A Deeper Darkness

by J. T. Ellison

  Susan felt something in her shift. Everything crashed into place, and a calm came over her. She must get out of this situation. She may not have Eddie anymore, but she had her girls. And she couldn’t, wouldn’t, leave them.

  “Karen, put the gun down, now, so we can talk about this.”

  “No. It’s your fault. If he’d just told you, you would have warned me. I wouldn’t have had to find out from Billy Shakes.”

  “Karen, honey, you’re distraught. Let’s just make some tea and sit at the table, talk this out.”

  The gun wavered, then Karen got a firmer grip on it. “No. You want to know the story? You want to find out what really happened in that godforsaken desert? Then you’re going to listen to what I have to say and stop talking.”

  “Then talk, Karen. But may I make myself some tea? It’s been a very long day.” Karen didn’t say anything, so Susan turned on the burner. She estimated she had three minutes before the water started to boil.

  She swallowed down her fear and turned back to face the gun. “Now, Karen. Please, talk to me. Tell me what you’ve heard.”

  Karen shook her head, her mouth in a tight grimace. A normally pretty woman, she looked fierce and frightening, and ugly. “You can deny it all you want. I’ve seen the checks. I’ve seen the videos.”

  “But I haven’t, Karen. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Susan was trying very hard not to lose her temper, but having a gun waved in your face makes you think crazy things.

  The gleam in Karen’s eyes bordered on insane.

  “Eddie fathered a child in Afghanistan. And when Perry found out, Eddie killed him.”

  Chapter Forty

  Washington, D.C.

  Dr. Samantha Owens

  Sam rode to George Washington University Hospital with Captain Roosevelt. Fletcher had been transported separately, and Hart was taken directly into surgery, so Sam was left with trying to explain to their boss what was going on.

  She started with the phone call Donovan received, detailed the postmortem, the granulomas, then Croswell’s murder and post, the link to Savage River, the funeral, Taranto, Whitfield, everything. She knew she didn’t have all the pieces of the story: Fletcher had held several things back from her. Not that she blamed him. She was along for the ride, and he didn’t owe her anything.

  Until now. Now, she’d saved his partner’s life, and she could use that as leverage to get all the way in.

  Roosevelt got quieter and quieter as she spoke. He’d harrumphed a few times, at the beginning, but the more words spilled from her mouth, the tighter his grew. He pulled in front of the hospital and slammed the car into Park.

  “Lady, I don’t know whether to arrest you or commend you. Guess I’m going to have to wait on both. Get out.”

  Sam didn’t waste time arguing, just unlocked her safety belt and opened the door. She stepped out, for the first time realizing the air had cooled tremendously. She shivered.

  “By the way.” Roosevelt leaned over, his bulk taking up the whole front seat. “Thanks for saving my guys.”

  “My pleasure,” Sam said, then turned and walked directly toward the emergency room entrance without looking back. She knew she’d been treading on thin ice playing with the boys on this case. She was damn lucky Roosevelt didn’t cite her on the spot for interfering in an official investigation.

  She wasn’t an investigator. She knew that. She wasn’t trying to play cop. She wasn’t trying to be careless. Just the opposite, she was being incredibly cautious. But her curiosity was getting the better of her, and damn it, she had a stake in this, too.

  Someone had murdered Donovan. Someone had tried to kill her tonight. And she didn’t take kindly to being pushed around.

  Chapter Forty-One

  McLean, Virginia

  Susan Donovan

  Staring into the barrel of a gun is unnerving at best.

  Susan tried to work on her breathing. She didn’t want to panic, not yet. She thought about Eddie, about the things he’d done to calm down when the dreams overtook him and he woke up screaming for cover fire: the square breathing—four beats in, hold for four, out for four, rest for four—putting your mind in a safe, happy place. None of it was working.

  The reality of Karen’s last statement wasn’t sinking in properly. Eddie had an affair. Her Eddie. And not just an affair, he’d gotten a woman pregnant.

  How was this possible?

