By unspoken agreement, after tidying up and washing the dust off their hands, Carly poured them each a cup of coffee and they went to sit on the porch. They needed to be at Vivi’s in a few hours, and a little quiet time together would do them both good.
But after only a few moments of silence, Carly spoke. “What do you think this is all about?”
Drew looked down at the dark liquid in his mug, feeling like his thoughts were about as clear. He shook his head. “I don’t know, and that’s what worries me.”
“But why now? Why after all these years would someone track us down?” she asked.
“The obvious answer is that whoever is involved is going to start again. They think you know something and they want to keep you quiet.”
“But we don’t.”
“That hardly matters if they think you do. And of the two questions—why and why now—I don’t think why is the more interesting of the two.”
“Meaning?” she pressed.
“Meaning, I think what’s most interesting about this situation isn’t that it’s happening, but that it’s happening now, nearly fifteen years later.”
“Why was there such a long lapse of time and what has happened that would bring all this up again?” she clarified.
“Yes. I know Vivi is going to look into it, and I think if we can figure that out, we’ll be able to figure out the rest.”
“You mean like a triggering event with a serial killer? Figure out what the trigger is—what happened recently—and maybe it will lead us to whoever is doing this?”
He turned his gaze to the lake. “Maybe. Maybe it’s happening now because whoever he is just got out of jail, or, since we think a fed is involved, maybe he has been stationed abroad for the past fifteen years and just came back. Or maybe someone just came across the case file and wanted to pick up wherever the corrupt FBI agent left off. Maybe it isn’t even related to what happened fourteen years ago.”
“It could be a hundred and one different things.”
“Which is why we need all the data everyone is digging for today.” He stood and reached for her now empty mug.
She eyed him, then handed it over and rose as well. “Whatever happens tonight—whatever we learn—thanks for going through all of this with me.”
He nodded, knowing full well that what they were “going through” was just getting started.
• • •
Drew glanced out the window of his SUV and caught one last glimpse of the lights from the carriage house before the trees swallowed it from view. He didn’t like leaving Carly alone, but he’d received a text from Rina shortly after they’d spoken that morning, making it clear she expected daily updates from him. He’d also received an interesting e-mail from Jay that he wanted to spend a little time focusing on, an e-mail best read in the privacy of his own—well, Kit’s—home.
As soon he pulled into Kit’s drive, he sensed that something wasn’t right. He parked in front of the garage knowing no one needed access to it and sat in the quiet of his car, absorbing his surroundings. Within seconds, it came to him. Garret and Kit had taken one of their two cars to the airport when they’d left, leaving only Kit’s SUV behind. But from where he sat, through a narrow window in the garage door, he could see the roof of a second vehicle parked next to Kit’s.
The good news was that it wasn’t likely to be that of a prowler. The bad news was, it was probably Kit’s brother’s. Not that he didn’t like Caleb Forrester, but he had no interest in sharing his space with the man. Of course, Caleb wouldn’t care one way or the other how Drew felt—with the exception of his sister, and maybe Garret, Caleb cared very little about anyone.
“Honey, I’m home,” Drew called as he walked in the door. At least with Caleb he didn’t have to worry about covering up his sarcasm or annoyance.
Caleb’s head appeared from behind the open fridge door. Slowly he straightened up and, beer in hand, swung the door shut. “Carmichael. What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same. Your sister’s party was last weekend, not this weekend.”
Caleb shrugged and popped the top of his beer bottle. “I sent a donation.”
“Not exactly the same thing,” Drew said, feeling the other man watching him as he dropped his computer bag and folders on the kitchen island. When he looked up, sure enough, Caleb’s golden eyes were tracking his every movement—eyes that even Drew found disconcerting every now and then, not that he’d ever admit it. “What?” he asked.
“I’m just passing through,” Caleb said. “But you look like you’re here on business. Is that company business or business business?” he asked with a gesture of his bottle toward the files.
Drew tapped the stack of files absentmindedly as his gaze went to the kitchen window. He didn’t want to share Carly’s situation with Caleb. But even as he acknowledged the thought, he knew he’d be crazy not to. Caleb had a wealth of experience to draw from and his analytic skills were just as strong as his physical ones. It was that combination of abilities that had Drew’s own agency hiring him as a contractor on a near-regular basis.
“Does this have anything to do with the lovely Deputy Chief Carly Drummond?”
Drew’s gaze landed sharply on Caleb.
Caleb tipped his head and Drew could’ve sworn he saw him smirk.
“I saw the way you looked at her when we were investigating the attack on Kit.”
Drew’s eye’s narrowed and he had an overwhelming urge to tell Forrester to fuck off; instead, he slipped a file from the stack and held it out.
Leaning against the fridge, Caleb eyed the documents before taking a step forward and reaching for the file over the island. Drew pulled out his computer and turned it on as Caleb read.
“Well, hot damn. Witness security?” Caleb raised his eyes from the papers after a few minutes.
Drew nodded.
“I have to say, I didn’t see that one coming.” Caleb slid the file back.
“I think it’s fair to say it came as a surprise to a lot of people.”
“So what are you doing about it?”
