“I’m going to bed,” Lucy said.
Sean sighed. “Wish I were there, princess.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ten Years Ago
Two weeks after my fourteenth birthday, Grams went into the hospital after coughing up blood. The doctor said she had pneumonia and needed to stay, and asked if I had any family. I told them my parents were dead and Grams was all I had. I think the nurses felt sorry for me, because they let me stay with her.
I think I felt sorry for me, because I blamed Grams for getting sick. “I need you,” I told her. “You shouldn’t have been gardening in the rain.”
Grams loved her garden. I helped her, sometimes, but I think she liked to be alone to pull weeds and turn the soil and plant her flowers. I helped carry pallets of flowers, mowed the lawn, and trimmed the bushes because the shears were too heavy for her. But Grams spent hours every day outside.
It didn’t rain a lot in Florida, but whenever it did Grams got sick. Like now. Except now was worse because she was seventy-nine and had been slowly dying ever since Grandpa died when I was five.
I knew she wouldn’t live until September, when she’d be eighty. The doctors wouldn’t say it, but they didn’t tell me she was coming home, either. They said things like “We’re doing everything we can” and “She’s strong,” and “Give it time.” Never that she was going to die, but never that she’d get better.
It wasn’t fair! I needed her.
“Read to me, Peter.” Grams had been in the hospital for three days. I thought she might come home today, but the doctors said no. She looked sick. She’d never looked sick until three days ago. Tired, maybe, but not sick.
I picked up book 6 in the Chronicles of Narnia series. She’d bought me the books the first Christmas I lived with her, before my sister’s killer was put on trial. I read them because there was nothing else I could do—I couldn’t sleep more than a couple hours a night, I couldn’t go to school without someone talking about Rachel or my parents. Even in Florida, people knew. Especially after that reporter published a book about it. Why would somebody do that? Write a book about Rachel’s murder and the bizarre life my parents lived. People whispered when they didn’t think I could hear, even the teachers. Grams got rid of her television, so at home I didn’t have to remember if I didn’t want to.
But I’d never forget Rachel.
Grams’s eyesight was poor, and a few months ago she asked me to read my favorite book to her. I don’t know if the Narnia stories were my favorites, but I knew Grams would like them. There was one more book after The Silver Chair, and I wanted to finish the series for her. Maybe if I read slowly enough, she’d get better.
I read until she slept, and then I cried. I hated her for being sick, and I hated me for being mad at an old woman. I hated God for killing everyone I loved. My insides were black like an unswept chimney. Dark and full of ash. I didn’t want to be here or anywhere. I wanted to die when Grams did.
I was too big to curl up with Grams anymore, but I put the side railing down and put my head next to her thin arm. She smelled old and sweet—the sweet from the apricot shampoo she liked.
Rachel walked into Grams’s room. I stared at her, because I didn’t believe she was there.
I must have fallen asleep, because ghosts aren’t real.
“You can’t come back,” I told her.
“I know,” she said. She looked at Grams. “She’s going to die, Peter.”
“No, she’s not.” I sounded nine again.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
I didn’t answer. She wasn’t real. She wasn’t here. She was dead, and I’d never see her again. When Grams died, I would be alone.
“Are you going home?”
“They moved.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
Grams, don’t die. Please don’t die.
I woke up and of course Rachel wasn’t there. But Grams was, and she was petting my hair like I was her puppy. I cried again.
“Shh,” she whispered. “You’re stronger than you think. Believe in yourself, Peter, like I believe in you.”
“I don’t want you to die.” My voice cracked and broke like my heart.
“We don’t have a choice when our Father calls us home. Go get the last book. Read it to me, Peter.”
Five days later, an hour after I finished reading The Last Battle, Grams died.
CHAPTER NINE
Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Sean Rogan woke up early Thursday morning and walked eight blocks to the gym with his partner at RCK East, Patrick Kincaid.
“Did you find anything on Laughlin?” Patrick asked.
“So far, he appears clean and I haven’t found any connections between him and Lucy or with anyone in your family. But it’s taking forever to get what I need.”
Patrick laughed. “You get pissy when you can’t break the rules.”
“I don’t break the rules.” Much. “I bend them.”
Sean usually sent the grunt work for background checks to RCK headquarters in Sacramento—they had more staff than the two-man office he and Patrick ran in D.C. In the digital age, information and how it was obtained changed rapidly. It took time to legally and quietly research anyone, and running a background on a federal agent had to be handled with special care.
In addition, Sean didn’t want his brother looking over his shoulder. Duke wouldn’t have a problem with a pro bono request from Lucy, but Sean preferred to keep his personal projects personal.
“So what do you know?” Patrick asked.
“Laughlin’s thirty-nine, from Missouri, been an agent for fourteen years, master’s from Northwestern in accounting—who gets a master’s in accounting?”
Patrick rolled his eyes. He opened the gym door for Sean and they both swiped their membership cards at the kiosk.
“He’s worked on the White Collar Squad in Detroit for the past five years, part of the joint gang task force, where his specialty is money laundering. He’s SWAT certified, but not part of the Detroit mobilization team.”
“Sounds like a good guy.”
