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“No. I’d really just like the story. I need to get back to Everly.” He didn’t like seeing Zack so tired, but Everly was his first concern now. He didn’t care if exposing FAA irregularities started a scandal that rocked Zack’s presidency. Not if it meant getting Everly out of danger.
“I know this probably won’t help, but he asked me to bring you in.” Roman took a seat. He had a glass of his own. “He was going to tell you everything over breakfast tomorrow. He didn’t even realize that the plot leading to Mad’s death may be about him until earlier today when I told him what we’d found. We still don’t understand what it means.”
Zack turned. “You have to know I wouldn’t want you to endure the hell I went through for anything.”
Losing his wife. Gabe and Mad had been the ones to sit with Zack in the hospital that first night. He hadn’t been injured but after the reporters had gone, Zack had lost it. The doctors had sedated him. He and Mad had watched over him while Roman made arrangements for Joy’s body.
Gabe softened slightly as he sat. “I know you wouldn’t.” These were his closest friends. He needed to have a little faith. “Tell me what you know.”
Zack shrugged out of his jacket and laid it over the chair he sank into. “I know the head of the FAA swears to me his people tell him it was pilot error. I had nothing to do with it, but I would like to have Connor check into everyone involved in the investigation. I know you’re not supposed to work on American soil, man.”
Connor shrugged. “I’ve done worse things. I’ll get on it.”
He would find the truth. Oh, Zack might not act on it if he thought he had good reasons, but Connor would find it. That was one worry gone. “Why was Mad coming to see you?”
“He wanted to ask me about a woman named Natalia Kuilikov.” Zack took another drink. “He told me he’d been contacted by someone who had found her diary. He wouldn’t tell us who had contacted him, but he said Capitol Scandals was actively trying to acquire it. Apparently there was a bidding war for the book on the Deep Web.”
Gabe shook his head. “The Deep Web?”
“It’s like the dark alley of the Internet,” Connor explained. “There are addresses that you can’t get to through the regular means. A lot of criminal activity takes place on the Deep Web. Who was she? An old girlfriend of yours? Is she dead?”
“I don’t know,” Zack admitted. “I thought she was still in Russia. And she certainly wasn’t my girlfriend. I’ve talked about her with you. Nata.”
“Your nanny?” Gabe thought back. Nata was the nickname Zack had used when he’d been too young to pronounce Natalia. Zack had spoken fondly of the young Russian woman who had taken care of him for the first seven years of his life in Moscow.
“Yes.” Zack groaned. “You can see where I’m a bit confused. I was seven the last time I saw her. He and Mother employed an American woman who watched me during the summers when I wasn’t at boarding school. By the time my mother was killed in a car accident, Dad decided I was too old to need a babysitter. What could Nata have said that was so vital or secret that people would kill to know?”
“Did your father have an affair with her?” Connor asked.
“I already went down that road.” Roman paced the floor. “Even if his father had an affair with his childhood nanny, that’s not scandalous enough to touch Zack. His approval ratings are ridiculously high. Everyone knows his father had problems with women and booze, but the man is way out of the public spotlight now. A discovery like that is a footnote in a biography.”
“Have you asked your father?” Gabe knew Zack wasn’t close to his dad, but if he could shed some light on what was happening, it was worth the attempt.
Zack sighed. “I can try, but he’s in early stage dementia, I’m afraid. And he didn’t like to talk about the past even when he could remember it.”
“Then there has to be something more. We have to find that damn diary ourselves,” Gabe said. “I want to put some investigators on the video feed from the parking garage. Maybe we can catch the man who was talking to Everly. He seems to know way more than he should. I also want to see the wreckage of Mad’s plane. My company built that plane. I taught Mad how to fly it. I want to do an independent study.”
Zack nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. Is Everly really Mad’s half sister?”
“Yes.”
“Wow. I wish I could have seen how that bastard would have handled having a sister. God knows he hit on all of yours. It made me happy I was an only child. Do you remember when he hit on Roman’s cousin when we were teenagers?”
Gabe was able to laugh. “She broke his nose. That was one of the best days ever.” He sobered a bit. “I wonder how he would have handled having a kid.”