  Breathe, Susan. Just breathe. Goddamn it, Eddie. Is that what you wrote in your journal? Is that what you’re trying to hide from everyone? When you got called in to work, was it her?

  Did Sam know all of this? She’d been on the inside of the investigation practically from the start. She could be holding back, and the thought of that made Susan seethe with anger.

  No, no, no. Susan shook her head. This couldn’t be happening. Sam was trying to help. She was one of the good guys. Susan had to believe that. She needed to have one ally she trusted in.

  Karen laughed. “You don’t believe me, do you? Well, fine. I’ll show you.”

  Karen used her left hand to pull a file from her bag, never letting the weapon drop. She tossed the file to Susan.

  “See for yourself.”

  Susan opened the file. In it were pictures. A sunny-faced little girl, angelically blond. Running in the grass, looking contemplative over a blue balloon. There were about thirty pictures in all, spread over several years.

  “Where did you get these?”

  “I took them, of course.”

  “This child is local?”

  “She lives in Georgetown. Her mother is a lawyer now, but she served in Afghanistan with Eddie and Perry. Perry used to tell me about her, her name is Maggie. She drove one of the supply trucks. They saw her all the time. She was their friend. But she and Eddie were really close. Eddie got her pregnant. Perry disapproved. He thought it was wrong, what Eddie was doing. So he was going to report him. Maggie got sent back to the States, and three days later Perry was dead. Eddie killed him to cover up his affair with Maggie.”

  Susan wanted to vomit. This couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. But that little girl—she looked a lot like Vicky.

  Don’t think about that now. Keep her talking.

  “Did you kill Eddie, Karen? Did you kill Hal?”

  Karen laughed. “Of course not. Why would I do that?”

  “You’re the one waving the gun around.”

  “No, no. It’s not me. Maggie killed them. Hal and Eddie, they were cutting her off. They couldn’t keep giving her money. And Eddie refused to leave you for Maggie. She was furious. And so she killed them both.”

  When Susan found Maggie Lyons, she was going to kill her personally.

  The teakettle began to whistle, a sudden piercing shriek. Startled, Karen turned toward the noise. Susan grabbed the empty wine bottle from the counter and swung with all her might.

  She connected squarely with the back of Karen’s head. There was an audible crunch, a dull, wet smack, and Karen went down on the floor. Susan could tell the blow had knocked the woman unconscious.

  “Thank God.”

  She didn’t even feel bad about it. She turned off the stove, grabbed the gun and her keys, and tore out of the kitchen to the garage. She got in the car and locked the doors, sent the garage door up and pulled out of the house.

  As she drove away, she picked up the phone to dial 9-1-1, then hit the off button. What was she going to say? The police would make her go back to the house, and all she wanted was to go to Eleanor’s and make sure the babies were okay. And what if she’d really hurt Karen? Then she could get arrested, and the girls would be without a mother and a father.

  No, there was only one thing for her to do. She needed to take the notes she’d
found in Eddie’s office to Sam, let her decode them. Then they might have an idea of what really happened.

  She reached for her phone again as she took the left turn that led out of the neighborhood. That’s when she heard the breathing. And everything went dark.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Washington, D.C.

  Detective Darren Fletcher

  The song was right. Waiting was the hardest part.

  Fletcher sat in silence with Sam and Ginger, Hart’s wife, plus a host of other officers in and out of uniform, waiting to hear how Hart was doing. He’d been in surgery for an hour. Fletcher was worried, but Sam had assured him it would all be fine. He sipped his coffee and said prayers to a God he hadn’t talked to in years: prayers of thanks, prayers of forgiveness and prayers of revenge. He couldn’t help himself on that last, it just slipped out among all the other holy speak and thank-yous, and he knew better than to try and take it back. He was a realist. He figured God would punish him more for being a hypocritical liar than speaking from his heart.

  He and Sam had been interviewed multiple times by the investigating detectives, around and around the mulberry bush. He gave them everything he could think of, which wasn’t much. Sam had even less; she’d been hidden in the car for the majority of the shooting, only feeling the terror build instead of facing it down. At least he’d been doing something.

