THE GUARDIAN (Taskforce Series) (26 page)

“Nope. Got a few more here.” He continued the slide show.

The image of a copper haired girl, twelve or thirteen years of age, rooted
Lena
to the spot. The photos were blurry since Peter had been taking them while turning around at a cul-de-sac, but once the driver’s side window paralleled the yard, the photos came out clearer. The girl had turned to regard him curiously. Her eyes were so strikingly familiar that
Lena
gasped.

Peter glanced up at her sharply. “What’s wrong?”

“He has a daughter,” she croaked.

“Who? Jackson Maddox?”

“Yes. She looks just like him.”

Peter gave a disinterested grunt. He forwarded to the next photo, where the leg, chest and chin of a woman were just visible as she stepped out of the house to join the girl
.

“Who is that?”
Lena
pointed, but it proved to be the last picture Peter had taken. “Did you see this woman? Is she the girl’s mother?”

“Probably,” he said, unconcerned. “I bet she drives the Volvo and meets up with her husband on weekends.” 

Lena
gripped one of the bed posts to keep the room from reeling
.

It was too disturbing to contemplate. The man who’d coerced her into declaring her trust
for him had a child and was probably married.
The son of a bitch
. No wonder he hadn’t gone all the way with her
.

Peter finally took note of her silence. “You okay?” He craned his neck to look back at her.

“Yeah.”

She closed her eyes in gratitude when his cell phone rang
.

“That was fast,” he said, taking the call. It had to be his buddy at the DMV. “Awesome. Whatchu got?” He opened a Word document and started typing.
Dept. of Homeland Security, year-long lease,
Lena
read. “That’s it? No names?” Peter dabbed at the beads of sweat glistening at his hairline. “What about the other car?”

She held her breath as Peter typed the name
Silvia Shultz
. Jealousy, as green and sour as the skin on a Granny Smith apple made
Lena
’s lips pucker. Peter typed
DOB:
and the date
7/19/1949
, and her jealousy morphed into relief. No way could Silvia Shultz be
Jackson
’s wife or the little girl’s mother, not at sixty some years of age.
The
mou efharisto.
Thank you, God
.

However, that didn’t mean he didn’t have a wife tucked away somewhere, she cautioned herself.

With a word of gratitude and a promise to take Rich out to lunch soon, Peter hung up
.

“Are you thirsty?”
Lena
asked. Her throat was parched
.

“Definitely.” 

She went to kitchen and poured two iced-teas in the new drinking glasses she’d purchased. A fresh wave of resentment plunged through her as she chugged her glass. Returning to the room with the other, she found Peter reading an online news article.

“Can you open the window any farther?” he asked her, taking his glass. “It’s hot as hell in here.”

“Sure.” She wrestled the window all the way open. “No air-conditioning,” she apologized, flicking on the overhead fan
.

“I don’t know how you stand it.” He put his empty glass down with a thud. Armpit stains ringed his short-sleeved shirt. “Plus your internet is slow as hell.”

“It’s DSL,” she explained. Funny how sweat looked sexy on some men and not on others. She shifted her attention the article he was reading. “What’d you find?” 

“I paired Silvia Shultz’s name with Jackson Maddox, and this is what came up. It’s her daughter’s obituary.”

The relief that washed over her left her feeling shamed. His wife was dead.

“Colleen Shultz Maddox was killed in a single-car collision in 2009,” Peter quoted, unaware of her response. “She is survived by her husband Captain Jackson Maddox, United States Marines Corps, blah, blah, blah. None of this tells me what he’s investigating now.” He closed the page before she could read past the first paragraph. “I’m better off returning to the office where I have broadband.”

With rising panic,
Lena
watched him put away his camera. The certainty that Peter was going to blow
Jackson
’s cover made her stomach cramp. She laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Peter, you promised you wouldn’t expose the agent’s cover,” she reminded him.

He looked up at her like she was crazy. “No I didn’t.” Zipping up his camera case, he stood up and shouldered the strap.

“What if he’s at Gateway to prevent an act of terror?” she argued. “You could be jeopardizing thousands of American lives.”

He eyed her in disbelief. “Why are you defending him? This guy broke into your house. He stole your camera and your laptop, for God’s sake.”

She thought it best not to mention that the pendant, which he’d given her last Christmas, had been taken also.

“Who cares if his fucking cover is blown?” Pushing past her, he stalked into the living room
.

Lena
chased after him. “We’re talking about national security, though,” she persisted, blocking his path to the door. “The FBI wouldn’t have an agent masquerading as a felon unless something serious is happening at Gateway.”

