Broken Falcon, page 30
Eden had risen, and Chase stood to receive the kiss Isabel bestowed on his cheek. “We’ll be fine. And congrats again on the baby. I can’t wait to be an honorary uncle.”
Isabel beamed and patted his cheek. “Watch out. This kid is going to wrap Uncle Chase around their tiny little finger.”
“Can’t wait.”
Isabel and Alec left, followed by the team. All but Tricia would be ready to roll by five. Tricia would be in the Virginia compound’s version of God’s Eye with Mothman, monitoring the video feeds from Leah’s drones. Ian, Sean, and Nate would all go to the campus with him and Eden.
One way or another, Chase’s nightmare would end tonight.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chase made love to Eden in the sweetest, tenderest way possible. For a guy who claimed not to understand emotions, he was most excellent at expressing them physically.
Afterward, she curled against his side. “Cuddling for real is one of my new favorite things.”
“Oh yeah? What else is a new favorite thing?”
“Your cock inside me.”
He laughed. “Funny you should mention it, because that’s one of my new favorite things too.”
She grinned. “But not the cuddling?”
“Oh no. I love the cuddling too. Every moment with you. It’s almost too much happy for my broken brain.”
She cupped his cheeks to hold his gaze. “Enough of that. You aren’t broken. You never were. Wounded, yes, but never broken. I wish you could see the man you are from my view. I see a beautiful, whole man who is the first to care about other people in all situations. You fight unarmed even when your opponent has a weapon. I mean, who does that? Someone who has more humanity than this world even deserves, that’s who.”
“It’s worth noting that I still kick their asses and break their bones.”
“As you should! They had knives! And so did the guy in Portland.”
“I just don’t want you thinking I’m some kind of saint, Eden. Because I would happily kill Dearborn with my bare hands.”
“I know you’re processing the violence that simmers after what has been done to you, but none of your actions bear that out. You’ve only fought in defense of yourself and others. And I want Dearborn dead too—but I also want him to live because I think he’ll squeal like a pig and we’ll finally get answers to everything Parks did to you and others.”
He kissed her and said, “Fine, I’ll try not to kill him if he can be taken alive.”
She grinned. “See? You are positively civilized.”
The gleam in his eyes turned wicked. “But not when it comes to you. With you, I have the dirtiest thoughts.”
Heat coiled in her belly. No one had ever turned her on like this. Sweet, shy, fun, dark, daring, dirty. He was the full range, and she looked forward to exploring the entire spectrum that was Chase.
Maybe even especially the dirty parts.
The respite of the afternoon had been welcome, but when it was time to leave Eden’s townhouse and go to the vigil, Chase was ready for that too. He was wired. Angry.
Ramped up to see Dearborn again.
If all went well, he wouldn’t, though. Eden would secure Dearborn’s confession and Hawk would take him down, and that would be that.
Was it wrong to want to take a swipe at him? Would Eden understand? Would she forgive him? Would she finally see that he really was a monster?
He would do his best not to kill anyone tonight, but he wasn’t entirely certain his best was good enough.
Still, he didn’t have a weapon. Didn’t even want one. A minute alone with Dearborn, and he wouldn’t need one. The guy was a brain fucker on the cusp of retirement. Physically, there was no way he could take on a Falcon team member in his prime. And as the youngest-ever—and still current youngest team member company-wide—Chase was most definitely in his prime.
An old prick like Dearborn didn’t have a chance without his team of goons.
And Chase had beaten them too. Only one remained—what were the odds he’d be at the vigil? If the third man hadn’t been Tobias, that is.
The more he thought about it, the more Chase was starting to believe Tobias wasn’t just one of Dearborn’s students. It was entirely possible the murdered man had been in the parking garage Thursday night.
But even so, if it wasn’t Tobias, it was unlikely Elliot would want his last remaining henchman to taint the vigil, especially now that he had to have figured out the other two had been arrested this morning. It was also telling that Chase hadn’t been arrested for murder. But then, Dearborn probably expected the guy who pulled the trigger to take the fall for that.
They took two vehicles to the campus, Sean and Ian in one, and Eden, Hawk, and Chase in the other. A surveillance detection route was required, so the drive took thirty minutes longer than necessary, but no one followed them.
Once on campus, they entered the building that housed the psychology department and they all skirted the cameras as much as possible—which was very possible as there were easy gaps in coverage, and once they were inside, there were no cameras at all.
First, they set loose Leah’s drones, which were small enough to scuttle under doors and settle into nooks and crannies in Elliot’s office, then Eden let them into the lab. “Don’t look at any of the computer stuff. It’s protected data and blind studies. All confidential.”
“Promise,” Chase said.
“I might not have a future in psychology, but I do still have ethics.”
“We promise, Eden,” Sean said.
Chase pointed behind him toward Sean and said, “He’s the boss. We’ll be good.” He then kissed her nose. “Be careful out there.”
“Will do.”
I love you, he mouthed.
Her face lit up, and she rose on her toes and whispered, “I love you too, Falcon.” Then she and Hawk left.
He watched her leave, realizing it was the first time she’d called him Falcon like that. It was kind of hot. She loved all of him. Even the wounded parts.
