Shattered

by Allison Brennan

  “Adam,” David said, putting aside all Max’s questions, “I’m not going to sit here and lie to you—I came in here believing the jury was right, that even though your trial was fucked, you are exactly where you belong. But when Maxine Revere gets an itch, it has to be satisfied, and if I didn’t talk to you in person, she would, and she doesn’t take excuses or bullshit. I personally don’t care. I don’t have a vested interest in this case or any case. I just do my job.”

  That had begun to change, because David had begun to care about the work he did with Max, but David didn’t want to think too much about that right now. He’d only noticed that lately, Max had been … different. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but she’d put up this wall between them. Last year he would have been grateful to get the space. Now? Not so much.

  “Ask,” Adam said through clenched teeth.

  “Your alibi was your mistress. Two of the other victims we’re looking at also had cheating fathers. How long had you been involved with Amy Lovell?”

  “Nearly a year.”

  “She was discredited on the stand.”

  “Fucking prosecutor.”

  “You initially lied to police.”

  “Because I didn’t know what happened to Chris, I didn’t know he’d been killed … I don’t know what I thought, only I never once thought that he was dead.” He took a deep breath. “I cheated on my wife. I’m not proud of it, but it wasn’t like we had a perfect marriage. We went through a rough patch and Cindy didn’t want a divorce.”

  “You did?”

  “You read the transcript. Don’t ask stupid questions.”

  David bristled. “I’m trying to wrap my head around the fact that if you are innocent, why you’re not exercising your right to appeal.”

  “Because my son is still dead! Back then, I was a borderline alcoholic. I’m clean in here. Not much else good about the place, but I’m sober, and I’m doing my time and trying not to think about anything else.”

  It was clear that all Adam Donovan thought about was the past.

  “Did anyone know about your affair?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Cindy didn’t know, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Cheating spouses always think that.”

  “If she’d known, she wouldn’t have been so vindictive on the stand. She really believes I killed my son so that I could run off with Amy. Yes, I wanted a divorce because Cindy and I argued every fucking day about every fucking thing. That wasn’t good for Chris. I drank too much because I didn’t know what else to do. Amy was a distraction and she didn’t scream at me. We talked more than we screwed. Cindy wasn’t a bad person, she loved Chris, just like I did. Her parents had divorced when she was twelve and she had it in her head that we had to make it work for Chris. We tried … God, we tried. We even went to marriage counseling. But it had been a mistake from the beginning. We were just too young and stupid to see it.”

  “So you and Amy discreetly had an affair for a year.”

  “Yes.”

  “You worked together.”

  “We both worked for the same software company, I was in IT and she was in human resources.”

  An idea came to David, but he filed it away to follow up on later.

  “It came out in the trial that Chris was drugged prior to being suffocated.”

  Adam flinched, then nodded.

  “He was buried in his blanket with one of his stuffed animals.”

  Adam nodded again, but didn’t say anything.

  “According to the transcript, the stuffed dinosaur was his favorite animal.”

  “He had many favorites—Chris couldn’t go to the zoo or mall without coming back with another stuffed animal—but he slept with the dinosaur every night.” Adam looked down, then whispered, “He said the T. rex would protect him when he slept.”

  “Who else might have known which was his favorite?”

  “Who cares?”

  “It might go to motive.”

  Donovan slammed his fist on the table. “There is no fucking motive!”

  The guard closest to them came over. “First and only warning, Donovan.”

  Donovan’s jaw tightened. “What do you want from me, Kane?”

  “Max wanted me to tell her whether you are guilty or innocent.”

  Donovan laughed out loud. “You a fucking psychic? Oh, that’s good. You come in here, spend thirty minutes talking to me and you can tell if I killed my son? That’s rich.”

  “I told Max I wouldn’t be able to do it. She has an uncanny way of reading people. Not a psychic—more like an astute observer of human behavior and emotion.”

