Jack came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. He was looking for the gym shorts he liked to sleep in when he thought he heard thunder. He went to the window to look out.
Shelly was sitting on the side of the bed with a pair of nail clippers in her hand, admiring his nearly bare body and happy their homes were together again.
“Is it raining?” Jack asked.
“Yes, right after you went in to shower. Such is the life of living in the subtropics. Will you help me? I broke a toenail and it’s sharp on one end. I can’t bend over far enough to do it myself.”
“Absolutely,” he said, then knelt in front of her. “Which foot? Which toe?”
She grinned. “Right foot, and the little one that cried all the way home.”
He smiled. “Good one, honey. Okay, let’s see what I can do about this.”
When he bent over, without thinking, she combed her fingers through his hair.
He looked up, saw the want in her eyes, laid the nail clippers aside and dropped the towel.
Shelly reached for him, her heart quickening as he groaned.
She looked up. “It won’t hurt me. I want you so much. I can do this.”
She saw the flash in his eyes, and then he pulled the T-shirt over her head.
“You’re on top,” he said, and lay down.
He grasped her waist with both hands as she straddled him, and then held his breath as she slid down his erection. She was slick and warm and tight.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Shelly’s eyes were closed. “Not yet, but I will be.”
She rocked against him.
He responded with a hard, upward thrust.
When they found their rhythm, it was easy to fall into the dance and even easier to lose track of time. Shelly was lost to everything but trying to catch the rolling heat coiling between her legs.
But Jack’s control was gone. He grabbed her hips and pushed himself all the way up. One thrust, then two, and in the next, the climax slammed into her so hard she forgot to hold on and fell forward, letting that heated rush wash through her in wave after mind-numbing wave. Jack caught her just as he came. He lost his breath, and then his mind.
* * *
The rain passed before morning.
They woke just after sunrise and made love again because they could, then moved into the shower to get ready for her doctor’s appointment. Between the soap and their hands, the last climax was both wet and wild.
Jack left her with a well-loved look on her face as he went to start the coffee, then came back to get dressed.
Shelly was ready except for shoes. She still needed that toenail clipped. When she handed him the clippers, he laughed.
“Oh yeah, the toenail.” He quickly snipped off the sharp point. “We made love instead of making breakfast,” Jack said. “But there’s coffee to go.”
“Works for me,” Shelly said, and followed him to the kitchen, where he filled their to-go cups. She made sure that the lid was on firmly before carrying it to the car.
Jack leaned in and kissed her as she was buckling up. “For good measure,” he said, and winked.
Shelly shivered. What a way to start a day!
They were back on the Loop, working their way to her doctor’s office, when Jack’s phone rang. He accessed the call via Bluetooth so he could keep both hands on the wheel.
“Hello.”
“Jack, this is Nolan. We heard something through the grapevine you might like to know. Adam Ito had a stroke in the prison hospital. They’re not sure what his chances are, but right now, he can’t move or speak. At all.”
“The irony of that does not escape me,” Jack said. “That’s how I found Shelly. Tied to that fucking bed, unable to move, speak or see.”
“I’ll be damned. I didn’t think of it like that. Looks like karma bit him in the ass, big-time. They’ll be moving him to a long-range care facility for prisoners, so I thought you’d want the update. In other news, how is Shelly? No hiccups in the healing department?”
“No physical issues at all,” Jack said, and winked at Shelly. “We’re on our way to get the stitches out of her lips right now.”
“Awesome,” Nolan said. “Give her my best.”
“I will. Thanks for the information. I’ll pass it along.”
Jack disconnected. “That was Nolan.”
“Is anything wrong?” Shelly asked.
“Not for us. Can’t say the same for Adam Ito. Nolan said he had a severe stroke in the prison hospital. He can’t move or talk...at all.”
Shelly’s eyes widened. “So that’s what you meant by irony!”
“Exactly. He’s being transferred to some kind of hospital for prisoners.”
“I hope the only way he leaves that place is in a coffin,” Shelly said, and then shifted her focus to the passing scenery.
Jack gave her hand a quick squeeze.
When they reached the doctor’s office, the visit was almost anticlimatic. Shelly’s worry about it hurting to have the stitches out was unfounded. She was smiling as they left the office.
