by Jack Rogan
A minute or two passed while she knelt there with him, wanting to will him back to life, wishing so hard that he could be there to talk it out. He would have seen something she had not; he always did.
“Detective Monteforte?” a man’s voice said. She did not look up, but he kept talking. “I’m sorry to intrude, Detective. I understand you must be grieving, and I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Monteforte steeled herself, plastered on an emotionless mask, and turned even as she rose to greet him. The man wore a blue shirt rolled up at the sleeves and a red tie, but he wore them like a uniform. Half an inch closer with the razor and he’d be bald. His expression was intense though his sympathy seemed real enough, his demeanor professional but his eyes kind.
He flipped open a wallet to show his FBI identification. The entourage trailing him didn’t bother.
“Supervisory Special Agent Ed Turcotte,” he said. He glanced down at the body bag, his eyes gleaming with the glow of the work lights. “Once you get us up to speed, take the time you need to mourn your partner. We’ll take it from here.”
Monteforte’s nostrils flared. She felt her lips peel back in a wide smile, but she made sure there was nothing friendly about it.
“Like hell you will.”
Blue lights swept across darkened houses and flitted like ghosts through night-blackened trees. The crackle of static and voices came in bursts from a hundred radios clipped to the belts of cops and paramedics. Emergency vehicles crowded Boston Avenue, while other dark, nondescript vehicles prowled among them. Neighbors came out onto their front stoops only to be ushered back inside by uniformed police officers.
The whole street had been locked down tight. A reporter and cameraman scuffled with a pair of state troopers after scurrying across darkened yards trying to get to the scene. The susurrus of voices and static and car doors slamming became drowned out by the helicopter rotors high above, as local stations worked to get the story.
Rachael Voss took it all in. She sipped at her coffee and let her gaze wander a bit before focusing again on Detective Monteforte. It had been a long night, but Voss didn’t really want or need the coffee. She only drank it so Monteforte wouldn’t feel alone. Nothing made a law enforcement officer squirm more than having to answer the kinds of questions they would normally have been asking someone else. Voss knew this. Coffee wouldn’t really make it better, but somehow it did make them sisters-in-arms.
“Had you been partners long?” Voss asked, breaking the silence between them.
The pain in the Monteforte’s eyes sharpened a moment, then she cleared her throat.
“Three years. Long enough. He wasn’t the kind of cop people want to see movies about, but he was the kind that people need. If someone broke into your house, stole the ring your mother left you, Bill would lose sleep over getting it back. If some girl reported her boyfriend for beating the crap out of her and then refused to testify—so many of them do—Bill would haunt them both.”
After a moment’s pause, they sipped at their coffees. Nothing Voss could say would leaven the detective’s grief, and she respected that. Sometimes when people tried to help, tried to diminish someone else’s pain or trauma, it was more about their own uneasiness at their inability to make the sufferer feel better.
“You know that Agent Turcotte was just trying to take the weight of this off you,” Voss said.
Monteforte had seemed to be relaxing in her company but now the detective stiffened. “Bullshit. He wanted me out of the way.”
Voss nodded. “That’s part of it, sure. But he’s also a halfway decent guy. Not that I’m his cheering section. We’ve butted heads plenty in the past and he’s one of the most territorial guys I’ve encountered. I’ve seen him at his best and worst, though, and I can tell you he wouldn’t know how to pretend to be sympathetic.”
Monteforte leaned more heavily against her own car, a burgundy Honda Accord, and glanced at the people crawling all over the McCandless woman’s yard like ants at a picnic. Voss knew what Monteforte saw—federal agents replacing local police, taking over her case. Hers and Bill Jarman’s.
“You don’t answer to Turcotte, do you?” Monteforte asked.
“No.”
“So what are you doing here? Besides babysitting me.”
“For now, just observing.”
Monteforte shot her a curious look. “And then? When you’re done observing?”
Before Voss could even consider her answer, she spotted Nala Chang and Ben Coogan striding across the lawn toward them. Voss slid off the squad car whose hood she’d been sitting on, spilling a bit of her coffee, and met them on the sidewalk.
