by Misty Evans
Exposing Justice
Justice Team Series 4
by
Misty Evans
&
Adrienne Giordano
Exposing Justice
Copyright © 2015 Misty Evans and Adrienne Giordano
ISBN-13: 978-1-942504-02-3
Cover Art by Hot Damn Designs
Formatting by Author E.M.S.
Editing by Gina Bernal & Marcie Gately
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Prologue
“I’m hit.”
Chief Justice Raymond Turner lay on the cold cement spanning the Gaynor Bridge and stared up at the late March sky. The brilliant blue, a blue so pure with only a few fluffy clouds destroying its perfection, seemed contrived, painted with an artist’s brush.
But, goddammit, his chest hurt.
Someone to his left—Tony—shouted something about a shooter. Then came a scream. A woman this time and Tony demanding she quiet down.
If his chest didn’t hurt so damned much, Raymond would have laughed.
He pressed his hand against the wool of his coat where warm blood seeped. Despite the thick material, a slick, oily texture that he’d always hated coated his fingers. Pain ricocheted—goddamn—and needing oxygen, he inhaled the coppery smell of his own blood.
I’m dying.
Inside his shoes, those ridiculously expensive shoes Marie insisted on buying, his toes tingled and he wiggled them. Hopefully wiggled them. All he knew for sure, dictated by the numbness in his extremities, was that his blood was draining fast.
He inhaled again, sparking a string of rapid breaths and as much as he tried, he couldn’t even them out, balance the short ones with the long ones. No matter his strength of mind, his body was in charge.
Blue sky. Amazing. Good day to die.
Tony’s big head appeared over him, blocking the view and pissing Raymond off. If he was heading to his Maker, he wanted that goddamned blue sky, not Tony’s giant head. But his day driver, a member of the Supreme Court Police force, was a good lad, always wanting to please.
How did I get here?
He’d received a number of death threats, no surprise there. But bleeding out on a bridge? This would be his legacy.
“Sir!” Tony said. “Help is on the way.”
Too late for that.
Some things were inherent. Sleep. Hunger. Bowel movements. Instinctively one knew when it was time.
Apparently death was no different.
All around voices and car horns blended, the sounds shrill and irritating—crime scene—but that sky?
Spectacular.
Tony disappeared from his view, probably not far off. The boy understood the rigors of a protection detail and wouldn’t leave his charge. Under any circumstances. Even for a psycho shooting innocent people.
“Clear that path!” Tony’s voiced boomed.
Being a Supreme Court Justice had never put Raymond in the midst of a crime scene. He’d only experienced crime from the bench. Or the prosecutor’s table. Something to be thankful for he supposed.
How ironic. Or just plain stupid. All the murderers he’d prosecuted and then, later, sentenced, some to death, and here he was, dying on a gridlocked bridge after a road rage argument.
“Tony? Shooter?”
“Don’t worry about it, sir. Help is here. Coming up the bridge now.”
Tony’s piss-poor attempt to deflect Raymond’s thoughts was fairly typical of the man. But if he was dying on this goddamned bridge in this goddamned frigid cold he wanted to know who the son of a bitch was. “Got...away?”
“Sir, please.”
An enormous pressure landed on the center of his chest, the pain ruthless and agonizing and the icy numbness in his right foot expanded to his leg. “Hurts.”
“You got hit in the chest, sir. My hand is on it.”
“Well, don’t do that.”
At that, Tony laughed. Even dying, Raymond could get the kid to laugh. He joined in, the sound phlegmy and nothing he ever wanted to hear come out of his own body. But hell, he was dying. He glanced down at his chest where Tony continued to hold his hands over the wound as oily blood stained his hands. My blood. Raymond’s vision blurred and he blinked.
What was I saying?
“Tony, we’re going to be late for church.”
Is it Sunday?
Raymond closed his eyes, tried to focus his scattered thoughts. He knew what this was. Years of listening to testimony had taught him that when dying, chemical imbalances in the body led to decreased blood flow to the brain. Decreased blood flow equaled confusion.
“Bless me Father, for I have sinned...”
“Sir,” Tony said, “knock it off.”
“I’m dying.”
“No, sir. You are not. It’s shock. Help is on the way. Please, sir. Just shut the hell up. Focus on slowing your breathing. Hey! Back away. Unless you’re a doctor.”
Raymond opened his eyes, saw Tony directing his harshest, most brutal stare off to the right. For five years, Tony had been leveling that stare on anyone who dared to annoy his protectee. Barely thirty, the man had become a second son to Raymond. Maybe more of a son. Considering Raymond the third despised his father. Tony, though, this boy knew loyalty.
And how to give it.
“Thank you, Tony.”
“Sir, shut up.”
Raymond patted his hand still applying pressure to his chest. “It’s okay, son. I’m okay.”
A siren wailed. Maybe luck would be with him today. Maybe he’d walk home to his wife, call his son and tell him he loved him. Maybe.