“It barely stung and I’m starving!” she said.
He grinned. “So am I. What sounds good?”
“It’s almost eleven. Early lunch instead of late breakfast.”
“Mexican?” Jack asked.
“Mmm, yes. Papacito’s?”
“Absolutely,” Jack said.
* * *
Ken Ito had been on the phone all morning, clearing the way to getting Yuki’s body transported back to Japan. Many frustrating phone calls later, it became obvious that either they stayed here until the body was cleared, or they went home and waited for notification it was on the way.
It was Kaho who made the decision. “We go home. They ship. I do not wish to stay in this country any longer.”
“Then we go,” Ken said, gave her a quick hug and got back on the phone, this time to their airline to get a flight out tomorrow. Since money was never an object with them, the outrageous cost of twenty-four-hour-notice tickets was of no consequence.
Once the decision had been made, they packed before they went to bed and were in a car on the way to the airport by 7:00 a.m. the next morning.
It wasn’t until the plane was taxiing down the runway that Kaho breathed a sigh of relief and reached for her husband’s hand.
“It was painful to come with you, but I needed to make this trip to heal my heart, and I thank you,” she said softly.
Ken lifted her fingers to his lips. “It was a hard trip for both of us. You are my heart. I needed you with me, as well.”
And then the wheels left the runway as the jet flew up, up, up into the air.
* * *
Alicia Morris carried the last box of Charlie’s belongings out onto the front porch. She wanted to burn them but couldn’t start a fire in Houston without getting arrested, so she was donating them instead, and her dad was coming back to get them. They’d come earlier to get the baby and take him home with them so Alicia could tie up the business that came with death.
She was trying to wipe away every vestige of his presence from her life, but it was harder than she could have believed. Finding their wedding pictures gutted her. Taking off her wedding rings and putting them away in her jewelry box made her feel naked. In a couple of weeks she’d be going home with her parents, and nothing that belonged to him was going with her—except Johnny. What little she did keep was for Johnny...for later, when he was older. He deserved to know what his father looked like. And maybe one day he’d give their wedding rings to his wife. She had yet to get to their safety deposit box, but that was on today’s agenda. As soon as her dad took the clothes, she was going to the bank.
And now she was standing in the living room, listening to the silence. It already felt empty. The ties she’d had to this home died with Charlie. She’d get over the worst of this one day, but she would never get over his betrayal. She thought she’d known the man she married as well as she knew herself, but she was wrong—so wrong.
“What next?” she said aloud, and then remembered the office. They kept everything on the computer, but if there were personal mementos in the desk, she wanted them gone, too, so she grabbed another box and headed down the hall.
She groaned as she eased down into the office chair and swiveled toward the desk. Her body was still healing from childbirth. Life in one hand, and death in the other. She buried her face in her hands and started to weep. Life wasn’t supposed to happen this way.
After a few indulgent minutes of more tears, Alicia pulled herself together—again—and began opening drawers. She had no idea what was in them, because Charlie always paid the bills.
The skinny drawer in the middle was neatly sorted into pencils, paper clips and notepads. Orderly, just like Charlie, she thought, and moved to the next drawer.
One by one, she emptied them of anything remotely attached to Charlie, then was down to the last drawer and glad of it. When she found a sonogram picture of Johnny in that drawer, she nearly lost it. She wondered what had happened to that, and laid it out on the desk to take with her.
She sorted and trashed, and sorted and trashed until that drawer was empty, too, then slammed it shut. She started to get up when she noticed the drawer was still ajar, and gave it a push, but it wouldn’t go any farther. She frowned and tried again, and then again, before she decided something must have fallen in the track. So she pulled the drawer all the way out, then got down on her hands and knees to look. To her surprise there was a small book taped to the back of the desk, and part of the tape had come loose. It was the book that kept the drawer from going shut, so she reached inside and pulled it out, then she replaced the drawer.
Before, she would have been surprised to find out Charlie had secrets, but not anymore. She took the book and Johnny’s sonogram picture and left the rest of it on the desk.
She got as far as the living room and then dropped into the recliner, kicked back, turned on the floor lamp by the chair. From the first page, she could see it was a simple notebook, one of the kinds that people who like to journal usually choose. The pages were lined, so the entries were neat—again a behavior pertaining to Charlie.