  “So this has been a waste of time. You dragged me in here to talk about my son for no fucking reason. Unbelievable. Leave me alone, Kane. I don’t need this. I just want to do my time.”

  “Don’t you want to know who killed Chris?”

  “The world knows. The world believes I killed my son. Nothing else matters. I don’t live in a fantasy world. Every guy in this joint is guilty, but they’ll lie through their teeth to anyone on the outside that they’re innocent, then laugh all the way to the yard that they pulled one over on their girlfriend or attorney or the parole board. I’m not getting out of here. And if I appealed, got out on a technicality, the only people in the world I care about will still think I’m guilty. My life is over. Don’t come back.”

  * * *

  Amy Lovell had never married. She’d visited Donovan only once in prison, the month after he’d been transferred to Corcoran, but never again. She’d moved from Santa Clarita to Pasadena. Not far as the crow flies, but a completely different city, friends, job. Maybe she’d had a difficult time after the trial, maybe she just needed a change. Whatever reason, it wasn’t difficult for David to track her down.

  David didn’t want to believe that Adam Donovan was innocent … but he said he didn’t kill his son, and when faced with a reporter who could blast the news far and wide, David expected him to. All he had from the trial was the transcripts, and he couldn’t tell if Amy was lying based on the written words. He saw why the jury didn’t believe her—she hesitated, was asked to constantly repeat herself, and got trapped in a logic problem. Either she wasn’t bright, or she was flustered, or she didn’t understand what was going on.

  “Thank you for meeting with me,” David said. Amy was several years younger than Donovan. She had once been pretty—but the years hadn’t been kind. Or maybe it was how Amy felt about herself. She was far too skinny to be healthy, her hair was severely styled, and she wore unflattering colors.

  “I only agreed to tell you to your face that I will not let you drag me into this again. The press vilified me once, I won’t let it happen again.”

  “I only have one question.”

  “You drove all the way here to ask me one question?” Her distrust was evident.

  “Was Adam Donovan with you the night his son was kidnapped and murdered?”

  Tears welled in her eyes. “I don’t believe this,” she said. “I’m going to call the police. This is harassment. You can’t d-d-do this to me.”

  David softened his tone—difficult for him, because he wasn’t a soft guy. Amy might look tough on the outside, but she was mush on the inside.

  “Amy,” he said in an even tone, “I read the transcript. You became flustered on the stand and backtracked. You lost credibility in the eyes of the jury. I can just imagine how nervous you were.”

  “I didn’t know what to expect—the questions about my life, about things I didn’t want to talk about … about sex.” She whispered the last word.

  David was surprised that the defense hadn’t prepared Amy for questioning. It seemed pretty basic to David that you needed to prepare your witnesses, but this attorney was slipshod in many ways.

  “The answer is important, Amy. There are three other boys who died in the same manner as Chris. If Adam is truly innocent, my employer is ready to fund an Innocence Project campai
gn on his behalf.” That was partly true. But Donovan would have to file an appeal first, and he didn’t seem to be inclined to do so.

  “I told the court that Adam was with me that night. Through all my embarrassment, through the way the press dragged me through the mud as a slut, home-wrecker, and liar, I was with Adam that night. The prosecutor wanted the jury to believe that if I was telling the truth, I had fallen asleep and Adam snuck out. We were more than thirty minutes from his house. How could he have snuck out, killed his son, then snuck back into my bed where we woke up and made love again at five that morning?”

  “One thing the jury had a problem with, according to exit interviews, was that Cindy Donovan was working late that night—she was a tax attorney preparing for a major audit. Why wasn’t Adam at home with his son?”

  “That question haunted Adam. He won’t talk to me anymore—I tried. He doesn’t hate me. He doesn’t love me. He has no feelings at all. I’ve tried to move on with my life, tried not to blame myself, but I can’t help it. Adam hired a babysitter because he was angry with his wife for any number of things. I honestly think he wanted Cindy to find out about our affair because that would give her a reason to divorce him.” She rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath, but David didn’t interrupt her train of thought. “I didn’t have any illusions that Adam loved me, Mr. Kane. We were friends at work, we became lovers, and I cared about him. Yes, I fell in love with him. I wanted him to love me the same way, but I knew he couldn’t. Even then, I knew I was lying to myself. He was angry and hurt and frustrated with his marriage and girls like me always try to fix men who are broken. I’m not that girl anymore.