When they were alone in the quiet, dark lab, Sean said, “Eden’s great. Not that it matters, but I approve.”
Chase smiled, feeling another glow of warmth. He was glad a man he respected recognized the spark that made Eden special. Sean didn’t appear to be hung up on the fact she was a sex worker. In fact, none of the members of Falcon team had shown signs of disrespect. It was nice to know his faith in his team was warranted. He was also glad he wouldn’t have to quit his job because he worked with closed-minded assholes.
While the guys at Raptor might not have ventured into the paid end of internet porn, Chase had zero doubt that everyone there had visited the free online sites. Especially in Alaska where prospects were limited in remote Tamarack.
So if anyone did express disdain, he’d call them out for being hypocrites, but remained glad that didn’t appear likely to happen.
“I could see her and Hazel talking for hours about the intersections between anthropology and psychology. In fact, I’m already bracing myself for that.”
This was a reminder that as a student of brain science, Eden would fit right in with the women who were partnered with the men on Falcon team. Leah and her drones. Hazel and her bones. Cressida and her sunken boats. Eden and her brains.
He liked the idea that he could give her friends—family, really, as that’s what they were to him at this point. Eden had said the last two years had been lonely. He could help change that, and not by himself.
Tricia’s voice carried over the headset. “Drone cameras in Dearborn’s office are in place. Everything checking out on your end, Johnston?”
He and Sean each pulled out their laptops so they could watch the dozen camera feeds on something larger than a phone. “Everything looks good here,” Sean said.
As they watched, new cameras came online, these set loose in the area surrounding the fountain where the vigil would take place.
Eden smiled as one tiny drone faced her. She put her fingers to her lips and blew a kiss at the insect-like drone’s camera.
“She’s cute, Johnston, but if she starts getting mushy with the camera, you’ll need to put a stop to that,” Tricia said. “I’m in the middle of a long dry spell, and I don’t need to see this much cute happiness right now. I’m recovering from a head injury. Show me some mercy.”
“Sorry, Trish—” Chase started.
“Kidding! Mostly. I’m happy for you. I mean it when I say she’s adorable. And that body. Whew. But still, I don’t think giving up ice cream is worth it.”
There were more chuckles and more drones released as Ian positioned himself outside the vigil zone, but within quick sprinting distance.
With everything in place, Hawk and Eden retreated into the shadows and waited for the first students and faculty to arrive. They would wait until the event was in full swing before Eden showed her face.
Twilight came and went quickly, and on the computer screen, Chase could see the glow of candles as students gathered and touched wax sticks to spread the flame from one person to the next.
The vigil had begun.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Eden watched the people who’d been the closest thing she had to friends gather to grieve Tobias Redford.
For herself, she grieved for the victim of a heinous crime, but she didn’t have much in the way of loss of a friend. He’d never been a friend. He’d been a man who wanted to sexually harass her either out of the program or into his bed—probably both, because if she’d slept with him, he definitely would have wanted her gone afterward.
In fact, it was worth looking into to see if there was a pattern of women leaving the program after a liaison with Tobias. He was the head honcho grad student, just inches from his PhD, and he’d found it maddening that she wasn’t interested in or in awe of him.
He was used to new female grad students being impressed by his star power. Evelyn was a prime example. Even Kelly had admitted to being caught in his spell once upon a time, but she’d told Eden that one night of lousy sex had cured her.
Needless to say, Tobias had tried to run her out of the program after that. But Kelly was more tenacious than a burr. But now there was Kelly, crying with the others.
It was sad that Tobias had been murdered, and in a different situation, Eden would be grieving with the rest of them, but still, she had to wonder how much of Kelly’s tears were shock at the violence and abrupt loss and how much was true grief.
She waited until Dearborn showed his face. He walked slowly, as if weighed down by sorrow. If she didn’t know better, she would absolutely believe he was devastated by the loss of his most senior student. The one who’d clearly been his favorite.
The one he’d had killed twenty-four hours ago.
Early on, Eden had learned that people were sometimes put off by her interest in becoming a psychotherapist. They feared she might try to psychoanalyze them. And admittedly, it was hard to turn off that wiring once it was hooked up. But Dearborn and Parks were prime examples that psychologists were not the hallmark of sanity.
She had no clue what Parks’s diagnosis would be, but from what Chase had described, she guessed borderline personality disorder. BPD was often hard to distinguish from narcissism, which, she guessed, was where Dearborn landed.
Eden looked to Nate and nodded.
Nate spoke into a hidden mic. “We’re going in.” He had an earpiece that was so tiny, it was only noticeable if one was looking for it.
“I am not going to repeat that, Johnston.” Then he winked at Eden, and she realized he was joking. Setting her at ease.
She liked the people on Chase’s team. It was fascinating to her that they went from casual first names and nicknames like Hawk when chatting to last names when an op began. She was always curious about the ways in which people used language to signal different things. Like code switching from AAVE when a Black person was talking to other people of color and using different words and syntax when talking to white people. It was a brilliant skill and a sophisticated, nuanced language.