Church today.
“Clear that path!” Tony demanded, his voice shaking but still showing his normal commanding resolve.
The cold spread from Raymond’s legs into his torso and he shivered against it. Willed his coat to do it’s damned job. Fucking coat cost five hundred dollars and it couldn’t do its job?
Or maybe it wasn’t the coat. If he was dying, he’d gotten ripped off. No bright lights, no angels waving him home. None of that. Just a paralyzing cold on a sunny March day.
He glanced up at the sky again, took in the puffs of clouds, drew a deep rattling breath. Our Father, who art in heaven…
Chapter One
Brice Brennan sat alone at his computer watching a blinking cursor. He needed a story. A kick-ass story that no one else had.
And time was running out.
It was only three o’clock in the afternoon, yet he sat in the dark, courtesy of his blackout curtains. Today’s blog had to be up by nine. Fifty-five thousand and sixty-three fans, and six new advertisers, were waiting for it. After he’d exposed the United States’ deputy
attorney general and the ATF’s collaboration on a gunwalking scandal recently, his readership had exploded.
His readers wanted scandal. Real journalism, not sugarcoated updates running ad nauseam or ratings-whoring gossip passed off as investigative reporting.
Tick-tock.
Brice tapped his thumb against his desktop. Three big news stories had flooded the blogosphere today. Each held potential for him, but none yet had generated any calls from his covert, and oftentimes dissident, sources.
Knowledge was power. Once he hit on a story, he became engrossed in it. He wouldn’t let it go until he exposed the truth.
As if summoned by his sheer desperation, his phone rang—the private tip line running through his computer. Brice’s pulse jumped. This could be it. The tip he was waiting for.
“‘The duty of a true patriot is to protect his country from its government.’ This is Hawkeye. Go.”
The Thomas Paine quote was his motto and what he founded the blog on. He recorded all his tip calls through the computer, which meant all of them ran through the speakers since he never used headphones. When you were always alone, what did you need headphones for?
“Hawkeye, this is Lodestone.”
Lodestone was a government employee who seemed to enjoy being Brice’s informant. He’d never said as much, but Brice knew the type. Knew the man had connections Brice could only dream of, and best of all, Lodestone never asked for money. “Go ahead, Lodestone. I’m listening.”
“I have information about the death of Chief Justice Raymond Turner.”
A spurt of adrenaline shot through Brice’s limbs. “The road rage accident?”
“It’s no coincidence that he got held up on that bridge.” A pause—Lodestone deciding how much he could share? “A sensitive case was on the docket for Turner to decide whether the Supreme Court would hear it or not. Look into it. You never know what you might find.”
The line went dead.
Brice disconnected and stared blankly at the screen. If Turner’s death wasn’t an accident…
The screensaver had appeared on his computer. The Patriot Blog’s logo of an eagle. He tapped a key to wake the computer up, ready to start digging, when three loud knocks on his door interrupted him.
The first three were followed by a single knock.
Brice hung his head.
The coded knocks meant only one thing.
The Justice Team had arrived.
Maybe if he didn’t respond, they’d go away.
“Open up, Brennan,” Justice “Grey” Greystone called from the other side.
Brice swore under his breath. If he played possum, pretended he wasn’t even there, Grey would…
“Or I’ll have Mitch pick the locks. Either way, we’re coming in.”
How long was this going to go on?
Jumping up from his office chair, he hustled to the door, unlocked the three deadbolts and doorknob, and cracked the door open two inches.
“I’m not interested, Grey,” he told the leader of the Justice Team standing on his front porch looking like the Federal agent he used to be. Dark clothes, fake smile. Batman in his Bruce Wayne persona. “We’ve already had this discussion. Six times by my count.”
The weak smile on Grey’s lips struggled to stay in place. The man never smiled unless his fiancé was in spitting distance. He was trying to appear friendly and inviting. Mostly, he looked constipated.
“There are perks.” Grey glanced at Mitch, aka, Robin, and nodded.
When all else fails, go to your wingman.
“Like what?” Brice asked, chewing on the side of his thumbnail. “Being shot at? Having to send your girlfriend undercover as a stripper? Oh, yeah, that sounds better than medical insurance and vacation days.” He switched his gaze to Robin. “Oh, and how about being framed for your best friend’s murder? It’s hard to top that as a perk.”
Grey’s hard eyes turned to pure steel. Although the Justice Team’s past operations had all ended successfully, each one had put the members in extreme situations where things could have gone south in a hurry. Brice had been in on one of them in New Mexico with Mitch and his girlfriend, Caroline. Brice was lucky he was still breathing. They were all lucky they weren’t in jail.
