Rising (Anderson Special Ops #2) - Melody Anne Page 0,11
stopped for a second, before it thundered. Never would he have thought he’d hear that name mixed up in all of this mess. It was one of his own. It was one he’d worked hard to help. It was one he’d thought had character and integrity. But there was the name, not to be mistaken.
“How?” Joseph said.
“This isn’t a confirmed list of guilty people. This is just a list of suspects,” Chad reminded Joseph. His words didn’t help how he was feeling. He looked at the list again and sighed as the name flashed at him like a neon sign.
Damien Whitfield.
“This can’t be right,” Joseph finally said. “He can’t be involved in this.”
“I’m sorry, Joseph, but it is Damien. Brackish verified it’s our Damien. We don’t yet know that that means.”
Joseph felt numb as he looked at the highlighted name again. The words blurred before his eyes. His heart was already broken. This might permanently destroy it. He’d never guessed when Chad had given him that warning that some of the players might be his actual family, that some names might be a person he was so close to — one of his nephews. Even if Damien hadn’t grown up in the family, he was a good man with a good wife. It couldn’t be him.
There were a thousand questions going through Joseph’s mind, but he only asked one. “What do we do next?”
“We still have a ton to do, Joseph. I didn’t tell Brackish I knew any of the names on this list. He handed it over and went back to work. Once we’re done here I’m going back to the office and I’ll have him do a pointed dive into Damien’s information to see if Damien is attached to anyone in this ring we’ve confirmed as players.”
“Then find them all,” Joseph said, his voice cold.
“We’re on it. I have no doubt Brackish will have everything hacked from cell phones to email accounts and anything in between. We’ll find all of the players.”
“I hate not having more information,” Joseph said, his good mood long gone.
Chad smiled. “That’s why I like to end the meeting on a good note.”
“What can possibly be good after all of this?” Joseph asked with a scowl.
“Love,” Chad said simply. “Back to Erin and Brackish. Erin is the niece of Jack.” He stopped as Joseph’s scowl deepened. “Calm down. She has zero contact with her sleazeball uncle. We’ve given her a background check that shames even the ones given to the Secret Service agents closest to the president.”
“How did he meet her?” Joseph asked as his scowl softened. He was trying to pull himself from his dark mood, and love stories was about the only thing that had half a chance of doing that.
“She works in, and owns, a local diner that used to belong to her grandparents. The team was unwinding and doing a bit of recon. They weren’t expecting one of them to fall for the girl, but I had a feeling some sparks might fly when I sent them there.”
Those words managed to pull the rest of the frown from Joseph’s forehead. Chad was correct, he truly did love the world of love and romance. He didn’t believe Damien was involved in this world, anyway. It couldn’t be true. They’d get to the bottom of it and clear his name. Joseph was sure of that. He ignored the pang in his chest that clearly spoke of Damien’s odd behavior the past couple of years. That was simply growing pains.
“Tell me more,” he said as he rose and grabbed Chad’s cup so he could give them each a refill — this time adding a bit more buttered rum. They could both use it.
“Erin dropped out of college to help her grandparents on her mother’s side because they were ill. They owned the diner. She stepped up at first because it had been her grandmother’s dream, but when they passed, she worked harder, wanting to keep that piece of them with her. She never went back to school. Maybe it was punishment for not getting there sooner, we don’t know. Because she’d been a straight A student and was on track to becoming an advertising exec. She did a lot of volunteer work, had a perfect SAT score, and was the student body president of her small college. In other words, she’s a literal genius who’s completely lost her way.”
“Okay, I’m intrigued,” Joseph admitted. He knew where his dinner was going to be in