Protecting Justice (The Justice Series Book 4) (29 page)

“I’ll relax later. Come.”

Right
.

Jacqueline led her downstairs and Fallyn followed her into the dining room, quiet and deserted now. They began gathering plates and wiping up frosting.

“I have three questions for you,” Jacqueline said.

Fallyn stacked a couple of plates and kept her eyes down. What was this,
The Walking Dead
and Rick’s three questions? If she didn’t answer them correctly, Jacqueline would leave her to fight off the zombies on her own?

You’ve handled rabid journalists, angry girlfriends, and overbearing presidents handing out veiled threats. You’ve got this.
“Okay, shoot.”

“Tony speaks highly of you.” Jacqueline smiled, her voice sugary smooth. “What is your relationship to my son?”

Hadn’t Tony already explained this? “He’s my bodyguard.”

“You and I know there’s more to it than that.”

Step carefully
.

At that moment, Amber swung in. “There you are, Momma. Go sit down. We are not letting you clean up after your own birthday party.”

“I’m sixty years old, not helpless.” Jacqueline shooed a hand at her daughter. “Ms. Pasche and I are having a talk.”

Amber gave Fallyn a knowing look. “
Oooh
. Well, excuse me. I’ll just be in the kitchen.”

Once the room was clear again, Jacqueline put a hand on one of the ornate dining room chairs. “What are your intentions for my son?”

To kill him
. But then she wouldn’t be having great sex tonight, and he
had
warned her this might happen. Only she’d been expecting it from his sisters, not his mother. Team Estrogen’s quarterback was a pro. “I’m sorry. Intentions?”

“Ms. Pasche, he is my only son.”

“Please call me Fallyn.”

Jacqueline went on as if she hadn’t heard. “He’s a good man. One who’s always tried to do the right thing. He’s been struggling lately and I won’t stand by and see him get hurt. He needs a strong woman like you by his side, but not if you’re going to break his heart in the end.”

She was not going to pull one over on Jacqueline Gerard. No siree.
Do what you’re good at. Spin the situation.

But when she started to spin it in order to get out from under the woman’s interrogation, she found she didn’t want to. “Tony means a great deal to me, Mrs. Gerard. I have no intention of hurting him.”

“Honesty. How refreshing.” She flashed a smile, a real one this time, and Fallyn saw where Shannon got hers. “He’s happier today than I’ve seen him in a long time.”

Was there a question in there? “He makes me happy, too.”

“Even after all you’ve been through in the past few days—that says a lot.”

“Yes, ma’am, it does.”

Jacqueline went back to cleaning the table. Fallyn did as well, waiting. Biding her time.

Waiting some more.

Finally, Fallyn couldn’t stand it. “Ma’am, by my count, that was only two questions.”

“Don’t be impertinent, dear. I haven’t forgotten how to count.”

Fallyn laughed softly under her breath. Yep, Tony got his straightforwardness from his mother. “No, ma’am. I wasn’t implying you did, I’m just curious.
Is
there a third question?”

Jacqueline, hands full, slid up beside Fallyn and looked down at her shoes. “Promise you won’t tell anyone,” she said sotto voce.

“Tell them what?”

“I have a pair of shoes just like those, but I’m afraid to wear them anywhere. They’re cheap and gaudy, and I’m a bit old to be so flashy. Right?”

This
was the third question? Not something more along the lines of
do you want to marry my son and have his babies?

“Mrs. Gerard, I’m a firm believer that shoes only make the woman if the woman hasn’t already made herself. You’ve certainly made a wonderful life here and have an awesome family. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with your wearing flashy, sparkly, cheap-ass shoes if you love them. Life is short. You should wear whatever the hell you want.”

For a moment, Jacqueline was silent, looking slightly shocked.

Was it her language? Her boldness?

Then a big smile, like the one she’d given Tony earlier, raised the corners of her mouth. “I like you, Ms. Pasche.”

“Fallyn.”

