Tough Justice: Countdown Box Set

by Carla Cassidy

  Lara deflated. She was starting to see these threads as damp fuses. A couple of sparks and then pffft. “Good news?”

  “Okay, I misspoke. There’s more bad news. Dunbar isn’t talking. Jennifer is giving it her best shot. She’s literally sweating him until he talks. But he’s not going to say anything until he absolutely has to.”

  Nick looked around the room. “Anyone have any good news? Any? I’ll take the canteen’s daily special being shawarma?”

  “It’s salad,” James said. His eyes were clear and he was sitting up a little straighter than usual.

  Lara knew the signs. “So what do you have, James?”

  “Penelope Porterini,” he said.

  “Wait, who? The Good Morning USA anchor? Oh, God.” If it had been possible for Lara to slump farther into her chair she would have. “What the hell has she got to do with anything?”

  “She quit—or rather she was fired. Remember why?”

  “No one remembers why, James. No one has time to remember why,” Nick said.

  James flushed a little. “Okay, sorry. She admitted she’d paid a surrogate to have her baby. Paid her a lot of money.”

  “Admitted?”

  “It’s illegal in New York. And a lot of other states. But she bought and paid for a baby in New York. The network said she would have been fired if she hadn’t resigned.”

  “Oh, my God, James! Get to the point. What does this have to do with the Whisperer?”

  “My question is—Why did she come forward and admit it live on television? On her show? Why not resign and quietly fade away with her baby?”

  The room was silent. Lara sat up straight and sought Nick’s eyes. It all clicked into place. “She was a victim. How long ago was this?”

  “A couple of months, so I figure there must be more,” James said. “I’m still researching. But Ms. Porterini is on her way in. I figured you’d want to talk to her.”

  “James, you’re the one who can talk to her. I’ll come in with you—but this is your lead. You get to run with it. Nice job. How long until she gets here?”

  “Should be soon. I’m just waiting for the call.”

  Nick swiveled to Christina. “Any chance you can look for BrainWave wannabe employees that maybe could perhaps sound like Michael? A name with the same level of ordinariness as Michael, or maybe another name beginning with an M.”

  She smiled. “So, going back to the original list of 600-odd?” she asked, getting to her feet.

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “No problem.” She laced her fingers together and cracked them. “My kung fu is strong.”

  “Never doubted it.”

  Lara started pacing the conference room, waiting for the ex–TV anchor to arrive. If she had indeed been the Whisperer’s victim, she must have communicated with him somehow. Maybe even spoken to him. Also, how did he know about what she’d done? Too many questions and just not enough answers.

  She was interrupted midlap. James pressed the receiver into his ear and after a second, took it out. “She’s here.”

  Lara had every intention of letting James lead this, but she also wasn’t going to let him tank them. She had her own questions she’d ask if he didn’t.

  Penelope Porterini’s eyes flickered when she saw James, and for the first time, Lara saw what she assumed other women did. A tall, square-jawed, calm-looking, confident man. Lara still saw a junior agent and she wondered if her impression of him needed an adjustment.

  They introduced themselves and escorted Penelope into the interview room next to the interrogation room Dunbar and Jennifer were occupying. She wondered how Jennifer was doing and mentally kicked herself for not checking in with her as soon as they got back. She hoped Nick would think to do so.

  Penelope had a crease running from her brow halfway up her forehead. Stress showed around her eyes, and Lara could tell she was trying to steady her breathing.

  “Do you want some water or something?” she asked, taking a seat at the end of the table, making an effort for this to seem less like an interrogation.

  “No. I just want this over with.” Her voice held the same smooth, pleasing tones Lara vaguely remembered from TV. Not that Lara had had much time to watch morning TV recently, but when she was undercover, watching the news, the fluffy parts of the morning shows kept her from feeling totally dark and introverted. Somehow, waking up and switching on the TV to that kind of show made her feel normal. A normal woman with a normal morning routine. Her life undercover had been anything but that.

  James took the lead. “I want to thank you for coming in to help us. We’d really like to understand the sequence of events that led to you quitting your job earlier this year. If you don’t mind.”

  Penelope swallowed. “I received a text message, on a phone in my pocket.”

  Lara frowned. That was a strange way to put it. She was about to ask for an explanation, when James continued.

  “A phone in your pocket?” His voice was gentle, as soothing as hers. He was mirroring her to make her feel comfortable.

  “It wasn’t my phone. There’s an all-night diner near my studio. I was walking from the coffee shop back to my office there at about 3:00 a.m., and by the time I got back to the office, the phone was in my pocket and it was beeping. There was no one on the streets that I noticed. No one bumped into me. And my jacket was a tight-fitting one. I had no idea how it got there, and that alone scared me.” She cleared her throat.

  “Are you sure you don’t need some water?” Lara asked again, wanting her to say no so she could hear the rest of the story, but also needing her not to bug out of the interview with a sore throat. She jumped up and stuck her head out of the door to ask Xander to get some bottles of water. It wasn’t his job to get them, and she knew he’d be pissed at her, but she also didn’t want to leave the room. But before she spoke, Xander barreled out of the viewing room with three bottles of water.