As Drew entered in the series of passwords needed to access his company e-mail, he filled Caleb in on the task force and the upcoming evening meeting and meal. By the time he was finished talking, Caleb actually looked intrigued.
“That’s a lot of firepower you have.”
“Yes, it is,” he said, bringing up an e-mail reply to update Rina. “You want to round us out? I’m sure Rina could get you assigned.”
Caleb let out a snort. “Not on your life. Decision-making by consensus isn’t my thing.”
Drew looked at him over the screen of his laptop. “Ian’s cooking.”
“And that’s going to be the best part of the night.” Caleb finished his beer and moved to the sink to rinse the bottle. “I can tell you right now how your evening is going to go.”
“Oh yeah?” Drew said, not bothering to look up from the report he was drafting.
“Naomi will have some crazy piece of information only she could dig up; Vivi will have some psych analysis that may or may not prove useful; Ian will suggest something so practical no one else will have thought of it; and Sam and Daniel will have a whole bunch of scientific things to contribute that no one but Vivi will understand.”
Drew chuckled. “And what about the marshals?”
“Useless. The whole lot of them.”
Drew didn’t agree, but he also knew that Caleb was making a point just to make a point, and accuracy would only get in the way. “So you’re saying you want to come? Because from what I’m hearing, it really sounds like you want to.”
“Like I want an ice pick to the eye,” Caleb said, heading toward the stairs that led down to the room where he always stayed when he was at Kit’s.
“I’m sure Vivi would have a lot to say about your avoidance techniques.”
Caleb gave him the finger as he disappeared down the stairs. Maybe having him around wouldn’t be such a bad thing D
rew thought, his smile lingering as he hit “send” on his report to Rina and then began downloading Jay’s e-mail. But the smile faded quickly when Jay’s report opened on his screen. Twenty minutes later, he was still neck deep in the content—he had no idea what it meant, but he knew for certain that he and Marcus would need to have a little chat.
Chapter Fourteen
Returning from another run at nine o’clock the next morning, Drew walked into a kitchen that smelled like coffee, sautéed onion, and even a little garlic. He hadn’t forgotten that Caleb was there, Kit’s brother was a hard presence to forget or ignore, but Drew had always imagined the guy subsisting on coffee and MREs—and maybe the souls of the damned—and he hadn’t expected to find him making a full-on breakfast.
“Smells good.” Drew walked to the sink and poured himself a glass of water.
“There’s enough for two. Grab some coffee and a seat. It will take another fifteen minutes or so.”
Not one to turn down a homemade meal, even if he wasn’t entirely sure what the meal was going to be, Drew finished his water, grabbed a mug and filled it with coffee the color of tar, then took a seat. He eyed the computer he had left on the island when he’d returned from Vivi and Ian’s the night before, but rather than open it, he opted to watch the show in front of him.
“So, tell me about last night. What shrinky-thing did Vivi come up with?” Caleb asked as he swirled what looked like cooked rice in a sauté pan. Facing the stove and with his back to the room, Drew only caught a few glimpses of the concoction Caleb was pulling together.
“Turns out corrupt cops are motivated by the same thing most criminals are. Money, power, and love.”
“That seems like an underwhelming contribution from the girl-wonder.”
Drew smiled. “We all agree that whomever we’re looking for is motivated by power. The events that followed the killing of Sophia and Tony were too precise—too by the book—to lead us to believe that love or a lust for money were involved.”
“And that gets you . . .?” Caleb flipped what looked like a piece of ham high into the air and caught it with the pan.
“Not far, admittedly, but we did also learn that, while corrupt cops who are in it for money or love have some unique characteristics that other criminals don’t share, those in it for power more or less have the same psychology as a serial killer.”
“So, basically, you’re looking for a corrupt, murdering FBI agent that has sociopathic tendencies.”
Drew ran a hand through his hair. “Yep, that about sums it up.”
“What about Naomi? Surely she wasn’t to be outdone by her cousin?”
Drew chuckled then looked around for his sweatshirt. His body had cooled from the run and he was beginning to feel chilled. Spying it hanging on the coat rack, he took a sip of coffee then rose from his seat. “She was not. Naomi found that the other person floating around the Lamot/Davidson house at the time, Vince Archstone, is actually Vince Repetto, a white-collar crime FBI agent. Based on the records she found—like receipts from restaurants where both men were present at the same time, that kind of thing—and those that she didn’t find—like any official record of the investigation—we’re thinking—”
“Counterintelligence,” Caleb finished.
“We are, yes.”
As Caleb poured eggs into a sizzling pan, Drew’s stomach grumbled.
“But who was investigating whom? Was Repetto investigating Franks or the other way around? And how did Carly’s family get involved?” Caleb asked, reaching for two plates out of a cabinet.
“We think Carly’s family was targeted because, several years earlier, they had come on to the FBI radar, when her uncle was investigated for insider trading. Nothing came of that investigation—”
“But the FBI could easily use it to set up a new investigation by making it look like they were re-opening the original one.”
“Exactly. And as to who was investigating whom, Naomi and Brian are working on that now.”
