by Lauren Carr
“No,” she said around the strawberry in her mouth before chewing and swallowing it. “Amy told me about a year ago that he started this book his second year of college. I assume he was nineteen then.”
“If he’s ten years older than I am …” Berry poised to pop into his mouth, Murphy paused to calculate in his head. “We’re talking over a decade … for him to write one book … without having to juggle employment or housework—since they have a housekeeper and they have no kids, so he isn’t bothered with any of that—the guy’s a leech living off his wife’s money.” He tossed the strawberry into his mouth.
“Amy’s one of my best friends, Murphy.” Jessica wrapped her arms around his waist and gazed up into his eyes. “Sure, she’s married to a pretentious leech, but she’s the sweetest—”
“I have no problem with Amy.” Murphy backed away from her and returned the bowl of berries to the refrigerator. “I’m glad she’s your friend and I encourage you to spend time with her, but don’t ask me to get up close and personal with her deadbeat husband.” He slammed the refrigerator door shut. “I don’t expect you to run for president of the Navy Officers’ Spouses Club. I didn’t even ask you to join.”
Jessica folded her arms across her chest. “I wanted to join because I’m proud to be your wife. I’m proud to be married to a navy officer and I want to share in it. I’ve been learning a lot from the other wives about what I’ve gotten myself into.”
“We’re talking about apples and oranges,” he said. “You want to learn about the navy and get buddy-buddy with the other navy wives. I’ve learned all I care to about Dean and I’m not going to spend any of our evenings out with him.” When she opened her mouth to respond, he held up his hand to signal a stop. “I told you the last time we went out with them, no more double dates with Amy and Dean. I understand you want us to have a friend couple to do double dates with. As half of this couple, I have fifty percent of the vote on who that couple is going to be. It’s not Amy and Dean. End of discussion.”
Noting the time on the clock on the stove, he grabbed her by the shoulder. “I have to go.” He kissed her on the lips. “I love you.”
“Love you, too,” she said with a pout.
He lifted her head up by the chin and peered into her violet eyes. “Are we good?”
“We were never not good.”
“I love you, Buttercup.” He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek while snatching his hat from the counter. “I’ve got a meeting at ten o’clock and Crotch is a bitch when anyone is late—especially when that anyone is me.”
“One day, you’re going to call her Crotch to her face and get into big trouble.”
Murphy chuckled. “I get into trouble with her just waking up in the morning.” He gave her another kiss on the cheek.
“Why does Koch hate you so much?” she asked his retreating form as he headed for the stairs down to the garage.
“You can’t make everyone love you.” He paused on the stairs to blow her a kiss before tucking his hat under his arm. “Love you, Buttercup. Text me when you get home.”
Stopping at the top of the stairs that Murphy had just run down, Spencer sat and whined as if to call him back.
“Guess I’m going to have to tell Amy that Murphy is working on a big project and doesn’t have time for going out,” Jessica muttered over her coffee mug. She noticed that he had been in such a hurry to leave that he didn’t even ask who she was meeting for lunch. “And I had such a good lie ready to hand him.”
Checking the time on the clock, she went to the kitchen window to look down to the street. She could hear the low rumble of the garage door closing. Outside, she saw Murphy stop out on the street. Shifting the black Yukon into gear, he turned the corner and headed out to join the mid-morning commuters going off into Washington.
“He doesn’t suspect a thing,” she told Spencer who joined her at the window. The young dog wasn’t tall enough to look out, so she opted for staring up at her master’s face.
Giggling, Jessica snatched up her handbag and raced down the stairs to her purple Ferrari.
Chapter Three
“Thornton, you must have nerves of steel to be sitting two feet from that box of donuts without batting an eyelash.” After taking a Boston cream-filled donut from the box in the middle of the conference table, Special Agent Boris Hamilton, the deputy chief of the Naval Criminal Investigation Staff, sat down in the chair next to Murphy at the head of the table. Several files were stacked up in front of Murphy and, next to the files, he had a notepad and tablet. In contrast, Boris had a single file, notepad, pen, and big mug of coffee.
