False Truth 10 (Jordan Fox Mysteries Series) Read online

  FALSE TRUTH 10

  A JORDAN FOX MYSTERY

  BY

  DIANE CAPRI

  WITH

  BETH DEXTER

  Presented by:

  AugustBooks

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  Praise for

  New York Times and USA Today

  Bestselling Author

  Diane Capri

  “Full of thrills and tension, but smart and human, too.

  Kim Otto is a great, great character. I love her.”

  Lee Child, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Jack Reacher Thrillers

  “[A] welcome surprise… [W]orks from the first page to ‘The End’.”

  Larry King

  “Swift pacing and ongoing suspense are always present… [L]ikable protagonist who uses her political connections for a good cause… Readers should eagerly anticipate the next [book].”

  Top Pick, Romantic Times

  “…offers tense legal drama with courtroom overtones, twisty plot, and loads of Florida atmosphere. Recommended.”

  Library Journal

  “[A] fast-paced legal thriller…energetic prose…an appealing heroine…clever and capable supporting cast…[that will] keep readers waiting for the next [book].”

  Publishers Weekly

  “Expertise shines on every page.”

  Margaret Maron, Edgar, Anthony, Agatha and Macavity Award Winning MWA Grand Master and Past President

  Also by DIANE CAPRI

  (Click each title to buy or download a sample)

  CLICK HERE for a complete list of Diane Capri Books on Amazon

  The Heir Hunter Series:

  Blood Trails

  The Jess Kimball Thrillers:

  Fatal Game

  Fatal Edge

  Fatal Fall

  Fatal Error

  Fatal Demand

  Fatal Distraction

  Fatal Enemy

  The Hunt for Jack Reacher Series:

  Deep Cover Jack

  Jack and Joe

  Jack in the Green

  Get Back Jack

  Don’t Know Jack

  Jack in a Box

  Jack and Kill

  The Hunt for Justice Series:

  True Justice (Judge Willa Carson)

  Fair Justice (Judge Willa Carson)

  False Justice (Judge Willa Carson)

  Cold Justice (Judge Willa Carson)

  Wasted Justice (Judge Willa Carson)

  Secret Justice (Judge Willa Carson)

  Twisted Justice (Judge Willa Carson)

  Due Justice (Judge Willa Carson)

  Mistaken Justice

  Raw Justice

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  False Truth 10 is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 Diane Capri, LLC

  All Rights Reserved

  Published by: AugustBooks

  Visit the author websites:

  DianeCapri.com

  BethDexter.com

  License Notes:

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Publisher’s Note:

  The publisher and author do not have any control over and do not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

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  eISBN: 978-1-940768-86-1

  Original Cover Design: Cory Clubb

  Digital Formatting: Author E.M.S.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Reviews

  Books by Diane Capri

  Copyright

  Cast of Primary Characters

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Excerpt from FALSE TRUTH 11

  More from Diane Capri

  Dear Reader

  About the Authors

  CAST OF PRIMARY CHARACTERS

  Jordan Fox

  Nelson Fox

  Brenda Fox

  Claire Stone

  Clayton Vaughn

  Tom Clark

  Terry Ryser

  Drew Hodges

  Richard Grady

  Patricia Neil

  Theresa Parma

  Antonio Vega

  Jenny Lane

  Evan Groves/Aaron Robinson

  Hugo Diaz/Mark Gifford

  Alden Walker

  FALSE TRUTH 10

  CHAPTER 1

  Friday Night. 11:30 p.m.

  Alden Walker had seen the problem coming too late. All he could do now was watch, furious, impotent. He’d lost his edge. He was weak, no longer fit to lead. He could sense the laughing hyenas stalking him. One day, they would succeed.

  Moments before the FBI raided his operation, Walker controlled his anger with equal parts tequila and force of will. His view from the front passenger seat of the black SUV was unobstructed. Parked near the port, his observation point was opposite the condo where the last few girls had been stashed awaiting transport.

  As events unfolded, Walker’s temper mounted steadily until silent rage consumed his reason.

