Shadows Of Truth. Sharon Mignerey
there’s a stranger in our backyard,” Andy announced.
“Yes, there is.” Rachel unfastened her seatbelt and looked back at her son. “Why don’t you sit here for a minute while I find out what she wants.”
“Aw, Mom. I need to get a snack.” He fumbled at his own seatbelt. “Need, Mom. I’m starving.”
“Just give me a minute.” By the time she got out of the car, the woman was halfway across the lawn, a welcoming smile on her face. Not smiling back was impossible.
“I’m Erin Asher,” she said, pulling a wallet from her pocket and extending it to Rachel. “Micah sent me ahead. In fact, he’s right behind you.”
Rachel glanced at the official-looking badge and identification for the DEA before looking toward the street. Micah was getting out of the car that had followed her with another man. The reinforcements Micah had promised had arrived.
For once he’d told her the truth.
The constriction in her chest eased, and she said to Andy, “You can get out of the car now.”
“I bet you didn’t expect to find a stranger in your backyard when you came home.” Erin shook hands with Andy after he came around the car. “You must be Andy.”
“Andrew Chester Neesham,” he said, shaking her hand briskly, “I’m named after my grandfathers.”
“Are you? Now that’s something.”
Just then, Andy caught sight of Micah around the side of the house, and a huge smile lit his face as he ran toward the man. “Sarah said you came back.” He launched himself into Micah’s arms. “I’m really glad to see you.”
“Me, too, buddy.” Micah met Rachel’s gaze over the top of her son’s head before looking back at the boy. “You’ve grown a foot since I last saw you.”
“Are you gonna stay this time, or run away like a rat?” Andy asked.
Rachel felt her color rise since those had been her exact words in describing Micah.
“I plan to stay,” he said, his voice gravelly.
Since his head was bent toward her son, his hat hiding his face, Rachel couldn’t see Micah’s expression.
Andy evidently took that for a promise because he said, “Good.” Wiggling out of Micah’s arms, he headed back toward Rachel. “I want a peanut butter sandwich for my snack. Okay, Mom?”
“Carrots, too?”
He grinned, pressing his tongue against one of his loose front teeth. “Maybe if I bite hard, my tooth will come out sooner.”
“Maybe,” she agreed handing him the keys to the back door, her attention caught by the vivid blue eyes of the man with Micah. Vivid and cold.
“This is Special Agent Flannery Kelmen,” Micah said.
The man stepped forward, his handshake as brisk and no-nonsense as the expression in his eyes. “I met you briefly last spring.”
“I remember.” Everything then about the man’s demeanor had been intimidating. It wasn’t a lot better now.
He glanced back at the street, then nodded toward the back door that Andy was unlocking. “Maybe we could go inside?”
Though voiced as a question, Rachel was positive it was a command. “Of course.”
The next few minutes were taken up with making Andy’s snack and offering tea that they didn’t want to the others. Micah was mostly quiet, his eyes never quite meeting hers, which set Rachel’s nerves on edge. After Erin professed wanting to see a Lego tower that Andy was building, the two of them disappeared upstairs.
Rachel cleared her throat. “Since you all are here, it looks like things are in place for the safe house. What’s next?”
Kelmen met her gaze straight-on. “The primary focus of this mission is to finish the job, and you’re the key to tying together all the evidence we’ve gathered against Simon Graden.”
He paused while Rachel looked from him to Micah, whose dark eyes steadily locked with hers, an expression there she couldn’t define. Then he looked away, and the knots in her stomach began churning.
She replayed what Kelmen had just said. “There’s no safe house, is there?” Her lips felt numb.
Micah shook his head, his expression unreadable, his dark eyes once again not quite meeting hers.
“You’re going to help us take down Simon Graden,” Kelmen said, drawing her attention, his eyes on hers, his tone matter-of-fact. “Given the business he’s in, the half-million dollars he wants from you is small potatoes, but something about it is personal and has made him reckless. So we’re going to take advantage of that.”
“We?” Rachel began to tremble, and a roar echoed in her ears as she looked back at Micah. “You’ve lied to me again, Agent McLeod.” She gestured angrily to the door. “Get out. All of you.”
“Nice bravado.” Kelmen smiled at Rachel, though there wasn’t a single warm thing about the expression. “But we aren’t going anywhere until this case is closed.”
FIVE
Rachel shook her head against the suffocating pressure in her chest. “Wrong. My children’s safety comes first—”
“Your children are in no danger, Mrs. Neesham. We’ll see to that. What we need from you is to maintain contact with Graden until we can bring him in.”
“And just how are you going to manage that little feat when you didn’t get it done with a major investigation last spring?”
Kelmen smiled. “Simple. He wants something from you, and you’re going to help us by pretending you have it.”
“No,” she said, remembering how intimidated she’d been the last time Kelmen interrogated her. Not this time. “I’m not. First of all, I don’t have his money. And secondly, the one thing I wanted from you you’ve decided you won’t give me.”
He nodded once as though having made a decision, then he stood. “Suit yourself. If Graden is so positive you have his money, why should I believe that you don’t? Men like him don’t make mistakes like that.”
Rachel stared at the man, sorting through what he was saying, what Micah had told her. Her attention shifted to him. “You told me I wasn’t a suspect, and I believed you.” She pressed a hand against her head. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” She waved toward the door. “Leave. Just leave.” She met Kelmen’s gaze. “And if any of you come back, it had better be with a warrant.”
“Rachel,” Micah said.
She turned on him, her expression fierce. Everything about her was so rigid, she looked as though she might shatter. He was hanging onto his own control by a thread, sucker-punched by Kelmen’s unexpected change in tactics and buried alive by Rachel’s belief that he had lied to her again. Of course, she believed it. Every revelation of the last few minutes confirmed it.
Except that he hadn’t lied.
A lifetime ago when he had gone into law enforcement and then become a DEA agent, his reasons had been clear-cut. Simple. Put away the bad guys, like the one who had sold drugs to his best friend who had killed himself while hallucinating. Micah had seen his work as a DEA agent as a calling, God’s hand guiding him as surely as any minister of faith. But things had stopped being simple the day he had met Rachel. Get the bad guy…and look like one himself. Get the bad guy…and destroy everything good for a woman whose only crime was to be a friend.
He held her gaze a long time, drowning in the knowledge that the second chance he had hoped for had disappeared with her trust.
“Come on, McLeod,” Kelmen said, heading for the