“How sad is it that I have a hard time not believing that my father is committing illegal acts, and treason?” She slammed a hand down on his desk, making him jump and a few office supplies fall over or roll off the side of the desk.
He finally seemed to rally, and he stood and faced her defiantly. “I’m a lot of things, Kate, but I’m not a traitor.” He huffed out a breath and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Yes, I admit that in the past I’ve made some campaign contributions in order to gain some leverage in upcoming legislation. It’s common practice in business, and I won’t deny taking part in it.” He shook his head. “I also won’t deny that I’ve done many things in my life that I’m not proud of. But working with terrorists and betraying my country, or my daughter, isn’t one of them.”
Kate’s throat constricted and she swallowed hard. “How do I know that’s true? How can I even believe anything you say, Dad?”
He blew out a long breath. “I’m not sure there is anything I can say or show you to make you believe me. But it’s the truth.” His stricken expression told her she had hurt him deeply, but she didn’t trust it since she was used to him using any and all tools to manipulate everyone around him.
“You asked me to be honest with you and I have. I invested in Merestone purely because they looked like a solid start-up that could make me a great deal of money. Some of my friends and associates were investing, and offered me the opportunity as well.” He shrugged. “I’m not sure what else I can tell you.”
—
Dex cursed as he hung up with the team that was watching over Kate. He had been trying to text and call her all day. He’d been half a second away from calling the FBI team watching out for her to find out where her house was here in Paradise Valley when he realized that would raise questions about how he knew where it was.
The need to see her was like a physical ache, and the fact that he couldn’t get hold of her twisted worry inside his gut. Finally, he gave in and called the team anyway to make sure she was all right.
“Dex, we knew you were on a conference call with the team, so we were waiting until we knew that was finished before updating you. Miss Fretwell bolted out of Club Desire earlier like she was on a mission.”
The worry in Dex’s gut turned to fear. He hadn’t known she’d come to the club this morning. He’d been caught up with his case for most of the morning and early afternoon.
“How long ago?”
The agent on the phone paused, and Dex could hear road noise in the background telling him the team was on the move.
“About five hours ago. We’re following, but there are accidents on Interstate 10, so it’s been difficult to tail her and stay back far enough that we don’t remain right behind her car the entire way.” The sound of a honking horn over the line made Dex wince away from the speaker against his ear.
“Looks like she’s headed back to L.A.”
After the night he and Kate had shared, it would have taken something big to make her run back to L.A., which was what it sounded like she was doing. His analysts would have told him if anything had happened to her uncle or father, so it had to be something else.
He took a deep breath. “Did she take everything with her?”
“Yep, including the cat.”
Shit.
Something had happened inside Club Desire that made her run back to the one place she was trying to escape, and it wasn’t only for a quick visit if she took Rusty back with her. What the hell had happened?
A helpless feeling made his chest tighten, and he wanted to punch something.
“Thanks. Keep an eye on her, and keep me updated.”
—
As soon as his daughter left his office, Richard Fretwell had called his network to check into all that he had learned. He had heard about the attacks and deaths on the news, as well as the ties back to The Dungeon. But beyond making sure none of those victims had been his daughter, he hadn’t been too concerned at the time. After Kate’s angry accusations, though, he had to know more.
He had been unable to contact Opal, so he had decided to go to the source. He’d been pissed when the Feds had put someone in The Dungeon. More because he wanted to keep Kate’s name from being dragged through the mud than for anything else. As much as he’d used money to influence laws and politicians over the years, he’d done it legally through campaign contributions and his support of lobbyist groups.
But these new accusations from his daughter were a wake-up call of sorts. He’d always prided himself on knowing where to use money, charm, or coercion to get what he wanted. But he hadn’t spent more than a cursory amount of time and effort researching organizations and people he used for those purposes. So if Merestone was dealing with or backed by terrorists, it was his own damn fault for being careless.