False Truth 8-10: 3 Action-Packed Romantic Detective Mystery Thrillers To Keep You Up All Night (Jordan Fox Mysteries Series)

by Diane Capri

  “I’ll protect you.” Clayton said, not even bothering to argue with her logic. “Well, me and Tampa P.D. That’s our job.”

  She’d been living in denial and she’d liked living there. Jordan’s body tensed as she felt the terror rise to her face. “You can’t protect me against a freaking drug cartel! They’re killing people in your own jail!” If she’d had something to throw, she would’ve hurled it at him. Jordan jumped to her feet to stomp away her fear.

  She felt her phone ring in her bag. Her fury paused when she saw the name on her phone: Tom Clark.

  “We’ve already been watching you, Jordan—,” Clayton said. “And your dad. You know we can do this. Be reasonable. Stop doing crazy stuff on your own. Stay where we can see you. Keep your phone with you at all times so we can track you.” He stood up and placed his hand on her shoulder. “This is our job. Let us do it, okay?”

  Her phone rang again. Jordan continued to glare at him. Blood rushed in her ears and heat flushed all the way from her toes.

  Clayton’s phone rang now, too. He reached into his pocket. “I gotta go. Stay here at the station where you’ve got plenty of people around you until the end of your shift. I’ll figure out something by then. If you have to leave the building for any reason, call me.”

  Her phone rang for the third time.

  Clayton shook his head and his phone rang again, too. “Remember what I said. Stay put. I’ll call you before the end of the night.”

  He answered his phone and hoofed quickly out to his cruiser in the parking lot while Jordan watched him go.

  Drew whistled, low and quiet. “Man, you really do get yourself into some situations, don’t you? What are you going to do now?”

  CHAPTER 11

  Jordan exhaled, calmed her voice, and answered her phone on the final ring. “Hi, Tom.”

  “Jordan? Is this a bad time?” He sounded as nice and normal as ever.

  “No.” Her emotional roller coaster clouded her excitement. Maybe she’d feel something closer to normal herself if she kept him talking.

  “How have you been?” he asked, like any normal person would.

  “Good, good.” She wished that were true. “Stressful day at work but I’m coping. Actually, one thing that’s been helping is that I’ve been training for your 5K.”

  Truth was, Jordan didn’t need to train. Three miles was a casual jog for her. But she was sincerely interested in Tom and she wanted him to know it. And she wanted to think about something other than El Pulpo.

  “Awesome! I hope I can keep up with you.”

  The more he talked, the calmer she felt. Which was a good thing, even if Drew was pacing like a caged lion in front of her. She gestured that the call would be short. He nodded.

  Tom cleared his throat. He’d said something she missed. “That is, I wanted to know when I can see you again.”

  “Absolutely!” Wait. No. It wasn’t a yes or no question. “I mean, yes, let’s find a time for sure. I work weekends though. My days off are Tuesdays and Wednesdays.”

  He sighed into the phone. He wasn’t available?

  “I don’t know if I can wait that long,” he said.

  She didn’t see that one coming. She felt a genuine grin lift her mouth for half a moment.

  Tom was easygoing, so his urgency surprised her. But he was also easy to figure out. No drama. No guesswork. He wanted to see her, and he let her know that. Direct. She liked it. Her life already had more than enough intrigue.

  He cleared his throat again. Damn. She should pay attention.

  “Jordan? I said how about tonight?”

  She cringed. She wasn’t exactly available for happy hour like most people, even before Clayton’s warnings. But she didn’t have the time or the desire to explain her situation. “I work until 11:30 tonight.”

  “That’s okay. I can meet you at 11:35. Anywhere. You pick. Downtown?”

  Jordan’s stomach turned cartwheels. A date. With Tom Clark. Tonight. The pressure she’d felt on the blind set-up at Infidel Brewery was over now. She’d gotten it out of her system and had become much more relaxed with the idea of hanging out with Tom Clark, the chill, easygoing guy with nothing to prove.

  “How about that new outdoor bar The Backyard?” Jordan said without thinking. “Can we do 11:45? It will take me that long to get there and park.”

  “I suppose I can be seen at a bar other than my own. I’ve gotta check out the competition, right?” Tom teased. “I’ll pick you up at the front entrance to the station at 11:35.”

  Jordan heard a smile in his voice. Her life was anything but normal at the moment, but she needed to believe she’d get back to that state. She’d be a total basket case otherwise. “See you soon.”

  She dropped her phone in her bag, squeezed her eyes, and smiled upward toward the heavens. She wasn’t sure why she liked Tom Clark so much. But she did.

  Drew’s first question snapped her right back to the present, though. “I guess you’re okay with that cartel taking you and your boyfriend out permanently tonight, huh?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know what to think.” And she would not be discussing her feelings for Tom Clark with Drew Hodges. Ever. She swiped both hands through her hair and walked back to the newsroom with him. They both needed to get back to work. And Clayton was right that she was safer inside the building than outside of it. For now. “It all seems so surreal, you know? Clayton said he’d work it out by tonight. Surely El Pulpo is no match for law enforcement, though. Right?”

