Page 7 of A Secret and a Lie
His reply is immediate.
Drake: Not true. I’m just the only one still alive.
Shutting my phone off, I slip it back into my pocket, staring out the window at the city rolling by. Drake’s right; we used to have a core network of close friends, a family, but only the two of us are left. War has a way of tearing people apart.
“Mr. Crawford,” James says from the front, our eyes meeting in the rear-view mirror. “Your security team has just informed me that the police have blocked off your street. Would you like me to take you to the rear entrance, or perhaps somewhere else?”
“The rear entrance is fine. Did they mention why the street has been blocked off?”
With his attention back on the road, he shakes his head. “No, sir.”
I reach for my phone and log into the encrypted app, searching the name of my street in the FBI database. Within seconds, I learn that the press secretary, Vera Choi, was found dead in her home—a brownstone down the street from me—with a gunshot wound to the temple.
Pulling up my text thread with Drake, I send another message.
Ford: Are you on the Choi scene?
Drake: Yeah, want me to stop by your place on my way out?
Ford: Yes.
Thrusting a hand into my hair, I tug at the strands. I should’ve insisted that I quit. I should’ve focused all my time on taking over mygrandfather’s company, like I planned. I never should’ve signed on for one last assignment: a decision I have quickly come to fucking regret.
After my cover was blown last year and I was left for dead, that should’ve been the end of my career.
I fuckingtoldJackson that I wasn’t going to be a good fit to infiltrate an illegal states-wide weapons ring, but the idiot gave me the assignment anyway. An undercover joint task with the ATF, and guess who took the fucking hit when the leaders got suspicious?
But here I am, three gunshot wounds later, taking more instructions from the same handler who refused to pull me from the last op.
Regret is useless. I didn’t say no, so here I am after five months of physical therapy and rehab and an additional month-long hiatus in the backcountry of Alaska hunting Dall sheep. In the field once again, only this time, with a new assignment.
The sooner I can complete this job, the sooner I can quit—permanently this time.
James maneuvers through the traffic, dropping me at the rear entrance of the parking garage of my building. I take the elevator up to my penthouse, my chest loosening when I step into the foyer.
The first thing I did when my grandfather died in January was sell his brownstone and move into the penthouse of this building—which I also conveniently inherited—so that I could start fresh, without his ghost lingering in every corner.
My grandfather, Oliver Crawford, hit it big in real estate, owning much of Washington, D.C. and New England. He turned around and started the biggest investment firm in the country, all of which I happened to inherit this year.
Luckily for me, my grandfather was nothing if not business savvy and curated a team to run things until I could take over—a team that’s, unfortunately, still in place due to how divided my time is at the moment. He was never supposed to die this early, though. I was meant to have the opportunity to learn from him, but my tenure with the Federal Bureau of Investigation fucked that up. If I could do it all over again, I would’ve skipped that chapter of my life—cannearly a decade be considered a chapter?—just to have more time with the man who was both my parent and my friend. Although, my grandfather only ever encouraged me to pursue my own dreams, and he’d tell me not to change a single thing about the path my life took.
An hour or so later, there’s a ding coming from the direction of the elevator, and when I get there, I find Drake standing in the foyer, clad in a sharp gray suit.
“Fuck, you look tired,” he comments, following me to my study, where I pour us both a drink. “What’d you think of your new bar?”
“I’d go back. I’m certainly not going to pull funding,” I reply as I settle into one of the tufted leather seats adjacent to him in front of the gas fireplace.
I’ve been on a mission to visit every business that my grandfather’s company—mycompany—owns. That, in and of itself, is a full-time job.
“What happened to Choi?” I ask, cutting to the chase.
Drake snorts, then takes a sip of his scotch before answering. “Single gunshot wound to the temple at point-blank range. Kimber 9mm in her hand. Gunshot residue present. Textbook suicide.”
“But…” I prompt, reading my friend.
He smirks. “Butthe front door was unlocked with not a single fucking fingerprint on the door or handle. Back entrance was clean, too. And I can’t understand why she’d choose to take her own life in the middle of the kitchen, right in front of the stove. Why there? Why not the bedroom? Or her office? Smells funny, if you ask me.”
Shaking my head, I sigh. “But they’re ruling it a suicide.”
