by Julie Cave
Dinah desperately didn’t want to talk about their conversation the night before, nor did she want him to realize that she felt like death warmed up. As soon as he sat down, she said brightly, “I knew Lara was lying to us!”
“Okay,” agreed Ferguson, putting a great deal more sugar in his coffee than was healthy. “But I still think she’s a little prone to drama.”
“Are you trying to give yourself diabetes?” Dinah asked, raising one eyebrow at her partner.
“Yeah, funny, Harris.” He scowled into the black coffee. “I got no sleep last night. I feel terrible.”
Dinah was relieved that he was caught up in his own misery this morning and hadn’t noticed her gray pallor and shaking hands. “Why is that?”
“Young kids and bad dreams,” he said. “My youngest gets real bad nightmares. He crawls into our bed a couple of times a night. I wait until he falls asleep and then take him back to his own bed. Then there’s your phone call. All told, I think I only got about three hours sleep.”
“Yeah, I remember what it’s like.” Dinah chuckled wistfully.
Ferguson suddenly looked awkward and flustered. Then he looked around the Starbucks and down at his watch. “Where is she?”
Without waiting for a reply, he dug out his cell phone and dialed.
Dinah glanced at her watch. They had been sitting in the small café for 30 minutes.
Ferguson had started muttering under his breath as he dialed several numbers and hung up.
“I don’t like this,” he announced. “No one knows where she is. I got her address from your personal favorite, Catherine Biscelli. Perhaps we had better take a look.”
Dinah felt her own sense of unease building as Ferguson drove them toward the young secretary’s condo at Forest Hills. Traffic was still thick and it took them 40 minutes to arrive at their destination.
The neighborhood was quiet and the two agents approached the condo complex cautiously. Dinah was uncomfortably aware of the weight of the gun on her hip.
Ferguson took the lead and knocked sharply on the door. Both were hoping Lara would answer. Dinah felt almost positive this would not be the case.
A door across the hall clicked open and Dinah spun, her gun in her hands, adrenaline pumping and every nerve ending screaming.
“Oh my!” gasped the elderly lady who peered out of her door from behind owlish glasses.
Dinah exhaled slowly, lowering the weapon and willing her heart to slow down.
“Are you from the police?” the elderly woman asked, eyeing Dinah up and down with concern.
“Yes, ma’am, we’re from the FBI,” Ferguson replied. “Is there a problem?”
“I don’t know,” the woman said querulously. “I’ve been wondering whether to call the police all morning. Now that you’re here, I ought to tell you and then you can make of it what you will.”
“What is it?” Ferguson asked. He glanced over at Dinah, who was still recovering from the shock.
“Early this morning, I heard some thuds and bumps from that young lady’s apartment. I thought it sounded like someone was moving furniture. Who would move furniture at five in the morning? Particularly that young lady, she isn’t a very large girl, is she?”
“Did you hear voices or shouts?” Ferguson asked with great patience.
“No, I didn’t. That’s why I wasn’t sure whether to call the police.”
“Do you have a phone in there, ma’am?” Ferguson asked.
The old lady nodded earnestly.
“Could you please call the manager and have him bring up the keys to this apartment? We need to know whether the lady inside is okay.”
The old lady was excited to be part of an FBI investigation and did as she was asked.
The manager arrived several moments later with a gigantic ring of keys dangling from one hand. He made a point of bad-temperedly demanding ID from each of the agents, and then reminding them that they were not to damage the apartment in any way. Dinah restrained herself from making a sarcastic comment regarding his sub-standard intelligence.
The agents took several moments to take in the one-bedroom studio apartment.
The kitchen was clean and looked as if it was rarely used. A small, round dining table stood adjacent to the kitchen, and it was being used for storage. Dinah couldn’t see the surface of the table for the shoes, books, CDs, and shopping bags. The small living room wasn’t much better, with two couches, a coffee table, and a TV. The coffee table was decorated with three half-melted candles, which probably accounted for the faint sickly sweet aroma in the room.
