Lynn Huggins Blackburn - Covert Justice

“Except Lana.”

“Her, um, mistakes, were a matter of public record. As was your divorce and her relinquishment of her parental rights while in prison.”

Blake fidgeted in his chair. Frustration? Embarrassment? Or trying to find a more comfortable position? Heidi couldn’t be sure.

Heidi’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She silenced it without looking. As a rule, she kept her phone out of sight when she was meeting with someone on official business. If she was going to ask them to trust her, they deserved to get her undivided attention.

The phone vibrated again. Two calls in ten seconds? It might be time to break her rule.

Blake waved his Mountain Dew toward her. “Seems like someone wants to talk to you. Go ahead.”

“Sorry about this.” She caught the call before it went to voice mail. “Zimmerman.”

“Are you still with Blake Harrison?”

Max? “Yes.”

“Stay with him.” Max’s tone left no doubt. Something bad had happened.

“What—”

“Hang on.”

Blake’s phone rang and his brow furrowed as he glanced at it. She waved a hand to encourage him to take it.

“Mom? Mom, slow down. What—”

His face registered confusion, then concern, then horror. “I’ll be right there. Call me if anything changes. Tell Dad I love him. Yes. I love you, too.”

He dropped his phone on the table. “They’re taking Dad to the hospital in Asheville. Mom thinks he’s had a stroke.” He stood and rummaged around in a basket on the kitchen counter. “I have keys to Mom’s car in here somewhere.”

A stroke? This explained the call from Max.

Max came back on the line. “Heidi,” Max said.

“I know. Stroke?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Don’t let Blake Harrison out of your sight.”

THREE

Heidi slid her phone into her bag, retrieved her keys and stepped into the kitchen where Blake pawed through the small basket.

“Good grief.” He dumped the basket on the counter. “Where are they?”

“Blake.” If he heard her, he didn’t acknowledge her. She put one hand over his. That got his attention.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I have to go.”

She jangled her keys. “I know. I’ll drive.”

He froze. “What?”

“I’m coming with you.”

“Why?”

Bless his heart. He didn’t understand. “Blake, someone tried to kill you last night. You have the grandson of a notorious organized-crime family working for you. Now your dad has a stroke?” He had to see the pattern here.

“My grandfather died from a stroke in his early sixties.”

“Then this may be nothing more than a horrible coincidence, but I’m not willing to take that chance. Let me drive.”

They loaded into her car with no further conversation. She didn’t need his occasional prompts to turn left or right, but this probably wasn’t the best time to tell him that she’d already made it a point to know how to get to the nearest hospitals.

He stared out the window as she drove and she didn’t try to interrupt his thoughts. She’d unloaded a lot of information on him. He had to be exhausted from the long night in the hospital, and now this.

When her phone rang, she answered, aware that his face had paled. She held the phone to her ear, rather than letting the audio play through the car’s Bluetooth system.

“Zimmerman.”

“Just talked to Richards,” Max said. “They have eyes on the little girl. She’s watching a movie. Both grandparents in the house. No suspicious activity. Team’s prepared to stay all night.”

“Good.”

“Caroline Harrison’s phone indicates she’s heading to Asheville.”

As expected.

“Kovac is at home.”

“Are we sure?”

“Yes. He’s sitting on his back porch smoking. TacOps says he’s been out there for thirty minutes and he’s been home all day.”

“So...”

“We’ll keep an eye on things. We’ll get some blood samples and have our guys run tests for anything suspicious.”

She could feel Blake’s eyes boring into her and chose her words with care. “I would think it would be difficult to cause a stroke without there being other warning signs.”

Anyone who’d ever watched a crime drama or a spy thriller would know certain drugs and poisons could be used to induce a heart attack, but a stroke?

“It should be,” Max said. “I have a call in to a few of our bioterrorism experts to be sure there isn’t something new out there we haven’t heard of. The only drugs or poisons I know that can cause a stroke would have to be consumed in such high quantities that they’d have to be administered over time, with a gradual buildup of symptoms. He should have been too sick to be sitting around having dinner one minute and then be exhibiting full-on stroke symptoms the next.”

“Unless someone’s found a way to induce a stroke that looks like a natural one.”

“Exactly.”

“Let me know what they say.”

“I will. You okay?”

“Yeah. Should be at the hospital in fifteen minutes.”

“Okay. Tell Blake the latest is his dad’s stable. They’ve administered those stroke drugs. He’s breathing on his own and talking to the docs.”

“I will.”

“Z. Be careful.”

“I will.”

She hit End and glanced at Blake. “Your dad is stable and talking to the doctors.”

He blinked in surprise. “Do I want to know how you know that?”

“If you don’t, then you aren’t going to like the rest of it.” She filled him in on Caroline’s location and Maggie’s.

“How on earth do you know all this?”

“While you were in the hospital last night, a judge gave us permission to put traces on your phones. And we set up some passive surveillance at your homes and your in-laws’ home, since you and Maggie are there so often. Some video feeds on the outside, motion sensors, stuff like that. We have no intention or desire to violate your privacy. This is all for your protection, I assure you. I didn’t think you’d object.”

“I don’t know how I feel about that.” Blake frowned. “We can discuss it later. Why do you think Maggie is in danger? Even if I’m somehow a problem for Mark’s plan, what reason would he have to target my daughter?”

Heidi’s mind flitted to that sunny afternoon fifteen years ago. The smells. The heat. The pain. No. Not again. She shook off the foreboding.

Blake needed to be concerned enough to work with them, to take the necessary precautions, but not so worried that he couldn’t carry on business as usual. “I don’t want to think she is, but I’m not willing to take any chances, because the truth is I can’t guarantee we can keep anyone safe.”

She let that hang there, not wanting to rush past it and have it look like she was trying to gloss over this harshest of realities. “We don’t know why Kovac is here or what his end game is. We don’t know if your family is at risk or not. Up until last night, we assumed you were safe and we were wrong. We’ve been tracking Kovac’s movements, but now we have a system set up to alert us if he approaches any member of your family outside the plant walls. By tracking your phones and cars, we’ll know if anyone decides to take off on an unplanned trip and we’ll know if anyone’s phone suddenly goes dead.”

Blake shifted in his seat. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but that’s not much. Cell phones and locations are all well and good, but if somebody decides to kidnap my daughter or my mother—”

Heidi held up a hand. “We doubt either of them are targets, but we have systems in place to monitor their whereabouts. If anything looks suspicious, I’ll be notified. After what happened last night, I’ve put in a request to get additional support at your home, but with your houses the way they are, it may be tricky.”