Control (Harper Security Ops #18)

Five

FIVE

Alana

Recovery was slower than I had anticipated.

Having been told I’d be given a walking boot, I had assumed I’d be up and moving around my house the day I went home.

I was sorely mistaken.

For the first two days that I was home, I spent most of my time on the couch with my foot elevated. While I was able to walk around—to the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom—leaving my foot hanging down for too long led to increased pain and swelling. By days three and four, I was able to reduce the frequency with which I was taking the pain medication and had been able to switch from the narcotics the doctor had prescribed to the over-the-counter pain medication. With each day that passed since, everything improved, and I was able to accomplish more tasks around the house, even if they were minor.

Of course, my mom and dad had both stopped over to help me out, and they’d spent nearly all day with me the first two days. My brother finally had the opportunity to stop by on day five of being home from the hospital, which had been nice, too.

But now it was day eleven, and yesterday, I’d gone to see the surgical podiatrist who’d performed the surgery on my foot. He’d looked at the progress I’d made—inspecting the incision and stitches for any signs of infection. Overall, it was safe to say he was impressed with how quickly and nicely everything was healing.

I’d finally gotten permission to take my foot out of the boot whenever I was home and resting; though, I still needed to wear it any time I was walking. I needed to return to the doctor’s office next week to have the stitches removed—he wanted just a few more days with them in.

Best of all, since it was my left foot and I’d completed the cocktail of antibiotics he’d prescribed and was no longer taking any pain medications, I was also cleared to drive again. My car had been totaled in the accident, but my parents allowed me to use my mom’s car.

Yes, my mom’s car.

She didn’t drive, but there was a car they referred to as hers. Whenever he was going anywhere with her, my dad would take that car. If it was just him, he’d take his truck. But to help me out in this situation until I received the payout from my insurance company and had the chance to buy a new car, they loaned me hers.

And today, I was using it.

My sole goal was to head to the news station and convince Dale to reconsider his decision to pull me off the story. Over the days I’d been home, I attempted to do some research online and reviewed the notes and information both Yasmine and I had gathered in the time we had each been working on the story. While I had the chance to organize my thoughts and come up with a new plan of attack, I still needed to change his mind.

The moment I walked through the front door, I was greeted by several of my coworkers. They’d all asked how I was doing, wanting updates on my recovery. It was nice to be back, to be connecting with them again.

After I’d spent a few minutes with them, I returned to my task and moved toward Dale’s office.

When I knocked on the partially closed door to his office, he called out, “Yeah? Come in.”

I pushed the door open and stepped into the room, doing it with the uneven walk I now had with the boot on my foot. “Hi, Dale.”

“Alana. How are you?”

I nodded with a smile on my face. It was best to go in with a pleasant demeanor, if I hoped to persuade him at all. “Much better. Thank you for asking.”

“I didn’t expect to see you here today. Did we know you were coming back?”

“No. No, I’m due to go back to the doctor next week to have the stitches removed, and hopefully, I’ll be cleared to resume working at that time.”

Understanding seemed to dawn on his features. I had a feeling he finally realized the reason for my visit. “You want to talk about Annie Sanders and Yasmine.”

“I do,” I confirmed.

“I’m sorry, Alana, but I can’t allow you to continue on either,” he lamented.

The last thing I needed to do was fly off the handle like I wanted. Losing my cool and temper on Dale like I had with Rita wasn’t going to help me in this situation. So, I swallowed down the anger I could feel building inside me and took a few more steps toward his desk and kept my voice calm as I pleaded my case. “Please, Dale. I understand your position, and I truly appreciate your desire to make a decision that’ll keep me safe in this scenario. But I didn’t come into this profession expecting it would always be rainbows and sunshine. I understand the risk, and I’m more than prepared to accept it. This is too important to just walk away from.”

“I get it,” he assured me. “Yasmine aside, the Sanders story is a big one. Trust me, I’m not exactly thrilled that we’re walking away from what would be close to the biggest story we’ve ever reported on. And for you, for your career, a story like this is huge. So, I understand why you want to pursue it. But Yasmine hasn’t recovered, and Rita told me about the note you found with Yasmine’s things. There’s not a chance I can pretend she didn’t share that information with me.”

My hands gripped the back of the chair sitting on the opposite side of his desk, and I leaned my weight into it. “I’m not asking you to forget that. But there has to be a way I can continue this. I can’t just give up. We don’t do that, not even when things get dangerous. Why would this time be any different?”

If Dale had been trying to exercise patience with me when I first arrived, what happened next proved that was no longer the case. “It’s not up for debate, Alana. I’ve made a decision, and it’s final.”

“But—”

“There’s nothing else to say,” he clipped. “You don’t have a choice here. Now, we’re happy to have you back to your normal reporting activities as soon as it’s cleared with your doctor, but you will not be returning to covering the Annie Sanders case. Since there was no official story on Yasmine, there’s nothing for me to deny there other than to tell you that it is not a story we’ll be handling. We’re leaving this in the hands of the authorities. I need you to confirm that’s understood.”

I dropped my chin, my eyes landing on my knuckles where my fingers were gripping the chair. It took every ounce of strength I had to bite my tongue to not allow the anger and bitterness I felt to rush forward and spill out of me. We’d never backed down from a story. Never. This made no sense.

“Alana?” he called when I took too long to respond.

Lifting my gaze to meet his, I rasped, “I understand.”

He returned a firm nod. “Good. Is there anything else you wanted to discuss?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Okay. Well, we’ll look forward to having you back here after you get your clearance from the doctor.”

This was the worst. I felt so powerless.

I swallowed down the shame I felt for having screwed this up to begin with and considered myself dismissed. “Thank you for speaking with me.”

