by CR Wiley
A man with short blond hair and a chiseled complexion in SWAT gear held a Glock pointed at Jeremy’s chest from a few feet away. It was Meron, and his eyes quickly fixed on Danny.
Danny was done running, especially now that he knew how little integrity Meron had. He didn’t need to be told to come over and take his place next to Jeremy. After all he learned, Danny imagined Nora towering over this man and knew how it would all end. The two men locked eyes, and Danny surprised himself by holding up against such a vicious stare.
He even found the courage to speak first.
“You’re behind the FBI data breach,” he said, knowing he had the truth at his back. “You falsely accused me.”
Meron pursed his lips and hung his head a little, making a clicking sound with his tongue.
“Are you two boys familiar with the term ‘Point of Failure’? It refers to a part of something that, if it fails, will stop the entire system from working. In this case you have information inside your heads that cannot escape into the world.”
A pop followed, and the young man standing next to Danny dropped to the floor.
“Jeremy!” Danny shouted. His friend had fallen over backwards, a reddening bullet wound right in the center of his chest. He was gone instantly.
“Let me ask you something, Daniel Paulk, guy who has a habit of blurting things out in front of other people and ends up getting them killed. Is there anyone else you’ve shared that ridiculous notion with?”
Danny was sweating, sure he was staring at the face of his own death. His entire lifetime of playing video games and fooling around with computers came down to this. The only person he told was Nora. She was the only person who could possibly save him from this, but she had no idea where he was or what kind of position he was in.
“No, I didn’t tell anyone,” he said, feeling himself cracking.
Meron put away the gun, but it didn’t make Danny feel any better about the circumstances. Meron stepped forward and snatched the laptop out of Danny’s hands.
“When I came down here, it was to make sure there wasn’t another botched capture. We were going to take you in, have a trial in which it was your word against everyone else’s, and you were going to go to jail forever. Now you don’t get to have such a bright future. I’ll ask you again before we start finding out on our own. Who else did you tell?”
Danny’s face was twitching, and the hardest part about it was that Meron seemed perfectly at ease. But no matter the consequences, he could never give her up.
“Sidney,” Meron said, and suddenly an attractive black-haired woman who had to be shy of thirty appeared in the room. He handed her the laptop, which she opened and started poking through. Danny would’ve much preferred a search from her than the one he got from Meron, who nearly broke him in half in the process of rifling through his pockets and confiscating his phone. Resisting was no use. Soon he had it open and was flipping through it.
“Looks like you just cost another person her life. Poor Nora. I’ll be sure to tell her that you caused this. Do you know where she is?” Meron asked.
“No, I don’t,” Danny said, but Meron rolled his eyes.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
“She’s boarding at SFO. I could try and halt the flight. No, they’re already rolling. Do you want me to try to get her held up when she reaches Albany?”
Meron scowled and turned around. Danny eyed the Glock at his side. It was a ticket to a life on the run, but that was better than no life.
“No. I’m sure Travis Greer will be there as soon as she touches down. There’d be too much of a chance that things would go wrong. We’ll need to find another opportunity and quickly, before she finds someone to listen who’s actually in a position to do anything about it.”
Danny’s chance to make a move faded with each second. Silent as a lion stalking a gazelle, he took a single step forward and reached for the gun at Meron’s side. He grabbed the black handle and prepared to yank the weapon out when Meron swung his elbow back with enough force to overextend Danny’s elbow. A second later the agent grabbed Danny by the belt and flipped him onto his back.
The blurriness of the room receded enough for Danny to focus on Meron standing over him.
“Trying to take an FBI agent’s weapon? I love a justified use of force.”
Before Danny could shout or throw his hands up, Meron drew the Glock, pointed it at Danny’s chest, and pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER 29
ALBANY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
737 ALBANY SHAKER ROAD
ALBANY, NY
After an unnecessarily rough landing, Nora grabbed her bag from the overhead and exited the plane faster than anyone else. The text from Danny made her phone feel like a lump of burning coal in her pocket, and the only person who could put it out was Travis.
Fortunately he was right at the gate waiting for her, in jeans and a t-shirt no less.
“It looks like someone’s put the work day far behind him,” she said. He cracked a warm smile.
“It’s nice to see you too. How come I have the feeling I’m about to get pulled back into work?” he asked, pushing off from the wall with his shoulder to join Nora as she breezed through the arrivals area.
“You’ll never believe it, but I got a text from Danny saying that the whole breach was a crock that Meron cooked up. I’d say getting my job back is really out of the question now,” Nora said, looking over to see him scratching the stubble on his cheek.
“A few months ago I wouldn’t have thought anyone was capable of it, but now I believe it. How he can sleep at night after orchestrating those leaks to the news is beyond me. I guess there’s nothing he won’t do to get the assistant director position, and I wouldn’t put much stock in the idea that he’ll stop there. So what’s the next move?”
Nora sighed, taking a glance at her phone and then showing the message to Travis.
“I asked Danny for more details, but he hasn’t gotten back to me. So much for any hope that the flight was keeping the message from getting through. Now it’s been almost all day without him bothering to respond. Maybe we’ll have something hard we can go on soon.”
The pair exchanged concerned glances. Even though it’d been quite a while since they’d seen each other, Nora already felt more at ease with him around.
