He ended his call with Mikaela at nearly the same time that Carly ended hers with Vivi. Resting his head against the back of his chair, he inhaled a deep breath of the fall evening air then rolled his head over to look at his companion on the porch.
“Lots of news, I take it?” he asked.
“Lots of potential news,” she answered, staring out toward the pond. Then she turned to look over at him. And smiled. “Maybe the glass of whiskey wasn’t such a good idea. You look tired,” she said.
He smiled back. “Not physically tired, but frustrated. I was hoping they would find more.”
“I know exactly what you mean.” She began to unwrap herself from the blankets and stand up. “Come on. It’s getting cold out here. Let’s take our snack inside. I’ll make some coffee, you can make a fire, and then we can fill each other in on the news.”
He stood and picked up the platter as she gathered everything else and they headed inside—he to the living room, where he made some room on the coffee table for the platter then turned his attention to the fireplace.
He could hear Carly in the kitchen making coffee as he started the fire. When the kindling started to crackle and flame, he took a look at the woodpile. They had enough for now, but it wouldn’t last too long into the night.
“Where do you keep your wood?” he asked as he came into the kitchen and paused by the back door.
“It’s in a shed to the left of the—” Her voice cut off at the sound of a car pulling into her drive.
He knew of no reason why the hairs on the back of his neck should stand up. The car could be anyone. It could be Marcus or Ian or Vivi or even her friends Matty and Dash again. Intellectually, he knew that. But still, he stayed where he was, out of sight from the front door.
“Carly? Come over here,” he managed to say.
She glanced at him, looked about to argue, then calmly walked toward him. The minute he could reach her, he grabbed her and pulled her against him.
“Do you think you might be overreacting?” she asked, pressed against his chest.
“Maybe,” he conceded. They heard a car door shut and, despite her words, he could feel her body tense against his.
“It could be anyone. It could be Marcus,” she said quietly.
“Could be.”
“Drew.”
Then there was a knock at the door. They both went still. Another knock. And then a voice.
“Hello? Hello? Carolyn? Are you here?”
Carly nearly shot out of his arms. He held her tight as she turned her eyes to him. He could feel his blood vessels expand as adrenalin flooded his system.
“Carly?” he whispered.
She’d gone pale, her eyes wild. “Oh my god, Drew. That’s Joe Franks.”
Chapter Fifteen
Carly felt every muscle in Drew’s body tense as his arms tightened around her. She watched his face change; the relaxed expression he’d worn all afternoon shifted to something altogether different. The man he’d been was gone, replaced by the seasoned agent.
“We need to call 911,” she said.
He looked down at her. “You are 911. Do you have your weapon?”
She shook her head against his chest. “It’s upstairs in the lock box.” She didn’t carry it in the house, had never had a need to. And in the five years she’d been working in Windsor, she’d only had to pull it out less than a half a dozen times and had never discharged it outside of the shooting range.
Franks knocked at the door again.
“Drew?”
What to do when a potentially corrupt FBI agent came knocking at her door wasn’t something she’d been taught in the academy. Especially not when the agent was possibly the person responsible for her mother’s death.
She could feel the blood pounding through her system, pulsing through her temples.
Drew released her a bit and squatted down. When he rose he had a small gun he’d pulled from his ankle holster.
“Call Ian first, since we know he’s nearby, then call Marcus. He’s probably still in Albany, but in case he’s on his way back, we could use him,” he said, taking his phone from his pocket and unlocking it before handing it over to her.
She took the phone. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to slip out the back door and come around behind him,” he answered. “I want you to stay right here, though. Right here behind the stairwell where he can’t see you.”
She nodded, not taking issue with way he dispensed the order.
“Don’t come into view until you hear me tell you to, okay?”
Again, she nodded. He gave her one last look, brushed his fingertips over her cheek, then slipped silently through the porch door and disappeared around the back of the house.
The knock came again and she backed as far against the stairwell as she could get. Without Drew standing beside her, she felt exposed. Franks couldn’t see her in either position, but tucking herself against a wall as she dialed Ian’s number made her feel safer.
“MacAllister,” Ian said.
“Franks is here, Ian,” she said.
As she listened for Ian’s response, she heard Drew’s voice come booming from the front of the house. “Joe Franks, put your hands where I can see them.” And that, more than anything over the past two minutes, made her heart race. If Franks had a gun or a weapon, Drew could be in real danger.
“I’m on my way,” Ian answered. “Leave the line on—put the phone in your pocket, if you can. I’m just south of town and can be there in five minutes.”
Carly didn’t say anything more; she was too focused on what was happening on her front porch.
“Now turn around slowly, you know the drill.” Carly leaned against the wall, her heart thudding, and listened.
“Slowly lift the edges of your jacket,” Drew said.
“I’m unarmed,” Franks answered.
“You’re a near forty-year veteran of the FBI, you’re never unarmed.”
“I’m not here as an FBI agent today,” Franks said.
Judging by the lack of a follow-up order from Drew, Carly suspected Franks was complying.
“Carly,” Drew called, making her jump. “I want you to come out now.”
