Harper felt sorry for the EMT. He’d scrunched himself into the corner, as far from the other two men as he could get. She couldn’t blame him. She didn’t want to be there, either. And since she was obviously stable and this wasn’t an emergency, they were running lights only, no sirens, and appeared to be doing the speed limit. That meant this was going to be a long, uncomfortable ride for all of them. And not just because it was so tight inside the back of a vehicle that didn’t seem designed to hold more than two people.
The tension was palpable as the detective pulled out his phone. “I’m going to record our conversation so I don’t forget anything.”
“No.” Bishop crossed his arms.
Radley gave him a disgusted look. “What’s the problem now?”
“I don’t trust you.”
“I don’t trust you, either. That is exactly why recording our conversation provides both of us with protection, proof of what was said or not said, if we need it later.”
Bishop shook his head. “The point is that I don’t trust you not to try to capitalize on the fact that you’re interviewing the daughter of the former president of the United States.”
“What? Oh good grief. You think I’m going to sell the recording to some gossip rag and try to make money off it?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time someone’s done that. Would it, Harper?”
She sighed. “No. It wouldn’t. There were a few enterprising jerks in college who snapped pictures of me or recorded my private conversations and sold them.”
The detective snorted. “I’m not some college kid trying to make a fast buck. But, fine. We’ll do this the old-fashioned way.” He put his phone away and pulled out a small notebook and pen. “Is this acceptable, Bishop?”
“Of course it is. Don’t be an ass.”
Harper stared at him in alarm. “Bishop.”
The detective surprised her by smiling. “It’s okay.” He slid the pen and notebook back into his suit jacket. “How about we take this down a couple of notches. No recordings, no notes. No one’s under arrest—”
“No kidding,” Bishop said. “Since Ms. Manning is the victim here.”
“That may prove to be true. But take a minute to look at this from my point of view. I got a call from Dispatch to check out a murder scene. When I arrived, the scene had been secured, but there are a few remarkably hard-to-find shoe prints indicating the murderer went next door, to Ms. Manning’s home.
“We manage to find a few more prints leading into the woods. So we head that way, guns out because we’re expecting the murderer might be hiding close by. Once we arrive at the creek, we see a boat approaching with a woman sitting on the floor of that boat surrounded by heavily armed people. Then we’re told five other armed men are the bad guys and tried to kill the woman, but that four of them have been killed and one is still on the loose.” He held his hands out to his sides. “Can you see how it’s just a tad confusing from my perspective? A bit hard to separate out the good guys and bad guys and what’s really going on? Wouldn’t you be suspicious if you were in my shoes?”
Harper exchanged a long look with Bishop. His mouth quirked before he surprised her by holding out his hand toward Radley. “My apologies, Detective. My concern for Ms. Manning has me a little cranky.”
Radley’s brows arched, but he readily shook Bishop’s hand. “A little cranky?”
“Don’t push it.”
Radley grinned. “So noted. Let’s back up and start with some basics. Maybe you can both help me pin down a time of death window for Mr. Carter. Ms. Manning, when’s the last time you saw him?”
“Earlier today.”
“What time was that? What were the circumstances?”
“I was in Gatlinburg this morning, to meet with my dad. There was the attempted shooting of my father—”
“That your former Secret Service agent foiled.” He glanced at Bishop. “Your face is all over the news along with a little backstory. I recognized you the moment I saw you on that boat, which is the only reason we didn’t come out of the woods shooting. And it’s why I asked the uniforms not to arrest all of you while we sorted this thing out.”
“The media actually helped for a change,” Bishop said. “Guess there’s a first time for everything.”
Radley smiled. “You were saying, Ms. Manning?”
“I, uh, yes. Well, I met with my dad probably an hour after the attempted assassination.”
“Close to ten o’clock then, if reports about the shooting were accurate.”
“That sounds right. I met with Dad, then Bishop, then went straight home.”
“What did you meet about?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Bishop asked.
Radley shrugged. “Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. My job is to gather as much information as I can until I can form a picture that will help me figure out what’s going on. Is there a reason you don’t want Ms. Manning to tell me about those meetings?”
Bishop glanced at her. She realized this was it, where the lies had to start, so they could keep the ransom demand a secret. Time to become the actress she’d never wanted to be.
She gave him a shaky smile. “It’s okay... Gage. He’s not the paparazzi. And he’s not recording anything.”
Gage subtly nodded as if to reassure her. Then he motioned to the EMT. “Detective Radley might not be who we need to worry about.”
The EMT’s eyes widened and his face reddened like a child caught eavesdropping outside someone’s door.
Two minutes later, they were back on the road, heading for Knoxville, both EMTs now in the cab.
“No more evasive answers,” Radley said. “Unless the meeting was some kind of state secret—which doesn’t make sense since Mr. Manning is the former president, not the current one—there’s no reason you can’t tell me what the meeting was about.”
“It was just a photo op, a meeting with the press so my father could publicly thank Gage for saving his life.”
“Then why the secrecy?”