Mitch grinned and shoved his way inside. His coat was unzipped and it fell open to reveal a T-shirt that read, I put the Hot in psychotic. He took up residence in Brice’s leather recliner with a big plop and Grey followed. “Jesus it’s dark in here. Are you a vampire or something, Brice?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “As far as perks, you get to look at my handsome face every day, Brice buddy. Best. Perk. Ever.”
Psychotic did not begin to describe Mitch Monroe. Brice left the door ajar and went back to his chair. He didn’t like people in his space. Especially not Batman and Robin. “I’m sure Caroline enjoys that, but it takes more than a pretty face to make me want to give up my blog.”
“You don’t have to give up your blog, right, Grey?” Mitch nodded without waiting for his boss to agree. “Investigating conspiracies is exactly what we want you to continue doing.”
Cyber resistance against government corruption wasn’t just a theory for Brice. The First Amendment Patriot blog was his life. While he valued his privacy and didn’t like to call attention to himself, he had a strong internal sense of right and wrong and had no trouble blowing the whistle on corrupt politicians and government agencies. Others appreciated what he did. Donations to the blog paid his bills and he cared little about material wealth or possessions. As long as he kept his lifestyle lean, he’d be fine.
Tick-tock.
Grey didn’t look all that happy about Brice keeping his blog. “We have nine open cases right now that involve crooked politicians, lobbyists, and potential cover-ups. Your skills and contacts would help tremendously.”
Flattery. Grey was pulling out all the stops this round.
Brice’s ego did indeed like it, too. He was damn good at running his blog, and he’d once enjoyed being part of a taskforce. Lived for his job as an undercover ATF agent. The commendations in his folder had proven his worth, and the team of men he’d worked with had always had his back. Failure had never entered his mind.
Until his boss—his former partner—and the ATF sent him down in flames. The men he’d been closer to than his three brothers turned on each other.
Those days were over. Lesson learned. Never trust anyone.
Facts were more trustworthy than people. Detachment and autonomy were important to doing a good job. Exposing government coverups and bringing dirty cops, politicians, and even heads of the most powerful agencies in the world to heel from the safety of his computer was what he excelled at now.
“I’m no longer a team player.” Truer words had never been spoken. Swinging his chair around to emphasize his point, he turned his back on the two men he had let into his personal circle and now regretted. The safety of his computer beckoned. “I just got a lead on a breaking story, and I’m not coming to work for the Justice Team. Show yourselves out, ladies.”
Behind him, the leather chair squeaked as Mitch stood. An uncomfortable silence followed, complete with strained murmuring—Batman and Robin trying to figure out their next move.
Let ’em talk.
“What story?” Grey asked.
“Chief Justice Turner. The road rage accident that killed him may not have been an accident at all.”
“Murder?” Mitch slapped him on the back. “Make you a deal, Brice, ol’ buddy. You join the Justice Team, and I’ll help you investigate your lead on Turner.”
He was grinning like his offer was an obvious slam-dunk. Brice stood, grabbed Mitch’s arm and hustled him to the door. “I don’t need your help, Mitch, ol’ buddy, and I can investigate Turner’s death on my own.”
Mostly true. If there was anything worth investigating.
Grey stood at the computer, looking at the screen, one hand cupping his chin. “What makes you think Turner’s death was murder?”
> “I got a tip from a very reliable source.” Brice didn’t need to prove anything to these men, and yet, the investigator in him liked the credibility. “Claims Turner had a sensitive case on his docket that he was deciding on whether the court would hear it or not. Maybe nothing, but he told me to look into it.”
“Sounds far fetched to me. The Chief Justice probably had a long list of possible cases for the Court to hear.”
Mitch jerked his arm out of Brice’s hand. “Yeah, and every one of the plaintiffs believes their case is sensitive. It’s going to take a lot of work to dig into each and every one of them.”
A smile—the genuine thing—crept over Grey’s face. “How about I make you a deal, Brice? We help you get Turner’s list and do the digging. Save you a lot of time. If, of course, you help us out with a few of our cases.”
He itched to jump on this right away, but he didn’t need help. What he needed was for these two to leave him alone. “I’ll think about it and let you know my decision in the morning.”
Grey seemed unfazed by his delay. “Fair enough.”
After Batman and Robin left, Brice dropped back into this chair. A few clicks of his keyboard and he had the phone number for the Public Information Office of the Supreme Court.
He’d do his own investigation, like always. If that lead nowhere, he’d consider Grey’s deal.
As the phone rang on the other end, he smiled to himself. Nothing like a good conspiracy to get the adrenaline flowing.
“Denby! Get in here!”
Ooh! Hope Denby shot up, sending her rickety government-issued chair sailing against the back of her cubicle. She peeped over the wall in front of her at her cubemate, Rob. “Ohmygod, she’s insane today.”
Rob didn’t bother looking up from whatever he was reading on his computer. “Seriously fucking deranged. You’d better get in there.”
Because experience dictated she had thirty-point-two seconds to appear in front of her boss or she’d be bellowed at once again.