“Nothing.” Faith glared at Hope as Luke turned his back toward them to hang his raincoat back on the coatrack. “What was your phone call about?”
He turned back to them, eyes bright. “You’ll never believe it.”
He was right. Two hours later, Faith was still trying to get her mind around it. Janice Estes had been attacked by David Lee. She was sure it was him. But...
“Do you think Janice would lie about her attacker?” Luke asked the question from the passenger seat of her car as they drove toward Carrington to talk to Janice.
Faith didn’t respond right away. She didn’t want to speak ill of a fellow agent, but...
“It’s not like it would be the first time an FBI agent had lied to put suspicion on the person he thought was responsible for acrime.” The bitterness in Luke’s words sent a shock wave through Faith’s exhausted system.
“What are you talking about?”
“Do you believe her?” The words were more accusation than question. She must have greatly underestimated Luke’s disgust for Janice Estes.
“I don’t know.” It was the truth.
“Figures.” Luke muttered the word to the window.
“What is your problem?” What she really wanted to know was what had happened to the guy who had kissed her senseless in this very car a few hours ago. This Luke was angry. Testy. Argumentative. Suspicious.
He didn’t look at her, but she got the sense that he was fighting a battle for control. A battle he was not winning. She could come up with only one explanation. She’d known Luke hated the FBI. Known it for a long time. Something about this case was dredging up feelings and emotions she suspected had been festering for years.
Two heavy sighs later, she tried again. “We have thirty minutes before we get to the sheriff’s office. I think this would be a great time for you to tell me why you hate the FBI so much.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I think it does.”
He didn’t answer.
“Would you like me to tell you the story I’ve pieced together?” Still no answer. “I did a little digging.”
If Luke got any more tense, he was going to spontaneously combust, but this conversation was long overdue. Well, maybe not long overdue. She’d only cared for a few days, but they had been an intense few days. Was there any hope for them to have a relationship? She had no clue. But one thing she knew for surewas that if they didn’t resolve this issue, all the other issues with their different career paths wouldn’t mean squat.
“I know about your dad.”
Luke stared out the window.
“I read the reports. Your dad was completely innocent, but he lost everything.”
Luke didn’t react.
“The agents were trying to get the big guy behind it all, and they couldn’t reveal what they knew about your dad and his business partner without blowing the case and risking the identity of an agent who was deep undercover.”
Luke twitched. Finally, a response. She had wondered if he had ever known about the undercover agent. She had her answer.
“That agent had a wife, three kids. They were protecting him. But in the process, they left your dad floundering. There was a lot of discussion about how to fix the situation. But...”
“Yeah. But. But Dad had already died from suicide. He couldn’t see he hadn’t lost everything. Not really. He still had me. Still had my sister. My mom.”
“Luke—”
“I know. Okay.” Luke’s voice reverberated through the car. “I know about mental illness. I know about depression. I know he loved us. I know he didn’t want to leave us. I know that now.” The anger fled as fast as it had come, and the next words wrenched out of him in a harsh whisper. “But when you’re eight and your dad kills himself, you don’t understand the pain and desperation he experienced. All you wonder is why you weren’t enough to live for.”
Should she touch him? Should she pull over and put her arms around him? Would he let her? Would he believe her if she told him that while the circumstances were different and not nearly as tragic,she, too, had dealt with the abandonment of her father? That she often wondered why she hadn’t been enough for him to stay?
“The FBI,” he said, spitting the letters, “used him and left him to fend for himself. They let people believe he was guilty. My grandfather thought his son had stolen from all those people. Did that report you read say anything about the way my grandfather wept when he was told the truth? How he went to my father’s grave and begged him for forgiveness? How he lived with regret for the rest of his life?”
