Kill and Run (A Thorny Rose Mystery Book 1) (25 page)

“That poor girl has had such a tough week,” Murphy whispered to Joshua while they stared into their drinks in the hospital waiting room. “First she loses her mother, who ends up not being her mother—which we still haven’t told her about yet. Then she’s put in a group home where a teenaged Al Capone tries to take her iPad in exchange for protection. Then she gets shot at, run off the road, and almost killed.” He took a long drink from the bottled water he had gotten from the vending machine.

“Cameron’s week isn’t much better.” Joshua fingered the loose label of his soft drink bottle. “Thank God they’re all right. Shaken up, but all right. They didn’t end up on Graham’s hit list.”

“So you admit—”

“We’re missing something.” Letting out a breath, Joshua sat up in his seat.

“What?” The frustration in Murphy’s tone was unmistakable.

“The connection between Graham and the Russian mob,” Joshua said.

“He’s made a deal with them,” Murphy said. “He supplies them with illegal arms or information for them to sell to Iran or terrorists or the drug cartels—take your pick—in exchange for the syndicate providing clean-up service after his messes.”

“I looked at Francine Baxter’s files, son,” Joshua said. “Nowhere do I see any evidence, circumstantial or otherwise of him supplying information or arms to the Russian mob—not even a hint of it.”

“Then he’s using someone else as a go-between,” Murphy said. “Someone close to him.” A broad grin crossed his face. “Dolly Scanlon.” He snapped his fingers. “She was briefing him about the hit at Starbucks. She gave him the information about the anti-military blogger.”

“But why come after us?” Cameron came into the waiting room and slipped her arm across Joshua’s shoulders. “I got a blue ribbon for good health. A few bruises here and there, but otherwise clean.” Easing down onto the seat next to him, she kissed Joshua on the lips before continuing, “As for our bad guy, I never talked to General Graham. He had no way of knowing Jessica and I were a threat.”

“He wanted to get to me,” Murphy said. “What better way to get me out of the way than to go after my wife, who was in your car?”

“No offense, Murphy,” Joshua said, “but you’re not really a threat. General Graham’s nomination has not been threatened—yet. As far as he knows, he’s not a suspect. He didn’t get where he is being stupid. You’re simply a lieutenant. As far as Graham knows, he can squash you and your investigation like a bug with one phone call to the army’s chief of staff.” He shook his head. “Something else happened to trigger this.”

Murphy wasn’t paying attention. Upon seeing Jessica coming out of the examination room, he was trotting down the hall to take her into his arms.

“Colonel Lincoln Clark could have called him,” Cameron told Joshua. “Paige Graham outed Jessica at the Clark place. He threw us out.”

“Paige Graham?” Joshua looked up at where Jessica and Murphy joined them.

“General Graham’s wife,” Jessica said. “She leads the army officers’ wives club with an iron fist.”

“Which means her husband’s reputation is very important to her,” Joshua said.

“She saw us nosing around at Clark’s place,” Cameron said. “She called her husband, who called out the hitmen.”

“That’s all speculation,” Joshua said.

Cameron groaned. “You’re going into lawyer mode again.”

“The President will not withdraw his nomination without real evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of General Sebastian Graham,” Joshua said. “We can speculate from here to doomsday but without any hard irrefutable proof of anything, General Sebastian Graham is on his way to becoming chief of staff of the army.”

“Excuse me,” a nurse stepped into the waiting room to break the glaring contest between Joshua and the rest of the group. “Are any of you family members for Isadora Crenshaw?”

“She has no family,” Murphy said forcibly in Joshua’s direction. “Someone murdered them.”

Joshua fired back his own glare.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” the nurse replied.

Seeing that the nurse was embarrassed to have walked into the middle of their emotional debate, Jessica laid her hand on her elbow. “We’re legally responsible for Izzy.”

“The doctor has finished examining her,” the nurse said. “She’s a little banged up. Some scrapes and bruises, mainly. She’s been shaken up pretty bad.”

“She threw up,” Cameron said.

“That was due to the emotional trauma,” the nurse said. “The doctor gave her a very mild sedative. It’s already making her drowsy. You can take her home with you. She’ll probably sleep through the night.”

After the nurse escorted Cameron down the hallway to the examination room to help Izzy out of her robe and dress to go home, Jessica touched Murphy’s arm to break the glaring contest he was engaging in with his father. “I’ll go hail a cab to take us home.” With the point of her finger, she ordered them, “You two play nice while I’m gone.”