  “You tell me. Your house was bombed. You were kidnapped. People around you are being killed pretty regularly, too.” Drew pulled the lobby door open and she walked into the refrigerated air and they made their way to the elevator. “In your shoes, I might want to hide under the bed for a while. With a gun. And a bodyguard.”

  She gave him a playful punch in the arm while they waited for the elevator to reach the second floor. “Very funny.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “You think I’m kidding?”

  The elevator door opened.

  Before she stepped out, he said, “Seriously, Jordan. Your pal Clayton may not be your idea of a great date, but he knows his business. You should listen to him. And you should at least give Tom a chance to make his own decisions. He may not want to be living in the crosshairs, you know?”

  Jordan nodded. “You’ve got your assignment and I’ve got mine. But when you get back, let’s brainstorm this thing, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure. Glad to help.” He left in search of something and Jordan was glad to see him go. He asked too many good questions. And he was right on all points.

  Jordan found an unoccupied edit bay and closed the doors for privacy. She called the number she’d programmed into her speed dial after their first meeting at the FBI’s downtown headquarters.

  FBI Special Agent Terry Ryser would give Jordan the straight facts. Ryser would know what to do. But her phone rang six times and then went to voice mail. Jordan hung up without leaving a message.

  Now what?

  One thing at a time, Jordan. Get your assignment done. Do the flu story. Make Patricia and Richard happy. Then you can move on. Maybe Clayton will have a solution by then.

  Or Tom Clark can wait.

  But that was the least desirable option.

  She finished writing and editing her summary of the status of the flu in the Tampa Bay area as compared to the national status. The task went by quickly, because she was still flying on adrenaline borne of alternating euphoria and fear.

  When the cantankerous Patricia, leaving for coffee, asked how her assignment was going, Jordan looked at her watch. 9:30 p.m. “I’ll have it done for eleven.” Which was true. Because the piece was already done. Patricia grunted and kept walking.

  Jordan had two more hours to fill before her shift ended unless she got another assignment. Now what?

  After the conversation with Richard, she figured her days here were numbered. She might still win this competition, sure. But if she d
idn’t, she would no longer have access to Channel 12 archives, either.

  She checked her phone for any messages from Tom Clark. None. Nothing from Agent Ryser or from Clayton.

  She was stalling. How much emotional battering could she take in one day?

  “Suck it up, Jordan. Just do it.”

  Great. Now she was talking to herself like a shoe commercial.

  She’d start with the police press conference about her mom’s death. The presser should contain only the public news. And that should have been reported in the paper. And she’d read all of the newspaper accounts many times. This was something she needed to do and could only do using the Channel 12 archives. But it shouldn’t be more than she could handle tonight.

  And she might get lucky. The video could include comments or questions or that were never pulled and published. Something that hadn’t seemed relevant or newsworthy at the time, but might be helpful now.

  Sandy Wall, the Channel 12 Investigative Reporter who had covered her mother’s murder, told her how to find the tape.

  He’d said to search the video archives for “Nelson Fox” and to limit the date range to thirty days after the murder. So that’s what she did.

  Sandy was right. Her dad’s name appeared in several anchor scripts starting on the date of the murder and going forward for about four weeks. After that, his name wasn’t mentioned at all.

  She found what she was looking for six days after the murder. The portion of the script that included her dad read:

  AT A PRESS CONFERENCE THIS AFTERNOON…TAMPA POLICE CONFIRMED NELSON FOX…WAS A PERSON OF INTEREST.

  Nothing was missing from the text, though, because ellipses were spaced throughout news scripts to help anchors pace their sentences while reading from the teleprompter. His name was mentioned several more times, along with hammering the person-of-interest thing.

  Even now, after all this time, the words carried staggering power to crush her spirit.

  CHAPTER 12

  Jordan knew her dad had been a person of interest almost from the second they found her mom’s body. Understandable. Female victims of violence were usually hurt or killed by the men closest to them. But that didn’t make it true in Nelson Fox’s case or easier to bear.

  The script for the press conference report was important because it was attached to a date and time. The six p.m. newscast on December 10th. Six days after her mom was murdered. The police press conference, or presser, was held earlier that afternoon.

  Now she could find the video.

  Jordan scanned through the list of old video of all press conferences. There had been only one presser that day. The archives contained unedited raw footage that rolled from before the beginning until after the end. There were pieces of video that potentially had never aired anywhere.

  Jordan swallowed hard. It never got easier to hear people discuss her mother’s murder. She tried to compartmentalize her feelings and on most days, she managed. Video of this media event might gush open the doors of containment.

  “No time for that, Jordan. You’ve got a date tonight. You don’t want to look like you’ve been watching a tear-jerker movie. Suck it up.” She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and hit play on the computer.

  The video captured a small, packed room. Fluorescent lights shined on blue carpet and cheap white walls. Reporters, photographers, tripods, and wires were strewn everywhere.

  Jordan knew the room was even smaller than it looked on camera so it would have been hot and stuffy, too. She imagined the room smelled like stale coffee and sweat and the vibe was the anxious anticipation of an oncology waiting room.

