He was bent over, dripping sweat onto his new Macy’s slacks, trying to catch his breath when a petite young woman wearing an apron stepped out of the cafeteria entrance a moment later.
“Police,” Gannon said to her. “Did you see a woman in workout clothes run past here?”
“Yes. She almost knocked me down. I think she went into Doyle.”
“Which one is Doyle?” Kit said as she suddenly arrived beside Gannon with her badge out.
The woman pointed out the brick building on the horseshoe’s right-hand side.
“What do you think is up?” Kit said as they hurried toward it.
“I don’t know, but I’m dying to find out,” Gannon said.
Doyle’s front door was propped open, and they went slowly into its dead-quiet dim corridor and went to the left. They were about halfway through scanning the hot, empty classrooms when a middle-aged white guy with a gray flattop burst into the building behind them in a jingle of bouncing keys.
“Charlie Phelps, college security. What in the heck’s going on here?” he said.
“FBI,” Kit said, flicking her creds at him. “Sorry to barge in, Charlie, but we’re looking for a person of interest who just ran in here.”
The security guy lifted his radio from his belt as he quickly examined her badge.
“Is it some kind of fugitive, Agent?” he said. “You want me to call PD?”
“No, that won’t be necessary,” Kit said as they came back to the front door and began to look into the rooms on the right-hand side. “She’s not wanted or anything. I just need to question her.”
They were coming to the end of the hall when Gannon saw the smear of mud on the polished linoleum before the women’s restroom.
He toed the door. The restroom inside was walled with seventies-style avocado-green tiles and there was a small gray pebbled glass window high in the far wall that looked like it had never been opened. All the stall doors were open except the last one on the end.
After a moment, a gasp came from behind it followed by the sound of ragged breathing.
Kit put her hand to her service weapon in its holster as she fully opened the door.
Gannon noted her setup. A Glock in a concealment holster with two more magazines.
He nodded approvingly at the extra ammo.
Always be prepared, he thought.
He looked in over Kit’s shoulder.
“Okay, listen up,” Kit said. “This is the FBI. Come out now.”
The breathing suddenly stopped.
“Out of there now or we’re coming down to that stall and dragging you out feetfirst,” Gannon yelled loudly.
Gannon smiled sheepishly as Kit turned squinting at him.
“Too much?” he whispered.
They both jumped back as the door of the last stall suddenly blasted open. The short brown-haired woman who slowly emerged was about thirty-five and more attractive than Gannon was expecting. She’d ditched the hat. He saw that she was crying.
“Fine,” she said. “You won’t believe me anyway.”
She offered her wrists to them as she stepped forward past the sinks.
“Arrest me, okay? Whatever,” she said. “It doesn’t make any difference now.”
48
“Okay, Megan. I understand you’re upset,” Kit said as they all sat in the Armada back at the medical office’s parking lot.
Gannon turned and looked at the dark-haired woman where she sat curled up in the back seat. She was pouting and staring at the handle of the back door.
The only things they knew about her after ten minutes of asking were from her license. It said her name was Megan Kraft and she lived in Casper three blocks away.
“I get that,” Kit said. “But we’re just trying to find out what’s going on.”
“And we’re running out of time and patience,” Gannon said, dabbing sweat off his face with a napkin as he drummed his fingers on the wheel.
“I don’t know,” Megan finally said. “I don’t know if I should even say anything. Maybe I need a lawyer.”
“Why would you need a lawyer, Megan?” Kit said calmly as they watched a maintenance pickup from the college park beside the soccer field. “I’ve already told you you’re not under arrest. I just want to know why you ran out of the office.”
Megan did some more pouting and staring, then she finally sat up.
“Okay,” she said. Her hair was in a ponytail and she grabbed it and draped it over her shoulder and began twisting the end of it nervously with her fingers.
“Okay,” she repeated. “There’s no other way to say it. I was having an affair with Dr. Fletcher, okay? That’s why I was in there.”
“An affair?”
Her fingers twirled at her hair.
“Yes,” she said. “I used to work in the office as a receptionist and I knew he was married but I don’t know. He made me laugh and we just hit it off.”
“You’re not the receptionist anymore?” Gannon said.
“No,” Megan said, giving him a funny look. “See, that’s it. This was last year, about fifteen months ago. His wife found out about six months in. Or maybe she just suspected. Whichever. She demanded Gary fire me.
“But I wasn’t really fired. I didn’t show up anymore for work, but he was still paying me, see? He knew I had a daughter. Plus, he wanted to still see me. Besides, he was loaded.
“Anyway, it was driving me crazy all week because, well, see, I’m married, too, and my husband has no idea. He’s deployed in the military and coming home next month and...”
“And what?” Kit said calmly.
“I didn’t know if Gary’s witch of a wife would make a stink about it because of the money. Sue me or something. She’s a real bitch on wheels. I knew it was wrong, but I was crazed about all of it, so I thought I’d go in with everyone off at the funeral and see if I could take a look at the books to cover it up or something.”