“On paper.” He was harassing Lucy, and that made him an asshole in Sean’s book.
“What does Lucy think she’s going to get from this information?”
“I’m not done.” They dropped their bags against the wall and picked up free weights. “She just wants information to help her figure out why he dislikes her.”
“Slight exaggeration?”
“If you’d talked to Lucy, you’d think the same thing. If this guy’s harassing her—”
“You’ll stay out of it,” Patrick said. “Don’t make waves, not now.”
It irritated Sean that Patrick thought he’d jeopardize Lucy’s career. “I’m doing what she asked. She can use the information as she sees fit.”
Patrick hadn’t been happy when Sean first started dating his sister, but Sean supposed if he had a younger sister he’d be protective as well. Patrick seemed to have adjusted over the last few months, which was a relief, since they’d been friends long before Sean fell in love with Lucy.
Sean continued, “I think she talked to Kate, and whatever happened, Lucy is now more concerned. She didn’t give me the details, but there’s something weird going on. I trust her instincts.”
“So if Lucy knows his history, she can profile him and adjust the way she interacts.”
Sean nodded. “That’s how Lucy would handle it.”
“Maybe it’s you he has the problem with,” Patrick teased. “From your old days.”
Any other time, Sean would have laughed—it was common knowledge that he’d been a gifted hacker and now was hired to test Internet security for companies and governments. But he was worried about one crime no one was supposed to know about—yet at least one person did. Five more months and the statute of limitations would be up, and then Sean could breathe easier.
“Didn’t know you were so touchy,” Patr
ick said.
“You might be right, but it might not be me, specifically. Remember how Noah Armstrong hated me because of RCK?”
Patrick glanced at him with mock surprise. “You mean he likes you now?”
Sean glared at Patrick. Special Agent Noah Armstrong wasn’t Sean’s favorite person. Whether Noah admitted it or not, it was obvious he was infatuated with Lucy, and that irritated Sean. But they had called a truce, and Sean respected Noah. “Regarding Laughlin,” Sean continued, “he could very well have a problem with Lucy because of another Kincaid. No military service, but I can go a little deeper. The sooner I find the connection the better for Lucy. Information is power.”
“Good thing, it keeps our bills paid. If you need my help, let me know.” Patrick waved at an attractive tall and lanky blonde who smiled as she approached them. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”
“Who’s that?”
“Brandy. We’re playing racquetball.”
“Brandy Dale?”
“Yep.” Patrick had been seeing the daughter of one of their former clients, but Sean hadn’t met Brandy yet.
“We should go out this weekend, the four of us.”
Patrick shook his head. “It’s not going to last.”
“You know that?”
“Yeah, unfortunately I do. I’ll tell you later.” Patrick smiled and met Brandy halfway. He kissed her warmly; then they walked toward the racquetball courts.
Very strange. And it threw a wrench in Sean’s life—he’d been counting on Patrick disappearing this weekend so he and Lucy could have some much-needed alone time. But Sean couldn’t worry about his partner’s love life or this weekend.
Sean finished his basic workout, then ran three miles on the treadmill and considered what Patrick had said about why Laughlin might have an issue with Lucy. By the time he got home an hour later, he had an idea based on the fact that Lucy didn’t want to talk to Kate. There must be history between Laughlin and Kate, and it would have to go back to Kate’s rookie years in the FBI, long before she’d met the Kincaid family. It was a good place to start.
After his shower, Sean pulled Laughlin’s credit reports for the last fifteen years so he could piece together his life in the Bureau. The records provided enough of a skeleton of Rich Laughlin’s financial history to give Sean more paths to follow.
After graduating from Northwestern, Laughlin worked fifteen months at the Chicago accounting firm of Glade and Marsh. They specialized in corporate audits. No surprise that the FBI would recruit from there. How did Laughlin come across their radar? Work on a case that turned criminal? Testify in court? Sean made a note.
Laughlin did his time at the Academy but maintained a Chicago residence for several years, even though he never moved back to the Windy City. Why? Had he planned to return? Have a roommate? A lover? There was no record of any marriage in Illinois, Missouri, or Michigan. He finally sold the condo four years after he left.
After he graduated from the Academy, he’d been assigned to the L.A. field office and took up residence in the San Fernando Valley. Two years later his credit profile shifted east, first D.C. for a short time, then Alexandria, Virginia. Sean did a quick property search and learned Richard Douglas Laughlin had owned a town house in Alexandria and still owned it.
That’s when Sean’s instincts began to twitch.
Sean would bet the bank that Laughlin had worked out of the D.C. regional office before Detroit. There was a slight chance he may have been assigned to national headquarters, but since he only had a few years with the Bureau at the time, Sean gave odds to the field office. Which meant that Laughlin could have worked with Kate.
Sean quickly mapped out a time line. Kate had been in the Washington, D.C., field office twelve years ago—if they overlapped, it would have been only for a few months.
Laughlin had transferred to Detroit five years ago but still owned his town house. Sean did a reverse search and learned that Laughlin leased it to a married couple. A few clicks later, Sean found the current resident: Clark Mitchell, a doctor at GWU, and his wife, Lydia, an analyst for the FBI.
