False Truth 6 (Jordan Fox Mysteries) Page 3

  Jordan grabbed her phone to continue wading through her work emails, but there were too many. She’d deleted about fifty of the unimportant ones by the time her duffel bag came around on the conveyor five minutes later. Finally. She could dash home, take a shower, and make it to work by 2:30.

  She grabbed her duffel and headed toward the taxi line. Before she walked twenty steps toward the east exit, a call buzzed through. Officer Clayton Vaughn. Perfect. She tapped the screen to answer. “Hey, I was just about to call you.”

  “Where have you been?” Very cranky tone there, dude.

  “Haiti. For work.” Why was he mad at her? She hadn’t even asked him to do anything for her yet. Given his nasty mood, maybe she should wait.

  “Why haven’t you picked up my calls?” Demanding, too.

  “I’m still at the airport. Just stepped off the plane twenty minutes ago.” She felt oddly out of place again. The whole day was circling the drain. “Anyway, I’m talking to you now, aren’t I?”

  “This is important, Jordan. I’m not fooling around here.” He blew out a long stream of air. “Can you come to my office?”

  “Sure. First thing in the morning. I wanted to talk to you anyway—”

  “Not soon enough. Come directly from the airport. Please?”

  “Now?” She glanced at one of the clocks on the wall to the right of the exit door a split second before she walked through to the sidewalk. If she went to his office, she’d have to forfeit a shower. Was it worth it? “You’ll have to make it quick. I’ve only got about an hour before work. And, fair warning—I’m kind of dirty. Like, literally, a thin coating of dirt covers my body.”

  “Fair enough. You make it to my office before work, and I won’t complain about the gnats circling your head.” He foolishly believed the gnat circling possibility was a joke.

  Gotta love Tampa airport. No mile long line waiting for taxis. Jordan tossed her duffle into the back seat of the first available cab. She slid into the back seat and closed the door.

  “Where to, Miss?” The driver pulled into the exit lane and flipped the windshield wipers on to deal with the light rain.

  She gave him the address for Tampa Police Department’s downtown headquarters. “Okay. I’m on the way.” She held her phone between her shoulder and her ear as she used both hands to secure her seatbelt. “What’s this about?”

  “Tell you when you get here.” Clayton hung up.

  Seriously? If she didn’t need to wheedle information from him, she’d get her hot shower, go to work, and let him sit there until he figured out how to be civil. But she did need him. So she rolled her shoulders and stretched her neck to work some tension out of her cramped muscles and stayed the course. At least going directly to the police satisfied her promise to Dr. Ross that she’d contact them immediately.

  Jordan spent the remaining drive time going through her messages, searching for the ones she needed and marking the rest as “read”.

  The text from Dominique Wren was near the bottom of the long list. Jordan read it, blinked, and then read the words aloud. “I skipped the Instant Pop Star auditions. Sorry about the feature story. Maybe next year. Call me for coffee sometime.”

  Call her for coffee? Are you kidding me? Jordan felt her raw shin as if she’d fallen on the pavement outside Dominique Wren’s Port-au-Prince home that very instant instead of yesterday. She groaned.

  Not only had she wasted her time collecting video in a foreign country to support a feature on Dominique Wren, which was bad enough. But she’d also lost the only story she’d planned for Instant Pop Star.

  Two of the three stories she’d been assigned to cover in Haiti had flopped—Dominique’s potential performance on Instant Pop Star and the possibilities of using 3D printers for medical devices in the clinic in Sabatier. Her bosses had been perfectly clear about what would happen if she failed to bring back hard news from Haiti.

  “Might as well pack up and turn in my badge.” Jordan Fox, Unemployed.

  The taxi pulled up in front of the cop shop and turned off the meter. Less than fifteen minutes elapsed time, door-to-door. Jordan handed him a twenty, hefted her bag, stepped out into the rain, and dashed to the entrance.