“Wait, wait. Go back,” Gannon said. “Funeral? What funeral?”
Megan’s fingers ceased in mid-twirl.
“Gary’s funeral. Who do you think I’m talking about?” she said.
Gannon and Kit looked at each other in shock.
“Dr. Fletcher’s funeral?” Gannon said. “Dr. Fletcher is dead?”
“Yes. Isn’t that why you’re here? Aren’t you investigating his death or something?”
“How did Dr. Fletcher die exactly?” Kit said.
“He committed suicide,” she said. “Last week. He did that thing with the hose in his garage. You know? Left the car running and pushed the hose into the tailpipe and the window? The carbon monoxide thing. It was a shock to everyone. Gary was an upbeat guy. Fun-loving. A runner and big-time skier. He had a house in Breckinridge. No one saw this coming.”
Gannon and Kit stared at each other again.
“What day was this?” Kit said.
“Last Friday.”
Kit tapped at her lip as she peered at the dashboard.
“Megan, how did you get into the office?” she finally said. “Do you have the keys?”
“Yes, Gary gave them to me. I used to meet him there sometimes when the staff was gone.”
“Okay,” Kit said after taking a breath. “I see the position you’re in here. I’m sympathetic, so why don’t we make a deal? I’m looking for the name of one of Dr. Fletcher’s patients. I have the serial number for some breast implants he, um, installed. Do you think if I gave you the number that you could get me the name of the patient associated with it?”
“Sure,” Megan said sitting up even straighter. “I could do that. In fact, I’m probably the only one who can.”
“Why’s that?” Gannon said.
“His files are gone. Or at least the official files. I checked when I went in. Somebody must have come in with a han
d truck. All the paper is gone and the half the computers, too.”
49
A long beat of silence took over the car as Kit and Gannon thought that news over.
“His wife’s lawyer took them maybe?” Megan finally said.
“Maybe,” Gannon said, looking at Kit wide-eyed.
Megan shook her head.
“I wouldn’t put it past that greedy bitch,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter because Dr. Fletcher did some funky accounting, if you catch my drift.”
“How’s that?” Kit said.
“I’ve seen docs play loose with the Medicare billing, but Fletch was on another level. He had a backup file of all the regular stuff plus the funky stuff on a laptop computer he kept in a hole in the wall of the office supply closet. And she missed it, the dope. I was going through it when you knocked.”
Megan stopped talking suddenly.
“Hey, what happens after I get you what you need?”
“We never saw each other,” Kit said.
“Can I keep the laptop?”
“What laptop? Did you say something?” Kit said.
“I like this deal,” Megan said with a smile.
Gannon turned the engine over as Megan came back out of the building ten minutes later. As she shifted the iMac laptop from one hand to the other, they could see there were printer pages on top of it.
“It’s right there,” she said as she handed the pages in through the passenger window. “Everything you’re looking for came up right away. I even printed out the photos.”
“Photos?” Kit said, shuffling through the pages.
“Yes. Gary would do before-and-after photos of the patients for his website. It was an option he would give some of the cuter ones. He would reduce the fee on enlargements if you agreed to model for him.”
“What a guy,” Gannon mumbled as Kit looked over the papers.
“Is that good? Can I go now?” Megan asked.
Kit nodded her head without looking up.
“You did great. Thanks, Megan. You can go.”
Gannon watched Megan jog over to a silver Honda at the other end of the lot. She put the laptop into the trunk before she backed out and sped away out into the street.
“So we actually have a name?” Gannon said.
“Sure do,” Kit said. “Our Jane Doe’s name is Tracy. Tracy Marie Sandhurst.”
“Is her address here in town?” Gannon said.
“No,” Kit said as she took out her own laptop. “It looks like we need to go to... Cheyenne.”
“Can I see the pictures?” Gannon said.
Kit gave him a look.
“The face, Kit. Just the face,” Gannon said. “I want to see what she looked like before she was murdered.”
Kit folded the paper and showed him.
Gannon looked down at Tracy Sandhurst. He looked at her Barbie-pink lipstick and her dyed bleach-blond hair with darker eyebrows.
She still had a little acne and there was a little girlish gap in her front teeth but she was actually very nice-looking. She was maybe twenty-two or -three.
“How, Kit?” Gannon said, shaking his head as he remembered the horror movie stills of her crime scene photos.
He winced as he stared into Tracy Sandhurst’s soft blue eyes.
“Just how?” he said.
50
Seven miles south of Washington, DC, the Washington & Old Dominion Railroad bike and running path started in Shirlington, went up northwest through Falls Church and ended nearly fifty miles away in Purcellville.
Saturday morning at nine thirty, the FBI’s Behavioral Science Division’s newest section chief, Francis Sinclair, pulled his new Subaru Forester off the Dulles Toll Road into the leafy town of Vienna that was midway on the path.
Three minutes later, he came upon the bike path access he was told to report to. Just in off the road he noticed the shell of a tiny old-fashioned rail station along the path now serving as a rain shelter. He parked in the grassy shoulder behind it, making sure to bury his car deep under the shadows of the trees.
