“So we bought up a few buildings in various cities. But then they wanted to play with the money, make it look like they’d spent more than they actually did. Again, this is something I’ve done with clients before. I moved the money around, made it look like some of it came other sources…”
“You laundered it,” Xander said, his voice incredulous.
Grant shrugged. “You can call it that.”
“You were laundering money for terrorists. And helping them buy buildings in strategic places in three of the biggest cities in California.”
“I didn’t know they were terrorists.”
“Now you do.”
“And now I’m going to pay for what I’ve done.”
Xander shook his head, turning away again, as he once more moved with agitation around the room.
“We have dates of meetings, deeds, and paper trails,” I said. “Things the feds need to arrest you.”
Grant studied my face for a long minute. “Okay.”
“I was supposed to hand them over to a federal agent posing as a journalist two months ago. But now we know that man is actually working for your clients.”
Grant’s eyes widened slightly. “They knew I was being investigated.”
“Well, they also know that Xander was cooperating with federal agents.”
Grant glanced at Xander. “You?”
“Yeah. Are you surprised?”
Grant stared at him for a long minute, then he just shook his head. “Not really.”
“They approached me. They threatened Mom. They threatened my freedom, my life with Harley. I couldn’t just pretend I didn’t know what was happening.”
“If you’d come to me—”
“They would have put us all in jail right there and then.”
“They had no information.”
“No,” Xander said, as he again dragged his fingers through his hair. “They had plenty of information on you. But what they wanted was the men you were working for. They wanted it all.”
Grant sat back on the couch. He pulled Bonnie’s hand up to his lips and kissed her gently.
“Then we’ll give them what they want.”
Chapter 33
Xander
I wanted her to stay at the house, but she refused. She clung to my hand as we walked into the restaurant, so tight that my bones were rubbing together. She was scared.
So was I.
I spotted him at a table closest to the kitchen, a busy area that was a little concerning. I wasn’t sure how we could talk freely with all the traffic that was going past there, but, then again, it seemed logical. Everyone was so busy going about their own business that they wouldn’t even remember that much about us, let alone overhear much of our conversation.
I don’t think I would be good at this terrorist stuff. I was too honest.
The man—Colin Francis—stood as we approached the table.
“Harley,” he said with genuine affection in his voice. “How are you?”
Harley smiled politely. “Good, thank you.”
“And Xander.” He studied my face for a minute, then offered his hand with a polite smile. I shook it because I didn’t know what else to do.
He gestured for us to take a seat. Harley snatched my hand under the table once we were all seated, clutching it quite tightly once again. I squeezed back.
“So, I spoke to Philip this morning,” Colin said. “He told me all about your accident. I was sad to hear about it.”
“It was unfortunate,” Harley agreed. “But I’m doing much better, and my doctor expects I’ll enjoy a full recovery.”
“That’s good.” Colin looked from her to me. “Nothing like an accident to bring a couple back together.”
Harley glanced at me. “Well, if you spoke to Philip, then you know that the whole separation was just our way of trying to protect ourselves from Xander’s family learning what we were up to.”
He inclined his head slightly. “It was a good plan.”
A waiter chose then to come and ask us for our drink orders. Colin sat back and studied the two of us as the waiter did his spiel, trying to sell us on something from the bar. I would have loved a good, stiff drink. But if I ever needed a clear head, it was now.
It was all incredibly insane. Grant came up with a plan and…hell, it couldn’t be much worse than relying on a high school history teacher to put us in touch with the right people in the government. But Grant wasn’t the one sitting here now.
I just wanted all this over with.
“We need to know a few things,” I said the moment the waiter turned his back. “We can’t just hand this stuff over without knowing what you’re going to do with it.”
Colin raised impressive eyebrows. “I don’t blame you, Xander. I’m sure you’re quite concerned about your mother.”
“Yes. And Harley and Margaret and everyone else involved in this thing.”
“I notice you didn’t say Grant.”
I shrugged, my eyes falling to the top of the table. “Grant got himself caught up in this mess. We’re just trying to clean it up.”
Amusement danced in the man’s eyes. It sent a shiver of fear down my spine.
“And you, Harley. Is that your opinion, too?”
“It is.”
Colin sat back and played with a fork that was part of his table setting. “Well,” he said slowly, a hint of an accent suddenly coming out in his words, “I suppose you already know that the feds are going to execute a warrant on Grant’s offices tomorrow. If they find what they expect to, which includes hard copies of some of the things you’ve already provided the agents,” he said, gesturing to me with his chin, “he and several of his associates, including your mother, will be arrested and charged with many things, not the least of which is laundering money and aiding terrorists.”
“We already knew that,” Harley said. “What we want to know is why you need this additional information if you already have enough to arrest them?”
“Because you can never have enough information.”
“Most of what we have will be on the computers you’ll confiscate at his office.”