  His team had hacked cameras installed around Tampa and other large cities for homeland security. What a joke. The cameras were as good as owned by El Pulpo and anyone else with hacking skills.

  He saw Jordan Fox leave the television station and heard her phone conversations. She was headed straight toward his site.

  “Call him. Tell him to get the hell out of the condo.” He waved toward the soldiers in the back seat. “Do it now.”

  The warning was already too late.

  He watc
hed the video feed as the unmistakably well-marked Channel 12 Jeep approached. Fox arrived with two colleagues. He sat upright and leaned in closer.

  Which was when he noticed the FBI already staked out around the condo. He knew how they worked. The operation was over.

  Fox parked on the same side of the building as Felix’s place. She and her colleagues sent a drone up to Felix’s unit. They saw the girl inside. Fox called 911.

  Walker’s face felt uncomfortably warm, which the driver and the two El Pulpo soldiers seated in the back couldn’t see. The interior of the SUV was as black as the starless night.

  He gulped more tequila from a silver flask and waited for the fiery liquid to calm him.

  Moments after Fox’s 911 call, FBI zoomed in from nowhere and screeched to a halt, blocking the parking lot entrances. A van and two helicopters had appeared. Floodlights and armed agents poured out as backup vehicles from other agencies swarmed until the controlled chaos was an overwhelming force.

  Felix Marsh was done. No way he could escape. No way the operation could survive.

  Walker ran both hands over his close cropped hair and released a long stream of tequila infused air. Employing the skills of a lifetime, he instantly assessed the situation and created a workable action plan.

  First, cut the losses.

  Too bad about Felix. He was no genius, but the trafficking operation didn’t demand superior intelligence from him. A non-threatening appearance, greedy nature and a stable of young contacts comprised the short list of job requirements.

  Felix was smarmy. His teeth were the color of urine and his breath would gag a swine. But he’d handled the job well enough. Replacing him wouldn’t be fast or easy. Financial losses were inevitable.

  Walker took another long swig from the flask before moving on to the next issue. He knew El Pulpo’s reign in Tampa would be cut short when he’d eliminated Caster unexpectedly. The two-year joint FBI and DEA investigation had been easy to evade, but the end result inevitable. Walker had prepared an orderly reallocation of resources and reduction in force. His plan had advanced well enough.

  Until Fox had seemed to come out of nowhere and thwarted El Pulpo business too many times.

  Now, Walker knew everything about Jordan Fox down to her underwear size. He’d monitored her every move since she first reported on the body in the aquarium. The thorough dossier he’d ordered revealed the problem with his soldiers in the field. A problem he could have easily eliminated, if he’d only known.

  After that, he’d tapped her phones, her computers, everything. Cameras in her house, at her work, everywhere. Walker’s people had been on her twenty-four seven, yet unable to stop her.

  She hadn’t slowed. She was either the luckiest bitch on the planet, or the most stubborn. Or both.

  Enough.

  “Dial Shane.” Shane was El Pulpo’s local attorney. Lawyer for Evan Groves and Hugo Diaz, and the late Pipo Sanchez, too. Same lawyer El Pulpo always used. He always delivered.

  Shane answered on the first ring. “How may I be of service to you?”

  “Why am I watching that vixen screw up my delivery right now?” Walker’s voice was low. Steady. No indication of urgency. The mere fact that he’d called was enough.

  Shane said nothing.

  “She should be dead already.” Walker heard dinner party sounds in the background.

  “She’s guarded day and night.” Shane’s tone was low, too, but less steady. The party sounds diminished as if he’d walked a few feet away. “Too visible.”

  Exactly. Walker glared at the Channel 12 truck and watched the government’s black ants march all over his plans. “Forty-eight hours. No more.”

  Shane paused, as if he might argue and thought better of the impulse. “Understood.”

  “The father, too.” Walker was through with Jordan Fox. The hyenas might be slowed a bit by fresh kill in his wake. He wiped his palm over his face.

  A longer pause this time before Shane said once more, “Understood.”

  “She screws up the typhoid deal and you’re done.” Walker clicked off and destroyed the single-use phone. He leaned back in his seat and watched Jordan Fox a bit longer from a reclined position.