Every entry stated that the amount of money mentioned was a fee, then from that amount, a payment had been made to FR with a notation that said “one percent of fee.”
There was no mention of where the money was, how he’d come by it, who FR was or why FR was being paid. There were about ten pages of notes pertaining to the three-year span, and nothing else. She guessed it might be part of what he’d been mixed up in, but it made no sense to her and then she saw her dad driving up and laid it on the coffee table.
She went outside to help load, but he waved her away, reassured her that grandmother and grandson were fine, and yes, she had enough breast milk, and if she didn’t, she would let her know. They made plans to bring the baby home around 4:00 p.m. and he was gone.
Alicia walked back into the house with tears in her eyes and cried as she dressed to go to the bank. She almost forgot the safety deposit key and went back to get it, then left.
Their bank was a neighborhood branch of one of the larger banking institutions and she was grateful she didn’t have to drive downtown to do this. The downside was, they knew her husband was dead, just not that he’d killed himself. She hoped she was long gone before all of the corruption he’d been involved in was revealed to the nation.
She arrived at the bank just before noon and grabbed the tote bag she had folded up inside her purse so she could empty the contents and close the account. She went straight to the safety deposit vault, signed in and then followed the attendant, who removed their box and took her to a private viewing room.
As soon as the attendant was gone, Alicia opened the box. To her surprise, there was another notebook, identical to the one she’d left at the house, and when she opened it, she saw dated monetary entries. It didn’t take long for her to realize the dates of entries in this book coincided with the payment dates to FR in the other one, but she was still confused as to exactly what they were.
She laid that aside and began going through the rest. Besides a five-hundred-thousand-dollar life insurance policy, there was a pocket watch that once belonged to his grandfather, the deed to some land in Idaho that he’d inherited when his father died. There were keepsakes, and a picture of them that had been taken at the restaurant the night he’d proposed. She cried over that, then tore it in pieces, threw it in the trash and kept digging.
What she didn’t expect was a sealed letter in his own handwriting, with the words OPEN AFTER DEATH. Her hands were shaking when she opened it, and within seconds of reading it, she thought she was going to faint.
Dear Alicia,
If you’re reading this I know I’m dead, and that was never something I could envision—us being apart.
I’m sure you’ve already found the five-hundred-thousand-dollar life insurance policy on me, but in this economy, that won’t last long. In my mind, the worst thing I could do as a husband was leave my family destitute. The second page of this letter isn’t really a letter. It is everything you need to know to access the numbered Swiss bank account in your name.
There are millions of dollars in the account. You will be wanting to know where that came from, but all I will say is that I had a pipeline to a gold mine, and leave it at that.
Don’t think about where it came from. Just be glad that it’s there.
I love you with all my heart,
Charlie
Alicia’s hands were shaking. She felt like she was going to be sick, and started putting everything from the box into her tote bag, and then carried it out. She stopped at the attendant’s desk to turn in her key and close the account.
“I’m moving,” she said, and signed everything she needed to sign to make it final, then had to make herself not run through the lobby.
The sun was directly overhead as she exited the bank. After the chill of the air-conditioned bank, the bitch-slap of heat was an immediate assault. As soon as she got in her car and started it up, she turned on the air-conditioning as high as it would go and then turned all of the vents toward her face. She felt like she was going to die. She now understood that those notebooks had something to do with his illegal activities.
She was in a panic, wondering if there had been more to his treason than being a part of black market military weapons. Had he sold government secrets? Was he a spy for a foreign country? How could he have accumulated so much money in three short years? She needed to turn all of this in, but she was scared and ashamed to show her face at the Bureau. And the first person who came to mind was Jack. He might hate her, but she knew he was a fair man, and would help her make this right. Before she talked herself out of it, she sent Shelly a quick text.
I need help. Discovered notebooks Charlie had hidden. Payoffs...a numbered Swiss bank account. The possibility that he might not have been the only one involved. Either he had a helper, or was being blackmailed. Ask Jack who I should give all this to.
She hit Send, then started up the car and headed back to the house to finish packing.
