Chapter 11 Beckett
Shawn’s candid honesty about our horrible first date is pulling my attention from where it should be. Which is on Paul’s murder.
But here I sit, catching myself glancing up at him every few seconds as he continues to pore over the map and the files he has on his computer. Every now and then, I’ll catch him looking at me, which only makes things worse.
From the moment I met him, I found myself drawn to the detective.
Even when it made no sense because he was an enemy.
But it was there. A pull that had me staying in Seattle long after I actually needed to.
Sure, I’d helped Jules Hunt with her grandfather’s estate, but I could have done that from Boston.
No, I’d stayed because, even after our horrible first date, I hoped he would call.
It hurt when he didn’t.
Now that I know the reason behind the way he acted and why he didn’t call, I’ve gone back and obsessed over every moment—from the forced smile when he’d walked into the restaurant to the way he’d kept checking his phone.
I thought it was because he was bored, but what if he was waiting for an update?
What if, in those moments when he kept checking his watch, he was really counting the minutes until he could call his mom and check in on her?
“Got something.” He throws both hands up in the air victoriously, so I jump up from the couch and rush over to him, ignoring the way my blood heats in response to his wide smile.
“What?”
“Look at this.” He points to a red dot on his map.
“That’s the airport where Paul flew out of in Boston.
” He slides his finger over the map toward Seattle.
“This is supposedly the airport he was headed to here in Washington when his plane went down here.” He points to another red marker, right over the top of the crash site.
My chest aches, but I take a deep breath and try to push through it. “Okay.”
“Based on the type of small jet he was flying, he would have had to stop at least once since it only held enough fuel for fifteen hundred nautical miles, and it’s twenty-two hundred between these two stops.”
“Is that why he went down?” I ask. “He ran out of fuel?”
Shawn shakes his head. “According to the case files, he had plenty of fuel. Nearly a full tank, in fact.”
“Then he stopped somewhere else, right?”
“These say that he stopped once between the two locations. Same place every trip. There and back.” He points to another marker on the map, roughly halfway between the two points. The whole time, I can feel his eyes on me, waiting for me to draw the parallel.
“Then how did he still have nearly a full tank of fuel?”
“Exactly. There are no other stops recorded on that particular trip. He should have been close to needing a refuel. Not completely full.”
“But that doesn’t make sense.”
“No,” he agrees. “It doesn’t. Unless these aren’t the real flight logs. It’s entirely possible he was lying about where he was going.”
I study the map, my stomach churning. Lying? More lies? Who was I married to? “That’s sloppy, right? If someone is going to file false flight plans, then why wouldn’t they cover every base?”
“Unless he wanted to leave a trail if anything were to happen to him,” Shawn offers.
The thought brings tears to my eyes, so I rapidly blink them away. “You think he knew he was in danger?”
“I think it’s a possibility.” Shawn’s phone dings, so he reaches in to pull it out of his pocket. Once he reads the screen, he grins. “We might be able to find out where he was really going.” After shoving his phone back into his pocket, he crosses over toward the door and pulls it open.
“You owe me big,” a woman says as she strolls into his house with a laptop bag over her shoulder. She looks to be in her early twenties, and her black hair is cut bluntly at her shoulders, with a matching blunt cut on thick bangs that are dyed a bright red.
There’s a hoop in her nose, and her eyes are painted smoky black. Wearing black jeans with holes in them and a baggy t-shirt with the word “Salty” across it, she doesn’t fit the bill of someone who works at the police department with Shawn.
So who is she?
“As you told me when I asked for the favor in the first place,” Shawn replies. “Jemma, this is Beckett Wallace. Beckett, Jemma.”
Jemma beams at me, her brown gaze studying me as she offers me her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“You, too,” I reply.
Jemma releases my hand and sets her laptop down on top of the kitchen table before taking a seat, clearly comfortable in his space.
Is this a girlfriend?
Even as it makes no sense, jealousy curdles in my stomach. No. We’re investigating the murder of my husband. I will not be jealous if the detective has a girlfriend. Even if that detective is handsome, kind, and the only man to make me feel anything in years.
“What did you find?” Shawn asks as he stands right behind her chair, arms crossed.
“It took some digging, but once I managed to narrow down the shadows cast from the trees, as well as the types of trees and a lot of other really boring things you don’t care about, I managed to get a hit off your picture.”
As I move to stand beside Shawn, I look over her shoulder at her computer.
“This was taken at a private airstrip south of Seattle. And not the one your guy had logged as his ending journey.”
“What do you mean?” Ice floods my veins. So he was lying to me. From suspecting it moments ago to the confirmation now, betrayal churns my stomach. Where was he going?
“You said he was stopping at Echo Valley Airstrip, right?” she asks.
I nod.
“Well, this picture was taken at Velocity Ridge Airfield. It’s so private that you have to know a member of their aviation club to be given the coordinates. You show up unannounced? No one ever hears from you again.”
“But I’m guessing you have the coordinates.”
“Please. Of course I do.” She grins. “And since I know how much you love your undercover work, I took the liberty of adding you and Beckett as the newest members of their private aviation club.” She reaches into her bag and hands Shawn an envelope.
“There’s a number in there. All you have to do is call and let them know you are coming in for your new member tour. ”
He opens it and slides out some papers, then arches a brow and looks down at her. “Shep Andrews?”
Jemma grins. “You look like a Shep.”
He looks absolutely annoyed, and it’s almost enough to bring a smile to my face.
