by Diane Capri
FALSE TRUTH 2
A JORDAN FOX MYSTERY
BY
DIANE CAPRI
WITH
BETH DEXTER
Presented by:
AugustBooks
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Praise for
New York Times and USA Today
Bestselling Author
Diane Capri
“Full of thrills and tension, but smart and human, too.
Kim Otto is a great, great character. I love her.”
Lee Child, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Jack Reacher Thrillers
“[A] welcome surprise… [W]orks from the first page to ‘The End’.”
Larry King
“Swift pacing and ongoing suspense are always present… [L]ikable protagonist who uses her political connections for a good cause… Readers should eagerly anticipate the next [book].”
Top Pick, Romantic Times
“…offers tense legal drama with courtroom overtones, twisty plot, and loads of Florida atmosphere. Recommended.”
Library Journal
“[A] fast-paced legal thriller…energetic prose…an appealing heroine…clever and capable supporting cast…[that will] keep readers waiting for the next [book].”
Publishers Weekly
“Expertise shines on every page.”
Margaret Maron, Edgar, Anthony, Agatha and Macavity Award Winning MWA Grand Master and Past President
Also by DIANE CAPRI
(Click each title to buy or download a sample)
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The Heir Hunter Series:
Blood Trails
The Jess Kimball Thrillers:
Fatal Game
Fatal Edge
Fatal Fall
Fatal Error
Fatal Demand
Fatal Distraction
Fatal Enemy
The Hunt for Jack Reacher Series:
Deep Cover Jack
Jack and Joe
Jack in the Green
Get Back Jack
Don’t Know Jack
Jack in a Box
Jack and Kill
The Hunt for Justice Series:
True Justice (Judge Willa Carson)
Fair Justice (Judge Willa Carson)
False Justice (Judge Willa Carson)
Cold Justice (Judge Willa Carson)
Wasted Justice (Judge Willa Carson)
Secret Justice (Judge Willa Carson)
Twisted Justice (Judge Willa Carson)
Due Justice (Judge Willa Carson)
Mistaken Justice
Raw Justice
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False Truth 2 is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 Diane Capri, LLC
All Rights Reserved
Published by: AugustBooks
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DianeCapri.com
BethDexter.com
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eISBN:
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Original Cover Design: Cory Clubb
Digital Formatting: Author E.M.S.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Reviews
Books by Diane Capri
Copyright
Cast of Primary Characters
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Excerpt from FALSE TRUTH 3
More from Diane Capri
Dear Reader
About the Authors
CAST OF PRIMARY CHARACTERS
Jordan Fox
Nelson Fox
Brenda Fox
Claire Stone
Salvador Caster
Clayton Vaughn
Chester Flynn
Linda Pierce
Richard Grady
Patricia Neil
Theresa Parma
FALSE TRUTH 2
CHAPTER 1
The Afternoon Meeting from Hell should have been over. Jordan peered around the corner into the conference room as she exited Linda’s office. No such luck. The crew was still gathered around the table. She had to go back in there and pretend everything was perfect. She was a lousy liar.
Jordan followed Drew to the conference room doorway. She hung back, but he stepped into the room.
Patricia turned around. “Drew, we want you to go with Antonio. He’s doing the missing Ted Garfield story. He’ll be live at six and eleven. You can shadow him.”
“Nice!” Drew said. He smiled and jogged off.
Jordan’s envious gaze followed. He was one up already. He’d received today’s hottest story. Competing with this guy promised to be exhausting.
She stood alone in the doorway now, unsure whether she should sit at the shiny table again or if the meeting was over.
Patricia looked her up and down, making some sort of assessment, maybe? “Jordan, do you think you can handle the casino story alone?”
Seriously? They were going to send her to the story she suggested? And not only that, but they trusted her to go alone?
She refused to grin even though she wanted to. “Absolutely.”
The meeting concluded and Jordan found herself upstream amid a school of departing journalists-on-the-go. Reporters, photogs, and managers fixed their eyes straight ahead and walked briskly, completely ignoring her as they whizzed past.
