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At his car, Dusty’s phone rang. He unhooked it from the bat-belt. Thing had near everything. A good knife, folding lock pick, mace, an EMF jammer, zip ties, but not his gun. That was inside a sheath holster concealed in the waistband of his jeans.
He took out his gun, slid into his black Malibu, and placed the weapon on the passenger seat, then put the call on speaker.
“Tell me you have something, Dusty.”
His SAC, Special Agent in Charge. And he wasn’t leading with patience. “Hey, Mack. I take it the Bureau hasn’t reopened the Parish investigation.”
“No. Officially, Parish is a dead end. Mukta Parish has a lot of fans. Doesn’t hurt that that exclusive boarding school she runs is filled with VIPs.”
Money folk lived by their own rules. He started the car, put the turn signal on, and pulled onto the busy street. “Even after that drone strike?”
Drones had dropped small explosive devices on the school a few months back. They’d hit targets devoid of people, doing little damage, but scared the bejeezus out of everyone.
Mack made a can-you-believe-that sound. “Yeah, even after. But a team combed every inch of the campus—even scanned the place via satellite and thermal spectral analysis. Reviewed the scans myself, and got to say, if there’d been a secret underground chamber, it would’ve shown up. There’s bupkes.”
“Come on, there’s something there. We know the Parish family is running their own vigilante covert ops. They have to have a secure facility to gather intel and train. The school is the perfect cover.” Dusty drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel.
“Don’t need to convince me. Those Parish sisters are out of control. They’ve got to be shut down. But where’s your proof?”
“In Mexico I saw the Parish siblings in action with my own eyes—they are highly trained, lethal operatives.”
“And you went undercover for months, but your prelim went nowhere. The principal was never implicated, your contact poisoned himself while poisoning the sex-slaver, and you backed off from bringing in the sisters.”
Dusty rolled his stiff neck, right-lane passed a stopped car. “Backing off” wasn’t how he’d seen it. Gracie and Justice had just lost their brother. Plus the email from the insider claimed the girls were adopted, trained, molded, and made into vigilantes. If that was the case, then Gracie and her siblings were victims. “These people are as loyal as Labs. I’m not going to bully them into turning on Mukta.”
“I get it. That’s why I’m giving you this time. If you bring me something, anything we can use, this will go from a drawer to a full-out investigation. Just ring that bell.”
“Appreciate that.” Dusty turned a corner. The wheel brushed against his palms as he straightened out the car. “The key is getting an invite into the family and locating the headquarters of the Parish covert ops. If it’s not on campus, it’s somewhere else. When I find it—that will do more than ring a bell, it will blow this thing wide open.”
“Agreed. Then that’s your plan.” Mack paused, and it felt like there was more there. Sure enough, after a couple of beats he said, “I have word on your dad.”
Shit. His stomach did that thing that reminded him he’d once been seven years old and terrified of the man. It dropped, shrank to the size of a pea, and exploded into a ball of rage. “Yeah.”
“Got something wrong with his kidneys.”
His father, who’d been calling himself a faith healer for decades, was now sick. This could be interesting. Dusty jerked to a stop at the red light. A woman crossed and gave him the pay-attention glare. He tipped his baseball cap to let her know he was suitably chastised.
“What’s going on there?” he asked.
“Has his whole ministry praying for him, out there earning extra money. Says a healer can’t heal himself. Looks like he’s been seeing a doctor on the side. I believe he’s going to get himself some modern medical care.”
Fucker. “If you continue to have eyes on that little part of the world, keep me updated.”
“Will do.”
Dusty hung up. The cold air from the vents pushed into his face. He accelerated through the green.
He couldn’t believe it. His father, the faith healer who’d let so many sick people suffer—because if God didn’t heal you, you didn’t deserve to be healed—was seeing a doctor. And he had his followers paying for it—and praying for him.
Sure, a lot of people would say, “Those followers get what they deserve.” He wasn’t one. He knew what it was to be brainwashed. To be dying from a simple bladder infection and believe God had deemed you unworthy, that you got what you deserved.
It’s why he was doggedly investigating the Parish family. Following up on an email from someone who also knew, understood what happened when family cut you off from the wider world and gave you a narrow, dogmatic view of it.
