Mint walked down the hall at the hospital to the doorway where Perkins stood. She lifted her chin as he approached, and Mint slowed. He looked in the room. Kerri was unconscious, lying on the bed hooked up to machines. Emma sat beside her, holding the waitress’s hand and talking too low for him to hear.
“How is she?”
“Lost a lot of blood,” Perkins said. “They sewed up the cut on her abdomen. Other than that, two broken ribs and a lot of bruises. Defensive wounds on her hands and arms. Dehydrated and malnourished.”
“She managed to fight back.”
Perkins nodded. “Or at least attempted to defend herself.” She sighed. “Please tell me you got this guy.” She looked about ready to explode and punch something. Hopefully not him.
Mint said, “No sign of him.”
“And no idea what he’s going to do next.”
“That’s why we have her.” He pointed to Emma in the room.
Perkins shot him a look for that comment. He knew how it sounded, but he wasn’t going to take it back. Emma was talking. It wasn’t like she could hear him.
“The guys are on the hunt for Aaron Jones. I’m going to sit down with the sheriff in an hour and explain our involvement.” But he wanted to talk to Emma first. Get more from her about her involvement and why Aaron had targeted the senator in the first place.
Rachel and Bradley, the senator’s niece and nephew, had originally thought that their uncle could be the blackmailer. Especially considering their cousin Lincoln’s involvement with Bradley’s wife, Alexis. They now knew he wasn’t the blackmailer. This was bigger than any of them had thought. There was an epidemic spreading in Washington. Key people in government, business and finance were falling prey to the tactics of someone out for their own ends. Whoever the blackmailer was didn’t care that some of his victims had committed suicide rather than have their secrets exposed to the wider world.
Double Down had decided to uncover this poison before it spread even further. And that meant Emma. It also meant Aaron. Mint was as convinced as he could be—without proof—that Aaron knew who the blackmailer was. Or at the least, that he had a direct line to whoever it was. The senator—Rachel and Bradley’s uncle—had done something to warrant a death sentence. Mint figured the blackmailer wanted him gone, and so he’d sent Aaron in to do the deed. How Emma ended up caught in that sticky web, he didn’t know. She could be involved just as easily as she could be an innocent bystander.
He wanted to believe she was innocent. But that kind of wishful thinking wasn’t going to help him get to the truth. If she was connected to the blackmailer, then he had to divorce his feelings from the situation. They needed answers, not for him to make friends with her.
Which meant that Mint had to resist the urge to keep watching her as she sat with her friend.
Perkins said, “Want me to go help the guys?”
“Because you want out of babysitting duty?”
“Hey,” she said, smiling, “I never said that.” Then she leaned toward him, conspiratorially. “I actually kind of like Emma Burroughs.” She paused, like maybe she shouldn’t have admitted that. “She seems like good people.”
Mint waved her away from the doorway, a couple of steps across the hall. “You don’t think Emma might be a party to all this blackmail business?”
“No way.” Perkins shook her head. “There’s no way she’d be able to hide that.”
“Okay.” Had he just needed his colleague to confirm what he’d been thinking? It didn’t mean they had any evidence. “Anything come of recording the statement for the FBI?”
Perkins said, “I got it sent to Walker. I’m waiting to hear back. The crux of it is, Emma showed up to talk to the senator and caught Aaron there. She got away by the skin of her teeth, actually. She was lucky.”
“And the fact he’s still chasing her?”
“Cleaning up loose ends, I’d guess. Especially considering he wants her to take the fall for the murder. Though,” Perkins said, “she says the senator was alive when she left the room. She was in the hall when she heard another shot, not directed at her. I think that’s the shot that killed him.”
“So she can’t testify that she saw Aaron Jones kill the senator, because she was fleeing the scene.”
Perkins nodded.
“Darn. That would have wrapped it up nicely.” Mint tapped his fingers against his leg while he thought it through. “So all we have is her word against his. All the evidence will say they were both there.”
“And any gunshot residue on the clothes they were wearing will indicate they were both in the vicinity of a shot fired.”
He chewed on that for a minute, then said, “You covered the murder in the statement for the FBI?”
