The clover romance colle.., p.53
The Clover Romance Collection, page 53
I consider a witty retort about dumping him, but I’m too caught up on the details of his conceited explanation of his new job description. “The CTP, that’s the Center for Tobacco Products, right?” I sit up a little straighter, waiting to see if I’m correct.
Wes looks slightly annoyed that I didn’t take the bait about discussing the end of our relationship, but eventually he gives in and I get my answer. “Yes. The department was created in 2009 after the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act was signed into law. We set performance standards for tobacco products, keep advertising in line, and run studies on alternative products that could curb tobacco use.”
“I can’t believe this,” I say with wide, excited eyes and a giant smile.
“Regretting your decision to break things off now, aren’t you? I probably put your income to shame. There was a day you out-earned me by double. Not anymore.”
I laugh and twist my face up, trying to see if he’s actually being serious right now. I never considered his income a factor for dating him or, ultimately, not dating him anymore. “No, that’s not what I’m excited about. It just makes what I’m here for right up your alley. I love when things work out like that.”
Like a child whose hand has been slapped out of the cookie jar, I watch Wes’s arrogant face crumple into a grimace.
He rights himself and shakes off the rejection. “Well it takes a lot of guts to come back here and beg me for a favor. You’ve always been bold like that. It’s one of your many attractive features.” I can hear his attempt at heat in his voice and now I’m so glad I didn’t bring Click with me. Mostly because I know Wes enough to realize he’d be talking in exactly the same way, no matter what he knew about my relationship with Click. And that would have been disastrous.
“This is the kind of favor I think you’ll like doing.” I instantly regret my choice of words as a perverted smile spreads across Wes’s face. “Not that kind of favor,” I correct quickly, and he laughs. “I have some information here that could be a game changer. It’s on track to be one of the biggest scandals for the tobacco industry in over a decade. I’m bringing it to you because I know you will handle it appropriately.”
His face goes flat for a moment and then he swallows hard and stands. I don’t care for the proximity of a certain piece of his anatomy in relation to my face, so I lean back even farther in my chair. Luckily he moves on quickly, walking to his door and closing it.
“Since when are you in the market of toppling companies and spearheading scandals? You’ve always been on the other side trying to keep this stuff quiet.”
“We all change at some point. I’ve spent enough time on that side of it. I’m ready to do some good. Like you do.” I’m pumping his ego now, because while I know he’ll be lucky to have his name associated with this case, I still need him to drop what he’s doing and come to Cynthia’s office today, so I butter him up.
“Show me what you’ve got,” he says, and I hand over a flash drive with a copy of Jonah’s information. He rounds his desk and plugs it into his computer.
“There are hundreds of case studies and drug trials that have been tampered with by tobacco manufactures and distributers over the last two years. They’ve been trying to increase the reported side effects of drugs used to assist patients in smoking cessation. It’s really quite brilliant. Maniacal, but brilliant.”
“How did you get this information? Who’s your contact?”
“He’s solid,” I answer, not ready to drop Jonah’s name as it isn’t really relevant anyway. I understand that Wes wants to make sure this is viable, but some details I intend to keep to myself as long as possible.
“Who else have you brought in on this, or am I the first? I can’t be that lucky,” he laughs as he scrolls through the information on his computer screen.
“I met with Cynthia Plante this morning. She’s with the EPA. These companies have major environmental infractions that they’ve been paying to cover up as well. She’s confident she can handle her side of this.”
“Anyone else?” He’s barely paying attention to me now as he taps his keyboard and digs into the data.
“No, just you, Cynthia and my contact.” While I know there is a chance Cynthia is bringing in an ATF contact, I want Wes to feel like he’s going to have point on this. If it helps him to feel like the most senior guy on this then I’ll let him have that for now.
Leaving Click out of the equation is slightly more tactical though. Wes hasn’t had a problem bringing up my history with him and I really don’t want to go into the boyfriend conversation right now. I’m going to have to face this, but I’m uncharacteristically avoiding it. Damn you, heart for making things complicated.
“That’s good. So what’s the plan? I know you have one, you always do.” There is sweat beading on Wes’s forehead now, and he’s looking slightly overwhelmed.
I smile slightly, remembering how strategic and effective I’d been at work and how much of a reputation that had earned me. “I know this is last minute but the plan is to meet at Cynthia’s office at four this afternoon. We’ll decide which bureau should handle which piece of the evidence and through which channels to pursue it.”
“Okay. I’m glad you were smart enough to keep this quiet. The fewer people that know, the better it will be.”
“It’s not my first rodeo, though it’s my first time on this side of it.”
“I’m glad you came to me, but honestly I’m not sure why. How did you know you could trust me?” Wes leans back in his chair and folds his hands behind his head.
“Oh please, you never did me any favors. Even when we were dating you never even threw me a bone.”
A devilish grin spreads across his face. “I tried throwing you plenty of bones, but you weren’t interested in those.” His eyes storm over and he laughs, but the smile disappears from his face in an eerie way. “I just find this so ironic that you’re sitting there trying to play hero and I’m going to make sure this thing never sees the light of day.”
