The Price of Grace (Black Ops Confidential 2)

Her heartbeat which usually normalized quickly after exercise, kept up its frightened Muppet-arms in space pace. She needed to be fast.

As fast and deadly as her training, she burst out, rushed forward. He turned. Not fast enough. Her fist snapped against his side and carried the full weight of her body.

He cried out, lost his weapon, grabbed at his side. She kicked his kneecap, sent him to the ground. Securing his wrists behind his back with a zip tie, she picked up his gun and searched him. No cell phone. No wallet. So not a total idiot.

Pocketing his weapon, keeping her own out, she moved around to his front.

He lifted his head. “This is not legal.”

No kidding. She got him to his feet and began to march him deeper into the woods. Never can tell when family might show up. “What’s your name?”

“Wilkes. James Wilkes.”

“You are on private property, Mr. Wilkes. There are no trespassing signs all over.”

“So call the police.”

He tried to turn; she put her gun into his side. “Call and tell them what? That I stood my ground? You came on private property and shot at me, after all.”

“Call them,” he insisted. Panic worried his voice into a higher octave.

He should be worried. A woman who feared for her safety, the safety of her family, of her child had a gun to his side on private property in the middle of rural-as-an-outhouse USA.

Once she’d marched him far enough into the woods, she slammed her fist into his kidney. Wilkes buckled like origami. On the ground, he curled onto his side.

His face was beet red and tears leaked from his eyes. He rotated his face against the earth. He sucked in a breath, drawing in a bit of leaf and dirt. He coughed it out, wiped his lips on his shoulder.

She squatted beside him. “Why are you here, Wilkes?”

“Porter Rush,” he wheezed, “wanted information on you.”

Gracie nearly bit her tongue in half in the aftermath of her shock. Sure, this wasn’t Austin Powers, and she didn’t need to ask him three times, but who gives up the ghost on the first question?

Which meant he could be lying. But for who? Gracie grabbed the guy’s shoes, dragged them around, forced him to sit up. He cried out, gasping for breath.

She put her hand on his bent knee. “Why you?”

Sagging over his knees, he whispered in a voice minted with mud, “I work for him, for the campaign.”

“Rush’s campaign?”

“Yeah. I do deliveries and stuff.”

“Volunteer or paid?”

“Volunteer. I’m on disability. It’s something to do.”

Disability? Crud. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Bone cancer. Could you take your hand off my knee?”

Gracie pulled back her hand like it had been lit on fire. Cancer. The way he walked… It’d been pain. She winced, remembering how much pain her mother had been in before cancer took her life. “Why did you agree to this? Why not let him pay someone? He’s got the money, you know.”

“You can’t trust no one in this business. They’re all out to get you. Porter knew he could trust me. I owe the senator my life. What’s left of it.”

She was sure there was a longer story there, and she was interested in any good her father did, but she couldn’t be distracted by those things. “So you took it on yourself to kill me?”

“I didn’t… You startled me. I… just reacted.”

Maybe. Or maybe he was lying. “What did he ask you to find out about me?”

“If you visited anyone. You know, like a boyfriend or maybe someone you cared about seriously.”

That was a very bad thing for Porter to want to know. A thing that meant he was thinking about going after those she loved, not just her. “What did you discover?”

The guy’s face was only splotchy now. His tears dried. The dirt on his face mostly drifted off with his movement. But he still held his shoulders hunched and looked like he’d been defeated. Gracie had to harden her heart. Not think of this man trying to do something he thought was good, trying to live his life despite the pain and…

“I know you have a kid.”

Her heart froze solid. “Did you tell Porter this?”

He looked away, as if he didn’t want to answer, but shook his head. “Not yet.”

She was going to have to make sure he never did. “How’d you find out?”

“I’ve been following you and the girl.”

Gracie let out a breath that vibrated with relief. This man had no idea how close he’d come, how close she’d come to having to… “I don’t have a kid. That was my sister.”

His eyes widened. “Oh.”

“You suck at this.”

“I know.”

She went around behind him, sliced off the zip tie with her pocket knife. “I’m going to let you get back in your car and go. You tell Porter that we need to talk. I’m not a threat to him or his father’s campaign.” Unless, they threaten me. “Let him know that. And don’t follow me again.”

She came around to his front, helped him to his feet, caught and held his eyes with her own. “Understand?”

“Yeah. I got it. Thanks.”

Stepping back, she indicated which way was out and watched him limp out of the woods. Porter would never call her. But at least she knew a few things. He knew about her. He knew she was his sister. He wanted to find out more about her, about who she loved. That meant he was planning something. Threatening her?

But why send a guy who was not only incapable but sick? That made no sense. If he’d already hired a sniper to kill her, why send this random guy after her? So risky.

Unless… He could’ve wanted her to know that someone was following her. Distract her while he came at her from a different direction, plotted against her elsewhere.

That was really paranoid.

So why did it seem like she was on the right track? Feel that way in her gut? No one ever talked about how a political figure’s affair might affect his family. And Porter, who had so much to lose… Poop.

The truth was, if she wanted to end this nightmare, go back to trying to find a way into Tyler’s life and make herself respectable enough to deserve that opportunity, she was going to have to fight for it.

Chapter 28

Early afternoon sun and the July heat wave screamed against the hood of Dusty’s Dodge and front windshield. He wiped sweat from his face, deciding whether to turn the car back on.

He was already at his destination, the partially full parking lot of Club When? And would’ve gone in, but his cell was ringing. Mack.

Too damn hot. Turning the engine over, he picked up the phone. “Secret Agent Man,” Dusty said, “got something for you.”

“Good to hear it. But first, something personal. Your dad’s in a hospital in California.”

Dusty’s hand flexed around the phone as the air in the car started to cool. “That fucker. He let my mom die.” He’d nearly let Dusty die too. Not to mention torturing all the other followers of his crazy ministry with his let God heal ’em policy. “Getting treatment?”

“Yep.”

This was it. This would do it. His ministry would shut down. “Tell me his followers have wised up.”

“Some. Not all. He told them he had a vision. God told him the exact man who would heal him, gave him his name and everything, so it’s like God’s healing him. Crafty SOB.”

Same boat, different river. “Thanks for the update, but from now on, I don’t want to hear unless he kicks it.”

“Understood. What you got for me?”

Dusty pushed his sunglasses up on his head as he watched a group of people get out of a car and walk around the side of Gracie’s club, headed to the front door. “I think Gracie Parish’s biological father is Senator Rush from Pe

nnsylvania and the front-runner to become the next president of the United States. And I think he’s being blackmailed by Mukta Parish.”

Mack was silent for a long moment. “Keep going.”

Dusty quickly explained to him what he suspected about the connection between Gracie, Sheila, Mukta, and Rush.