

“Sorry.” Jeremy laughed. “It means to smoosh them together.”

“Okay, cool,” Jambrea jumped in. “It says, ‘I want to live my life so that my nights are not full of regrets.’”

Silence for a moment.

Clint rubbed his thumb across the script decorating her pounding pulse. He seemed as if he might kiss her.

“Holy shit!” Jeremy shouted. “Jambi, isn’t that how John signed his note to you? The one inside the box?
No regrets
.”

“Yeah.” She nodded. Shari laid her hand on Jambrea’s forearm.

“That quote is exactly fifty characters long.” He didn’t wait for them to celebrate.

Jambrea’s heart kicked up double-time. It had to be right.

“23-4-19.” Jeremy repeated the numbers to be sure they heard.

Clint hesitated, as if afraid to dash their final hopes.

“If this doesn’t work we can get a safecracker up there, but I’m guessing a guy like John has precautions in place against trying to force the door.” Jeremy shook his head. “Maybe to destroy the contents, even. Then we’ll never know what he protected so fiercely. He thought it important for someone to have whatever he put in there after his death or he never would have gone to Jambi—someone completely out of his circle—in the first place.”

An icicle stabbed Jambrea in the heart. Had John only slept with her for access to her medal? A safe place to smuggle intel? She’d had about enough of her nice-girl side getting her trampled like a doormat.

“I disagree,” Shari spoke up. “I think my brother went there for exactly what he got…a single night with the girl of his dreams. The only one he couldn’t resist, though he knew he should. But he was spontaneous. He trusted his gut. And if instinct told him to entrust her with this secret, whatever it is, he would have done it then worked the rest out later.”

Grateful for that perspective, Jambrea clung to Shari while Clint edged closer to the dial.

“Come on. Don’t crap out now. This is it. It
has
to be right.” Jeremy kept them on task. “Hurry. 23-4-19. Try it.”

Jambrea didn’t see the big rush. They’d been kicking up their heels for days. But still, she couldn’t wait to see what would happen when Clint finished spinning the lock.

Matt, Jambrea and Shari held hands.

Clint tugged on the handle.

And the door opened.

“Holy shit.” Clint hauled the heavy portal back until the contents were displayed to them all.

A single, thick, leather-bound notebook sat inside the container, perfectly centered on a pristine white cloth.

“Do you want the honors?” Jambrea asked Shari when no one reached to retrieve it.

“No, you should do it,” Shari responded.

“Somebody open the thing. Quickly, please.” Jeremy didn’t seem as relieved as Jambrea thought he should given that they’d cracked John’s code.

Matt squinted at the monitor on the phone, where the miniature version of Jeremy was gesturing furiously in the hand signals the guys sometimes used within their group. She didn’t wait to see the two of them hash out whatever had Jeremy’s panties in a bunch.

She put her trembling hand on the journal and took it from its resting place.

When she flipped open the front cover, she gasped.

“What is it?” Jeremy asked.

“It says, ‘John David’s Kill Log.’ Beneath that he’s written a lengthy paragraph about certifying the contents. Each entry contains DNA proof, according to this. He’s also collected fingerprints from each of the bosses that hired him. No wonder he was able to lift mine so easily from my apartment. He’d been practicing.” She wasn’t sure she wanted to see this side of the man she’d idolized for years.

Shari sobbed quietly behind her.

“He only took jobs he believed in.” Matt offered Shari what little solace he could. “It’s a terrible burden to have to weigh right and wrong. I believe your brother made sound decisions in serving his agency.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, though she still winced when their attention returned to the priceless evidence. Would the Men in Blue make it public record? Is that what John had intended all along?

Matt nudged her shoulder. “Wild thing, skip to the last page. Maybe if we can figure out who he was working for on this final job, we’ll know more about who murdered him. It could easily have been a double cross. Especially if his employers found out about this. That’d be reason enough to take him out.”

“Exactly.” Jeremy almost hissed from the open phone line. “Hold the sat device so I can record this. Let’s make it all official. Pick up the pace, kids.”

Clint squinted at the tiny picture of Jeremy, then held his hand out. “Mind if I do this Jambi?”

A sigh fluttered from her lips as she let go of the book. Just touching it had given her the willies. Clint quickly flipped to the last written page. It was near the end of the journal. Shit, there had to be hundreds of completed entries. Jobs. Kills. Whatever you called taking a life.

“Oh shit,” Clint whispered. Matt looked over his shoulder and threw in a few choice curses of his own.

“You knew this, didn’t you?” Matt glared at the virtual form of their friend. “You figured it out somehow.”

“If the man listed there is Rudolph Small, yes.” Jeremy spoke in a grave tone she rarely heard him use. Maybe not since the night he’d announced to their group that he planned to infiltrate Morselli’s sex slave ring and rescue Lily.

“But…isn’t he a presidential hopeful?” Shari tilted her head.

“He was.” Jeremy confirmed. “Until he disappeared while hiking in the Rockies last month. He’s dead. Brutally murdered.”

Jambrea recalled the disembodied heart they’d seen on the news. No. No way would John do that. He’d be more likely to be efficient and quick. As painless as possible. And certainly wouldn’t brag or posture or use the death for his own means. Something wasn’t right.

“John would never kill someone to advance his personal politics.” Shari was outraged. “Sure, he didn’t support that guy, but he wouldn’t have offed him. Hell, he didn’t like the opponent any better. This isn’t right.”

They didn’t get a chance to debate her late brother’s standards. Because just then alarms started ringing like they were at the center of a nuclear meltdown, or maybe an air raid.

