The Widow (Federal Hellions Book 1)

by Gray Gardner

  “Jane? Why are you yelling? Are you in trouble?”

  “No, nothing like that. Look, stuff’s going down at work and they won’t let me trace a phone call, so I was wondering if…”

  “Give me the number,” Burton said, shuffling around for a pen and paper. George read the number off as she ran a red light. “Okay, I’ll call you back in ten.”

  George relaxed a little. Burton had all kinds of resources at her disposal, so she could definitely help more than the underpaid geeks at the DOJ.

  She parked in front of a coffee shop, gathered herself a little bit, then casually walked in. She ordered a black coffee, sat at a table by the window, and waited in silence. The other tables all had singles, punching away at their laptops and guzzling caffeine. She wondered if they were writers like Dr. Thomas. Maybe he was in a coffee shop somewhere, writing about her unpardonable electric guitar performance, laughing his gaw-damned ass off.

  Her cell vibrated.

  “George.”

  “I don’t know what you were hoping for,” Burton said, “But I have good news and bad news.”

  “Bad first.”

  “It’s a prepaid cell.”

  George exhaled and leaned her head down on the table. It was at the bottom of a dumpster or storm drain, for sure. She couldn’t even begin to presume whoever had bought it paid with a credit card. A dead end.

  “Ready for the good news? Ready? Jane?”

  “Yeah?”

  “The idiot paid with a credit card.”

  George sat up so quickly her table tipped over and the coffee crashed to the floor. She waved her hand at the employees and began cleaning it up herself as she knelt by the puddle. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Nope. Is your suspect’s name—Christian R. Whitman.”

  She frowned. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t anywhere near right. She sat back in her chair as she stared out the window. Christian had already given her a different number to a cell in his name, with a major provider. He was always on it when she was around and it wasn’t a disposable phone. Why in the world would he buy a prepaid cell—and use a credit card? And what the hell was a junkie in the city doing with the number?

  “Jane?”

  “Thanks, Baylor, I have to go.”

  “Did you hook up with Conrad Thomas yet?”

  “Goodbye, Baylor.”

  She hung up and rubbed her eyes, then stared at the number again. She’d have to call it now. It was stuffed in the new coat pocket of a junkie in a known location for dealing, where Christian Whitman’s car just happened to frequent.

  She zipped her coat up and threw the hood on as she went outside. Time to get her own prepaid cell.

  Death by Snow War

  Dr. Thomas’s editor and agent sat in the small, dimly lit conference room on the tenth floor and stared at him. He paced in front of them in jeans and Merrill’s and of course his Patagonia since it was the weekend, looking like he’d found a gold mine.

  Sue nodded her head and leaned over her paper, jotting a few things down. “I have to tell you, Conrad, I really like it.” She looked up at him and smiled as she continued. “It’s new, it’s fresh, it’s a great plot twist. Your last book made you famous, but this one will shoot you into international stardom.”

  “It’s great,” Eric agreed, nodding his head. “Great. I love the emotional gamut—pity, sadness, despair, and then suddenly it’s triumph mixed with deceit and ambition. How did you come up with this?”

  Conrad looked at them as he shook his head and held out his hands. “This, no, you don’t understand. This isn’t fiction. This is happening to me right now.”

  Sue and Eric furrowed their brows as they sat at the table. They’d dealt with a lot of neurotic talent in their line of work, but they hadn’t taken Conrad Thomas to be delusional at all.

  “I write from life experience; I pull interesting things out of my own life and lay it all out there for people to read. And I’m telling you both, you can’t make this shit up,” he explained, holding his hand out to the frosty day outside of the window. “God knows what she’s doing right at this very moment.”

  A short silence followed as people shifted around in their seats.

  “So, you’re saying that you have a student who came to the school after the kid died of a drug overdose, claims to have no immediate family, has no social media trail, is always on mysterious phone calls, buys drugs from the other kid, but quickly disposes of them and doesn’t use them, knows how to pick locks, is stealthy as fuck, and you automatically assume she’s not a high school student at all?” Eric asked, glancing at Sue, who exhaled and shrugged.

