Page 71 of Operation: Sharp Angel

Becca chuckled with him. She let herself relax against him, taking in the sensation of being held by him. “I like waking up like this.”

“Me too,” he said, though truthfully, had it been waking naked after a night of incredible sex, he would have liked it far better. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s comfortable.”

“I appreciate you didn’t try to have sex last night,” she said. “I mentally just wasn’t up for it. I felt mentally, maybe emotionally exhausted last night.”

Tessman chuckled again. “You were asleep minutes into the movie. I’d say you were exhausted all the way around. Do you feel more rested this morning?”

“Yes, thank you, I do. Do you think the meeting with James Standish will be today?”

“Most likely today or tomorrow,” he replied.

“What if I don’t get him to admit anything?”

He detected nervousness in her question. “Sometimes it’s what they do after they’re confronted, and the meeting is over, that yields the results we need. Even if he admits nothing, he may make a phone call after you leave that is damning. Or go meet someone, which is good because then we know who the co-conspirators are. We’ve even had perps try to bolt after they’re confronted. A few even committed suicide. If that isn’t a declaration of guilt, I don’t know what is.”

“Suicide? Yeah, I’d say that’s a huge declaration. But that isn’t what I want. I want to know who all was involved in it. I want to hear the full scope of who and why come from his mouth.”

“I hope you get what you need, but Becca, you have to be prepared for it to not go that way. It’s a crap shoot, how much info we’ll get out of him, even if he does admit his part in it.”

“I know,” she said. “He does, after all, have the right to remain silent and not incriminate himself. I just don’t know how we’re going to get to the truth if he doesn’t admit it.”

“Have a little faith in the agency. We’re pretty good at what we do.”

She didn’t doubt that at all.

***

In the office at eleven a.m. there were familiar faces. Carter, of course, Jackson and Brielle, and the two men who had helped at her sister’s house the other night, Flores and Robinson. There was a fifth man she’d never seen, who introduced himself as Winston. Carter told her he was a team medic. A team medic was always assigned to a mission.

“We’ve made an appointment for you with Standish at Well-Life for sixteen hundred today,” Shepherd said.

Becca did the math in her head. Four p.m. That didn’t give her much time to get ready for it.

“We’ll have all five team members on site during the meeting. Jackson and Tessman will go in with warrants again and keep Shirley Craig from HR busy. Robinson and Flores have appointments with the other partner, Marvin Ackman, so they’ll be in the building, just down the hall from Standish’s office. And Winston will be stationed in the car in the parking lot with the recording equipment. Becca, we’re going for anything incriminating, if not an outright confession,” Shepherd said. He passed a packet of papers across the table to her. “Lassiter has several scenarios scripted out for you. Familiarize yourself with the content before you go in.”

Becca lifted the papers and scanned the front page.

Then Shepherd passed a case with earbuds across to her. “You’ll be on our comms. Because you are unfamiliar with using them, we’ll only transmit to you if prompts are needed while you’re in with Standish. But they’ll be on transmit from you, so we will hear and record all that transpires while you’re in the room with him.”

“You’ll need a word that will be your panic code to us,” Tessman said.

“A panic code?” she asked. “Surely, you don’t think he’ll do anything to me in his office, do you?”

“Becca, if we’re right, he hired someone to kill four people. He may not have gotten his hands dirty with the deed, but he won’t hesitate to hurt you to keep you quiet to cover it up,” Jackson said.

That was a sobering thought. “What if it was Marvin Ackman?” she asked. “What if Nicole got it wrong?”

“My money’s on Standish,” Tessman said. “Your sister went to him. If it wasn’t him and he told Ackman, who then sent the killers to her house, Standish would have at least suspected. He’s not innocent in this.”

“And don’t forget, the chances are good that he was responsible for your parent’s deaths too,” Jackson added.

“My contact at the NTSB has come up with nothing conclusive on the crash,” Shepherd said. “He can’t confirm, nor can he rule out something was tampered with.”

Becca scanned a few more of the scripted prompts. “So basically, I’m going to try to bullshit him that I have more proof than I actually do, and convince him I want to be paid off to stay quiet. I’m not sure he’s going to believe I’m capable of blackmail. He’s known me for a really long time.”

“And you’ve known him for the same amount of time,” Shepherd said. “Would you have believed he was capable of murder?”

“Point,” she conceded.

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