Quickly, Matt placed the sat phone high on top of one of the shelves, in the corner, angled to best capture the entire room. Clint stepped in front of the women, who searched behind them for anything that could be used as a weapon.

It didn’t matter, though.

They had nowhere to go and no way to escape when a team of men—in black cargo pants and matching midnight T-shirts covered by Kevlar vests—dropped into the basement and flooded their tiny hiding spot behind the storeroom’s false wall.

Matt covered Jambrea with his body, acting like a human shield. But when no one immediately attacked, he loosed up a little. “Who are you?”

None of the modern ninjas answered.

Clint looked to Matt, but the man in front of her shook his head. There was no way they could beat these odds. Getting themselves killed for nothing wouldn’t leave her or Shari in a better position. In fact, they’d be worse off.

Just in case he decided to do something stupid, Jambrea tucked her fingers in the waistband of his jeans and curled them tight. Then she did the same to Clint, beside her.

A moment later, their anticipation turned to realization. A well-dressed man took significantly longer joining them in their stronghold-turned-trap. Jambrea recognized him too. On the news he’d been blinking away stoic tears at the news of his colleague’s demise.

“Bert Rice.” Matt laughed harshly. “Don’t you know presidents don’t do their own dirty work?”

“Well, I’m not the commander in chief yet. Besides, some things have to be seen to personally or they get all fucked up.” The man was as smooth face-to-face as he was in the TV interviews she’d seen of him. Jambrea hadn’t liked his slimy oil-slick vibe then. Like always, she should have trusted her gut.

 
“This country needs a leader who’s willing to do whatever it takes to protect against modern threats. Including those that come from within. There’s no way I’ll lose now. Not with Rudolph on my side…in spirit.” Good ol’ Bert smirked.

Jambrea would have liked to have kicked him in his fake veneer smile.

Placing his hand behind his back, Matt squeezed her arm in warning.

“Right.” Clint didn’t give a shit about offending the corrupt bastard. “Or not. What we need is a leader who operates within the law and upholds the values of our forefathers. Fucknugget. Working outside our systems isn’t going to get you anywhere but in a jail cell.”

Bert chuckled. “Oh cops, you’re all the same. Deluded with overly simple views of right and wrong. At least the honest ones. It’s what made John so easy to trick. You would have thought after all this time, he’d have seen through the evidence I planted on my friend Rudolph that made him look like a terrorist infiltrating high echelons of our government. Now, the savvy ones…”

“The crooked ones, you mean?” Matt growled.

“Yeah, that I can work with. Wouldn’t have had to destroy them. They could have been useful tools instead of a onetime use partnership that needed to be disposed of afterward. Along with their leftover trash.” The guy glowered. “Enough chatting. Give me the book, and I’ll leave you to enjoy your last minutes together. It’s a generous offer, I believe.”

Bert motioned for one of his henchmen to confiscate the notebook.

She hated to see it in his evil hands.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure we have a day of mourning for this tragedy in my constituency.” He grinned. “It’s horrible when four young people are taken so soon by God. If only they hadn’t been so rebellious or chasing evil practices in their mountain complex, maybe that cave-in never would have happened.”

“Do people really believe your bullshit?” Jambrea couldn’t help herself. She laughed.

Bert didn’t really appreciate that. When he rounded on her, snarling, the distraction was all the Men in Blue needed.

“Bertrand Rice, we have you surrounded. This is the COPD. Come out with your hands up.” Mason’s voice rang loud and clear across the valley.

Jambrea tensed, expecting their attacker to fight or maybe to take them as hostages.

But Bertrand wasn’t even brave enough to shoot fish in a barrel.

“My lawyers will fix this. As long as I have the log, we can spin things any way we need to.” He grinned. “People will fall for anything. I’ll see you next year, when I’m president. We can revisit this then.”

Matt swirled his finger around his ear. Yep, the dude was certifiable. But if he left them without a firefight, she sure as shit wasn’t going to complain.

Jambrea kept her gaze affixed to the drone who’d tucked John’s journal beneath his vest.

First Bertrand surrendered, then each soldier followed, one by one. She never let that guy, the one with her inheritance from John, out of her sight. When at last Matt climbed the ladder then hauled her the rest of the way up, she ignored the screaming of her arm and kept her focus on the goal.

So when the guy coiled, about to lash out, she screamed a warming to Clint, who was closest to the asshole. The thief wrenched away and sprinted toward the door to the boathouse and the lake beyond. If he got close enough to chuck the notebook into the icy waters, he could destroy all the evidence that was beyond reproach.

With a shadow of a doubt—about who’d killed Rudolph Small and why—Bertrand might have his way.

Clint’s burst of speed impressed Jambrea. Though the thief had a few steps’ advantage, he had no hope. Her boyfriend torpedoed at the suspect and tackled him neatly. Before they had finished rolling to a stop, Razor towered over them, gun drawn, daring the asshole to try anything again.

As Clint held the jerk, Mason approached and retrieved the notebook. “We’ll be taking that, thanks.”

Jambrea slumped, sinking to her knees in relief while the Men in Blue cleaned up the rest of the mess. After an afternoon of watching them work up close and personal, she had more respect for them than ever. Even if they had used her and the rest of their little gang as unwitting bait.

“I guess that explains where everyone else at the station was,” she mumbled to herself, figuring Jeremy’s sign language message had been something along the lines of
shit is about to hit the fan but we’ve got you covered
.

“As soon as I realized that, I knew we were in for an exciting afternoon.” Matt hugged her tight. “With the recording from the sat phone in addition to the notebook, our guys have the unbreakable evidence they needed.”