* * *
Shelly was in the bathroom at Papacito’s washing her hands when her cell signaled a text. She quickly dried them off and then paused to see who it was. When she saw Alicia’s number, she sighed. At least it wasn’t a phone call. It still made her sad to hear her friend’s voice.
She pulled up the text, read it and then bolted.
Jack was eating chips and queso when he saw Shelly coming, and he knew by the look on her face that something had happened. He stood, seated her again and then sat back down.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Just read it,” she said, and handed him her phone.
It didn’t take long for Jack to react. “Oh my God. I wonder if this has anything to do with the snitch?” he muttered.
Shelly frowned. “A snitch? You mean Ritter?”
“Not until we’re back in the car,” Jack said.
She leaned forward, whispering, “Is this not over? What am I missing?”
“I’ve been thinking for a few days now that Charlie might not have acted alone. This information from Alicia might confirm that. I don’t want to drag us back into this drama, but I can’t walk away just yet. All I need is to see what she has, make sure she turns it in to Deputy Director Wainwright himself, and then we’re all done. It’s no longer my job to do anything there. The deal is, this is really Alicia’s mess, and she’s been screwed by all this, too. I can’t imagine how she must be feeling. Text her back. Tell her to sit on everything and we’ll stop by their house on the way home from lunch.”
“Right,” Shelly said, sending the text. “What a nightmare this continues to be.”
A few minutes later they got a text back from Alicia. It was a red heart emoji.
And then their food arrived and the mood lightened once more.
It was close to 2:00 p.m. by the time they left the restaurant.
“Tell her we’re on the way. We should be there in about thirty minutes,” Jack said, and watched Shelly sending the message.
They got another emoji. This time it was a thumbs-up.
* * *
Alicia walked the floor until she saw them pulling up into her driveway and then met them at the door. She took one look at Shelly’s healing face and started crying.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she said.
Shelly just shook her head and hugged her. “I told you before, I’m healing just fine. Look, the stitches are out of my mouth, too.”
Alicia grabbed a tissue and began wiping her eyes. “I don’t deserve this, but I am so grateful you guys are willing to help.”
Jack gave her a quick hug. “None of this shit is your fault. Now, show me what you found.”
“It’s all laid out on the kitchen table. I have coffee. Do you want some?”
“Not for me,” Shelly said. “We just finished lunch.”
“Not right now,” Jack said, and then they followed Alicia into the kitchen as they’d done so many times before. But this time Charlie was noticeably absent.
Jack started going over everything. Once in a while he would find something and ask Alicia a question, but not often. Most of this was explaining itself. Finally, he was through.
“I have to say, Charlie’s penchant for keeping records and denoting details is going to blow shit wide-open somewhere. The main thing now is for the FBI to figure out who FR is.”
“Will they let you work on the case?” Alicia asked.
Jack looked up. “Oh. I don’t know why I thought you would already know this, but I’ve resigned from the Bureau. It’s not official yet, but I’m not going back.”
Alicia looked horrified. “Because of Charlie?”
“No, because of Shelly,” Jack said, and touched her arm. “I had already intended the Ito case was going to be my last as an undercover operative. But having my job put her in danger was the final straw.”
Alicia was trying not to feel envious. “What are you guys going to do?”
“You tell her,” Jack said.
Shelly smiled. “We’re planning on moving to Hawaii. Change of pace. Change of place. It feels like the right time to do it.”
“That’s wonderful,” Alicia said, and realized she meant it. She had Johnny. He needed her more than ever and putting focus on what she had gained instead of what she’d lost was going to help tremendously in the months to come.
“Yeah, we’re looking forward to exploring possibilities. But right now, let’s talk about this. I want to call Wainwright. If he will come here to you, then you won’t have to go to the Bureau at all,” Jack said.
“That would be wonderful if he’ll agree,” she said.
“We’ll soon find out,” Jack said, and left the room to make the call.
Shelly felt sorry for Alicia. Her world was disintegrating before her eyes, and with a brand-new baby to raise. That was when it dawned on her that she hadn’t heard the baby at all.
“Is the baby here?” she asked.
“Mom and Dad came and got him this morning so I could do some packing and tying up loose ends before we move. They’ll be back with him soon.”
