Shattered Secrets

by Jane M. Choate

  He couldn’t give that to her, not with his past that cast a shadow over every part of his life, but he could keep her safe. Olivia knew of the darkness within him, but eventually she’d look at him with disgust. He couldn’t bear that.

  She was holding up, had even found a small smile. “I wanted the truth. Looks like I got it. And then some. Nothing was real, was it?” And the smile, tiny as it was, slid right off her face. “Everything about Calvin was a lie. How could I have been so stupid? I believed him, believed in him.”

  “None of this is on you.”

  “Isn’t it?” she challenged. “I thought I knew him. Now I’m sure I didn’t know him at all. It feels like I don’t know anything anymore.”

  “That’s the grief talking.”

  “There’s no grief,” she denied, her voice a shadow of its normal resolve. “The man I thought I knew didn’t exist. So, no, I’m not grieving over him.” The anguish on her face as well as the self-blame in her voice tore at his heart.

  “You just said it. The man you thought you knew didn’t exist. You’re grieving over that.”

  “I can’t get a handle on it. Not any of it.” Tears formed in her eyes, the glistening drops clinging to her lashes.

  Sal resisted the urge to wipe them away. To touch her now would spell disaster for both of them. If he gave in to the desire to comfort her, he’d be unable to prevent himself from kissing her.

  He wanted to spare her the suffering but knew she would have to process it in her own way in her own time. “Give yourself a break. You’ve been going flat-out for days. No one can keep that up.”

  And then the dam broke. Sobs shook her slender body. He pulled her to him, her temple pressed against his chest as misery overtook her.

  He would have taken the pain for Olivia if it had been possible. Watching her shatter into pain-filled shards twisted his heart, his gut. How would he feel if someone he’d thought of as a friend had done the same?

  When she drew back, she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt.

  “I want to say that I know how you’re feeling,” Sal said, “but I don’t.”

  “But there’s Someone who does.”

  Confused, he stared at her until he realized she was speaking of the Savior.

  “Jesus was betrayed by a man He’d made a disciple. I picture Christ asking Himself why a friend turned against Him as Judas had. It must have caused Him unbelievable torment.”

  As Sal watched, a fierce resolve settled on her face, a resolve born of pure steel. “We have to stop Calvin. We have to make things right.”

  Sal had never been more proud of her than he was at that moment. She had gone through the refiner’s fire and had emerged all the stronger for it.

  Olivia gazed at him with tear-wet eyes. “The Lord knows and understands our heartaches, our weaknesses, our fears. Yours and mine and that of everyone else on earth.” She thumbed away the remaining tears.

  Sal felt tears sting his own eyes. “You sound like you’ve had personal experience with it.”

  “When my father died, I fell into depression. It got so bad that I couldn’t get out of bed, much less go to work. Finally, I knew I had to do something. I took my grief to the Savior. He didn’t take it away, not at first, but He gave me the strength to deal with it.”

  Emotion wadded up in his throat. Sal cleared his voice with a rough cough, trying to put an end to the subject.

  Hurt flickered in her eyes. He’d cut off what had promised to be a deeply spiritual discussion. At one time, he’d been an active believer. His time in Afghanistan had changed that.

  What he’d witnessed there had chipped away at his faith until he started questioning what he’d once believed. How could a loving God allow such cruelties to occur? By the end of his last tour of duty, he hadn’t been able to reconcile the atrocities he’d seen with the God he thought he knew.

  “Talking about faith isn’t easy,” she said, correctly interpreting his reluctance to continue the conversation. “It’s sacred, but the Atonement is the greatest gift the world has ever known. Because of it, the Lord has taken our sins upon Himself.” She took his hand. “What I said in the cave—it hasn’t changed. He’s there for you. You just have to go to Him.”

  SEVENTEEN

  The following morning, Olivia and Sal drove to the bank and retrieved the drive.

  “We’ll make a copy, give it to Homeland, then I’m going to express the original to Shelley, see what she can make of it,” he said.

  Olivia nodded, relieved that they weren’t holding back on the DHS any longer. She didn’t want to get on Homeland’s bad side, no matter how obnoxious the agents were. She couldn’t forget the chill that had gripped her ever since Jeppsen and Timmons had accused her of being part of a terrorism plot. “What can we do in the meantime?”

  “What would you normally be doing on a weekday morning?”

  She didn’t have to think about it. “I’d be at the office, drafting briefs or preparing motions or going over closing arguments.”

  “Then that’s what you’ll do. The best way to get through life’s hard stuff is to keep living.”

  She thought about that and realized Sal was right. She had a job she loved, a job she believed in. Even though the judge had given her a continuance, the case still needed work.

  As she’d expected, the office was in turmoil when she arrived, the story of what Calvin had done all over the news. Everyone, from the mail boy to the partners, buzzed around her. Though she wasn’t a partner, they looked to her because the Hammond name was on the door.

  “What’s going to happen, Ms. Hammond?” Julie, the receptionist, asked. “Are we closing down? I can’t afford to lose my job.”