  They met in Clayton’s small, reduced-budget office at the Tampa Police Department. Jordan looked around. Nope. No improvement in the decor since the last time she was here. The furniture collection consisted of one metal desk, two industrial chairs, and a filing cabinet, all of them battered and worn. Bare minimum. But hey, at age twenty-two, at least he had an office. That was more than she could say for herself.

  “Just can’t stay away from me, can you?” Clayton said with a grin. Seriously? If his face wasn’t so darn cherubic, she might have reached out and slapped him. Teasing her after he was the one who insisted she come to his office? Really though, he did look good. How could she feel anything but charmed, confronted with his friendly brown eyes and straight brown hair flopping across his forehead like an innocent boy? He spent enough time at the gym to fill out his uniform shirt nicely, too. Claire had a point when she said he was hot. Not that Jordan was interested.

  She was glad he’d somehow managed an attitude adjustment before she arrived. The last thing she needed today was more tension of any kind. She didn’t have time to play cat and mouse, either.

  “Okay. Out with it.” She flashed a smile to show him she wasn’t holding a grudge for his conduct on the phone. “What’s up that couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”

  “Are you kidding? You’ve been gone five whole days. How long did you expect me to wait?” He grinned again and this time, he winked.

  CHAPTER 5

  Was he flirting with her? A besotted source inside Tampa P.D. was at least ten degrees of even better than anything that had happened to her today so far.

  “You dragged me here to help you get something out of your eye?” Jordan scowled and stood to leave.

  “Hang on there, Sherlock.” Clayton stood and stepped around her to block the door. “Don’t you want to know what’s going on?”

  “I do. And I have something I want to discuss with you.” She glanced at the huge clock on his desk. “But I’ve been gone for days and I can’t be late to work. One of my bosses watches my time like a hawk.”

  That was putting it mildly.

  Patricia Neil, the nightside assignment editor, wanted Jordan fired. Jordan was competing with the way-too-charming Drew Hodges for a permanent job. Patricia did as much as possible to help Drew and hurt Jordan. No way was Jordan going to hand her any extra ammo on a platter.

  “How about I drive you over to Channel 12 and I’ll fill you in on the way.” Clayton opened the door and waved his arm. “After you.”

  Jordan stepped into the hallway and Clayton followed at her pace, which was fast. They hurried down the corridor and took the stairs to the front door. Jordan stood inside for a moment watching the rain. She didn’t have an umbrella, but it wasn’t raining hard.

  “It’s about your buddy, Salvador Caster.” Clayton stopped to fish car keys out of his pocket. He gestured toward the squad car parked on the corner and pushed the door open. They both rushed to the cruiser.

  “What about him?” Jordan slid into the passenger seat. Her slacks and shirt were damp, which was almost refreshing since she’d had to forfeit her shower.

  Clayton hustled around the front of the vehicle. A moment before he dashed inside, the bottom fell out of the black clouds and rain pelted everything.

  Jordan had talked to Claire yesterday. She knew Sal had been arrested. She did want to know the rest of the story. But Richard Grady didn’t run the newsroom on Sundays and Patricia would skin her alive if she was one second late. On top of everything else, Jordan didn’t want to deal with that today.

  Clayton started the car and navigated the one-way streets through the rain. “You know he’s been under investigation since you handed us that drug dealer, Chester Flynn.”

  “Sal wasn’t involved with the drug carte
l, though.”

  “Turns out, Flynn was the local boss, but not even close to the top dog in that particular branch of the cartel.” He’d finally maneuvered until the car was headed toward the station instead of away from it. “The cartel has been involved with Salvador’s family business, Caster Shrimp, one way or another for years. For the past decade or so, they’ve been dealing all sorts of drugs, including counterfeit pharmaceuticals. You knew that, right?”

  The rain was coming down in sheets now. Jordan could barely see the station across the river. “I think you’re the one who told me. About the scope of the cartel, I mean. Not about the Casters’ involvement.”

  Clayton glanced over, maybe about to ask how she already knew that piece. But he must have figured it came from Claire. Or maybe they were still tapping Claire’s phone and had heard the conversation yesterday.

