I had no doubt this wasn’t the end of things. As Kelton and I were escorted out, I caught sight of Fallyn in another windowed room, her arms flailing around as she stood in front of her dad.
The look on his face was one of pure rage, but when he saw me, he stormed out of the room.
“You motherfucker.” He marched in my direction. “I should call in my favors and put you away for the rest of your life.”
I raised my good arm. “Slow your roll. I didn’t kill your son.”
“But you knew who did,” he shouted.
Office workers and other agents watched in quiet fascination.
Fallyn rushed to his side. “Dad?”
I held up my chin, standing at his height. “If someone like Brian or me came to you with the news right after your son’s death, would you have believed us? No. You would’ve brought us in, interrogated us, probably set us up to take the fall because the government can do that.”
“McCauley is probably lying to protect himself,” Fallyn’s dad said.
“Then bring him in,” I replied. “Question him.”
“Mr. Maxwell,” Fallyn said, “I suggest you take your client and leave.”
Kelton touched my arm. “Come on. They know where to find you if they have any more questions.”
I laughed at the sight of agents surrounding us with their hands on their sidearms. They were itching for me to give them a reason to shoot me dead.
Instead, I gave Fallyn a disgusted look before Kelton and I walked out. As much as she still affected me, she and I were a bad match for each other.
34
FALLYN
My fingers were aching from the force of my own nervous biting as I impatiently waited for Neal Fitzgerald to be brought into the ATF office. My head was spinning, like I’d spent days on a merry-go-round, from questioning Duke just six hours prior and from the tense encounter between him and my dad.
Every word Duke had said to Dad was spot-on. No matter if Brian or Duke had come clean back then about Neal, government officials wouldn’t have listened.
Regardless, it was clear Duke didn’t want anything to do with me. The hate on his face before he’d left the building confirmed that very thing. I shouldn’t be surprised, and in part, I wasn’t. Hurt was more like it. But I had to tell him how I felt, assuming he would even listen.
“Sweetheart, you need to sit down.” My dad had almost passed out after I told him about Neal Fitzgerald. His anger toward Duke had raised his blood pressure to the point that we almost had to call the paramedics.
I laughed. “Says the man who was ready to throw Duke threw a window. I’m going to send Neal through it.”
I’d been scouring Maggie Hart’s old files and watching her news segments on her coverage of Jason’s death, and I found something that had given me reason to pause and believe Duke.
While Maggie had been on camera outside Jason’s apartment the day authorities found my brother’s body, there was a person in the crowd, but his face had been obscured by a ball cap and sunglasses. I wouldn’t have looked at him twice until the camera panned out to show more of what was going on in the area. That man had gotten into a government-issued vehicle. All I could think about was the picture Gwen had shown me of Neal with Brian, but I couldn’t read the license plate number. I’d only been able to see the U.S. on the plate.
Even before Duke had come in for questioning, we were already investigating and combing through our database to find out which vehicles had been in the area that day, since all government vehicles had trackers on them. Our tech guys had yet to discover anything. None of us in the ATF office, and even my dad, wanted to believe one of our own would take out a colleague, especially the FBI director’s son.
“I’m not sitting until I know for sure if Neal is guilty,” I said.
“He’s not going to admit to that,” Dad said.
The lights of Boston's skyline began to twinkle as dusk set over the city. I wanted all this mess put behind me. I wanted to finally get the closure Dad and I were looking for. I wanted to curl up by a fireplace, preferably with Duke, but that wasn’t about to happen.
My dad patted the table in front of the chair beside him. “Please sit for me.”
I huffed and gave in, blowing out a heap of air as I sank into the leather seat. “Why are you so calm now? You were ready to knock out Duke earlier.”
“Believe me, sweetheart, I’m still as furious as hell not only with Duke but about what could be true about Neal. But let’s talk about Duke and you. I have been skirting the elephant in the room for the last several days, which was one reason I laid into Duke.”
