by Amy Gamet
“No,” she said.
He pulled out a cell phone, flashing her a picture, Selena’s eyes round and full of fear. Hysteria threatened Jackie’s composure. She felt every mile that separated her from her daughter like a dagger through her skin.
Levi put his phone away and tucked her arm in his, slowly walking her toward the stage, where Doug’s new wife still spoke. “She’s okay, for now. If you behave yourself, they’ll both be fine. Do you understand?”
She was disembodied, floating above herself. The convention around them moved in slow-motion. The deafening noise of the crowd now melted away. “Yes.”
“You will tell them you ran away,” he said calmly. “That you were drunk when you drove your car off that cliff, and you ran from the scene of the crime. Doug, of course, knew none of this. He was blameless. You must make that very clear.”
“Okay.”
“Have you met Victoria? Lovely woman. She’s expecting you. She’ll introduce you, act as if you were an expected guest here to dispel the rumors surrounding your disappearance. They’ve been a real bitch in the polls. Say you were depressed. Unhappy. Doug tried to get you the help you needed, but you refused. Understand?”
She was fighting back tears. “Yes.”
“No crying. You have no reason to cry. If you can’t be convincing, the little girl dies.”
Jackie lifted her chin. “Sorry.”
He eyed her appraisingly. “Good. If you do as you’re told, we’ll bring you to your daughter in Mexico. But if you so much as say one wrong thing, so help me God, I pick up this phone and she dies. You got that?”
She nodded. “Yes, Levi.”
“Good. You’re on in five minutes. I know you’re going to knock it out of the park.”
32
Sloan floated in a sea of searing hot pain, his mind in and out of consciousness. He didn’t remember where he was, only knowing the lack of awareness was better than the alternative. His head was yanked back by his overgrown hair, his neck agonizingly overextended, and he gagged on his own blood, the strength of the metallic taste a testament to his wounds.
“Open your eyes!” his attacker commanded. “We’re just getting started.”
That voice made him remember. SVX. He barely managed to crack open his swollen lids, the corrugated steel walls of the shipping container coming into view. A work lamp with a bare bulb hung high on the wall in front of him, figures in the shadows who occasionally spoke.
But this guy was his tormentor.
Time twisted and bent, leaving Sloan in a canyon of timelessness that echoed his cries. He would die here today, or tomorrow, or whenever they gave up on the chance he might talk. There were worse things to die for than the life of a child.
“I can do this all day, frogman.” The man kneed Sloan in his abdomen, which had already sustained more than a dozen traumatic blows.
Sloan saw stars, bending over as much as his restraints would allow and throwing up the small amount of bile that had collected in his stomach since the last time. “Whatever floats your boat,” he croaked. The back of his head exploded with pain, the base of his skull hit hard with a fist.
“I’m not stopping until you give us the girl.”
A shadow spoke. “He’s not kidding, Mr. Dvorak. Make things easier on yourself and give us the information we need.”
Sloan slowly lifted his head, noting it was far more difficult than the last time he’d done so, and grateful for the adrenaline that allowed him to move at all. “Information?”
“The girl, Selena,” said the shadow. “Tell us where she is.”
He grimaced, forcing himself upright and his shoulders back. He lifted his chin, meeting the stare of the tormentor. This man might have been a SEAL, or a Ranger, a Marine. Someone who once fought for justice and now fought for anyone willing to pay. Disgust bubbled through his bloodstream. “Razorback was right. You guys are the scum of the private security industry.”
A powerful series of blows slammed his head sideways, then back. Punches pummeled his abdomen and side, a cry rushing out of his lungs at the crush of his tender kidney. His chair fell sideways, his arms strapped behind it.
The pop of gunfire filled the container. This was it. He was going to die. The shadowed men had enough of his antics, convinced he would never give up Selena’s location. A sense of relief washed over him. The pain was going to end. He closed his eyes.
When he opened them, someone was speaking in Spanish. The tormenter lay dead on the ground in front of him, two bullet holes in his forehead and a growing pool of blood on the floor of the container. Sloan couldn’t turn his head to see more than that.
Footsteps ran in and stopped at his head. “Sloan?”
He opened his eyes to find Selena standing over him. It hurt even to form words with his mouth. “Hey, sweetie. You okay?”
“I hid in the woods like you said, but then Bill came and showed me how to get to the police.”
“Bill?”
She nodded. “He waved for me to follow him, but every time I got close to him, he’d move farther away. When I came out of the trees, I saw the police station.”
“Bill, your SEAL friend who died?”
She nodded, lying down and putting her arm around his shoulder. “I know you’re going to be okay. Bill said so. He said it’s not your time to go yet.”
He sobbed once, a single sound of intense emotion before he forced himself to stop.
“It’s okay now, Sloan. I’ll take care of you.”
“I need a phone,” he ground out past the emotion that knotted his throat.
Selena spoke to the officers in Spanish, one of them handing her a device, and turned back to him. “Type in this number,” he said. “We’re calling Razorback.”
33
“You have to let me in there!” snapped Razorback. Cowboy had secured safe passage for him into the convention, but his reach didn’t extend past the security checkpoint.