“So that leaves Ian and the marshals. I can’t imagine the marshals had anything to share, so what did the good sheriff have to say?”
Again, Drew chuckled. “Ian didn’t actually contribute much other than dinner, but the idea he’d offered earlier in the day definitely bore fruit.”
Caleb added rice to each plate. “Not at all surprising.”
“He suggested that the marshals look for the physical property of the Lamot/Davidson’s and not just the electronic records. He had a friend of his from the bureau help out, an Agent Rodriguez, since any files associated with the original investigation would be with the FBI.”
“And I take it they found something?” Caleb added a slice of ham to each plate.
“Interestingly, they did.” Drew paused to watch the plating.
When Caleb reached for the cooked eggs, he glanced back, apparently awaiting more information.
Drew continued, “It turns out that all the personal property from Carly and Marcus’s home that was not taken into evidence was put into a private storage unit six years ago, and the key to that unit was found inside one of the boxes of evidence held by the FBI.”
Caleb turned around with a plate in each hand, and paused. “You mean to tell me that six years ago someone approached the marshals and said ‘Hey, we’d like to move the personal property of someone participating in your super-secret program and then hand the key to the FBI,’ and the marshals let them?”
Drew reached for a plate. “We don’t know if that’s exactly what happened, but, yeah, something like that.”
“That’s fucked up.” Caleb shook his head as he slid a fork over to Drew.
“Yep, Deputy Marsh wasn’t too happy about it either.”
“I told you. Useless. The whole lot of them. So where did you leave things?”
Drew took a bite of the unusual dish and sat back in surprise. “This is really good.”
Caleb grinned. “I don’t like to do things halfway. Of course it’s good.”
Drew rolled his eyes as he swallowed. “Vivi is looking into Franks and Repetto to see if she can help determine who is more likely to have the psychology of a killer. Naomi and Brian are doing more digging. The marshals are on their way up to Albany with the physical evidence and are also going to bring a few of Carly’s personal things from the storage container. She and I are going to go through those this afternoon. And the rest of the team is going to keep doing what they do: Sam and Daniel will be working on the trace evidence as it comes in; Wyatt will see what more he can find out about Franks and Repetto through the FBI grapevine; and Marcus, well, he’s working today, but he and I will be having a little talk soon.”
Caleb finished chewing his bite then looked at his watch. “It took precisely fifteen minutes and forty-two seconds to tell me all that. How long was the meeting last night?”
“I left after an hour. The rest of them stayed for dinner.”
Caleb’s fork stilled halfway to his mouth. “You didn’t stay for dinner?”
“No, I had some things I needed to do.”
“Bullshit.”
Drew’s eyes came up from his plate to his companion. “You have quite the vocab today.” Caleb wasn’t generally one to swear all that much, at least not out loud. Hearing him do it twice in a conversation was notable.
“You were avoiding her friends.” Caleb pointed his fork at Drew as he spoke. “That’s why you didn’t stay.”
The look he gave Caleb told him to back off. But of course, he didn’t.
“You don’t want them to not like you, so you’re not giving them the chance to form any opinion of you at all.”
Drew cocked his head. “Is this about me, or about why you didn’t come to your sister’s fundraiser last weekend?”
Caleb glared at him for a long moment, then he dropped his fork to his plate and picked up his coffee. “All I’m saying is that Carly’s friends are important to her. They should be important to you too.”
Drew found th
at little piece of advice a bit ironic coming from Caleb, who rarely engaged in any social activity, unless Kit surprised him with it. Still, that didn’t make it untrue. It also didn’t make it something he wanted to discuss.
“Here,” Drew said, firing up his computer and opening the report Jay had sent the day before. “Take a look at this.” He slid the computer over and then turned his attention to finishing his breakfast while Caleb scanned the document. He’d just finished when Caleb looked up.
“Interesting timing.”
“I thought so.” He stood and reached for Caleb’s empty plate, stacking it atop his before making his way to the sink.
“I see why you said you need to talk to Marcus. You going to do that this morning?”
Drew slipped the plates into the dishwasher. “I’m going to head over now, before I meet up with Carly.” He reached for one of the pans—it was only fair that he clean up since Caleb had cooked—but Caleb waved him off.
“Go take care of this,” he said, gesturing to the computer. “I can clean up.”
Drew held the man’s gaze for a moment, then nodded, closed his computer, and headed to his guest room.
• • •
An hour later, Drew parked in front of the Windsor Police Station. He planned to grab a couple of mochas from Frank’s, and maybe even some pastries, but first things first.
“I was wondering when you’d find me,” Marcus said from the doorway of Carly’s office as soon as Drew walked in.
“We need to talk.”
Marcus looked about as thrilled as Drew felt about the pending conversation, but he gestured him into the office. “It will be more private in here.”
Much like Carly’s home, the office said little about its inhabitant. Then again, he knew Marcus had been Deputy Chief before his sister, and that this had been his office. It would be like her not to touch anything when she’d temporarily moved in.
“Have a seat,” Marcus offered, then walked over to the window and looked out. Drew thought about continuing to stand, but after a beat decided to sit, hoping it would ease some of the tension in the room, ease some of his own tension.
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