Above Protection (Imperfect Heroes Book 1) (21 page)

“Well, first off, you need to tell me
how you think the suspect made you.”

I nodded and cleared my throat. “Going
into town maybe? Aside from that little piece of sh… uh, the
encrypted phone Jack-N-Jill gave me,” I said, making air quotes
around Jack-N-Jill, “we had zero technology. Just a TV. So I’m
thinking they may have followed me in from town. I just don’t know
how they found me in the middle of nowhere Virginia.”

My boss laughed and I tilted my head
in confusion. “Something funny?”

He shook his head and rapped his
knuckles on his desktop. “No, but I knew you’d blame yourself.
You’re a hothead, Hawthorne, but one thing I tell everyone about
you is that you will always own up to your sins.”

I hung my head, defeated. I lifted my
eyes back to his beady brown ones. “So I was right? They followed
us back from town?”

He was still smirking and it made me
uneasy. “No. After we recovered the car from the lake, we found a
small tracking device behind the right rear wheel. Watson’s kid
must have put it there sometime when you were inside the vic’s
condo before you left St. Pete.”

My eyes widened. “Well fuck, I should
have checked for that. I’m sorry, boss.”

He shook his head. “No, you wouldn’t
have seen it. It’s so small, it just looks like a piece of metal
about the size of a bar of soap. Honestly, we hadn’t seen anything
like it before. It wasn’t even destroyed by the water. Our agents
were very interested to study it. They think Shane ordered it from
China. It definitely isn’t anything we’re familiar
with.”

I felt slightly relieved, but still, a
pang of guilt busted me in the chest. “So why did it take him eight
days to find us, then?”

“That, we don’t know. The satellite
signal doesn’t seem to be very strong on the thing. The scientists
aren’t sure if it’s from the water damage, or if the thing is just
a cheap Chinese piece of shit.” He laughed a little, and I couldn’t
help but laugh with him.

“About the car… sorry about that. It
was a last minute decision. I’m not gonna have to pay for that, am
I?”

He shook his head. “Hell no. It was
drug dealer’s car we seized. Aside from changing out the plates and
removing all the drugs from the secret panels, it didn’t really
cost the government anything. Well, the price of pulling it out of
the water wasn’t cheap, but you get the picture. Besides, if you
had left it on the cliff, then jumped, we’re sure the Watson kid
would have just jacked the car and then had all your personal info,
including your badge.”

He had a point. I had thought that
too, but I figured if I had brought it up, Jeffrey would have
thought I was giving him a copout about why I’d ruined the car. I
was relieved when he mentioned it first.

He continued, “When Shane Watson gets
out of the hospital, he’ll be brought in for extensive questioning
about where he got that device and why it took him so long to find
you. It could be that the extreme remote location of the cabin took
him a while to pinpoint, or it could be that when you finally got
into town he was able to get a signal and tracked you
then.”

My mind went again to the trip into
town. We’d gone twice, and he’d made us after the second. What the
boss just said had made perfect sense. So in the big picture, I was
to blame. I shouldn’t have let her talk me into going into town. I
was glad he hadn’t asked why we’d done so, either.

Jeffrey looked at his watch. “You
better get going, I know you want to go to the trial. I’m gonna
grant you some paid administrative leave to attend it.”

I was surprised. “Wow, thanks, boss. I
just wanna make sure she’s okay, ya know?”

He shot me a suspicious look. “You not
feeling all warm and fuzzy about the vic, are ya? Because you know
there are rules…”

I cut him off. “No, no warm and
fuzzies,” I lied. “But she did grow on me a little. Plus I’d like
to see those scumbags get what they deserve for killing that
woman.”

“I agree. See you later.” I got up and
went to the door.

“Duke.”

I turned around, my hand on the
doorjamb. “Yeah?”

“Good job with Ms. Lynch. Despite
everything, you went above and beyond to keep her safe, and at the
end of the day, that’s all that really matters, isn’t
it?”

I nodded and had to choke back a
sudden lump in my throat.

Making my way to the parking garage, I
smiled as I got in the elevator. I felt as if a huge weight had
been lifted off of my shoulders.

“
In the interest of
justice, and in the interest of the taxpaying citizens of the
Central District of Florida, we are going to be trying both George
Watson and Elmo Watson on two counts of Murder-For-Hire and one
count of Failure to Pay Corporate Taxes over One Million
Dollars.”

The judge, a lady in her mid-50s with
short, spiky black hair and beautiful skin the color of chocolate
removed her glasses and looked at the two men and their attorney,
who were the only ones in the courtroom standing.

“The defendants plead Not Guilty, Your
Honor.”

“Very well. Let’s begin,” she
said.

My eyes went to Rayanne, who sat next
to the federal prosecutor. Her back was to me, but I could tell she
was nervous. She was fidgeting and when she would turn her head to
listen to what the prosecutor was telling her, her eyebrows would
dip and she’d chew that thumbnail of hers. Even nervous, she was
sexy. She looked to be wearing some kind of dark blue suit jacket
and my inappropriately perverted ass was hoping she had on a skirt
under it so I could get a glimpse of her beautiful legs.

