Playing Dead pb-3

by Allison Brennan

  Claire walked to the door, shaking her head. Something was up with Dave, and she wished she could get him alone for five minutes. Then get him out of here. She needed time to unwind with Mitch, to clear her head and figure out what her next step would be.

  But maybe Dave knew something about her dad. . that worried her. What if there was a sting in progress? What if they were tracking her father right now? And Dave wanted to warn her, but Mitch was here. .

  She glanced through the peephole again. Agent Steve Donovan. She pounded her fist on the wall. “I don’t believe this!” She flung open the door. “What are you doing here? Harassing me again?”

  “We can do this easy or hard, whatever you like,” Agent Donovan said, then saw Dave and Mitch in the living room. “You might want to get rid of your company. We don’t need to bring anyone else into this business.”

  “No.” She crossed her arms, anger and hurt building inside. She didn’t want to do this. Why did Agent Donovan have to come by now? Why did he have to mentally torture her this way? How could she throw him off without outright lying to him?

  Donovan started to step inside, but Claire put up her hand. She’d never let the Fed into her house before, and she wasn’t about to now. “Stand there. Talk.”

  “The hard way? I can bring you in for questioning.”

  Dave crossed over and stood next to her. “I’m Sergeant David Kamanski with the Sacramento Police Department. Is Ms. O’Brien under arrest?”

  “I don’t have to arrest her to bring her in for questioning.”

  “And she doesn’t have to come in unless you arrest her.”

  “Dave,” Claire said, putting up her hand. “I’ve handled Agent Donovan before. This is nothing new.”

  “I’m afraid this is something new,” Donovan said. “You’re interfering with a federal investigation. Give me ten minutes and I’ll have the U.S. Attorney’s office draft up a warrant for your arrest. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt right now, but you have some questions to answer or I will bring you in.”

  “I’m not interfering with anything.”

  Donovan looked at a slip of paper in his hand. “This morning, you spoke with Detective Theo Barker with the Davis Police Department and obtained a copy of Oliver Maddox’s missing person’s report under the pretense of being a private investigator working on an insurance claim.”

  “I am a private investigator and I do work insurance claims,” Claire said, her heart pounding. Why now? Why in front of Dave? God, why in front of Mitch? She didn’t want to drag either of them into this. But she couldn’t back down. Backing down was a sign of weakness.

  “You also spoke with Tammy Amunson yesterday on the UCD campus regarding what she knew of her boyfriend Oliver Maddox’s disappearance and the thesis he was working on. Then this morning you had a verbal argument with Professor Don Collier, said individual’s advisor. Collier canceled his classes and no one has seen him since. You need to come clean, Claire. What did you and Collier argue about?”

  “He canceled his classes?” She’d suspected he was hiding something. Now she knew. She had to talk again to Sizemore, the head of the Western Innocence Project. Something was strange with that operation, or at least about how her father’s case had been handled. It reminded her that she needed to do a more thorough background check on Collier, and for that she’d need to go back to the Rogan-Caruso offices.

  “Well?”

  “I didn’t break any laws,” she said, distracted. “You can leave now.”

  “I think you’ve been in contact with your father, Claire,” Donovan said suddenly, shocking her into a double take.

  “What?”

  “We know he’s in town. We have surveillance footage of him at a diner off the interstate headed for Sacramento.”

  “I don’t know where my father is,” she said firmly. “You can go now.”

  Dave stepped forward. “You heard her.”

  “I believe you,” Donovan said.

  “Good,” Dave said.

  Claire looked at the Fed oddly.

  Donovan said, “I believe you don’t know where he is. I’m asking have you been ‘in contact’ with your father.”

  She shook her head. She was shaking. This was all coming to a head too fast. She hadn’t finished pursuing all possibilities. And there were so many. She felt the weight of doing this all alone, but she stood straighter and looked Donovan in the eye. “Get off my property.”

  Two strong hands rested firmly on her shoulders. She glanced up and saw Mitch behind her. He hadn’t said anything since the Fed walked in, but his stalwart, quiet presence comforted her.

