Debra Webb - Gunning For The Groom

Victoria set her coffee aside. “What sort of evidence?”

Frankie pulled the statement from the envelope in her backpack. Handing it over, she explained, “Sophia had a choice and she willingly contributed to his guilty verdict.”

“Sophia?” Victoria echoed with an arching eyebrow. She studied Frankie over the top of the document. “You actually believe that.”

“I’ve suspected it for some time,” Frankie replied. “You’re holding the proof.”

Victoria picked up a pair of glasses and set them in place to read the statement. When she finished, she placed the papers gingerly on her desktop, as though they might explode. “How did you get this?”

“A friend of Dad’s came to see me. He gave me a key to a safe-deposit box and warned me the contents could be dangerous. That document was one of several items inside.”

“Go on.”

“False passports with Sophia’s picture, a flash drive with more information that connects her to my father’s death, and other personal items from Dad.”

“Did you recognize this friend?”

“No,” Frankie admitted. She pulled out her phone and brought up the pictures she’d taken at the diner. “Do you? He told me he was close to my parents.”

Victoria adjusted her glasses and carefully examined each photo. “I’ve never seen him. You should speak with your mother and verify your source and the accuracy of this statement.”

“I have.” Frankie swallowed her impatience. “Well, I haven’t asked her about this man, but we’ve talked about Dad. Argued really. Her answers weren’t clear or helpful. Or even honest, in light of all this.”

“Frankie. You’ve been part of covert operations. It’s a world of smoke and mirrors. You know reports rarely give the full picture of any situation.”

“You won’t help me get to the truth?”

Victoria sighed. “What are you asking me to do?”

Frankie wanted to get up and pace or scream, or otherwise release some of the frustration building inside her. Instead, she remained in the chair. “I have nightmares about my dad’s downfall and death. He wasn’t a traitor.” She stopped and swallowed when her voice started to crack. “I can’t believe it, not about the man I knew.”

“Frankie—”

“I know I’m looking at this with a daughter’s eyes. I talked with Sophia several times when he was accused and after they found him guilty. She was too composed through the whole mess. Never a tear or any sign of worry. What kind of wife doesn’t worry when her husband is accused of treason?” Frankie paused, pulling on the tattered edges of her composure. Losing it would get her nowhere. “Sophia never gave me anything but the same tired reply—trust the process.”

“It’s sound advice.”

“It didn’t work.” Frankie left out the irrelevant piece that trusting a legal process included zero comfort factor. “It was a self-serving answer,” she argued. “Suicide isn’t part of any fair or just process. How did he even manage that with the security team that must have been surrounding him?”

Frankie took a moment to compose herself. “Aunt Victoria, I have a new job, I’m making a new life, but I haven’t moved on. Not really.” She scooted to the edge of the chair. “I need the answers. I deserve to know what happened and who I can trust. There’s no way I can move forward until I clear up the past.”

“I understand how that feels,” Victoria said, her words heavy with the wisdom of experience. “But leaping to conclusions will only hurt you. Others, too, most likely. I’ve known your mother a very long time. Her word should be enough for you.”

“What word? She won’t explain herself,” Frankie pressed, desperate for Victoria’s help. “My father’s been silenced. I want to understand what happened.”

“You want revenge,” Victoria stated bluntly. “Who will you target and what price will you pay?”

Frankie forced herself to calm down, taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly. “My dad isn’t a traitor. Even dead, he doesn’t deserve to bear that notoriety.” She fidgeted in the chair, wishing again she could get up and pace. “Apparently the friend of his who found me yesterday is the only person who agrees with me.”

“You don’t know that.” Victoria tapped the papers in front of her. “This statement doesn’t prove your mother was complicit if there was a concerted effort to ruin your father. She had to make an accurate report. Her position and her integrity required it.”

“It’s not accurate. Dad was in Bagram when she stated he was in Kabul.” Frankie hadn’t felt so helpless since she’d woken in a hospital bed with no feeling in her legs. She needed an ally. Just as the candid support of the medical team had empowered her recovery, one trustworthy partner would make all the difference now.

Victoria’s eyes lit with troubled interest. “How can you be sure?”

“Because I was there. I saw him.” She nearly cheered when Victoria’s brow furrowed as she reviewed the report again.

“Let me see the passports.”

Frankie handed them over and endured the small eternity awaiting Victoria’s response.

The older woman reached for her phone and pressed a button. “Ask Aidan to join us, please.” She replaced the handset and met Frankie’s gaze. “Aidan Abbot is one of my best investigators. No one’s better with documents or ferreting through layers of security or fraud. He can tell us if the passports are fakes.”

“How could they possibly be real?”

Victoria flipped through the pages. “Frankie, you know there are times when an established alias is necessary. Or all of this could be an elaborate setup to turn you against her.”

“I’ve already been against her for months. We haven’t spoken since his funeral.” An event that had been postponed a full month so Frankie could attend. Too bad it hadn’t made anything easier. The delay had only given her mother more time to pretend life with her spouse hadn’t existed. The brutal lack of emotion had shocked Frankie. Still did. If Sophia so willingly cut out a husband, losing a daughter probably hadn’t registered on her scale. Everything Frankie thought she knew about love and family had been turned upside down by a disaster someone had manufactured. Hurting, her blood beating cold in her veins, Frankie fixed her gaze on the window and the city glittering beyond it.

“Let’s assume you’re right,” Victoria continued. “It would require serious planning and resources to systematically take down a man of your father’s standing. To create evidence strong enough to ruin his career and push him to suicide without leaving a trail would be almost impossible these days.”

A knock sounded on the door. Frankie turned to see it open and a man with thick, dark hair in need of a trim, and vivid, cobalt-blue eyes, enter.

“Aidan Abbot, Francesca Leone.”

“A pleasure,” he said, shaking her hand.

There was a trace of Ireland in his voice and it sent her pulse into some foolish feminine skipping. He probably got that all the time, she thought, irritated with her reaction. “Likewise,” she replied.

“Francesca’s a lovely name.”

The way he said it made her want to sigh and forget why she’d come here. She cleared her throat. “Call me Frankie.” She’d been named in honor of both her grandmother and father. Her full name had always felt too exotic. “Frankie” was a better fit for the tough and proud little girl who’d spent her life aspiring to be like her dad.

When he was seated, Victoria handed Aidan the passports. “Frankie has some concerns about these.”

Frankie watched him examine them, involuntarily admiring his hands, as well as his attention to detail. More annoying was the difficulty she seemed to be having with the fact that he wore some appealing cologne that reminded her of the Pacific Coast on a clear, sunny day.