Page 1 of The Fallen Man
1
Jackson
J.P. Granger
Jackson Zane had been a Deveraux for nearly seven years, but he still hadn’t gotten over having his own plane. Winging from New York to San Francisco was easy when all he had to do was pick up the phone. That kind of luxury was a world away from his childhood in Chicago. And the gulf between his life now and the life that had gotten him sentenced to five-to-seven for armed robbery was even more immense.
He looked down at the knuckles of his left hand, where faded blue prison ink could barely be seen. He suspected that he was the only one who remembered that something had once been there. It had been at least ten years since that tattoo and seven since prison. Seven years of being rich, but if he was honest, he still didn’t feel like a real Deveraux.
Jackson watched as the runway of the private airstrip grew ever closer. It was a bright streak of light in a field of black. He could see a smear of San Francisco lights in the distance, and he knew that’s where he was really heading. It seemed close and yet too far at the same time. His leg bounced up and down, trying to distribute excess energy. It wasn’t working. He could feel the knot of tension between his shoulder blades. His fingers flipped open the file on J.P. Granger for the hundredth time. At this point, he knew what was on every page without actually reading them.
Four years earlier, J.P. Granger, former CEO for Absolex Pharmaceuticals, had falsified research results on a depression medication and then sold the resulting drug Zanilex to the V.A. for treatment. Veteran suicides had increased, and Congress had called for special hearings to investigate why. Which was when J.P. Granger had called in a hit squad of mercenaries to intimidate Senator Eleanor Deveraux into canceling the hearings. Something that put the Deveraux family squarely in his crosshairs.
Something that Jackson found unacceptable. Fortunately, his cousins—Evan, Aiden, and Dominique—were more resilient than any batch of spoiled rich kids had any right to be.
Jackson looked at Granger’s Aboslex headshot and compared the sleek, smug man in that picture to his sullen mug shot, with his quickly fading hair dye, sallow skin, and bloodshot eyes indicating that Granger’s various addictions weren’t being properly handled. Even after Granger’s arrest, he’d still managed to take another swing at the Deverauxes. Jackson’s older cousin Evan had nearly paid the cost on that one, but the Deverauxes had surprised everyone once again.
The moment Jackson met his grandmother Eleanor Deveraux in an interview room in Joliet was a bookmark in his life. There was before and after. And after included private jets, parties, and all the things that wealthy people had. Jackson liked those things. They were enjoyable. But they weren’t what had convinced him to leave his life—and last name—behind to join the Deverauxes. After all, never being acknowledged by his father hadn’t exactly been a stellar endorsement for the family. But Eleanor had something that Jackson wanted: cousins. His before life had been one long sputtering train wreck of loneliness and desertion – from his mother’s death to her family’s refusal to accept him, no one ever stuck around. And then came a fairy grandmother with three cousins who might pass for his siblingsand the promise of a family that wouldn’t ever leave him again. Jackson had done enough prison therapy to know that he was probably latching onto his cousins to satisfy his own feelings of abandonment, and he gave exactly zero fucks about that.
Jackson smiled to think of the Deverauxes. He knew very well what people saw when they looked at his family—a group of dysfunctional, disliked dilettantes. But he saw a stubborn, intelligent, loyal to a fault, hilarious, and above all, resilient family who would never back down. A family that, for some reason, had accepted him. His grandmother had been explicit—she wanted Jackson because she thought he would be able to protect his cousins, and he had taken on the mission wholeheartedly. His cousins had been alternatively resentful, mystified, and then strangely accepting of his arrival in their family. And now things were finally good. His cousins were safe, healthy, and happy. It had taken seven years, but Jackson finally felt that maybe, just maybe, he could relax and try out being just one of the Deverauxes.
The only loose end was J.P. Granger. The spoiled brat of a C.E.O. who couldn’t accept being held accountable for his actions. And just when it had looked like J.P. Granger would get the justice he deserved, he had skipped bail. Until Granger was back in custody, Jackson knew he wouldn’t sleep soundly.
Jackson looked up from the file and saw his wavery reflection in the plane window. Dark hair where his cousins were blonde, but the same blue eyes and arched nose. Add in a wardrobe that cost more than his old rent, and he knew helookedthe part of a Deveraux, but in his heart, he still felt like a fraud. Deep down, he knew he was his mother’s son. In many ways, Nataliya had been tougher than Jackson knew he could ever be. She had left her religious, ultra-conservative Ukrainian family and stepped outside the only safety net she’d ever known, all so she could be herself. It hadn’t worked out exactly. She’d died of a drugoverdose, leaving Jackson alone in Chicago. His father might have come to get him, but Randall Deveraux had been killed in a plane crash, leaving the rest of the Deveraux family in the dark about Jackson’s existence.
Jackson sometimes wondered if his mother would consider him a failure. He hadn’t been able to make it on his own—he’d jumped at the chance to tie himself to a family—where she had run away from almost everyone. Most people assumed that it was only the Deveraux money that kept Jackson around and, as he had noted on more than one occasion, money was nice, but what he wanted more was a family of his own. The Deverauxes were his family now. And because of that, Jackson couldn’t help wondering how he’d sleep if Granger were dead instead of just in custody.
The plane touched down with a gentle bump and taxied to a hanger. Jackson was met by uniformed airport personnel who bowed him into a waiting area with all the deference of welcoming royalty. The airstrip was close enough to Silicon Valley that Pete Schalding, the Deveraux private detective, looked out of place among the expensive furniture of the waiting room. Fiftyish, salt-and-pepper-haired Pete looked presentable, but that was usually as far as anyone ever thought about him. Pete had been in military intelligence, and bland was what Pete liked. He was quickly forgotten, which was one of his most valuable traits. But in a red-carpet world, he looked like a delivery man who’d wandered out front.
“It’s definitely him,” said Pete, as if they had just been talking moments earlier instead of hours.
“Good,” said Jackson.
“He’s camped out in the Castro wearing pink and buying copious amounts of blow and H,” said Pete. “The hookers he’s renting don’t really blend in, though.”
“Why not?” asked Jackson.
“Wrong gender for the neighborhood.”
“Too much titty.” Pete gave him a look. “I’m not Eleanor,” said Jackson.
“I’ve noticed that about you,” said Pete. “There’s a general lack of cardigans and pearls.”
Jackson nearly laughed. His grandmother’s wardrobe had always been carefully calibrated to beappropriate, and Jackson’s was almost always calibrated to do his own form of blending in. He was never going to be Pete—the Deverauxes were center stage kind of people—but Jackson had found that if he dressed to meet expectations, people wouldn’t notice that he was nearly always wearing a gun, carrying a knife, and was never caught in shoes that he couldn’t run in.
“You checked that your license works out here?” asked Pete, jerking his head toward the exit.
“I’m now a fully bonded and licensed bail bond recovery agent in every state that permits such things.”
Another perk of being rich was having the time, energy, and paperwork support to make it legal for him to go after his enemies.
“And since he has multiple warrants out for his arrest and a pending million-dollar bond, everything we’re about to do is perfectly lawful,” Jackson continued.
“Uh-huh,” said Pete giving him a stern eye. “But we do it calmly. Rationally. Without a lot of fuss. Or you know… punching. Don’t go full Deveraux on me here, kid.”
“I’m completely calm,” said Jackson. “And I don’t know what you mean. The only one of us who goes full Deveraux is Dominique.”
“Uh-huh,” said Pete again, like he knew Jackson was lying, but shrugged.