Perkins nodded again.
“So we need her to tell us what she knows about the blackmailer.”
“If she even knows anything.”
Mint blew out a breath. “I’m banking on the fact she does. Even if Aaron Jones didn’t get her there on purpose, she was in all of the senator’s financial dealings. She might not have known exactly what she was looking at, but if we can ask the right questions she might be able to connect some of the dots together. Help us get closer to an answer.”
Perkins nodded. “I’ll go help the guys, you sit her down. I think having both of us there will put too much pressure on. Like we’re ganging up on her.”
“Okay. Keep me posted.”
She wandered away down the hall, and he went back to the room where Emma sat with Kerri. He had less than an hour before the sheriff cleared up the scene where they’d found Kerri. Then the sheriff would be here, asking Mint a whole lot of questions he was going to have to be careful answering. Especially if he wanted to keep himself, his team, and Emma out from under suspicion. Now that Emma’s face had gone national, it was only a matter of time before someone realized who she was.
His phone beeped. Mint checked the email and found a note from Steve, along with a link. Emma’s mother, who was apparently a conservative radio talk show host, had apparently gone live on social media with a plea for her daughter to turn herself in to the authorities. So they could clear up what she called a “mistake.” The woman was convinced it was nothing but a miscommunication, and that her daughter couldn’t possibly be involved.
Mint wondered what planet she lived on, where the innocent were pure and righteous. Where everything was black and white. He, of all people, knew that even the most outwardly upright person could have the blackest soul.
And he had the scars to prove it.
The end of Steve’s email had a quick note.
Did you find out what was in the envelope?
The envelope he’d seen. Of course. With everything that had happened, he’d forgotten about it.
He knocked on the door to get Emma’s attention. When she turned to him her eyes were puffy, and she looked more exhausted than she had the last few days. The woman needed about a month of good nights’ sleep. And if he could have gifted that to her right then, he would have done it. Even if it meant going against every procedure the company— and he— had in place.
“We need to talk.”
The look on his face was something Emma wasn’t sure she wanted to dwell on. Still, tell that to her exhausted, fragile heart. For some reason, being tired meant she had less of a handle on her emotions. Less ability to shore up her safeguards and keep herself from feeling so much. Because standing by Mint, even when they were just walking to the waiting area, made her feel safe. As much as she didn’t want it, she’d acknowledged his strength. The fact that he protected her.
She sighed. He didn’t care about her. She’d heard what he said, and she knew even before then that she was only a means to an end for Mint and his company. Double Down, Perkins had called it.
The woman was almost a female version of Mint. Both of them had so many walls up it was unlikely she’d be able to break through, even if she had years—and if she even wanted to. Emma wondered if the rest of the company was like that. Maybe it was a condition of their employment that they be guarded and brooding.
“Soda?”
Emma shook her head. They sat in a corner, and she leaned her head back against the wall.
“Sorry. I know you want to rest, but this is important.”
She glanced at him. His gaze on her softened, making her wonder what he saw in her. It would take a strong woman who knew who she was to crack through all he’d built around himself. It would also take a concerted effort, and a good amount of time. He pretended to engage, but she wasn’t convinced he actually felt anything. He was that guarded.
Effort and time. Neither of which Emma could handle right now. Not with all the craziness happening in her life.
“I know you went over everything regarding the senator’s death with Perkins.”
Her throat closed up, and she had to swallow past the sensation. Everything? It was good he thought that. Perkins, she wasn’t so sure. Emma figured the woman knew there was stuff she was leaving out. Things which would come to light eventually.
The longer she could put that off, the better.
Everything that could’ve gone wrong, had. And she didn’t exactly know how to fix it.
“Emma?”
She blinked. “Yes?”
“I asked you a question.” When she said nothing, he sighed. “I want to know if there was a reason Aaron picked you. Were you there purely by coincidence, or are you more involved than that?”
“I went there to talk to the senator. That’s when I found Aaron in his office with the gun.”
“About a work thing?”
She said nothing.
“Not a work thing, then. So what did you go there, after hours, to talk with the senator about?”
