by J. L. Brown
“If you drink too much, I have plenty of bedrooms in which you can stay. Twenty, plus or minus.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary.”
Whitney curled her legs under her on the sofa. “I guess we should get this over with. What did you discover?”
“We don’t know for certain what happened to your aunt. We do know that Landon—Caleb Hewitt—was in the Chicago area at the time of her death.”
Whitney set her glass down, horrified.
“He was also in Clayton, Missouri at the time of the Congressman’s accident.”
“That can’t be a coincidence.”
“We don’t think so either,” Jade said, quietly.
The agent filled in the details. As she spoke, Whitney thought about her Aunt Mary. She didn’t deserve what had happened to her. She was sweet, and one of the most genuine people Whitney had ever met.
She moved to a table by the window and opened the humidor. She cut the cap of a cigar and grabbed a wooden match from a section of the humidor. She glanced over her shoulder at Jade. “Would you like one?”
The agent shook her head.
Whitney returned to her seat on the sofa. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“Your secrets are safe with me.”
Whitney caught the full weight of her words.
Secrets. Plural.
“Landon worked for me for years,” Whitney said. “He volunteered for my first congressional campaign, and eventually became indispensable. I thought of him as more than a staffer.”
“He worked for you before that.”
“What do you mean?”
“He paged for you when he was in high school.”
Whitney’s mind swirled with the implications of this information. She tried to fit it in with what she knew, some of which the agent did not. She picked up her glass and swallowed a large portion of her whiskey. She grimaced at the burning sensation in her throat. After a while, she said, “I didn’t know.”
“Are you sure?” the agent pressed. “He was fixated on you for a long time. Was he in love with you, Madam President?”
Whitney puffed on her cigar.
Your secrets are safe with me.
Could she trust her? She was going to find out. She exhaled. “In the second quarter of my junior year, my parents sent me to live with my aunt. She was a widow and worked as a librarian at the public library. She was always reading. The love of reading was something that we shared. Once a week, she volunteered as a librarian in a convent’s library near her house. It was a cold winter. Have you ever been to Chicago in the winter?”
Jade nodded.
“I kept a coat on pretty much all the time. Even indoors.”
“You were pregnant.”
It wasn’t a question.
Whitney nodded. “My aunt brought me to live in the convent under an assumed name. I stayed there for three months until the baby was born. I gave it up for adoption.” She moved to a table against the wall and retrieved the letter from her purse. She walked over to the agent and handed it to her.
Jade’s mouth parted as she read. She looked at Whitney. “Landon Phillips—I mean, Caleb Hewitt—was your biological son?”
“So he claimed. I prefer to call him Landon. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to deal with this.”
The agent drained the rest of her beer. She stared out the window at the Washington Monument in the distance. Almost to herself, she said, “Oedipus.”
“What was that?”
“His alias—or handle—he used in a chat room we discovered. We thought he chose Oedipus to honor his adoptive mother, Maddy Hewitt.” Jade’s long arms reached for another beer in the bucket. She twisted off the cap and took a long swallow, wiping her lips with the back of her hand before turning to Whitney. “But we were wrong. He chose it because of you.”
CHAPTER NINETY-TWO
Washington, DC
“Look who’s back,” Dante said.
Christian entered the conference room at the Bureau and settled in the chair next to hers. At Jade’s strong suggestion, he had taken a few days off.
Jade scanned the faces of her team around the table. On the wall, she had posted a photo of each of the victims in life and in death.
“Let’s get started.”
She pointed to the photos. “Zach Rawlins, Nicholas Campbell, Joshua Stewart, and Andrew Huffman. Four boys who will never get married, raise children, embark on a career, coach youth sports, or make their mark on the world.
She waved her hand behind her. “All students and baseball teammates at William Randolph Secondary School. All believed to have bullied Tyler Thompson, who died from blunt-force trauma.”
From Micah, “Do you think there are other bullies?”
“Yes.”
“How are we going to protect these kids anyway?” asked Christian. “There are still nineteen kids left on that team.”
“Good thing they didn’t play football,” Dante cracked.
No one laughed.
“Get it? A football team has—”
“That’s not funny, man,” Micah said.
Dante allowed his chair to drop from its forty-five-degree angle without softening its impact. “Just trying to lighten it up in here . . . man.”
Pat tore her eyes away from her computer to look at Jade, a historic event. “What positions did they play?”
“Good question,” Jade said, rummaging through her files. She found the one she was looking for and glanced at a document inside. “Rawlins, third base; Campbell, second; Stewart, first; and Huffman was the catcher.”
Her team digested this information for a moment.
Christian tapped his pen on his notebook. “What do we have left? Pitcher? Shortstop?”
“Outfield,” Dante said.
“It seems as if the killer is starting with the infield and working his way out,” Max murmured.
“The infield players will be our priority,” Jade said. “Chaney-Frost is the shortstop. We need the names of the players for the other positions. Their backups, too.” She dropped the file.
“On it,” Pat said.
From Christian: “Any leads in Tyler’s death?”