  Fletcher’s arm ached. It had gone through so many different sensations tonight he wasn’t sure where to start. Hot, cold, numb, on fire. The bullet had torn through the fleshy part just below his biceps, thankfully missing bone and artery, just hollowing out a furrow through the thin flesh. He’d never been shot before. It hurt. A lot. It was not something he highly recommended.

  Thank God it was his left arm and not his right. They’d cleaned, sewn, bandaged and slinged the arm, and it was utterly useless. If it had been his right, he’d be in a damn sight of trouble.

  He was in trouble, anyway. Roosevelt was furious with him. He didn’t blame the man. He’d fucked up. They should have just charged in and arrested Taranto, made a scene, but the subtle approach seemed like a better idea. He’d gone and talked to Culpepper again, looked at some more files on employees, looked at the visitor logs. Nada. Culpepper was genuinely torn to pieces about his former men’s deaths. The day had taken its toll. The awe-inspiring Patton-esque man Fletcher had met was gone. When he’d spoken at Donovan’s funeral, he was still the commander, a forceful presence for his troops, but outside of the spotlight he’d finally broken down, turned into a brokenhearted buttercup. A brokenhearted buttercup who had the paperwork to prove he was in Iraq when both Donovan and Croswell were shot, officially taking him off the suspect list. After Fletcher’s third fail out at the Raptor headquarters, Taranto seemed like the only viable lead.

  He had told Fletcher a little bit about Whitfield, though. Enough that Fletcher had formed a plan of attack. He needed to squeeze everything he could out of Taranto, then head to western Maryland and see if they could put eyes, and hopefully hands, on Alexander Whitfield.

  But Taranto refused to speak to them. He wanted to talk to Sam. As did Whitfield. Everyone wanted a piece of Sam Owens. And bless her, she’d been more than willing to help.

  Now look at them. Bloodied, beaten, raked over the coals and impatiently waiting to hear if Hart would live or die.

  Ginger caught his eye and smiled, hopeful, grateful. He didn’t deserve her gratitude. Jesus, she should have pummeled him with her fists, cursed him with her tongue, shot daggers from her eyes. Instead, when she got to the hospital, the first thing she did was envelop him in a hug so big he felt lost in her arms, and told him how much she loved him, and how much Lonnie loved him, too.

  It was fucking sloppy police work that had gotten Hart shot. Sloppy, shoddy and ridiculously off the book. Fletcher was going to take a major hit. Part of him was glad. Maybe now he’d get off homicide. He hadn’t done enough to be relieved of duty altogether, but he might be forced to ride a desk until retirement.

  He’d do it. He’d do it without raising a stink.

  Just as soon as he figured out who killed Edward Donovan and Harold Croswell, and scared William Everett into shooting his mother and killing himself.

  Though his mind was a bit blurry from the painkillers they’d given him while they patched him up, he ran through their remaining suspects again.

  Alexander Whitfield should be at the top of the list. He had the skills, means and opportunity to pull all of this off. You don’t get to be a sniper in the Rangers without a dead eye, and Whitfield had operated overseas long enough to know a few tricks when it came to communication.

  But Whitfield seemed to be trying to help, not hurt. Fletcher needed to find the man and talk to him before he could cross him off the list.

  The second was Maggie Lyons. According to Taranto, Maggie had a child with Perry Fisher. That would be an easier claim to prove, if she hadn’t scooted out with her kids in tow. There had been no activity on her credit cards, no phone calls to her parents or ex-husband, nothing to the schools. She just went poof. She, too, was weapons trained, fully capable of killing a man. According to her jacket, she’d done that once already, in an ambush outside Fallujah, when she laid down suppressive cover fire while Donovan and Fisher pulled a few troops to safety. She had three kills to her name, and a Bronze Star for bravery she probably kept hidden away, where no one could be reminded of its impetus.

