Shattered Lies (Web of Lies #3)(80)
“Evidence?”
“Taped confession of Roland Westwood.”
“A former first lady whose husband died in office . . . it better be ironclad or we’ll be the worst kind of villains.”
“It is.”
“What about Sebastian?” Humphrey asked.
“I’m still trying to work that out. He definitely knew about the group and knew Bertie was in charge of it. Yet he helped us . . . kind of. However, he was also poised to take over the group if we had failed to bring down the entire inner circle. I don’t know yet what to make of him. We’re on our way back home with Roland. We’re driving to San Diego to meet up with Kirby and Knoll. We’ll be there in two or so hours. Then we’ll catch a flight back to DC. We’ll be there tonight.”
“Good job, Lizzy. Your father would be proud.”
Humphrey hung up and Lizzy took a deep breath. It was time to end this. Her father deserved as much.
32
Valeria hissed as Dalton cleaned her wound and stitched it together. It was nothing compared to the curses Grant wielded when Dalton checked to make sure the bullets had passed through and cleaned him up.
They had made it to the airfield in San Diego very quickly. Valeria wasn’t surprised when Janet said she’d drive and drove them faster than Lizzy did. As soon as they hit the airfield, they were ushered on board where they found Alex with a black eye, Roxie clinging to him and looking as if he were her hero, and two of Manuel’s men in custody.
“What happened?” Lizzy had asked, rushing toward Alex to look at his eye.
“My hero,” Roxie had answered instead. “He jumped on one of the men when they broke into the bedroom we were hiding in. Alex distracted him long enough for Mr. Kirby to shoot him.”
Alex noticed the blood soaking Val’s and Grant’s clothes and threw up. Apparently not for the first time that night.
“Ouch,” Val snapped as Dalton knotted the last stitch.
“Stop being a baby,” he teased, and Val gave him the finger.
Janet had Kirby and Knoll huddled in a corner of the plane, showing them her camera feed, but no one in the group felt like going over and answering questions. Kirby had lost a man and another was at the hospital in San Diego with a bullet wound. That bullet hadn’t been nice enough to come out and had been lodged inside the agent, requiring surgery. Instead of a debriefing, Lizzy crawled into Dalton’s lap, and he wrapped his arms around her. “You better still marry me,” Lizzy whispered a moment before Dalton kissed her.
Grant wrapped his good arm over Valeria’s shoulder and pulled her against his side. She sighed with contentment. He lowered his lips and placed them gently against her temple. “I love you, Val.”
He said it so softly that Valeria wasn’t sure she heard him, but she didn’t need to hear him. She knew he loved her, and she knew she loved him. When she had seen him bleeding, it had about ended her. If something would’ve happened and she hadn’t been able to tell him what he’d come to mean to her, she’d be shattered. “I love you, too, you stubborn Scot.”
She tilted her head and looked into his eyes, as green as the wilds of Scotland, and kissed him. “Don’t ever get shot again, promise?”
Grant tossed back his head and laughed. Others turned to stare before going back to what they were doing. Valeria rested her head on his broad shoulder and smiled. “Only if you promise not to get stabbed again, lass.”
“Deal.” Valeria sealed the promise with a kiss and closed her eyes. The madness would reignite when they returned to DC, but for right now it was just her and the man she loved.
* * *
“They’ve landed,” Humphrey said, storming into the Oval Office. Birch looked at his watch. A little after six o’clock. People were starting to leave for the day.
“Have Dalton take Roland and Kirby to the holding area Jason set up. Tell him to have Kirby turn it into a legit site that only he and two or three of his most trusted agents know about. It’s where we’re going to hold everyone until they testify.”
Humphrey was already sending out the order. “What about the others?”
“Let’s meet at the FBI training center in Quantico at nine tonight. Classes will be out and the grounds are highly restricted. If seen, we can pass it off as a meeting about upgrading the facilities, and I was touring it.”
“And Sebastian?”
“Have him meet us there at ten. I need to have a word with him.”
The door opened and Tate hurried through on her crutches. “What is it? Is there a problem?”
Birch shook his head and kissed her quickly before Jessica got up from behind her desk and closed the door, giving them privacy. “Sorry, sweetheart. I’ve been in meetings all day. It’s been hard, but I’ve had to continue governing the entire country even as we’re handling this threat. But that threat will soon be over.”
Tate swatted at him. “I know that, you told me that in a rush before I was shoved out the door for your meeting with the ambassador. Is everyone coming home? Is everyone safe? Do we know who is behind it all?”
“No, yes, yes.”
“Birch Stratton!” Tate wanted to stomp her foot if she could, so she slammed her crutch down instead. She’d been working nonstop since the bombing. She would have liked to say she had a moment to check on her friends, but she hadn’t. She’d been fielding constant questions about when the stock market would reopen, what the motivation for the bombing was, who was the mysterious hero who sacrificed himself to save others, and so on. She’d just finished all the responses for the evening news and was being flooded with questions for the late night news programs.