She stared after Austin as he left the pub, then she called Agent Hooper. When she got off the phone, another familiar voice said, “I hear we’re partners.”
“Jason.” She turned on the stool and glared at him. “Austin just left.”
“I know. I waited until he drove off before I came in.”
“Does Agent Hooper know you’re here?”
“You mean the Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge? Hooper is almost as big as you get in this town. And yeah, he knows. We’re friends of a sort, I suppose. He’s a good guy.”
Jason looked tired and distracted. “Are you okay?” she asked.
He smiled like Prince Charming. “I’m always okay. I’m sorry I lied to you. I wanted to tell you the truth, but …” His voice trailed off and Shauna didn’t know what he was going to say.
“But what? That I couldn’t keep a secret? Maybe you’re right. I almost screwed up everything ten minutes ago with Austin.”
“You’re not a liar, Shauna. It’s one reason I loved so much—you are exactly who you act like. No pretension, no games, just a real person. I didn’t want you to live a lie. Not to your family. My parents don’t even know the truth. I don’t know how long I’ll be doing this, maybe it’ll end this weekend, maybe it’ll be a year.”
“Why did you do this all, Jason? Why have all your friends and family think the worst of you?”
He didn’t answer right away. “It’s a long, complicated story, Shauna. I have my reasons. Someday, when it’s all over, I’ll tell you.”
She nodded and hugged him. “Is it worth it?”
The weariness came back in his expression. “Most of the time, it is. You okay?”
She sighed. “Jason, we’ve been friends since our first day of college when we were both lost trying to find Macroeconomics with Professor Kim.”
“And had coffee at the Pavilion Starbucks and you told me you wanted to be a historical architect.”
“And you told me you wanted to go spelunking before you decided what you wanted to do when you grew up.”
“You didn’t know what it was.”
She groaned. “I do now.”
“Do you remember when my brother Kyle graduated top of his class at Stanford?”
“You said you were glad he was the oldest and you didn’t have the same pressure.”
“And you said I had more. I laughed at you. But you were right. Only, it was pressure I put on myself. I think I liked playing the game and getting away with it. Kyle was the golden boy. I wanted to be the black sheep.”
She grinned. “You did a pretty good job at that, at least in theory.”
He smiled, reminding Shauna they had a history, mostly a good history, and now that she knew the truth, she had no regrets. “We’ll always be friends, Jason.”
“I really appreciated all your letters. Even though you didn’t know the truth, you kept in touch.”
She dismissed the comment. “Like I said, we’re friends first and I wasn’t going to abandon you.” She paused and added, “Are you and Sam okay?”
“We’ll see. He was just doing his job. Maybe a little too gleefully, but honestly? When the FBI set everything up, Sam was the first to figure out I was ‘bad,’ for lack of a better word. He’s a really good cop.”
“Yeah. Well.” She didn’t want to talk about Sam. “Do you think Austin Davis is capable of doing what the FBI thinks he’s doing?”
Without hesitation, Jason said, “Worse. He and George Coresco are the lawyers to dozens of crime families in Sacramento and Nevada. Not as sexy as New York or Miami, but raw and violent. Mostly drugs and human trafficking. They don’t handle any criminal defense, which makes it doubly hard connecting them to anything illegal. But Dean and I have almost figured it out.”
“If you know so much, why can’t they arrest them?”
“Because I have no proof. Something big is going down tomorrow night, and Austin already contacted me about my hotel. I’m hoping I’ll get exactly what Dean Hooper needs to back trace the money and catch them all with dirty hands.”
Jason’s expression was full of concern, and he looked as worried as she felt. “Be careful tomorrow. And if you feel at all threatened, let me know. I’ll get you out.”
She squeezed his hand. “Thank you, Jason. And for what it’s worth, I’m really glad you were never guilty.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Excellent, Ms. Murphy,” Hooper said over the phone while he, Sam, John and several FBI support staff and agents were going over the final plans for tomorrow’s event. As soon as Sam realized it was Shauna, he tried to listen, but Shauna did most of the talking. Hooper said to her, “I’ll contact you tomorrow morning and give you the final arrangements. Thank you, Ms. Murphy.”