  The traffic light turned green and Clayton drove over the bridge across the Hills River. He turned left onto Page Street and took the driveway that would put her at the front door in about two more minutes.

  “There’s more, right? We’re almost to the station. When we get there, I’ve got to jump out and run. Literally. So whatever you want me to know, spit it out, copper.” It was her turn to smile at him, now. But she meant every word.

  “Sal broke about a dozen laws during that whole mess with Flynn last month. The worst thing might have been that if he’d come to us right away, both his soccer coach and his administrative assistant might still be alive.” Clayton didn’t grin. His expression was the very opposite of humor. More like one of those black thunderclouds had landed on his features. “The short of it is that Sal’s made a deal with the DEA. He’s agreed to testify against the cartel. In exchange, the Feds won’t send him to prison.”

  Clayton’s squad car was parked now at the front entrance. Jordan reached for the door handle. “That’s good, right? I mean, it sounds like he’s got a great lawyer, to get a deal like that.”

  “This cartel is big and powerful and lethal though. They’re still operating in Tampa.” Clayton placed a hand on her forearm to be sure she paid attention, and he looked directly at her, serious as a train wreck. “Salvador Caster’s going into witness protection. Tonight. He’s leaving Tampa. Forever. He’ll never come back here or break his cover, not even once, if he wants to stay alive.”

  Jordan didn’t move. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t think anything. For almost a full minute, Jordan didn’t feel anything at all.

  She stared straight ahead while the rain completely enveloped the cruiser and pounded all sides. The dashboard clocked clicked over to 2:35 p.m. She was officially late for work.

  “I have to go.” Jordan looked down at his hand still resting on her arm.

  He wasn’t finished. “Don’t discuss this on the phone with Claire. Or anyone else. The DEA is listening. And if they can listen, so can the cartel.” Clayton released his light hold on her arm, but his gaze still held hers. “The cartel and the DEA know about you, Jordan. Watch yourself. And call me twenty-four-seven if you need anything at all.”

  “Thank you.” Jordan opened the door and stepped out. She dashed through the soaking rain, up the sidewalk, into the frigid lobby and took the elevator to the newsroom because her Gumby legs wouldn’t carry her up two flights.

  She leaned back against the wall for support and tried to breathe normally as rainwater slid down her body and pooled on the elevator floor.

  The big clock in the newsroom said 2:40 p.m. Ten minutes late. Not good.

  Five degrees of even worse for someone trying to get promoted from intern to reporter.

  CHAPTER 6

  She was drenched. Her hair hung in strings around her face. Her slacks and shirt were plastered to her body. Cold air conditioning blasted through to her wet skin. She walked into the newsroom for the first time in almost a week and everything about the moment was uncomfortable.

  Shoulders curled forward and eyes watching the floor, Jordan quietly ascended the steps of the Assignment Desk to the top tier like Marie Antoinette marching to the guillotine. A showdown with Patricia had been coming for weeks. But Jordan had planned to be professionally attired and fortified by sleep for the battle.

  When she reached the top tier, though, no one was there. She glanced across the room where Patricia was huddled with a group of reporters and photographers. Of course, one of the people in the thick of things was Drew Hodges. Several sets of crossed arms suggested they faced either a roadblock or a disagreement about a news coverage plan for the day.

  Luckily, none of that involved Jordan. The executive producer, Richard Grady, had made it clear that her Haiti pieces and her Instant Pop Star piece were today’s first priority. None of that would be easy. She sat down heavily at the Assignment Desk.

  Jordan’s fingers reached for the phone to call Claire automatically, but Clayton’s warning halted the move. She couldn’t call Claire and she couldn’t leave work for several hours. Jordan was stuck. There was nothing she could do for Claire anyway, and definitely not for Sal. But Jordan wanted to be with Claire for support. She knew Claire’s heart was breaking and she was anxious for her best friend.

  A few minutes later, the informal meeting broke up. Patricia marched back to the desk. She pulled out her chair and logged on to her computer. “I noticed you were late today.”

