“It is a person,” Lara snarled. “It’s my mother!”
There it was. The solar flare that slashed out of the rage in her heart. It was unforgiving in its wrath.
And it showed Halpert he hadn’t just hit a nerve. He’d hit the figurative, and literal, mother of all nerves.
He kept quiet for a moment, watching her. Studying her. Analyzing.
“Some might have moved on by now,” he finally said. “Gotten on with their lives, looked to a better future instead of a slow drag through the past. Again, sounds like obsession if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you,” Lara said, voice low.
She hated herself for it, but she glanced away. It was only for a split second but she knew Halpert noticed. Heat crawled up her neck and into her face. It was half embarrassment, half shame.
“No,” he admitted. “But I asked you and the answer doesn’t justify the means. Lara, I can’t see the bulletin board from here, but I know it’s there. Mother or not, that room of yours is what I’m sure you would so eloquently describe as a red flag.”
“What I have in my home is none of your business.”
Halpert was quick to respond. “That’s what I thought about my house, too. And yet the CMU decided to make it their own little dog and pony show.”
“You had a secret room where you plotted the death of hundreds,” Lara pointed out. “Mine is being used to try and solve a cold case. One that involves my family. There’s a difference.”
Halpert held up his index finger again. “Is there? A difference, I mean?” he asked. “I’m sure your room is a secret too, just not hidden like mine. And, you know, I also even started with a bulletin board like yours.”
“There’s no comparison between the two of us,” Lara said. If she was being honest with herself, it was more for her benefit than his.
By his expression, Halpert didn’t seem to agree.
“Would you call me obsessed with what I’m doing? Or just determined?” he asked.
“I’d use words like insane and God complex before I’d say obsessed or determined.”
“I guess the fact that I’m just trying to find justice and the truth means nothing then?” he asked. “Isn’t that what you’re doing, too? Isn’t that what your secret room is about? Finding the truth. Seeking justice. Aren’t we both doing the same thing but I’m working on a larger scale?”
Lara wasn’t as fast to respond.
“I’m trying to find the killer,” she finally said, speaking slowly so he couldn’t try to twist her words and use them against her. She wanted him to recognize the difference with ease, not have to search for it in a flowery speech. “You’ve become the killer.”
Halpert didn’t speak for a moment. In the distance Lara heard the wail of sirens. She didn’t let her hopes get up. They were too far away and never got closer. Just more background noise that made up the fabric of a big city.
“We’ll have to agree to disagree,” Halpert finally said. His lips lifted in the corner a fraction. His arrogance was starting to show again. “But, while we’re on the topic of killers, why don’t you tell me about your father now.”
Lara’s blood ran cold.
“His picture was on your board quite a few times,” he added on. “Explain that.”
She’d had it. She was done.
Her plan to keep the sociopath in front of her distracted was backfiring as her rage was getting the better of her.
“If you’re going to kill me, I’d rather not waste my last moments taking orders from a psychopath,” she snarled.
The muscles in Lara’s legs seized. For a split second they were prepared to work together. Ready to make her stand. Ready to end whatever game Halpert was trying to play with her.
There was no reasoning with a madman. She’d learned that lesson already. More than once, in fact. Halpert wasn’t anything special. Just one more lunatic standing on a soapbox, wanting an audience. Wanting to be heard.
A desire her rage wasn’t going to satiate any longer.
And maybe that’s what Halpert saw in her eyes.
His island of calm shifted in the waters.
“They’ll die if you die, Agent Grant,” he warned.
Lara’s rising anger swerved. Just like that he’d reminded her that sitting there wasn’t some little game. If she moved, if she decided she truly was done with talking to him and stood, she ran the risk that she wouldn’t be alone in her death.
No. Long Island would lose one of its schools. Parents would lose their children. Her team could very well be among them, too.
She couldn’t do that to any of them.
She wouldn’t.
“What? What are you talking about?” she feigned, talking through her teeth.
“My bomb, of course. The price your team will pay for not exposing their secrets.” Halpert made a noise she realized with disgust was his own version of an explosion. It was in tandem with his hands creating the motion of a bomb going off. “If you don’t keep me company and do what I say then you’ll be responsible for a lot of people not making it home tonight. You wanted options? There they are. That’s the choice I’m giving you right this moment.”
Lara felt her teeth grind together. Her back and shoulders began to burn again.
“Why?” was all she could ask.
Halpert’s expression roller coastered again.
“You may be done with me, Agent Grant,” he said. “But I am not done with you.”
Chapter Four
Brenda didn’t so much sit down as fall. The couch barely sank beneath her small frame. Though there was no denying there were secrets weighing her thoughts down. She seemed to be barely registering Ty and Jennifer’s presence. A point they were going to have to rectify.
And fast.
“You lied to us, Brenda,” Jennifer started in. Without talking it out, both she and Ty had opted to stand across from the woman. Sitting took away a small sense of urgency. They didn’t want that. Not one bit.