A doorway directly ahead of them was open.
Both agents had their guns out, and Dinah’s felt cold and indifferent in her hands.
“Lara, this is the FBI. If you are able, please show yourself,” Ferguson called.
There was no answer.
Dinah and Ferguson slowly approached the doorway, and Ferguson went in first, gun held straight in front of him. The bedroom was silent and messy, the dressing table cluttered with more makeup than Dinah had ever seen. Still more pairs of shoes littered the carpet.
While Ferguson checked the closets, Dinah entered the small bathroom. The blind was drawn, and the room was murky with shadows.
Then Dinah saw the still figure, curled into the fetal position in the shower cubicle, her head a bloody mess. She was dressed in a bathrobe.
“Ferguson!” she called, holstering her gun. She yanked open the cubicle door and knelt beside the motionless girl. Lara’s black hair was stiff and coppery with dried blood. The entire side of her face was swollen and bloody. Dinah felt the girl’s wrist for a pulse and found one, weak but steady. Lara was barely conscious, her eyelids fluttering.
Ferguson stood above them, calling 911 for the paramedics.
“Lara, can you hear me?” asked Dinah urgently. She took the girl’s hand. “It’s the FBI. You’re going to be okay. We’re going to take you to the hospital and you’ll be just fine.”
Lara moaned, a mewling as weak as a newborn kitten.
“Stay here,” ordered Ferguson. “I’m going to check that the rest of the apartment really is empty.”
Dinah squeezed Lara’s hand and kept talking to her, hoping to keep her awake. She could hear Ferguson checking closets and any other places the perpetrator might be hiding.
Finally, the paramedics arrived and Dinah stood aside. The district police had now arrived and were questioning Ferguson and sealing off the apartment with crime scene tape. Dinah gave him a small wave. “I’m going to the hospital with Lara,” she said.
Sirens blaring, she rode with Lara into the Metropolitan Hospital.
• • • •
Dinah was relegated to the waiting room while the ER doctors diagnosed and treated Lara. She remembered the last time she’d stared at the sterile wall of a hospital waiting room.
Last time she’d been sick with worry and numb with guilt, hoping desperately that death had not paid her a visit. The dread realization had already begun to sink into the deepest parts of her soul. Here she had the realization that death had called on her family.
She remembered the young doctor who had come from the ER, his face sad and drawn. She remembered thinking that doctors were the new soldiers of the 21st century, facing a battlefront every day without reprieve, dealing with the aftermath of human cruelty and selfishness.
He had shaken his head once. “I’m dreadfully sorry,” he had said, and she knew that he had meant it.
Since that day, depression had been Dinah’s cheerless companion.
She roused herself as a female doctor in her forties approached. “I’m Dr. Rae Fortune,” she said. “You rode with Lara Southall?” The doctor was trying to ascertain Dinah’s relationship with the patient.
“I’m Special Agent Dinah Harris with the FBI. My partner and I found Lara Southall and I rode with her because she is an important witness in one of our current investigations.”
The doctor nodded. “The hospital
has notified her parents.”
“How is she?” Dinah asked.
“Not as bad as she looked, thankfully,” Dr. Fortune replied. “Nevertheless she took a brutal beating. She has a compressed fracture of her left eye socket and cheekbone. I feared she had a skull fracture but she doesn’t. She also sustained severe bruising on the left side her face and neck and there are a number of cuts — one above her eyebrow, which needed two stitches and one on her upper lip.”
Dinah shook her head. “I see. Thank you for attending to her. May I see her?”
Dr. Fortune looked troubled. “Special Agent, I understand she may have vital information you need to obtain. However, I will warn you that if she begins to get distressed or upset in any way, I will terminate your right to see her immediately.” The doctor stared hard at Dinah.
