“Thank you so much for taking my call.” Rachel leaned toward the base of the phone. She had the handset to her ear, but she had to focus. For some reason, that meant keeping her attention on the phone display and the buttons of this FBI nineties model phone. Not that there was time to think it through.
Mrs. Anderson said, “Of course, dear. I have a few minutes for you. Of course.”
Rachel wanted to roll her eyes, but there were people watching. And listening. Agents, and techy people. They didn’t need to know what she really thought of the vice president’s wife.
She shifted in the rolling office chair. “I just wanted to touch base with you about your invitation to be the face of your endeavor.”
“Oh!” The woman’s tone was full of excitement. “That’s so wonderful to hear.”
Uh. Except, Rachel hadn’t said she was going to do it. She just wanted to talk about it. Maybe Mrs. Anderson was one of those people who railroaded others by circumventing their own decisions and doing the deciding for them.
Rachel said, “I’d like to talk more about it and hear what your plans are. Perhaps we can meet up somewhere?”
“I’ll speak with my assistant, and we’ll put something on the calendar. Yes, I have so many ideas. There’s such a need to reach out to people who’ve been victimized online.”
“It certainly is timely, what with the suicide of the Senator from Wyoming. Such a terrible thing.” The woman had been a victim of the blackmailer and taken her own life earlier this year.
“Yes.” The VP’s wife sounded like she swallowed. “It was terrible.”
“Did you know her?” Rachel wondered if she’d been acquainted with the woman her husband and his brother victimized. Not exactly the same way they had with Rachel, but similarly enough. “Before she killed herself, I mean?”
“Possibly. When I saw the newspaper I realized she looked familiar, like I’d seen her around. Such a tragedy.” There was no remorse in her tone. In fact, there was little feeling at all.
Rachel had no idea how to shift the conversation towards essentially implicating this woman’s husband and brother-in-law as being responsible for it. She said, “Working to provide help and support for the victims, particularly the many who have been caught up in this blackmailing scheme, is something I would like to be part of. Not just because I’m one of them. The men who did this to me need to be stopped. The healing itself will take years.”
She leaned back in the chair and wondered if the vice president’s wife was going to pick up on what she’d said, or if the woman would just ignore it.
“The…men?”
Bingo. “The FBI believe there are two of them. One man organizing it, the other in the shadows. They believe he’s hidden this man, his associate, for years. But I’ve seen him.”
“You know who did that to you?”
“Yes,” Rachel said. “And he sat across the table from me, taunting the feds, just for the power trip. Some of them think he came here just to speak to me, specifically. But I’m not so sure. Why do all of that and then have to hire gunmen to get you out?”
“Maybe you drew his attention somehow.”
“How would I have done that?” Rachel asked. “I don’t even know him.”
“He knows you.”
Rachel held herself very still. The vice president’s wife couldn’t see her. Rachel couldn’t see the look on the other woman’s face. All she could go on was the tone in her voice. “How would he know me? And what fault of that is mine? It isn’t like I asked him to have Aaron Jones do that to me.”
“No one asks him to do anything.”
“So he’s acting on his own, directing this whole situation.” Rachel decided to throw caution out. “Trying to get your husband in the president’s seat so he can be the man behind the throne, as it were? Is that it?”
The vice president’s wife was quiet for so long Rachel wondered if she’d hung up. Then she said, “How am I supposed to know?” Rachel heard shuffling on the other end of the line, then a door closed. “After what he’s done? And I’m supposed to ignore the fact I have no maid now?” She huffed. “Can I even live in the White House with no maid?”
Mrs. Anderson’s question echoed on the line.
Rachel pinched the bridge of her nose. “Your husband’s brother killed your maid?”
Mrs. Anderson let out a little gasp that had a squeak to it. There was a click, and dial tone.
“She hung up.”
Rachel turned around in the chair and nodded to the agent. “She didn’t answer the question either.”
He nodded. Behind him, she could see Adrian replace the headphones he’d been using to listen in. He walked over and stood by the agent.
Rachel didn’t need him to explain it to her. “I tried, but it wasn’t enough.”
Adrian nodded. “The agents looking into the maid’s death can look more closely at the brother.”