I feel heat shoot across my chest as I try to process his words. I must have heard him wrong. “What are you talking about?”
“This,” he remarks as he pulls the flash drive out of his computer and waves it at me. “No one is ever going to find out about any of this.”
“Why?” A tremor in my hand starts and I glance back toward the closed door wondering if this is some kind of a joke.
“Because if they followed the trail it would lead right back here to me. Those idiots down South have been trying to run their game for years and we were always standing in their way. But that got me nowhere. Look at me now,” he boasts as he props his feet up on his desk. Glancing down at his cell phone he taps at the screen for a moment, likely sending a message.
Blame it on the shock, but I’m doing nothing. I’m just waiting for him to break out laughing and tell me he’s screwing with me. But every second that ticks by I can tell he’s serious.
“That’s only half of the proof,” I blurt out, trying to think on my feet. “My contact, he’s suspicious of everyone and wanted to hold the other half for security.”
“Smart,” Wes nods as a man steps aggressively into his office, closing the door tightly behind him. He’s an angry looking beast of a guy and just the sight of him amps up my nerves even higher.
“What are you planning to do here, Wes?” I turn so that I can keep both these men in my peripheral vision at once. Not that I stand much of a chance defending myself against the ox-like man with the scar across his cheek.
“I’m going to go to that meeting at four this afternoon and let these secrets die with all of you.”
“You’re going to kill all of us? You’re a murderer now?”
“No,” Wes scoffs as he gets to his feet and comes around the desk toward me again. His hand comes to my cheek and he forces my chin up so that I’m looking right at him. “I’m a civilized human being. I don’t murder people.” He leans in and hisses into my ear, “I hire people to do it for me.”
I slap his hand away and pull my face back in an angry fury. To my surprise, I feel the cold steel of a gun press against my temple. The scar-faced man is at my side and looking as if he’d love to do his job right now.
“Really, you don’t think someone might hear it if you shoot me right here in your office?”
“I know a dozen other ways to kill you,” the man grunts out. “And you wouldn’t even have time to make a sound.”
“We’re moving the meeting. Call Cynthia and tell her your contact is spooked and we need to meet out on Clifton Avenue, behind the old factory there.”
“I have to call my contact first. I haven’t checked in all morning and he doesn’t even know about the four o’clock meeting. I was going to call him after I left here.”
“Just text him and let me read it first.”
“He’ll know something’s wrong. I have to call.”
“Oh, you’re screwing him. I see. I was starting to think you were just a good old-fashioned cock tease.” His hand is back on my jaw and this time, with the gun still pressed to my head, I don’t slap him away. Not even as his hand trails down my neck and a single finger slips under the collar of my shirt.
“He’s my boyfriend,” I lie. “If I don’t call him he’ll know something’s up and he’ll take off with the other copies of the information.”
“A real hero, huh?”
“It’s what we agreed to.”
“Fine. You call him first, but if I hear you tip him off I will have Leon here kill you. And I’ll make sure it’s not quick.”
I pull out my phone and try to keep my hand from trembling. Now I wish I’d put everything else aside and had Click come with me today. He’d know what to do right now. I’ve got a plan in my head, but I have no clue if it will backfire. All I can hope is Jonah and Click catch on fast enough.
As the phone starts to ring I clear my throat and lean back so the gun isn’t pressed directly against my head anymore. “I’m not going to be able to sound calm with that thing in my face,” I whisper, and Leon drops it down to his side.
“Hello?” Jonah says, sounding a bit confused. Calling his phone rather than Click’s is step one in my plan.
“Hey Jonah, honey, it’s me. I’ve got to update you quickly, okay?”
“Okay,” he says, still with a little confusion in his voice but at least he hasn’t completely called me out.
“I have a meeting set up this afternoon at four with a couple contacts who are going to help us out. I’m going to text you the address where to meet. It’s a little bit industrial and it’s going to look off the grid a bit but don’t worry. I’ll text you the address.
“Okay,” Jonah repeats. “How did everything go this morning? Where are you now?”
“I’m just leaving a meeting with my contact from the FDA.” The gun is back at my temple as Wes leans down and puts his fingers to his lips, indicating I shouldn’t say anything more about that.
“Babe, I need you to bring the second flash drive with the different information on it. I know you wanted to keep it safe and I told you that you could, but I was wrong. This is a really big case and I think you should bring it. We need all the firepower we can get.”
“Umm . . . if you’re sure,” Jonah replies, and I’m so happy that he’s not asking me what the hell I’m talking about.
“I’m sure. It’ll work out, I promise. I’ll send you the address now and then I’ll call Cynthia Plante back at the EPA and let her know as well. Oh babe,” I say, swallowing back my tears because I’m positive by now Jonah has switched his phone to speaker and that Click is listening intently. “Please let the dog out. I don’t want him tearing up the house while we’re gone.”
“I will,” Jonah says, and my heart jumps slightly as Wes gives me the hand signal to wrap it up.
“Okay, babe, I love you, I’ll see you at four.”
“I love you too,” Jonah says without skipping a beat, and I disconnect the line.