  “Yeah,” he nodded, frowning as they looked unconvinced. “And, it’s not just that. She’s mature. She knows things high school kids shouldn’t know. She acts like she’s already taken all of the courses. I caught her in a bar with a beer. And what, she comes to school after a kid dies and immediately befriends the two students suspected of dealing drugs and it’s a coincidence? She’s calling someone on her phone and reporting what’s going on. That’s what tipped me off. My intern from the math department said that her roommate illegally got information for her wasn’t allowed to type a word of it. I practically heard Jane saying those exact words!”

  “So you’re saying this kid, who’s not a kid at all, is undercover at St. Patrick’s and is a reporter?” Eric asked, folding his arms across his chest.

  “I guarantee you, she is a journalist trying to break into the business by writing an expose about drugs in private schools.” He nodded, leaning over the table as he stood across from them. “I’ve had several conversations with her that are way beyond the interests of a high school student. She’s either new to the business or in college trying to impress people in the business. Trust me. She’s young and hungry, but she’s no high school kid. I’d bet my career on it.”

  Sue folded her hands in front of her and leaned over on her elbows. “Conrad, I believe you, but I have to ask if you’re willing to let this play out a little longer.”

  “Why?” he asked. He was anxious to get back and bust her. He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when he told her he’d figured her out. He was also slightly relieved that he wasn’t as threatening and creepy as he thought he might have been. He’d unfortunately been having feelings about her that professors are not supposed to have for their students. His brain and his body were conflicted to near insanity. He suddenly felt more relaxed than he had in weeks. He was ready to confront her.

  He was dying to confront her, actually.

  “Just think,” Sue said, standing and holding up a finger. “How does her story end? Does she mysteriously leave in the middle of the night, return to her publication, and the next day it’s splashed on the Internet, destroying your school’s reputation?”

  “I don’t—”

  “No,” Sue interrupted, shaking her head and walking around the table. “She wants the story to end with the biggest bust on the east coast, or she’s going to wait until another kid dies. Either way, she’s got a killer story. And so do you.”

  Conrad rubbed his eyes as he thought about it a little more. He definitely didn’t want her just disappearing, and he certainly didn’t want another one of his students to die. He looked up at Sue.

  “What… what am I supposed to do here? I can’t just sit on this. My students could be in danger.”

  “Give it until the holidays begin,” Sue said, holding up her hands. “Just, trust me. She is at your school for a purpose. Something big is going to go down, and until it does, keep her in your sights. Keep her interested in you. I’m sure you’re a suspect in her eyes, anyway.”

  He’d never thought of that. He would definitely be a suspect. Maybe that was why she was always around. She was trying to see if he was dealing to the kids.

  “Don’t look so disappointed,” Sue smiled, giving him a wink. “I’m sure she likes you, too.”

  “That’s not why I was looking disappointed,”
he lied, running his fingers through his shaggy hair. “I just… I’m not comfortable with her or anyone endangering my students.”

  “Give it until Thanksgiving and then it will all be over. Turn her in, give her the chance to come clean, I don’t care. But you have a deadline and it’s New Year’s Eve, all right? The company needs a finished product by then.”

  Conrad exhaled as he exited the building and climbed into his car. How was this going to happen? He’d figured her out, that was easy enough, but what was the next step? Let her know that he knows? Let her continue to think he’s just her professor? He banged his head on the steering wheel as he thought about what kissing her would be like. That certainly wasn’t going to happen.

  After he wrote this book she’d want to be as far away from him as possible.

  And, oh yeah, he’d spanked her. Though he found that he didn’t really feel sorry about that. Her little ass had been perfection.

  He had to admit, he was pretty proud of himself for figuring her out, but then again, not many people were as smart as he was. He wouldn’t confront her, but he wasn’t about to leave her alone. And besides, it wouldn’t do anyone any harm if he just had a little fun with her. Okay, maybe more than a little.