It took another five minutes to walk from the car to a footbridge down the path where he’d been told to wait.
He dabbed a bead of sweat off his forehead as he looked through the bridge’s chain-link down at a sluggish brown-green stream below. He thought to check his phone for the temperature but then remembered that he had left it at home like he’d been told.
He looked north up the desolate curving path, at the trees and transmission towers and telephone poles.
Then he closed his eyes and remembered the night he’d been compromised the year before.
It was in a cop bar that he’d gone to with an old classmate from Holy Cross who worked at State. His friend’s brother was a DC cop, and it had been his birthday and they had actually closed the bar down as a bunch of strippers came in. He hadn’t even wanted to cheat, but he was drunk and this one half-Spanish, half-Chinese-looking stripper was super hot, and she took him back to the room where they put all the empty bottles.
The camera that had recorded him must have been one of those low-light night vision ones.
He’d been able to mostly forget about it.
That was until they asked him to come for a meeting over at Justice the morning he flew back from Jackson after visiting Agent Hagen in the hospital.
Francis was still sweating against the fence several minutes later when he noticed some movement to his left.
Just to the north of the bridge, something large suddenly emerged from the undergrowth.
It was a horse.
Sinclair felt his jaw loosen as he recognized the stiff-backed haughty-looking woman riding it.
“Hello, Francis,” Dawn Warner said as Sinclair approached.
He looked up at her. At her tight white T-shirt, her tight dark riding pants, her black leather boots. Her riding helmet was one of those English bobby-hat-style ones.
Sinclair stared at the horse. He knew nothing about horses. This one was brown.
“You live around here?” he said, puzzled.
“Not too far,” Dawn Warner said as she dismounted with surprising agility. “My daughters were all equestrians at a stable about a mile from here, and I still come out here and ride every now and then. I find that riding in the woods is a great way to clear your head. What do they call it? Forest bathing? Why don’t you bathe with me a little, Francis. Walk me back down the trail here so we can talk.”
51
Sinclair stayed on the right of the assistant attorney general as she expertly walked the horse back down a slope of tall grass to a crushed bluestone bridle path. He almost bumped into her as she suddenly halted at the entrance of the tree line.
“Francis, could you pull up your shirt and turn out your pockets for me?” Dawn Warner said.
A chatter of insects started up as he followed her instructions. The humid breeze on his bare stomach suddenly made him feel sick and filthy like he was doing something illicit.
Which made sense, he thought. Since he was doing something illicit.
“Excellent,” she said. “Hate to even ask but one can’t be too careful with being recorded these days. Nice abs, by the way, though a tad pale. You need to get some sun before the summer’s over, Francis, or what’s the point?”
“What can I do for you?” Sinclair said.
“Where is Special Agent Kit Hagen?” Dawn Warner said with a curious tilt of her bobby-helmeted head.
“At home on leave where I sent her the way you told me to,” Sinclair said.
Warner made a disappointed sort of sigh as she reached up and took out an iPad from a saddlebag.
“Watch this, please,” she said, handing it to him.
Sinclair cupped his hand over the screen and watched.
“Isn’t that funny?” Warne
r said as the video showed Kit Hagen walking along a corridor. “That looks like Hagen, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. Where is this?”
“Wyoming,” Dawn Warner said.
“Wyoming?”
“Yes. Casper, Wyoming. Yesterday she went into a college and flashed her badge. Said she was looking for a person of interest. Isn’t that odd?”
“How did you find this out?”
“The security head at the college there used to be DEA in Denver. He put in an inquiry. Didn’t feel completely kosher, he said.”
“Is that right?”
“Do you know this man with her?” Warner said pointing. “Could this be a boyfriend?”
“Maybe. I’ve never laid eyes on him.”
Which actually didn’t mean much, Sinclair thought. Unlike himself, Kit was sharp enough to keep her personal stuff personal.
“Well, he was with her. Can you explain why she is in Casper, Wyoming?”
“No,” Sinclair said.
“I think I can,” Dawn Warner said, staring at him. “Which is the reason why we’re having this conversation.”
“I don’t—” Sinclair started.
“Rein her in. And I mean yesterday, Francis. She’s veering into a no-fly zone of extreme danger. I’m not kidding. This isn’t me talking. If you care about her—or your promotion—you need to get her back here to DC pronto.”
“But how do I do it? I call her and say what?”
Dawn Warner squinted at him as she took a riding crop from the saddle and began to stroke the horse’s nose with it.
“You know the difference between you and this rented horse here, Francis?” she said, smiling. “This rented horse is smart enough to never ask me how to follow orders. Which part of ‘get Hagen back here by Monday’ is eluding you?”
“I’ll take care of it,” Sinclair said, wiping at the sweat on his brow.
“You better, Francis,” Dawn Warner said, giving Sinclair a good long view of the back of her immodestly tight pants as she tucked the crop back in the saddle.
“Have a great rest of your weekend, now,” she called as she led the horse away down the path. “And please say hello to your better half for me.”
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