Too angry to stay with his father, Murphy turned to follow after her only to find Joshua’s hand on his arm—holding him back.

“I do intend to make sure Graham is held accountable for what he’s done,” Joshua said in a low voice. “But we have to go about it the right way.”

“How’s that?” Murphy asked.

“When we get home, I want to hear word for word what you overheard at the Ritz this morning. Maybe we’ll get lucky and you heard more than you thought.”

As soon as the taxi pulled up in front of the Faraday-Thornton brownstone, Tristan threw open the front door and hurried down the steps to meet them. “Are you sure everyone’s okay?” he asked. “Dad’s called twice and Archie three times. He’s threatening to fly out here.”

When he saw Joshua Thornton in his naval uniform climb out of the front passenger seat, he jumped to stand at attention even though he had never been in the military. “Mr. Thornton!”

“You called me Josh at the wedding,” he replied while holding the rear door open for Murphy, whose arms were full with a sleeping Izzy, to climb out. Cameron ran up the steps to go inside to prepare Izzy’s bed.

“Why are you standing at attention?” Jessica asked Tristan in a low voice after climbing out behind Murphy.

“Just something about him compels me to.” The cab was pulling away when Tristan turned to her to demand, “Why didn’t you tell me that
he
was here?” He yanked his cell phone from his pocket. His fingers flew across the screen.

“Because between closing down the Capital Beltway during rush hour and hanging out in the ER, I’ve been a little busy.” She tried to read the name of the contact he was urgently texting. “Who are you texting? Dad?”

“No, Sarah.” He was breathing heavily while pacing up and down the sidewalk. “Abort. Abort. Oh, God, I hope she hasn’t left yet.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

While Jessica and Cameron were putting Izzy to bed, Murphy started running a bath for Jessica in the master bathroom. He knew from experience that the shock from the accident would make her sore the next day. Nothing like a hot whirlpool bath and deep massage to ease the soreness.

Holding the soiled pair of white navy shoes, Joshua was admiring the view from the window seat in the sitting room when Murphy came out of the bathroom. “I have to tell you, this is nothing like the apartment your mother and I started out in when we got married.”

“What is it Mom used to tell us every time we had to move?” Murphy went to his closet on the other side of the bedroom. “It isn’t how many bedrooms or bathrooms or windows that make a house a home. It’s the occupants.” He knelt down to take pick up a pair of white navy shoes from the shoe rack. Holding them up, he said, “I think you and I have the same size feet.”

“So you did listen to me about making sure you had a spare uniform.” Joshua took the shoes and checked the label inside for the size. “Thank God you’re not Donny. His feet are two sizes bigger than mine.”

“Donny has gorilla feet.”

Tucking the fresh shoes under his arm, Joshua said, “Now let’s see what else you have that fits me. My suitcase is still at the Pentagon and I’d really like to get out of these whites.”

Stepping aside, Murphy gestured to the interior of the closet. “The store is open. Take whatever you need.”

While searching through Murphy’s drawers for slacks and a shirt, Joshua said, “I see Cameron has really taken to Izzy.”

“So has Irving,” Murphy said. “And the dogs. Even Tristan’s spider likes her.”

Joshua paused in his search. “Monique? She’s met Monique?”

“Tristan’s townhouse got flooded,” Murphy said. “He’s staying with us while repairs are being made and, apparently, kennels don’t take tarantulas.”

With a chuckle, Joshua resumed his search. “I half expect Mac Faraday to show up at your door with Gnarly to join the party.”

“I like Gnarly,” Murphy said. “I don’t like Monique.”

Having selected his change of clothes, Joshua stepped out of the closet. “The truth is, when you get married, like it or not, you become part of a whole ‘nother family. And you know what they say. You can chose your friends but not your family—even when you marry into it.”

“I really love the Faradays,” Murphy said. “Mac scares the daylights out of me, but I can get used to that.”

“Do you think Tristan can get used to me scaring him?” Joshua said with a grin.

“Him, I’m not so sure.”

“How long has he been seeing Sarah?”

“Since the wedding,” Murphy said. “But not in the traditional sense. They have not actually gone out on a real date.”

“It’s tough to date long distance, especially when you’re attending a military academy,” Joshua said.

“I think they have a hook up planned for real soon,” Murphy said in a low voice. “But pretend you don’t know about it. It makes things more exciting.”

“You can be so cruel sometimes,” Joshua replied in a whisper.

