Fourth Day

by Lisa Phillips

  “You’ll have to thank your guardian angel for that. I was just following orders.”

  “I’m sorry?” Sal cocked his head.

  The police captain motioned to Victoria. “She explained everything and made sure we knew you guys were good.” He shot Allyson a wry smile and continued, “I also got a call from the Seattle office of the Secret Service. What followed was an interesting conversation I wasn’t sure I believed.” He shot Sal a smile next. “But she convinced me. I’m just glad we got here in time.”

  Allyson said, “Talia.” She glanced at Victoria, but the director never took her gaze from Kennowich’s dead body.

  “She said that was her name.” The captain glanced at Kennowich as well. The man had bled out on the tarmac. “I’ll call CSU.” He took a step back. “And for the record, I knew all about this guy. You don’t have a law enforcement career in this town and not know who he is. I’ve been wanting to nail him for years but couldn’t get anything to stick. The FBI refused to get on board. Guess now I know why.” He paused. “I’m kind of glad I got the chance to be the one who took him down.”

  Kennowich had been taken out. So had the FBI agents, determined to evade custody. Determined enough to force a gunfight.

  Later, Allyson and Sal would have to answer for every part of this. There would likely be a lengthy investigation, given the apparent corruption in the FBI. She had no idea how widespread that was, but even one bad cop was unacceptable to her.

  Allyson’s team approached from all angles, along with Niall. Daulton said, “You guys good?”

  She nodded. Sal tugged her to his side and said, “We’re good.”

  And yet, he still didn’t acknowledge Victoria’s presence.

  The plane was searched, and duffel bags of money in several currencies were discovered, along with clothing and toiletries.

  “He was going to run.”

  Sal nodded against her temple. “We stopped him and uncovered more of his poison.” He leaned back and looked down at her. “It’s over now.”

  Niall wandered over, hanging up his phone call. “Haley is good. Everything with the FBI has been handed over to Homeland Security Investigations. Dakota and Josh are good, and Talia is still with Mason. They’ve basically been at his office this whole time, getting evidence while my fiancé turned it over to the FBI.”

  “That might not have gone too well,” Allyson said.

  He nodded. “Good thing she kept copies because Dakota told me we don’t know who to trust over there. Haley said agents from Homeland that Dakota knows showed up and escorted her to their office.” He made a face and blew out a breath. “They’ll want to speak with each of us as they unpack what happened, but we’re out from being under any kind of suspicion given where the FBI is at right now.”

  Allyson exhaled. “Sounds like a serious level of corruption has been uncovered in the Seattle and San Francisco offices of the FBI. Who would have known how far Kennowich’s reach had spread.”

  Niall smiled down at her. “Sure you’re okay? That was some spill you took.”

  Sal caught her wince. She said, “I’m good.” Then she turned to him, imploring him to believe her.

  “That’s not going to convince me.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I could sit down.” But he needed to talk to Victoria. How could she convince him to hear the woman out?

  Daulton strode over. “You’re on vacation for the next two weeks. If I need anything I’ll call you.”

  Sal had to cough to cover the chuckle. She shot him a side glance that made him laugh louder.

  Over by the police vehicle, Victoria had started to walk away.

  “You should go talk to her.”

  A sober look crossed his face. “I know.”

  He moved in for a quick kiss. Just a gentle touch of the lips, then, before he moved away, Sal whispered two words low enough no one could hear him except for her.

  “Love you.”

  . . .

  “Are you just going to walk away?” Victoria turned, eyebrows raised. Sal caught up to her. “No explanation?”

  She said, “You really want to hear all that right now?”

  He wanted to hear something, for sure. Especially since he’d be leaving for the airport soon. His focus would need to be on Allyson. Making sure both of them get every injury seen to so there are no lasting problems.

  What he didn’t need was split focus when he’d finally started to make headway with the woman he loved. The case was done—or so it seemed—so he wanted answers to the questions he had so he could get on with the next part of his life.

  Finally, she sighed. “The FBI were the ones who robbed those gun stores. They’re the ones who were behind most of this. When I realized that, I put the pieces together and contacted Kennowich.”

  She’d contacted a known criminal? “Kennowich is the one who set up the team to go down for the gun store robberies.”

  She shook her head. “That was all backlash from the FBI. They’re the thieves.”

  “And Kennowich taking Ally?”

  “Which time?” She didn’t smile. “Vanessa and Peter were working with the FBI. At first, she showed up here on assignment from Kennowich, who we were trying to bring down. But that quickly changed. When Allyson and Vanessa were taken from the park, that was in conjunction with the FBI so they could set up the team to take the fall for the gun sales. They were going to pay off Kennowich and start a new life somewhere else.” She paused. “The FBI are the ones who sent that drone to open fire on the task force office.”

  “Because of you.” Because of backlash from the FBI. “You’ve been investigating their agents?”

  She nodded.

  It occurred to him that she had saved their lives during the drone incident. She’d had bulletproof glass installed.

  He was angry she hadn’t told the team what was going on, but she had protected them.

  “You’ve been working on a completely different case?” He folded his arms across his chest even though it pulled the edges of the stab wound open. “Does anyone else know?”

  She shook her head. “Welvern has been helping me. He came to me when it became clear there was corruption in his office. We realized it spread further afield. There’s a disease in the FBI.”

  “Because of Kennowich.” He was the one getting FBI agents to do his dirty work. Sal had confronted one of them himself, when Victoria had orchestrated Allyson’s kidnapping.

  “Kennowich was just a symptom of a larger problem.”

  “So you’ve been running an investigation into FBI corruption,” he said. “For how long?”

  “Months.”

