His Fall From Power
Tasha Fawkes
Contents
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1. Jack
2. Blythe
3. Jack
4. Blythe
5. Jack
6. Blythe
7. Jack
8. Blythe
9. Jack
10. Blythe
11. Jack
12. Blythe
13. Jack
14. Blythe
15. Blythe
16. Jack
17. Blythe
18. Jack
19. Jack
20. Blythe
21. Blythe
22. Jack
23. Blythe
24. Jack
25. Blythe
26. Jack
27. Blythe
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About Tasha Fawkes
Copyright © 2019 by Tasha Fawkes
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One
Jack
Sherry Carin was dead.
I was still trying to wrap my head around the shocking news as I sat in the conference room at the police station. The detectives were courteous enough not to shove me into an interrogation room, but the substitute held little comfort.
The title of congressman had at least afforded me that, although I wasn’t fool enough not to realize how dire my circumstances were. Not only was Sherry my ex, but she had tried to ruin Blythe’s reputation when I wouldn’t immediately take her back into my bed.
She had texted me to tell me that if I didn’t meet her, she’d do worse.
Sherry Carin was found shot to death in Greenspan Park earlier this morning. We know that she’s been recently trying to reconnect with you. We know that she was waiting for you last night.
The words echoing in my head chilled my blood.
Next to the sunny window, a small coffee machine hummed as Detective Winkler made a cup. He and his partner, Detective Garcia, were quietly waiting in the room with me while I waited for my lawyer to show up. They insisted that it wasn’t necessary, but I wasn’t stupid enough to speak to them without counsel. They’d done me the courtesy of an informal room, but I knew they’d try and intimidate me into a confession. I hadn’t killed Sherry. I’d been with Blythe all night.
Unfortunately, using one lover to alibi myself for the death of an ex-lover obviously didn’t ring true for the older detectives.
If the conference room was a step up from the interrogation room, I shuddered to think of what it looked like. There were coffee stains on the dingy white walls and the beige carpet. The rectangular oak table was chipped and rough, and the orange swivel chairs were in poor taste. The room was only made more garish under the fluorescent lights and the wrath of the Miami sun. The detectives looked right at home.
The door opened, and Klaus Wardell strolled in with all the power that a partner at one of the most successful law firms could afford. It was all I could do to not roll my eyes. Obviously, my father had intervened. I utilized a different firm, but Wardell and Wardell were popular among Florida’s elite. Hale Drayson was one of their best clients.
“I’d like a moment alone with the congressman,” Klaus announced with a steely glint in his eyes. For as long as I’d known him, he’d had white hair, but he’d apparently taken to dying it brown. If he thought it made him look younger, he was wrong. His skin still sagged around the cheeks, and the weary look in his eyes belied his age.
Last year, my father had complained that the older man was thinking of retiring. Of course, my father had put his foot down on that. He’d work with a Wardell until the man was halfway in his grave, but he wasn’t going to work with Klaus’s daughter.
If he expected the detectives to cower, he was in for a surprise. I’d spent the last half an hour studying Winkler and Garcia. They played the role of the apologetic and bumbling detectives well enough, but I could read their body language. They’d honed their non-verbal communication like a well-oiled machine, and there was a cold and cynical look in their eyes as they flashed the pictures of a dead Sherry Carin at me.
They were seasoned, tough, and would have no problems arresting a congressman if the evidence warranted it.
They gave the room to Klaus and me, and the lawyer sat down and opened his briefcase. “Your father sent me,” he said stiffly as he took out his notepad. “You’re being questioned for the shooting of your ex-girlfriend. Your father knew that she recently reentered your life., but I’ll need details.”
“Fine,” I said calmly. “The most important detail you need to know is that I have an alibi. I was with a woman all night. Blythe Hemsey.”
Klaus frowned, and I could almost see him mentally thumbing through his rolodex. “The founder of Humane Miami? The woman who was publicly accused of sleeping with wealthy men for donations?”
“The accusations were not founded,” I growled. I was not about to let anyone drag Blythe’s name through the mud again. “I made a press release in her defense.”
“So, in other words, your alibi is someone who owes you. Are you sleeping with her?”
I wasn’t just sleeping with the woman. I adored her. Was crazy about her. Just bought a fucking ring for her even though I knew that Blythe would need time. She was still adjusting to the fact that I loved her. If I shoved a ring on her finger, she’d probably shut down completely.
“Yes.”
“Is it a casual relationship?”
“She’s not fucking me for money if that’s what you’re asking,” I growled. It still stung that Sherry’d had the gall to leak that vicious lie to the press.
“Congressman Dray—”
I held up a hand. “Jack.” I leaned back in my chair. “C’mon, Klaus. You’ve known me since I was ten.”
“Jack, then.” He smiled softly. “I’m not trying to piss you off. I just need the facts.”