  They were all watching. Her mouth twitched but she didn’t give in to the smile. “Don’t you guys have work to do?” she hissed.

  “It’s just me and Ty. Everyone else is busy. Something weird is going on with Jennifer and Dunbar. She might be getting to him. So we’re just watching both.”

  “What do you mean weird? Okay, I don’t care. Just get her out of there and give her a break will you?” She ducked back inside the room with the bottles of water.

  When she closed the door, both James and Penelope were smiling, as if in a private joke.

  “Everything all right, boss?”

  “Yes. You were saying, Ms. Porterini?”

  “I got a text, on the phone I found in my pocket. It said to call a number—not the number that I was being texted from, though.”

  “Do you have those numbers?” Lara asked, trying for the upper hand and not really knowing why that was suddenly important to her.

  “Of course.” Penelope pulled a small well-used notebook from an outside pocket of her purse and flipped it back nearly to the start of the book.

  She read out two numbers and James wrote them on the back of the file. Lara looked meaningfully at the two-way mirror. She knew that would be all it took for Xander or Ty to get Christina on the numbers.

  Penelope brought her purse onto the table and pulled out a cell phone sealed in a Ziploc bag. “Here it is.”

  James picked it up between two fingers and looked at the mirror the same way Lara had done. There was a knock at the door almost immediately. Ty strode in and took the phone without saying a word.

  “You sealed it in a plastic bag?” Lara asked.

  “I, too, have seen at least one episode of Law and Order,” Penelope said. “Only his and my fingerprints should be on it, and the New York PD has mine on file from my arrest.”

  Lara wanted to know more about this thing that had h
appened—and got her arrested.

  But James continued with the logical and linear story. “Did you call him?” he asked.

  “Of course. I thought it might be a lead on a story.”

  Lara smiled. “What kind of story would be useful for a morning show anchor?”

  Penelope didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she seemed to enjoy it. “I used to be an investigative reporter. Although strange, that wouldn’t have been the oddest way I’d gotten information. When you spend your time investigating corrupt police departments and Pentagon contractors, you’d be surprised how you find your leads.”

  Lara stared at her, almost in admiration. She must have balls of steel. “You seem to have had an exciting life. Why did you give it up to do a morning show?” She was beginning to feel like Penelope was the flip side to Lara. Why weren’t they friends already?

  Penelope’s smile disappeared. “I got married, and we both agreed that living life on the edge as an investigative reporter was not conducive to having a family. So I quit, got a morning job so I’d be home every evening. But I couldn’t stay pregnant. Five miscarriages in two years.” She paused and her chin went up a few millimeters. “After trying everything, the only option was surrogacy. We had a beautiful baby girl. But after a week of loving our daughter, of changing her diapers, watching her sleep, making plans for her, the surrogate decided she wanted the baby back. Which was her right, of course.”

  Lara reeled. “Oh, my God. That’s terrible.”

  Penelope shrugged. “Giving that baby up was the hardest thing I’d ever done. And I’ve been shot before.” She laughed mirthlessly.

  “So my husband and I decided to break the law. Instead of going through the state for a baby, we decided to privately arrange and pay for a surrogate. Not that we’d have more rights, of course—it’s against the law in New York—but money is a powerful motivator for someone to actually go through with the process. And it worked. I had a beautiful baby, and everything was perfect, for a few years.”

  James looked at Lara. She realized she was rubbing her stomach. She caught his gaze and snatched her hand away. “So what did the person say when you called?”

  “He said that he would blow up an elementary school at 10:00 a.m. the following day if I didn’t come clean about breaking the law.”

  “It was definitely a he?” James asked.

  Penelope hesitated. “I... I don’t know actually. He was using one of those voice distorters. I always assumed so...” Her words trailed off as if she were considering her assumption. “I think it was a man. He used the word it when he was referring to my daughter. In my opinion, most women would refer to a baby by its gendered pronoun. That’s not a definite, of course, but it’s a probability. Women also tend to write threats, rather than speak them.”

  Lara like the way Penelope’s mind worked.

  “So what happened after he threatened you?” James asked.

  “I went home and talked to my husband.” Her mouth twisted a little. “He wanted me to ignore it. Said that it was just some trick.”

  “But you didn’t?” Lara leaned in, putting her arms on the table.

  “No. I was fairly sure it was real. Where’s the personal gain? If he’d asked for money to keep quiet, I’d have paid. So with other children’s lives at stake, it was a no-brainer for me. A heartbreaking no-brainer.” She fell silent as if reliving the thought of giving up her baby for the second time.

  “I asked my coanchor to interview me about it on-air, as the texter had requested. I’d hoped for some leniency from my employer, but I didn’t get it. The police arrested and interviewed me, but the DA didn’t see the benefit of pressing charges. I’d already lost my job, even though they did me the courtesy of saying they’d accepted my resignation. The surrogate was in a different state, already pregnant with someone else’s baby, and didn’t want Jessie, so the DA’s options were to press charges against my husband and me, and place Jessie into the care system, or consider that a trial did not benefit the citizens of New York. She decided on the latter, thank goodness.”

