Page 59 of Final Exit

She gave a sanitized version of what he’d told her in Colorado Springs.

Jace made a show of looking through the documents in front of him. Around the table, the other Equalizers sat quietly, letting him run his little show.

Kade wanted to punch every single one of them.

“Ah, here we are. A police report for the night you were involved in that horrendous accident.” Again, he tossed the report to Bailey. “If you don’t mind, would you skim that and give us a summary?”

“Wait,” Kade said. “I already know what—”

Jace held up his hand. “You’ll get a turn. Bailey, please?”

Kade cursed beneath his breath. He’d figured out at least part of their game. They were trying to drive a wedge between him and Bailey, to prove he was the villain they believed him to be. And from the stricken look on her face, they were succeeding.

“It wasn’t even a car accident,” she said, her voice tight, barely above a whisper. “You were injured in your garage, working on your boat.”

“I know that’s what it says, but—”

“No gunshot,” she continued, her voice getting louder. “Nowife. Why would you make up something like that?”

He gritted his teeth and tried again. “The report was falsified. My boss told me about it after I woke up from the coma.”

“You never mentioned a coma,” she accused.

“I also didn’t tell you that I was in the hospital for four months, that I was in rehab after that. There wasn’t a reason to share any of that with you.”

As soon as the words left his mouth he wished he could take them back. Because therewasa reason that he should have shared. He and Bailey had formed some kind of bond, a tenuous one that was difficult to define. But it relied on honesty and openness between them. He should have told her those details. He realized it now. Caring about someone meant sharing exactly those kinds of details. And he definitely cared about her—as impossible as that seemed since they’d known each other for such a short period of time. But he was so used to keeping it all inside that he hadn’t stopped to consider the damage he might do by not telling her.

“The original police report was replaced in order to keep people from asking questions,” he told her. “Making my injury seem like a common household accident meant no one would look any deeper. The FBI wanted to investigate on their own because they...” His voice trailed off when he saw the next trap. He glared at Jace.

“Go on,” Jace said. “No reason to stop now.”

“Why did the FBI want to cover it up?” This time it was Bailey asking the question.

“Because,” Kade said, trying to keep his temper under wraps, “the man who shot through my car door, injuring me and killing my wife, was an Enforcer. It was a mistake. He went after the wrong person. But you can imagine that the FBI wouldn’t want anyone seeing the bullet hole in the door and investigating who the shooter might be.”

Her eyes widened. “You have a vendetta against Enforcers. That’s why you took on this mission.”

If Kade had a gun right now, he very much feared he would use it on Jace for stirring all of this up. Jace should thank God for small favors.

“I wouldn’t call it a vendetta. The Enforcer who killed Abby was taken to the retraining facility long before I got out of the hospital. I don’t even know who he was.”

“Then why did you agree to take the mission?” she asked.

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to see a way out of the quicksand forming beneath him. But all he seemed to be doing was sinking faster.

“The bullet that went through my hip and thigh did extensive nerve and muscle damage. I was addicted to prescription painkillers and pretty much made a disaster of my life. The FBI was going to cut me loose. An old friend of mine who’d heard about the accident contacted my boss, Faegan. Then Gannon—”

“Your friend?” Jace asked. “His name was Gannon?”

“Robert Gannon, yes. He’s with Homeland Security now but he used to be in the FBI. We were peers. We both worked for Faegan and Faegan worked for Kendall. Gannon called Faegan and pressured him to give me another chance. He knew my career was everything to me and that it would have killed me to lose it. That’s why I took the mission. It was the first thing available once I was out of rehab. The fact that my accident was caused by an Enforcer had nothing to do with it.”

“You sure about that?” This time it was Mason who spoke. He sat a couple of chairs down from Bailey on the same side of the table. “Did you know it was an Enforcer who’d caused the accident, assuming there really was an accident?”

“I didn’t even know what an Enforcer was until after Faegan agreed to put me back on active duty and gave me this assignment. What’s the point of all these questions? What’s the point of any of this?”

“What happened to your wife’s body?” Jace asked.

Kade slowly turned toward him. “Excuse me?”

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