“Fallyn, you may call me Jackie.”

Progress! “Yes, ma’am.”

Jackie winked and walked out.

Fallyn took a deep breath. First name basis.
No fending off zombies tonight.

Did it matter that she’d passed Tony’s mom’s test?

Deep down, it did. She wanted all of them to like her. She wanted Tony to be proud of her for impressing his hard-to-impress mother.

Tony slid up behind her, startling her, and she nearly dropped the plates in her hands. “Hey, lady. Where’ve you been?”

“Being interrogated by your mother. You owe me.”

He nibbled her ear. “I’ll make it up to you tonight.”

“Damn straight, you will. Here.” She offloaded the dishes into his hands. “Go help your mother.”

“Where are you going?”

“To check my phone. I’ve been so caught up in the party, I need to see if Dani decoded that USB.”

Her phone was in her bag lying on a bed in the guest room with her coat. She dug it out and found she did, indeed, have a message from Dani with an attachment.

She clicked on the link and held her breath.

Heather’s face appeared on the phone’s screen. “Hi, Fal. It’s me. I know you’re probably wondering what this is about. I have a couple things to tell you. What I’m about to say will sound crazy, but I swear to you, I’ve done my due diligence on this. It’s real and it’s…scary.”

Heather looked over her shoulder. The scene appeared to have been shot in her office at the Capitol. “First,” her focus came back to the camera and she lowered her voice. “I want you to know, I love you, Fal. I know we’ve had our differences, and I get it if you don’t want to help me after you watch this video, but I need you, sis. I’m in a mess here and I need you.”

The sound of her voice, the sight of her face on Fallyn’s screen, was too much. Her knees went weak and she slumped on the floor. Her shoes went askew and she kicked them off.

Touching the screen, she froze the picture of her sister in place. The burn of grief roiled just under her skin. “Oh, Heather. I love you too.”

For a long moment, she sat there, tears running down her face. Esme wandered in and patted her back. “Are you sick?” the little girl asked, slipping her too small feet into Fallyn’s shoes.

Fallyn pulled herself together and smiled at the child. “Nope. Allergies,” she lied, scooping tissues from a box on the nightstand. “I’m fine.”

“Can I wear your shoes, Fairy Godmother?”

Fallyn nodded and Esme tromped out of the room in the too-big heels.

Fallyn watched the rest of the video, dry-eyed, her grief turning into shock and then white-hot anger. As Heather spilled her confession on screen, she had to stop once when Jordan interrupted her without knocking on her office door first.

Off screen, Jordan said,
“Here’s your pharmacy pickup. They had your prescription, the magnesium, the fish oil, and your multivitamins, but they were out of your favorite brand of protein powder. A new shipment is coming in tomorrow. I’ll pick it up on my lunch hour.”

Heather had quickly lowered the phone and from the angle of the camera, Fallyn couldn’t see anything but the edge of a white bag being plopped down on the desk.

“Thank you,” Heather said.

The door creaked shut in the background and suddenly Heather was back.

For the next three minutes and twenty-seven seconds, Fallyn was glued to the screen. At the end of the video, Heather once again pleaded for Fallyn’s help. “I don’t know who to talk to,” she said. Her face was strained. “I hope you can give me some advice. I’m in love with him, Fal, and he didn’t know what he was doing. If anyone can help us, I know it’s you.”

Heather and Ryan. Lovers.

Fallyn couldn’t wrap her mind around it.

“Fallyn?” Tony crowded into the doorway, Esme leading him. “Are you alright?”

Esme dropped Fallyn’s shoes on the ground next to her feet and leaned over to kiss Fallyn’s cheek. Fallyn patted the girl’s arm and Esme took off. “It’s Heather.”

Her dry eyes didn’t last long. Just saying her sister’s name brought a fresh wave of tears. She held out the phone so Tony could see it.

He grabbed the whole box of tissues and tore a few out, handing them to her. “What did she say?”