Jade shook her head. “I talked to Chutimant this morning. Nothing. Let’s move on.” She nodded at Pat. “We’ve mapped out the murders.”
Pat tapped several keys on her keyboard. On the screen behind Jade, a map of Northern Virginia materialized with four dots glowing where each murder had taken place.
Jade pointed at each dot. “Rawlins was found outside his home in Fairfax. Campbell in Gravelly Point near National Airport.”
“Reagan National Airport,” corrected Dante.
“Stewart was also found in Fairfax a block away from his home. Huffman in Arlington behind a 7-Eleven.”
Dante eyed Jade. “Don’t you live in Arlington?”
Before she could answer, Christian said, “Campbell was the only one killed elsewhere and moved. I wonder why.”
“My grandmother was an awesome cook,” Dante said.
“Who cares?” Christian said.
“She told me that in the kitchen you ‘waste nothing.’”
“What does that have to do with the price of eggs in China?” asked Christian.
Dante looked at him as if he were dense. “Because cooking is like an investigation. Don’t waste information. You don’t know where it may lead. In this case, the murders took place in different counties, which means more than one jurisdiction. Increasing the likelihood that we would be called in. I’m trying to tell you. Maybe, it has something to do with Jade.”
“Not bad,” said Max, nodding.
“Any results from the lab, yet, on the Thompson house?” asked Christian.
“Still waiting,” Jade said. Besides the blood, the search warrant hadn’t yielded anything else. “Zach, Nicholas, and Andrew were all bludgeoned by a blunt instrument predominately to the face, their penises severed.” She turned to Max. “All of them had prior scratches and
bruises on their bodies. Thoughts?”
“A lot going on here. Rage, revenge, envy. The severing of the penises is beyond extreme. Reminiscent of the Bobbitt case, but obviously the motive is different.”
“Bobbitt case?” asked Micah.
When no one spoke up, Dante said, “Back in the Nineties, Lorena Bobbitt whacked off her husband’s penis.”
“After years of alleged domestic abuse,” Pat added.
“The dude was asleep,” Dante continued. “She took his member and threw it out her car window.”
Micah looked uncomfortable. “What happened? Did the guy bleed out?”
“No, someone found it, and the doctors put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”
Max tried to steer them back on track. “The penis removal could be a result of the bullying. Perhaps Tyler Thompson was sexually abused. This killer may be a vigilante administering his own form of justice. A vigilante with a God complex. Or it could have something to do with the baseball team itself. Was there a lot of dissension on the team?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” Jade said. “The coach and the principal denied that there was.” She recalled the first interview at the school, and the boy—Joshua Stewart—who had reacted when she asked about fights. “Although, I’m not sure.”
Max pushed his glasses up farther on his nose. “It may have nothing to do with bullying or baseball.”
“Then, there’s Joshua—” Jade said.
“Roadkill,” Dante said.
Micah scowled. “You’re a wanker.”
“A what?”
“The killer probably thought running him over was faster,” Max said, ignoring the younger agents, “less risky than getting out of the car, killing him, disposing of the body—”
“And fleeing the scene without being seen,” Jade finished for him.
He nodded. “That is, if it’s the same killer.”
“There’s not a lot of evidence,” Dante said. “Maybe it’s someone who knows criminal procedure. Someone in law enforcement.”
He looked at Christian.
Jade’s cell phone buzzed. She swiped it off the table. “Harrington.”
“Hi,” a boy’s voice said.
Jade held up her hand for silence. She placed the phone back on the table and pressed Speaker. “Who’s this?”
“William. Chaney-Frost.”
“What do you have for me, William?”
“Have you found anything yet? Any evidence?”
“Why do you ask?”
“There’s something I haven’t told you.”
“What?”
“Someone else was bullying T. Tyler. No one’s saying anything, ‘cause no one likes him. They’re probably hoping he gets whacked.”
“What’s his name?”
“Carter. Sam Carter. He’s the pitcher on the team.”
She wrote the name down. “Got it. Anything else?”
“Nah, that’s it . . . and, uh, Agent Harrington?”
“Yes?”
“Sorry for being crude the other day. About T’s mom. I’m not even like that. Not sure why I said it. Just upset, I guess. About what’s going on. It’s crazy that I’m never going to see my teammates again. My friends.”
He sounded teary. Her job wasn’t to comfort him. “Thanks for bringing this information to my attention. If you think of something else, call me.”
“I will, Agent Harrington.”
She pressed End.
“What did he say about Jenny Thompson?” Dante said.
She glanced at Christian. “Not now.”
“Can we trust him?” asked Micah.
“I don’t,” Jade said. “He’s a person of interest. I’m just not sure for what, yet. He’s playing with us. With me.” She thought for a moment. “Maybe we should shadow him again. And Carter.”
“A waste of time,” Dante said.
“Matt has motive,” Christian agreed, quietly. “A huge motive.”
“He’s not the only one,” Dante said.
Christian rose. “I’m sick of your insinuations.”
Dante stood as well and stepped toward him. “Who’s insinuating?”