Emma thought about the now bloody envelope in her backpack. It seemed so frivolous, so pointless now. “It’s private. And personal.”
“And if what’s contained in that envelope is relevant?”
She gasped. “How do you know about…?” She sucked in a breath, trying to rein in her thoughts, then squared her shoulders. “I get to decide what I tell you. Do I care if it’s relevant to your ‘mission’ here? No, not really. To be honest, it’s just actually none of your business.”
A shutter seemed to fall over his gaze and he shifted, withdrawing. “Fine.”
Did he even know he reacted like that? He was protecting himself. But she doubted it was because she had the ability to hurt his feelings. They didn’t know each other well enough for that.
“I’ve mentioned the blackmailer a few times already,” he said, his face now completely blank in a way she decided she hated. “Do you know anything about that?”
Just like that? One simple question and a demand that she trust him, and she should just spill? Emma got up. “I’ve decided I do want a soda.”
She strode to the vending machine, while she rooted in her backpack for her wallet and pulled out a couple of dollar bills. She opted for caffeine, but not sugar, since stressful circumstances weren’t a good excuse to lose all of the basic principles that governed one’s life, and winced when it tumbled out hard enough to shake it up.
“Emma.”
The bubbles made her eyes water. That was her excuse.
“I need you to—”
“Trust you,” she fired back. “Yeah, I know.”
“I was going to say sit back down, but trust is good as well.”
He knew. She should have known any reaction at all other than an outright lie was indication something was there. Something she hadn’t told him about. And he was going to have to know. She would have to tell him, because if Double Down had even a shot at taking down the blackmailer that would make her life infinitely better.
Selfish, maybe. But the fact was that more was at stake here than just her freedom. Or the secret that she was guarding, the one she didn’t want to ever come out. Could she risk doing nothing and let Double Down figure this out? There was no guarantee they would, or could, even do it. She didn’t know them. Maybe they were new at this. Perkins and Mint both seemed professional enough, but even the FBI hadn’t managed to figure this out.
She sat back in the same seat, and Mint took the one right beside her. She put the cap back on the soda and held it, tight enough the little grooves in the lid bit into the skin on her finger.
“Do you know who the blackmailer is?”
Emma shook her head.
“Does Aaron Jones work for him?”
She nodded. “Aaron is the one who comes to collect the payout. Cash only.”
“What does he have on you?”
Tears pricked her eyes. “Not me.”
His hand settled on her shoulder, fingers strong. The warmth under his palm was astounding. “He didn’t find anything on you?”
She shrugged. “I’ve never done anything.”
“Rachel Harris, she’s a senator like her uncle, was drugged and then videoed.”
Emma gasped. “The video of her assistant? That was her instead?”
Mint nodded. “I’ve met them both. That’s exactly the kind of people they are, taking a hit like that so the other one can keep their reputation.” He paused. “They didn’t let this blackmailer tear them or their lives apart. They took the hit, kept their heads high, and carried on.”
A single tear slipped down her cheek. Emma swiped it away. “It wasn’t about me.”
“So what does he have?”
“Okay, so in a roundabout way, it was about me. But not because I did anything.” She blew out a breath. Was she really going to say it out loud? “It’s why I kept working for him, way past when I wanted to quit. I needed to know the truth. Then the blackmailing switched from putting through paperwork, to the senator’s money.”
“You were siphoning funds from his accounts and giving it to the blackmailer?”
She shook her head. “It didn’t get that far. I did the paperwork part, but when he asked for the senator’s money, I said I wouldn’t give it to him. I was going to talk to the senator. Explain. But I never got the chance.”
“That’s what you went there to talk to him about that night?”
She nodded. “And now he’s dead because of me.”
In more ways than one, she was responsible for his death. The man might not have been completely upstanding, or sometimes even very nice, but that wasn’t the point. He was dead, and she might have been able to prevent it.
“What did the blackmailer know that involved both you and the senator?”
Emma swallowed.
The entrance door whooshed open and Patch stumbled in, blood trailing down his face. Shirt torn. Pants spattered with blood.
He took two steps and his legs gave out.