Brenda didn’t lift her gaze to meet Jennifer’s. Instead she seemed to fixate on a distant point on the wall behind them.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. There was a note of defiance in her voice, physically shown by the slight tilt up of her chin.
Ty watched, proud, as his partner didn’t let that stand.
Jennifer’s eyes narrowed. Her voice lowered. “Don’t insult my intelligence, Brenda, or yours for that matter,” she said. “You already have played this card with us. This ‘I don’t know anything’ routine and we’re tired of it.” Jennifer lowered her head. It drew the older woman’s attention to her face. And her words kept her there. “Your son’s real name isn’t Mitchell Halpert, a pretty substantial fact you seemed to have decided to glaze over the last time we were here, wouldn’t you agree?”
Ty half expected Brenda, if that was her real name, to show even more indignation now that the truth was out there and they all knew she’d been caught in a lie. However, the accusation seemed to have the opposite effect.
Instead of trying to bow up at them, taking a default defensive stance, she let out an exhale that deflated her. It made the woman look much older than being in her forties.
And much more tired.
“I’m not supposed to tell,” she said, barely an octave above a whisper.
“Be more specific,” Ty warned. “What aren’t you supposed to tell?”
Brenda melted more into the couch around her.
“You got any kids?” she asked, splitting her gaze between them. “Either one of you?”
Jennifer shook her head.
“No,” Ty admitted.
Brenda nodded more to herself than them. She let out a sigh. It wavered.
“You have ’em and y
ou love ’em and then you get trapped by it.” She must have caught the raised eyebrow Jennifer gave her. “The love,” she clarified. “You can’t leave it because it’s a part of you. You made it, you keep it. It’s what the world expects of you.”
“Until that world starts to be destroyed,” Jennifer added in.
“Blown up, to be precise,” Ty said.
“And then what the world expects of you is to be a decent human being,” Jennifer tacked on.
Brenda’s lips thinned but she didn’t make any case for her son. That, at least, was encouraging.
“My late husband was decent,” she started. “He was smart, too. Knew how to handle things. Knew what to say and when to say it. He was strong. Good. Made me a better woman.” The sigh that left her lips as she paused was all-consuming. Ty almost felt a blip of sympathy for her. Losing someone was never easy.
But he wasn’t about to throw her a pity party just yet. Not when she was hindering their investigation, effectively letting her psycho of a son wreak havoc on an entire city and its residents. It was one thing to protect your own flesh and blood. It was another to try and keep someone like Mitchell Halpert, or whatever his real name was, behind a maternal lock and key when you finally understood the gravity of what he’d been doing.
“But then he died,” Brenda continued. “And that’s when my son stepped up. He took care of me, of us. Told me if I did what I was told, I’d never be lost.”
“It’s supposed to be the other way around,” Ty interrupted. “The child isn’t supposed to give orders to the parent. At least, in my experience.”
Brenda’s nostrils flared a little. “You don’t know my son,” she snarled, spit coming out with the force of her words. “He’s smart. Smarter than me, smarter than my husband, smarter than you. I listened to him because he knows better than me. I’m not too proud to admit that.”
“He’s a sociopath,” Ty bit right back. “Able to kill hundreds without taking any of the blame or responsibility. What kind of man, what kind of person, can do that?”
“Sure, he’s smart,” Jennifer jumped in, putting pressure on their point. “But since when does being smart matter more than being a decent person?” Jennifer switched tactics just as Ty realized the older woman was a hair away from breaking. “Brenda,” Jennifer said. “Being lost is better than knowing exactly where you are right now.”
“Where’s that?” Brenda whispered.
“Standing in between us and your son.” Jennifer paused to let that sink in. Then she reached out and took the woman’s hands in her own. Mrs. Halpert didn’t fight or pull away. She just watched Jennifer with wide, shining eyes. Staring at the edge of her breaking point in the form of an FBI agent.
And Jennifer was about to push her over.
“Brenda,” she said. “Help us save lives. Don’t help your son destroy them.”
A pin could have dropped—hell, a feather could have dropped—and it would have been heard easily in the moments the followed. Brenda and Jennifer were locked in their own staring contest, Brenda waging an inner war neither could fight for her and Jennifer waiting for the outcome.
Ty was surprised that he, too, kept quiet. Not to mention, the goose bumps that had skimmed the top of his arms. Jennifer was damn good at her job.
She’d read the woman like a child’s paint-by-numbers book. And connected all the right dots.
Still, when Brenda finally spoke, he was still surprised at what she said.
“About five years ago he came home really upset,” she started. “But not scared—I don’t think he knows how to be scared—but angry. He told me something had happened and that we had to change who we were. Our names, too. He’s such a smart boy I knew he was right. We had to.”
“Why? What happened? What had he done?” Jennifer asked. She had dropped Brenda’s hand and gone back to standing. She’d already done her job. The older was broken. Now they just had to wait for her to empty out.
“He didn’t do anything,” she defended. “He just said that bad people were out to get us and the only way to keep me and him safe was to no longer be ourselves. This boy’s been doing math equations better than any teacher he’s ever had since he was small. Like I said, he’s smarter than almost everybody. So when he told me what had to be done, I believed him. Trusted that he knew what was right. He’d never done me wrong before.”