  “Not if I can help it. For now, everyone should just go about business as usual.” She spent time with each individual, talking through their disbelief of what Calvin had been mixed up in and the fear of possible unemployment.

  Things settled down after that, and she and Sal retreated to her office. Sal’s suggestion that he pretend to be a security expert had been a stroke of genius. No one questioned his presence, not after all that had happened, first with Bryan and then with Calvin.

  “You were great with them,” he said. “You were nearly killed yesterday, but you go to work and take care of the people here.”

  “They’re family,” she said simply.

  Sal bent his head, his lips hovering a fraction of an inch over hers. She placed her palms against his chest, felt the steady beat of his heart, absorbed his strength.

  The shrill of his phone interrupted the fragile moment. Sal took the call, his expression growing darker by the second. “No way,” he shouted. “You can’t ask that of her.”

  “Who was it?” Olivia asked when he hung up.

  “That was Timmons. Chantry called Homeland. He wants to turn himself in, but he’ll do it only to you. It’s supposed to go down tonight.” Fury whipped through his voice.

  “If it means bringing Calvin in, I have to do it. I don’t have a choice.”

  “The DHS uses people. Right now, they want to use you. There’s no guarantee for your safety.” Sal cupped her shoulders. “Remember what Chantry did. He’s not going to change his spots. Not this late in the game.”

  Resentment welled up inside of her, and she wrenched away. “You think you can just tell me what to do and I’ll meekly surrender?”

  “You’d never surrender. That’s not who you are.”

  “I don’t know who I am.” The words were wrenched from her. The past week had stripped away her self-awareness, her confidence, her belief in everything she held dear. “I don’t know anything.”

  “You’ve had one shock after another. It’s no wonder you’re questioning things.” He took one long stride, closing the distance she had so recentl
y created. “Can’t you just accept that I don’t want to see you hurt?”

  “Of course.” Her resolve melted. “I know you only want to protect me. But there are things you can’t protect me from.”

  “Like your need to make things right.”

  “For one.” She bit her lower lip. “I have to decide what’s right for me. Bringing Calvin in, putting an end to whatever he was involved in is the right thing to do.” She lifted her gaze so that it met his squarely. “If it were you, what would you do?”

  She knew the answer before she asked the question. Sal wouldn’t hesitate to put his life on the line if it meant protecting others.

  ‘That’s different.”

  “No. It’s exactly the same.”

  “You don’t play fair,” he said at last.

  Olivia knew what she had to do. She’d known it from the moment Sal had told her about the call.

  “Set it up with Homeland.”

  * * *

  Sal wanted to hit something. Or someone. He watched as a female agent fitted Olivia with a wire.

  “I’ll be fine,” Olivia said. “You’ll be able to hear everything that’s going on.”

  “You don’t believe Chantry’s going to turn himself in.” Sal fixed an accusing look on Timmons and Jeppsen.

  “No. We don’t. What we want from Ms. Hammond is to get a confession on tape. What we know and what we can prove are two different things. We have plenty on him, but a confession will go a long way to proving his guilt. Then we can leverage that to get information on the rest of the cell.”

  “Don’t you think it’s about time you told us what Chantry was mixed up in?” Sal demanded. “Olivia’s putting her life on the line. She deserves to know.”

  Jeppsen gave him a long look. “You’ve heard of HEU?”

  Sal nodded. “Highly enriched uranium.”

  “Got it in one. It takes fifty kilos to create a nuclear detonation. Compare that to the nearly one ton of low-enriched uranium needed to produce just one nuclear bomb and you have an idea of what we’re up against. We think Chantry decided to double-cross his partners and hold a bidding war.”

  Sal gave a low whistle. “No wonder his pals want him so bad.”

  “This is fissile uranium, meaning it contains more than 85 percent uranium 235. That makes it weapons grade.”

  Sal had been on enough missions charged with securing uranium storage facilities to understand the difference between weapons grade and weapons usable uranium. The explosion or boom would be smaller with the weapons grade uranium, but the radiation fallout infinitely more devastating, leaving the affected area a wasteland for decades.

  Divide it up and spread it over a couple of dozen or so rockets and you could start enough small skirmishes to cause devastation all over the world.

  “You can imagine the chaos if our enemies got their hands on it,” Jeppsen added. “They plan to start in America.”

  Sal nodded again, more grimly this time. The effects of an HEU blast would be catastrophic. No wonder Homeland was so intent on stopping the plan.

  * * *

  Olivia forced herself not to fidget with the wire. The slightest movement, the agents had told her, could interfere with the receiving and transmitting.

  She walked under the pier, letting her eyesight become accustomed to the near blackness.

  “There you are.” Calvin’s voice.

  The air seemed dark and heavy with his presence. How had she not felt it before? He was a chameleon, changing to fit whatever circumstances he found himself in, never showing his true colors because he didn’t have any.

  “You said you wanted to turn yourself in.”

  He laughed richly. “You always were a fool, Olivia. You and your father both. You were too busy being the defenders of the underdog, the crusaders for truth and justice and the American way to even notice what was going on right under your noses.”

  “How long?” she asked, her voice a mere sliver of sound. “How long were you cheating my father?”