The two men were the same height, but Christian had at least seventy-five pounds on him.
Micah grabbed Dante’s arm. Dante shrugged him off.
“I don’t think you should be here,” Dante said. “You should be on leave until we know your involvement with this case.”
“I’m trying to solve this case. That’s my involvement. Why don’t you butt out?”
Dante turned on her. “He’s too close to this.”
“And you’re too close to me,” Christian said. “Back off. It’s not your call.”
“It’s mine,” Jade said. The room felt smaller with the four of them standing. Pat and Max remained seated. Observing.
Anger surged through her. “These children are dead. And I have a team of grown men acting like children. It pisses me off. We don’t have time for this.”
She looked at the three men. “This is a team. I don’t care if we like each other. But we’re going to work together. Understood?”
“But he shouldn’t be on this case,” Dante said. “If he wasn’t Robin to your Batman, you would’ve already reassigned him.”
Christian’s eyes narrowed. He shook his head at Jade. “This isn’t right.”
Her partner—her rock—opened the door and left the room.
The door clicked softly behind him.
After a moment, a quiet, British voice, said, “Some team.”
CHAPTER NINETY-THREE
Arlington, Virginia
After the meeting, Jade returned to her office, her adrenaline dissipated after the confrontation in the conference room. Her stomach growled. That was the fifth time in the last hour. She glanced at her watch. 8:30 p.m.
She needed to find something to eat.
She drove across the Memorial Bridge into Virginia. Instead of taking 395 South toward home, she headed south on GW Parkway. Shortly thereafter, she pulled in to the lot of a nearby park and got out. It was vacant.
The park was closed. Officially, she was trespassing. She sat on a stone bench, not too far away from where the second victim, Nicholas Campbell, had been found. She gazed up at the sky and waited. She didn’t have to wait long.
A passenger jet roared overhead as it began its descent into National. As planes continued to land, she thought about how she would bring her team together.
She thought about Matt Thompson. Even if these boys bullied his son, was he capable of killing kids? What was he hoping to accomplish? These murders would not provide closure for him.
It seemed as if there had always been bullies—since the beginning of mankind—and there always would be. What could she, Jade Harrington, one FBI agent, do about it? Probably, not much.
She had not heard from Kyle since the story broke. Or Blake.
She thought about her conversation with the president. Did Caleb Hewitt clear her path to the presidency by methodically eliminating anyone who could say or do something damaging to her presidential aspirations? Or was he upset that Churchill allowed Fairchild to give her baby—him—up for adoption?
She had a lot of questions. But no answers.
Although watching the planes land was fascinating, she could no longer ignore the pains in her stomach. She headed back to her car.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. A text from Pat.
I may have something. Talk to you tomorrow.
CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR
Arlington, Virginia
At home that night, surrounded by folders, Jade reviewed rows upon rows of electronic funds transfers on her laptop. Prince’s “Baby, I’m a Star” played at a low volume on her turntable.
A couple hours later, bleary-eyed, she set down her third cup of coffee. She checked the numbers again to be sure. All the cyberthefts, after flowing through many accounts in different countries, seemed to all end up in the same bank. In the same acc
ount. In the Cayman Islands. She wrote down her findings in an email and sent the records to Pat to find out who owned the account.
Jade’s phone rang. A 206 number displayed on the caller ID. It wasn’t Detective McClaine. And it wasn’t Kyle.
“Agent Harrington, this is Iyanna Adey from KIRO 7. In Seattle.”
“How did you get this number?”
“I’m calling for an update on the cybertheft case. I haven’t heard anything lately.”
“No comment at this time.”
“That’s a shame. Agent Lawson was so kind as to provide information on the Madison Ventures, AMB International, and other thefts. I thought you would be just as helpful. I promise not to attribute anything to you. Perhaps we can meet next time you’re in Seattle.”
She sat up. “Ethan Lawson?”
“He helped me out with the TSK case last year as well, and now he’s always unavailable.”
Jade tested pieces in different spaces of the mental puzzle. She tried to remember the chronology of the TSK case. She had suspected other people of leaking details of the investigation to the media. Ethan wasn’t one of them.
The reporter was still talking. “I think he’s avoiding me. Are you sure you don’t have any information to share? Even off the record?”
CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE
Washington, DC
“Do you have time now?”
Jade looked up from the computer in her office. She tore her eyes away from the same records she had worked on last night, the call from the Seattle reporter, Iyanna Adey, not far from her mind.
She followed Pat to her cubicle. Pat started typing on her keyboard before she sat down. Sometimes it was hard to tell where Pat’s fingers ended and the keyboard began.
“I’ve been working with CART”—the FBI’s Computer Analysis Response Team—“on the records you sent over last night.” She pointed to the screen. “Most, but not all, of the victims share conservative political leanings.”
Jade pondered this. “Most, but not all.”
Pat clicked to different websites as she talked. “They donated to conservative Super PACs, candidates, foundations, organizations. We’re still waiting on the registration papers for the bank account in the Cayman Islands.”