“Because the meeting didn’t turn out as planned. Gage doesn’t have a great history with my father. They don’t like each other. At all. Gage refused the photo op and wouldn’t allow my father to thank him in front of reporters. Instead, my father and the others stepped out of the room so that Gage and I could meet for a few minutes.”
The detective didn’t seem surprised by her declaration, probably because she was making a point of using Bishop’s first name, as someone intimately involved with him would. Now that she was calling him Gage again as part of the act for Radley, it felt as natural as breathing. It felt...right...slipping into that old familiarity. He’d always been Gage to her. It was something special the two of them had shared. Calling him Bishop earlier today had been childish, her way of getting back at him because he’d made her mad. She wasn’t proud of how she’d handled the stress and lashed out.
“What was discussed in the private meeting between you two?” Radley prodded.
Harper didn’t have to work at looking uncomfortable. Her emotions from that meeting were still too raw. And she was afraid she might say something that could jeopardize Shane. She looked up at Gage, silently pleading for him to take over.
“It’s okay,” he told her. “Detective, as you’ve no doubt surmised, Harper and I have a...history. We didn’t part on good terms and haven’t seen each other in years. But when we saw each other this morning...well, we realized the attraction we’d always had was still there. She told her dad she wanted to thank me for saving his life and since I refused to even discuss it with the media present, he allowed us to have a private audience. We decided then and there that we wanted to see each other again.”
“Romantically.”
Harper’s face heated.
“Yes,” Gage said. “But her father doesn’t approve of me, so we—”
“He doesn’t approve of you because—what?—when you were the Secret Service agent protecting his daughter, you two hooked up?”
Harper gasped in surprise. “That’s not what—”
“Yes,” Gage said. “We were lovers, a very long time ago. That’s why her father hates me.”
Harper stared at him, stunned.
“And why you were fired as a Secret Service agent, I’m guessing?”
“I didn’t know that was common knowledge. But, yes. You’re correct.”
Harper clutched her hands together to keep from reaching out to him. She hated that a man so honorable had to admit to being fired, for something that she didn’t feel was his fault. His pride had to be hurting. And she wished she could somehow take away that hurt.
“Interesting. Go on. You were explaining, I think, that you and Ms. Manning were planning to see each other again.”
Gage gave him a terse nod. “We came up with a plan for her to have a get-together for all of the Justice Seekers at her place to thank them for providing additional security at today’s event.” He hesitated. “I assume one of the others already explained about our company?”
Radley tapped his fingers against the gurney. “I know enough to fill up a few sentences in my notebook. But I’ll work on fleshing that out later. You and your coworkers went to Ms. Manning’s home and you were there when she saw her neighbor?”
“No.” Harper cleared her throat. “I got home close to noon. I, uh, was hoping to spruce up the house before the Seekers arrived. But before I could get in the door, Blake came over.” She explained about the brief visit, and then about her sister already being there with her boyfriend.
“Cynthia? Your middle sibling?”
“Yes.”
“And you have a much younger brother, too, if I recall correctly?”
“Tyler. He’s eleven.”
Radley pulled out his notebook and pen, then hesitated. “Is it okay if I write some of this down? I’m going to mix it all up if I don’t.”
“It’s fine,” she said.
“Okay, let’s see. I’m trying to keep the family dynamics straight. If I remember right, your mother died when you were little, then your father married his current wife?”
“How is this relevant?” Gage asked.
“Puzzle pieces. You never know which one you’re missing.”
“It’s okay,” she assured both of them. “I’ve been asked about my family a million times. Everyone seems to have trouble keeping it straight. My mom, Hope, died of breast cancer when I was nine. Dad had a really hard time moving on, so he went to group therapy. That’s where he met Julia. She’d just lost her spouse, too. A couple of years later, they—my dad and Julia—got married. Cynthia was Julia’s daughter from a previous marriage. But Tyler is both of theirs.”
“Wait, okay. So Cynthia’s not blood related to you? She’s your stepsister? But Tyler’s father is your dad, Earl Manning. So he’s your half brother?”
“They’re both my siblings. Blood-related or not.”
He glanced up from the notes he was taking. “No offense intended. Again, I don’t know that any of this matters. But if it does, I don’t want to get it wrong. Sometimes there are issues in families, like jealousy, that might be important to know. You did say your sister Cynthia—no blood relation—broke into your home and was waiting for you. And not long after that you’re running for your life from five armed men.”
She blinked. “If you’re saying my sister is trying to kill me, you’re completely off base. She’s a kid. And she didn’t break in. She had a key.”
“How old?”
“Excuse me?”
“How old is your kid sister?”
Harper hesitated, her face warming. “Twenty.”
“Not a kid then.”
She crossed her arms, winced when she pressed against her bruises, and dropped her arms to her sides.
The detective tapped the pen on his pad. “Sounds to me like there’s someone else in your family who may have wanted to send those mercenaries after you. Except, I imagine if that’s the case then the target would have been Bishop. Unless there’s another reason your father might want you dead?”
