by Diane Capri
Jordan ran in and out of the pharmacy and turned the five-minute drive home into three minutes. Hermes screeched into driveway and she dashed inside. Time check? 12:34.
“Here are your meds on the counter, Dad!” she yelled across the house as she ran to the back to change. “Dad?”
Jordan slipped into a flowing white blouse and navy blue pencil skirt. Ballet flats. She wiped on a fresh layer of deodorant and grabbed her bag. On the way out again, she knotted her hair into a loose bun.
“Dad?”
She peered into the living room and found him fast asleep on the couch. He looked normal now and someday he’d be healthy again. She blinked away tears, blew him a kiss, and sprinted out the back door.
She’d left her phone on the car seat. One new text from Clayton: Appt with agent 1:00. No cell phones allowed inside.
The digital clock in the car read 12:44. Sixteen minutes to find the building, park, walk to the building and get through security. Not enough time. She pressed the accelerator to the floor.
She found a metered spot on the street three blocks away from the FBI building at 12:58. She stashed her phone in the glove compartment, paid for parking and speed-walked toward Clayton, dressed in uniform, waiting in front of the building, signaling her to hurry up.
“Sorry I’m late.” She flattened her hair and adjusted her blouse.
“You look nervous.” Clayton opened the door to the lobby. She walked in first. “You have nothing to worry about.”
Jordan nodded, but Clayton didn’t know everything. She had plenty to worry about.
A towering man in a dark suit came into the lobby. She imagined his squinty brown eyes were a computer, scanning, collecting and processing data about her in a nanosecond.
Clayton stepped forward. “Jordan, this is FBI Special Agent Lincoln Hunt. Agent Hunt, Jordan Fox.”
Hunt shook hands with them both. “Come with me.” His voice was deep, expressionless. He led the way to the elevator. Clayton and Jordan followed while her heart pounded like a drummer on parade.
The elevator door opened into an ordinary white corridor, carpeted, fluorescent lighting. The scent of coffee wafted through. They walked to an unremarkable conference room. White walls. No windows. No distractions.
“Meet my partner,” Hunt said. “FBI Special Agent Terry Ryser.”
Ryser’s brown hair was bobbed at chin length. Steady brown eyes accented by thick mascara and a smile so friendly it more than compensated for Hunt’s board-stiff manner.
Hunt pulled out a chair next to Agent Ryser and waved Jordan and Clayton to sit directly across. The club chairs were wood, with the seats and back wrapped in black leather, the leather pinned to the wood with brass brads.
Agent Hunt folded his arms on the table in front of him. Ryser relaxed with her hands folded in her lap.
Hunt spoke first. “Officer Vaughn tells us you might have some information on the plane crash that killed Dennis Raine.”
“Let me tell you what I know and you can judge for yourself.” Jordan pulled her chair closer to the table and started talking. Her nervousness disappeared as she described her first encounter with the man she knew only as Hugo.
Jordan told how she’d seen Hugo drop something into the woman’s drink who sat beside him at Infidel Brewing on Wednesday night. She’d chased him into the parking lot, but he’d disappeared and destroyed the drugged beer. She suspected Hugo had keyed Claire Stone’s car.
She had taken still pictures of the damage to Claire’s car, but she’d been told to leave her phone in the car, so she didn’t have the photos with her.
Jordan told what she’d seen at the private drone practice Saturday afternoon. She described how Hugo had sent his massive octocopter flying directly at her and would have knocked her down with it, but she hit the ground.
She said the colors of Hugo’s drone matched the colors the pilot reported to the control tower before he crashed.
Jordan took a deep breath and finished with her theory that Hugo had intentionally crashed the big octo into the Cessna.
Throughout Jordan’s recital, Agent Ryser took rapid notes while Agent Hunt listened intently, brow furrowed, eyes focused.
When Jordan finally stopped talking, Agent Hunt sat back in his chair. He pursed his lips and chewed his cheek.
Agent Ryser reviewed her notes. She made check marks here and there on her pages.
