“It might give the people who are trying to kill you time to set up another attack, too,” Chalk said. “But it’s worth the risk, I think.”
“Perhaps.” He toyed idly with a napkin. Denon was distinctly less cheerful now than he was this morning. It was all sinking in. Almost dying did that to a man. “But now that we know someone wants me dead, I can approach my security a little differently.”
He waved his hand at the small contingent with him. Xander ran their names through his head. Louis Bebbington, chief financial officer of Denon Industries; George Everson, the IT guru; and Maureen Heedles, Denon’s head of research. Bebbington was a numbers geek through and through, down to the thin tie and too-tight pants, a particularly British style choice. He and Heedles were middle-aged; Everson was younger, African-American, a dapper lad, as Denon had called him when they first met. Heedles was the more interesting of the three to look at—she had smartly styled ash-brown hair, which framed her face well, and one brown eye and one blue, a remarkably distinct heterochromia. All three were quiet and subdued, talking softly among themselves while their boss sat with his new bodyguards. The idea that he might have been killed, and that someone had orchestrated it, had clearly frightened them all.
Xander wondered what process Denon used to decide who would be by his side when he traveled, and made a note to look into the backgrounds of the three people sitting behind him. They were all trusted members of the company. Denon prized privacy above all things, strictly controlling his interviews and appearances, and Xander knew you had to be the best at what you did to score a spot on his team. Denon expected, and received, the top efforts from everyone around him, at all times. And he had to be on his guard against anyone who might slack off, or betray him, or leak information or mess up in the slightest.
It was an exhausting way to live, a life Xander couldn’t imagine wanting.
He didn’t see any reason to beat around the bush. “We did a full threat assessment before you came and saw nothing that seemed out of place. You certainly have upset some people in your time, but I didn’t see anything active. Do you have any idea who might have a contract out on you, Mr. Denon? And who would know your movements, and that we were involved in your protection?”
Chalk shook his head slightly, and Xander tried to rein in his temper. He was boiling mad, he realized suddenly—furious and upset and trying like hell to remember his training and shove the anger down into his boot heel, because he couldn’t let anything ruffle him, not now. He knew it was the aftermath of the morning’s escapades, and frustration at nearly being beaten. It would pass soon enough. Adrenaline did wonky things to your system after a shooting. He knew that from too many rooftops, too many triggers pulled. He took a breath.
“I’m sorry, sir. We’d prepared for every contingency for your protection, went through every checklist, and there was nothing on the street about a contract. The state cop, Grant, told me the man was traveling on a Spanish passport. You piss off someone in Spain?”
Denon nodded. “Probably. I piss people off everywhere, Mr. Whitfield. It’s part of my job. I don’t know who was behind this. But I trust I can keep you and Mr. Worthington—”
“Sir, please. Trey, or Chalk. Mr. Worthington is my father.”
“Trey, then. I’d like to keep you two on. Hopefully you can find out who has it in for me.”
Xander narrowed his eyes at the man. “Not that we don’t appreciate the vote of confidence, but wouldn’t your own security services be better equipped for this kind of investigation, sir?”
Denon shook his head and smiled sadly. He leaned in so he wouldn’t be overheard. “Unfortunately, gentlemen, I’m afraid my instincts tell me this is something best kept out of house. And since you’ve proven your loyalty to me in such a spectacular fashion... Well.”
Xander met Chalk’s eyes. He was right—Denon suspected the attack had come from within.
“All right, sir. We can do that. We’ll get on it right away.”
“Thank you,” he said softly.
Xander grabbed a cocktail napkin and wrote a note to Denon.
Is there someone on the plane you suspect?
He passed it over, and Denon’s eyebrows hiked up to his hairline. But he pulled a fountain pen from his shirt pocket, wrote on the napkin and pushed it back.
No. Never. These three are the ones I’d trust with my life.
Xander showed Chalk the napkin. He nodded, pulled out his laptop, began to type. Xander knew he was backgrounding the people on the plane. Sometimes the people closest to you were the ones you should trust the least.
Xander folded the napkin and put it in his pocket. Denon was eyeing him, whether impressed by his astuteness or something else, he didn’t know.
Keep your enemies close. Denon was either crazy or brave, he wasn’t sure which.
He cast a glance toward the back of the plane. Louis Bebbington, George Everson and Maureen Heedles. Trusted associates. Scared to death. How many people did Denon employ? And did any of them hold a grudge? This wasn’t going to be an easy case, he knew it.
“I need to chill for a minute. Don’t mind me.” Xander tossed back some more Scotch, then settled back into the leather, and shut his eyes for a minute, resetting.
He wasn’t kidding Sean Lawhon. There were going to be repercussions. To the shooting, to protecting Denon. He needed to make a few plans of his own—how to protect himself and Sam, and the fragile world they lived in.
He’d killed a killer. Word would get out.
Chapter 22
State Department
Washington, D.C.
