LITMIR.BIZ

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up and pace or scream, or otherwise release some of the frustration building inside her. Instead, she remained in the chair. “I have nightmares about my dad’s downfall and death. He wasn’t a traitor.” She stopped and swallowed when her voice started to crack. “I can’t believe it, not about the man I knew.”

      “Frankie—”

      “I know I’m looking at this with a daughter’s eyes. I talked with Sophia several times when he was accused and after they found him guilty. She was too composed through the whole mess. Never a tear or any sign of worry. What kind of wife doesn’t worry when her husband is accused of treason?” Frankie paused, pulling on the tattered edges of her composure. Losing it would get her nowhere. “Sophia never gave me anything but the same tired reply—trust the process.”

      “It’s sound advice.”

      “It didn’t work.” Frankie left out the irrelevant piece that trusting a legal process included zero comfort factor. “It was a self-serving answer,” she argued. “Suicide isn’t part of any fair or just process. How did he even manage that with the security team that must have been surrounding him?”

      Frankie took a moment to compose herself. “Aunt Victoria, I have a new job, I’m making a new life, but I haven’t moved on. Not really.” She scooted to the edge of the chair. “I need the answers. I deserve to know what happened and who I can trust. There’s no way I can move forward until I clear up the past.”

      “I understand how that feels,” Victoria said, her words heavy with the wisdom of experience. “But leaping to conclusions will only hurt you. Others, too, most likely. I’ve known your mother a very long time. Her word should be enough for you.”

      “What word? She won’t explain herself,” Frankie pressed, desperate for Victoria’s help. “My father’s been silenced. I want to understand what happened.”

      “You want revenge,” Victoria stated bluntly. “Who will you target and what price will you pay?”

      Frankie forced herself to calm down, taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly. “My dad isn’t a traitor. Even dead, he doesn’t deserve to bear that notoriety.” She fidgeted in the chair, wishing again she could get up and pace. “Apparently the friend of his who found me yesterday is the only person who agrees with me.”

      “You don’t know that.” Victoria tapped the papers in front of her. “This statement doesn’t prove your mother was complicit if there was a concerted effort to ruin your father. She had to make an accurate report. Her position and her integrity required it.”

      “It’s not accurate. Dad was in Bagram when she stated he was in Kabul.” Frankie hadn’t felt so helpless since she’d woken in a hospital bed with no feeling in her legs. She needed an ally. Just as the candid support of the medical team had empowered her recovery, one trustworthy partner would make all the difference now.

      Victoria’s eyes lit with troubled interest. “How can you be sure?”

      “Because I was there. I saw him.” She nearly cheered when Victoria’s brow furrowed as she reviewed the report again.

      “Let me see the passports.”

      Frankie handed them over and endured the small eternity awaiting Victoria’s response.

      The older woman reached for her phone and pressed a button. “Ask Aidan to join us, please.” She replaced the handset and met Frankie’s gaze. “Aidan Abbot is one of my best investigators. No one’s better with documents or ferreting through layers of security or fraud. He can tell us if the passports are fakes.”

      “How could they possibly be real?”

      Victoria flipped through the pages. “Frankie, you know there are times when an established alias is necessary. Or all of this could be an elaborate setup to turn you against her.”

      “I’ve already been against her for months. We haven’t spoken since his funeral.” An event that had been postponed a full month so Frankie could attend. Too bad it hadn’t made anything easier. The delay had only given her mother more time to pretend life with her spouse hadn’t existed. The brutal lack of emotion had shocked Frankie. Still did. If Sophia so willingly cut out a husband, losing a daughter probably hadn’t registered on her scale. Everything Frankie thought she knew about love and family had been turned upside down by a disaster someone had manufactured. Hurting, her blood beating cold in her veins, Frankie fixed her gaze on the window and the city glittering beyond it.

      “Let’s assume you’re right,” Victoria continued. “It would require serious planning and resources to systematically take down a man of your father’s standing. To create evidence strong enough to ruin his career and push him to suicide without leaving a trail would be almost impossible these days.”

      A knock sounded on the door. Frankie turned to see it open and a man with thick, dark hair in need of a trim, and vivid, cobalt-blue eyes, enter.

      “Aidan Abbot, Francesca Leone.”

      “A pleasure,” he said, shaking her hand.

      There was a trace of Ireland in his voice and it sent her pulse into some foolish feminine skipping. He probably got that all the time, she thought, irritated with her reaction. “Likewise,” she replied.

      “Francesca’s a lovely name.”

      The way he said it made her want to sigh and forget why she’d come here. She cleared her throat. “Call me Frankie.” She’d been named in honor of both her grandmother and father. Her full name had always felt too exotic. “Frankie” was a better fit for the tough and proud little girl who’d spent her life aspiring to be like her dad.

      When he was seated, Victoria handed Aidan the passports. “Frankie has some concerns about these.”

      Frankie watched him examine them, involuntarily admiring his hands, as well as his attention to detail. More annoying was the difficulty she seemed to be having with the fact that he wore some appealing cologne that reminded her of the Pacific Coast on a clear, sunny day.

      “One woman with two names implies that one of them is a fake,” he said after a moment.

      “Both are fakes,” Frankie stated firmly.

      Aidan arched a dark eyebrow, and his mouth quirked up at one corner. Frankie felt a warm tremor just under her skin. It was a relief when he turned that bold blue gaze toward his boss. “If there’s no question, why call me?”

      “There may be good reason those passports were issued. Would you mind taking a closer look into the names and any travel records?”

      “Not at all.” He tapped the closed passports against his knee. “How much time do I have?”

      “A few hours at most,” Victoria said, her eyes cool. “Frankie wants the information yesterday.”

      Frankie couldn’t sit still a moment longer. Her back ached from the travel and the tension. She wanted the freedom and clarity of a quick run but settled for pacing the width of the office. The patience she’d relied on in the field and in her work didn’t translate to this situation. “That’s a start. Can you tell me what sort of legal action we can take?” She shoved her hands into her pockets.

      “Why don’t you give me what you have?” Victoria suggested. “Let my team investigate while you go back to Savannah. We’re good, objective and fast. I’ll call you as soon as we know something.”

      Frankie shook her head, her ponytail swinging. “I’m not sitting this one out.” She’d been relegated to the sidelines too often since her injury. While she couldn’t say she knew her parents better than anyone—the opposite appeared to be true—she wouldn’t deal with this long-distance via secondhand reports. She wanted to see her mother’s face when the truth finally came out.

      “Then why did you come to me?”

      She felt Aidan’s gaze on her as Victoria waited for an answer.

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