Page 38 of Laura's Truth
“Who? Hackett?”
“No, the man the Army later identified as me. I didn’t know about Hackett then. I remember thinking he would have found it an honorable sacrifice, a chance for me to live and set things right.” He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. The room felt too bright, too normal. He laced his fingers hoping to hide his shaking hands, wondering if she could hear his heart pounding. “It was so wrong. I could hear the gunfight long after I was clear of the flames. I ran with the other men and women fleeing the compound. The family extended hospitality, treated my wounds, and eventually pointed me toward my first lead.”
“Hackett.”
“Eventually.”
Laura’s heart ached for Drew. Stupid, but true. Her professional distance had evaporated as he told the story, layered in the details. Even knowing she was listening to a spy, a man trained to be convincing, she couldn’t stop the ache in her chest. She could see the broken wall, practically smell the charred clothing and worse. Still, being emotionally gullible didn’t mean she had to stop thinking critically. “Teams combed the area for information. Confirmation. There was never another whisper of you.”
“We both know I wouldn’t be here now if I’d let that happen,” he said, staring at the floor. “A man in my position learns how to make friends in low places.” Finally, his blue eyes lifted to hers as he offered her a fortune cookie.
“No thanks. Keep going.”
She had to wait while he unwrapped the cookie, chewed thoughtfully. Under normal circumstances, she’d view it as a stalling tactic, but Drew had proven over and over today that he wasn’t normal in any sense of the word.
“You know the rest or can fill in the blanks well enough.” He stood up, offered his hand. “You should elevate that foot again.”
“If you keep talking.” She let him help her over to the couch, let him prop up her aching foot on the throw pillows. “Tell me how you learned Hackett was behind that attack.”
He settled into the loveseat across from her and stretched his arms high toward the ceiling, bringing them to rest along the top of the cushions.
And there was the move—his move—that signaled the onset of bullshit. Relaxed and open, his body language said, ‘trust me’. Hah. She kept her expression neutral, wondering how he would decorate the truth, or if there would be any truth at all in what he said next.
“About eighteen months after I officially died, I got wind of an American wanting to make a drug deal—and not for personal-use quantities. I looked into it, got myself involved in the exchange.”
It was easy for her to read between those smoothly-delivered lines. He’d taken someone’s position, someone’s life, to get into the mix.
“Imagine my shock at seeing an American, Hackett, brokering the deal.” He pushed up and away from the couch, pacing to the sliding glass door of the balcony where he stared out into the dark. “I stayed with that crew long enough to learn more about Hackett’s operation. He’d been dealing in far more than drugs.”
More truth, she realized. She found it intriguing that he only wanted to gloss over or hide his kills from her. She supposed she should be more judgmental, but the day Drew officially died hadn’t been the only time she’d waded through murky ethical waters. The world was always about give and take, but it was rarely black and white.
While Ross and his team had done everything right, something had gone terribly wrong for Drew. She couldn’t blame him for following his survival instinct. Couldn’t blame him for seeking the answers at any cost. He didn’t have anything to lose. “So you gathered evidence,” she said.
“One miniscule piece at a time.”
“How often have you followed him stateside?”
“Only once.” He turned. “Hang on. How did you make that leap?”
“Logic,” she lied, thinking of what Ross had told her. “He’s American.”
“No.” Drew’s lip curled in a disgusted snarl. “He’s a traitor with no morals or conscience. And enough money stashed away to make a dent in the national debt. If I lose him now…”
“We’ll catch him.”
“I shouldn’t have told that driver who I was.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Stupid ego.”
“Happens to the best of us,” she soothed. “Might not even be a bad thing.”
“Why not?”
“Because it puts him on edge,” she suggested. “Gives him a fresh distraction. He’ll wonder how you escaped his notice all this time, why you’re in Charleston now. And it makes him wonder if I knew about you.”
“Oh, he’ll figure out two out of three easily enough now that I took away all doubt.”
“Because?”
“He doesn’t believe in coincidences. The only other man who survived that explosion came to Charleston for Spoleto this year.”