ASHLEIGH CAVORT RETURNED to the conference room with a slim manila folder. “Here’s the file on Agent Souleyret. I’m happy to escort you out now.” At the front doors, she nodded earnestly, ponytail swinging. “Do keep in touch,” she said with a bright, happy smile. Like they were going on a vacation, or moving to another city.
The rain had pushed through, and Sam breathed the sweet, clean air of a just-washed city, relieved to leave the State Department. She didn’t like the idea of participating in a cover-up, there could be a possible terrorist attack in the works, she was worried as hell about Xander. And Fletcher was too quiet, planning and plotting something. All the pressure was getting to her.
The file on Amanda Souleyret was exceptionally thin. Sam paged through it, distressed to see how little information was given. Fletcher pointed the car toward Fourteenth Street. He wanted to go straight to the morgue and get the autopsy out of the way before they started talking to people.
Sam agreed. Better to have all the tangible facts in place, and then they could make the rest come together. She was still quite sure Girabaldi had been lying to them, trying to throw them off the scent of something much, much bigger. Why else would State have stuck their long noses into the case? Why not let the homicide team run down the killer?
And why ask them to start a cover-up?
She had a terrible feeling they weren’t going to want the answer to whom the State Department thought was behind the killing. Something was wrong with Girabaldi’s requests. She just didn’t know what.
She slapped the file closed. “Souleyret’s file is embarrassingly incomplete. Everything about her life before she joined the FBI is redacted, and the current information is barely enough to do a background on her. Her permanent address is up on Capitol Hill, but she rents out her house. She has one sister, Robin, but there is no information about her. Her father is dead, her mother gone since the girls were young. The only useful thing in here—she was decorated, two years ago, with the FBI Shield of Bravery.”
“For what?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know? There are no details about what she did to deserve it, or even what case she’d been involved in.”
When Ashleigh Cavort had handed Sam the file, she’d do
ne so with a shrug of knowledge—there was nothing here that was going to help. She told Fletcher as much.
“This is a waste of our time. All we have here is basically her height, weight and social. There’s nothing we can use, outside of tracking down why she was awarded the medal. Why’d they even bother?”
“Sam, I rarely question the intentions of our government. God knows why they do anything. The woman was an FBI agent. I’m sure there are files on her that you can access.”
“Well, if I can’t, Baldwin certainly can.” She glanced at her watch, the silver-and-gold Tag Heuer her parents had given her when she graduated from high school. “I wonder what’s taking him so long to call me back? He should be on the ground by now.”
“Couldn’t you call down to the Hoover Building and ask?”
She glanced at her watch again. “Let me just try him one more time.”
But Baldwin’s phone went directly to voice mail. She left a message, asked him to call as soon as he could and rang off. His plane must have been delayed.
A moment later, a text message came in. It was from Baldwin.
Tied up for the foreseeable future on this case, but I think I know what you’re looking for. Contact Charlaine Shultz in my office, tell her what you need.
Amazing how he could anticipate. It had always unnerved her, his ability to sense what people needed. It was what made him a great investigator, being able to see past the obvious. But it could be off-putting at times.
She dialed the main number at Quantico and asked the operator to put her through to Dr. Charlaine Shultz in the BAU II.
A few moments later, Charlaine’s soft Southern voice came on the line.
“Charlaine, it’s Samantha Owens. How are you?”
“Sam! It’s good to hear from you. Everything okay up there in D.C.?”
“Not perfect, but okay. Did Baldwin tell you I’d be calling?”
“He just texted me. You need info on our girl?”
Sam noticed everyone was being careful not to openly use Souleyret’s name. “I do. I have the basics, but it’s telling me nothing. Can you help?”
“I’ll pull together everything you might need and get a courier on his way to you immediately. Where should I send him?”
“The OCME in D.C. if you could. I’ll be there for the next couple of hours. We’re about to—”
“I know.” There was a soft sigh. “Poor thing. Always liked her. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
* * *
D.C.’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner was now housed in a beautiful new state-of-the-art building off E Street, just down the street from NASA. It was a huge improvement from their old, unpleasant quarters. Sam hadn’t particularly liked going to the old shop—it was dank and dismal, nothing like the setup she’d had in Nashville at Forensic Medical. But the new building, which fit in nicely with the other office buildings in the area, was well equipped and staffed by excellent people, including her friend Amado Nocek.
Amado had offered her a position at the OCME, but she’d declined. The oppressiveness of the place would have driven her mad. Now that they had new digs, she wouldn’t be as unhappy, but she was enjoying teaching, more than she imagined she would. She was blessed with Hilary, who recognized early on having an active investigator on staff would enhance the credibility of the new forensic pathology program. She had more freedom than she’d had in years, and she had to admit she liked it. The rigidity of being the head medical examiner for the state of Tennessee—the grind, the politics, the constant influx of the dead, day in and day out—had become oppressive, even before the floods. She knew she was on the right path now.
The thought of the raging waters brought her family to mind, as it always did. I miss you all so much.
Simon’s face began to sneak into the edges of her mind, the twins, too, with their silly grins, but she firmly pushed them all away, counting as she breathed. One Mississippi. Not now. Two Mississippi. There was so much to do, so many people to talk to. Three Mississippi. Decisions to be made. She couldn’t be waylaid by panic, by grief. Four Mississippi. There would be time to indulge in memories later. Right now, there were people counting on her.