“Yes, well, he’s been tipped off, so we fully expect some of this information to disappear.”
Harley and I exchanged glances. That was what we’d expected him to say.
“How do you know he was tipped off?”
Colin Francis looked a little uneasy for a second, as his eyes wandered from me to Harley. Then he shrugged. “It was just an assumption, and you just confirmed it.”
Harley’s hand loosened on mine. She was growing more relaxed as this played itself out. It seemed to be going exactly as we had thought it would.
“After he’s arrested and everything starts to play out, what happens then? Will we have to testify?”
“You might. We’ll need to be able to show where the evidence came from.”
“So we’ll have to stick around,” I said.
“Were you planning in leaving town?”
Harley shrugged. “You never know. One of these days I might actually be able to talk him into going back to Texas with me.”
“I was thinking more about the Bahamas.”
Harley shook her head. “I’m fair-skinned. I’d burn too easily.”
“How about Tuscany?” I asked, nuzzling her neck gently. “That might be fun. A little villa in a small community. Our own grove of olive trees.”
“That does sound nice.”
Colin cleared his throat. “Do you have the information?”
I glanced at him. “Do you have what we asked for?”
He glanced toward the windows on the far side of the restaurant, as though he expected someone to be there, watching us. Then he looked deeper into the restaurant, waiting as a waiter walked past our table to the kitchen. It took him several minutes to feel secure that we weren’t being watched. Then he shoved something at my knee under the table.
I wanted to laugh. Didn’t he realize that he’d
just confirmed everything we already knew? Not only that, but he’d just hung Philip’s father just as surely as he’d hung himself.
And it was all thanks to Grant.
“Then we’ll give them what they want,” Grant said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Who’s this contact of yours? Who have you been talking to?”
“Philip James. His father—”
“Is Franklin James, right?” Grant shook his head. “The two of you are so far in over your heads, you don’t even know how deeply you’re buried.”
“What are you talking about?” Harley demanded.
“I’m talking about the fact that Franklin James is in just as deep with these people as I am. Who do you think paid for his campaign for the US Senate?”
Harley shook her head. She clearly didn’t want to believe it. I went and sat next to her, took her hand in mine in an attempt to offer a little consolation. I knew exactly how she felt. I didn’t want to believe half of what I’d just learned today either.
“I’ll prove it to you. And the feds. You call this Philip, tell him you want to meet with that reporter fella, but first you want to make a deal. You tell him that you want something in exchange for the information. Something they won’t balk at. Like, say, a couple thousand bucks or a new car or something.”
“A new car. You’re joking, right?” I said.
Grant shook his head. “That’s nothing to these people.” He waved his hand at Harley. “Go tell him what I said. He won’t question you. And when this guy hands you the money, you’ll know which side he’s on.”
Harley did, and Grant was right. Philip never questioned her.
So much for distancing himself from Daddy.
Just to make sure we weren’t walking into something we couldn’t control, I called Randy, the guy who first told me about Grant and got the original feds in touch with me. They immediately jumped when I told them Grant wanted to cooperate. At this very moment, Grant was downtown spilling everything he knew to the feds about his clients, the things he’d done for them, and who else they had working for them. Grant even knew where they could be found. They were in town, sitting back to watch the show, unaware that they were about to become the star attraction.
There were also half a dozen agents here in this room just waiting for me to signal them.
We didn’t have to go through with this. But I wanted to know what was in the information I’d gathered that they wanted so badly.
I took the package he slid under the table to me and put it in Harley’s lap.
“Can I ask you something?”
Colin shrugged, but his eyes were nervously moving around the room again.
“Did you really have proof that Margaret hit a teenager on the streets in Santa Monica? Or did you just hear a rumor and suspect you could bluff your way through it?”
Colin’s face tightened, as he turned his gaze back to mine. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You see, I was there. I was in the car with her. And I saw that boy before she hit him. He was drunk as a skunk. That’s why he stepped into the street. And Margaret, she didn’t have her license yet, and if she’d been caught driving, she wouldn’t have been able to get it until she was eighteen. She didn’t want that, so she asked me to pretend that I was driving. So, even if you talked to the victim himself, who I know for a fact is serving nine years in the federal penitentiary, he would have told you I was driving.”
Harley’s mouth opened a little as she listened to me talk, but she shut it again, aware of all the ears listening to us.
Colin’s eyes narrowed even more.
“What do you want with this information, anyway? It only incriminates you and your people.”
“If you believe that,” he said slowly, “then you don’t fully understand what it is you have.”
All pretense was gone now. He wasn’t pretending to be a federal agent or a reporter anymore. He was just a terrorist who thought he could control everyone around him. But maybe he’d finally met someone he couldn’t bully. And that was making him nervous.
“I have a list of dates. Of times when you and your people came into town to meet with Grant. And I have a bunch of deeds to properties you bought up that will, very soon, belong to the United States government. This is all stuff the government will have very soon. So why is it important to you?”