“Okay.” Hunt nodded, possibly still processing. “Off the record?”
“Of course.”
“We also suspect that the drone crash was intentional. We can’t prove it. Yet.” He poured water from a bottle into a clear plastic cup and took a sip. He pursed his lips and chewed his cheek again for a while until he seemed to make a decision. “Dennis Raine, the pilot, was a DEA agent.”
Jordan blinked twice and opened her eyes wide. “I didn’t know that.”
Clayton vocalized something that sounded like interest for the first time since they’d entered the room. “Are you thinking Raine was targeted because of his work at DEA?”
Hunt nodded. “You saw this Hugo with other people at the practice?”
“They’d been meeting weekly. Every Saturday. At least.” She shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe more than that.”
“Tell us everything you can about the people you saw on Saturday.” Agent Ryser turned her notebook to a clean sheet. She flexed her fingers and shook her hand before picking up her pen again.
Jordan drank a long draft from one of the water bottles on the table. She licked her lips and began with descriptions. Four men. One a little blonder than the others. One a little shorter. One a little fatter. And Hugo, tall, dark, preppy, a dark strap of facial hair on his chin.
“I should have mentioned this before.” She took a deep breath and another gulp from the water bottle. “I have video from the practice Saturday, too.”
Agent Ryser looked up from her notes. “Great. A video’s worth a million words, as they say.”
“When can we see it?” Agent Hunt asked.
“Right now.” Jordan reached for her bag and patted the pocket where she kept her phone. Empty. Her heart skipped a beat before she remembered her car’s locked glove box. “The video’s on my phone, which I wasn’t allowed to bring inside the building.”
Clayton had been quiet for the entire meeting. He cleared his throat.
“Something to contribute, Officer Vaughn?” Agent Ryser asked.
“Jordan, didn’t you tell me you always email your videos to yourself, just in case something goes wrong with the storage servers?”
So he did listen to her occasionally. Jordan grinned. “If I can sign into my email, I can pull up the video.”
CHAPTER 12
Agent Ryser reached into her briefcase and passed Jordan a tablet computer. Jordan found the video. “Come around.”
Ryser and Hunt stood behind Jordan and Clayton. They watched the video together. Jordan was proud of her shooting skills. The video was clear and as perfect as if Drew Hodges had actually done it. Which he hadn’t.
“Hold up,” Agent Ryser said, pointing. “That guy right there. Back up a few frames? Now freeze. Screenshot him. Hunt, email me his photo. I’ll be right back.”
Ryser jogged out of the room and returned less than five minutes later, triumphant yet serious. “That guy in the video, the blonder one, that’s Emilio Montego. He’s a drug trafficker associated Mexican cartels. Suspected connection to El Pulpo, a larger worldwide cartel.”
“El Pulpo is the cartel that was dealing the Super Adderall.” Clayton nudged Jordan. “The drug that killed your friend Ruby Quinn.”
Agent Hunt crossed his arms on his chest and chewed his cheek again. “El Pulpo in Tampa is an active DEA investigation. The lead investigator was Dennis Raine.”
“This is all very helpful, Jordan.” Agent Ryser nodded. “But it also means that the work you were doing, following these guys in order to turn in reports on drones, is seriously dangerous. El Pulpo is one of the worst cartels i
n the world. Now, they’re tied to Dennis Raine’s death and taking down the Cessna, which is why the FBI and Homeland Security and a few other state and national agencies are working together on this. Be very, very careful.”
With each connection to El Pulpo they mentioned, Jordan’s heart beat faster. She should have considered that every story she’d worked on since she came to Channel 12 was somehow connected to each other. Amy Carpenter had said as much before she left for Haiti, but Jordan hadn’t been paying close enough attention.
Tampa was a large media market, but it was essentially a small town because of the way it was founded and developed. Everything and everyone was connected. Jordan would never forget that again.
Agent Hunt said, “We’ll do everything we can to identify Hugo and track down Emilio Montego. We can’t stop you from airing your video or pursuing your story. But you should know that you’re going to be at risk if you put the video out there.”
