Alexis shut her eyes against that stare of his. She nodded. She heard Bradley’s exhale. The shift to finally knowing that it wasn’t her in the video—it was his sister.
She opened her eyes. “I’m sorry.” And she really was. It didn’t make it better for him to know they’d lied. For him, it was probably worse.
He’d been able to push Alexis away. To nurse his hurt, but keep himself removed.
“Why didn’t she tell me?” The pain in his voice echoed in his eyes.
Walker was listening to the whole thing, but if what he’d explained was true, then he had a right to know it all as well. If it wasn’t just Rachel, but others as well who had been targeted, Alexis didn’t know how to help them. She’d done what she could to save her friend from having both her career—so much more important than Alexis’s—and her reputation from being destroyed.
“You know why.”
“How could I?” He gave a slight shake of his head. Like he couldn’t bear to move more than that. “None of this makes sense.”
Agent Walker said, “Why don’t you start from the beginning? Walk us through what happened.”
Alexis took a breath and then swallowed. Not so much to figure out what she was going to say, as to brace herself for Bradley’s confusion and hurt. Things were only going to get worse when he heard the whole story from start to finish.
“Rachel went to a benefit.” She gave Agent Walker the date and location, a downtown D.C. hotel. “It was for a children’s charity. The next morning, just after seven, she called me. She was in a motel across town with no idea how she got there.”
“He drugged her.” Bradley’s tone was dark. Lethal.
“She figured out from the…discomfort…what had happened. I told her we’d go to the police, but she didn’t want to report it.” Alexis sucked in a breath. “I should have made her go, but she didn’t want it on record when she didn’t remember anything. It wasn’t like she could identify who her attacker had been.”
Alexis hadn’t been able to sway her. And since it hadn’t been her who was hurt, she’d let Rachel make the decision. “Even a couple of days later, when her head was clearer, she still refused to get it down on record. She didn’t want to be seen as the victim.” Alex shook her head, even though she understood. “I didn’t agree with it. Silence isn’t strength. I mean, sometimes it’s the right thing, but not like this. Hiding it just because she didn’t want anyone to know.”
Walker nodded, like he knew. When he most definitely did not. He couldn’t understand what that kind of vulnerability felt like.
“Then the video showed up in her email, along with a demand for two hundred thousand dollars. We knew it wouldn’t stop there. Whoever it was would keep asking for money. He threatened to leak the video online. I contacted a friend of mine at the Pentagon and had her check into the email address, but we didn’t get anywhere. We had no idea where it came from.”
Bradley laid his hand on hers. She held on to his fingers, content to soak up the strength of his grip.
“So we did the only thing we could think of. We leaked the video ourselves and told everyone it was me.”
Bradley exhaled.
“I know it was kind of a nuclear option. But we wanted to take the power back. To control what the public knew ourselves.”
His eyes were fierce. “It destroyed you.”
“You didn’t see how she was after that email came through. It was eating away at her. She wasn’t sleeping. She couldn’t keep any food down. She couldn’t even brush her teeth without gagging.” Alexis glanced away. “So I talked to her about what options there were, so she could feel like she was in control again. When she agreed, I ended it. I turned the tables on that blackmailer, and we moved on with our lives.”
Walker said, “What made you think people wouldn’t realize it wasn’t you?”
She glanced at Bradley. Part of her had wondered if he would realize it wasn’t her, but if he had, he’d never said anything. “People see what they want to see. You can’t tell the hair color is brown, not auburn. Not with it being almost black and white.”
“Like a surveillance camera,” Walker said. “And the tattoo?”
Bradley said, “Alexis and Rachel got matching tattoos in college.”
The corners of her mouth curled up at the memory. “I couldn’t believe how much it hurt. Like road rash. Afterward we decreed we’d never do it again.” Her smile dropped. “How would we know it would actually come in handy?”
“What about the man in the video?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “We couldn’t figure out who it was, not from just a shoulder and his legs. Dark hair. It’s mussed in the video. We had no idea who he was.”