“I hope Sara knows that we’re all behind her,” Zack explained. “Anything we can do.”
“You can get my cell phone out of jail,” Gabe requested.
“Already done,” Zack said. “It should be up here any minute. When we spotted you coming in, I tried to catch them before they took your phone, but I missed.”
“I want to call Everly and let her know I’m on my way back. I think we’re going to stay with Connor for a while. His place is better protected than mine. I have to very quietly watch over her.”
“Or he could be the one with the broken nose,” Connor added. “Everly is not the debutante type. She’s a cop’s daughter and she lets you know it.”
“You and Mad’s sister.” Roman’s head shook as though he couldn’t quite believe it.
“I’m going to marry her.” He was going to try anyway, but he had to work on their relationship, on building her trust.
“Never thought that would happen.” Zack smiled and stood, holding his hand out.
Gabe took it, but brought his old friend in for a hug. These were his brothers, his family-by-choice. He could count on them. “We’re going to figure this out. We’ll put a stop to it.”
“Damn straight we will.” Roman had a hand on Zack’s back.
“And we’ll take out anyone who threatens us,” Connor promised.
Their circle was incomplete, but Dax wasn’t the only absentee. They would be forever diminished because Maddox was gone.
Grief sprang up in Gabe like a bottle had been uncorked.
“I miss him, too,” Zack said. “I hate the fact that I wouldn’t meet with him. I thought he was trying to get me to smooth things over with you. He told me he had something important to talk about, and I blew him off. Maybe he wouldn’t have gotten in that plane if I hadn’t hung up on him.”
“You can’t think like that,” Roman said as they broke apart. “Mad was always reckless. I’m going to miss him forever, but we had a right to be pissed at him. All we can do now is try to figure out who killed him and why.”
The elevator door dinged again, and another agent entered carrying Gabe’s and Connor’s cell phones. Liz Matthews was right behind them. She was dressed in a fashionable black dress that gathered at her small waist and flared over womanly hips. He’d heard her say she was too heavy to be on camera, but television couldn’t capture her brilliance, the way her eyes sparkled with life. Gabe was grateful to her for saving Zack from the brink of despair. She was lovely inside and out.
And it was lucky no camera was around to catch how the president of the United States looked at her with hungry eyes.
“The crowd is getting restless, Zack. There are only so many Beltway jokes a girl can take.” Her smile widened as she took in the room. “Gabe and Connor. It’s nice to see you both. How is your sister doing?”
Liz never forgot to ask about family. She was a good Southern girl. “She’s good. She’s taking a little time off to relax.” He had his cell in hand and it looked like they’d gathered all the information they could here for now. It was time to get back to Everly. “Zack, thank you. We’ll contact you as soon as we know something.”
“I’ll get you the information you need. And I’ll make sure you get to examine the plane.?
?? Zack reached for his tuxedo jacket, pulling it on. Liz was right there, smoothing it down and straightening his tie.
“Thank you.” Gabe looked down at his cell. Dax had called. He checked his voice mail. Dax’s low voice came in loud and clear.
Gabe had to get his ass to Crawford now.
He intended to marry her—if he didn’t kill her first. Damn it. Dax knew he didn’t want her out there.
And he was going to take a deep breath and deal with it. She was walking into a well-guarded building. She could handle herself. Because if he wasn’t careful, he would push her away with his protective instincts.
“Connor, have them pull the limo around. We have to swing by Crawford and pick up Everly and Dax.” He dialed Dax’s line.
“Hey, don’t yell at me. She’s very persuasive,” Dax said.
At least they were all right. “Wait for me. I can be at Crawford in fifteen minutes.”
“We’re walking through the doors now. Everly figured out that she’s got Natalia Kuilikov’s journal on an SD card in her safe. She’s also decided that her friends here at Crawford are dirty and I think she likes you. Like-likes you.”
That was Dax, always joking. “Well, I like-like her, too. Keep her safe. I’m on my way.”
“I’ll call you when we’re leaving, and you can pick us up. We took the subway since you and Connor hijacked the limo, and he wasn’t kind enough to leave me the keys to his Porsche.”
