Free At Any Cost by Cara Ellison Page A

at Johnson Sloan Pruitt, Ingrid’s response to Fallon had been no more complex than that of bigotry or racism: she hated her on sight. To Fallon, the animus was mystifying. At first she attributed the conflict to political differences since Ingrid was an outspoken, proud Democrat while Fallon was from a Republican family, but that theory was disproved when one of the other associates was seen holding a Rush Limbaugh coffee mug and Ingrid flirted with him like a fourteen-year-old girl. The hostility was very definitely about Fallon Hughes and nothing else.
    Fallon found her on the telephone. Ingrid’s indifferent gaze flicked over Fallon, dismissed her, and then went back to her phone call. She chuckled softly. “You have no business even considering the idea,” Ingrid murmured. “You have such a lovely bosom.”
    Fallon instantly lost all capacity to fake courtesy. She grabbed the receiver from Ingrid’s slack hand and hung up. Bright red splotches appeared in Ingrid’s pale cheeks as her eyebrows floated dramatically upward.
    â€œGive me the search warrant,” Fallon demanded.
    Ingrid stood up. “You have no right—”
    â€œGive me the search warrant,” Fallon repeated with ice in her voice.
    Ingrid stiffly turned to the credenza behind her and waved it at Fallon. “I am sure Alan has spoken with you …”
    Fallon snatched the document from her hands. Ingrid, inflamed for missing an opportunity to milk the moment for all its glorious humiliation, reached for Fallon as if to strike her.
    Tom grabbed Ingrid’s wrist. “Don’t,” he said.
    Fallon couldn’t stay to argue or play games with this office sociopath. She had to get out. Quickly, before the tears came.
    Back in Fallon’s office, her hands were shaking so violently she kept dropping the warrant. “Calm down,” Tom said soothingly. “Do you want me to read it?”
    Fallon handed the document to Tom and shut her door.
    She could not sit. She could not stand. She paced, finding a little comfort in the nervous movement. A search warrant! It was ridiculous—unthinkable. Her mind reeled at the sheer craziness of it, while at the same time, knowing that no matter how crazy it was, her life would have to be about this now. On top of an insane amount of work and the friction caused by her father’s transition into the presidency, she would now have to spend every day defending herself, explaining every decision, and opening her life not only to prosecutors but to the public. Another wave of nausea coursed through her.
    Staring at the empty desk where her laptop was supposed to be, she tried to imagine if the search warrant would actually reveal something incriminating. In law school, one of her professors said that nobody was innocent of everything. If any authoritarian party had the ability to search freely, they would eventually find something that could prove either embarrassing or illegal. Fallon had not believed him at the time. But now that the FBI was searching her computer, trepidation forced her to think twice. What was on the hard drive anyway? Emails from law school friends. Jokes. Bookmarks, research notes. She tried to remember if she had ever looked at porn while at work. She certainly did not think so, but sometimes friends sent links that didn’t exactly pass the white glove test.
    Realizing this could be the end of her career, a fresh upsurge of panic washed over her. It was over before it really began.
    â€œIt’s an FBI warrant,” Tom said. “They’re accusing you of selling a fatal dose of cocaine to a Leo Jacobellis of Malibu, California five years ago.”
    Fallon felt the blood drain from her face, her expression slacken. The words were so true, she could not even keep up the pretense of innocence. Hearing that name had the strange effect of making everything very clear and very quiet, as if something inside had been struck