Mortal Sin

by Allison Brennan

I nod, and motion for her to walk to one of the stalls on the right. She obeys.

  “Step inside,” I command.

  She hesitates. The last time we were in the barn it was for punishment. She raises her hand.

  I say, “You may speak.”

  “What did I do to displease you?” she asks, her voice quivering from cold and fear. I prefer the fear.

  “You are a woman,” I tell her. I motion toward the saddle on the wooden sawhorse. She knows what to do. I do not have to instruct her again.

  I don’t like to repeat myself.

  She whimpers, but bends over the sawhorse and exposes her bare ass to me.

  I smile.

  I take the paddle off its hook and stare at her backside.

  You will behave. You will learn your lesson! I think I shout the command, scream it, but I don’t say a word.

  I smack her and she cries out. It does not matter how loud she screams; no one will hear her. I hit her ass with the paddle again, the slap of wood on flesh arousing.

  But I will not put my penis in this vile woman. I have not touched any of them like that. I do not know where they have been. I will take care of my needs later.

  First I must punish this female.

  I hit her over and over, faster and faster, and she’s screaming and crying. One last smack and the sawhorse falls over and she lies there, sobbing, her backside bloodied.

  “Get up,” I tell her.

  She doesn’t. I grab her and pull her to her feet. She cries out in pain and falls to her knees.

  “You will crawl back to your cage,” I order her.

  I raise the paddle.

  She begins to crawl. I open the barn door and she crawls through the snow.

  I smile.

  Even the most stubborn females can learn to obey.

  Even Lucy Kincaid.

  EIGHT

  Though after meeting Kate Donovan Noah didn’t think she was a viable suspect, he still took the time to clear both Donovan and her husband, Dillon Kincaid, of Morton’s murder first thing Friday morning. At his desk, he glanced through the reports and statements again. Their alibis were airtight—not only were they out of town, but they’d had dinner with the warden of Petersburg Federal Penitentiary on the night Morton was killed.

  A rock-solid alibi didn’t mean that Kate hadn’t hired someone to ice the rapist. But nothing in her financials, or her husband’s, or Lucy Kincaid’s, indicated that they’d hired a hit man. Noah passed the financials over to an analyst for further scrutiny but didn’t expect to learn anything different.

  It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that Kate knew the sort of guy who would take down a prick like Morton out of the goodness of his heart, but that was a stretch. Noah was a good judge of character. He generally believed the worst in people until they proved otherwise, yet Kate simply didn’t hold up as a cold-blooded killer. Had she known Morton was in D.C. and wanted him dead, Noah suspected she would have done it herself, and his body would have never been found.

  Abigail walked in a few minutes after nine with two cups of coffee. “Didn’t know how you liked it,” she said, putting his cup down and dumping packets of fake cream and sweetener from her pocket onto his desk.

  “Black,” he said. “And thanks.”

  “Should you ever decide to bring me coffee, I drink mine light. Very light.”

  “Duly noted.”

  “Anything juicy? Smoking gun? Alibi didn’t check?”

  He shook his head. “The Kincaids—Kate and Dillon—check out. Morton was killed with a nine-millimeter—Kate has her service pistol, a Glock .45, and a personal firearm, a .38 revolver. Her husband doesn’t have a gun registered to him. Lucy Kincaid is licensed to carry, owns a .22 and an H&K .45. Not that any of those facts means squat, considering their connections to RCK and law enforcement—and buying a gun on the street would be easy for anyone who knows even a fraction about the underground that Donovan does.”

  Abigail laughed humorlessly. “It sounds like you want one of them to be guilty.”

  “No, I just don’t assume that they’re innocent.”

  “Whatever happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’?”

  He just stared. In his three short years with the FBI, most suspects were guilty.

  Abigail shook her head. “Come on, Armstrong. Kate Donovan had nothing to do with Morton’s murder and you know it.”

  “I’m inclined to agree.”

  “Did Lucy Kincaid come in yet?”

  “She called this morning and said she’d be in at ten.”