“I’d like to see him before you leave,” Shelly said.
“I want you guys to see him. He is perfect in every way.”
Then the conversation shifted as Jack returned.
“I hope you didn’t have plans. After Wainwright learned what you found, he didn’t hesitate. He’s on the way.”
“Really? Oh, Jack, thank you. Just knowing this stuff will be out of my house by the time I go to bed will be a huge weight off my heart. I don’t want anything to do with blood money. I want it gone.”
Jack glanced at Shelly, who was looking a little weary. “Are you needing anything honey? Did you even think to bring pain pills?”
“Yes, I have them in my purse, but I’m good for now.”
“Then I want to stay and make sure Alicia is cleared of culpability,” he said.
Alicia started sobbing. “The relief of knowing this isn’t all on my back is huge. Just when I thought things couldn’t be worse, they were. Thank you, Jack. Just thank you.”
At that moment, Jack was so pissed at Charlie all over again. “Well, dammit, honey. The truth is Charlie screwed us all over. But I still had a big question regarding the case anyway. This might point us in the right direction.”
They were still talking about the case when the doorbell rang. Alicia glanced up at the clock.
“That will be Mom and Dad with the baby,” she said, and went to go let them in.
The baby shifted the subject, and for the next thirty minutes, he was the topic of conversation.
The moment Shelly held him in her arms, every mother instinct she had activated. He was tiny, and warm, and smelled so good. And he was holding on to her little finger for dear life.
Jack saw the look on Shelly’s face and smiled. Parenthood. One more topic they might have to take under consideration in Hawaii.
They were still playing with the baby when Deputy Director Wainwright arrived. Alicia’s parents took the baby back to the nursery as Jack answered the door. It was Wainwright, with Nolan Warren and one of their federal prosecutors.
“Afternoon, sir. I really appreciate you doing this. We’re in the kitchen. If you will all follow me, everything you need to see is laid out on the table.”
Wainwright’s expression was grim. The fact that this case kept getting deeper and more convoluted did not make him happy. Eventually, a statement would have to be made to the public and the press would have a field day with the news of a dirty Fed. The fact that there might be more than one just about sent him over the edge. He was hoping Jack McCann was wrong.
Alicia was even more concerned when she saw who the deputy director had brought with him. “Thank you all for coming. Have a seat.”
“I think we should be thanking you for having the honesty to call it all to our attention,” Wainwright said. “This could have made you very rich.”
“It’s blood money. I want no part of any of it,” Alicia said.
Wainwright nodded, and then they all sat down. “Jack, explain to me what we have here. If I have a question, I’ll stop you then to ask. Otherwise, start talking.”
Jack began explaining the information as he saw it, while the prosecutor went through the paperwork. Jack told all of them about the disconnect he had between Ritter showing up on Dumas’s crew and not being surprised to see him there.
“The bottom line, sir, is that my death that night would have served no purpose to Charlie. None of us had any idea he was connected, and Charlie knew he was in the clear. He was my contact. I told him everything. Someone else had a hand in planting my snitch, which means you haven’t rounded up all the guilty parties. I don’t know...maybe you can interview Ritter and see if he’ll tell you who hired him. And maybe you can figure out who FR is, and why he was getting a cut of Charlie’s take. I’ll be in tomorrow morning to turn in my official letter of resignation, and my gun and my badge.”
“I’ll be there until eleven, and then I’m in court the rest of the day,” Wainwright said, then eyed the prosecutor. “Start gathering all this up. Special Agent Warren will be lead on the case. Jack, you know when you turn in your resignation that you will be out of the loop of the investigation.”
“Yes, sir. And that’s fine with me.”
“Understood,” Wainwright said. “That being said, until we know for sure you two are no longer in danger, I will keep you informed of what’s happening.”
“Much obliged,” Jack said.
Alicia watched the lawyer putting all of the paperwork and notebooks into his briefcase, and then they were gone.
“Okay, Alicia, you’re good to go,” Jack said. “Go be a momma now and know you’re completely off the hook. Shelly and I are going home. Tell your parents it was nice seeing them again.”
“I will,” Alicia said, and walked them to the door.
She watched until they were gone, then locked the door and went to find her baby.