As she peeked around the stairwell and stepped out into the kitchen area, she could see Drew standing in front of the porch with his gun. Franks still must have been standing by the front door, as she couldn’t see him at all.
“Franks, the door behind you is going to open,” Drew said as she approached it from her side. “Don’t turn around, don’t move. Don’t look, don’t even think about it. Do you understand?”
Carly had her hand on the knob and she assumed Franks must have agreed when Drew spoke again. “Good, Carly can you come out now?”
Slowly, she opened the door, keeping her body behind it as best she could. Her eyes went first to Drew, who looked completely in control, as if he could stand there all day, and then to the back of Franks. He’d gone grayer in the intervening years, but he was still wearing the kind of clothes she remembered him wearing—work boots, jeans, a collared shirt, and a sports jacket.
“Carly, I need you to search him,” Drew said. Her eyes went back to him. He didn’t like asking her to touch the man who might be responsible for her mother’s death. And, strangely enough, his obvious concern made it easier to do.
Setting the phone down on the arm of one of the porch chairs, she started at Franks’s ankles. She did the most thorough pat down she’d ever done in her life, knowing not only her life, but possibly also Drew’s, depended on it. When she finished, she stepped back and gave Drew a nod, indicating she’d found nothing.
He nodded back. “Why don’t you step away. Come on over here.” She heard a quick intake of breath come from Franks when she passed by him without looking. Reaching Drew’s side she turned around and met the eyes of the man she’d been wondering if she’d ever really known.
“I’m here as a friend, Carolyn,” Franks said.
<
br /> She studied him for a long moment. Beside her, she felt Drew giving her the time and space to decide—he’d made sure they were safe, but now he was leaving it to her to decide what to do next.
She remembered Franks as having been an attractive man in the way older men were to young girls, and time hadn’t changed that. His face held a few more wrinkles than she remembered, but his lean frame, dark hair streaked with a distinguished amount of gray, and dark brown eyes—eyes filled with concern—painted a familiar, and handsome, picture.
“My name is Carly now,” she said, dimly aware of sirens in the background.
“Carly,” Franks repeated. “You look so much like your mother.” She knew emotions could be faked, but hearing the pain in his voice when he mentioned her mother reminded her of all the times she’d seen him watch Sophia Davidson. The happiness and love she’d seen on his face, and on her mother’s, was hard for even the most self-involved teenager to miss.
“It’s okay,” she said, putting a hand on Drew’s arm. Slowly, he lowered his weapon as Ian pulled into her drive. She felt the muscles in his arm tense, no doubt wondering if Franks would use the distraction to make a move. But she knew he wouldn’t.
And he didn’t. Joe Franks stood still as a statue as Ian joined them in front the house, his weapon in hand.
“Everything okay?” Ian asked.
“Carly?” Drew said.
She took one more long look at Franks and his eyes met and held hers. He seemed to be asking her to trust him, but he didn’t say it. Like Drew and Ian, he was leaving that decision to her.
“It’s not okay, but I think Joe is going to be able to clear a few things up, aren’t you, Joe?” she said not taking her eyes off of him.
He held hers too, as if he was drinking in the sight of her. “Yes, I can do that,” he replied.
She held his gaze for one more moment before turning to Drew. He’d put his gun down and, without her even noticing, had tucked her hand that had been on his arm into his, curling his fingers around hers.
He gave her hand a little squeeze. “Shall we go inside?”
Her eyes flitted to Ian, also standing beside her, calm and watchful as always. She had two good friends who had her back in more ways than one.
“Yes, let’s go inside.”
It was time to learn what had happened all those years ago.
• • •
Drew shot a look at Ian—he didn’t want the sheriff to let his guard down quite yet. They would follow Carly’s lead, but not blindly. In response, Ian placed his weapon in its holster, but left the holster unfastened.
Drew picked up his phone as he and Carly moved into the house. Franks came in behind them with Ian trailing.
“I didn’t call Marcus,” she said to him quietly.
“I’ll do it,” he replied. Then, to both Carly and Franks, he said, “Why don’t you two have a seat?”
Minutes later, both Marcus and Mikaela Marsh—who deserved to hear firsthand what Franks might have to say about the death of her deputy—were on their way.
Drew was pulling out a chair to sit down himself when the coffee maker beeped, reminding him that, just minutes earlier, they’d been doing nothing more exciting than making coffee, building a fire, and getting ready to go through one last box.
“Do you want a cup?” he asked, putting a hand on her shoulder to draw her attention away from Franks. The two were studying each other and neither seemed to know quite what to make of the situation.
She looked up then blinked. “Uh, yes, please. I made a lot in case we wanted more than a cup, so there should be enough for everyone.”
Drew looked at Franks, who nodded and said, “Yes, thank you.”
Predictably, Ian declined, no doubt preferring to keep his hands available should he need them.
After setting one cup down in front of Carly and another in front of Franks, Drew took his own and sat down between the two.
“You really do look like your mother,” Franks repeated.
“I heard that a lot growing up,” she said.