  “This was all about them, not Kennowich? He was going to testify against FBI agents in exchange for immunity?”

  “Just a deal. Not a free pass.” She shifted her weight from one heel to the other. “The…surgery he was having done on Allyson Sanchez violated that deal.” She shook her head. “He was just supposed to hold her until I got there with Homeland Security. It was about setting them up.”

  “But I got there with the ATF first.”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  He nodded. She would have been too late. Kennowich would have “recouped his losses” and gotten away with it. “You can’t play people like this. And you don’t make deals with them.”

  “Maybe in your world.”

  He wasn’t going to be able to convince her. Why did she think they lived in different worlds? Because she was a spy? “You’ve been playing a dangerous game.”

  Investigating FBI agents. People who had operated under the cover of their badges, playing both sides and getting away with it.

  “I’m sorry for the hurt that’s my fault.” She glanced to the side. “But we needed a way to uncover what the FBI was doing and get the proof to make it stick.”

  “We’ve been tracking Kennowich for months.”

  “He’s dead now.” She shrugged one shoulder. “You got your man.”

  S
he wasn’t going to comment on the destruction he’d caused? She’d just been planning on making a deal with him? Sal didn’t want to know what it would be like to have to live with those decisions. Maybe she was right, maybe he didn’t live in the same world.

  Sal blew out a breath. “You’ve really been working to uncover corruption in the FBI all this time?”

  “I think we’ve finally gotten it all. Homeland Security is sending agents to do a sweep right now, picking up everyone we can prove was part of it.”

  “I can’t believe you’ve been working this all by yourself,” he said. “You never told anyone?”

  “I had Welvern.” There was a tone in her voice when she said, “had.”

  Sal studied her. She looked…alone. “Go to him.”

  “Don’t worry about me.” She tried to smile, but he didn’t believe it. “I always land on my feet.”

  She took a step back. “I’ll expect your resignation in my inbox by Monday morning.”

  “Are you kicking me off the team?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “Would you do it anyway, if you thought it was for my own good?”

  She chuckled, a delicate sound he hadn’t heard much. “Goodbye, Sal. Have a nice weekend.”

  Epilogue

  Three weeks later

  Congratulations.

  Sal smiled at the text, the last in a chain from the task force group chat. It included everyone except Victoria.

  No one had seen her since she walked away from the airport.

  Sal set the phone down by the coffee pot and prayed—again—for Victoria. For her to find peace, and be safe. There wasn’t much else he could do. Not when Talia had every resource looking for her.

  Victoria knew how to hide.

  And she had good reason to be living under the radar right now, considering the chaos going on at FBI offices all down the west coast. The arrests had been in the double digits, with more corrupt agents being discovered since that first round. More were probably hiding, trying to get away with what they’d done.

  Some might even be looking for payback.

  The Northwest Counter-Terrorism Task Force had been folded into the Seattle office of Homeland Security, part of Victoria’s arrangement with them. Each was still part of the task force, just with a new boss and a new office.

  Except Sal, who had quit.

  Allyson had done the same a couple of days later.

  They’d worked their last days as federal agents and then made an appointment with his pastor in Wyoming. The wedding had been a small ceremony yesterday in the church where Sal had been baptized as a child.

  Sal poured two cups of coffee and stepped outside the door of his Airstream.

  “Shhh.” Allyson put her finger to her lips.

  He stopped and looked. A deer and its fawn had wandered between the trees. He walked to her and handed over her mug. She was curled up on a camping chair, wrapped in a blanket. The fire pit had a roaring blaze going, wafting smoke into the air.

  He sat in the chair beside her and sipped. He turned the mug in his hand and heard his wedding ring clink against the side.

  Sal stared at the mountains.

  Allyson glanced over, a smile on her face. “Good morning, Mr. Alvarez.”

  He leaned close enough to kiss her. “Good morning, Mrs. Alvarez.”

  “What are we going to do today?”

  He grinned. “Bored already.”

  “No.” Yes.

  “Liar.”

  She shoved at him, but it had no strength. “I want to go for a walk. Read the newspaper. Maybe get lunch in town.”

  “And a job?”

  “One each, or one for both of us?”

  He could go either way on that. “Like a private investigator business?” They could work together, side by side.

  She shrugged.

  “We can do whatever you want.” He sipped some more coffee and stared at the mountains. Soon they would have snow, which meant he and Allyson needed a permanent roof.

  “Maybe I want to work the checkout at the grocery store. Or be a librarian.” She twisted toward him, and he didn’t see one hint of pain at the movement. “I could learn how to make cappuccinos, or open a bookstore.”

  Sal grinned. He caught her chin gently in one hand. “Honey, you can do whatever you want.”

  “I love you.”

  “That’s good, because I love you, too.”

  “That’s good,” she said. “Because I finished my coffee already. I need a refill.”

  Sal’s laughter echoed across the Wyoming Mountains.

  Coming November 2019

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  About the author

  A British ex-pat who grew up an hour outside of London, Lisa attended Calvary Chapel Bible College

  where she met her husband. He's from California, but nobody’s perfect. It wasn’t until her Bible College graduation that she figured out she was a writer (someone told her). Since then she's discovered a penchant for high-stakes stories of mayhem and disaster where you can find made-for-each-other love that always ends in happily ever after.

  Lisa can be found in Idaho wearing either flip-flops or cowgirl boots, depending on the season. She leads worship with her husband at their local church. Together they have two children and an all-black Airedale known as The Dark Lord Elevator.

  Lisa is the author of the bestselling Sanctuary (WITSEC town series), the Double Down series, and more than a dozen Love Inspired Suspense novels.

  Find out more at www.authorlisaphillips.com