“That’s because they’re filled with refined sugar,” Hillary Koch said while stepping up to her chair at the other end of the table. The staff chief, who Murphy called Crotch, added in a mocking tone, “and sugar kills.” As if to make a statement of her opinion, she snatched a donut covered in chocolate and took a big bite out of it while eying Murphy.
Showing no emotion, Murphy raised his eyes up to meet hers.
With a smug grin, she turned around. With one hand on her broad hip, she sashayed back to her seat. Almost as tall as Murphy, who was six-feet, two inches, Hillary Koch was a large woman—not obese, but very much overweight—which added to her intimidating persona.
One of the requirements for each member of the staff—tasked with investigating crimes involving members of the navy or marines and their families, as well as navy contractors—was to be physically fit. How else could they run down a fleeing suspect on foot? In the three and a half months that Murphy had been assigned as the military liaison, the middle man between the civilian staff and the military, he had never heard of Hillary doing anything to break a sweat.
Murphy often wondered how Hillary Koch managed to pass the annual physical in order to remain chief of their unit, which consisted of three dozen men and women. Despite being in his late fifties, even Deputy Chief Hamilton would start the day in the athletic room working out on the weight machine or running on the treadmill.
“I’ve often thought of becoming a vegetarian.” Special Agent Susan Archer came in to take a seat toward Murphy’s end of the table. Only a couple years older than Murphy, she wasn’t in any need of a special diet. Like the majority of those on the staff, Susan came from a military background. She had served in the infantry in the marines and completed two tours in the Middle East. She wore her long dark hair in a ponytail gathered low on the back of her neck. “But it takes a wealth of discipline to turn your back on goodies like these.” She picked a glazed donut from the box. “Plus, I don’t think I could say good-bye to Red Robin.”
“Is Jessica a vegetarian, too?” Wendy Dennis, Chief Koch’s administrative assistant, sauntered up to the box containing the morning meeting treat. A buxom blonde whose appearance met every requirement listed for the stereotypical air-head ditz from days gone-by, Wendy took her time bending over to provide Murphy with a view down her low cut blouse while selecting a chocolate covered donut.
“No,” Murphy replied, “Jessie’s not.”
“Neither is Murphy,” Koch said in a tone so harsh that one would have thought Murphy was a suspect caught in a lie. “He eats fish. That’s meat. Therefore, he is not a vegetarian.”
“No, I am a pescatarian.” Murphy nodded his head in agreement. “I do eat fish. I don’t eat any other meat, alcohol, caffeine—” he pointed with his pen at Koch’s oversized coffee mug at the end of the table, “refined sugar, dairy, or processed food—it’s also known as clean eating.”
“How does your wife cook for you?” Wendy asked from where she had taken a seat against the wall across from Chief Hillary Koch.
“She’s an heiress,” Koch interjected with a juvenile roll of her eyes before Murphy could respond. “She doesn’t cook.”
“Yes, she does,” Murphy interjected. “Jessie’s a very good cook.”
Wen
dy asked, “Doesn’t your maid—”
“We don’t have a maid,” Murphy said. “Jessica has never had a maid and neither does anyone else in her family. Not all rich people have servants following them around.” He chuckled. “Believe it or not, there are actual billionaires living very private, normal lives, who don’t own mansions with servants or drive fancy sports cars.”
Silence fell over the conference room while Hillary Koch shot a deadly glare in Murphy’s direction. He responded to the glare with a steely gaze of his own.
“Let’s get this meeting rolling.” Hillary Koch slapped open her notepad. “Item one on the agenda …”
The meeting went on with each team of agents reporting on the status of their open cases. In Murphy’s role of liaison, he would take note of what information the agents would need from what naval departments, if any, in order to complete their investigations. While each agent did have security clearance, in some cases, they would not have enough clearance for the information needed. This would be where Murphy stepped in. If the agent was deemed not to have “need to know,” then he would take over the investigation himself.