“It’s in my genes.”

Downstairs, Jessica walked into the kitchen to find Tristan hissing into the phone. “I don’t know what he’s doing here. I didn’t ask. … No,
Murphy
didn’t blow our cover. He doesn’t know.” Seeing his sister, he said, “Just a minute.” Hitting the mute button, he said, “Sarah is halfway here from Annapolis and everything is at a dead halt because the beltway is still closed due to fuel clean up from
your
accident.”

“My
accident?” Jessica put a hand on her hip. “Oh, yeah, I asked those hitmen to shoot at Cameron’s cruiser.”

“Help me out, sis,” Tristan said with a plea in his voice. “Sarah and I had a totally romantic hook-up planned.”

With wide eyes, Jessica’s usually calm tone took on a hysterical tone. Clutching her breast, she cried out, “Not here!”

“Of course not,” Tristan said.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Jessica said, “Thank you, God. I had visions of Murphy coming downstairs in the middle of the night to find you and his sister in your birthday suits making margaritas.”

Envisioning Murphy’s stunningly sensuous sister naked, Tristan said in a breathy voice, “That would be totally awesome.”

“You do know Murphy can kill you with his pinky?” Jessica replied.

“But it would be totally awesome until he did,” Tristan said. “No problem, sis. I booked us a room at the Embassy Suites. One of the top floors with a view of D.C. that’s to die for. I got champagne, flowers, and even booked a couple’s massage.”

“Did you listen to a word I said to you the other day about the risk you two would be taking?” Jessica said. “About how awkward things will be for our two families if things don’t work out since Murphy and I are married?”

“I heard every word you said,” Tristan said, “and I talked to Sarah about it.”

“And?”

“We decided you have no room to talk.”

“But—”

Tristan pressed his finger to her lips. “You and Murphy got married thirty-six hours after meeting each other, sis. Now you were the one who introduced us. Therefore, you need to help us out. Sarah was going to swing by here to pick me up, but between all traffic in the city coming to a screeching halt and the commander lying in wait upstairs—”

“Captain,” Jessica corrected him.

“What?”

“Josh was promoted to captain.”

“So now I’ll get killed by a navy captain instead of a commander,” Tristan said. “Is that supposed to make me feel important?”

“Just have Sarah meet you at the hotel,” Jessica said. “No one will know she was ever in the city.”

“Did you hear me?” Tristan asked. “Sarah can’t get into the city.”

“Where is she?” Jessica snatched the phone from his hand. “Sarah, where are you?”

When she didn’t receive an answer, Tristan told her, “It’s on mute.”

Jessica hit the button to unmute the call. “Sarah, where are you?”

“I’m in Bowie with a bunch of ticked off motorists,” Sarah said. “It’s pretty ugly.” Jessica heard a rustle of the phone followed by Sarah cursing loudly in the background. “Who taught you how to drive, buddy? A pre-schooler? Yeah? You wanna come over here and say that?”

Sarah returned to the phone to discover that Jessica had handed it back to Tristan to open up the tablet she had resting on the kitchen counter. “There’s a Marriott Suites that’s out of the way in Bowie. It’s clean, nice, quiet, and can be romantic.”

“What’s going on?” Sarah asked Tristan.

Jessica ordered, “Tell her to get off onto Route 301.”

“Can you get off onto Route 301?” Tristan asked.

“I’m right there,” Sarah said with excitement in her tone.

“Tell her to go down Route 301 to Mitchellville Road,” Jessica instructed while typing away on the tablet. “Find the Travel Suites, it’s a Marriott.” With a flourish of her hand, she grinned. “I made reservations for a suite for you two kids under the name Faraday.”

“I’m on my way,” Sarah yelled out of the phone’s speaker. “You’re a sweetheart, Jessie.”

“I know,” she said.

“Oh, and Tristan,” Sarah said with a husky tone, “I got that gift you sent to me. I can’t wait for us to break it in.”

“Neither can I. See you later.” Disconnecting the call, he shook his head at Jessica. “You know I don’t have a car.”

“What present did you send to her?” Jessica took her keys off a key hook on the wall and tossed them to him.

He caught the keys in mid-air. “Nothing.”

Observing a pink tone in his cheeks, she cocked her head at him. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. Thanks, sis.” He kissed her cheek before galloping down the stairs leading to the garage.

“Be gentle with her,” she called after him.

“Oh, I’m sure Sarah can take care of herself.”

“I was talking about the Ferrari,” she replied.