“How many?” Voss asked.
Neither of the FBI agents had to ask what she meant.
“Three men of Middle Eastern origin, two of them al-Din’s associates from the Fort Myers case. Seven others, not including Detective Jarman and the Russo woman,” Chang replied.
“Twelve,” Voss said. “Twelve people dead. Jesus.”
Coogan glanced apologetically at Monteforte and cleared his throat. “One of Detective Monteforte’s colleagues—an Officer Tagliabue—got something from a neighbor we hadn’t heard yet. In addition to Ms. McCandless and our white-haired guy, a third person fled the scene.”
Voss and Monteforte both perked up.
“Spit it out.”
“Black male, forties, bald, driving a dark green or blue Lexus, limping. Blood spatter was found on the sidewalk where the car was apparently parked. Looks like he caught a bullet, but we don’t know who shot him.”
Monteforte nodded grimly. “Cait.”
“Could’ve been the old guy who picked her up—” Chang started.
“Guy ran one of the shooters down with his car,” Coogan added, interrupting. “Obviously he wouldn’t stop at pulling a trigger.”
Monteforte pushed off of her car and approached them. “Any idea at all who these bastards were? I mean, okay, I get it, two of them were known terrorists, right? And you’re figuring the third Arab-looking guy was on their side. I’m not going to argue profiling when two of these guys were already on your list. But who are the other guys? ’Cause if I read the scene right, it looks to me like one of them killed my partner, and they’re too well dressed to be organized crime muscle. They look more like—”
Chang thrust out a hand. “Special Agent Nala Chang, Detective. I’m part of SSA Turcotte’s squad. This is Special Agent Ben Coogan, out of the Bureau’s Boston field office. I’m not sure if you’ve met.…”
“No. We haven’t.” Monteforte narrowed her eyes in suspicion but shook Chang’s hand, and then Coogan’s.
“I know this is a difficult time for you,” Chang went on, “but I hoped you would tell us what you can about Caitlin McCandless. I spoke with several of the uniformed officers and I understand she’s become something of a celebrity in the Boston area this weekend. We’d seen some of the news reports ourselves, even before all of this.”
Voss listened, first only half paying attention, as Monteforte began to unspool the tale of Cait McCandless’s run-in with an abusive football player. But when the detective related the story of the attempted abduction of McCandless’s baby, Voss weighed every detail.
“Have you confirmed her story regarding the baby’s father?” Voss asked, when Monteforte took a breath. “Talked to anyone in her National Guard unit?”
Monteforte frowned. “No. Why would I have done that? We had no reason to think she had been anything other than truthful. Hell, why would she lie?”
Voss gestured toward the house. “You’ve got suspected terrorists dead on the lawn over there, Detective. There’s obviously more to the case than you assumed.”
Monteforte exhaled. “I get it. But that was then, and this is now. If it helps, we spoke extensively to her aunt and uncle. You’ll talk to them yourselves, I’m sure. They certainly back up Cait’s version of things. I had no reason to doubt the baby was half-Iraqi.” Voss could see puzzle pieces clicking into
place behind Monteforte’s eyes. “Your dead terrorists … you think they were here for the baby?”
“Maybe to save her. Maybe to kill her,” Chang replied.
“Agent Chang,” Voss said sharply.
Coogan stiffened, staring from one woman to the next and then to the next. “Maybe it’s time you clued me in as to what this case is really about.”
Voss glanced at him, then at Monteforte. “When we figure it out, we’ll let you know.”
As Chang started in on a question, they were interrupted by a shout. They all looked around to see Josh jogging toward them across the grass.
“Who’s this?” Monteforte asked.
“My partner,” Voss replied, before realizing it would sting.
Josh’s eyes were alight with frustration and unburnt energy. Voss knew the look—he needed to hit someone or get laid. Instead he studied the faces around him, then turned to her.
“We need to talk. Now.”
