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Without telling me. They did it without telling me. Am I next?
Thatwas a problem.
While he believed his information would keep him safe, he had that niggle of doubt...that fear that maybe, just maybe, they didn’t care. Or they thought they could withstand the release of their dirty secrets.
But there was so much at stake. Billions of dollars.Billions.With that much money, they might just cut him loose and deal with the fallout.
He could only hope he lived long enough to see his family again.
Thirty-Eight
Charlie North walked into FBI headquarters at four that afternoon. Lillian O’Dare made him wait fifteen minutes; his temper was on a slow boil. When she finally sent for him and closed the conference room door behind them, he snapped.
“I told you this was a major security issue, and you made me wait?”
“I can’t drop everything every time the Marshals Service throws a tantrum. You had the deputy director call my boss over Valera? And then expect me to be at your beck and call after I had to jump through a hundred different hoops to prove I had the right man?”
“You don’t,” he said through clenched teeth. Charlie prided himself on keeping his cool in all situations, but he was furious with how the FBI had treated this case from the beginning.
“I know,” she snapped.
Okay, that was a surprise.
“You know Valera didn’t kill Tommy?”
“He had a rock-solid alibi. And unless he hired someone, of which we can find nothing, he’s clear. Not innocent—we have him on a bunch of other crimes. But not murder.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you went over my head! Embarrassed me. Because I don’t subscribe to your out-there theories?”
“I’m going to tell you something, and you have to listen with an open mind. Because you have a security leak in this office.”
“I doubt that, but I’m listening.”
She crossed her arms and glared at him. Neither of them had sat down.
Charlie told her everything Jenna told him, but left her name out of it.
“You have a witness you’re keeping from me?”
“Didn’t you hear what I just told you? Two men showed up at her house, said they were FBI agents, refused to show credentials. This was twenty-four hours after she called the FBI hotline and told Agent Wexford almost everything she knew about Tommy Granger’s investigation into Chase Warwick’s murder.”
She frowned. “I didn’t hear about us sending anyone out to talk to a witness.” She motioned for Charlie to follow her to her desk.
They wound through cubicles and office doors until she sat in a cubicle on the far side of the room. It was cluttered, but not messy. Pictures of two kids took up much of the desk space and were pinned into the cloth frame of the cubicle. He asked about her kids.
“They’re good, thanks. Both in high school. One day sweet as molasses. The next day I’m ruining their lives. Trevor made the varsity football team as a sophomore. Scares me to death, to be honest, with all the reports of head injuries. But my husband thinks it’s good for him, team building and all that.” She typed on her computer, glanced at him. “You have a couple kids, right?”
“Two girls and a boy. Not teenagers yet, but middle school is bad enough.”
“Honestly, high school is better than middle school.”
“I have something to look forward to.”
She peered at her screen. “I have the log here. Agent Natalie Wexford spoke to forty-seven people this week who called the hotline about Granger’s murder. Nothing panned out with any of them.” She scanned the computer. “Two agents were sent out to a neighbor of Granger’s, a Mrs. Abigail Frieze, who said she saw a car in the neighborhood that matched the description we had of the suspect’s vehicle. She didn’t have much information, but gave us a firm time. Nothing more came from that. And...well there’s a Jennifer Johns who Agent Wexford spoke to on Wednesday at 11:58 a.m. I have her phone and contact information. No agents have been sent to follow up. She indicated low priority—that the witness had no first or secondhand information about the shooting and did not claim to witness it. Her contribution was that she was privy to Granger’s activities leading up to his death.”
“If agents were dispatched, it would show in the log.”