  If it got to the point where someone could get seriously hurt, though, he promised himself to get the cops involved. He wouldn’t dare risk the lives of even one of his kids. Jane, on the other hand, could use a little tantalizing. And maybe a grown-up spanking. No one outsmarted the great Conrad Thomas.

  George stomped through the snow in front of the convenience store as she tried to get the snow off of her jeans and light her cigarette at the same time. When it finally lit she pulled out the recently purchased prepaid phone and quickly dialed the number. She suddenly dropped it to the salted street as her own cell phone vibrated in her pocket. She cursed as she picked up the new phone and answered her own.

  “What?”

  “Uh, is this Jane George?”

  “Yes,” she snapped, exhaling a stream of smoke and waiting for whoever it was to hurry up. She took another drag as the other person sounded just as annoyed as she felt.

  “Yes, this is Ms. Cook. I was told that you left campus today and I was calling to remind you of the school musical recital this afternoon.”

  George choked on the smoke and quickly stomped out her cigarette as she tried to reply to Ms. Cooky. Oh great, she’d forgotten all about the damned recital.

  “Um, yes ma’am, I’m visiting my grandma,” she innocently replied. “I’ll be back by three-thirty.”

  “But you’re on at two-thirty, dear.”

  George bit her lip as she looked down at her wrist. It was 1:15.

  “Yeah, I might not be able to make that.”

  “Then I’m afraid I’ll have to fail you. Your classmates are all counting on you, parents are coming, the concerto will be incomplete without the piano.”

  She sighed heavily and rolled her eyes. She just couldn’t make it. Work had to come first and she had a free pass off campus for the day. She had to make the most of it and she was following a really great lead.

  “Can’t someone else play?”

  “You are the pianist, dear, and I happen to know for a fact that with your low grades in English and Biology you can’t afford to fail your music class. You’ll be expelled.”

  George gripped the phone tightly as snowflakes floated around her head. If she got kicked out of school she’d never find out what was really going on and her division at the DEA would be toast. She needed a win, and Director Nelson did, too. It was up to her to save everyone.

  “Are you in the city?”

  “Ms. Cook…”

  “You have one hour to get here.”

  “It…”

  “You need to be here.”

  George threw her head back and cursed up at the sky.

  “What was that?”

  “I’ll be there!” She tried to speak in a forced polite voice. She kicked her tire a few times and paced around before she could calm down.

  She threw her car into gear and screeched out of her parking space. She had to get back to campus, change into her uniform, and be at the concert hall in an hour. Awesome. She needed the day to be more of a success than this. She sped down the highway and pulled out the prepaid phone, squeezing it and finally pressing the last number, then hitting the talk button.

  “Yes?” a deep voice quietly answered on the other end.

  Her heart stopped for a second, the way it always did when she got close to catching a perpetrator. She took a breath.

  “Your junkie is dead,” she said very evenly. And you will be, too, Mystery Man.

  A short silence ensued, followed by a throat clearing. “What junkie?”

  “The one you gave your Burberry coat to. Tell me, if I run DNA on that coat, where is it going to lead me?” she asked, lying through her teeth. Jesus was probably awake right at that moment, turning some kind of trick to get money for that next hit. But this guy didn’t need to know that.

  He quickly hung up and she slammed the phone onto the seat next to her. Coward. One thing she did find out: that voice did not belong to Christian. It definitely didn’t belong to any other student, either. It was an adult. Ugh, things just got way more complicated.

  She sniffed at the sour smell in the air and realized that she still had someone’s vomit on her tennis shoe. How could this day get worse?

  “Play, my little lovelies. Feel the music, love the music, be the music,” Ms. Cook whispered, as they set up behind the curtain in the concert hall on the edge of the campus.

  George was still catching her breath as she wove in and out of the stringed section and sat at the grand piano. She made a couple of fists and stretched her fingers out as she waited for Ms. Cooky to stand and lead them into a twenty-minute concert. The curtain lifted, and George suddenly felt the urge to throw up all over her own shoes.