“Love, really? Jordan Garcia is in love. Well I guess the whole world is upside down, isn’t it? Straight shooter Wes is now playing ball with the bad guys and Jordan is head over heels for a whistle blower.” Wes is talking in an almost frantic tone that tells me his nerves are ragged and he likely is in over his head here. “Call Cynthia and give her the new meeting place. Text it to your little boyfriend too. Then give your phone to Leon so he can trash it. I don’t want anyone tracing you between now and then.”
“I don’t understand why you’d do this, Wes. You were such a staunch believer in what you were doing. You loved protecting people.”
“And it got me absolutely nowhere. The only way to get ahead in this world is to align yourself with the people who have the money and the power. Fighting them does you no good. You and your little boyfriend are about to find that out firsthand.”
“Why even bring her to the meeting? We can get rid of her now,” the scar-faced man grunts.
“Since when do you give orders?” Wes asks indignantly. “I want to see these two lovebirds together. Let’s not rob them of that.” Wes lets out another hardy laugh and Leon shrugs his agreement as he tucks his gun back into his belt.
“Get a couple other guys ready to go with us. I don’t want any mistakes here. We need to bury this, and all of them, tonight.” Wes turns toward me and leans in close. “I have no intention of giving up everything I’ve earned just because your little boyfriend got nosy.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Click
”Shit,” Jonah says as he runs his hands through his hair. “At first I was like, what the hell is she talking about, but then I could tell. Something wasn’t right. Did you tell her the damn hostage word? The dog. That’s what she was talking about right?”
“Yes,” I say flatly as I continue to strap weapons to my body and then lace up my boots. “We need to find her and fast. I don’t want to wait until the meeting time. I’ve got a system on my phone that can track her cell but hers has been shut off. So we’ll have to go off the clues she was trying to give us.”
“What clues?”
“She told us she met with Cynthia Plante from the EPA. We can start there.”
“Click,” Jonah says as he catches my arm, trying to get me to slow down. “Who could have her? These guys in Tennessee—there is no way they could have linked her to me so quickly and tracked her down in the middle of the city.”
“You’re right. If they had, they’d likely have come here to her apartment first. So my guess is one of her contacts wasn’t as trustworthy as she thought. Maybe they didn’t like what they were hearing and it went south. But since we don’t know who she was meeting with today we can’t really help her that way. The best we can do is retrace her steps and hope Cynthia knows who she was supposed to see next.”
“I should have asked her more questions on the phone. I’m sorry. I just wasn’t sure what she was trying to say.”
“You did perfect, actually. Asking more questions could have put her in a lot of danger. You played along and let her get out as much information as she could.” I slap him on the shoulder and open the door. Slinging my bag over my shoulder I look back at Jordan’s apartment one more time and try to reassure myself we’ll all be back here together in no time.
“I need you to start making phone calls or check the Internet. We need to find out where Cynthia’s office is and fast,” I instruct Jonah.
“Even if we find it, she might not want to meet with us.”
“I don’t plan on asking nicely more than once. She’ll meet with us.” I know, to Jonah right now, I’m sounding flat and disconnected. I should be freaking out and losing my mind because the woman I love may be in mortal danger. I’ve been trained and battle tested to make sure in the moments when everyone else is falling apart, I’m keeping it together. It’s how lives are saved. Emotion will still be there, but it serves me almost no purpose right now. I can’t cry Jordan back home. I can’t wish her back home. I have to go find her and fight our way back home.
After just a few minutes and a couple phone calls, Jonah has located Cynthia Plante’s office and we start making our way there. After a harrowing twenty minutes of navigating this city I’m leaning over the receptionist’s desk and speaking in a level tone as I ask to see Cynthia.
“Sorry,” she says, spinning a coil of her hair flirtatiously around her finger. “Ms. Plante doesn’t see anyone without an appointment. She’s in with someone right now anyway and she’s asked me not to interrupt.”
“This is an emergency,” I plead.
“Everyone says that.” She’s batting her eyelashes coyly at me and it’s just annoying the hell out of me.
“If you tell her I’m here she’ll see me.”
“You’re the second person today to tell me that. I think I know Ms. Plante well enough. I know how to do my job.”
“Who was the first to say that today? Jordan Garcia?”
The receptionist’s face goes flat and I know I’m right. “Jordan is in danger and so is Cynthia. So nothing is going to keep me from getting to her office. Point me in the right direction please.”
“I can’t. I’m going to have to call security,” she says as she reaches for her phone.
I nod my head at Jonah and walk past the receptionist’s desk and ignore her demands for us to stop. After I walk far enough away to drown out her voice, I poke my head into the first office. “I’m so sorry to bother you but I’m a bit lost. Can you direct me to Cynthia Plante’s office?”
The plump woman smiles and nods as she steps out in front of me and directs me through the maze toward Cynthia’s office.
“Thank you,” I smile, and I walk right into Cynthia’s office, interrupting her and the man sitting across from her desk. The man has a crew cut and a badge hooked on his belt. His pock-marked face and angry scowl lets me know he’s not happy for the interruption.
“Cynthia Plante?” I ask, and her eyes turn immediately to the man in the chair across from her.
