Page 80 of Code Name: Ember
Hara looks up at me.“That was very brave.”
“Didn’t feel like it,” I mutter.“When I stonewalled on the rest of it, he stopped being civilized.”I say it plainly, without inflection, because I can’t lend any emotion to the retelling of this story.It might make me cry, and I don’t want to be weak.“They hauled me up by my arms and tied my wrists to a hook in the ceiling beam.High enough that my feet barely touched the floor.”
I hear Cole shift in the chair beside me, but I don’t look at him.
“They cut my clothes off,” I say, and Cole’s head drops, his fingers going to his nose where he pinches the bridge.“Pelham, um… threatened to let his men have me.”
I can feel the rage vibrating off Cole, eyes riveted to the floor.I clear my throat and blurt the rest out quickly, not because it’s hard on me to recount it, but because it’s torture for Cole to hear it.“At any rate, he put a hood over me, hit me with a Taser a few times, and then Cole and his men were there rescuing me.”
There… easy and quick.A story for the record books and now I want to move on.The room is very quiet and I risk a look at Cole.He’s staring at me as if he wants to go back in time to kill those men.
“Where did he use the Taser?”Hara asks.
Cole growls.“Is that really necessary?You can have the fucking medical records for your case.”
“Cole,” I admonish.
Hara intervenes, speaking more to Cole than me.“I know this is hard, but I want to make sure we have everything we need.It has to be her words… her recollection.”
Cole opens his mouth to argue, but I start talking, giving Hara what he wants.“Pelham used the device on my thigh, my lower back and my left rib cage.”
I glance at Cole and he stares back at me in anguish.“I’m okay,” I tell him.“Truly.”
“You’re a badass queen,” he murmurs.“But then again, I always knew that.”
We both allow ourselves to smile at each other, a true acknowledgment that the horror is behind us.
“Where is he?”I ask, turning back to Hara.“Pelham, I mean.”
“Surgery,” Hara says.“The bullet lodged in his femur.He’ll survive but I’m guessing he’s going to have a permanent limp.”His mouth breaks into a grin.“That’ll be a prison problem though.”
Something settles in me at that.I like the thought of him in prison.
“I need you to tell me about all the evidence you’ve collected.I assume you’ll hand that over now?”
I nod and then proceed to lay it all out.The architecture of it, the way each piece connects to the next.The flash drive Erik handed me in that parking garage—reports, contracts, land deeds, internal files documenting the scheme from the inside.The emails between DelRey and Schwartz, open to interpretation for sure, but when paired with the SAPG invoices time-stamped against red flag advisories and fire ignition dates, it’s hard to deny the circumstantial connection.I tell him about Erik’s notebook with Thomas Vega’s name and that he was the same man that ended up dead in my house.
I answer what feels like a hundred more questions from Hara but then he starts to wrap it up.“Where’s all of this proof?”he asks.
“It’s all at Jameson.”
Hara writes steadily.“And the article?Still with your editor?”
I look at him.“Yes, but we called him from the ambulance and it’s already on its way to press.”A pause.“It runs in the morning edition.”
He stops writing.“Ms.Ward—”
“Agent Hara.”I keep my voice even.“Erik Lanning died for that story.He was run down in a parking garage, the footage was wiped and the people who ordered it expected it to stay buried.”I hold his gaze.“The article runs.Your investigation runs alongside it.That was always the arrangement.”
After a long moment, he closes his notebook.I take that as acceptance, if not agreement.He stands slowly.
“What is going to happen to DelRey and Schwartz?”I ask.
Hara smiles, this one slightly gleeful.“I’ve got agents executing arrest warrants for them right now.SAPG is being raided as we speak.”He looks at me with what might be called respect.“You did good work, Ms.Ward.”
“Erik did the work,” I say.“I just made sure it mattered.”
He nods once.“Well done,” he says and reaches inside his pocket, pulling out a card.“Call me if you think of anything else.I know the federal prosecutor will want to talk to you as well.”