So far, he hadn’t.
They had only completed one of the cases on the agenda, which Agent Susan Archer and her partner, Special Agent Perry Latimore had closed the day before, when the conference doors flew open. Two secret service agents stepped inside and held the door open.
A naval officer in a lieutenant’s uniform stepped through the doorway and stood at attention. “Attention! All navy military personnel fall in for inspection from Vice Chairman Joint Chief of Staff, Admiral Clarence Patterson!”
Everyone in the conference room jumped to their feet.
Murphy almost spilled his tea jumping out from behind the table for inspection. Since everyone else in the room was civilian, they were not expected to stand up to the scrutiny of the highest-ranking naval officer in the country. Though most of them, out of respect and habit from their former military backgrounds, did stand at attention as if they expected to be inspected as well.
As the only military officer in the room, Murphy stepped over to the side of the room and stood up rod straight with his arms and hands locked at his sides.
Admiral Clarence Patterson stepped into the room. The tall, African-American had a muscular build and gray at his temples that gave him a distinguished appearance above and beyond his uniform, which was covered with ribbons and medals.
Holding a folder under his arm, the lieutenant accompanying the admiral introduced him to Hillary Koch and her deputy before they turned to where Murphy stood at attention—waiting to be inspected.
With a keen professional eye, the admiral looked Murphy up and down. The corners of his lips curled with satisfaction. “Lieutenant Murphy Thornton, I’ve been hearing a lot about you.” His voice was a low, smooth octave.
Murphy swallowed. “Good, I hope, sir.”
“Very good, I assure you.”
Out of his peripheral vision, Murphy caught sight of someone in lilac coming into the conference room. Still at attention, he was unable to turn his head to see if it was who he thought it was.
“Lieutenant Murphy Thornton,” Admiral Patterson raised his voice, “it is an honor for me to bestow on you today this military award of distinction and honor for your acts of heroism, bravery, and leadership this past winter in leading an impromptu team of marines and state, county, and local police, not to mention civilians,” he cast a glance over his shoulder at the witnesses in the room, “in order to thwart a terrorist bombing attack, save the life of a major from the United States Marines, and identify and capture a group of domestic terrorists.”
The lieutenant handed the admiral a bronze star hanging from a red, white, and blue ribbon. “For this, I am honored to present to you, Lieutenant Murphy Thornton, the Bronze Star.”
Murphy felt his body trembling with excitement while the admiral pinned the star onto his chest, directly under his rows of ribbons. In a low voice, the admiral whispered to him. “You have done the Phantoms proud, Lieutenant Thornton. Your country is lucky to have you on our team.”
Behind the admiral, Boris Hamilton clapped his hands. Within seconds everyone else in the room joined in. With a wide grin on his face, Admiral Patterson handed a certificate to Murphy and shook his hand. Then, stepping back, he saluted Murphy.
“At ease, Lieutenant.”
Finally, Murphy was allowed to break into a wide grin. The admiral stepped aside and gestured toward the door. “Okay, you can kiss him now.”
Jessica rushed through the secret service detail guarding the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and threw her arms around Murphy’s shoulders. Before he could object, she planted a kiss right on his lips.
“I guess that friend you’re having lunch with is me,” he told her.
Her eyes filled with tears of pride, she nodded her head. “I have reservations to celebrate.”
Admiral Patterson leaned in to tell Murphy. “Your wife is a complete delight. We had a charming conversation on the way up in the executive elevator about how you two met.”
“You told the admiral about that?” Murphy didn’t know whether to be horrified or intrigued.
The lieutenant who was assisting the admiral whispered into his ear. With shake of Murphy’s hand, the admiral congratulated him once again and made his way out of the conference room.
