Sean drained his beer. “You want to know why I was expelled from Stanford?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Of course I do. I said I wouldn’t dig around, not that I didn’t want to know.” She smiled, and was relieved when Sean smiled back.
“I learned that one of my professors was a pedophile. I hacked into a cybercrime symposium on campus and exposed not only the professor, but the flaws in the new FBI cybercrime software.”
She didn’t doubt Sean had done exactly that. She was about to comment when her phone vibrated.
“It’s my producer.”
“You want me to leave?” he asked, though he made no move to get up.
She shook her head. “Ben, I hope you have something good.”
“Depends how you define good. I found another victim.”
She sighed. It wouldn’t end, would it?
“Where?”
“San Jose, California. A seven-year-old boy went missing from his bedroom eleven years ago. He was found in a shallow grave but several weeks later, and his body was not in good shape. They determined he died of a drug overdose, not suffocation, but he was wrapped in his own blanket with a stuffed animal. Father was having an affair. But it didn’t originally pop up on our radar because there was one other distinct difference.”
When Ben didn’t immediately tell her, she said, “You’re killing me, Ben.”
“There was a second victim. The babysitter was shot to death. The police went with the theory that a sexual predator broke in, killed the babysitter and grabbed the kid. When they found his body, they determined there was no sexual assault but attributed it to the fact that the sexual predator had accidentally overdosed him.”
“Was there any forensic evidence?”
“No. The police rounded up all the sexual predators in the neighborhood, but couldn’t get anyone to confess and with no physical evidence they couldn’t make a case.”
“The babysitter caught her in the act—wow. Okay, I’m going to pass that information on to Agent Kincaid.”
“The San Jose Police Department has ballistics—according to Nick, they ran them through the federal database and didn’t get a hit, but tell your agent that if they find the gun, they can match. I just forwarded you everything we have.”
“Nick? You called Nick?”
“Yeah, is that a problem? If I had to get information in Florida, I would have called Marco.”
“Don’t do that again.”
“You’re breaking up with him, aren’t you?”
“None of your business.”
“Everything about you is my business, Maxine.”
She hung up without comment and checked her e-mail. As Ben said, he’d sent her the file—she forwarded it to Lucy, then sent her a text message.
Found the missing victim—Jonah Oliver. Eleven years ago. His babysitter was shot and killed. There are some differences in the MO, but nothing substantial. San Jose police have ballistics, should be in the FBI database. Be careful, you now know she has a gun.
“Another victim?” Sean said.
“Yes. I sent everything to your wife.”
“Does it bother you not to be in the middle of things?”
“Who says I’m not?” She smiled and turned her laptop toward him. “I have my work done, just need to layer in the details.”
Sean’s face darkened. Before he could threaten her again—which she wouldn’t appreciate—she said, “I’m not mentioning Lucy. Your brother-in-law—Dr. Kincaid—has already agreed to give me something good, and I’m going with that. I stick by my promises.”
Sean relaxed and smiled. The smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, but he was softening toward her … as much as anyone as curious and suspicious as he was could soften.
“I guess we have time while we wait—another drink?”
“Absolutely.”
She wasn’t holding out hope that she’d get more information out of Sean Rogan than she had out of Lucy, but it would be fun trying to figure him out.
He was just as interesting as his wife.
Maybe even more so.
Chapter Thirty-two
“I’m never going to complain about traffic in San Antonio again.”
Ken glanced at Lucy. “You were raised in San Diego, right? We have awful traffic.”
“You have to admit, San Diego isn’t as bad as this.”
They were driving slow—at two in the afternoon—on I-5 through downtown L.A. Ken made Lucy nervous with the way he juggled two phones while he navigated traffic, but she didn’t say anything. She had to admit, she was a nervous driver. She had been in a car accident when she was five, and another just two years ago when she had taken a witness into protective custody. The person who wanted her dead ran them off the road. The only time she wasn’t nervous was when Sean was driving—not because Sean was unusually safe, but because he generally distracted her with conversation and jokes.
“There’s this great burger place in Burbank, which is probably where we’re going to stay tonight. My office reserved two rooms at a Residence Inn, just in case. I don’t mind driving back late, but I think we’ll need a day or two of interviews.”
“Burger place—I can afford a better meal than fast food,” Lucy said. She’d lost the bet—the warrant hadn’t come through yet, and they were already ten miles over the L.A. border.
“Sure, but they have the best burgers I’ve ever had. I just have to remember the name. Anyway, hold on.”
He picked up his phone. “Wham-bam! Got the warrant.”
“Call Gillogley,” Lucy said. “We can then hit the law office first.”
“You don’t want to talk to Donovan?”
“I do, but the last call Danielle made to her ex-husband has been bothering me. I’d like to locate Danielle Sharpe immediately—interviewing Cindy Donovan will help for the prosecution, but it’s not going to get us closer to finding Danielle.”
He handed her his phone. “Her number’s there, you can forward her the warrant.”
Lucy called Sandra Gillogley. “Ms. Gillogley, my name is Lucy Kincaid, with the FBI. You spoke to my associate earlier—SSA Kenneth Swan.”
“Yes. Are you here?”