  “I’m surprised Kate is letting her come alone.”

  “I suspect that Lucy does what Lucy wants to do.” Noah didn’t think Lucy had faked her reaction when told that Morton was out of prison. It was too raw. He supposed she could be an extraordinary actress, but he didn’t see it. In fact, in Lucy he saw a rare quality: the inability to lie.

  Half the night, he’d been thinking about what she’d said and how she’d reacted. She’d been on his mind when he woke this morning after four hours sleep. He’d come in early to finish reading the files and financials that had landed on his desk at eight a.m. And he’d done more research on Lucy Kincaid.

  Out of all the suspects, had Lucy shot and killed Morton, she would have gotten away with it even if she’d called the police and confessed. No jury would have convicted her after hearing what she’d suffered at the hands of Morton and his sick partner.

  Noah honestly didn’t know exactly what to make of Lucy Kincaid, which made her both suspicious and intriguing. Her FBI file was surprisingly thick—and he’d been able to access it only after Hans Vigo cleared him. Few people knew that she’d killed Adam Scott, pulling the trigger six times, emptying a .357 revolver into his chest. It disturbed Noah, showing him that she could and would kill if threatened.

  Six bullets was overkill.

  Except he hadn’t been there. And if he’d learned anything in the military, it was to avoid the shortsighted criticism of the politicians and media sitting high and mighty—and safe—in the states, second-guessing command decisions when they didn’t understand the immediate threat.

  Morton had been killed with a single bullet to the back of the head. The point of impact told Noah that the killer knew exactly what he was doing and where to aim.

  Executions were for betrayal or money. And depending on the criminal enterprise, they were carried out in a variety of ways. A single bullet suggested a calculated hit. It seemed impersonal. A hit or business.

  Could Morton have been killed for a reason completely unconnected to his past criminal enterprises? Or by someone upset that he’d turned state’s evidence? Who had suffered when Trask Enterprises went down?

  “Abigail, can you run a list of all Trask Enterprise employees and associates? Current address, records, anything you can get.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “The method. Bullet to the back of the head. It’s cold and impersonal.”

  “Kicking his balls wasn’t impersonal,” Abigail commented.

  “Yes, but the killer, or killers, had privacy—the marina was deserted. No security cameras in the area. They could have beaten him to death. Tortured him. Shot every limb and made him suffer. If it was personal.”

  “Remind me not to get on your bad side, Armstrong.”

  “There’s one thing I don’t understand yet,” Noah continued. “Why was he here in D.C.? He had to have a reason. It seemed sudden and unplanned. Any word on the motels?”

  “Still searching. If he used an alias, we’re screwed unless some manager recognizes him. We’re checking both his name and his cousin’s name.”

  “What about someone who hasn’t checked out?”

  “Already ahead of you. We’re working that angle.”

  Noah’s instincts told him the reason Morton was in D.C. related directly to his murder.

  The Denver field office was interviewing everyone who’d associated with Morton since his release. “No
word yet from Guardino?”

  “It’s eight in the morning in Denver. I’ll start nagging in an hour.”

  Noah’s phone buzzed. “Lucy Kincaid to see you.”

  Right on time. “Thanks, I’ll be right there.” He nodded to Abigail. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Lucy was alone. Kate Donovan hadn’t won the lawyer battle. “Thanks for coming down, Ms. Kincaid.”

  She nodded. Noah led her down the hall to a small conference room. Lucy was a very attractive woman and seemed more mature than her years—her twenty-fifth birthday was next month, but she had the air of a woman with experience and confidence, who didn’t let people push her around. At the same time, her body language—tight, controlled, with minimal facial expression—told Noah she kept her true self bottled inside, that her exterior was a shell. He’d seen that yesterday when she first walked into the dining room—how hard she struggled to rein in her outburst after learning that her sister-in-law had been lying to her for six years.

  Lucy Kincaid was intriguing, and perhaps a bit mysterious.

  “We’re simply going to confirm your statement yesterday, and ask a few more questions,” Noah explained as he gestured to the chair across from him. “Can I get you any water? Coffee?”