I relaxed. There was no need to defend my relationship with Blythe. It wasn’t on trial, but I might be. If Klaus needed to know the truth, then I would give it to him.
“Blythe and I are not in a casual relationship. It’s more than that.” I smiled a little at the memory of her stomping into the bar, still a little drunk, and confronting me. Her charity was floundering thanks to two wealthy men who were pissed over one’s spurned advances. None of that was my fault, but my office had brushed her aside, unknowingly to me, and I made a good target.
From the beginning, there was a passion in her that I couldn’t ignore. After Kadir Al-Latif had tried to pay her for sex and billionaire businessman Hirsh had effectively scared away her donors because she’d said no, Blythe had been scared of what was brewing between us.
Now, everything we’d cultivated could be ruined.
“Tell me about Sherry,” Klaus instructed as he got up and walked to the coffee machine.
I tapped my finger on the table and tried to ignore the headache forming between my eyes. Maybe the caffeine would help with that.
“Sherry and I were in a relationship several years ago. It was mostly sexual, but because she was from a wealthy family, it was public, so we pretended that it was more. I never had any intentions of marrying her, and she knew that. Eventually, we ended things. At the time, it was mutual. She wasn’t surprised. Things had fizzled between us. She claimed that she went home to Savannah to stay out of the public eye f
or a little while. I mostly forgot about her. That was two years ago.”
“And then?”
“And then I won my reelection, and Sherry popped back into my life. At first, she told me that she’d returned recently to Miami and wanted to congratulate me. I made it clear that I wasn’t interested in anything more. Then she followed me to Jacksonville and cornered me. She wanted back in my life. I told her that was never going to happen. She swore that she’d make me regret it.”
Klaus sat a cup of coffee in front of me and held a second in his hands. “Go on.”
I shrugged. “At that point, I called my father. He informed me that he’d discovered that Sherry had never left Florida. It became clear that she was targeting me. The next thing I knew, she’d uncovered some dirt on Blythe and blew it out of proportion.”
Klaus sipped the coffee and immediately grimaced. “Hell, that’s bad. Cop coffee is the worst. It must help with interrogations.” He pushed the cup away. “So, she took credit for going to the media about Ms. Hemsey’s shady past?”
“It’s not shady,” I snapped. “Hirsh was originally her biggest donor. It turned out that he was only helping her because his good friend Al-Latif wanted her. They tried to manipulate her. She resisted. She is not a whore.”
“All right,” the lawyer said with a trace of amusement as he sat back down, pushing the cup even farther away. “You don’t need to convince me, but you will have to watch your tone. The detectives are going to dig in on that fact, and if you continue to lash out in anger, it will only feed their assumptions that you killed Sherry out of rage to protect your current girlfriend. Keep it calm, cool, and collected. Back to Sherry. She sent you a text?”
Taking a sip, I shuddered. The coffee tasted burnt and thick as tar. “She no doubt sent the press release and knew that I was in the midst of smoothing things over. She promised that she’d do much worse if she didn’t get what she wanted. She asked me to meet her in the park that night.”
“It’s an odd place to meet,” Klaus pointed out. “Why not meet somewhere more private like your penthouse?”
“Are you suggesting that you think she was scared I’d do her harm?”
“No, Jack. I’m just trying to get all the facts.”
Frustrated, I ran my hand through my hair. “Sherry would know that I would never hurt her. I’m not that kind of man. The park was just another chess piece on her board. A manipulative move. She always claimed that it was one of her favorite places in the city, so we’d meet there often. She was adventurous. Under the cover of night, she’d become a little free with her hands and her mouth. I’m sure you get the picture,” I said dryly.
Klaus didn’t seem at all surprised. “So, she thought that it would remind you of happier times.”
“Or maybe she thought she could use it to blackmail me further. I don’t know. I told Blythe about it. I didn’t respond to the text. I didn’t meet her. I spent all night at Blythe’s. Her damn walls are so thin that her neighbors probably heard us. All night.”
A small smile tugged on Klaus’s lips, but he was smart enough not to comment. “As long as Blythe confirms your alibi, the detectives can’t arrest you unless they find hard evidence on Sherry’s body. In any case, this is more complicated than a lover’s spat. It’s one thing for the woman to come back into your life and hope to win you back now that your political career is on track. She comes from a political family. She likes power, but if she really did leak the false information about Ms. Hemsey to the press, then she dug that information up quickly. A little too quickly.”
I shook my head and frowned. “Blythe and I haven’t been seeing each other for all that long. I know that Hirsh pressured her other donors from withdrawing their support, but there’s no way that he told them the truth about her and Al-Latif. The knowledge wouldn’t have been public.”
