Wherever It Leads(85)

“You can’t say that! He’s been over there for months and you haven’t managed to do anything!” I glare. “Senator Hyland says you know more than you’re telling us. Is that true?” I snort. “Hell, I probably can’t even believe you.”

He takes a couple of large steps and squats in front of me. I can barely breathe as his hands rest on my knees. “Brynne, trust me when I tell you this—I’ve told them everything that can help them get him back.”

“So there is more? You f*cking *!”

“Listen to me,” he says, shaking my legs. “I’m doing everything I can, working every angle I can to get Brady home. I have some contacts in Zimbabwe, people my mother knew, people we’re related to, to try to get information on a street level. That’s why the chatter went up. I’ve been applying pressure, pushing to get whatever scrap of information I can.

“If I gave that information to the government, they’d go in guns blazing preemptively and my sources would be quiet. They could be killed for relaying information. Zimbabwe is . . . it’s not America, Brynne. Things don’t work there like they do here.”

“You have to trust the authorities! You have to tell them things so they can get him back!”

He gives an irritated laugh. “I’d rather trust someone that can do something about it. Someone that gives a f*ck.”

“Someone like who? You?” I laugh, scowling.

“Yes. Like me. The authorities don’t give a shit. Your Senator is just looking to look nice in the media, to get some votes. Do you think he’s going to go out on a limb to get Brady?” He watches the tears run down my cheeks again. “Fuck. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Tell me this then,” I say, another realization slamming into me. “Grant worked for you too, then. Did you know him?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“How’s that possible?” I demand. “You’re telling me you didn’t know him?”

“I didn’t. Think back to the conversation where I told you about my job. I told you I have many companies under an umbrella. Nzou is the umbrella company. I run that. I have people that run Mandla, Grini, the restaurant companies. I don’t know every employee, Brynne. There are thousands of them. It’s just . . . an odd twist of fate.”

I grab a tissue off the table beside my bed and dry my face. Deciding whether to believe him or not is too big of a decision right now. So I choose to keep asking questions.

“Tell me the truth,” I say, raising my eyebrows in a challenge, “did Grant have something to do with Brady’s disappearance? What do you know that you aren’t telling anyone?”

He sighs. “Honestly, I don’t know.”

I snort and roll my eyes, but he cuts off my reaction. “The records show their unit was supposed to be somewhere else that day. Grant and the guy with him that day both claim they were given orders to move locations. There is no proof of that anywhere. Those type of orders are detailed in writing and there’s no evidence whatsoever they were told to go into another area, especially an area where we aren’t authorized.”

“But if they weren’t ordered there, why would they have been there?”

“I wish I knew, Brynne. It would solve a lot of problems. There are many theories, but none of them have any proof.”

I watch his face darken. “So when I was meeting Grant, you already knew who he was.”

“Yes,” he admits, looking defeated. “But I had run a background check on him after he got back to the States. We’ve been watching him, trying to see if he does something that gives us some sort of idea what happened over there. But we’ve got nothing, other than he has a new car, a new apartment.” Fenton shrugs. “But I don’t trust the guy. I don’t like him. And I sure as hell don’t want you around him.”

Blowing out a breath, my shoulders sag with the weight of my world.

“You have to know that I’m doing everything I can to get your brother back. And I was doing that before I met you.”

He kneels in front of me, his hands on my lap. I want to brush him away, push him back, but I don’t. His closeness gives me strength, comforts me, even though I don’t want it to. I don’t reach out to him, I make no effort to make him think he should try anything more. But I let him stay like he is.

“Can you get him back?” I ask.

“I’m doing everything I can legally.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are things I can’t do. It’s against the law for me to negotiate with Nekuti because they’re technically terrorists. I can’t have an open dialogue with them on the record. Everything I do is supposed to be through the pre-approved channels.” He hesitates. “If I get caught even trying to reach them through my sources in Africa, I could be put in prison, Brynne. I’d definitely lose Mandla. There’s a lot on the line. I have to try to work the system on the ground to get him out, but with the laws we have to work under, both American and Zimbabwean, it’s . . . difficult.”

“So my brother just sits and rots then? Because no one can figure out how to get him back?”

He lifts up to a standing position, his face somber. “I’m doing everything I can.”