  The third was Karen Fisher. A woman scorned is a dangerous thing. From what Taranto said, she was upset about the infidelity, and had found out her husband might have been killed by friendly fire. Now that they had Taranto’s information, Fletcher really wanted to sit down with Culpepper again, but it would have to wait seventeen hours minimum—the man was back on a plane heading to the desert. Croswell had been cremated, and the inurnment in Arlington National Cemetery’s Columbarium wouldn’t be for another week. Culpepper was coming back for that ceremony, but Fletcher believed in his heart this case was getting close to a finale. A week would be too long.

  Fletcher rested his head back against the wall. He was still missing something. The pages from Donovan’s diary sure would be a help. And now he had a broken wing to hinder him further.

  Roosevelt came into the waiting room. He was always a stern-looking man, but right now he looked downright forbidding. Fletcher caught himself swallowing, hoping his boss didn’t hear the audible gulp. This wasn’t good news. Fletcher straightened.

  “Hart?”

  “He’s fine. Miss Ginger, they’re asking for you down the hall.”

  “Oh, thank God,” the woman exhaled, practically flying out the door. Fletcher felt the wind leave his body. Sam reached over and touched him on his good hand, and he tossed one last bit of thanks upward before facing his boss.

  Roosevelt sat across from them and eyed Fletcher and Sam.

  “That reporter you were talking to? Gino Taranto? Just fished him out of the Potomac, with a third eye.”

  “Oh, my God,” Sam said.

  Fletcher just asked, “Where’d he go in?”

  “No idea. But he didn’t last long outside your meeting with him.” He turned his focus onto Sam. “We need to go over it again. Every little last detail.”

  Fletcher smiled for the first time all evening. “We can do you one better. We have it all on tape.”

  A rotund nurse with a crew cut and jangling gold earrings came into the waiting room.

  “Is there a Detective Fletcher here?”

  “That’s me,” Fletch said, standing.

  “Your partner is asking for you.”

  “Go on, then,” Roosevelt said. “We’ll handle this in a minute.”

  Fletcher gave Sam an apologetic look and went with the nurse. Hart was four doors down, in a private room. Everything smelled oddly clean
, antiseptic. A machine hissed air into his lungs. Hart was pale, but at least his eyes were open. Ginger moved from her vigil at his bedside and let Fletcher take her place.

  “Fletch.” Hart mouthed the words. The doctors had done a temporary tracheotomy; they had a hard time intubating him with the trauma to his throat. He couldn’t make sounds, but could make himself understood.

  “Dude, you gave me a scare,” Fletcher said. “Did you see who shot us?”

  Hart shook his head, a tiny movement. “You okay?” he mouthed.

  “Yeah. ’Tis but a flesh wound.”

  His Monty Python impression worked, Hart smiled.

  “Really, I’m fine. Don’t worry about it. You just heal up. I’m gonna get whoever did this to you. I promise.”

  Hart just closed his eyes. Fletcher gave his hand one more squeeze and stepped away. Ginger gave him another hug.

  “Be careful, Fletch.”

  “I will. Call me if anything changes, okay?”

  “Of course. Be good.”

  Good.

  If he found the man who shot them, and the opportunity arose, he would kill him.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Washington, D.C.

  Metro Homicide

  Dr. Samantha Owens

  Sam tried not to yawn. It had been an exhausting day, and it was now two in the morning.

  The disk Taranto had given to her was confusing, at best. It seemed to be a video taken of a nighttime military raid, but it wasn’t marked. She had to assume it was Afghanistan. The video had been shot through night vision from above the scene, probably from a Predator drone or Apache helicopter. The screen was grainy and bobbing, and looked something like a video game crossed with a science-fiction movie. Globs of green-shaped soldiers moved through a blackened backdrop, five of them, spreading out in a fan, converging into a single file line, then stopping. Friendlies. Two blobs headed off on their own while the remaining three stayed stationary. Then one blob stopped moving, and its partner walked off in a totally different direction, looping back to the main group. As he got close to the cluster of soldiers, there was a sudden scramble and flashes of light from the right, which Sam took to be shooting. Pandemonium looks the same through night vision as it does in daylight. People started running all over the place, traces of light shot through the air. The single blob on its own didn’t move again, didn’t engage in the firefight. It seemed he’d gone down before the shooting started.