THE GUARDIAN (Taskforce Series) (43 page)

“Dad!” Naomi flung herself over the bedrail, heedless of
Jackson
’s healing wound, to hang on his neck.

He flinched automatically but felt no pain as he gathered her more securely against him and returned her fierce hug. “There’s my princess. I feel better already.” And that was no exaggeration. The feel of her warm skin against his and the smell of her fragrant hair made every agony he’d endured worthwhile
.

She pulled away just far enough to run an assessing eye over him. “Mr. Burke says you were shot in the butt,” she announced.

“Actually, I was shot in the hip, but I’m going to be fine,” he assured her, shooting his colleague a warning glare. “Good morning, Silvia,” he added, countering her look of concern with a reassuring smile. “It’s nice to have you both here.”

“We brought you a card,” Silvia said, moving to place it by the flowers. “Oh, aren’t these lovely? Did you see who they’re from?” She passed the small envelope to Jackson, who had to let go of
Lena
’s hand to read the note inside.

Naomi strained to read it, too.

“They’re from Ike’s wife,” he said, scanning the message. “She says he had to return to D.C. for a debriefing but he sends his
love
.”

Toby snorted. Setting the card aside,
Jackson
looked over at him.

Lena
was eyeing him, too. “Haven’t you been fired yet for that stunt you pulled last night?” she inquired
.

Toby folded his arms over his chest. “If you’re talking about that clown with the T-shirt who was standing next to the AG, no one has managed to identify him.” Toby’s face could’ve been carved from stone. “Nope, the only guy who’s been fired is Wilkes himself. The President declared the showdown a fiasco and promptly replaced him.”

Jackson
was stunned. “Seriously? With whom?”

“One of the justices on the Supreme Court.
Richardson
, I think.”   

As Toby dropped his arms,
Jackson
took note of the message across his chest. SHIT HAPPENS. “What’s with the pessimistic attitude?” he inquired
.

Toby’s lips thinned. Reaching for his back pocket, he pulled out a rolled publication, prompting
Lena
to gasp in horror.
Jackson
could see why. It was the tabloid she wrote for,
Crime and Liberty,
and today’s cover was a full color photo of
Jackson
and Toby leaving the mosque together. “Your boss ran his exposé this morning,” Toby added unnecessarily.

“That skunk!” Bristling with outrage, she went to reach for her phone. “He promised me twenty-four hours’ notice.”

“Which he didn’t give you because he changed his tune.” Removing his hand from the bottom of the article, Toby revealed the title
Undercover Hero
. “I guess he realized Ibrahim really was a terrorist, so he hailed
Jackson
as the hero who saved
America
.”

Jackson
snorted and
Lena
sent him an anxious look. “Aren’t you worried about reprisal?” she asked him.

He shook his head. “Ike is big on security. He’s not going to let anything happen to me or my family.”

Lena
held her hand out for the tabloid and Toby passed it to her. “I can’t work for Peter after this,” she declared, shaking her head.

“All the more reason to take a long vacation,”
Jackson
prompted.

To his disappointment,
Lena
flipped through the article, keeping quiet.

“I have more bad news,” Toby inserted, recapturing their attention. “I saw it in an interdepartmental alert in my email. It’s about Rupert Davis.”

Jackson
flicked
Lena
a look. She didn’t seem too startled. “What about him?” he asked Toby.

“He escaped from custody on the way to Arlington Corrections Facility yesterday. One of his old buddies, incidentally a Five Percenter, unlocked his cuffs.
Davis
overcame both the security officer and the driver, crashed the transport vehicle, and took off. No one has seen or heard from him since.”

Still
Lena
said nothing. She had to be shocked by Toby’s announcement
.

Jackson
put his free arm around her. “The authorities will find him,” he reassured her, smoothing a hand up her rigid back. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to let him get anywhere near you.”

The banked desperation in her eyes when she looked down at him made his scalp tighten. “Actually,” she said in a hesitant voice, “you’re going to have to.”

He searched her gaze. “What the hell does that mean?”

The edge in his voice made Naomi ease away to look back and forth between them
.

“I’ll tell you later.”
Lena
glanced pointedly at his daughter.

“Tell me now,”
Jackson
growled. “Naomi’s grown up enough to hear.”

“Fine.”
Lena
drew a deep breath. “
Davis
already called me at the crack of dawn this morning.”

The unexpected news shattered his contentment like an ice pick breaking up ice.