  She shook her head. “No, thank you.”

  Abigail sat at the table and smiled. “We didn’t get a chance to formally meet yesterday,” she said to Lucy as she extended her hand. “I’m Abigail Resnick. I’ve worked with Dr. Vigo on several cases. He speaks very highly of your brothers. All four of them.”

  Lucy’s lips curved into a hint of a smile. “Likewise.”

  “Do you mind if we record our conversation?” Abigail asked.

  Lucy shook her head, her smile gone.

  Abigail pressed “record” on a small digital recorder and said, “This is Special Agent Abigail Resnick and Special Agent Noah Armstrong with Lucia Kincaid, regarding case file 201101120197. Ms. Kincaid, do you consent to have this interview recorded?”

  “Yes,” Lucy said.

  “For the record, Ms. Kincaid, you voluntarily agreed to come to FBI Headquarters and answer questions pertaining to the investigation into the homicide of Roger Morton?”

  “Yes,” Lucy said.

  Noah took over the questioning. He confirmed everything she’d said the night before, that she didn’t know about the plea agreement nor did she know Morton was out of prison. Lucy was to the point and professional. Knowing what Noah now did about Lucy’s trauma, his admiration for the woman grew.

  But he couldn’t let that cloud his judgment.

  “When was the last time you saw or spoke to Mr. Morton?”

  Lucy visibly tensed, and responded curtly, “Six years ago last June.”

  “Ms. Kincaid, thinking back to the time when Mr. Morton held you captive, can you remember anything—something you saw or something you heard—that might help us track down his killer?”

  She was wrestling with an answer, and finally said, “I’d like to speak off the record.”

  Noah almost said no. Then he nodded to Abigail, who paused the recorder. “You’re free to talk.”

  Lucy waited several seconds before she spoke with thinly veiled anger. “After my kidnapping and rape I spent months trying to forget, trying to put everything I saw and heard and felt out of my mind. And I couldn’t do it. When I gave up, when I thought I would have to learn to endure the nightmares and the anger and the fear and the deep, never-ending humiliation, it all finally began to fade. I don’t know how long it took, but I let it go. I let every memory disappear.

  “Now, all I remember are snippets of that Hell, and I refuse to put myself back there. Not for this, and most certainly not for Roger Morton. I didn’t kill him, I don’t know who did, but I’m not grieving. He was a disgusting, vile rapist who took pleasure in hurting women. He should never have been released from prison. I’m glad he’s dead.”

  She nodded to Abigail, who hesitated, then turned the recorder back on.

  “To answer your question, Agent Armstrong,” Lucy continued as if she hadn’t just spoken, “I don’t remember much about those two days, and nothing that would even hint to who killed that monster.”

  Sean had spent the last fifteen minutes convincing Lucy’s brother Patrick that he didn’t need to fly back to D.C.

  “Patrick, I’ll keep watch over her. I promise.” It wouldn’t be a hardship for him. Sean only wished he could have found a different reason to spend time with Lucy. “The bastard’s dead. I don’t think she’s in any danger.”

  “I don’t know.” Patrick was torn, and if this job weren’t so important he would have already been on a plane back.

  “Call her,” Sean told him. “I’m sure she’ll tell you to stay at Stanford, do the job. They asked for you specifically.”

  “I seem to recall they asked for anyone but you.”

  “There’re not many people out there who can do what we do with computer security.”

  Patrick sighed. “I’ll finish the job—unless Lucy needs me. Then Duke will have to do it on his own.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Keep me in the loop,” Patrick said.

  “I promise.”

  Sean said goodbye and hung up as he retrieved his email.

  He smiled when he saw the message from Jayne Morgan, the RCK research guru. He wished he could have convinced his brother Duke to let him take her to D.C. as well as Patrick, but Duke put his foot down. Both Patrick and Sean were computer experts, but Sean’s skills were in circumventing the law. One of the primary roles of RCK East was computer security. Sean could hack into virtually any system, but he didn’t have the experience on how to fix the breach. Patrick had the technical background to secure the system, just like Duke. When Patrick started working for RCK in Sacramento last year, they’d hit it off—and both of them had wanted to get out of the shadow of their older brothers.