Maybe it wasn’t about Lucy but all about Kate.
Sean needed to dig a little deeper, but he couldn’t call Kate or Hans Vigo. Noah hadn’t been in the D.C. office five years ago. The only thing Sean could do was find out exactly when Laughlin moved to D.C. and determine if Kate was there at the same time. And if she was, Sean would give the information to Lucy and she could decide how to use it.
It was nearly noon when his computer e-mailed him a report. It wasn’t about Rich Laughlin but Peter McMahon. Sean almost forgot he’d started a deep background when Lucy woke him up at almost two in the morning.
Every McMahon it spat out at him wasn’t the Peter McMahon Lucy was looking for. Sean did find a Peter Gray who had attended college in New Jersey, but there was no record of graduation or transfer.
Dropout? The name was common enough that tracking the right one, with no address or Social Security number, would be difficult.
But Sean loved a challenge.
CHAPTER TEN
New York City
Suzanne hadn’t met SSA Tony Presidio before, but she certainly knew him by reputation. Though he was no longer with the Behavioral Science Unit, he was greatly respected within the Bureau and often consulted on cases outside of his field office. He wasn’t a large man, an inch shorter than her five foot nine and trim.
“I appreciate you taking the time to come to New York.” She led him through the maze of cubicles and hallways of the New York regional FBI office.
“I’m hoping I can help.”
Suzanne opened the door to a small conference room. She tossed her stack of papers on the table and motioned for Tony to sit. “We have a mutual friend, I heard. Lucy Kincaid.”
He smiled. “One of my students. She’s one of the reasons I’m here. She’s concerned about her name being in the victim’s files.”
Suzanne slid over a thin folder. “This is all Weber had on Lucy, but as you can see, she planned on digging around.”
Tony opened the file and skimmed it. “Weber wanted to play up the FBI’s use of civilian consultants. I found out last night from national headquarters that she filed an FOIA for Lucy’s FBI file.”
“They wouldn’t have given it.”
“No. She’s an agent; basic information would have been released—hometown, college, training—nothing else. But the information is out there; it’s just a matter of who talks.”
Suzanne eyed him suspiciously. “You’re not suggesting that Lucy had anything to do with the murder?”
“You ran her when you learned her name was in the file.”
Suzanne nodded. “I ran everybody, but I didn’t believe she had anything to do with it.”
“You ran her boyfriend as well.”
“Doesn’t mean I think he did it, either. Just covering all bases.”
Tony raised an eyebrow. “I assumed they passed.”
“Rogan was in Sacramento; Lucy was at Quantico. I wouldn’t say it was impossible that one or both of them could have come here, killed her, and covered their tracks, but that’s a lot of travel, hacking, falsifying documents, and convincing more than one person to lie.”
Tony laughed. “Good to know they’re cleared.”
“I made you copies of all Weber’s files on the Cinderella Strangler case—who she talked to, who she met with, her ideas—but the research for her previous books is stored at Columbia University. Their manuscript preservation program, something like that. Detective DeLucca is tracking down the research assistant now.”
“Good. I’ll take everything back with me to Quantico—if that’s all right with you.”
“Less paperwork for me? You can have it.”
“I went to the scene last night when I arrived, and concur with the detective’s report. Staged to look like a robbery. Do you have her phone records?”
“Just calls—we’re getting a warrant for her text mes
sages; it’s going to take a day or two. We also have e-mails. Nothing that indicates who she was meeting at Citi Field or why. Except”—Suzanne flipped through papers—“this note on her desk.”
She gave him a copy of a sticky note that had a time written down.
“‘Nine thirty—RB.’”
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence. It was the last thing she wrote on that pad of paper, but she didn’t take it with her. Maybe wrote it down when she was on the phone with someone, or got an e-mail, or as a reminder to herself. But she was killed close to nine thirty on Tuesday night.”
“‘RB’—initials?”
“Probably. We’re running the initials through her address book, e-mails, phone lists. We have eight possible IDs so far, but half of those are outside of the greater New York area. NYPD is interviewing the others.”
“Can I see the list?”
Suzanne pulled it up on her cell phone. “DeLucca e-mailed it to me this morning.”
Tony looked. “Just names?”
“For now.”
“If she was meeting with someone, at night, even at a place she felt safe, it would be someone she’d worked with before or met before. Probably someone with information she wanted on the Cinderella Strangler.”
Suzanne nodded. “That was our thought. You said you knew her?”
“I was lead agent on the Rachel McMahon kidnapping in Newark. Weber was a reporter. We didn’t get along, but I didn’t have to deal with her directly—that’s why we have a media information officer.”
“Don’t I know it,” Suzanne mumbled. She would never live down the one time she spoke to the press and earned her “Mad Dog” moniker. And, by Tony’s expression, he knew all about it.
He said, “She was tenacious and liked scandal, always went for the most salacious details of any investigation she covered, but I never knew her to fabricate her stories, or lie about key facts.”
“Did you read the book she wrote about your case?”
“No. It came out five years after Rachel McMahon was murdered, and I didn’t want to relive that tragedy. Public Relations reviewed it and said there were no factual errors.”
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