It’s why he’d risk everything to bust Mukta Parish, the woman who brainwashed young girls and turned them into her own personal army of vigilantes. It’s why he’d agreed to go undercover for Tony Parish to begin with and had worked for that scumbag sex-trafficker in Mexico. But when Tony had died, Dusty still hadn’t had enough evidence or an invite into the family. And that had led him here to good ol’ Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Where he intended to step from the shadows and reacquaint himself with one Ms. Gracie Parish.
Chapter 8
As the gate swung open, Porter Jefferson Rush pulled into the driveway of the elegant stone colonial. From the back of the Navigator, his father groaned.
He eyed his father through the rearview mirror. The afternoon sun highlighted faint lines in his fair skin, showed silver in the tufts of red hair escaping the compression bandage. His green eyes were tensed in pain, shadowed under thick auburn eyebrows. The next few days were going to be rough.
“You okay, Dad?”
“Don’t park in the driveway, Porter. The sun.”
“Dad, you had a mini-facelift three days ago, it didn’t make you a vampire.”
His father’s laughter cut off with a curse. He rubbed his bandaged jaw. “Don’t make me laugh. Park in the garage.”
Porter clicked the garage door opener and pulled into the first bay. His father wasn’t really concerned about the sun. He didn’t want the pariah media to spot him.
Truthfully, Porter didn’t want him seen. No reason to give the media something else to mock about the Pennsylvania senator. Bastards thought anyone with six kids was a religious nut or an idiot.
The garage door slid closed behind them. Porter stepped to the back of the car and helped his father out.
Though he had his keys in hand, on a hunch he turned the knob. Unlocked.
“Dad, I told you to lock the door. Someone running for president could get himself killed this way.”
His father’s brows slid into a puzzled V. “I thought I had.”
Sure he did. His father was a great man, a brilliant man, but he was careless in ways that annoyed Porter no end. They walked into the usually bright kitchen and stopped. The shades were drawn so his sister Layla, who sat at the table with a set of laptops open in front of her, could better see the screens.
Of the six kids in his family, Layla resembled Mother most, blond hair and fair skin. She was the swan among the ginger ducklings. And as the only girl, they all doted on her.
Porter leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “Layla-bug. How’s iRobot?”
She exhaled a long breath. “My lady-in-red robot isn’t working. She’s frigid. All I want is to bring happiness to lonely California businessmen. Is that too much to ask?”
He laughed. Then thought about it. “You’re joking, right?”
She stood, stretched. “Definitely not.” With a wink she moved past him to hug their father, careful of his bandages.
Father instantly took her under his arm, a bit of comfort but also some support as he was a little unsteady from the pain medication.
Layla smiled at Porter. “I’ll take this charming young man from here.”
Porter glanced at her laptop screens. Looked like complicated stuff. “You sure, Layla? I can do it.”
She shook her head. “I was going up to change for a swim anyway.”
Layla guided their woozy father along, even as the man tossed back his insane list of things to take care of.
Agitation tightened Porter’s shoulders. “I’m on it, Dad. Go on upstairs with Layla and relax. I’ll be up in thirty minutes or so to check on you.”
An hour later, Porter was still working in his father’s office, making lists of campaign donors to reach out to. It was looking good. They had a real shot at the presidency. A real shot. He’d worked hard, destroyed his own marriage to get to this place, and now it seemed nothing could stop them. The phone rang.
He picked up it on the third ring. “Yeah.”
“Andrew, I’m surprised you answered. Especially knowing I’m gunning for you.”
Mukta Parish? He instantly recognized her voice. One would have to live on another planet not to. She was very political. And made appearances all over the world on women’s rights issues.
How did she have his father’s private number? Normally Porter would point out her honest mistake. He and his youth-conscious dad not only looked like brothers, they sounded alike. But he was curious about that “gunning for you” comment.
And this wouldn’t be the first call where he’d impersonated his father. That would’ve been when he was sixteen.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of this call, Mukta?”
There was a moment of silence. Had he overplayed his hand? Had he said something wrong? No. He’d been listening to his father’s phone calls since he was a boy playing with cars at his feet. He had the man down. So why the silence?
“Andrew.” The name was spoken as one calls a dog to heel. “Have you killed the bill currently being circulated?”
What the hell was going on? Was she trying to dictate his father’s policy decisions?
