CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Faith allowed Jessica to drive them back from their abortive interview with Kylie Wilton. She was exhausted from the encounter, the general frustration of the case, and the problem with the news. She wanted time to let her thoughts float free and see if any of them settled to the bottom.
She intended to focus on the case, but her mind chose to focus on the Bridgette conundrum.
The reporter was the stereotypical example of give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.
Faith never really considered Bridgette an ally, but she had underestimated just how much of a thorn in their side she could be.
Now their careers were in jeopardy, and almost certainly, Bridgette would leverage that to get more from them in exchange for presenting the FBI in a more positive light.
The challenge was going to be minimizing the impact of Craig Daniels’ defamation lawsuit.
At first, Faith thought the attention would at least keep him off the street, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized it could backfire badly on them.
If it turned out he was their killer, his lawyers could use the interaction in front of the warehouse to build a case for coercion.
There was a potential—slight but still there—that he could walk entirely free.
And Faith was trapped. The only way they could get out of that was if Bridgette admitted fault in her actions earlier, and there was no way of that happening. Maybe there was nothing they could do about this, and she would just have to accept what came of it.
She glanced at her partner. Jessica’s lips were pursed, and her knuckles nearly white around the steering wheel.
This wasn’t fair to her. If Faith were barred from field work and forced back into full-time instruction, that would be hard, but she could live with it.
She’d retired once before and done okay.
Turk was getting old, anyway, and she wouldn’t feel horrible about giving him a few years of relaxation at the end of his life.
But Jessica was just starting out. She was a young, ambitious agent, and already her reputation was tainted just by association with Faith. It wasn’t fair, but as Jack Preston used to say, fair was what you paid the airlines to fly.
She sighed. Jessica looked at her and asked, “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Just thinking.”
“Careful. I hear that’s fatal.”
Faith snorted. “Sure can be.”
She pulled her phone from her pocket and snorted again when she saw five missed calls from Bridgette. She’d silenced her number in her phone, apparently for good reason.
Then again, why would Bridgette call her so many times in a row? Did she have information? It might gall Faith to use information from that source, but if it was good information, and it helped them catch their killer, then she would have to bite the bullet.
She returned the calls, and almost instantly, Bridgette’s cheery voice answered, “Hi! Oh my God, I thought you were mad at me!”
“I’m furious with you,” Faith said calmly, “and you should take that very seriously.”
Jessica frowned, then frowned more deeply when Faith mouthed, Bridgette.
“Come on, Faith, that’s not nice,” Bridgette singsonged. “I really am just trying to help you.”
“Let’s make a deal,” Faith said. “You don’t bullshit me, and I won’t bullshit you.”
“Yes, you will. Of course you will. That’s what law enforcement does. They bullshit people because it’s the only way to get the answers they want. That’s another thing you and I have in common.”
Faith took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. “Bridgette, your little stunt is going to cost your network and my Bureau a lawsuit.”
Bridgette scoffed. “So what? We’ll settle for fifty grand, and Craig will be the happiest little murder suspect on Earth. Do you know how much advertising revenue our network made for the story we just ran?”
“It could also cost us our case,” Faith said. “He has grounds for defamation and possibly for coercion.”
“Faith,” Jessica said in a warning voice.
Faith cursed. “You don’t get to print that.”
“I get to print whatever I want, Faith,” Bridgette replied.
All pretense of friendliness was gone from her voice.
“I won’t print that, but I could. That’s what you need to understand.
I don’t work for you. I helped you because helping you benefitted me, but I’m not an asset.
I called myself your friend on the show, but I think you’d be the first to admit that was the heftiest load of crap I could lift without straining my back.
I want us to be allies, but that means we have to work together, and that means that when I approach you for a live spot, you don’t insult and threaten me in front of millions of viewers, then refuse to throw me the smallest crumb. ”
Faith’s left hand curled into a fist. Her right one shook slightly, unable to tighten since it was holding her phone. “So that stunt at the warehouse was revenge because I wouldn’t talk to you at the earlier scenes?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. That ‘stunt’ was good television.
Since you need me to spell it out for you, I’ll make it abundantly clear.
I can and will make this mess go away for you.
I can make you and the Bureau look so shiny people will make pilgrimages to Quantico just to fall on their knees and worship you.
But if I do that, you’ll have to do some things for me. ”
Faith couldn’t stop herself. “Can you fix Craig Daniels’s life that you ruined for good television?”
“I’m guessing you really don’t think he’s your guy, or you wouldn’t have asked me that. But even if he’s not, he’s not worth anything. He’s a loser with a history of being a loser, and given some time, he would have torpedoed his own life again.”
Faith bristled, but before she said anything, Bridgette continued, “You can be angry with me all you want, but you’re smart enough to know where the cookie crumbles. Now, for fixing yours and your partner’s careers and making the Bureau look squeaky clean once more, what do I get?”