The prosecutor got up with his opening
statements and addressed a jury of 12 people sitting in the juror’s
galley about how the Watson brothers had not only failed to pay
their taxes over the past two years, they’d also had Angela Silvey,
their temporary accountant, murdered, execution style, in her own
home when she had discovered some fraud and the tax issue, and had
threatened to go to the authorities with it. I shook my head. What
a couple of idiots. Killing someone over taxes and some dirty
accounting? Without the murder, they could have done a year or two
at some club fed prison camp. Now they were facing murder charges.
If convicted, they’re off to a federal penitentiary. Nobody wants
to go to the pen. Nobody.

Hours went by as each side brought in
witnesses, and in my opinion, the defense was weak with theirs.
Bringing some random accountant in from a temp agency did them no
good. They could offer nothing.

While the case was interesting, I
pretty much watched Rayanne the whole time. I sort of swelled with
pride at how she was remaining still and professional. She’d
stopped fidgeting and that made me smile a little. Finally, I heard
what I had been waiting for.

“The prosecution calls Rayanne Lynch
to the stand.”

She stood up and I sucked in a breath.
She sure did have a skirt on. The fitted, dark blue fabric hit her
just above the knee but was still very tasteful and attractive. Her
shiny heels were almost the same color as her skin. It just looked
so… hot. But then again, despite my trifs with trashy chicks like
Tish and others whose names I’ll never remember, I had always been
a sucker for a woman in a business suit.

Rayanne climbed the two steps onto the
stand and the minute she reached it, her eyes scanned the crowd,
stopping on me. I gave her a reassuring smile and a nod, and I
watched her bite back her own smile. It also didn’t go unnoticed by
me that her body visibly relaxed once she saw me. I kept eye
contact with her until she looked away when the federal prosecutor
said her name.

After she was sworn in all official
with her hand on the Bible, the prosecutor began. “State your name
for the record.”

“Rayanne Mari Lynch.”

“What was your position in the Watson
Law Firm?” the prosecutor asked.

“Paralegal.”

“Ms. Lynch, how long did you work for
George and Elmo Watson?”

She looked me in the eye. While it
appeared to everyone else she was looking at the young prosecutor,
she was looking past him. I held her gaze and nodded slightly at
her, encouraging her.

“Five years.”

Her hands were clasped tightly in her
lap and because I knew her, I could tell she wanted to wring them
in nervousness. I presumed she was probably told not to do this,
but to just keep them clasped.

The attorney continued, “And in those
five years, how well did you get to know the Watsons?”

“Very well,” she said
quietly.

“Please speak into the microphone.” A
court reporter perched in front of the juror’s galley spoke to
her.

She nodded. “Sorry. I knew the Watsons
very well.”

“On a personal level, would you say?”
the prosecutor continued.

“Yes. I went to their family Christmas
parties, summer barbeques, even the wedding of one of the children.
I…” she broke off, still staring at me. I smiled and gave her
another nod.

“Continue please,” the prosecutor
said.

She cleared the emotion out of her
voice. “I had come to think of them as family, almost.”

“I see,” he said. “Did you ever meet
Elmo’s son, Shane Watson?”

“Objection!” the defense attorney
said. “Leading.”

The prosecutor was quick to jump in.
“I am establishing relationship.”

“Overruled,” the female judge said.
“Go on.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.” He directed
his attention back to Rayanne. “Please answer.”

“Yes,” she said. “A couple of times at
these family functions.”

“Thank you,” the prosecutor said. “So,
in July of last year, what happened in the accounting
department?”

“Well, our accountant went out on
maternity leave and they hired Angela Silvey to fill in,” Rayanne
said.

“And did Angela ever share with you
anything she found in the books?”

She shook her head. “No,
nothing.”

There was a pause as the attorney
flipped through pages. “What did you think when in September,
Angela Silvey just stopped showing up for work?”

Her eyes were still locked on mine.
Her intense gaze was starting to give me a bit of a chubby. I
adjusted myself discreetly under my slacks.

“I figured she didn’t want to deal
with their messy books and just didn’t come back.”

A few people in the courtroom’s galley
– and the jury – chuckled, me included.

“What do you mean by messy, Ms.
Lynch?”

She cleared her throat. “What I mean
is, that after Angie just stopped showing up, George came to me one
day and asked if I could sort through their books and try to get
them straight enough.”

“And did you?” he asked.

I watched as something close to anger
shifted in her gaze. She would look at the attorney when he spoke
but then back to me as she answered. Rayanne was angry, I could
tell. “I did, but I didn’t like it.”

“Explain that, please?”

She took a deep breath. “I’m not an
accountant. I should have told them just to hire another temp, but
like I’d said before, I thought of the Watsons as family. I didn’t
want to let them down. I thought I would at least try to wade
through their books, but in the end, I realized I was not cut out
for that. I had no clue what I was doing. After about
three-and-a-half weeks, I told George I couldn’t do this anymore. I
was so frustrated at that point, I was prepared for them to fire me
for not doing it right. And I didn’t care. I couldn’t take the
stress. I am not a numbers person.”

She looked at me, and I grinned. I
could tell she wanted to grin back, but just couldn’t.

“Ms. Lynch, did you see anything
strange or suspicious while you were sorting out their
books?”

She hesitated a beat, and I could tell
that this was the million dollar question. She sucked in a deep
breath and stared at me, then answered, “Yes. There was a
hundred-thousand dollar wire transfer to Shane Watson from Elmo’s
account on the first of September last year. At first, I paid it no
mind. I had no idea why he’d give his son a hundred grand, it could
be for anything. But what happened a week later was what had the
hair on the back of my neck standing on end.”