A moment of silence passed, then Franks looked over at Drew. “What do you want to know? Where should I start?”
“Marcus is on his way over, as is Marguerite Silva’s former supervisor. We’ll wait until they get here to start,” Drew answered.
Franks took a moment to digest this then turned his attention back to Carly. “I know it probably doesn’t seem like anything makes sense right about now, but I promise you I will do my best to explain what I can,” he said to her. “I don’t have all the answers and I hope that’s where you all can help, but I will tell you everything I know.”
Drew didn’t need to look at Ian to know the sheriff felt as cynical as he did about that statement. Sure, stranger things had happened, but with Carly’s life and happiness on the line, he wasn’t going to start out by giving Franks the benefit of the doubt.
“Did you really love my mother?” Carly asked suddenly.
Drew watched Franks. It looked as though someone had sucked the air right out of the man’s lungs.
Franks struggled to catch a breath for a moment before he responded. “Yes, I did. Very much. She was the first, and really only, woman I ever loved.” Then he paused and turned to Drew, silently asking permission to talk about this subject before the others arrived.
He replied with a nod.
“You know we went to high school together,” Franks continued. “I transferred in my junior year, when Sophia was a sophomore. I remember the first time I saw her. I was sitting in the registrar’s office waiting for my class schedule and she walked in with a note from one of the teachers.
“She walked me to my first class and I think I’ve been in love with her ever since. Of course, I went off to college, and then she did too. We drifted—she moved to England after graduating and I was already working for the bureau at the time. She met your dad and we eventually lost touch.”
“But you reconnected, obviously,” she said.
Drew listened to what Franks said, but his attention was on Carly—because, of all the questions she could have asked, this was what she wanted to know first.
“Yes,” Franks answered.
“And when you came back into her life, was that for show? Was any of that real?”
Drew understood her true question from the small hitch in her voice. Nothing about what had happened back then made any sense to her—nothing other than what she had witnessed between her mother and Franks. And she wanted to know if this one, simple—or as simple as love can be—thing had been true.
“For me? It was all real, every second of it,” he answered. “But for your mother, I think it was different. The situation was difficult and we’ll talk more when the others get here, but she wasn’t sure whether to trust me or not and, honestly, I don’t blame her. But by the end, it was all very real. What you saw between your mom and me was true. Had it not ended the way it had,” his eyes dropped and he cleared his throat. “Well, we had been talking about getting married.”
Carly sat back and took a sip of her coffee, letting his words hang in the room. They were all quiet for several minutes before the sound of two cars arriving fractured the silence.
“Ian?” Drew said.
“Got it,” Ian answered, moving to the door. “It’s Marcus and Mikaela,” he said as he opened the door.
“Carly?” Marcus called as he hit the landing of the door a minute later.
“She’s fine,” Ian answered.
But even with his friend’s assurance, Marcus walked straight to his sister. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said, echoing Ian then inclining her head in Franks’ direction.
Marcus straightened and looked at the man from his past.
As he watched a myriad of emotions wash across Marcus’s face—anger being the most prominent—Drew stood, hoping to defuse any tension. “Marcus, why don’t you have a seat and I’ll get you a cup of coffee?”
Marc
us looked about to argue, but then looked at his sister and took a seat.
“Mikaela?” Drew asked. The marshal shook her head.
Drew retrieved Marcus’s coffee as the rest of them settled, then took his seat again. He could feel the tension building in the room, both Marcus and Mikaela seemed to have ratcheted it up more than a few notches, so he thought it best to get started and hope what they were about to hear would distract them enough from their own thoughts.
“Franks,” Drew directed.
“Call me Joe.”
Drew thought not—not yet. “Why don’t you get started?”
“Yes, how about you start by telling us if you killed Marguerite?” Mikaela demanded.
Joe’s head reared back, then a look of sadness came into his eyes and he shook his head. “I did not kill her, but I know who did.”
“Who?” Marcus demanded.
“Vince Repetto. And whoever else is working with him.”
“Special Agent Vince Repetto? The man you worked with undercover when investigating Sophia Davidson and Tony Lamot?” Mikaela clarified.
“Yes, but we weren’t investigating Sophia and Tony back then, we were investigating Repetto,” Joe answered, confirming what they had all suspected—that the entire situation had been a counterintelligence operation.
“And how do you know Repetto killed her?” Mikaela pressed.
“Because I was tracking him. Or his phone, anyway.” Joe took a deep breath and started to tell his story. “Repetto has been after Michael and Carolyn—”
“Marcus and Carly, now,” Marcus interrupted.
Joe paused for a moment, then continued. “Repetto has been after the kids since they were first put into the program. I’ll go into what happened back then in a minute, but I think right now you want to hear about Marguerite.” When Marcus and Carly nodded, he continued. “She and I have kept in touch ever since the day she was assigned to your case. Not openly, mind you, but we had our ways of communicating so I could check in and see how you two were doing.”
Marcus opened his mouth to say something but Carly silenced him with a look.
“A few weeks ago, she called me and told me she thought Repetto was back on the trail,” Joe said.
An Inarticulate Sea Page 21