Page 50 of King

We can go back to living our lives…

ChapterTwenty-Two

Natalia

I sit with Harrison’s arm around me and try to be happy, but part of me is unable to fully relax.

He has no idea what I’m planning, but I still have to get justice for my parents.

That means I have to find out who in the FBI’s management decided to look away for eight whole months since they knew the info about who betrayed my stepfather and mother.

I haven’t spoken to Fogarty about it because, to put it plainly, I don’t trust him.

I don’t trust anyone in the FBI anymore.How can I when I know that there are people there who engineered my stepfather’s death?When the ones who knew about it later did nothing, because ‘there are bigger fish to fry’ as the saying goes.

Well, my stepfather and mother fried.Now, I want their killers to be brought to justice.

I realize there are two avenues open to me: I can go to the FBI and push them for some kind of action or see what they are planning to do.That might satisfy me if I feel they are truly serious about justice for one of their own and their family member.

I can also go to the press and let them know how corrupt the New York division of the FBI really is.Vincent wanted to write my memoir and is well-connected to the news media.I bet I could get him to tell the story.

Yes, there are bigger fish to fry than the two men who carried out the plan to kill my parents.It is a long-term goal to get those bigger fish, but these two men are killers.

They should go to prison for life.

Why can’t the FBI find some legitimate reason to at least put them in jail until real justice can be achieved?If I knew they were both in custody and would stay there until the real reckoning, I would be satisfied.

If I knew they would truly see justice along with the big cheeses who gave the orders.

I know the higher-ups in the FBI are good, decent men and women who are just doing a very hard job in a tough world.My stepfather was one of them.

But they have to act!

They have to do something…

Maybe if I go to Fogarty, or someone else in the FBI, and tell them what I know and demand to learn what their plans are for the case, I might feel some relief, but I just don’t know what to do.

Harrison, for now, feels satisfied with what’s happening, but I sit beside him and stew.

What should I do?

If I go to the press, if I do tell Vincent, I know I’ll be seen as a wild card who can’t be trusted from then on.In the FBI, I’ll be seen as the enemy, and I’ll never get a job with them in forensic psychiatry, working to convict offenders.

I turn to Harrison, determined to ask him what he thinks.He’s my soul mate, the one man who understands what I’ve gone through and am going through.

We’re two peas in a pod, as Gramps would say.

“Harrison, we have to talk.”

I spend the next half hour going over everything, all my evidence, all my doubts, all my desires, and I wait for him to speak.He pulls me into his arms and just holds me, and I find myself overcome with emotion, my eyes brimming.I get hold of myself and wipe my eyes before he can see them.

“Natalia, my love, I’m so sorry for everything,” he says and kisses me.“I know this is so hard.I feel exactly the way you feel, part of me betrayed by the FBI and part of me also knowing that it’s the only way to go.I can’t keep going outside the law, no matter how wronged I feel I’ve been.I have to trust the system.I do trust it, in the long run.Mistakes can be made; a few bad apples can exist without corrupting the whole barrel.We have to trust them.We have to break the cycle of operating outside of the law that our families accepted too easily.Besides, we’re going to be a family.I want all this to be over, and for both of us to be safe and living as normal a life as we can so we will be the kind of parents we want to be.”

I nod and wipe my eyes, which stubbornly refuse to dry up.“I know, I know.You’re right.It’s just so frustrating.I want justice now, not in a year or five.”

But he’s right, and I realize it now.Yes, the baby makes everything different.If I weren’t pregnant, if I didn’t care about working for law enforcement to put criminals away, I could go to the press and reveal what I know, forcing them to act sooner rather than later.Instead, I’m going to be a mother.Harrison is going to be the father of my child.

I want us to have a real home for our child – our children, if we are lucky enough to have several.