Dinah stared back. She didn’t like it when others tried to intimidate her. At this point, Ferguson would have probably stepped in and calmed the situation. Then he would have made a smart comment about Dinah’s ability to alienate every female she came into contact with.
When the stare finally broke, Dinah followed a doctor to where Lara was recuperating and approached the girl. Lara’s face and neck were mottled purple and red with the bruising and her left eye was black and swollen shut. Her black eyelashes stuck straight up from the slit in her eye like spiky soldiers standing at attention.
“Lara, it’s Dinah Harris from the FBI.” Dinah spoke softly so that she didn’t scare the girl. “How are you feeling?”
Lara turned to look at her visitor with her good eye. “Terrible,” she said, her voice husky. “I have such a headache.”
“Do you need me to get some pain relief for you?” Dinah asked.
“No thanks. I’ve just had morphine.” Lara grimaced slightly. “I suppose you want to know what happened.”
Dinah nodded. “Please take your time.”
“I don’t know what happened,” Lara said, turning away from the agent slightly. “I spoke to you on the phone. Later I was about to have a shower when I felt something hit my face, on the left side. I fell to the ground and he just kept hitting my face. I curled up, trying to protect myself.”
“Did you get a look at your attacker?”
“No. He came out of nowhere and I didn’t even see what he hit me with.”
“Did he speak to you at all?”
Lara paused for a fraction of a second. “No.”
Dinah digested the lie for a moment. “I know you’re scared,” she said gently. “But this is very important. If he did speak to you, even if they were words that don’t make any sense, it could still be crucial information.”
“He was completely silent the whole time,” Lara insisted.
“There was just one attacker?”
“Yes. At least I was only attacked by one person. I don’t know if there were any others there.”
“How long do you think the attack took?”
“It was over in a couple of minutes.” Lara shuddered as she remembered. “It felt like an eternity.”
“The attacker didn’t tell you what he wanted?” Dinah asked.
“No.”
At least the lie was consistent.
“What about the information you were going to tell Special Agent Ferguson and me this morning?” Dinah tried a different tack. “Do you want to share that with me now?”
Lara faltered. “It wasn’t really important.” She did not look at the other woman.
Dinah frowned. “It sounded important at two o’clock this morning.”
“I’m sorry, I was overreacting. I am just so worried about Mr. Whitfield.” Lara had focused on a point on the wall opposite her bed and wasn’t moving.
Dinah sat on the edge of the bed and forced the young woman to look at her. “Lara, I know you’re scared,” she said gently. “I can help you if you’re honest with me.”
A solitary tear escaped from Lara’s good eye. “You don’t understand,” she whispered. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
A nurse bustled in the door and looked sternly at the pair, noting Lara’s tears. Dinah took her cue to leave. She’d learned only one thing from the interview with Lara. Lara knew something important enough to be assaulted and threatened. The question was, what did she know?
• • • •
Thomas Whitfield was in great pain.
He remained tied to the chair in the abandoned industrial building, and for the last half hour had been attended to by his abductor.
Thomas felt sure that his nose was broken and several of his teeth had been knocked out or broken. His face was sticky and warm with his own blood. There was a curious buzzing in his head, which felt too heavy for his neck. His vision had narrowed, the peripherals turning black over the course of the previous half hour.
His abductor had finally ceased the beating and stood in front of Thomas, shaking his head and breathing hard.
“Well, Thomas,” he said with a smirk. “You’ve had plenty of time to think about what you want to do.”
Thomas straightened, with great effort, to look his abductor in the eye. “You don’t scare me,” he replied. Around his missing teeth, it sounded like You don schhhare ee.
“You’re stupider than I thought then,” the abductor sneered. “First it was this nonsense that you wanted to tell Congress. That was bad enough, Thomas. Now, in your position, you tell me that you’re not scared? You’re not grasping the situation at all.”
Thomas didn’t reply. He simply didn’t have the energy to argue.