  “From the beginning.”

  “No!” She couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t.

  “Yes. Come closer. I know you’re wired.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “You’re the fool. Not me. Homeland’s listening in right now.” He yanked her arm, pulling her to him, then ripped the collar of her shirt to expose the wire.

  When he had it, he pushed her away, his gaze raking her with contempt. “Why did you come? You had to know I wasn’t going to turn myself in.”

  “I wanted to give you the opportunity to do the right thing. You were my father’s friend. My friend. That means something.”

  He snapped his fingers. “That’s all your so-called friendship is worth.”

  “Why did you ask me to come?”

  “You signed my death warrant when I didn’t get the drive the last time. I’d ask you where you stashed it, but it doesn’t matter. My partners didn’t take kindly to my trying to cut them out. That’s why they came after you. They thought you were part of it.” He gave a careless laugh, clearly not at all remorseful that his actions had put her life in jeopardy.

  Swallowing her revulsion for the man and his words, she ignored the last. “Homeland will protect you. You can turn state’s evidence.”

  “You think I want to spend the rest of my life in prison?”

  “At least you’ll be alive.”

  He pulled a knife. “Did you know that I always hated you and your holier-than-thou father? I hated what you stood for. I hated all the pro bono work you and he insisted we take on. I used to laugh about it. Your father is gone, but I can take my revenge on you.”

  Instead of backing away as he no doubt expected, she took a step closer and gauged the distance separating them. Her martial arts teacher had more than once commended her on her mae geri or front kick.

  Five feet. She had to get closer. Keep him talking. Another step. One more should do it. “You must have had yourself a good old time laughing at Daddy and me behind our backs.” It didn’t require any acting on her part to let the pain show. It was all too real.

  “I have to admit to having a chuckle once in a while over all that earnestness you and your old man brought to every case, so eager to see that all those losers had ‘legal representation.’ Did you ever wonder why I gave you all those bleeding heart cases?”

  She paused, wanting to know the answer. “Why did you?”

  “So you’d keep your nose out of what I was doing. It was a foolproof way to keep you occupied while I did real business,” he bragged and the evil inside him slouched behind his gaze.

  And she’d thought he’d believed in her. What a fool she’d been. A trusting, stupid fool. Well, this was one time she wouldn’t play the fool. He would. “Real business, meaning dirty business,” she translated, inching forward.

  “I prefer to think of it as profitable business. The law firm barely makes enough to pay salaries. I wanted more. I needed more.” He smiled beatifically. “I deserved more.”

  He said it all with such matter-of-factness that she could only shake her head inwardly. “So you betrayed your partner, your best friend, all for a few extra dollars?”

  “Possessing things—nice things—is in my blood. I came from Southern royalty. Do you really think I could live on the paltry salary I made at that pitiful firm your father and I started? All he could talk about was helping the little people. Well, I was helping all right. I was helping myself.”

  She wasn’t listening. Calvin was a tall man, not as tall as Sal, but tall enough. She’d have to bring her knee up tight and high if she wanted to go for his chin. Which she did.

  Her left knee shot up, quickly followed by her leg jerking straight out, the heel of her foot catching him squarely in the jaw.
>
  Contact. The shock of impact shot through her leg and torso. She inhaled sharply but kept her balance.

  He howled in rage and surprise and dropped the knife.

  She kicked it away and started to turn, preparing to run, but he managed to latch onto her shoulder, fingers digging deep. “Not so fast.” His words were slurred, as though it was an effort to speak.

  Good. She struggled to free herself, but he was far stronger. “That’s going to cost you, Olivia.”

  Calvin moved his hand to her upper arm and gripped it with careless but cruel strength. “Congratulations on that fancy bit of footwork. Didn’t know you had it in you.” Reluctant admiration warred with disgust in his voice. Rage, dark and nasty, boiled in his eyes. She would have stepped back from all that hatred if he hadn’t tightened his hold so that she couldn’t move.

  Olivia wanted to weep. She wouldn’t get another chance. He’d be on his guard now. Why hadn’t she moved sooner? Faster?

  Relentlessly, Calvin marched her farther under the pier. When they reached a point she judged to be approximately at the center, he stopped. “This should do.”

  “Do for what?”

  “We don’t want any amorous young couples looking for privacy stumbling across us. Not many go this far.” He gave a mock shudder. “Too dark.”

  Olivia did her best to suppress her own shudder. Some kind of creature was making flapping noises. She didn’t particularly want to know what it was.

  “I didn’t give you enough credit. You made a worthy opponent,” Calvin said. “More so than I had thought.”

  “Am I supposed to thank you for the compliment?”

  “Flippant to the end. Good for you. You’re going to need that when the tide starts to come in.”

  What did he have in mind? Then she saw it. A coil of rope. He planned to tie her to one of the posts supporting the pier.

  She renewed her struggles, but his grip was iron-hard. “Unless you want to bleed to death, you’ll keep still.” After pulling a knife from his pocket, he nicked sensitive skin beneath her ear to make his point. A warm stickiness trickled down her neck.