Colin just shook his head as he slowly stood up.
“This conversation is over.”
“It certainly is,” our waiter said, as he came up behind Colin and slapped handcuffs on his wrists.
Our waiter was actually a federal agent who’d been listening to the entire conversation via a bug we’d consented to bring in with us when we arrived.
It was in the hem of Harley’s shirt.
I can’t tell you how much satisfaction I felt, watching them handcuff this scum and walk him out of the room.
We’d been told Philip’s father and others Grant had named had been, or would very soon, be arrested. The media would be in a frenzy very soon, everyone trying to get as much of the story as they could.
I still couldn’t make much out of it. All I knew was that Grant had done something wrong, but he’d redeemed himself by going to the authorities before they came to him. And that my mom was there, by his side, as she has always been.
There would be consequences for Grant’s involvement in all of this. For my mom, too. But not as much as there would have been otherwise. Thanks to Harley. Thanks to her quick thinking.
No one could have known about Philip’s dad; that was just an odd twist of fate. Harley believed that Philip was honestly trying to help, that even he didn’t know about his father’s criminal connections. We probably won’t ever know for sure. But it all worked out for the best.
And now it was time to go home and celebrate.
Chapter 34
Harley
I curled up in the bed next to Xander and took another bite of pizza.
“I’m sorry,” I said, as I nibbled at a slice of pepperoni.
“For what?”
“For not remembering you. For putting you through that whole ordeal.”
“It’s not like it was your fault.”
“It must have been hard, though, living here with me when I didn’t even know who you were.”
He reached over and rubbed a smear of grease off my chin. “It was rough,” he said, his eyes softening as he studied my face, “being near you and not feeling free to touch you.”
“It must have been surreal.”
“It was…difficult.” He chuckled a little as he picked at his own piece of pizza. “I thought it was all over when your parents showed up and demanded that you go home with them.”
“Yeah?”
“I thought for sure that you would agree to go. I mean, I was standing there, imagining you and your mom in the spare room packing your things while your dad lectured me about forcing myself on you after you made it clear that you no longer wanted me.”
“He would have, too,” I said, laughing around my food.
Xander pushed the empty pizza box onto the floor and flipped over, laying his head in my lap as he ate his last piece. I picked a sausage off of mine and fed it to him.
“I’m sorry about Philip. I guess that wasn’t the grand idea I thought it was.”
“Again, not your fault. And it bought us time. If things had gone differently, we never would have been able to convince Grant to turn himself in.”
“Have you talked to your mom?”
“She said she’d call in the morning.”
“It’ll be okay. Grant will make sure she’s protected.”
I bent and kissed Xander’s nose. Then I pushed him away.
“I need sugar. Isn’t there ice cream in the freezer?”
“Chocolate, I think.”
“Hmm,” I tilted my head as I thought about it. Then nodded. “That’ll do.”
I grabbed his shirt an
d pulled it on, humming as I went downstairs. My leg was a little sore, and my physical therapist would have a stroke if he saw me walking around without the boot on, but it was cumbersome, and I just couldn’t stand to wear it all the time. Besides, wasn’t the whole idea to get me out of the thing? Maybe taking it off and hobbling down the stairs wasn’t such a horrible idea.
I stumbled around the corner as I made my way into the kitchen. That smarted a little. I’d sure be happy when this thing healed.
“Still hurts?”
I looked up, my heart nearly leaping out of my chest when I saw Margaret sitting at the breakfast nook. She held up a small gold key.
“Xander gave it to me when he first bought the house. In case I ever needed to get in when he wasn’t around.”
“Are you here to see him?” I asked stupidly. “He’s upstairs.”
“Nope. Here to talk to you.”
“Margaret…”
“You know, Xander was the only friend I had when I was a little girl. All those other people’s kids, the Hiltons and the Van Pelts and all the other people’s children Daddy wanted me to be nice to, none of them were like me. They were all precocious little brats. And I…well, I wasn’t perfect, but I was more of an introvert. Until Xander. He knew how to draw me out, how to get me to open up to him. I think I fell in love with him when I was only five and nothing ever really changed.”
My heart sank. I’d accused her of just this when I was trying to make her believe that Xander and I were broken up. But she’d denied it. At the time, I knew it didn’t ring true, but I think I chose to deny that truth.
I couldn’t now.
“Everything I ever asked of him, he would do for me. He even married me when I convinced him that Daddy was trying to force me on some guy I didn’t want. I thought…I assumed that after a while, the marriage would become something more than it was. I hadn’t expected him to continue dating, to go off to graduate school and leave me behind. If he hadn’t done that, I might have pushed the issue some; I might have convinced him then that we were meant to be together. But I thought I had time. And he wasn’t the only one who wanted to sow a few wild oats, you know.”
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