Voss glanced at the others. Josh and Nala Chang had started to get a little cozy, but he had doubt in his eyes, obviously wondering whether to include her. Chang saw it, too, and narrowed her eyes at the unintended insult. Whatever flirtation they’d been engaged in had just been polluted, big-time—but that was Josh’s problem.
“Excuse me a second,” Voss said to Detective Monteforte.
When she and Josh had put a dozen feet between themselves and anyone else, they stopped. Emotion rolled off him in waves but she couldn’t read it clearly—was he angry or suspicious or excited?
“What couldn’t you say in front of them?” Voss asked.
“Did Turcotte talk to you about the BOLO on the McCandless woman?”
“No. Why is that bad?”
“The BOLO identifies McCandless as a suspected terrorist.”
“What?” Voss looked across a sea of cop cars and federal agents, searching for Ed Turcotte. Instead, her eyes alighted upon a figure standing to the side observing, hands clasped behind his back. Norris.
Cait McCandless’s brother had died, at least according to the interview she’d given earlier in the day. Someone had tried to abduct her child. Two teams of armed men had shown up at her house, murdered one of her friends, and shot the hell out of the place and one another, and she’d obviously barely escaped with her life. Some of those men had apparently been terrorists. But to suggest that McCandless herself was a terrorist was not only a huge and irrational leap in logic, it might well make the difference between an arresting officer pulling a trigger or not.
“What the fuck is Turcotte thinking?” Voss muttered.
“No idea,” Josh said. “But isn’t it our job to find out?”
“Yes. Yes, it is.”
Side by side, they started back toward the McCandless house.
By the time they reached the exit for Millbury off the MassPike, the clock on the dash showed it was after midnight. Lynch had been adamant about not stopping at a rest area on the Pike and was less than thrilled about the prospect of stopping at all. Considering he had landed at Logan Airport and stolen the first car he’d found with a car seat already inside, then stopped and bought all the things he thought he would need for Leyla while hurrying to try to keep Cait and her daughter from being killed or abducted, he had done fairly well in preparing for their fugitive status. But he hadn’t counted on Cait’s shirt being soaked with baby piss.
“This is a bad idea,” Lynch said as he drove past darkened strip malls. The Target and Walmart were both closed, windows dark.
“Leyla needs something to wear that doesn’t smell like pee. Plus, I need to get her some Cheerios.”
“I have formula, jugs of water, baby cereal, and jarred food—”
“The jarred stuff is fine for the morning, but the easiest thing while we’re driving would be Cheerios. They’ll make her happy and keep her quiet. And I wouldn’t mind a new shirt for myself, either. Plus I could use caffeine to keep me awake and something to eat wouldn’t hurt.”
“One stop only,” Lynch said sternly. “We get what we can, and then we keep moving.”
Cait hesitated. Keep moving. Right. To meet up with his friends in some secret location he would not reveal to her. But at least he had gotten off the turnpike and was willing to stop at all.
“I really do know people who can help,” she said.
Lynch kept driving. Cait had figured in a place with so many fast-food restaurants and strip malls something would be open late. She was banking on it.
“My brother’s friend Herc … I need to call him. And there are guys from my unit in Iraq who would march through hell to cover my ass—fuck, they have.”
Up ahead, they spotted the illuminated sign for a 24-hour CVS pharmacy. Cait wished she could have felt some relief or gratitude, but all she wanted to do was scream. Not just at Lynch—the guy really did seem to be trying to help her the only way he knew how—but at the world, and at the sick freaks who thought the birth of a child could stop a war and killed babies to make sure that didn’t happen.
“All of those people work for the government, or used to,” Lynch said.
“My brother trusted Herc completely. And Ronnie and Jordan … either one of those guys would take a bullet for me, and me for them.”
Lynch grunted; Cait had not known him long enough to interpret the sound. He pulled into the CVS parking lot and drove to a spot snug up against a Dumpster at the back of the store, where the light from the lampposts barely reached.
He killed the bypassed ignition on the engine, then leaned over and opened the glove compartment, which revealed a pack of Marlboro Lights and a few old CDs. Cait tensed, the gun comforting in her hand, but a moment later he pulled out a hard plastic eyeglass case.