“Which means that Sherry had access to someone who could get her the information. That makes things a little more difficult.” Klaus tapped his pencil on the notepad. “So far, you’ve had nothing to hide. Be transparent with the detective. If they had any hard evidence on you, then you’d be in an interrogation room or in handcuffs. Answer them calmly, and if I tell you not to answer something, listen. I’m expensive for a reason. Keep that in mind.”
Klaus rose to let the detective in, and I swallowed hard. This whole thing was a tangled mess. I was a suspect in a murder. Even if the real killer was found, there would always be lingering doubt in someone’s mind. My career might not survive this, but there was something that I saw very clearly.
I was the reason that Blythe’s reputation was nearly ruined. What would this do to her if I continued seeing her?
Two
Blythe
“Carl, you’re hovering,” I said for what felt like the hundredth time that morning. Since discovering that I had planned on contacting Hirsh today about the lies he’d been spreading, Jack had insisted that his bodyguard accompany me. After the last couple of days spent in Jack’s arms, laughing and making love, the morning back at work was a harsh reality.
To make things worse, Carl didn’t like me all that much. Something about me slipping past him and shouting at his boss in a bar in front of his staff. I’d apologized. It didn’t seem to matter. Now, he seemed to enjoy pissing me off.
“I’m standing by the door,” he pointed out. “It’s not my fault that you have such a small office.”
He wasn’t wrong. If I could have, I’d work out of my apartment and save money, but I knew how that would look. A charity without an office? Red flags all around.
The rented upstairs space was nothing to boast about. It wasn’t in the greatest neighborhood, but then, I worked with underprivileged kids, so I didn’t need to be in some skyscraper. The owner of the sunglass shop below us was nice enough. We had a private entrance from a side street, but we kept the door locked for safety reasons. What could I say? The price was right.
“But I’ve told you, the entrance to our office is locked outside. No one can come in unless we let them in.”
“Locks can be picked.”
Good lord, the man was ridiculous. If Hirsh or Al-Latif really wanted to hurt me, they’d probably just pay someone to shoot me on the street and not break into my office.
Although that idea didn’t sit well with me either.
I’d half-expected to find a swarm of reporters ready to jump on me as soon as I left my apartment, but they were surprisingly sparse. Maybe they were suitably apologetic after slandering my name.
There was a rattling sound on the lock downstairs, and Carl immediately reached for his gun. “It’s just Rachel,” I hurried to say. “For god’s sakes, don’t shoot her! Humane Miami would fall apart without her.”
The door opened. “I’m late!” Rachel sang out. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I was up all night trying to come up with plans of attack for when the media…whoa.” She stopped short and stared at Carl. “Wow. You’re big. Like, really big.”
I suppressed a snort. “Rachel, this is Carl. He’s Jack’s bodyguard. Today, he’s here to annoy me. Carl, this is Rachel. She’s my lifesaver.”
Carl’s normally stoic face softened just a little as Rachel reached out and shook his hand. “Wow. A real-life bodyguard. You certainly look the part. Were you a professional football player in a past life? Or maybe just a brick wall? Wait a minute, why do you need a bodyguard? Has something happened?”
Rachel was a whirlwind of energy. She had two modes. The first and the reason that I hired her was her rapid problem-solving skills and overall bubbly personality. She only worked for me part-time, and she understood that I couldn’t pay her much. She didn’t care. She was just as passionate about helping kids as I was.
Her second mode was full dramatic theatrics, and I was worried that she was about to slide right into second mode. “No, no,” I said soothingly. “Jack was just worried that the press would be all over us. He felt better knowing that someone was looking out after us.”
She
practically melted. “That’s so sweet.”
As I watched, I realized that she was still holding Carl’s hand and looking at him with wide eyes. Carl wasn’t helping things by pulling his hand back or moving out of her way.
Clearing my throat, I tried to break up whatever was going on. “So, I’m organizing a special dinner for the kids to thank them for coming to my aid. I hate that they had to do that, and I need to do something for them.”
As if coming out of some Carl-induced fugue, Rachel pulled her hand back and stalked over to me. “They didn’t have to.” She enunciated each word slowly. “They wanted to. You do so much for them. They wanted to set the record straight.”
I was still in awe at the lengths the kids had gone to in order to come to my aid. They’d stood with Jack at his press conference and been on their best behavior as they declared that the press was wrong when they’d tried to gleefully tear my reputation to shreds.
“Well, I’m embarrassed that they were involved with the situation. I’ve been going through my emails. Most parents are understanding and supportive, but others are reasonably concerned. I’m going to send off a newsletter to try to explain everything. I’m just about finished. Will you look it over for me in a minute?”
“Of course! Has anyone been asking you for interviews?”
“Tons. I don’t have time to do all of them, so I think I’ll do just one and be done with it. I want to put this whole thing behind me as quickly as possible.” I sighed. “I need to contact Hirsh.”
His Fall From Power Page 1