  Sean read all the documentation Jayne had retrieved on Roger Morton, Adam Scott, and the Lucy Kincaid kidnapping.

  Since his release from prison, Roger Morton had been living in Denver. Until he’d come to Washington, D.C., for an unknown reason, risking his probation to do so. According to the plea agreement Sean now had a copy of, one slip up and Morton would be back in prison for life. What was so important that he’d risk life in prison when he’d been given a virtual get-out-of-jail-free card? And what did he know, or what had he done, that got him killed?

  Money or revenge.

  Revenge was the easy answer, but revenge pointed to the Kincaids, not Morton. Lucy had been a victim, and her entire family had a justifiable reason to want Morton dead. But would they do it?

  Sean thought not. If one of the Kincaids had killed Morton, why would they have lured him to D.C.? If he’d come to D.C. on his own and Kate or Patrick had seen him, they would have put him back in prison.

  Jack Kincaid, on the other hand, had the ability, training, and personality to kill. With more than two decades in the military, then working as a mercenary, Jack would know how to make Morton disappear.

  Sean made a note to research Morton’s other victims. Maybe one of them had the wherewithal to kill. But even as he began the research, he knew that if he uncovered something down that road, he wouldn’t turn it over to the Feds. He couldn’t see any justice in punishing a victim when the criminal got out of prison so unfairly. It was enough to send most sane people over the edge.

  Was Morton out for revenge? Had he come here to harm Kate or Lucy for their roles in putting him behind bars? He’d gotten off practically scot free, so Sean didn’t see why he’d risk his freedom for revenge, but then again he didn’t understand men like Morton in the first place.

  After revenge came money. Though Adam Scott had been the brains behind Trask Enterprises, Morton had carried out his plans. He probably knew everything there was to know about the illegal porn business. How would a guy like Morton make money if he was being watched closely by the Feds?

  He�
��d go underground. He’d been used to a certain lifestyle working for Trask, he’d been in prison for six years, and if he came to D.C. for business—for money—it had to relate to his experience. Previous life, previous contacts.

  Money. For people like Morton, it was always about the money. Revenge took too much planning, setup, and hatred. He’d violate his probation for money, not revenge. Reading Morton’s rap sheet made it clear he cared most about money, getting laid, and demeaning women.

  Sean suspected he was heading into dangerous territory. He was attracted to Lucy, and he feared his feelings would taint the evidence he had before him. Would he see what was important? He wasn’t a cop; he couldn’t be that fair. He didn’t want to weigh the scales of right and wrong, giving criminals more rights than victims. To him, people like Roger Morton were scum and didn’t deserve the rights they took for granted. Why was it that in the system, the criminals had all the rights? Where was justice?

  He didn’t understand what Lucy Kincaid saw in the FBI, or why she wanted to be a cop in the first place, being forced to work within stringent rules that protected the bad guys more than they protected the innocent. But she wanted it—and there was nothing he admired more than deep passion.

  He’d been enamored with Lucy Kincaid from the night Patrick first introduced them, a month ago when they flew out to sign papers on the new RCK East house and close escrow. The three of them had eaten pizza on the floor of the empty kitchen. Perhaps it went farther back than that. To the first time he’d seen her, when she came to visit Patrick and Jack in Sacramento more than a year ago. He’d watched her through his window, the way she moved, the way the jeans she wore hugged her long, lean legs.

  Of course the first thing that attracted him was her looks. Neither tall nor short—he’d peg her at five foot seven, but with legs that made her seem taller—physically, she was just his type. An hourglass figure, curvy in the right places. Athletic. And when she relaxed, Lucy had the most beautiful smile. But it wasn’t just a perfectly proportional body that enticed Sean, it was the whole package: her long black hair, her large brown eyes, and her brains. Her intelligence, passion for justice, and determination put Lucy Kincaid in a league all her own.