“So you changed identities,” Ty said.
Brenda nodded.
“We moved and changed our names but it wasn’t enough,” she said. “He told me we had to change how we acted, too. Where we shopped and how we shopped. What bank accounts we used and opened and closed.”
“He told you what to do about everything,” Ty said.
Brenda nodded again. This time there was a change in her demeanor.
Fear.
“He knew what was best and even got me a job at the hospital as a cleaner.” Brenda motioned to the house around them. “He got us this house, too. It’s nice.”
“Brenda, he controlled you,” Ty said. “Plain and simple.”
“It’s because I needed it,” she said. That fear he’d seen mixed with her need to defend him. It reminded Ty of Stockholm syndrome. Brenda had been under his thumb for years, able to be contained because of her husband’s death and subsequent feelings of abandonment. She hadn’t known how to raise a son like Mitchell. So she’d gone along with his will until it had taken over hers.
“Honestly, he’s a good boy,” she continued. “He—He just wants the best for me. He looks after me. Protects me. Just like my husband did.” Her eyes were no longer just shining. Tears, fat and heavy, began to streak down her face. “Whatever he’s done, just know he isn’t bad. He’s just...”
“Lost,” Jennifer offered.
She lowered herself down in front of Brenda again. While the information they’d gotten confirmed their theory that Halpert was an alias, they hadn’t really gotten anything concrete from the woman.
Brenda nodded. But it was slow. She looked pained.
“We need to find him,” Ty said.
But Brenda was looking back at Jennifer again. And so Jennifer capitalized on the hold of her attention.
“What’s his name?” Jennifer asked. “His real name.”
This time there was no hesitation.
“Michaels,” she answered. “Michaels is our surname. Our real last name.”
Brenda hung her head.
“And what’s the first?” Jennifer prodded.
Brenda’s hands clutched at the fabric of her pants.
“I can’t,” she said, harshly. “I’m sorry but I can’t do that to him. He’s a good boy.”
“But—” Jennifer started. However, Brenda was done. She whipped her head up and there was straight resolution in her eyes.
“I. Will. Not. Tell. You.”
Jennifer shared a look with Ty before she jumped up, phone already out. She stepped out of the room to make the call finally giving them a name they could search.
“Thank you for the surname,” Ty said. It wasn’t the whole name but he still meant it.
Brenda moved her gaze to him, slowly. “He’s a good boy,” she tried again. There was no real enthusiasm in it anymore. Her burst of emotion was already burned out.
“He was a good boy,” he said. “Now he needs to be stopped.”
Brenda didn’t nod but she didn’t shake her head either. She looked pained.
“He’s going to be mad I told,” she whispered. “And when he’s mad he’s even smarter about things. I—I shouldn’t have told you any part of his name. I swear I won’t tell you the rest. Never.”
Fear made doubt that much stronger behind her eyes. Ty had seen that before. He wanted to nip it in the bud.
“You did the right thing,” he said. “But
now we need you to keep it up. Your telling us even one part of his name and what happened tells me that you want him to be stopped. And that’s something we want, too. So, now you need to come with us back to the CMU office and explain it all.”
“You want me to tell you where we lived before and when we moved and stuff like that,” she guessed.
Ty nodded.
“I don’t know if I should,” Brenda said, worry knitting her brow together. Ty wondered if he’d have to pull the empathy card hard to get her to agree but she surprised him a second later. “But he’s going to be mad already.”
She stood but not without a long exhale shaking her body like a leaf in the wind. Ty even moved closer to try and steady her. She waved him off.
“I might as well go with you than wait for him to get at me,” she reasoned. “I shouldn’t have told you our name.”
Ty ignored the flip-flopping nature her mind seemed to be caught in. “He hasn’t been back here since we searched the place, has he?” he asked instead.
Brenda shook her head. “No but they—” she pointed to the front of the house, no doubt meaning the uniforms keeping watch “—won’t stop my boy.”
That fear was back.
It made Ty glance over his shoulder. Like the secret room upstairs, he realized he didn’t like any part of the house. There was just something about standing in the middle of a room where a man able to kill hundreds with no hesitation had lounged.
No, he didn’t like the house one bit.
“Can I change before we go?” she added on. For the first time since they’d gotten there Ty realized the woman had been wearing what must have been her pajamas.
He nodded. “But we’d appreciate it if you could hurry.”
“Okay,” Brenda whispered, already moving out of the room.
Ty felt the urge to pity her. Shuffling away, head bowed. She was defeated. Broken. But he bet that had happened before her son had started blowing things up.
“Christina now has the last name and is already diving in to see what pops with Eloise.” Ty turned to Jennifer, impressed at how fast her call had been. She seemingly picked up on the thought. “Nick was next to her and all he wanted was the name,” she explained. “Even if it wasn’t the whole one.”
Tough Justice: Countdown Box Set Page 57