  “There’s no cell in my body that believes Adam killed his son. Not one. I hate that I was so wishy-washy on the stand, that the jury thought I wasn’t credible, that I was a love-struck twenty-year-old sleeping with a man ten years older. But you know what I hate more? That Adam was convicted for murder and he didn’t do one thing to help himself. It’s like he wanted to be punished. Where’s the justice, Mr. Kane? Because neither Adam nor Chris Donovan has seen it.”

  Chapter Nine

  Max reluctantly rented a car at the San Diego airport. She hated the process and hassle and complete unfairness of how they treated her. They charged her triple the rates and she self-insured. Her minor accidents were rarely her fault—the last time she’d been legally parked when someone rear-ended her and stole a diary she’d uncovered that ultimately helped her solve a cold case. Yet they punished her? Ridiculous.

  She read David’s notes from his conversation with both Adam Donovan and Donovan’s mistress while sitting in the rental car. She made a note to touch base with Stanton’s mistress—no assumptions, she told herself. Just because the police did due diligence twenty years ago didn’t mean that they didn’t miss something.

  Once Max was done with her tablet—as well as checking her e-mail—she drove out of the rental lot. On the freeway, she called Stanton and confirmed the time and place of their meeting.

  “I’ve asked my sister-in-law to meet us,” Stanton said.

  “That’s great,” Max said. “The more support and information we can get from Justin’s family will help. I appreciate your cooperation.”

  “I haven’t decided whether to cooperate, Ms. Revere. I talked to your producer at length. I grant you, your theory is interesting, but I still need more information.”

  “Fair enough. I’m ready to answer all questions you and Detective Kincaid may have.”

  He paused. “My sister-in-law Lucy is flying in from Texas. She’s an FBI agent and will likely be the only Kincaid willing to talk to you.”

  “She’s coming in from Texas?” Max mentally ran through the Stanton case. The name Lucy Kincaid was familiar, but because she lived out of state and had been a child when Justin was murdered, Max hadn’t dug into her background. She didn’t think she’d be useful in the investigation. Yet she was an FBI agent? Max couldn’t remember that in her notes.

  “You will need to convince Lucy of your theory, so bring your A game, Ms. Revere. I don’t appreciate being threatened, and I would suggest you avoid playing hardball with Lucy. I’ll see you at three.”

  He hung up.

  Max was not pleased with this new development. Not because Stanton was bringing in someone else—she had hoped to talk to Carina Kincaid, not only because she was related to the victim but because she had been a suspect for a brief time. She’d fallen asleep on the couch during the time frame that Justin had been kidnapped. Carina hadn’t heard or seen anything, according to her statement. Maybe the years—or different questions—could jog her memory.

  But convincing a federal agent of her theory? What was with that? As if she had to ask for permission to work this case? What bullshit.

  What did Lucy Kincaid know about the murder? Absolutely nothing. She’d never been interviewed, never been part of the investigation even in an ancillary way. And bringing in a federal agent to boot? What did Stanton hope to accomplish? Was he deliberately trying to sabotage Max’s investigation? Or perhaps wanting to listen to her theory then have the feds swoop in citing a multistate jurisdiction issue and tell her to back off, that they were reopening the case?

  That would infuriate Max. While she’d want their resources, she knew after almost twenty years the FBI wouldn’t spend the time and money necessary to find the answers. If they got nothing actionable after a week or two, they’d shelve the case again until something new came up. Been there, done that. It had been one of the biggest recurring arguments in her relationship with her ex-boyfriend, Special Agent Marco Lopez.

  Without Max stirring the pot, nothing new would rise to the surface.