A vein throbbed in Faith’s temple. Sensing the presence of a threat, Turk growled at the phone. Jessica glanced over at Faith, still wearing a dark frown.
And Faith was caught. It was as simple as that.
She was stuck firmly in the web, wrapped up nice and tight, a little package for the spider to consume at her pleasure.
She needed this to go away, and she had no idea how to make it go away.
Bridgette did. That meant Faith needed her, and that meant Faith was at her mercy.
“An exclusive.”
Bridgette laughed. “Please. I was practically guaranteed that already. I need more.”
Faith rolled her eyes. “Okay. What do you want?”
“An exclusive.”
Faith sighed. “Bridgette, I don’t have time for—”
“Relax, I’m not trying to tease you,” Bridgette said.
“I’m telling the truth. I want an exclusive.
I want the case too, but not just the case.
I want the whole story. Faith Bold: America’s Agent.
From troublemaking child to proud Devil Dog to firecracker agent to seasoned detective.
I want your life’s story, Faith, in high definition. ”
Faith blinked. “That’s it? You want a biopic?”
“Free advice, sweetie. Don’t ever use the phrase, ‘that’s it’, around a reporter.
Now to answer you, yes, I want a biopic.
You’re going to be a bestseller. I’m talking New York Times number one.
We’ll put a picture of you and Turk on the dust jacket and weave a tale of determination, passion, and brilliance that will have people late to work in the morning from staying up all night reading you. ”
Faith laughed. “Wow. So you’re big goal, the biggest thing you can think of right now, is to write a cheap rag about me.”
“Cheap rag to you, Pulitzer Prize to me. I don’t pretend to understand how you do your job, so don’t pretend to understand how I do mine. Just know that if you give me the rights to your biography, I will ensure that you leave Baltimore on a yearling colt that no man has ever ridden on.”
Faith’s brow furrowed. “What?”
“Forget it. Point is, that’s what I want, and I know I won’t get it if I don’t send you home to happy bosses, so if you don’t trust me to have integrity, trust me to act in my own self-interest.”
“Oh, I trust that. I one hundred percent trust that.”
“Perfect. So we have a deal?”
Faith’s hand curled into a fist again. She hated giving Bridgette anything, even if what she was asking for seemed innocuous on the surface.
She hated knowing that Bridgette was going to get away with her crappy behavior.
And deep in the darkest recesses of Faith’s mind, she hated that Bridgette had beaten her.
But she had. Not fair and not square, but the game was over, and the number on Bridgette’s side of the scoreboard was bigger than the number on Faith’s side.
Unless…
The game might not be over yet. Faith had an idea. It was a long shot, but if she played it right, she might have enough to get herself and Jessica out of this web after all.
She tapped the record button on her phone screen. Her Bureau phone recorded all phone conversations for safety purposes. It deleted the recordings immediately upon completion of the phone call, but if Faith pressed the record button, it would save that recording.
“Faith?” Bridgette pressed.
“Yes. We have a deal.”
“Great! By the way, now that we’re on the same side, Craig Daniels was in bed with his boss’s wife when the murders happened.
He was lying about being home watching tv, but she called the network in tears begging us not to ruin her life by telling the world that they were together.
Guess he’s not a loser in every area of his life.
As long as he agrees to drop the defamation suits against the FBI and Channel Six News, the world will never know about that.
So don’t worry about him. He’s not going to do shit. ”
Faith stared ahead in shock. Who the hell was this woman?
“I assume you’re shocked by my brilliance,” Bridgette teased.
“Just shocked,” Faith said. “And you knew this? You knew he wasn’t going to be a threat the whole time?”
“Let it serve as a lesson: I get what I want. But I also give other people what they want. They just have to play nice. I'll talk to you later, Faith."
She hung up. Faith stared ahead, too stunned to think.
It was possible that Bridgette was lying about Craig and his boss's wife, but Faith doubted that.
She had Faith caught, so there was no need to placate her.
What probably happened was Bridgette found out where Craig had been, contacted the lady in question, and pressed her for information in exchange for keeping this little tryst secret.
Then she'd held that in her back pocket until Faith agreed to give her what she wanted.
Spider was an excellent way to describe her. And Faith wished wholeheartedly that she’d never seen the woman.
“So you tell her your life story, and she gets us off the hook for the Craig Daniels snafu?” Jessica asked.
Faith nodded. “Yes. She also found proof that Craig isn’t our killer.”
Jessica laughed. “Shit. Well, she’s a grade-A bitch, but she’s not a bad detective. Might as well just let her have this if it gets her off our back.”
“Yeah. Might as well.”
“As for your biography, no one ever said you had to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. You can always just feed her whatever you feel like and make up the rest.”
“Yeah,” Faith agreed. “I guess I can.”
She sent a text to Michael. He replied a minute later, not confirming that he could help but promising he would do what he could.
Now Faith had done all she could. She could only wait and see how the chips fell.