  The police department’s wooden seal adorned the podium at the front. A Styrofoam coffee cup rested atop the podium and several others dotted the room.

  Drinking coffee out of Styrofoam cups was such an ordinary thing to do. This day was not ordinary. This was the day the public would hear, officially, formally, and in as much detail as the police wanted to share, about the murder of Brenda Fox.

  Jordan’s nostrils flared and her breaths shortened and she felt heat rising from her chest, along her throat and face, all the way to her hairline.

  Rage won’t get you anywhere right now. Be observant.

  She simply couldn’t manage the anger, even after all this time.

  Photogs and reporters mingled before the press conference started. A few smiled and talked casually, probably about something stupid and completely unimportant like movies or sports.

  Jordan’s stomach turned. She understood journalists couldn’t get emotionally immersed in every story they covered, but it was still hard to see this time.

  The Deputy Chief of Police approached the bundle of microphones at the podium, and the room quieted. The chief cleared his throat. “Thank you all for being here. We wanted to provide an update on what we know so far about the details of the Brenda Fox murder case. As you know, Mrs. Fox was murdered in her home Tuesday night between six o’clock and seven o’clock. She was stabbed several times. The knife blow that killed her was a wound to her heart.”

  Jordan’s head throbbed. She could barely stand to watch. But she had to. She listened as the very most basic details of the case were revealed. The ones she could recite in her sleep.

  “We do believe more than one person was involved. Mrs. Fox’s husband, Nelson Fox, is being questioned as a person of interest. We have no reason to believe Mrs. Fox was targeted, though the investigation continues. We fully intend to track down the individuals who committed this heinous crime and punish them to the full extent of the law.”

  The police chief then opened the floor to questions.

  “Has there been other crime in the area?”

  “Nothing beyond the standard trends. But it is worth noting that a mile away, a homeowner reports having two bikes stolen. And two bikes were left near the scene. We are working on obtaining a sketch based on a description of those individuals.”

  Individuals. Police weren’t even specifying gender back then.

  The two bikes had turned out to be unrelated. But the police chief wouldn’t have known that on the day of this presser.

  “Have you found any signs of forced entry to the home?”

  “No signs of forced entry.”

  “Do you see a motive for Nelson Fox?”

  “We are not releasing details as that aspect of the investigation is ongoing.”

  “Is it true you found two sets of boot prints leaving the back of the house?”

  “We found two sets of fishing boot prints, yes.”

  “Male or female?”

  “The sizes were too large for most women.”

  “Is it true that Nelson Fox’s fishing boots are the same size as the prints you found leaving the scene of the murder?”

  “We are not releasing details as that aspect of the investigation is ongoing.”

  “Are you exploring the possibility that the killers escaped by water since the house backed up to the Hills River?”

  “We are not releasing details as that aspect of the investigation is ongoing.”

  “Was anything stolen?”

  “Brenda Fox’s wallet.”

  “Was anything else stolen?”

  “Not that we’ve identified at this time.”

  “Have you found the murder weapon?”

  “No murder weapon has been located at this time.”

  “Have you identified the type of knives used in the attack?”

  “We are not releasing details as that aspect of the investigation is ongoing.”

  Jordan rolled her neck. She wasn’t getting anywhere. Still, she let the last few moments of the press conference play out.

  “Was anything left behind?”

  No! Nothing was left behind! Jordan wanted to give the reporter the answer herself. They pulled off the perfect crime, ma’am. Nothing left behind.

  But the police chief nodded. “We’re not gonna answer that because we’re not gonna answer any questions
that would impede our active and ongoing investigation.”

  Though he was saying no, he continued to nod. Was it possible that something had been left behind?

  She could ask for the police files again, but she’d already tried. Several times. Because the investigation was still technically open, the files and the evidence were not available for review. The only information she could get about the case was information the police chose to release. And they’d made it plain that they weren’t releasing anything more.

  Jordan had to get her dad’s signature on that consent form to get her dad’s file from Jenny Lane, the lawyer who took over his records after his original lawyer died. At the time her dad was a focus of the investigation, his lawyer might have had access to more evidence than what was shared with the public. Something had happened, eventually, to make the police believe her dad had not killed his wife. Jordan needed to know what that something actually was. Maybe it was because of whatever had been left behind.

  No question about it now. She owed it to her mother. She owed it to her dad, too. He still lived under that cloud of suspicion. It was long past time for him to be declared innocent to the people who had tried and convicted him in every public arena, even though he’d never been formally accused.

  And Jordan needed to know who killed her mom. She deserved justice, too. And she would get it.

  If only she could figure out how.

  CHAPTER 13

  Clayton texted around 11:00 p.m. After work, a squad car would follow her to the mansion and park outside overnight. Will call later, he’d said.

  Jordan should have called Tom Clark and told him not to come. But she’d had a tumultuous day and he was a friendly face. She wanted to see him, even though Drew was right. They couldn’t go anywhere tonight.

  She walked out promptly at 11:35. Tom was parked at the curb in front of the station. The TPD squad car Clayton had promised waited not far from Tom’s SUV. So far, so good.