“But if there’s no evidence he even exists, how are they going to find him? So far he hasn’t left anything behind. We have no idea what his plan is, other than to sit back and wait for all this to unfold.”
“It was a good try.”
Rachel shoved the chair back and stood. It rolled and hit the desk. She blew out a breath in frustration. “It didn’t help.”
“Rachel—”
She waved him off. “It’s fine. I tried. I’m just getting tired of trying to do something and getting nowhere. I don’t like that he was here, and then he got away. It cost FBI agents their lives, and we still have no evidence that the brother even exists. Or that either of them is the blackmailer. How can we convince anyone of this conspiracy without proof of who is behind it?”
They were too good to be able to do all this without anyone knowing that they were the ones behind it.
The other agent nodded. “She’s right. It’ll be hard to prove they’re responsible.” He didn’t even look all that convinced. “We need witness testimony. Electronic records. Taped conversations.” He picked up the phone closest to him. “I’ll find out what we need to get the Secret Service working on this with us. Maybe pull in his detail and interview them.”
Finally. She looked at Adrian, but he didn’t seem happy about this development. The FBI knew who Double Down’s suspect was. “This is good, isn’t it? They’re looking at the vice president now.”
He nodded, distracted. “There are so many variables. Investigating someone that high up takes finesse. There’s procedure, and it’ll be hard to do it without the vice president finding out. Which means his brother will know.”
“And he’ll disappear.”
“Making it that much harder to find him.”
Rachel groaned. “Steve is never going to be able to come home, is he?”
The phone she’d used to call Mrs. Anderson rang. Adrian answered it. Immediately his eyebrows rose, and he glanced at her.
“What?” She mouthed the word.
He said, “Yes. Thank you.” And hung up. “Bradley is downstairs. They’re sending him up.”
“That’s great.” The look on his face didn’t say it was great. “Isn’t it?”
“Security says he’s covered in blood.”
Rachel brushed past him and went to the conference room. “Alexis!” Her friend met her at the door. Rachel set her hands on her friend’s shoulders. She was just about to explain what Alexis should expect when she gasped. Rachel lowered her hands right as Alexis brushed past her. “Bradley.”
Alexis stopped right in front of her husband, hands lifted like she wasn’t sure she was supposed to touch him or not.
“Don’t get this stuff all over you.” He took one of her hands, his knuckles bloody. “I’m okay.”
“You look like a wreck.” Rachel had no problem stating the obvious. Plain for everyone looking at his bruised face, torn up arms, and bloody T-shirt. “What happened?”
Alexis shot her a frown over her shoulder. “Bradley needs to sit down, not be interrogated.”
Bradley said, “I left an anonymous care package for the cops, and told them to call Adrian.” He turned to the FBI agent Megan was in love with. “It likely won’t be long before you get the call.”
“You killed someone?” Adrian’s voice was dark.
Rachel knew that was part of Bradley’s life, and the work he’d done as a SEAL. She wasn’t naïve. Still, she didn’t exactly want the fact that he’d killed, and not just in the past, right up in her face.
Bradley shook his head. “More than a few broken bones, though. Maybe a concussion. I tied them up and called emergency services from one of their phones before I left.” He nodded in Adrian’s direction. “I put your name on one of the other phones.”
Adrian nodded, then turned away with one of the other agents. Rachel recognized the flash of focus that jump-started a period of intense investigation. Though FBI agents rarely switched “off,” they did frequently move between action and a kind of resting action. There wasn’t a lazy one among them.
“Let’s go sit,” Alexis suggested.
“I just need to clean up,” Bradley said. “But I’m guessing none of you can wait that long.” His face split with a wide smile.
“Well ex-cuse us.” Rachel set her hands on her hips.
Bradley took a step toward her, closing the distance, and whispered. “Steve will be all right.”
They went into the conference room. Rachel tried to process what he’d said in order to make herself feel better about this situation. But it didn’t work. There was next to nothing that could be said or done that would make her relax, or feel like this was over. Not when it was far from over.
She paced the length of the conference room while Bradley spoke.
“I’m not sure what happened between him and the guy he knew. David Sanders.” He glanced at Mint, who got out his phone. “I think they were teammates like the others, and for some reason it’s just the two of them left.”