  There was too much riding on this. She had to follow up on Frank Lowe and Taverton’s personal papers. She had to talk to Lowe’s former boss in Isleton.

  Mitch said, “You need to back down. This is Claire’s home.” He squeezed her shoulders, and she leaned back against him. She was independent to a fault, she knew that, but having Mitch behind her-literally and figuratively-renewed her inner strength.

  “Like I told you last night, Mr. Bianchi, aiding and abetting is a-”

  “That’s enough!” Dave exclaimed.

  Claire frowned at him. “Dave, I-”

  “They’re playing you, Claire. Good cop, bad cop. Classic game.”

  Claire didn’t know what Dave was talking about, but her head began to pound. “This isn’t a game. This is just the Feds going after my dad. We talked about this, and there’s-”

  “No, Claire, it’s more than that.”

  Mitch’s hands fell from her shoulders. She almost didn’t register it, until she felt chilled.

  Her brain registered the deception before her heart felt it. Then, like a knife cutting through her skin, she bled inside.

  She stared at Dave. Everyone was silent. She felt like a child, the last person in the room who still believed in Santa Claus, until his beard was pulled off.

  “Agent Donovan, you need to leave,” she said, her voice shaky.

  “We’ll talk tomorrow,” Donovan said, stepping back.

  “Bianchi?” Dave said.

  Mitch didn’t say anything.

  “Or should I say Special Agent Bianchi?”

  Claire faced Mitch. He stood only a foot behind her. Santa Claus wasn’t real. And neither was Mitch.

  When she looked in Mitch’s eyes she knew Dave spoke the truth. The blood drained from her face and her heart emptied, leaving her with a sick, hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  “Claire-” Mitch reached out to touch her face.

  She turned from him, biting her cheek to keep from yelling or crying or coming out swinging. She wanted to do all three. Instead, she found her voice for one word.

  “Leave.”

  The unbearably long time-twenty-five seconds-it took for Mitch to join Agent Donovan on the porch tested Claire’s resolve. But she stood firm.

  She slammed the door behind them, dry heaving.

  Dave stepped toward her, touched her lightly on the back. “Claire, sweetheart, I’m so sorry-”

  She turned and pushed him in the chest so hard he took a step back. “You asshole! You did a background check on him when I told you not to! I’ve told you over and over to leave my boyfriends alone!”

  “I wanted to protect you. I wasn’t going to say anything, but then I didn’t know he was an FBI agent until. .”

  “Just go. Just leave. Leave me alone!”

  “Please don’t. .”

  “Now.” She didn’t want Dave to see her fall apart. She didn’t want anyone to witness her pain.

  Reluctantly, he left. Claire bolted the door behind him, her body sliding bonelessly to the hardwood floor. She hugged her knees tightly to her chest and sobbed uncontrollably.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Mitch sat in the Fox amp; Goose drinking Guinness while Steve talked at him-at him, because Mitch wasn’t listening. He couldn’t get Claire’s stricken expression out of his mind. The strong beer did nothing to dim
inish the awful memory.

  “Mitch, listen up,” Steve said. “We have to come up with another plan.”

  “Plan. Right. Bring Nolan back to town and have him sidle up to Claire. Word from the single women around the watercooler is that he’s good-looking.” Mitch drained his first pint and motioned to the bartender to bring him another.

  Mitch had never drunk Guinness before meeting Claire; the rich brew had ruined all other beers for him. Worse, the dark stout and Claire were a joint memory.

  “Get serious, Mitch. I know it’s a blow, and I know you like the girl, but we have an overriding issue: finding O’Brien. Because we’re confident he’s in town, we need to stake out Claire’s house. We’ll bring in another team since we’re too recognizable.”

  “Claire will spot a tail.”

  “We don’t have a choice. We can ask for Lexie-being a woman might provide a bit of cover, and she’s one of the best at discretion.”

  “Lexie’s good. And she doesn’t look like a Fed.”

  “And we do?”

  Mitch looked at Steve. “You more than me, but yeah, we do.”