Maybe she should look at a graduate degree in linguistics. Not to study code switching and AAVE—that work was best left to people of color whose culture and language were embedded in the study—but perhaps the intersection between language and psychology.
But first, she needed to confront her professor and advisor.
She approached the group, holding out her candle.
She made a beeline for Kelly, her closest friend in the department. Kelly jolted at seeing her and pulled back her candle, not letting Eden’s wick touch her flame. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I’m here for Tobias, just like you.”
Craig, who was probably Tobias’s best friend among the grad students stepped forward. “You shouldn’t be here. When Tobias told you he’d found out you were a whore, you had him killed to shut him up. But it was too late and he already told us all about you.”
Eden reined in her reaction. She’d been expecting this. And really, it didn’t matter if these people thought she was turning tricks in person or working online. Either way, it was her body, her choice. But as far as the department went, it mattered that the online work she did was legal.
She cocked her head. “Oh, if you know about my online job, then maybe you saw what happened this morning, when I was forced to read a letter at gunpoint and was threatened with rape? The sympathy you’re showing is a fine sign of how awesome a therapist you’ll be one day.”
“Back off, Craig. I saw the video, and it was horrible.”
Eden jolted, realizing her defender was Evelyn. She scanned the other faces in the crowd and figured it was split fifty-fifty. Being psychology students like herself, many were open-minded. But the other fifty percent had just lost a friend to a horrific murder, and Eden was under suspicion for her role in that.
Even so, it was the look on Kelly’s face that cut the deepest. Kelly didn’t even like Tobias.
Eden lowered her voice. “I didn’t have anything to do with Tobias’s murder, Kelly.”
“Bullshit. You told him you were going to send your Raptor boyfriend after him. He turns up dead twenty-four hours later. You think we’re stupid?”
She’d known all her fellow students were plenty smart. But that didn’t mean they weren’t gullible, as Kelly was proving.
“So Tobias told you how he threatened me? That if I didn’t fuck him, he would tell Dr. Dearborn about my online job? And you’re taking his side?”
Kelly looked like she wanted to cross her arms, but it was hard to do when holding a lit candle. So she just squeezed the wax stick and said, “Nice that you’re making yourself the victim, when Tobias was the one who was murdered.”
Eden tilted her head in acknowledgment of that statement. “There are multiple victims in this story.”
“You’re a sex worker and you want to play the victim card?” Kelly said. “Please. So Tobias hit on you after he found out you’ll do it for money. Big fucking deal. It’s not a capital crime.” Kelly glared at Eden and raised her candle. “This vigil is for Tobias Redford. How dare you show up after you sent your boyfriend to kill him.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Eden said, returning to the script they’d agreed to back in her townhouse. She couldn’t let herself get derailed by their horrific, uninformed, grief-stricken accusations. She pointed at Nate and delivered the cover story they’d planned. “He is.”
“You told Tobias on Friday that Chase Johnston is your boyfriend and that he was going to beat him up because he hit on you. And you can’t deny you said Chase, because you sent me a photo of his ID. I know he’s the guy. And the police said he killed Tobias.”
“The FBI said he’s a ‘person of interest,’ and they’ve spoken with him and me. That’s all. I don’t know if Chase killed him, but I didn’t send him after Tobias.”
She hated lying about Chase, but they needed Dearborn to believe the FBI was only looking at Chase right now, or she’d never get him alone in his office.
“You’re lying,” Craig said. “And you’ve tainted the entire department. At every job interview, I’m going to be asked why I didn’t recognize you were a sociopathic slut who sent her boyfriend to murder a fellow student.”
Wow. If he thought she was tainting his job prospects, wait until he found out about his advisor.
Craig was a lost cause. She didn’t care about his opinion. It was the condemnation from Kelly that she didn’t understand.
Was it because she’d never disclosed she was a sex worker? Or was it all just ugly grief?
In private, she and Kelly had discussed many times the need for safety for sex workers. Kelly talked a feminist game, but when she learned her friend was a sex worker, in front of the crowd, she went for blood.
Eden cleared her throat. This wasn’t going as expected. She needed to get the conversation back on track. Not everyone here felt the same as Kelly and Craig. She could win the others over. “Listen, I had nothing to do with Tobias’s death. I’m as horrified as you and wanted to honor him tonight. And I brought my real boyfriend because I figured you all would want to talk to him.”
“Why would we want to talk to the ultimate cuck?” Craig said. “You really don’t care that she fucks other guys for money?”
She’d never liked Craig, and now she knew why.
“Shut up, Craig.” Again, it was Evelyn who’d spoken on Eden’s behalf.
She met the younger woman’s gaze and saw the compassion that was missing from Kelly’s eyes. That was also unexpected. Eden had underestimated the young woman. It was possible her eyes had been opened to Tobias’s manipulations. Or she just was better at looking at the situation from the outside and seeing the truth. Whatever the reason, Eden was thankful for not just Evelyn’s support, but for her willingness to speak up in such a charged situation.
She shook off her reaction. She was here for a reason, and it wasn’t to suss out which of the grad students were true friends, it was to trap Dearborn. Craig’s words gave her an opening, and she would use it. She smirked at Craig. “Why would you presume he doesn’t like watching?”