Her heart rate dropped, and her hands unclenched. Okay. You’re okay.
Close. Too close. Fletcher was well aware of her little problem, but he was on the phone, chewing someone out, and hadn’t seemed to notice her momentary loss of control. Good.
Now she just had to figure out what the hell she was doing.
Sam was used to being a part of an investigation, not driving one. She had a sudden vision of her best friend, Taylor Jackson, the homicide lieutenant in Nashville, and straightened her shoulders. Taylor would know exactly what steps to take to find out what Girabaldi was up to. Sam decided to call her when they got out of the autopsy, even if only to hear her voice.
Taylor was also engaged to John Baldwin, and he bounced a lot of information off her pretty head. Perhaps there’d be movement on both the cases she was suddenly working on.
Lost in her own thoughts, she hadn’t realized Fletcher had parked the car on the street in front of the OCME until she heard him say, “I’m here, I gotta go. Thanks for letting me know. But it still doesn’t let Robertson off the hook. Tell him to prepare for my wrath, because he’s going to hear all about it. Okay. Bye.”
“What was that about?”
“What Girabaldi’s toady said was true. None of the pathogens were active. They were vaccines. Or attempts at vaccines. So we weren’t in any danger.”
She smiled. “Feel better?”
“Hell, yes. The idea of that stuff crawling around my body...yeah, I’m very happy. And this will help us shut down the investigation quicker. If Souleyret and Cattafi had live pathogens sitting around, we’d be dealing with a whole different level of investigation. As it is, I think I can craft something that will shut down the media ballyhoo, and we’ll go forward with the claims of a domestic dispute. It’s just a matter of keeping Cattafi’s dirty laundry out of the mix. Our PR folks are putting together a statement right now saying he succumbed to his injuries. This was a domestic dispute that ended in a murder-suicide. End of case.”
“So you’re going to go forward with a cover-up?”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “For now.”
“Fletcher, why?”
“To buy us some time. Girabaldi’s right. If the killer knows Cattafi’s alive, he might come back for him. I want to at least get his story out of this. How he was connected to Souleyret.”
“What about the families? How do you propose to contain them?”
“His parents are still stuck on the tarmac at O’Hare, so we can afford to put them off for a bit. Let’s get moving, shall we? Maybe we can have a resolution before they land and we try to convince them to pretend their son is dead.”
Sam didn’t think the plan was a good one, but what the hell did she know? She trusted Fletcher. If he thought they could pull this off, then she’d do her best to help.
And buying time was a good thing. She wanted to see what exactly had happened to Amanda Souleyret before she formed any real opinions.
Chapter 23
OCME
AMADO NOCEK WAS waiting for them inside the lobby of the OCME, a serene look on his otherwise homely face. Tall, much too thin and oddly angular, his whole countenance insectlike, he’d put up with ridiculous nicknames like Lurch and Fly Man since childhood. But where some saw a six-foot-six praying mantis, Sam saw a dear friend. Amado was one of her favorites. Cultured and intelligent, brought up in Europe, he was an excellent dining partner, and an even better pathologist.
He shook Fletcher’s hand, gave Sam a brief hug. “Lieutenant. Samantha. It is good to see you both. You are prepared for the autopsy of Ms. Souleyret?”
Her name had such a lilt in his Neapolitan accent. It made her sad.
“We are. You’ve heard there were no pathogens, correct? That the vials were vaccines?”
The buglike head tipped to one side. “I am hearing many things in reference to this case. I suspect none are entirely false, and none are entirely true. Am I close?”
Sam nodded. “We’re a bit confused, too, Amado.”
“I am receiving a great deal of external direction, as well. The autopsy report, for example. We are to transmit it directly to you, Lieutenant, and not put it in the official system.” Nocek’s feathery eyebrows were hiked nearly to his receding hairline. “Do you know where that request came from?”
Fletcher rolled his eyes. “I’m afraid I do, and I’m not at liberty to say. Just roll with it, Dr. Nocek. It will be easier on you that way.”
“I see. Then let us do the autopsy, and see what the body tells us.”
At the sinks, they washed up, got gloved and masked, and five minutes later, they were in a separate autopsy suite made for private autopsies—posts that were especially sensitive, bodies in advance stages of decomposition or ones that had been exposed to chemical or biological hazards. Sam had been in here once before, during the biological attack scare a few months earlier, posting the body of a congressman exposed to an airborne toxin.
Amanda Souleyret’s body was laid out on the stainless-steel slab. Amado’s tech had already done the prep work. The flat-screen monitor showed the full-body radiographs; the body was naked and had been washed.
Sam was surprised by the pristine condition of the body. Amanda Souleyret’s torso was scratched and there was antemortem bruising, but she observed no apparent stab wounds, which didn’t jibe with the crime scene.
Amado caught her look of confusion. “The wounds are in her back.”
What Lies Behind Page 13