Or, it would be if everything I thought I knew about my marriage weren’t crumbling to the floor around me.
“That’s not even a name,” he insists.
“Sure it is. I know a Shep. Super nice guy. A bit grumpy just like you.” She turns back to her computer, and Shawn offers me the packet he has in his hands.
Right beside his photograph and the false name Jemma assigned him is my photograph with the name: Rebecca Andrews.
Shep and Rebecca Andrews. I can’t fully appreciate the weight of a fake relationship with Shawn because my entire focus is on the fact that my husband was a member of a private aviation club, and I knew nothing about it.
I’d been so wrapped up in the fact that we couldn’t have a baby that I doubt I would have noticed if anything was off.
Is that why he was adamant that we needed to stop trying to have a family?
Because he’d been too deep in something he couldn’t tell me?
“You okay?” Shawn asks me, his voice yanking me out of my thoughts.
“Yeah.” I clear my throat. “So we’re going undercover?”
“Well, I wasn’t sure, so I took care of it just in case,” Jemma replies smoothly.
Shawn’s gaze lingers on me a moment longer before he shifts his attention back to Jemma. “How did you manage to create these identities and get us into the most exclusive aviation club this side of the country?” Shawn questions.
“Try the world,” she replies as she closes her laptop. “And I’m good at what I do. Isn’t that why you came to me in the first place? You guys have too many red lines, and I live in a world of green.” She grins up at him.
“Something like that,” Shawn replies.
“I cleaned up after myself. Your entire backstories are listed there, as well as financial reports and everything you might need to know. There is no record that I ever tampered with their client files, and I told no one about what I was looking into, like you asked. Plus, I even got you a credit card under your new name. It links to an actual account, and I took the liberty of transferring some of your savings in to cover bases.”
He pales slightly. “You stole from me?”
“I moved things around,” she replies smoothly. “You can have it all back.”
“Jemma.”
“Do you want to get killed? Because half-done covers are how you get killed in a place like that.”
Shawn takes a deep, frustrated breath. “Thank you, Jemma.”
She grins at him. “You’re welcome, Papa Bear.”
“Papa Bear?” I ask curiously.
Shawn rolls his eyes.
“Because he’s always looking out for me,” Jemma answers.
“Ever since I was a trouble-making teenager who lived next door to his mother.” She stands.
“You know how to find me if you need me, but be careful.” Her tone turns somber.
“If your guy was dealing with people at Velocity Airfield, then he was into something nasty. Drug dealers, traffickers, arms dealers—the dirtiest of the dirty are members there. If I could find actual proof of it, then I would have given you that, too. But these guys are careful.”
“Do you have a list of clients?”
“In the packet,” she tells Shawn. “You’re going to recognize some names.”
As he takes the packet back from me, I watch him open and flip through the pages until he pauses, gaze scanning the page. He pauses on one name, his gaze hardening. “Lucian Creed?”
“That’s the one I thought you would find particularly interesting,” Jemma comments.
“Wait—” I pause as the name rings about a dozen bells. “As in the Lucian Creed the Justice Department tried to build a case against four years ago? But their witnesses started mysteriously dying in protective custody?”
“One and the same,” Shawn growls.
Jemma looks between me and Shawn. “Maybe you guys shouldn’t go in.”
“I don’t know that we will. But if we do, we’ll be careful.”
Even as badly as I want answers, my stomach churns. Lucian Creed? What was Paul doing in a place where monsters like him frequent?
What did you get into, Paul?
What was he hiding from me? Why?
“Great. Well, don’t die.” Jemma packs up her laptop then stands. “I might need your help with a parking ticket or two.” She grins and holds out her fist. Shawn bumps his to it; then she heads for the door. “See you soon?”
“Yeah. See you then.”
“It was great to meet you, Beckett.”
“You, too,” I reply.
With a smile, Jemma pulls open his front door and leaves, closing it behind her.
“He was a good man,” I say suddenly. I don’t know why the words leave my lips, but I needed to say them.
“What?”
I turn to Shawn, my throat constricting as I fight back a tidal wave of emotions I’m not quite ready to face.
“Paul. He wasn’t a criminal. I know what this looks like, but there has to be more to the story.
” Will he stop helping me now that we know Paul had ties to criminals?
Will he decide that a criminal doesn’t need justice as badly as an innocent man?
“Beckett, I’m not going to stop,” Shawn replies, clearly seeing the panic I know must be on my face. He sets the packet on the table.
“There has to be more to the story. He couldn’t have hidden that side from me. He was a good man. I mean, we fought, but—” Tears fill my eyes, and I realize that I’m shaking.
What else did he lie to me about?
Did I even know the man I was sharing my life with?
“Beckett, stop. We don’t have all the pieces yet, so stop trying to shove them together. They won’t fit yet.”
“I just—what was he doing, Shawn?” I struggle to breathe as I imagine Paul shaking hands with a man as evil as Lucian Creed. Is that who is in the picture? We can’t see his face, so it could be.
Did he know what he was doing?
Or did he see something he shouldn’t have, and it landed him six feet beneath the cold, hard ground?
“How could he have kept this from me?”
Shawn doesn’t respond right away. But he opens his arms. “Can I?”
Desperate to feel grounded, I move into his arms and rest my head against his chest. The steady beating of his heart slows mine. And as I stand here, held by a man who is willing to risk everything to bring me closure, I have to ask myself: What if this mystery gets him killed, too?