“It’s really simple,” the abductor continued. “So you should get it. All you need to do is forget this load of baloney that you’ve been fixated on, forget presenting it to Congress, and forget all of your proposals. You will get out of here alive, and your job back, and you can continue on as if this had never happened at all. It’s that simple, Thomas.”
Thomas would have shaken his head if it didn’t feel like it would fly off at any moment. “It’s not that simple for me,” he said. “I believe that what I’m doing is the right thing, and you can’t threaten me or beat me so badly that I’ll change my mind.”
The abductor laughed incredulously. “You would exchange your life for some pathetic ideology?”
“I would,” Thomas said. “For me it is truth, not ideology, and it is the greatest truth the world will ever hear. I will not peddle lies for one moment longer.” As he spoke, a cloak of calm seemed to envelop him.
For the first time, the veneer of self-control left the abductor. His mouth twisted with anger and contempt, and he viciously kicked the chair in which Thomas was sitting. Thomas crashed to the floor with a thud that knocked the wind out of him and caused brilliant flashes of pain to radiate up his side like lightning. Momentarily, his world was plunged into darkness.
“You fool,” hissed the abductor. He turned away from where Thomas lay groaning and paced in small circles. He seemed to take a few moments to control himself, and then picked up Thomas and the chair.
Thomas had never known such fear and pain, yet he felt strangely calm. He knew, in his heart of hearts, that everything would be okay. He had started to see human beings, even powerful ones, in a very different light in recent weeks.
“It’s people like you,” the abductor snarled, his teeth clenched, “that are turning this country into a pool of weakness.”
He seemed on the verge on launching into a tirade, but he caught himself and waited for several beats.
“I won’t give you another chance,” said the abductor, his calm and controlled exterior back. “Your life amounts to what you say next: will you give up this nonsense that you’ve become obsessed with?”
“I will not,” Thomas replied immediately. “In my soul, I know it to be the truth.”
The abductor feigned sadness. “Then I can no longer help you or protect you,” he said.
Thomas knew that the end of his life drew near. With some surprise, he found that it didn’t bother him.
He thou
ght about his wife, whom he’d only started to see — to really see — in recent months for the resilient, amazing woman she was. He thought about his children, who had both graduated from college and lived overseas. He thought about their smiles, their first words, their shrieking laughter from the pool. Fleetingly, he regretted that he hadn’t shared the discovery of his life with them. He wanted them to know that he would be okay, that there would be no reason to grieve.
It was funny, Thomas thought, what flashed through his mind as death approached. He wasn’t thinking of the accolades and awards he’d won as an anthropologist. He wasn’t thinking about the various celebrities and heads of state he’d met while in the position of secretary. He wasn’t thinking about the balance of his bank account or the value of his Georgetown house.
Instead, he thought of the things that life was really about — why had he only just realized this? The important things were his wife, his family, and most of all, his newfound joy and freedom.
The abductor moved closer to Thomas. He closed his eyes and waited.
Chapter 4
When Dinah arrived back at Lara Southall’s condo in Forrest Hills, she found Ferguson trying to coordinate the district cops and crime scene technicians and becoming increasingly flustered.
When he saw Dinah, relief creased his face and he jogged over. “How is Lara?” he asked.
“Not talking,” replied Dinah with a sigh. “She was beat up pretty bad, and whoever did it had a pretty specific message for her. She’ll live, but she’s scared.”
“Is it safe to assume that this all relates to Thomas Whitfield?” Ferguson mused. They both began climbing the stairs to Lara Southall’s condo.
“Yes, genius, I would say so,” agreed Dinah sarcastically. Ferguson ignored her. “Find anything interesting in her apartment?”
“Not really,” said Ferguson as they arrived at the door to Lara’s condo. The doorway was barred with crime scene tape, and the two agents ducked underneath it and stood, surveying the small living area. There was black fingerprint dust scattered indiscriminately throughout the apartment, which did nothing to detract from the general state of disarray.
“Let’s start at the beginning,” she suggested. “How did the attacker get in?”