Agent Ryser placed a hand on Jordan’s arm. “But we’re working on it, Jordan. What you’ve told us is very helpful. I’d recommend that you hold your video and your story until we find out more.”
Jordan lowered her head and squeezed her eyes shut to think. Above all, she’d protect her dad because he couldn’t protect himself. Not yet. If her story jeopardized him in any way, she had no choice but to let it go.
She raised her gaze to meet Agent Ryser’s sharp look. “You’ll let me know when it’s safe enough to use my story? Because trust me, I don’t want to get fired, either.”
They exchanged handshakes. Agent Hunt walked Jordan and Clayton to the elevator. Jordan met his gaze as the elevator doors slid silently closed. They rode to the first floor without speaking.
Outside, Clayton walked Jordan to her car. A uniformed Tampa P.D. officer at her side made her feel safer, and she hated that. She shook her body from head to toe to shake off the feeling. It didn’t work.
“I don’t know if I should feel scared or proud. I mean, what I gave them may help to bring down El Pulpo, and that’s cool.” Her voice sounded shakier than she expected. She swallowed a few times for control. “But what I want is to be able to break this story on air. And now they’re basically saying it makes me and everyone I care about an El Pulpo target if I do that.”
Clayton put a comforting hand on her back. “That’s a reporter’s life for ya. Gotta weigh your risks and hedge your bets.”
Not exactly the comforting answer she wanted.
“So, yeah.” Jordan shrugged. “I don’t know. I feel like all my work was for nothing. Because they already knew most of it. They’ve found the drone. They’ve found Dennis Raine’s body. They’ve found the Cessna. They had a lot more evidence than they’ve released so far.”
Jordan felt her lower lip trembling, and she knew it wasn’t a reaction specific to the meeting that had just happened but confusion and mixed feelings about a lot of things. Her lower lip continued to tremble as they approached her car.
Clayton turned to face Jordan. He saw her vulnerable expression before she could mask it. His shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. He pressed his lips together and looked down. “You’re gonna be okay.”
Jordan pressed her lips together too, and breathed in through her nose, trying to swallow the tears that threatened. What the hell? She wasn’t normally so fragile.
“I’ll make sure you’re okay.” He put a hand on her shoulder, then pulled her in for a hug. She was surprised to find herself suddenly clinging to him, holding the hug a few moments too long. Maybe she was more scared than she’d realized.
Jordan drove off to work, beating herself up all the way. “What the hell were you thinking? Hugging Clayton? Clayton? What’s wrong with you?”
The last thing she wanted was to lead him on. She wasn’t interested in Clayton. Not as a date, anyway. At least, she didn’t want to be interested. Not even a little bit.
“Oh, come on. You may want to date him, but you don’t regret letting him help you, either. Make up your mind.”
After meeting with the FBI, Jordan felt more like a real reporter somehow. She was doing actual investigative work.
A new thought bubbled up in her head. She tingled all over, like her News Nose had come alive. “Wait. So all those cops and agents already know a lot more than they’ve released to the press. Which means you, Jordan Fox, could be the only reporter with the scoop!”
Her excitement lasted about a nanosecond.
“Yeah, well, only problem is, you’d be a total idiot to air any of it. So you’re thinking Patricia is going to be impressed and get off your back when you’ve got nothing for tonight’s eleven o’clock because you’ve got a ton of news you can’t air? Not a chance.”
But what about Hugo? And Dennis Raine? And El Pulpo?
CHAPTER 13
Jordan parked and full-out ran into work, up the stairs, and across the newsroom, just in time to snag the last seat in the conference room for the afternoon meeting. Like a baseball player sliding onto home base, she felt a single bead of sweat trickle down her face as her butt hit the chair.
She knew she looked a mess. She re-tied her loose bun at the table and took a moment to catch her breath. Antonio looked over and raised his eyebrows. Jordan smiled and waved a dismissive hand.
Antonio was like a direct information line to Drew Hodges, and she wasn’t about to reveal anything to either one of them until the competition for the next Channel 12 job was over. Drew had more than enough support already.