“I’d given him the number to my throwaway phone the night he attacked me. He says he wants me to meet him on
15
^th
Street South
East tomorrow afternoon. In exchange for five thousand dollars, he’ll tell me the rest of his story.”

Jackson
’s anxiety abated somewhat. “Okay, so we’ll alert the authorities, and they can recapture him.”

“Not until I get the rest of his story,” she said in a soft, stubborn voice.

Jackson
just looked at her. Was she fucking crazy?

“Curtis Vandaloo’s testimony might not be enough to ensure
Davis
’s conviction,” she added quickly. “I have to get the rest of his confession. It’s the only way he’ll get life in prison.”

No wonder she’d fallen silent at his offer to take a vacation. She didn’t know what the future held.

Defeated,
Jackson
let his head fall back onto the foam pillow. He briefly closed his eyes.

Just when he’d thought every issue in his life had been resolved and he’d been blessed by a second chance to put his family above all else, this critical event materialized like a dark cloud to rain on his parade
.

“Fine,” he conceded, breaking the tense silence as everyone in the room held a collective breath.

Opening his eyes again, he sent
Lena
a longsuffering look. “But you’re not going into that building without a wire tap, a weapon, five police officers within shouting distance, and me keeping an eye on all of the above.”

Lena
blinked down at him, her brow furrowing. “How are you going to do that? You’re supposed to stay in bed for a week.”

“My presence tomorrow is non-negotiable,” he insisted.

Her look of worry shifted into a grimace of gratitude. “Thank you,” she breathed. Bending over him, she rewarded him with a warm, lingering kiss.

Naomi went perfectly still against his left side, then threw back her head with a shriek of unmistakable delight. “I knew it!” she crowed.

**

Ignoring the foreboding that pinched the muscles at the base of her neck, Lena headed briskly toward her appointed rendezvous with
Davis
, leaving
Jackson
frustrated and irritable in the passenger seat of her car.

The staccato of her high heels kept time with her anxious pulse. She reminded herself there was nothing to be afraid of. Knowing ahead of time where
Davis
had planned to meet her, the police had rigged the place with cameras and hidden officers inside the building. They were as eager to ensure
Davis
’s conviction as she was, or they would have just nabbed
Davis
when he showed up. Instead, they were allowing her to speak with him first, in the hopes of eliciting the rest of his confession.

An undercover cop, disguised as a street bum, trailed
Lena
within fifty feet. It was he who’d supplied her with the briefcase full of money she carried. She could see no one else on the street but a young woman pushing a shopping cart and an old man sitting on the porch of a derelict row home. Where was everyone at ten on a Saturday morning?

When the abandoned meat processing plant came into view,
Lena
’s confidence faltered. The brick monstrosity was a relic from the 1940’s. With its barred windows and boarded up doors, it resembled a prison.

Davis
had instructed her to enter the door closest to the loading docks. It was here that delivery trucks used to offload huge hocks of meat to be sliced up and distributed to grocers.

The bolt on the door had been sawed in half. With a deep breath, she pushed her way inside. Behind her, the undercover cop lurched to a stop and slid down the wall as if passing out.

The odor of decay hit her in the face as she waded into the gloomy chamber. Light leaked through the high, dusty windows showing the meat hooks that still dangled from metal tracks.
Davis
had told her he would be in an office on the second story. Seeing no sign of the officers concealed within the building, she climbed the central staircase on knees that shook.

“Up here.”
Davis
’s voice called, echoing in the near-empty office above her and making her long for her micro-pistol. Paying no heed to
Jackson
’s objections, the police had assured her she wouldn’t need it. She gained the second level and edged into the room.

Davis
sat like a pedagogue at the old desk, his hands resting on the desktop like he owned the place. The sight of him in a grimy T-shirt, his eyes glazed like he’d done drugs recently, knotted her stomach. There was no sign of any hidden cameras, but then she didn’t know what to look for
.

“Shut the door,” he said, watching her carefully.

The last thing she wanted to do was to close a door between her and her back up. She pushed it tentatively shut
.

His gaze rested on the briefcase. “You got the money?”

“I only brought half,” she admitted.

He rose so suddenly from his seat that the chair toppled over backward. “Half?” he raged. “What the fuck, bitch?” 

His violent reaction made her quail, but
Lena
spoke up quickly so the cops wouldn’t interrupt before she had a chance to elicit his confession. “If you want the rest you’ll have to finish your story,” she insisted
.

“You think I’d try to cheat you?” he scoffed
.