She gasped. “My father? Now you’re thinking he’s the one who sent someone to kill me? Or Gage? That’s—”
“Crazy,” Gage supplied. “Completely out of character for the former president.”
“Convince me.”
“He loves me,” Harper exclaimed. “He loves all his children. He would never do anything to hurt us.”
Radley shrugged. “He’s also a hard-nosed, unyielding narcissist, if the news reports from the past eight years are even a little bit accurate. And he’s extremely tightfisted with his money even though he’s a millionaire.”
She clasped her hands together. It was either that or punch him. “He’s far from perfect. But he’s an excellent father. And if we truly need anything, he’s more than happy to provide it. He just prefers that his children be independent and make their own way. I assure you, he wouldn’t send gunmen after me.”
“What about sending them after Bishop? You already admitted your father doesn’t like him.”
She shook her head. “He wouldn’t. Not even against his worst enemy. He has a strong legacy of supporting law enforcement in his political career. He’s an honorable man and wouldn’t do something like that.”
“Like I said. I need convincing. Bishop, you said it’s out of character for him. Explain that.”
“You already hit the nail on the head. He’s a narcissist.”
Harper sucked in a sharp breath.
Gage gave her an apologetic look. “You know it’s true. Detective Radley, the most important thing in the world to Earl Manning is Earl Manning. Above all else, he wants to protect his reputation, his precious legacy as president. He’d never do anything to jeopardize that. I’ll bet one of his own family members could be kidnapped and he wouldn’t dare involve the FBI or anyone else to try to ransom them if there was any chance of it getting out into the media. It would destroy his reputation of being hard on crime and refusing to negotiate with criminals.”
Harper’s mouth fell open.
He quirked a brow, as if daring her to contradict him.
She couldn’t believe he’d said those things. But if she tried to deny it, she’d be the hypocrite. He was, after all, right. Her father had done exactly what Gage had said. He’d offered money and Gage as his scapegoat to find his grandson. But he’d refused to involve anyone else for fear of harming his precious reputation.
The detective was writing notes in his little book and seemed to miss the nonverbal exchange between the two of them, which was probably a good thing. She didn’t want to raise his suspicions any more than they already were about her family.
He stopped writing and eyed Gage. “I don’t think you fleshed out that train of thought, but I think I followed it. You don’t think the former president would hire thugs to kill either you or Harper for any reason because it could harm his reputation if things went bad. And that’s more important to him than any grudge?”
“Absolutely.”
“What about you, Ms. Manning? Do you agree with that assessment?”
She hesitated, still smarting over Gage’s characterization of her father. But she couldn’t ignore the truth, either. “Yes. I agree. My father isn’t the one you’re looking for.”
“I think it’s safe to assume your eleven-year-old half brother isn’t part of this. That leaves your stepsister and stepmother as persons of interest.”
Harper threw up her hands. “Enough. Okay? Leave my family out of this. They’re good people.” She glared at Gage, daring him to say otherwise. “My family’s not perfect, my father least of all. But we love each other. We’re very close. And, get real. It’s not like we have mercenaries on speed dial. Who the heck hires five gunmen like that? I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“It’s easier than you think, Ms. Manning. Your father’s anticrime platform means he’s been heavily involved in investigations and cases against criminals. All he’d have to do is go through some old files he probably has in his home office right now and pull out names of some of the worst. He can afford any fee they’d charge. Wouldn’t be hard to toss some money around to get the job done.”
“I’m through talking with you about my family,” she snapped.
“Fair enough.” Radley didn’t seem bothered by her anger and simply skimmed through his notes before continuing. “Moving on. We know Carter was alive around noon. As long as your sister corroborates that, and other people were with you from then on—which we’ll need to establish, as well—you’re in the clear for his murder.”
“Well, thanks for that, I guess.”
“But you’re not, Bishop. Not until I get a timeline on you. Did you and the Seekers arrive together? Can they vouch for you?”
It was Gage’s turn to cross his arms. “No. They can’t. I took a shortcut, came up on the other side of the French Broad River in my car, parked at a campground and rented a canoe to take to Harper’s place. I was already there when her sister arrived and I hid in a back room until she left. The Seekers arrived shortly after Cynthia and her boyfriend were gone. Since we established that Carter came over to see Harper while I was inside the house, obviously I’m not the killer.”
The ambulance slowed then bumped and squeaked as it turned into the hospital drive that led to the emergency room entrance.
Radley’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He read the message on the screen and tapped a reply before putting it away. He glanced from one to the other. “Why do I feel I’m being played here?”
Harper blinked and shot a glance at Bishop. But he didn’t seem shaken at all.
“Just find the fifth gunman,” Bishop told him. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and he’ll confess to killing Carter. Then he can tell you who hired him to kill Ms. Manning.”
The ambulance parked and the cab’s doors slammed shut as the EMTs got out. A few seconds later, the rear doors swung open to reveal the EMTs standing outside.
Detective Radley hopped out first. “Looks like I might get a chance to do exactly that—talk to the gunman. They captured him after a brief gunfight. They’re bringing him here right now, to this hospital.”