  Claire was never going to forgive him.

  “Spill it,” Steve said. “Something’s different. I know you’re hung up on O’Brien’s daughter, but this-I’m sorry she had to find out like she did, but you knew it was going to happen sooner or later. Get over it. It’s just a job.”

  Mitch slammed the pint on the table with more force than he intended. Beer sloshed over the sides. “It was more than the job.”

  Mitch wiped up the spill with cocktail napkins and drained a third of the glass.

  “You’re in love with her,” said Steve.

  What did Mitch know about love? You don’t lie to those you love. You don’t manipulate them, use them, hurt them.

  “You’ll get through this, Mitch. Focus on the job. Hell, that’s the only way I can go home to an empty house some nights.”

  Steve motioned for another pint. What a pity party, Mitch thought. Steve hadn’t had it easy in the relationship department. He’d married his high school sweetheart, had a kid, then left, ostensibly because of his job. Steve, like Mitch, took risks. To save lives, sometimes you had to risk your own. Now his ex was remarried to a doctor-same long hours, but less risk of being killed. Steve saw his son every other weekend.

  “I’ll take you back to Nolan’s. First thing tomorrow we head down to Isleton and canvass for information about Oliver Maddox. He met someone there. That someone may know more about whatever got Maddox killed.”

  “Maybe he met his killer down there,” said Mitch.

  “I don’t follow.”

  “He goes down there, starts questioning the wrong person. That individual follows him, runs him off the road.” Mitch frowned.

  “Sounds plausible. You don’t think so?”

  “But if he was being chased down River Road he’d have both hands on the wheel. Would he think of swallowing the flash drive? Either he was nervous when he left his house in Davis and swallowed it as protection, or he saw someone he recognized who was a threat, and swallowed it to protect the information.”

  “And then was run off the road.”

  Mitch shook his head. “There was no damage to his Explorer to suggest that he was run off the road.”

  “You just said you thought he was run off the road. And someone can be run off the road without their car being hit.”

  “I was thinking out loud. Maybe he was but that doesn’t explain the contusion on the back of Maddox’s head. You know what I think?”

  “No.”

  Mitch visualized a probable scenario. “I think he stopped his car for some reason on Delta Road after leaving Isleton. Maybe to let a car pass. Maybe to help a stranded driver. Maybe someone set a blockade and he had to stop, or he felt sick or needed to take a leak. Whatever, he stopped. He got out of the car and someone attacked him from behind.”

  “Why would he turn his back on someone he didn’t know?”

  “He must not have thought the person was a threat.”

  “So when did he swallow the flash drive?”

  “I don’t know.” Mitch rubbed his face. “But he had to have had a reason, unless swallowing computer chips is the nerd equivalent to frat boys swallowing live goldfish.”

  “Okay. It’s plausible. So then you’re thinking the killer somehow got Maddox to stop his car and clocked him. The killer puts him back in the car and pushes it into the river?”

  Mitch nodded. “That week in January was wet. The river was running high. It wouldn’t have been too difficult. The Explorer was in neutral, making it easier to push.”

  “But wouldn’t it have gotten stuck in mud? Wouldn’t there have been tracks of some sort? We didn’t find anything.”

  “Four months ago?” Mitch shook his head. “Not a chance. Between the rain, sleet, heat, and ebb and flow of the river, any sign of major disturbance would be long gone after four months. If we had gotten there a couple days after Maddox went in? Yes, there could have been tire marks and other signs in the mud. But remember, most of the shoulder on River Road is gravel.”

  “I say I take you to Nolan’s and we both get a good night’s sleep. It’s nine o’clock and we’ve had two full days. I’ll pick you up at seven, okay?”

  Mitch relented, though there was nothing more that he wanted to do except sit here and drink away his guilt. But he had to be sharp in the morning. Having a hang-over wouldn’t help anyone-him, Claire, O’Brien, or Maddox.

  He paid for the beers they’d drunk and left. If he hadn’t had two pints, he would have seen the sucker punch coming.