Without another word, I turned and walked out of his office. And on my way back to the front door, I tried not to let my many emotions consume me. Anger, bitterness, shame, and disgust—they all piled on me. But when it all boiled down, when I considered why exactly I felt everything that I did, I realized there was only one reason for it.

I was working for a network that wasn’t going to allow me to do the thing that I was called to do. I wasn’t going to be able to seek the truth and to uncover secrets. I had no control.

“Alana!”

At the sound of the familiar voice calling my name, I spun around and saw Rita moving in my direction.

A wave of regret washed over me. It had been more than a week since I’d spoken to her. Yelled at her. And while I was still angry, maybe more now than I had been in the hospital, she hadn’t deserved me treating her the way I had.

“Hi, Rita,” I said softly as she came to a stop in front of me.

Pointing over her shoulder, she said, “They said you stopped in. Did you see Dale?”

“I did.”

“Any luck?”

I shook my head. “No.”

Her shoulders fell. “I’m sorry, Alana.”

Offering a nod of appreciation in return, I said, “Yeah. I’m sorry about the way I spoke to you while I was in the hospital.”

She waved her hand in the air dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. I understand. Trust me, I wasn’t looking forward to giving you that news, because I knew you weren’t going to take it well.”

“I can’t say I’m much happier about it now. This is awful, Rita. And I wish there was something I could do to get Dale to see reason.”

“I wish there was something I could do to help,” she murmured.

I shrugged. “There’s nothing. He’s made his decision, and we just have to accept it. Anyway, I’m going to get out of here. This day isn’t going anything like I planned.”

Rita nodded. “Okay. Keep in touch, Alana, and let me know when you’re coming back. If anything changes here, if there’s a way I can convince Dale to reconsider, I promise to try.”

“Thanks.”

With that, I turned and walked out, my frustration building with each step I took.

I made it to the car, got in, and dropped my head back against the headrest. Closing my eyes, I tried to breathe through the overwhelming disappointment I felt moving through me.

I never thought Dale would stick to his guns. I truly believed he would have reconsidered the moment he saw me and heard the determination in my voice to continue reporting on the story.

But now I was here, already feeling lousy about my physical situation and even worse about the work predicament.

The mere thought of having to look away, to pretend there wasn’t a bigger story to uncover, left me feeling such an overwhelming sense of heaviness.

I wanted answers.

I wanted the truth.

Annie’s family deserved as much. Yasmine’s, too.

Unexpectedly, a wave of defiance washed over me. My eyes shot open, my stare focused on the building in front of me, as my mind raced with thoughts.

A part of me understood where Dale’s logic came from—nobody wanted to be the one responsible for someone else’s misfortune. He didn’t want to be the one who put me in such a precarious position. My mom would love him for that.

Did that mean I couldn’t use my skills when I wasn’t working to dig into this story? Obviously, I couldn’t tell Dale or Rita about my plans. And I certainly wasn’t going to make my parents aware, considering they didn’t even know about what truly led to my car accident.

But perhaps there was somebody I could trust with this information, somebody who might be willing to help. I pulled out my phone, searched for the location I needed to go, and took off.

Eighteen minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot at Harper Security Ops. Though I disagreed with Dale’s decision, I couldn’t say he didn’t have a valid reason to be concerned. I wasn’t a fool; I knew there was a risk. Maybe it was time to mitigate that risk.

When I walked inside, I was met by a gorgeous woman almost immediately inside the front door.

“Hi, how can I help you?” the woman greeted me.

I smiled at her. “I’m looking to hire a bodyguard.”

“Sure. Is this for a specific event or?—”

“Ty,” I blurted, cutting her off. “I’m hoping to hire Ty as my bodyguard.”

The woman’s brows pulled together as she assessed me. Following a beat of confused silence, her expression turned delighted, and she beamed at me. “Absolutely. I’ll go grab him now. What’s your name?”

“Alana.”

She stood from her chair and extended her hand to mine. “I’m Avalon. It’s lovely to meet you.”

I took her hand and shook it. “Likewise.”

“Hang tight. I’ll be right back with Ty. Can I get you anything while I’m up? Water, coffee?”

Shaking my head, I declined. “No, thank you. I’m good for now.”

Without another word, Avalon took off in search of Ty. As I stood there waiting for her to return with him, I questioned whether I was about to do something foolish. I was so caught up in my goal to get to the bottom of what happened to both Annie and Yasmine that I was now prepared to hire a bodyguard so I could carry out that task.

It felt a bit extreme.

But this was an extreme situation.

Before I could get too caught up in my doubts, which might have led me to running out the door, Avalon returned with Ty following just a few steps behind her. My eyes met his, and I couldn’t quite read the look on his face.

I shifted my body out from behind the reception desk, and Ty’s gaze drifted down to the boot I was wearing. He frowned, but the moment his eyes traveled up my body again and landed on my face, the corners of his mouth tipped up in a friendly smile.

“Hi, Alana,” he said when he came to a stop in front of me.

“Hey, Ty.”

“How are you feeling?”

I glanced down at my foot briefly. “As well as can be expected. No pain at this point, but the boot is annoying.”

He gave me a nod of understanding. “Avalon mentioned you wanted to hire a bodyguard.”

“I do.”

For several long seconds, his eyes roamed over my face. Nothing in his stare indicated what he was thinking, but his momentary silence had me wondering if, perhaps, he wasn’t interested.

Jerking his head to the side, he swept one hand out in that direction. “How about we go talk about this in the conference room?”

“Sure.”

I moved in the direction Ty had indicated, and he walked slowly beside me as I hobbled toward the conference room, my nerves suddenly ratcheting up.

Was I about to make a smart move?

And what was I going to do if Ty decided he didn’t want any part of my plan?