Aimpoint Candace Irving (mobi reader .TXT) 📖

got another date with the captain lined up for this evening. Until then, I'll be holed up at the Lodge."

The irony bit in. A mere hour ago, she'd planned on heading into CID and hitting up Brooks with yet another request for a tap and tail on LaCroix. And when Brooks refused—which, in light of her serious lack of progress in the hard evidence department, he would have—she'd planned on going all out on the alternative: a request that she be allowed to bring John in on the case. Given the scene she'd witnessed in the captain's driveway last night, it might've worked.

Not now.

Not after learning that John had purchased that burner.

Not until she was absolutely certain she knew why he'd bought it—and could prove it.

She was forced to agree with Books' caution. Her gut might still maintain John's innocence when she could tell that even Jelly had begun to doubt it, but it wasn't enough. She refused to wager a man's life against her instincts.

Much less NATO.

So it was back to the Lodge. She'd go through every single sentence she and Jelly had been able to amass on Ertonç, LaCroix and the captain while she waited for the Karmandi info to tumble in. If she could prove John was serving as a backchannel, she just might be able to force her boss' hand—and get Brooks to agree to pull John in.

If not, she was headed back to that house. One way or another, she was going to get what she needed to put this investigation to bed.

Tonight.

7

Regan stared at the second hand as it completed yet another silent sweep around the face of the wall clock hanging in her kitchenette at the Sunrise Lodge. Another ten minutes and it would be eighteen hundred on the dot. The time John had suggested for the first dinner they'd shared. What the devil was taking him so long to confirm their second?

Relief seared in as her phone pinged. But as she grabbed it, she spotted the notification on the screen. The text wasn't from John; it was from Jelly.

Have confirmation—Olan & Royar are 1st cousins!

details in email

Adrenaline surged, despite that clock and its taunting time.

She dumped her phone on the kitchenette table and scanned the English-language Turkish newspaper still open on her laptop. According to the year-old article she'd pulled up, Olan Karmandi had not only denounced terrorism in general—and the PKK in particular—while still an undergrad, he'd also logged a serious slew of hours volunteering at a Turkish free clinic during medical school and after. Doctor Karmandi had doubled down on his views for the article's author, reiterating his horror and disgust with the PKK's tactics in light of the car bombing that had killed then Colonel Ertonç's sons days earlier.

When she added that to those calls with Ertonç—and John's physical intercession between the two—it was the proof she and Jelly had been waiting for. They could now connect Royar and the PKK to Olan, and from there, Olan to General Ertonç through John. And, of course, Ertonç to the Turkish government. But would it be enough for Captain Brooks?

Moments later, Regan had her answer as her phone pinged yet again. This text wasn't from Jelly. It was from Brooks.

spoke to Jelling—no go on Garrison

get him to confide in YOU!

Regan slapped her phone onto the table. Good Lord, was Brooks really waiting for John to spontaneously cop to a backchannel negotiation?

That was not going to happen.

She might not have known the man long, but she'd gotten to know him exceptionally well these past few days, especially after having spent the better part of the afternoon reviewing everything she and Jelly had been able to gather on him—including that heart-wrenching material in the background investigation conducted prior to John's top-secret clearance.

Until now, she'd thought the three years she'd spent with her grandfather following her mother's suicide had been rough.

She'd been stuck in Disneyland by comparison.

The statements in that BI from John's elementary teachers painted far too detailed a picture for her peace of mind. A broken right forearm, three cracked ribs, a not-so-mild concussion, along with countless sprains, welts and bruises—all before John had reached ten. She better understood his fundamental disdain for lies too. Not only had he grown up with that heinous one regarding Beth and their mom, he'd been forced to regurgitate the filth his dad had fed social services.

According to Earl Garrison, John had fallen out of a tree, gotten kicked by a vicious horse, and run smack into a five-foot commercial tractor tire he hadn't seen until it was too late.

The bastard's tales had been nothing if not creative.

Of course, no explanation had been volunteered by father or son when John had suddenly sprouted taller than his dad in junior high and begun to play football with an innate agility that'd stunned the hell out of his coach. Not a broken bone or a welt in sight from then on.

Regan had her suspicions as to how that final confrontation had gone down with dear old dad.

In the end, the information in that BI had only cemented what her gut had been insisting since those revealing moments in that storage closet. John might've been baptized into evil, but he'd consciously and consistently turned his back on it since. Those old-fashioned manners of his that had initially driven her nuts weren't an act, let alone a polished effort to get her into bed. They were an innate rebellion against the monster who'd raised him, a deep-seated effort at rising above.

There was no way John would be spilling military or geo-political secrets, backchannel or not. Not to her. Not to anyone.

Nor would he simply blow her off. Not willingly.

If John had changed his mind about pursuing a painfully green public affairs officer who stuck her nose in where it didn't belong, at the very least he'd have called to let her know.

Regan glanced at that damning clock. Eighteen hundred exactly.

Something had happened.

But did it have to do with that