  “How do you think he knew what you’d done?” James asked.

  “I really don’t know. I didn’t tell anyone—I mean, I knew I was breaking the law. I posted on Facebook pages and chat rooms about my story, but I always logged in with a fake name that was in no way associated with me, or anything about me.”

  “Did you post from home, though?”

  “Yes, or the office. Do you think...” Her voice trailed off.

  “He could have tracked you by your IP address. Or he could have pretended to be someone on the chat room boards, gradually getting information from you. It could have been anything,” Lara said. But even as she mentioned it, she wondered why he would trawl surrogacy sites to see if anyone famous was... Yeah, that didn’t sound right. He must have found her first, and then tried to find what she was into that he could exploit.

  Maybe they were looking at this from the wrong angle. Maybe all the victims had crossed paths with him at some stage—done him wrong. She couldn’t wait to float that idea.

  “So you kept your daughter, and there was no bombing. Did the man contact you again?” James continued.

  “I never heard from him again,” she said. Although her expression changed slightly.

  James and Lara left her in silence, hoping she would elaborate.

  “My husband left me after my interview. He said his company would fire him unless he divorced me. He told them he didn’t know anything about surrogacy being illegal etcetera, etcetera...and I have to admit that in the midst of the whole fallout, I wondered if he’d been responsible for the whole thing. He made a clear break from Jessie and me, and came into very lucrative stock options the day after our divorce was finalized. So you’ll understand why I wondered, just for a second, if he had anything to do with it.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Lara said.

  Penelope smiled. “I’m over it. Well, over him, at least. Honestly—I have a nice life now. I work when I want to, and I live in a small town in Connecticut with my daughter who has just started school. It’s actually not bad.”

  “You didn’t tell the police about the threatened bombing?”

  “Oh, no. I figured it was just a...” Her mouth dropped open. “Oh, my God. Are the recent bomb attacks related in some way? Oh, my God!” Her hand flew to her mouth.

  “Possibly,” James said.

  “No,” Lara said at the same time. They both looked at each other. Lara rolled her eyes.

  “The truth is, we don’t know. It’s possible. But please don’t write about this. We’re in the middle of an investigation...”

  “I’m not a reporter anymore. I can keep a secret,” Penelope said.

  “Oh. What do you do now?” Lara asked, making a final note on Penelope’s folder.

  “I’m a private investigator. Same skills, no boss.” She smiled and took a card from her bag and handed it to Lara. “I’m sorry if my not telling the police has in some way made this worse, but my head really wasn’t in the game. I’d been fired, my husband was leaving me, my daughter was going to be taken away from me, and I was facing the prospect of jail. My world was really, really small when it happened.”

  “That’s totally understandable.”

  Penelope nodded at the card. “Call if you need anything else. I have to catch the train back to New Canaan in time to pick Jessie up from her babysitter.”

  They all stood up and shook hands. “Thank you so much for coming in, we really appreciate it.”

  “Not a problem,” she said.

  “I’ll walk you to the elevator,” Lara said, opening the door and gesturing her through.

  When they stopped and Lara pressed the descend button, Pamela held her hand out to shake. Lara grasped her hand.

  “If you need to talk about any
thing, you should feel free to call me. You’ve lost a baby, too, haven’t you?” she said, compassion lining her face.

  Lara hesitated. “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

  Penelope dropped her hand. “You should come out to New Canaan and talk sometime.” She smiled and shifted her bag to her other shoulder. The elevator doors opened and she stepped inside. She pointed at the card in Lara’s hand and mouthed “Call me” with her thumb and pinkie mimicking a phone. Then she looked down at her own hand and rolled her eyes.

  The doors closed. Lara touched her stomach again. Hesitating before going back into the conference room, she thought about what needed to be done. They were about fifteen hours into the twenty-four-hour deadline. Dropping her hand and steeling herself, she headed down the hall.

  The countdown clock in the room confirmed her estimation. “All right. What have we got? Christina?”

  Christina stood up. “The two numbers she said she called were both burner phones, bought in New Jersey somewhere—I’m still chasing that down—and discarded after the two phone calls. Neither are switched on, so I’m unable to trace them. Honestly, they’re probably in a landfill somewhere. The actual phone seems to have been bought in New Jersey, too. Too early for prints, or other physical information. I’ve expedited it, and the earliest they can get their findings to us is five hours or so.”

  Lara looked at her watch. That would take them to after midnight. Thank God for the forensic night shift. She picked up the phone on the table and hit a speed-dial button. She needed to get the sketch artist to Dan. “Carla. It’s possible a guy that runs a convenience store saw our perp. Can you get down there and see what you can piece together? Listen. If he’s high, ask when he won’t be high and try get back there then, okay?”

  Carla laughed, but took the address and agreed. “Good thing I don’t have a date tonight!”

  “What are these things called dates you speak of?” Lara replied wryly.

  Carla laughed at her. “Right?”

  Lara said goodbye and finished the call. As soon as she did, her cell phone rang.

  “Agent—”