26. His Head And Heart

26

HIS HEAD AND HEART

" D o you believe what you heard?" Mac asked him the next day. Jarrett had shown up at the police station to fill Mac in before he went to talk to Jack without Andi.

"I don't have much of a choice in the matter right now," he said. "I'm heading to the hotel at ten to find out what I can without worrying about Andi hearing things to upset her."

The last thing he wanted to do was put her in that position again.

He'd had every intention of going home last night before Jack showed up but then changed his mind. There was no way he was leaving Andi alone.

"Do you mind company?" Mac asked. "I need to be filled in if we have to worry about anything coming here."

"I figured you'd want to come and I don't see Jack being upset over it. Andimade a commentthat Jack would have done a background on us. Part of me thinks he might have done a basic one on you and the PD before she moved here."

"I'd expect that," Mac said. "We've got nothing to hide. He would have known there was a state police presence on the island. I've had some contact with a marshal or two in the Boston office."

He figured his brother would have. His father too.

"Maybe Jack didn't remember our names when he rushed here months ago or even knew our names more than checking out law enforcement in general."

"That's more likely the case," Mac said. "You love her, don't you?"

"I do," he said. "I know you can understand this with Sidney."

"I can," Mac said. "There is a fine line between protecting her and yourself and those we serve. You can't think with your heart over your head."

Just like he was positive there was a moment that his brother would have shot to kill Sidney's ex rather than unarm him. But that moment passed quickly.

They'd never make it personal.

Something Andi's father did and it cost him his life and left his daughter alone.

"I'll be okay," Jarrett said. He looked at his watch. "Do you want to go over now?"

"Sure," Mac said. "Do you think we should stop and see Griffin?"

He knew where his brother was going with this. "It crossed my mind, but I'm not ready for it yet. He'll be there if we need him, but why stir the waters? I already threw it out there that we had more resources than Jack would ever know. It might helpifit's backed by you again. You said it in the hospital, but I'm sure he thought we were bluffing. You know he's going to say nothing can top him."

Mac laughed. "He hasn't met Griffin, but we'll let it go for now."

He understood Mac's need to want to know more and this was the balance of his head and heart. He didn't want to alert anyone to any activity. Not that he thought Griffin would be careless, but why bother him for no cause right now?

They drove to Atlantic Rise where Jack was staying and then took the elevator up to the fourth floor. He knocked on the door and it was opened rather quickly.

"I figured you wouldn't come alone," Jack said.

"No secrets," he said.

Jack nodded and held the door open wider. "Come in. Do you want coffee or anything?"

He looked around the room and saw the laptop open on the desk by the window.

"I'm good," he said.

"The same," Mac said.

"Where do you want me to start? I've got some files up and you can look at them, but I'm not transferring them anywhere. That's too risky."

"Risky for what?" Mac said. "If there is nothing to be concerned about?"

"There isn't," Jack said. "Though I don't think there is an inside mole in Denver, I don't know for sure. I can't to this day figure out how anyone found out Luke was looking into the Dustin Family. He's not stupid. He never slipped. He didn't make mistakes."

"But he did that night," he said.

"His mistake was meeting someone alone at a place he'd never been. He was shot in the parking lot before he even got to meet the person," Jack said.

"You didn't say that," he said. "So you don't know if that was the person who Luke was meeting?"

"No," Jack said. "It most likely wasn't and he was just followed there. He was four steps from his vehicle when Jonah Kennedy walked up and shot him in the chest. That's it. The camera caught the car as he sped away for us to make the arrest so easily. The rest is history."

"So someone had to know he was going to be at that bar that night," Mac said. "Or he was just followed and it was the perfect opportunity?"

"I haven't been able to look much into it," Jack said. "I told you why. I wanted revenge. Lots of us did. Many better than me have been looking through things and no one can come up with anything. What I know is that Winston Dustin, who is pretty much untouchable, has relocated to New Mexico. He flies under the radar, they've got a few deep covers andit's best for me to movefurther away from any action."

"You're positive coming here won't alert them to Andi?" he asked.

"To the best of my knowledge, no one knows Andi found that USB drive. We had Luke's computer. When Andi realized there was a break-in, we went right over. The night she found the USB, she gave it to me since I brought a few of Luke's things home with me to go through them from the house. I said it was me that found it."

"So you did fabricate the pictures of Andi?" he asked.

"No," Jack said. "In thebeginningthere were a few sent to us." Jack moved to his briefcase. "I printed them back then and you can see."

He looked at the pictures of his girlfriend taken from a distance. She had lighter blonde hair that waspin straight. Much different than the waves she had in it now. Since he'd seen it wet anddryingon its own in soft waves, he knew she had to have styled it that way back then.

He showed Mac. "It's her, but that doesn't prove anything."

"This was the note sent," Jack said. He showed a picture of that too.

He read the note. You wouldn't want anything to happen to Luke's daughter,wouldyou?

"Fuck," he said.

"Yeah," Jack said. "We didn't want to scare her so we had her tailed at all times. She had no clue."

"So you knew about this boyfriend she had?" he asked. "Yet didn't know anything about him?"