He drew up short. “And why would anything bad be happening at Gateway?” he sneered. “Because it’s run by Muslims? That’s racial profiling,
Lena
. And it ought to be illegal.”

“You can’t be certain Gateway doesn’t have terrorist ties.”

“It’s a highly esteemed reintegration program,” he shot back. “Ninety percent of its graduates do not reoffend and are contributing to society.”

“But what if there’s some link to terrorists, and people die because you exposed a government investigation?”

“No one is going to die.”

“The agent could, Peter! They’ll consider him a traitor. Who knows what they’ll do to him in reprisal.”

Peter jerked the strap on his shoulder higher. “Not my problem,” he said shortly.

She wished she had never asked his help in identifying
Jackson
in the first place. “So that’s it? You’re just going to take this story away from me?”

“If I let you have it, then there won’t be a story,” he predicted. “Sorry, this one’s mine.” With a tight smile, he elbowed her out of his way and marched outside.

“Peter, please!” she shouted off the porch. “Just give it two weeks before you run your story.” That way the session would be over, and
Jackson
would be safe.

“We’ll see.” He halted suddenly en route to his Jeep. “I want my car back,” he announced, returning to the house to hand her back her keys
.

He would go and make this even more difficult for her. Seething,
Lena
stormed inside to fetch his key ring. They met on the porch. “What’s
Davis
going to think when I show up in a fifty thousand dollar car, and what’s my small town convenience store boss going to think?”

“Tell them your Jeep broke down, and the Jag’s your dad’s.”

“Fine.” She thrust his keys at him and snatched hers out of his hand
.

“Come on, babe,” he coaxed, eyeing her flushed face. “Don’t take this so hard. I’ll give you credit for the story, I promise.”

“No! I don’t want credit. Don’t you dare link my name with your article.” It was bad enough that
Jackson
now ignored her; she couldn’t imagine how she’d feel if he blamed her for ruining his investigation.

“Whatever. I thought you were a journalist first and foremost, but I guess I was wrong.” Turning his back on her Peter marched to his car.

Stung by his words,
Lena
had to remind herself that not long ago she had planned to discover Abdul’s secret and use it against him. For the first time ever she found herself on the other side of the fence, emotionally involved with the subject of a story—not that
Jackson
reciprocated her emotions. He’d had no apparent difficulty shutting her out of his life.

She watched Peter climb into his Jeep and pull away. Glancing back at her once, he shook his head. It was obvious he thought she’d lost her touch
.

The black Jeep disappeared over a hillock. Disappearing with it was glimmer of hope that Jackson Maddox might one day be an integral part of her life. When
Crime and Liberty
declared him an undercover agent and paired an article with a photo of him taken from the vantage of Artie’s freaking parking lot, who would
Jackson
blame, but her?

If she’d just left town when he’d first asked her to, none of this would have happened
.

**

Ike Calhoun’s scowling face loomed on the company laptop. “All clear?” he rapped.

Jackson
heard the kitchen door thump shut as Silvia followed Naomi outside. His team lead had called an immediate, top secret conference requiring anyone in the house who was not a Taskforce agent to step out. The fact that it was required to be top secret suggested Ike had critical news to share.

“All clear,”
Jackson
affirmed, annoyed that he hadn’t even been able to greet his daughter properly
.

Toby shot him a sympathetic grimace and sank into the chair next to his.

“What the hell happened last night, Maddox?” Ike demanded. “I want your version.”

Obviously, Toby’s version hadn’t appeased him
.

Chagrined,
Jackson
relayed how Zakariya had caught them by surprise by varying from his usual routine, and what they’d seen and heard before
Jackson
accidentally betrayed their presence. He even admitted how the local police had awakened all twelve parolees to question them, only to leave the campus scratching their heads
.

“You realize,” Ike retorted, using whip-lash syllables that made
Jackson
flinch, “that the imams are going to tighten security from now on.”

They’d fucked up and Ike was right; the investigation would now be that much harder.

“I think we should look at the music he was listening to,”
Jackson
suggested. “Something tells me it was encoded.”

Ike sent him a hard look. “Our analysts report that he was visiting a music site, but they have no way of knowing what he listened to.”  

“But I remember.”
Jackson
imbued his tone with confidence. “I’ll look up the songs and send them to you.”

Ike did not look mollified.

“I have an idea,” Toby said, earning Ike’s hard stare. “Have the fire marshal check on Gateway’s compliance with NFPA Code 58 regarding the storage of propane. If they’re in violation, we could get warrants for Ibrahim’s arrest and then search his office.”