Walker flipped open a paper folder, pulled out a sheet and placed it on her side of the table. A dossier. The man in the picture was handsome, and someone she immediately recognized.
“Rachel’s new assistant.”
“His real name is Aaron Jones. To cut a long and very colorful story short, he’s essentially for hire and doesn’t care what the job is. His specialty is date rape drugs, but he’s not all that discerning about what he does.”
Alexis swallowed back the bile. Bradley shot to his feet.
“Sit down, Mr. Harris.”
He turned back, already at the door. “That scum bag—”
“I don’t want to find Jones’s body in the woods and have to ruin your life with a murder conviction, so do me a favor and sit down, Bradley. We have agents sitting on Jones, and we have for weeks. He can’t even take a whizz and we don’t know about it.”
“Then bring him in. Question him.”
“It’s only supposition in this case. We have no physical evidence that ties this man to your sister.”
“Then how do you know it was him?”
“Because we’ve seen this before.”
Alexis said, “The Senator from Wyoming.”
Walker nodded. Bradley sat again, no less tense than he’d been when he stormed to the door. That fire was always there. It was the best part of him, that need he felt to sacrifice himself to save his sister.
He had to know that. Maybe it would take a while, and she could tell him why she’d really done it. Eventually he would understand. But even if he got it, this would forever color what was between them. She’d lied. Covered up his sister’s hurt. That big brother heart, his code of honor, might not ever recover from being set aside. And if he wanted nothing to do with her now, then she would let him go and make her own life. Far from here, where she wouldn’t remember him too much. Somewhere she could live in solitude and pretend she would one day get over him.
Walker said, “The death of the Senator from Wyoming was ruled a suicide, but I wasn’t convinced. I went back over the evidence, and I’m working on building a case for a murder charge. But if I can get evidence that ties Jones to this as well, then I’ll be able to snap the trap shut.”
Bradley leaned forward. “My sister has been kidnapped, and you’re worried about your agenda?”
“Seems to me like nothing has changed since Agent Walker was accusing me of being behind the kidnapping,” Alexis said. “And now Rachel has been a captive for two days, and you have…what? Nothing much by the look of it.”
Walker let their words wash over him and didn’t react. Alexis almost respected him for not firing back at them. He said, “Our priority here is making Rachel safe. Secondary to that is bringing this guy down. Do you want this happening to someone else?”
Bradley leaned back in his chair. “Of course we don’t, but it’s not someone else who was kidnapped. It was Rachel. And then they tried to get me—or Alexis. Lincoln tried to take Alexis with her. And after all that, two men shot at me and Steve. So how do we make sense of this mess and find Rachel?”
“Assuming the ransom drop is off, we’re waiting to see if you’re contacted again.”
Alexis said, “You think they’ll try to take Bradley now, to get his money too?”
“We aren’t taking those chances, but the two of you have to work with us on this. Which means no running off on your own, trying to deal with these guys.” Walker glanced at Bradley. “Or killing the only man involved in this so far that might actually know who the blackmailer is.”
“And what about Lincoln? No one thought twice before you all shot him.”
“That was unavoidable.”
Alexis bit her lip. “What about Bradley and Rachel’s uncle? If Lincoln was part of this, then his father could be the blackmailer, right?” She was so glad it hadn’t been either of them who had drugged and attacked Rachel. That was beyond icky, when this situation was already bad enough. It was horrible enough thinking Rachel had been working with Aaron Jones as her assistant for months.
Bradley scratched a hand through his close-cropped hair. “I can’t believe I’m even contemplating that my uncle could be a predator like this. A blackmailer and a thief. Not to mention hiring someone to do that to my sister?” He blew out a breath.
Alexis wanted to do something to comfort him, but nothing was enough. She had to face the fact she couldn’t help.
Walker said, “We’re looking into him. Running his financials. If there’s something to be learned that we don’t need a warrant to obtain, then we’ll get it.”