“On our way in traffic. The warrant just came through. I’m hoping I can forward you the digital copy and we can expedite getting the name of the lawyer you referred Danielle Sharpe to. It’s imperative we find her soon.”
“Why?”
Lucy glanced at Ken.
He said, “I didn’t give her details. Go ahead.”
“She’s wanted for questioning in three homicides.”
“Danielle?”
It didn’t sound like she believed it.
“I can’t give you more details, but we are following up on evidence uncovered in a recent investigation. Will you give us the information or are we going to have to see you in person?”
Lucy didn’t usually get testy with people, but she didn’t like people who stonewalled just for the sake of maintaining a level of power over others.
“Send it to me, I’ll call you back after I read it.”
Lucy hung up. “What a piece of work,” she mumbled and forwarded Gillogley the warrant.
“She’s just doing her job.”
“No, she’s being deliberate. I know people like her—they need to always have the upper hand. She doesn’t need a damn warrant to give us the name of a friend she referred an employee to. She just wants to feel important and intellectually superior to others.”
“Never stop profiling people, do you?”
“I’m not a profiler,” Lucy said.
Her phone rang. It was Max.
“Hi, Max,” Lucy answered.
“You sound irritated.”
“Lawyers.”
Max laughed. “Well, at least you didn’t say reporters in that tone. I just e-mailed you information about a similar case in San Jose that fits the timeline. Boy, kidnapped from his bedroom, wrapped in a blanket with his stuffed animal.
Father having an affair, mother working late—she was a nurse and worked twenty-four-hour shifts—but there are two key discrepancies. First, the babysitter was shot and killed. Second, the autopsy specified drug overdose—same narcotic found in the other victims.”
“We can possibly exhume the body, though proving suffocation might be difficult. Inconclusive at best.”
“The body wasn’t found for three weeks. Buried in a wooded area behind the house, three miles away.”
“I take it the boy liked the woods?”
“I have no confirmation on that—something to talk to the parents about. But I think you’re missing the key point.”
“What?”
“She shot and killed the babysitter.”
“We don’t know that it was Danielle.”
“You said there would be another victim between Tommy Porter and Chris Donovan—this could be the one. And get this—my staff, as fabulous as they are and as careful as Danielle Sharp is—learned that she worked for a start-up company in the Silicon Valley, as the assistant to one of the lawyers. Jonah’s father was that lawyer. Read what I sent, if you disagree, be prepared to have a damn good reason.”
Max hung up. And she thought Lucy was testy?
Maybe she was. “Max’s staff may have found another victim,” Lucy said. She didn’t have time to bring up the e-mail because Gillogley called back on Ken’s phone.
Ken answered. “This is Kenneth Swan. You’re on speaker with me and my partner, Agent Kincaid.”
“My friend is Archie Frank, a partner with Duncan, Fieldstone, Frank and Devereaux. I do a lot of audit work with him. I gave him a list of three legal secretaries who had tax backgrounds, which is what he was looking for, and we ran into each other at a holiday function a year ago. He told me he’d hired Danielle and she was just what his office needed—meticulous, focused on the fine details. That’s all we discussed related to Danielle.”
“When did he hire Danielle?” Lucy asked.
“I didn’t ask; he didn’t say.”
Lucy really didn’t like this woman. She was more specific. “When did you refer Danielle to Mr. Frank?”
“I don’t recall. I would say it was two years ago, before April but after New Year’s. I don’t keep records of every call or referral.”
Ken said, “What’s the address?”
“Their offices are on North Brand, in Glendale.”
Ken suddenly swerved over three lanes and exited the freeway, making Lucy dizzy.
“Agents?”
“Here,” Ken said. “I almost missed the Glendale exit.”
I’m sure there would have been another, she thought. Lucy couldn’t wait to get out of the car.
“Exact address?” Ken asked.
Gillogley read it off; Lucy wrote it down but suspected Ken had memorized it.
“Should I expect you today?” the lawyer asked.
“We’ll call you back and let you know. Is this your cell phone?”
“Yes.”
“Keep it with you.” Ken hung up. “That should give her something to stew over.”
Other than his driving, Lucy liked Ken. He was chatty, but didn’t expect her to talk or share. He was easygoing, but could play hardball. He was smart, but also fun.
Why couldn’t she have a boss like Ken?
You could, if you wanted to move back to San Diego.
She couldn’t. Even before this week, she didn’t want to, and now she knew it would add more stress and conflict in her life. She and Carina might be able to get along, but Sean would be much happier working with Patrick in D.C. or Jack in Sacramento. Lucy had seriously been thinking of requesting a position in the D.C. or Virginia office. She had one more year to get through here, but after working with Dillon again on this case, she realized how much she missed him and Kate.
But she loved San Antonio, and the only reason she’d been thinking of leaving was because of the conflict with her new boss. She didn’t want to run away because a situation became too difficult. She ran into trouble and danger head-on, why couldn’t she manage her professional life in the same way?
Ken was back on the phone. “Hey, I need the second warrant—the one to get Danielle Sharpe’s employment records, personnel file, address, whole nine yards. Where is it?” He listened a minute. “You have ten minutes, we know where she works. If she’s there, we’re arresting her—if she’s not, we need all her data and it’s a fucking law office. They’re not going to give us shit without a warrant.”