  Dave Kamanski’s fist connected dead-on with Mitch’s jaw. Mitch’s head twisted around and slammed into the brick wall.

  “You fucking bastard!”

  Steve pushed in between them, a hand on Dave. “Cool off, Kamanski.”

  “You’re no better. You knew he was lying to her. You two give law enforcement a bad name. Would you do anything to close a case? Including destroying a fragile woman?”

  “Claire is anything but fragile,” Steve said.

  Mitch wanted to tell him to shut up. Claire was tough on the outside and braver than most anyone Mitch knew, but inside? Kamanski was right. She was fragile. She harbored pain and guilt and regret and grief so powerful it controlled her life.

  “Back off, Dave,” Mitch said.

  “Me? You set her up. You couldn’t just keep an eye on her, you had to date her? Lead her on? And it’s been going on for months. Months! You think you can just throw her dad back in prison and walk away and she won’t care?”

  Kamanski looked like he was going to hit Mitch again and Steve stepped forward. Mitch straightened and said, “If you care about Claire, you’ll keep an eye out for her. She’s in the middle of a dangerous situation.”

  “Tom killed his wife under extreme emotional duress. He wouldn’t hurt Claire for the world.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about.” Mitch moved his jaw back and forth, spit out blood-tinged saliva. It hurt, but there was no permanent damage.

  “Are you threatening me? Are you threatening Claire?”

  Kamanski made a move toward Mitch, and Steve put a firm hand on his chest. “You got one freebie. Next time I’ll arrest you for assaulting a federal officer.”

  Kamanski barked out a laugh. “That’s rich. You fucking Feds.”

  A group of patrons walked out of the club and suspiciously eyed the three men before quickly crossing the parking lot.

  “Claire is investigating Oliver Maddox’s death. He was murdered, Dave,” Mitch said quietly. “That puts her at risk.”

  Kamanski glared. “That’s none of your concern. I’ll keep my eye on Claire. You stay the hell away or I’ll file charges.” As he said it, he realized it was a dumb thing to say. “Just stay away from her.”

  Mitch knew Kamanski was right. Claire was none of his concern. He’d lied to her, and she’d found out in the worst way possible. If only
he could take it back. If only he could have told her himself. But what good would that have done? The truth was still the truth, and Claire wasn’t going to forgive him.

  Mitch couldn’t forgive himself. The pain of losing Claire, from I love you to the betrayal on her face. . Mitch wouldn’t sleep well tonight, or any other night.

  Steve said, “O’Brien is in Sacramento.”

  When Kamanski didn’t say anything, Mitch knew the cop suspected the same. “Have you heard from him?” Mitch asked.

  “No. If I did you know damn well I’d bring him in. I’m not harboring a fugitive, or helping him, and neither is Claire. You obviously don’t know her as well as you thought.”

  Mitch shook his head. “You don’t know her as well as you thought.”

  “Stay away from her.”

  “You need to go now,” Steve said seriously.

  Kamanski turned and stormed off. Mitch watched him drive away. Was his rage justified? Was it brotherly love. . or something more? Mitch squeezed his eyes closed and rubbed his temples.

  Steve slapped him on the back. “Let’s get out of here. We have a lot to do tomorrow.”

  Claire pulled herself up from the floor and staggered like a drunken old woman to her bathroom. Her entire body felt bruised and sore, as if she’d had the toughest workout in her life, but without the adrenaline of a good hour at the gym.

  The physical pain of Mitch’s betrayal stayed with her as she turned on the shower. She looked at her pitiful reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were swollen and red. When was the last time she’d cried over a man? She couldn’t remember when. .

  Yes, she did. Her father. When she believed he’d killed her mother. She’d cried then, too.

  But none of her boyfriends until now were worth crying over. Claire might have been angry, upset, or relieved when a relationship didn’t work out, but she’d never been so shattered.

  You fell in love with him. You fell in love with a lie.

  The tears flowed again and Claire clenched her fists, slamming them on the vanity. She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want to feel anything. She wanted to forget she’d ever met Mitch Bianchi. She wanted to harden her heart and keep the pain out.