Jordan stood frozen in place. She had no equipment and no idea where to get any. She looked around the busy newsroom where extreme chaos was normal. Everything seemed to move at the speed of light and pressure felt palpable. The place was exciting and frightening and intimidating and about a thousand other things all at once.
Would she learn to thrive here?
Producers settled into their stations at the pod in the center of the newsroom and buried themselves in the work. She knew gossip and secret meetings and rank speculation were standard newsroom fare. Right now, were they sending rapid-fire gossip-filled emails about her? Two producers glanced at her and smirked, so maybe they were. But these were mature adults, not the college students she was used to. Maybe she was just being paranoid.
Jordan approached the assignment desk, a round, multi-tiered structure where several layers of semi-circular desks faced the newsroom. Patricia’s station consumed most of the top layer.
Jordan climbed the steps toward Patricia, who remained focused on a stack of work. Jordan shrugged. Maybe they didn’t play the small-talk, courtesy-nod game around here. Fine with her. She didn’t excel at small talk, either.
“Patricia, where should I collect equipment for my assignment at the Casino? I’m assuming I need a camera for the day.” Jordan tried to be assertive but polite.
Patricia made brief eye contact. “Go to the photog lounge. They’ll set you up.”
Jordan stopped by the producer pod and approached one of the guys. “Can you point me to the photog lounge?”
He gestured to the left. “If your badge doesn’t open the door, just knock and they’ll let you in.”
Jordan collected her assigned equipment package: One smartphone. Top of the line—crystal clear, high definition screen, snappy performance and sharp photos. But that was all. One smartphone. Maybe if she demonstrated some newsroom street cred she would get more tomorrow. But today, she was lucky to get the smartphone.
Jordan also received keys to a station-issued Jeep, which meant she could leave Hermes in the garage. With her recent pay cut, it’d be nice to save on gas.
She descended the back stairwell to the parking garage under the building and pressed unlock. A vehicle to her right beeped. The big red News Channel 12 logo adorned the sides. She climbed into the driver’s seat and wrinkled her nose. The Jeep smelled like old French fries.
“Doesn’t anyone ever clean this thing?” she said aloud. She sniffed again. “Clearly not.”
As she strapped herself in, she suddenly felt much more grateful to have survived the budget cuts. She was driving one of the most respected vehicles in town: a News Channel 12 Jeep. Her title was merely intern, but she felt she was behind the wheel in more ways than one.
They’d sent her on assignment alone. While she’d have enjoyed the company of a new colleague, at least this way she avoided the intern stigma. Some of the guys didn’t mind having slutty interns around. But otherwise, interns were viewed as a nuisance. Since Jordan didn’t fall into the ‘slutty’ category, this way she wouldn’t be burdening anyone by tagging along.
Plus, the station sending her out alone was a huge sign of trust. Or maybe they were giving her enough rope to fail.
Her college ex would have chastised her for her pessimism. Jordan preferred to think of it as realism. She also preferred to not think of Paul at all. She’d planned to be totally over him by now. She wasn’t, though. Fake it til you make it.
Jordan focused on the task at hand: safe driving. The vision of wrecking the Jeep on her first assignment flashed through her mind and she shuddered. Her life would be over. Completely over.
Along the short drive to the Florida Casino—practically around the corner, but one-way streets doubled travel time—she made a quick mental plan of attack. Get a good parking spot, find a unique angle to the story that no other station will have, and look for opportunities to make friends with the competition. The last thing she needed in this internship was somebody actively working to sabotage her.
If she could transform her story from one mocked in the Afternoon Meeting to one that impressed the entire newsroom, her first day would become a big win. She needed a win. A big win would be even better.
Like most of her classmates, Jordan had been to the privately-owned Florida Casino a few times since her twenty-first birthday last year. She ran through the few facts she already knew about the place. Nestled next door to the cruise terminal, the casino distracted tourists before the ships sailed. Locals hung out there, too. There was a busy hotel inside the casino, mostly filled to capacity every night by gamblers, conventioneers and cruisers who wanted one more night in Tampa before flying home.