  Busted. “I’m sorry. It took longer than I thought to get here from Haiti.” Jordan heard the sarcasm in her own voice and cringed.

  Patricia looked over her reading glasses. “Next time, I’ll need to mention the tardiness to Richard.”

  That was a little harsh. There were weather issues, and it’s not like Jordan had a recurring problem with tardiness. Patricia was obviously out to get her because Patricia had a ginormous crush on Drew Hodges. Which was ridiculous. Drew was half her age.

  Still, Jordan needed to over perform. And she would. Somehow.

  Heidi Wyatt walked by on her way from the break room to the weather center. She stopped at the Assignment Desk and pointed to a monitor showing the view from a weather camera pointed at Plant University. “Look at that rain.”

  “Quite the downpour, isn’t it?” Jordan tried to pull her wet hair back into a semi-professional braid. “Clearly, I forgot my umbrella.”

  Heidi pointed again. “Normally, you can see all the way to the river from this camera. But the rain is falling so hard, you can barely see the school clinic.”

  “That’s the clinic?” Jordan asked. “At Plant University?”

  “The clinic at the Plant University, yes.” Heidi’s tone was gently teasing.

  Jordan felt a warm flush on her cheeks. “Okay. You’re right. It’s not that exciting.”

  She watched the view from the weather camera. The parking lot was almost full. Perhaps the clinic provided more medical services than she’d thought. Several people entered the clinic, but fewer patients came out.

  Big brother was everywhere these days. The medical clinic was supposed to be a place for privacy. People were treated for all kinds of sensitive issues there. Destruction of medical privacy could be a good news story, maybe. She filed the idea somewhere in the back of her mind. She already had plenty to do today.

  Jordan collected her things and stood.

  “You can’t leave the desk right now,” Patricia said sharply. “I need you to stay here and help me answer phones. We have some research to do.”

  “Well, okay. But I’m supposed to work on my Haiti package, and Instant Pop Star, too.”

  Patricia huffed. “Then do that.”

  Jordan couldn’t wait to NOT be an intern anymore.

  Be careful what you wish for, Jordan. You could be NOT employed if you keep annoying Patricia.

  “I can help for a while first.” Jordan sat down. “What do you need me to do?”

  She stayed to answer phones for an hour. After that, she told Patricia she’d be in an edit bay working on her Instant Pop Star story. She had a lot of video to wade through f
rom the weekend auditions from Channel 12’s sister station in Jacksonville. She’d been planning to shortcut the process by using only the video from Dominique Wren’s audition. Since that was no longer an option, the stack of hopefuls she’d left here before she went to Haiti loomed more onerous than ever.

  Before she moved on to the Instant Pop Star assignment, though, Jordan wanted to find out more about Claire’s current problem. She’d been gone for almost a week. Local media had no doubt been all over the Salvador Caster story, and Jordan was kind of glad she’d missed that aspect. Conflict Of Interest would have been stamped in big red letters all over any story she might have contributed.

  Taking down a drug cartel operating in Tampa had been big news when Jordan broke it last month. Sending a long time successful local family business owner like Salvador Caster to prison would have been an even bigger story.

  Jordan fired up the Channel 12 web archives on the computer in the back edit bay and searched for stories about Sal’s arrest. Ten popped up within a tenth of a second on the first try.

  She read through the most recent ones quickly and then moved on to the newscast, which was pretty much exactly what Clayton and Claire had already told her. Sal was arrested for obstruction and a dozen other crimes. DEA agents were interviewed and offered a litany of charges.

  She found nothing about Sal’s deal with the prosecutors for witness protection in exchange for testimony against the cartel, which was normal, she assumed.

  A quick review of the rules for giving Sal federal witness protection was not encouraging. The DEA first had to do a threat and risk assessment and decide that threats against Sal were serious and credible and likely to be carried out because the cartel had resources, intent and motivation.

  All of which backed up what Clayton had said: this cartel was wide-reaching and extremely dangerous. Jordan already knew that from personal experience. But seeing it confirmed by armed federal agents was somehow so much worse.