Jack sighed. "Not enough. Those pictures came two days after Jonah Kennedy was killed in jail. Since Andi was grieving, it was easy to keep track of her and she wasn't spending time with Leo. She'd only gone on a few dates with him prior like she told you, then he gave her time to mourn her father."

Which Jarrett found odd but didn't say much more. Andi had said it'd only been two dates so maybe it wasn't that big of a deal to step back for a bit in their eyes.

"Then what happened?"

"We had enoughonthe Dustin Family. We arrested who we could. The one who sent the pictures admitted it. He'd said he did it to get us to back off looking into his family. It was a nephew of Winston who called the hit. Winston claims hehad no knowledgeof any of it nor any idea of what his nephew was doing. With Kyle, the nephew, in prison, we backed off of monitoring Andi some. Winston assured us that he'd make sure if anyone thought of harming her, they'd deal with him. We had nothing on him but his word and since he didn't want a bigger target on him, we cut back some of the surveillance. Those orders came from well above my pay grade."

"And you regret that, don't you?" he asked.

"I have a lot of regrets," Jack said. "My point is, I'm not too worried about the Dustin Family, but I'm also not accessing their files either. Those were pictures of things I had when this all went down. It's someone else's headache right now, but I know people who have their ears to the ground."

"Do you trust those people?" he asked. "Those that know what happened to Andi?"

"Her plane crash?" Jack asked.

He'd told his brother about that too. "Yes."

"I do trust them, but there are only two others who know. Both are higher tiers than me. What I've got on my computer is Leo and what happened to him until that case was handed off. I know you've got more questions there."

"Yes," he said. "It seems to me he is the reason you got her out. Why you didwhatyouhad.Hope you don't get caught."

"Jarrett," Mac said. "It's not what we would do, but we weren't in his position either."

"It won't come back to me," Jack said. "I cover my tracks."

He nodded his head. "Tell me about Leo then. Andi and the guy are done. She's out of the picture, but Leo is arrested a year later?"

"Yes," Jack said. "I passed on what I knew to the FBI. It was in their hands. I did keep up as best as I could. I only met Leo that once. He probably didn't even remember me and had no idea I was a marshal. Leo was under investigation for a while after Andi disappeared while she was recovering. He was still their inside source for fentanyl from the pharmacy he worked at and supplying it to a local drug cartel. He didn't have access to get enough to put him away and his biggest part in this was finding out where and when shipments were coming in. We believe he was tipping people off and there were a few heists. Nothing concrete to get back to him."

"So arrested and not charged?" he asked.

"Exactly. The best they could do was strip him of his license since there was fentanyl unaccounted for multiple times. He said it was poor bookkeeping. Some said he was using it himself."

"Nothing stuck," Mac said.

"No," Jack said. "Last I heard Leo was in California working in some lab or something."

"Doing what?" he asked.

"I don't know," Jack said. "Not drug related. Here is the report sent over from the FBI to me as a personal favor."

Jarrett and Mac moved over to the computer and read what they could on Andi's ex. Nothing in there thatmentionedher or any connection toa personallife or women.

Maybe the guy got smart because, if the FBI was watching, they'd have any women on their radar since they'd even seen a report on Leo's family, who were clean.

"Why didn't you tell Andi any of this?" he asked.

"She knows he was arrested," Jack said. "And not charged. I didn't even want to tell her that much, but she'd been following things online and saw it."

"But she didn't know all of this that we read.That thereis no mention of her in these reports. You were scared for her, she was scared, but it seems like nothing came about it."

"We didn't know what was going to happen," Jack said. "And if you go to the next file, you'll see the people that Leo was in bed with are some pretty nasty dudes. To this day, Leo has never flipped on them and we are sure they are threatening him over it. Or holding something over his head. There are still ongoing investigations on them."

"No arrests on the stolen drugs?" he asked.

"Nothing," Jack said. "Leo is still watched, but there has been no sign of him being in contact with anyone that he was with in Denver. None of his friends."

"Funny, don't you think?" Mac asked.

"Which is why he's still watched. Or if he does have contact with them, it's pretty benign. You know as well as I do you need to build a case on these things."

"We do," he said. "Deep down, do you feel Andi isn't in danger?"

"I'd tell you if she was," Jack said. "She isn't."

"I think the bigger danger is Jack right now," Mac said. "When he talks with Andi and has to explain this. It's adding to your guilt, isn't it? You pushed for her to go into Witness Protection. Maybe you jumped the gun and could have just had her go away while she recovered?"

Jack sat in a chair. "I have to live with those choices. I have to figure out what to tell Andi too. At the time, it was the right choice. Looking back, I'm not sure if I would have done anything differently to protect her."

"He was put in a bad position," Mac said when they left the hotel. "I'm not positive what I would have done in his shoes."

"Not what he did," he said.

"I wouldn't have lied or set up a false threat. He put his job on the line and got away with it. But he does have to live with how Andi's life turned out. She has to live with it," Mac said. "Can you?"

"I can," he said. "I'll make sure I'll be there for her when she needs me too. And I won't be the one to make her feel as she did yesterday."