  The concert hall was filled to the brim, the clapping from the audience practically deafened her, and the heat from the spotlights made her feel like she just might pass out on the piano keys. Oh God, why did she allow herself to get into situations like this? She took a couple of deep breaths and tried imagining no one was around, like that time in Spain when the Afghani operatives made her and stripped her naked, beat her, and left her for dead at the busiest intersection in town.

  No, that was worse, but it helped take her mind off of the hundreds of eyes staring at her at that moment. Ms. Cooky lifted her hands, and George played. She couldn’t tell if it was right or wrong, she just wanted it to end. A few minutes into it, she wasn’t so desperate for it to be over, and halfway through, she was actually feeling pretty confident. Someone from the wind section had hit a sour note, so now she knew that at least no one was looking at her pink cheeks anymore.

  Everything ended quickly, they stood and bowed, then the curtains closed and the violin soloists started preparing to go on. George leaned down backstage and was fiddling with her backpack when she saw the prepaid phone, sitting there, mocking her.

  “The faculty gave you all a standing ovation, my lovelies. Well done,” Ms. Cooky squealed as she walked through the cramped backstage area. “Now let’s go sit and support our violinists.”

  George stared down at the phone. The faculty was there. She wondered if she called the number… would it actually ring somewhere in the audience? She stood and followed everyone around the curtains and down into the seats, pausing in the aisle and leaning back against the wall in the darkness. She held her hand in her bag and hit the redial button.

  A phone rang somewhere in the sea of dark bodies and soft aisle lighting. George jerked her head around, searching desperately for the person struggling to turn the ringer off as others looked around, annoyed.

  Then the curtains swung open and the violins began playing. No one jumped out of their seat to take the call. Maybe it was another person calling another person’s phone. Maybe it was just a coincidence. She zipped her
bag up and sat down. It was worth a shot.

  “Wow, Jane. Great job up there!”

  George paused as she filed out of the concert hall with everyone else and turned around. It was Robbie, Ashton, and Kim.

  “Hey! What are… I thought y’all would be in New York.” George smiled, pleased that they were there.

  “Yeah, we got to come back early to watch the recital,” Robbie grinned, as they walked out into the snow-covered grounds in the late afternoon. “I think Dr. Howard thinks it might encourage people to come to one of our events someday.”

  “Not ruddy likely,” Kim sighed, as everyone paused and looked at her. “Oh, sorry, I’ve been discussing the euro with a Brit all morning. Brexit and all.”

  Which probably meant she was flirting with some kid in London on the web cam.

  “Lucky,” Ashton sighed, turning to George. “Hey, you wanna come to a snowball fight?”

  “Huh?” George asked, becoming distracted as a cell phone rang. It was the prepaid cell’s ring. Could she really be that lucky? She had to take the call.

  “The Senior Snow War. Your bag is ringing.” Ashton pointed, just as a snowball soared through the air and nailed her on the back.

  “It’s already started!” Robbie screamed, as more snowballs suddenly flew out of nowhere and landed all around them. They began scrambling around in the half foot of snow and yards of open space in the corner of the campus.

  George pulled the prepaid cell out of her bag. This could be it. Her gear was already in her car. She could make it to town and have the perp at the DOJ by midnight. She’d save Nelson. She’d save the intelligence division.

  “Yes?” she asked hopefully.

  “Who is this?”

  “Someone who just wants to talk.”

  “I can’t talk now. Is there somewhere we can meet? I think there’s been a… misunderstanding.”

  “Of course.” She smiled, feeling relieved that she’d finally caught a break.

  A snowball whizzed through the air and smacked her on the side of the head. Actually, it was more like an ice ball. She fell to the snow beneath her and saw stars as the cell flew out of her hand and more snowballs began pounding her. She was a little disoriented from the head shot, but when she finally sat up she realized that the cell phone was lost. And her friends were gone.