“To do what?” Alexis asked.
Rachel didn’t enlighten her. She glanced around, trying not to make it obvious she knew—but also knowing she was so far past anything normal, they’d likely be able to figure it out. Sure enough, Bradley turned his assessing gaze at her. She shook her head.
They could talk about it together, but she wasn’t going to do that in front of the whole group. Alexis, Mint, Emma, and Megan. Otherwise Steve would have told them himself.
Instead, he’d told her.
And not so she could feel better. No, he’d fired that statement about an assassination attempt at her to prove that he was somehow…stained. Not worthy of her time or attention. Her care.
It was like Nicola had said. He needed someone to convince him that he was a good person.
Rachel was trying her best to allow the team as a whole to combat the blackmailer. She was willing to do her part, but this situation had forced her to trust them all. Each had skills. A certain reach. Contacts. Steve was in the middle of it, and she had to believe he knew what he was doing. God was behind the scenes, working as He did. And He had given her these people for a reason.
That was what Alexis had told her.
Rachel only needed to trust that it was true.
These were the only people who didn’t think of her as damaged for the rest of her life for what had happened to her. Or as a reason for them to assume she did something to warrant it, as some did. No, they’d cared for her. They supported her. They loved her. Steve was different, and what she wanted from him was different than what she got from everyone else.
Rachel had hardly been able to think about romance after what happened. Tenderness was difficult. Trust, even harder. But if there was a man who would treat her with both respect and kindness—and someone she was interested in treating her that way—then it was Steve.
Was that why God kept bringing them into each other’s lives?
When they first met, there had been undeniable sparks. Since then, things had been more bad than good. She’d pushed him away. He’d let her, knowing what had happened to her and giving her time—part of that respect. Now it was he who needed her respect. He needed her to be safe, and to allow him to take care of this situation. It would be so easy to wade in and throw around her weight as a senator. But if Steve needed her to do that, then he would ask. It was more important for her to trust him now. To trust his skills. His honor.
Part of her believed that if he came into the FBI office, they could straighten out this whole thing. He wouldn’t have to be a fugitive. But that would take her tricking him into surrendering himself, and she just couldn’t do that to him.
Steve had proven he was the right man. And now, more than ever, Rachel was certain that he was the one who would take down the blackmailer.
She needed to keep from doing anything to jeopardize that.
“He’s supposed to kill the president at the summit tomorrow.”
Rachel whirled around. The atmosphere in the room went electric. “Bradley!”
Adrian’s head whipped to her. “You knew?”
“Uh…” What was she supposed to say?
Bradley sat back in his chair, no remorse on his face. “You did know.”
“It isn’t like he’s actually going to do it!” They all knew that, right? They were supposed to be his friends. Surely they didn’t believe he could actually be coerced into this.
Emma shifted in her seat. Mint reached over and touched the back of her neck, his fingers tangled in her hair. They needed to get married soon—if they hadn’t already done it while on the road. Whether it was a huge event with two hundred people or only a handful in a country church with the pastor, who cared? The intent was the same. If they were going to get closer, then Mint needed to make an honest woman of her.
Megan frowned, her attention on Adrian. When had he come back in, anyway? “I think you need to tell us what you know, Rachel.”
“Why am I in the middle of this? It was a throw-away comment. It isn’t like he’s actually going to do it.” Yes, she was repeating herself, but maybe they needed to hear it again. “Everyone the blackmailer could use as leverage in order to coerce him into doing something he would never in a million years do, is standing in this room. Or they’re hidden so the blackmailer can never find them.”
Megan’s mother was gone on “vacation,” and anyone else Steve cared about was here.
Bradley frowned. “That is true.”
“It’s probably why he told me to stay close.” Plus he’d wanted her to have the protection of the FBI. It wasn’t like she had anything to hide.
“And then the phone rang,” Bradley said.
“What?” Was he trying to make sense or just processing out loud?
“And whoever was on the other end of the line told those guys to kill me.”
“But you got away.”
Bradley nodded. “Steve doesn’t know that.”
Realization dawned. Steve thought Bradley was dead, or at the least, still a captive. Was it enough to force him to go against everything he believed in?
Was Steve going to try and shoot the president?