Jordan remembered the interior well. In addition to a huge floor full of slot machines and poker tables, the Florida Casino featured a few event rooms like the one for Sal’s reception today. The Aquarium Room boasted a spectacular floor-to-ceiling five-hundred-thousand gallon saltwater aquarium where rare fish, colorful coral, eels, and more were on display. She’d been to several events there before. But today, the aquarium would provide stunning backgrounds for pictures and video that Jordan couldn’t wait to bring back to the newsroom.
Jordan passed palm trees and parking garages as she approached the front of the casino. Time check? Five o’clock on the dot. Later than she’d meant to be after the equipment delay, but still okay because the award presentation was planned for 5:30. If she only got one picture, that was the one she needed. The money shot.
She pulled into the circular drive toward press parking. Problem: no news trucks. Not one. No one from the competition had bothered to show up. Arrogant Creep and his pals were right. This story wasn’t newsworthy at all.
Her stomach flipped and her spirits deflated like a helium balloon with a leak in it. She really had been sent out to fail. Someone push reset on this wretched day, please. What the hell was she supposed to do now?
CHAPTER 2
Jordan felt like you do in that moment when you arrive at a party fashionably late and there’s only one other person in attendance and you realize if anyone else was coming they’d be here by now…and the next three hours are going to be painfully embarrassing and you want to run out the door and escape but it’s too late now and you’re going to have to figure out some way to suck it up and get through it.
What was she thinking? Some guy gets an award for being a good citizen. That’s a one-liner. A caption to a picture, maybe. Not a News Channel 12-worthy story. Derisive laughter during the afternoon meeting replayed in her head. When she returned to the station, the laughs would be even louder.
Somehow, failing as an intern felt much more pathetic than failing as an MMJ. Jordan couldn’t allow herself to reach that level. She had to make this cringe-worthy situation a win. Sure. And for her next trick, she’d make an elephant appear out of thin air.
She parked her Jeep as close to the door as possible. She slapped the press parking pass on the dash, grabbed her cross-body sling bag, and quickly captured a few feet of establishing video with her new smartphone before she hustled inside. Not as good as a ten-thousand dollar Market 13 video camera, but it would have to do. The top-of-the-line smartphone was leaps and bounds better than her personal phone, which was practically an antique. Her personal phone could barely even take a picture. But it made phone calls and it kept the bills at a minimum.
Inside the casino, pasty-faced tourists wearing shorts and flip flops or diamonds and skirts shouted at each other across the crowded lobby like college kids on spring break. Jordan had noticed a couple of big tour busses in the parking lot. These folks were probably here for the day from one of the bigger hotels over on the beach.
Jordan’s heart pounded too fast and her breathing was shallow. She’d never do a good job if she fell into a panic. Aloud, she took three deep breaths and repeated something her mom used to say, “She believed she could, so she did.”
She corralled her breathing back to a normal level. Claire would be here. That would help with moral support, at least. One more deep breath and then, “Onward.”
When she stepped into the Aquarium Room, she stuttered to a stop and allowed herself a moment to stare at the gigantic aquarium wall. She’d seen it before, but it was still mesmerizing. An aquamarine glow bathed the dimly lit room. Round high-tops cove
red in white tablecloths dotted the carpet. Elegant hors d’oeuvres were displayed along one wall and the fully stocked bar was directly opposite. The podium and microphone rested directly in front of the aquarium.
Jordan snapped a picture of the majestic scene. She’d been told the SkySpace feature on her phone would automatically transmit the image to the newsroom instantly after she snapped it. Theoretically, it could be live on Channel 12’s website within five minutes. And then, she’d be able to show her dad her first big publication. Making him proud was one of her biggest ambitions these days. She loved to see him happy and the sight was all too rare.
At ten minutes after five, all the tables were occupied and a line formed at the bar. Claire and Sal should be arriving at any moment. Instinctively, Jordan reached into her sling-bag to grab her ancient phone to text Claire. She stopped mid-reach, remembering her new personal policy not to mix business and personal life.