He’d just gotten off the phone with Sloan and Selena when he’d rounded the corner and watched Jackie enter through these doors.
“I’m sorry, sir, but it’s a restricted area. You need security clearance to get through.”
“I’m Ian Rhodes, a former US Navy SEAL charged with protecting Jacqueline McGrath. I need to get to her immediately.”
The woman at the table with the patriotic bunting looked seriously stressed. McGrath’s new wife must have been done speaking, because a man had replaced her, his voice booming through the structure.
“Ladies and gentlemen, as we meet here today to join our voices in support of one candidate for president of the United States, there is a shadow from the past that lingers over us, even now.”
“Please,” demanded Razorback. “You have to let me inside. I work for HERO Force, a private security firm. It’s imperative I be allowed to pass.”
“The death of Jacqueline McGrath left a pallor over her husband, Doug, for years after the tragic accident believed to have taken her life.”
Chatter broke out in the crowd, a low buzzing.
“HERO Force?” asked a man’s voice behind him, and Razorback turned to find a Navy official in full dress whites. Razorback saluted and stood at attention. “Yes, Admiral, sir.”
“Who is the leader of your organization?”
“That depends who you ask, sir. Jax Andersson runs the Atlanta office with Leo Wilson. Mac O’Brady runs mine in New York.”
The man laughed. “I’ve known Jax for a long time. I don’t think he’d agree it’s a matter of opinion.” He pulled out a cell phone and dialed.
“But Jacqueline McGrath didn’t die that day.”
The room erupted in confusion.
“Jax, it’s Admiral Wheeler. I have a man here claiming to be one of your men. Says his name is Ian Rhodes.” His eyes combed Razorback’s features as he listened. “That appears to be him. Thank you for your help.” He hung up and addressed the woman. “Let him in, on my authority.”
Razorback
was running as best he could through the crowd that had gathered backstage.
“She narrowly escaped tragedy and wants to take this opportunity to tell us about it, so she can move forward with a clear conscience. Jackie?”
“Excuse me. Look out. Right behind you. Coming through!” Razorback weaved through the throngs of people as Jackie’s voice came over the loudspeaker.
“I didn’t plan what happened that day.”
She came into view at the podium, standing in her green dress. “Jackie!” he yelled.
She twisted around. A white-haired man to her right instantly tried to head him off, but Razorback moved him aside and closed the distance between him and Jackie. “Selena’s okay. I just got off the phone with Sloan. She’s okay.”
Her eyes were tortured. “Are you sure?”
“I talked to her myself. She’s fine. I promise you.”
She threw her arms around his neck and squeezed, then stepped back and turned to Levi Ludlow. “You son of a bitch.” She reared back and punched him square in the jaw, a collective gasp traveling through the crowd.
Camera flashes erupted from the audience and press sections, hundreds of cell phones suddenly held up to record what was happening. Ludlow backed away, then ran offstage.
Jackie returned to the microphone. “That man has been trying to keep me silent for a very long time. Eight years ago, he ran my car off the road and into the ocean in Southern California, leaving the world to think I was dead. Last week, he sent assassins to my house to make that assumption a reality, and earlier today he had my daughter and a former Navy SEAL kidnapped in a final attempt to keep me quiet.
“All because once upon a time, Doug McGrath made a beautiful, heartfelt speech about racism in this country, often referred to as the ‘I am a white man’ speech. It was the speech that put him on the map as a politician, and inspired an entire generation of people to affect positive change. But the premise of that speech was a lie.”
Goosebumps covered Razorback’s arms. She was stunning, passionate, and commanding the attention of everyone in the convention center. He was watching history. From the corner of his eye, he saw a man in the wings of the stage straighten his jacket and tug on his shirt cuffs.
McGrath.
“My former husband was not being honest about his heritage.” She paused while another commotion went through the arena. “His grandmother, Hattie May Edwards, was a strong African American woman who stood up to societal norms of her time, battling racism to marry the man she loved. But she died shortly after Doug’s father was born, and his grandfather soon remarried—a white woman whose paler skin matched the baby she raised as her own.”
Razorback widened his stance, staring down McGrath.
“Anyone can be president of the United States,” she went on. “That’s one of a thousand things that make this country so great. We’ve seen people of every color, gender, and sexual orientation take political office by storm—the vast majority of them from the Democrat Party. But we’ve never seen this kind of deceit from a candidate at this level.”
A gray-haired woman in a pantsuit approached McGrath, talked for a moment, then ushered him offstage.
Jackie continued. “I can only say I’m sorry I wasn’t able to come forward sooner.” She stepped away from the podium, an awkward smattering of applause coming from the stunned audience.
Razorback offered his elbow, and she took it, allowing him to usher her back through the convention center and out of the building, neither of them speaking until they were seated in a cab. “Just drive, please,” said Razorback.
“I want Selena.”
“HERO Force is working on getting her back. Her passport went through without a hitch, so it’s just a matter of arranging transportation.”
“I want to talk to her.”
He dialed, passing her the phone, listening as she talked to her daughter and laughed, watching as she wiped away tears of joy.
So beautiful.