He hung up. “I explained exactly what I needed, and they put it all in one warrant—Archie Frank will laugh us out the front door.”
“You read it?” While driving?
“I read fast. I can just tell at the beginning that they were being too general, thinking I could use this with anyone other than Gillogley, but I know lawyers, and if this guy has a stick up his ass, he’ll bark just because he can. Text Richardson all the vitals—name, address, yada yada.”
Lucy typed on his phone, happy to do it so Ken didn’t take his eyes off the road.
“So you think your reporter buddy was right about this other victim? What’s-his-name?”
“Jonah. I haven’t read her evidence yet. But she wouldn’t have sent it if she wasn’t certain. The babysitter was shot and killed, she wanted me to be careful because that changes Danielle’s MO. She’s willing to kill whoever tries to stop her from taking the kid.”
“Do we need backup?”
“The chance that she has a gun with her at her place of employment is slim—we need to be cautious. I don’t want us to tip our hand. We ask to see her, we don’t tell anyone why, and we arrest her immediately.”
“Works for me. The L.A. office has been alerted.”
“If she’s not at the office, we call in backup for her house.”
“Why wouldn’t she be? It’s Monday afternoon.”
“You heard her on the phone—she’s cracking. I suspect this is part of the cycle—her ex-husband said her calls were emotional, ranging from calm reminiscing to verbal attacks. In fact, we should get Glendale PD to take her into custody while we find out who she’s targeting. The more information we have when we interrogate her, the better.”
“Fine by me. This is your show, Kincaid.”
“It’s really not.”
“Hey, you’re the one who ID’d Danielle. We’re lucky Revere didn’t swoop in for an interview with the killer before we had a chance to nab her.”
“That’s not her style.”
“I haven’t had many—okay, I haven’t had any good experiences with a reporter, and I’ve been in the FBI for … thirteen? Fourteen? Wow, fifteen years this June. Damn. I’m going to be forty in July.”
Lucy had never had a case partner who chatted or jumped around the conversation as much as Ken, but it was informative to know that he’d been in the FBI since he was twenty-five. Most agents these days started the FBI as a second career and were already over thirty when they entered Quantico, including half her graduating class. Many came from the military.
“This is it,” Ken said as he pulled in front of a high-rise in downtown Glendale, a city northeast of Los Angeles. He popped an official duty placard in the dashboard so he could park in the loading zone. “My favorite part of the job,” he said with a wink.
Lucy almost laughed.
They got out and went into the building. “Eighteenth floor,” Ken said to the guard and flashed his badge, “and don’t alert the tenants.” He showed the guard a photo of Danielle Sharpe. “If this woman attempts to leave the building, please detain her and call me.” He dropped his card on the desk.
Ken didn’t wait for an argument, he simply passed the desk and hit the elevator button. “Sometimes,” he said when they stepped into the elevator, “they want to argue with you or flex some muscle, pretend they’re real cops or some such nonsense. Some of them are cool beans, some have been on the job, I can usually tell by looking. That skinny kid was a rent-a-cop.”
> Lucy ignored most of Ken’s commentary, mentally preparing herself for the interview with Danielle Sharpe. How to approach the woman, how to get her to confess. It went back to the eyes—Danielle couldn’t face her victims. She couldn’t watch as she killed the children because she had to distance herself—and that was going to be Lucy’s in. Photos of the crime scenes, photos of the autopsies.
Lucy’s stomach twisted in knots. She would have to look at them, too. She would have to steel herself against the pain and rage she would feel looking at the young lives cut short. At looking at Justin in death.
They exited the elevator into a small lobby. Double glass doors led to the pricey law offices. Two receptionists had large desks in front of a stunning view of Los Angeles to the south. Stunning, Lucy supposed, because she expected to see a layer of smog, but today was crystal clear blue.
They walked in through the doors and approached the first receptionist, who was clearly surprised at the visitors. “You need to check in with the guard downstairs,” she said formally.
Ken flashed his badge, then showed the warrant which was on his phone. “Danielle Sharpe’s office—don’t call her, just lead us to her desk.”
“Ms. Sharpe isn’t in today.”
“Who’s her direct supervisor?”
“Uh, Nina. Nina Fieldstone is the office manager—she supervises all paralegals and legal secretaries.”
“Contact her and Archie Frank.”
“Mr. Frank?”
“Just do it.”
The receptionist immediately got on the phone. “Nina, there are two FBI agents here asking to see Danielle. They’d like to speak with you and Mr. Frank.” She didn’t say anything for a long minute. “Yes, ma’am.”
She hung up and said, “Nina will find Mr. Frank and she asked me to bring you to a conference room.”
“Actually, we’ll check out Danielle Sharpe’s desk first. It’s covered under the warrant.”
“I can’t allow that,” the receptionist said. “We have privileged information—”
“Don’t care, it’s covered.”
“Mr. Frank will want to read the warrant.”
The stately young receptionist was nervous, but Lucy had to admire the way she stood up for her employer and protocols.
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