“And Rachel?” Alexis didn’t know how on earth they were going to get her back when this was now even more complicated. It had seemed so hard to find her before. Now it was probably impossible. “She could be dead already, or he could have done worse to her than he did before.”
Rachel could have been sold to someone who bought women. Or so many other scenarios too horrible to imagine. Alexis never wanted that world to touch the people she loved, but neither could she pretend it didn’t exist. There was so much evil in this world. It would be easy to try and cocoon herself away from it out of self-preservation. But how would that help the victims? Those who were innocent, who couldn’t fight for freedom but needed someone to fight for them.
Walker said, “I know. We’re monitoring the dark web for any chatter that might indicate a transaction involving the Senator.”
“But he wants the money, right?” Bradley said. “So he has to contact me again. Because with Rachel out of commission, he either has a shot at getting her to give up hers, or he has to get to me so he can get all two million.”
“That’s why we would like you to stay here where we know you’re safe.” The edge in the agent’s tone was clear.
“Or I go out there, you guys watch my back and when he grabs me, you follow.”
“We aren’t going to use you as bait. We don’t do that, even with Navy SEALs.”
He didn’t like it, but Alexis was glad. She didn’t want him to get hurt, even if he didn’t think he would because of his extensive training.
Walker continued. “We’re going through Jones’s life, as well as your uncle’s. Between the two of them, we’ll find a connection to whoever is masterminding these blackmailing operations.”
“What about the original ransom drop…exchange.” She didn’t know what to call it. “What do we do about that? Or are we assuming he’ll contact Bradley with further instructions?”
“I tossed my phone.”
Walker said, “We know. But if he wants to find you, he’ll figure out a way.”
Alexis got up. She just couldn’t sit any longer when nervous energy was building and building. “I want you to tell me he isn’t hurting her. I want you to promise me that you’re going to find her. Preferably right now. That she’ll be okay.” But he couldn’t, could he?
Walker might’ve tried looking like he at least felt guilty. She’d take even false empathy about the fact he couldn’t promise that this would turn out fine. Or even well. He wasn’t able to control the outcome when all this time they’d been on the defense. Chasing behind what had already happened.
Alexis tapped her finger on her leg. They needed to turn things around. But how? Bradley had tried, and both he and his friend had been injured. It wasn’t like she could go out and make any difference for Rachel.
“I hate feeling useless.”
“It won’t be long,” Walker said. “That is something I can promise you.”
Bradley watched her, while across the table Walker gathered his papers. What did he think? She’d given up her career for her friend, but that decision hadn’t been a hardship. What came later had hurt, and she’d been working through it. God had been closer to her in the last few months than any other time since she first learned of Him.
“What are you thinking?”
Walker trailed out. She shrugged at Bradley’s question, but said, “That this time, since I lost my job and pretty much all my friends…it’s been some of the sweetest time with God that I’ve ever had.” He smiled, so she continued, “I’ve had to depend on Him for everything, more than just all my peace and comfort.”
“You could have called me. Told me,” he said quietly. “But I know why you didn’t. And I’m glad for you, Lex. You needed God, and He showed up.”
She nodded. “He really did. I had no one else.”
He motioned to the chair. “Sit. Please.”
Why was he being so gentle? Alexis settled in the chair. “What is it?”
“I know now. Which means there’s no reason you should be alone anymore.” He took her hand. “I’m not going to let you do this by yourself. This is going to be a new season. For both of us.”
“We should focus on Rachel now. That’s what’s important.” She didn’t want to talk about them. Not when it was inevitable that she’d let him down when she told him she was leaving town. Moving away to go live her life. He wasn’t going to like keeping tabs on her from afar, but there was no way she could stay local when he’d only be looking after her out of obligation for what she’d done for Rachel. That was all that was between them, even with that kiss. Just a shared experience of stress, and not knowing what would happen. Their default—to cling to each other—was just reflex.
Nothing more.