A lot. One bomb after another.

Have to find the man who knows what went down.

She had a name, thanks to Heather’s video. The man who was the key to connecting all the dots. Who this guy was, exactly, Fallyn had to find out.

Fallyn blew her nose, wiped her eyes, and reached deep for that rage she’d felt a minute ago. “I know where to get the proof that the president’s son shot down CanAir Flight 702.”

Chapter Eighteen

Tony woke up to the sound of Fallyn’s voice. Something, he decided, he could get used to.

Easily.

He rolled over in the creaky bed, forgot it was only a queen and nearly face-planted off the side. Sometime this month, he needed his own damned bed where his giant feet didn’t hang off the end.

The digital clock glowed 6:30. They’d slept, what…three hours? Fallyn had been on a tear all night trying to track down this Donald Fox, whoever the hell he was, because he had some serious inside information on Heather and her personal life. Why he had that information, they didn’t yet know. But Heather had talked about him in her video.

Peeling his gritty eyes open again, Tony rested his head against the pillow and blinked up at the ceiling. When this was over, he’d sleep for a week.

Hopefully with Fallyn beside him. But he wouldn’t get too far ahead of this thing. Right now, she was vulnerable and probably latching on because the sex was good and it gave her a distraction from her personal shit storm.

Did he really believe that? With the way they were together?

“No,” Fallyn said from the other room. “I need to talk to this guy
today
. This morning. ASAP.”

The tiny garage apartment was only so big and from the clarity of her voice, she had to be in the living room. Near that couch they’d done wicked things on.
Don’t tell Syd.
Just thinking about the steam they’d blown off on that couch made his morning erection damned near wave a white flag.

But the way she was talking on the phone, he figured his chances of luring her back to bed were zero.

Who the hell could she be talking to at six in the morning? When he was hoping to get laid.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, reached for the shorts he’d tossed on the floor last night. Sure, he could walk out bare-assed, but with his luck she wouldn’t be on the phone and his mighty chubby would make its debut in front of Fallyn’s guest.

Nuts as she was, she couldn’t be crazy enough to bring someone here.

Could she?

“His name is Donald Fox,” Fallyn said. “Yes…Fox…That’s all I know.”

On the phone. Definitely. He marched into the tiny living room where she sat curled under the red blanket that’d been draped across the back of the couch. One long leg poked out, her creamy skin seriously begging him to reach out and touch.

What exactly did she have on under that blanket?

Still holding the phone to her ear, she glanced up, waved with her free hand and patted the spot next to her.

“Okay, Dani, I have to go. As soon as you find this guy, call me…Right. Thank you.”

She punched off the call, adjusted the blanket—pity, that—and shifted to face him. “That was my office. They’re on this Donald Fox.”

She flapped one arm and the blanket slid down her shoulder. More skin. Please let her be naked under there. Call him twisted, but her conducting business while naked? Hot, hot, hot.

“I mean, how did I not know my sister was screwing the president’s son?”

Speaking of screwing…with the Donald Fox revelation on the video, came Heather’s admission that she and Ryan Nicols were
involved
. His eyes wandered to her leg again where the blanket separated just below her crotch. They needed that blanket gone. He met her gaze again. “If she didn’t tell you, how could you know?”

“Exactly my point. I
should
have known that.”

“Why?”

Her mouth dropped open. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re sisters. You don’t live inside each other’s skin. You met my sisters yesterday. They’re up my ass all the time. From the time we left that party last night, my phone was blowing up.”

“I heard it.”

“That was them. Texting me.
Group
texting. About you. Because that’s what they do. One of them asks a question and then the other three chime in. Twelve texts happen before I even get a word in. So, as you can imagine, I don’t tell them seventy-five percent of what goes on in my life. Doesn’t mean I don’t love them. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t step in front of a truck for them. It means it’s my life and when there’s something to report, I’ll report it. Otherwise, they need to stay the fuck out.”