“I thought I’d seen this in there,” he said as he opened the case and donned a pair of nondescript spectacles. “Must be a backup pair, or he only needs them for driving.” Lynch looked at her, squinting slightly behind the prescription lenses. “Wish I had a hat. Anything in particular you want me to try to get for you to eat?”
“At a CVS? It’s snacks or snacks, basically. Coke. Pretzels. Some of those Goldfish if they’ve got them. Aren’t you afraid I’m going to take off the second you’re inside the store?”
His eyes darkened. “How far would you get with a baby in your arms at midnight? If you bang on someone’s door, you risk them calling the police. If you try hitchhiking, you risk more than that. But if you think I’m completely out of my mind, that there’s absolutely no truth to what I’ve told you—which would beg the question of how I found you in the first place—then by all means, make a run for it. I’m not going to shoot a woman I’m trying to help. And I’m not going to hurt a baby.”
They locked eyes a moment, then Lynch climbed out, shutting the door quietly to keep from waking Leyla. That alone might have been the thing that kept her from running inside and telling the clerk he had kidnapped her, or trying to get to the pay phone she’d seen near the Bank of America kiosk a couple of parking lots back. She had no doubt the man lived on the fringe of lunacy; the look in his eyes was evidence enough. But she had to allow for the possibility that it was more fanaticism than insanity.
And he’d killed two men already to keep her and Leyla alive.
Cait glanced into the backseat. From around the edge of the rear-facing car seat, she could see that Leyla’s head had drooped forward. She set her gun on the floor, unsnapped her seat belt, and got onto her knees to reach back and adjust the baby’s position. A surge of love swelled inside her and she smiled. Leyla’s mouth still hung open. Her lower lip trembled a moment and then she sighed, her breathing returning to the soft rhythm of sleep.
With a sigh of her own, Cait righted herself in her seat, which brought her gaze to rest on the open glove compartment and the package of Marlboro Lights in there. She hadn’t had more than half a dozen cigarettes since returning from Iraq, but in the desert there had not been a lot to do to pass the time except clean the sand out of her weapon and smoke. T
he habit often disgusted her, but she could not deny its ability to calm her nerves.
She thought about Auntie Jane and Uncle George, and how worried they must be. At some point she would have to get a message to them, let them know she and Leyla were all right. But she had to be careful not to give them any information that the police, or anyone else, might be able to use to track her down. Whatever happened, she wanted to keep them as far away from this trouble as possible. They, and Leyla, were all the family she had left.
After a moment’s reconnaissance—they really were parked in the darkest corner of the lot, near a half-fenced enclosure around the Dumpster by the pharmacy’s back door—she pushed in the car lighter. As the seconds ticked by, she wondered how many people still used them to light cigarettes instead of to charge cell phones and other electronics.
A nervous glance back at Leyla, then she slid the Marlboro Lights from the glove compartment and tapped one out into her hand. Paranoid as Lynch was—and as paranoid as she needed to become—she know she should stay out of sight. But she could easily keep an eye out for anyone approaching and jump back into the car. A quick glance out the window showed her the security camera up on the side of the building. From the angle she couldn’t be sure if she would be within its range, but she could keep her back to it.
The lighter popped. No way would she smoke in the car with Leyla. She opened her door and lit the cigarette, taking a long drag to make sure it was burning before pushing the lighter back into place. Then she stepped out, cigarette pressed between her lips, and picked up the gun, which she slid into the rear waistband of her pants. They sagged, not made for this, but the gun remained in place.
She lowered her head and peered into the car to make sure she hadn’t disturbed Leyla; the baby slept on. So much for the cigarette calming her; she felt more agitated than before, just being outside the car. Steadying herself, she took another long drag and let the smoke plume out of her nostrils. Then another. By the third, her pulse had started to slow and her mind began attempting to sort out the mess she was in. Grief tried to shove at the edges of her mind, but Cait shoved back. No time for grief—not when Leyla’s life depended on how she handled herself from this moment forward.