“I’ll see if there’s anything I can put together connecting Meron to the leaks without arousing Boffman’s suspicions,” Travis said.
His confidence motivated her. Between the two of them, they’d find a way to blow the lid off this conspiracy, although it might not be this minute.
“We don’t need to rush it. Besides, I thought we had plans for tonight. Picking up where we left off…”
Nora set her hand on Travis’s upper back, getting an immediate sense of his strength. She could tell from the way he looked at her that he wanted the same thing she did.
“There’s one minor complication,” Travis said.
They left the terminal and made it over to the nearby parking lot, where Travis’s truck sat on the corner. Someone was inside, and as they got closer Nora recognized that flowing brown hair and shapely frame of Vanessa.
“What is she doing here? You’ve got to be kidding me. This isn’t going to be like last time, is it?” Nora moaned. She could already anticipate all the excuses that would keep her between them. The window was down and Vanessa broke her attention from her phone to give Nora a tired look.
“Relax. I’m not going to get in the way of you sleeping with my ex-boyfriend. Make sure you bring a towel. He tends to sweat.”
Nora peered at Travis, whose rugged charm was the only thing keeping her from getting mad at him. He shrugged.
“Vanessa was looking to make a career change, and I thought that since you’re a stellar private eye, the perfect thing for you would be a mouthy assistant,” he said, really trying to sell it.
“If you could put in a good word about my superior work ethic and abilities when somet
hing opens up at Daddy Senator’s office, I’d really appreciate it. In fact, you could do that immediately if it suits you,” Vanessa explained.
As Travis climbed into the truck, Nora stared at the two of them as she tried to comprehend the nonsense situation she’d been thrust into. There was only one thing to say at the indignity of having her boyfriend force his ex-girlfriend into her care.
“Really?”
At least he could return the favor with some incredible sex.
In bed, naked next to Travis and feeling remarkably content, Nora thought she was hearing things until she realized her phone was ringing. Who was calling her at 10 p.m.? She got out of bed and searched her pants for her phone to find that it was Caroline.
“The Disciplinary Review Board announced their decision today. I don’t know if it was that threat from Preston Lowery’s lawyer or what, but they didn’t waste any time making an announcement,” she said.
“Really? What did they say?” Nora asked, falling back into bed next to Travis. They’d been close to falling asleep, but getting this call from Caroline was the equivalent of fifty cups of coffee.
“It’s kind of a long story,” Caroline said. “They made their initial announcement late in the afternoon that Preston Lowery was going to be put on something called ‘Selective Probationary Status’ for the vague infraction of student misconduct. It wasn’t going to have any impact on his ability to play for the football team or even go on his student record.”
“That’s a slap on the wrist!” Nora said loudly. There was no way he could get off so easy for the terrible things he did to Lauren.
“Yeah. But they also said that Preston was in possession of evidence implicating others in the assault—something on his phone—and that there would be additional investigations and another hearing regarding anyone else believed to be involved.”
“Great,” Nora scoffed. “More chances to identify some student misconduct.”
“Anyway, I know this’ll come as a shocker, but I was right. Between the ridiculous punishment for Preston and proof that Lauren had been gang raped in the frat house, the campus went ballistic. When word got out, everybody was in the streets protesting the decision. It brought Lauren to tears to have that much support. Nobody was going to stand for someone in the Berkeley community being victimized and left hung out to dry like that.
“But it gets even better. The DA’s office made an announcement that they thought the campus was mismanaging the investigation and would open one of their own, pressing full charges against anyone found to be involved. They see it as a chance to come out in front and lead the fight against campus sexual assaults,” Caroline said.
“Wow, that’s amazing!” Nora felt like jumping up and down, but instead that excited energy came in the form of repeatedly nudging Travis in the shoulder. She nearly pushed him out of bed.
“Within an hour of that, the university administration made a statement amending the review board’s decision. They found that Preston Lowery was culpable of sexual assault and would be expelled effective immediately. There’s a small caveat that the punishment could be modified depending on the results of a more thorough investigation into the entire incident in conjunction with the DA’s office.”
Smiling so wide it was making her cheeks hurt, Nora collapsed onto the pillow and released a huge sigh of relief.
“I’m so glad Lauren’s going to get the justice she deserves. Nobody should have to endure something terrible like that. She’s something special,” Nora said.
“I think so too. Although she was thinking about getting into chemistry, I think the whole thing with Gupta put a bad taste in her mouth about it. Now she’s thinking about taking up the cause and trying to help other victims put their lives back together,” Caroline said.
“I think she’d have a knack for that. It’ll be a long road to recovery for her and reaching out to others in the same position could help her own healing. She’s got such a bright future,” Nora said.
“And so much of that is thanks to you. If you hadn’t stayed here and seen this through to the end, none of this would’ve happened. As much as I hated to keep you away from your new boyfriend, it really meant the world to us. You’re going to have an incredibly bright future too. I can tell,” she said.
Nora glanced over at Travis, who was listening with a cheeky smirk on his face. She did have good reason to be optimistic, but getting justice for herself at the FBI was still a long way off.
“I plan to, but first I’m going to have to fight for it.”
The End
© 2015 by C.R. Wiley
All rights reserved: no part of this book may be reproduced by any means without written permission from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.