Patricia started with the Cessna crash. “Antonio, Drew? What’s the status of the investigation? Do we have anything to air at eleven?”
“Nothing much new yet.” Drew piped up while Antonio lounged, as usual. “We’ve got a source over at the medical examiner’s office. They’re supposed to have a press conference to release the autopsy findings this afternoon.”
“Okay. Stay on it. Both of you.” Patricia skipped Jordan because she’d already assigned Jordan the Freeman Whittaker interview. Patricia expected a package, tracked with audio voiced by Jordan. But Jordan didn’t want her name or voice associated with the Cessna crash story.
And she couldn’t give Patricia or Richard Grady, the executive producer her reasons. Breaking a story about an illegal drone ring tied to an international crime cartel was the stuff news execs drooled over.
No way could she trust them to hold a big news lead like that. She had a back-up plan, but it wasn’t great either.
So she kept a low profile during the meeting and slunk into the back edit bays afterward. She hoped being out of sight would keep her out of mind until she figured out what the hell she could do now to slow Drew’s certain race to first place when their competition reached the finish line.
Jordan watched the eleven o’clock news reports and learned Dennis Raine’s cause of death was head trauma. The medical examiner didn’t say Raine’s head had been blown apart when it was hit by the white drone with purple and green painting, but that’s what he meant. No one mentioned Raine’s position with the DEA or his investigation of El Pulpo, either.
In other words, at 11:33 p.m. when her shift ended, Jordan had learned nothing more since her meeting with the FBI.
Which meant all those three letter agencies had made no progress all day today.
Which meant her drone story was still on hold.
Crap.
CHAPTER 14
Tuesday morning felt like Saturday because it was the first day of her weekend. Her nightside work schedule was odd, but she’d grown to like it. For one thing, it meant she could have breakfast with her dad most days. And she could do her errands in the middle of the week instead of fighting crowds on Saturday.
Nelson had sliced a grapefruit and put each half in a bowl on the counter. Because both hands were occupied with his walker, Jordan moved the bowls to the table. She poured coffee into mugs and they shared his newspaper.
Jordan read the full story of the Cessna crash and two profiles on the pilot, Dennis Raine. No m
ention of his job with the DEA or El Pulpo. Nothing about the purple and green drone. No news on Hugo Diaz, either.
She saw a couple of short witness statements about the crash, but she’d seen them on the news last night. Jordan slurped the last spoonful of grapefruit with the last sentence of the story.
Nelson lowered the sports section and frowned at her from behind his glasses.
Jordan raised her palm to her mouth to cover a wide grin. “Sorry to slurp.”
He said nothing and raised his newspaper, which made her feel mischievous. She slurped again. Again.
“Jordan. Please.” Exasperated. “Are you three?”
She kept a straight face for half a moment before she laughed out loud. “Oh, come on, Dad. Mom slurped her grapefruit every day. You didn’t mind, did you?”
From behind the paper, he said, “Of course I did. She was incorrigible. And you’re just like her.”
Jordan heard pleasure in his voice, though. “Thank you. That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me today.”
“It’s early yet,” he said, and they both laughed.
She propped her feet up on an empty chair and stared out the window, sipping her coffee. Jordan’s heart was light all of a sudden. She’d been warned off the drone story before anything terrible happened. It was her weekend. Her dad was improving every day with his new therapy. Life was good.
The cute owner of Infidel Brewery crossed her mind.
Did Tom Clark manage to get her phone number from her friend, Theresa? Maybe today would be a good day to talk to him.
Maybe she’d take a few other chances today, in fact.
Why not? She was feeling lucky.
“Dad?” He lowered his newspaper, half annoyed that she’d interrupted his reading again. “Are you sure you can’t remember the password for Mom’s external hard drive?”
“Honey, I have no idea.” He rested the newspaper on the table and refilled his coffee mug. “I’ve told you my best guesses already. Whatever is on that hard drive can’t be very important after all this time, surely.”