  She rolled her neck, willed herself to relax. She held all the cards here. Law enforcement wasn’t interested in an almost twenty-year-old cold case. She had the time and resources to pursue Justin Stanton’s murder, but even more important, people would talk to her because she wasn’t a cop.

  Max called her producer, Ben Lawson. He put her immediately on hold—she hated that.

  Max wondered if Lucy Kincaid really did hold that much sway with Stanton. Stanton was the district attorney, he could delay access to files that would normally be public. She already had all the files that had been archived online, and had read every press story and watched every archived news program. The one thing she needed was the one thing that Stanton might be able to screw with—access to the retired detective who had led the investigation.

  Her research into Stanton told her that he was a hard-nosed prosecutor who first ran for DA ten years ago and won in a tight race. His last two elections had been landslides. He could run for a fourth term in two years—there were no term limits for the district attorney—but California political types said he was considering a bid for attorney general. There was a rumor—a deeply buried rumor, but Max had a good friend who worked on the Judiciary Committee in the U.S. Senate—that Stanton was on the short list for an opening on a federal bench. Was that why he wanted his son’s murder solved? Political expediency?

  “Hello, Max,” Ben finally said.

  She looked at the time on her phone. “You kept me on hold for three and a half minutes.”

  “I’m surprised you waited that long.”

  So was she.

  “Stanton is bringing in his former sister-in-law and she apparently has veto power on his cooperation.”

  “Which sister?”

  “Lucy Kincaid. He said she’s an FBI agent.”

  “I sent you information on the Kincaid family. She’s a rookie out of the San Antonio office—been there a year.”

  “Just terrific,” she said. A rookie fed. “She was seven when Stanton’s son was killed. I don’t get it.”

  “I’ll see what we have on her—if I recall, it’s not much. It’s difficult to get information out of the feds as you know.”

  She could call Marco, she thought. He was now an SSA out of Miami. But she didn’t want to ask her ex-boyfriend for a favor. Sh
e’d spoken to him two or three times in the last six months, but she wanted to keep her distance while she tried to work things out with her current boyfriend. Though she hadn’t really been trying to work things out with Nick.

  “I could call Marco instead,” Ben said.

  “I didn’t say I was going to call him.” When had her producer started to read her mind?

  “Let me see what I can find out without contacting any of your ex-lovers.”

  “Don’t be crass. Tell me what you have so far.”

  “On Agent Kincaid?” She heard him typing on a computer. “She was low priority because she was out of state. We have the basics—Lucia Kincaid, the youngest of seven children—by ten years—was born the same month as her nephew, Justin.”

  “Geez, how old was her mother?”

  “I don’t know, but there’s twenty-three years between the oldest—Justin Stanton’s mother Nelia—and Agent Kincaid.”

  “I recall that the father was a colonel in the army and the mother was a homemaker.”

  “Correct. The father, Patrick Kincaid Senior, retired after serving forty years. The mother escaped Cuba, the father met her when he was stationed in Florida. Moved around a lot, the kids are all army brats, in and outside of the U.S., until he took a position in San Diego shortly after the youngest Kincaid—Lucia—was born.”

  “Everyone in the family is some kind of hero or in law enforcement.”

  “So it seems. Hold on—”

  “Don’t—”

  Dammit, he put her on hold again.

  This time, she only had to wait twenty-six seconds.

  “C. J. just handed me a clip from the San Antonio paper. Seems Agent Kincaid married a security expert last October. Sean Rogan. He’s a principal in a private security firm based in Sacramento. They also have an office in D.C., but he works out of his house in San Antonio.”

  “This just gets better and better.”

  “I don’t see your concern.”

  “Where do I start? The victim’s father is the DA of San Diego. And how I find out that he’s on board with my investigation unless his former sister-in-law, who happens to be an FBI agent, vetoes my theory. And said sister-in-law is married to some security guy? What do you know about this Rogan? Is he like David? Or more like our IT security guy, what’s-his-name?”