Dark Justice(47)
This couldn’t be true.
“So I’m taking the video and the encryption code to the FBI office in Los Angeles. I Google-mapped the address. It’s an hour and forty-five minutes away. I gotta get going.”
I shook my head hard. “Emily, you can’t get any more involved in this! All I did was stop to help a man at an accident, and look what’s happened to me. Your grandmother and I were almost killed. I told you before—I don’t want them after you too.”
“Even if someone did come after me, they wouldn’t be fast enough. Once I get to the FBI, they can worry about this.”
“You really believe you’re safe? Then why did you tell your office you’re going home sick? Apparently you’re worried about telling anyone else about this.”
Emily had no response to that.
“And how do you know you’ll get a real FBI agent? He could be fake, like the ones who tried to kill me.”
“Those men showed up at your door with fake badges, Mom. Anybody can get a fake badge. I’m going to their big office in L.A. Where they work every day. That’s different.”
A stunning new thought sped through my brain. “Emily, what if Rutger and Samuelson are real FBI agents? If people in the FBI are involved in this, we really don’t know who to trust.”
“Why should they be real agents? One of them tried to kill you.”
“That’s just the point.”
“Deputy Harcroft told you they weren’t real agents.”
“Yeah, and look how much we trust him.”
Emily fell silent for a moment. “It doesn’t make sense. If those men had been real agents, and working with the terrorists just like Harcroft and Wade are, Harcroft wouldn’t have brought you to the station so fast. He wouldn’t have put surveillance on your house to protect you.”
I closed my eyes, trying to logic through it. “But they all are working together, whether those FBI agents are fake or real. Looks like that whole thing of ‘protecting us’ was nothing but a set-up.”
“Still, even if those fake agents were real ones, it doesn’t mean all of them are bad.”
“Emily. The sheriff’s department already has that video. Let them handle this.”
“No, not the whole sheriff’s department. The two men who interviewed you have it. And if they’re bad guys, you know they’re not showing it around.”
“But maybe someone else at the department has seen it. Someone who’ll try to stop this.”
“Even if that’s true, what if they haven’t seen that message I found? You want to chance having the entire West Coast and Washington, D.C. go black tonight? Think of the chaos. And that’s just for starters.”
“This can’t be true.” I got up and paced the room. “It just can’t be.”
“I know. I kept trying to tell myself that. But we have to believe it. I mean, this country’s known about homegrown terrorists for years. Remember the blown-up building in Oklahoma City?”
Emily had been nine. She’d watched the news at some friend’s house, including the covered bodies of children being carried out. She’d come home sobbing.
Still, I didn’t want to believe this. Even after everything that had happened. I just wanted to go back to my peaceful life, where the hardest thing was putting up with Mom’s music. That life never had to face down the reality that Americans like this existed.
“At least let me drive down and go with you. Maybe Aunt Margie will lend me her car.”
“That’ll take too long. And you’re much safer where you are.”
Tears scratched my eyes. If something happened to my daughter, I would never forgive myself. “Emily, please don’t do this. You don’t have to save the world.”
“Well, Mom, apparently I do. Whether we like it or not.”
My thoughts tripped over themselves. “No, don’t. I’ll go. I’ll turn myself in to the police here. I’ll tell them about the message on the video. They can download a copy from our online account, just like you did. They can call the FBI.”
“And first thing, you’ll be turned over to Harcroft and Wade. Who might just put you in a jail cell with the wrong person. Besides, I deleted our account.”
“You what? Why?”
“So they couldn’t trace a download of that video back to me.”
Oh. Of course.
I shivered. “Well, anyway, once the information is in the hands of authorities who can stop this from happening, there’s no reason for the terrorists to still want me dead. It’ll be too late.”
“Really? What if you’re wrong? And what happens to Grand while you’re in jail for murder until all this gets figured out?”