What had previously been a meeting quickly dissolved into a party with the agents on the staff wanting to get a close look at the Bronze Star now displayed in Murphy’s chest, and to meet his wife.
“Murphy,” Boris shook his hand, “you are one humble guy. All that stuff that the admiral said you did? I never knew. You never told us that.”
“It was a classified mission,” Murphy explained.
On the other side of the conference room, he was aware of Hillary Koch hanging back, with a bitter frown on her face. She had her arms folded tightly across her chest.
“Did he say domestic terrorism?” Susan asked. “That means it happened here in the United States, but I don’t recall seeing on the news anything like that going down.” She turned to her partner Perry. “Did you ever see anything like that on the news?”
Perry was confirming that he hadn’t while Jessica laid her hand on Murphy’s elbow.
“What about that lunch?” With pride, she fingered the star hanging on his breast pocket. “I know it’s early, but I was hoping you could take a couple of hours leave to celebrate.” With a naughty grin, she winked at him.
Abruptly, Hillary provided Murphy with the answer to Jessica’s invitation. “Thornton, come here. I need to talk to you.” The tone of her voice made the hair on the back of Murphy’s neck stand up on end.
Wading through the agents, who sensed by Koch’s tone that she was not calling him over to bestow her congratulations, Murphy made his way to the staff chief.
“Yes, Crotch—” In response to her glare, he corrected himself, “I meant Koch.”
“Sure you did,” she muttered.
Murphy noticed her eying the shiny addition to his chest. She had to refrain from touching it. To do so would be to acknowledge his achievement, and she would be damned if she did that. Instead, she grasped her cell phone with both hands.
“The Virginia State Police have what appears to be a home invasion in Reston. Five women murdered in a town house. One of the victims is a petty officer from the Navy Yard.”
Wondering why she was telling him this, Murphy cocked his head at her. It was the duty of her staff to investigate criminal cases involving military or civilian navy personnel. He was only the liaison.
Koch planted her hands on her hips. “Since this petty officer appeared to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, we need someone to go to the scene, scope it out, and then allow the local police to take the lead.”
“Why are you s
ending me?”
“Because this award ceremony of yours has set us back. This meeting is going to have to go through lunch,” she said. “I need the rest of my staff here. This multiple murder was most likely a robbery or one—”
“Was it our petty officer’s home?”
“No,” Koch said. “If she was just collateral damage from another crime, then it’s not our case. But we have to send someone out there to go through the motions of a pissing contest with the state police and then let them take it. Just make sure they know to keep us in the loop on the investigation.” She smirked. “I’m sure a super man like you can handle that, Thornton.” She glanced over at Jessica who was standing a couple of feet away. “Sorry to ruin your date.”
Stepping around Murphy, Koch clapped her hands. “Okay, boys and girls, the show is over. We need to get back to work.”
Jessica murmured into his shoulder, “What a—”
Murphy’s mouth clamped over hers to stifle the rest of her protest. Caught off guard, she stumbled on her high heels to fall into his arms, which he wrapped around her tightly while whispering with a husky voice into her ear, “Smile. Don’t give her the satisfaction of seeing that she’s ruined anything.”
Seemingly oblivious to the mouths of the agents hanging open at the abrupt display, Murphy gathered his folders and tablet from where he had been sitting before the admiral interrupted the meeting.
Jessica smiled broadly and grasped his elbow with both hands. “Are you going to show me your office?”
Taking note of her visitor’s badge, which meant that she needed to be escorted at all times by someone with security clearance, Murphy took her out of the conference room and down the corridor to his office located next to the staff chief.
Admiring their wedding picture displayed on the bookcase behind Murphy’s desk, Jessica asked in a casual tone, “Why does Koch hate you so much? Based on the tension I picked up from her, it is more than a simple personality clash. Did she make a pass at you and you turned her down?” She shot a naughty grin to his back, which he didn’t notice. Instead, he was taking his gun and holster out of his desk drawer and snapping it on.