  Tequila had slowed his heartbeat and decision had cleared his head. He settled into the familiar rhythm of a well-structured operation. The typhoid plan was already in play. Simple. Fool proof.

  With Fox out of the way, everything would unfold easily. El Pulpo would receive half of the money after the World Cup location vote. The other half due after the result was announced—assuming the vote favored Walker’s client.

  Eliminate the U.S. and the client would win. They’d bribed enough people on the voting committee to make it so. The client reigns on the international soccer stage. El Pulpo and Walker collect their fee.

  Then, he’d walk away. Leave El Pulpo to the hyenas. But only then.

  He patted his front pocket absently as if the money for his retirement rested securely there now.

  Walker noticed Jordan Fox stood in front of a camera now, reporting her victory and another El Pulpo defeat. He could listen to her on the feed, but the soldiers would do that. Nothing she reported here mattered now.

  Felix was done.

  Fox was done.

  Groves and Diaz? Done.

  Shane was done, too.

  One last operation to complete.

  After that, he’d be gone.

  Walker shrugged and drained the flask. “Let’s go. I’ve seen enough.”

  CHAPTER 2

  After Jordan’s last media competitor departed the scene of the raid at The Grove, Tampa Police Officer Clayton Vaughn, who fancied himself as her personal guardian angel these days, said, “Grab some sleep.”

  His bossy nature raised her temper, as always. “I’ve got work to do yet.”

  “Let Theresa do it. Sleep while you can.” Clayton’s tone sounded more like a stern parent than a friend before he returned to his team. “There’s a good chance detectives will be calling you first thing in the morning, or before.”

  Truth was, Jordan felt exhausted all of a sudden. Cold, too. An October breeze chilled all the way through her skin. She rubbed the gooseflesh on her arms, trying to warm up. Clayton was right. She needed sleep. In her own bed. “But that’s not gonna happen.”

  “What’s not gonna happen?” Theresa Parma, her best friend at work and a great reporter, walked up. “Cut the guy a break. He wants a date. You know you like him. And Tom Clark could use the competition. What’s the problem?”

  “I thought you were rooting for Tom.” Jordan smiled, still weighing her options. Sleep was sounding better and better.

  “I am rooting for Tom.” Theresa could take the video back to the station, load everything into the system and edit to make their night’s work look its best for the early morning news. “But that doesn’t mean I think he should take you for granted, does it?”

  “Exactly.” And just like that, Theresa’s constant support made Jordan’s decision. If she couldn’t trust Theresa, then she had no one at Channel 12 on her side. So Jordan handed everything to Theresa and headed to the only bed expecting her tonight, her boss’s waterfront mansion where she’d been house-sitting since Thursday.

  Jordan pulled Hermes into the driveway at the mansion a few minutes after one in the morning. The Tampa police cruiser had followed her and parked in the driveway behind Hermes where the two officer protective detail Clayton had arranged would stay the night again.

  She turned off the engine and scooped up her bag and her yellow water bottle. She brushed the hair from her face and tried to shake off nerves that were creeping up her chest. “So you’re scared of the dark now, Jordan? Go to bed. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

  Jordan squared her shoulders, waved to the police officers, and walked around to the back of the mansion. Everything about this place had so delighted her two days ago when house-sitting for her boss had seemed like a vacation. Now the mansion felt huge
and cold and dark and empty. The neighborhood was unnaturally quiet, too.

  “Suck it up. Get inside. Get some sleep.”

  She unlocked the back door, pushed it open and felt a breezy draft assault her skin. Her blouse wafted in the wind. She shivered. Where was that blast of air coming from?

  Had she left the air conditioning on high? In October? No way.

  The usual citrus and old wood aroma inside the house reached her nose mixed with unfamiliar scents. What was that smell? Something like bleach and tobacco, almost. An electric tingle ran straight from the base of her spine to her scalp.

  She felt another rush of cold air blowing across the cavernous room. She turned toward the source and spied it. Dim ambient light from the pool outside revealed one of the French doors, wide open.