He knew in that moment he was going to miss her more than he would have thought possible.
She hung up the phone and passed it back to him, his fingers brushing hers as she said, “Thank you.”
“You scared the hell out of me this morning when I couldn’t find you.”
“I’m sorry. For everything.” She wasn’t just apologizing for causing him concern. As their eyes locked and held, he knew she was saying she was sorry for the way things were ending between them.
He could have explained about her room being broken into, about his fears and self-recrimination that something had happened to her, but he said nothing. There was nothing left to say of any consequence, nothing that would change the way the rest of this would play out.
He drew in a breath and looked out his window at the Washington Monument lit up in the night. “I’ll be heading back to New York first thing in the morning.”
“Okay.”
He feared he already knew the answer to his next question, yet he had to ask it anyway. “Are you coming back to the hotel?”
“No.”
He nodded, respecting her answer. Understanding it. “I’ll find you somewhere else to stay.”
“I can do it myself. You’ve done so much already.”
Her polite tone made him want to scream, but all he said was, “If you’re sure.”
He gave the driver the name of his hotel. Given that they’d passed it when they left the convention center, it was only a few blocks away. They made the trip in silence, the car slowly pulling up to the curb.
“Thank you for everything you did for us, Ian. I’ll never forget you.” She longed to lean in for a brief hug, the familiar scent of her skin making him long to touch him still, but she didn’t do it.
“Goodbye, Jackie. Give Selena a kiss for me.” As he walked into the hotel, he couldn’t help but feel as if he was walking away from a life, just as surely as Jackie had once walked away from her own.
He was a steel skeleton, useful and strong.
It was better this way.
34
So this is a media frenzy.
Jackie waited in the arrivals area of Dulles Airport, Selena and Sloan’s plane already at the gate. In had been twenty-four hours since the convention, time she’d spent in the comfort and safety of Jax and Jessa’s house in the suburbs of DC, impatiently waiting for her daughter.
Sloan was well enough to travel after being hospitalized overnight for observation, thank goodness. Jackie owed him an enormous debt of gratitude for protecting Selena. Her daughter had also told her about Bill guiding her out of the forest and to the authorities who freed Sloan, a miraculous story she didn’t doubt for a moment to be true.
Levi Ludlow was arrested for attempted murder, for forcing her car off the cliff. He couldn’t be charged for SVX’s attack in Mexico, but the murder rap was enough to disgrace him and take him out of public life for good. Jackie had caught a glimpse of him with a towel over his face on his way from the arraignment, and heard he’d been released on bail shortly after.
Doug was already making the rounds on every talk show imaginable, weeping and trying to “make amends to the American people,” which told Jackie he hadn’t completely kissed off politics just yet and wasn’t likely to do so.
Do what you do best.
A flash went off in her peripheral vision and she resisted the urge to scowl at the photographer. It was pointless. She needed to wait for the public’s interest to die down—something that wasn’t going to happen until they got their fill, and a good look at Jackie’s daughter. There had already been speculation in the tabloids that the girl could be Doug McGrath’s, and while it would have been easier to refute those claims with Razorback by her side, she would be able to handle it alone with the documentation he’d signed.
That was his gift to her.
She hadn’t decided what the future should hold for her and Selena, whether they should stay in America or go back to Mexico permanently, but she was in no hurry to make up
her mind after everything they’d been through. Jessa and Jax had said they could stay as long as they liked, and that open door was exactly what they needed right now.
Sloan’s head appeared above the crowd of people walking toward the gate, and he and Jackie smiled at each other down the long corridor. Happy tears once again fell from Jackie’s eyes. When they got closer, she could see Selena, and the waterworks really got out of hand. They embraced, the chaos, camera flashes, and time they’d spent apart all seeming to blow away like dust on the wind. There was just Jackie and her daughter, the way it was meant to be.
She’d hugged Sloan as tightly as she’d dared, though he was clearly in pain, and thanked him profusely. He’d scheduled this short layover in DC before returning home to New York, and they parted with promises to get together again soon.
Selena rested her head on her mother’s lap. “Where’s Razorback?”
“He went home, sweetie.”
“But I wanted to see him.”
“Sorry, baby. Not this time.”
“How far away is New York?”
“Too far.”
They arrived back at Jessa’s house. Selena was exhausted, and Jackie tucked her into bed before settling in front of the eleven o’clock news featuring Frank Gough, the reporter who’d helped her get into the convention. “Levi Ludlow was found dead this evening of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Former campaign manager to disgraced presidential candidate Doug McGrath, Ludlow had been accused of hiring a hitman to kill McGrath’s estranged wife, who’d been living in Mexico since her disappearance eight years earlier.”
Jackie frowned. “Poor Levi,” she said, more for the person he’d once been than for the person he turned out to be. It wasn’t a shock after all that had transpired, but it was still sad to see how his life had played out. He was hungry for power, and he always had been. That was his downfall.
Jackie sighed. While there was a peace that came with having her daughter back, she still felt unsettled. It would be so much nicer to have Razorback here with her on the couch. She longed to talk to him about Ludlow, about Selena and Sloan, about the future.