The Switch

by Sandra Brown

  It surprised her that Chief had been eavesdropping on their conversation while he'd been on the telephone.

  Pax frowned querulously. "Are you gonna tell me what the hell's going on?"

  "No," Chief replied evenly. "You said you trust me. I hope you do. Don't ask questions, just do this. Leave. Immediately. Chances are real good that a couple of guys are gonna show up here in a while, and when they do, you want to be long gone."

  Pax studied him a moment, then said, "I haven't seen you in years. Not a word from you. Then you drop out of freaking nowhere in the middle of the night, looking like a poster child for assault and battery, with a beautiful woman in tow, who also looks like a little worse for wear—you'll excuse me for noticing, Melina. You stomp through my place acting like God Hisself, then you rent a plane you can't pay for. Lastly, you tell me to desert my place of business and get out of town, and I'm not allowed one little 'how come? '"

  "No. You're not."

  "Well, that's bullshit, is what that is. Tell me why I should pay any attention to one goddamn thing you say to me."

  Chief wrestled with his answer, then said tightly, "Because you're my father, and I don't want to be responsible for anything bad happening to you."

  CHAPTER 30

  Tobias stared down at Jem Hennings's corpse and allowed himself the second expletive of the evening, the first being when Melina Lloyd hung up on him.

  Lawson said, "I need a drink."

  The FBI agent smiled grimly. "I'll buy. Soon as we get some answers."

  If the two were to spend much time together, they probably would wind up disliking each other immensely. Lawson was as poor a dresser as Tobias had ever met. Lawson thought Tobias was a peacock. Tobias was a health nut who had eliminated refined sugar and fat from his diet; Lawson thrived on fast food, the greasier the better. Tobias was an aficionado of all the performing arts and held season tickets to the ballet, symphony, and opera. Lawson had attended only one live concert in his entire life. Willie Nelson. Outdoors. He'd come home covered in chigger bites.

  They had spent only one day together, but it had been quite a day, and during that time, for all their differences, they had formed a grudging respect for each other.

  They left the corpse to the ME and moved out of the condo into the hallway, where Lawson picked up the conversation. "I have a few answers for you. The doorman described Melina Lloyd and Christopher Hart to a tee. They came to see Hennings no more than fifteen minutes before the false fire alarm." He consulted his notepad. "That was at nine-oh-eight. Estimated time of death is somewhere between nine o'clock and nine-fifteen."

  "You're not suggesting—"

  "Anything. I'm just telling you how it is."

  "Sorry for the interruption. Go on."

  "People who live on this floor remember a couple—matching the descriptions of guess who yelling at them from the stairwell that there was a fire in apartment D."

  "They created a distraction."

  "That would be my guess," Lawson said. "We'll get an expert to determine the trajectory of the bullets, but unless the shooter had wings, he had to have fired from the building across the street. I've got guys over there combing the roof and all the rooms with windows on this side for evidence, but I'd put money on it turning up clean."

  "Professional sniper?"

  "Well, it wasn't your ordinary crime of passion. Only a dumdum could do that much damage to a skull," he said, referring to a bullet that would mushroom upon impact. "Two were fired in rapid succession. One of the tenants here said he heard a crack. Possibly two. But they'd have come so close together they could have sounded like one.

  "The first shattered the window. We've recovered it. It's distorted so badly it's doubtful it could ever be connected to a weapon, even if we recovered the weapon, which I seriously doubt we will. The other bullet is still in the goo that was once doing Hennings's thinking for him. Whoever did him is experienced. He knew what he was doing and had the balls to do it. Bold as brass and no fear of being caught."

  Tiredly Tobias rubbed his eye sockets. "This just gets better and better, doesn't it? Do you think Melina Lloyd and Christopher Hart saw the shooter?"

  "Again doubtful. But they were here when Hennings bought it. The table lamp was unplugged," the detective explained. "There's no overhead lighting in the apartment. Even an expert marksman with a night-vision scope would have had difficulty getting off a shot that precise, less than a second after the glass shattered, if the apartment was dark. It's doubtful they—Melina, Hart, and Hennings—would've been visiting in the dark, anyway. So somebody unplugged the lamp, and it sure as hell wasn't Hennings. He didn't clean himself up with paper towels, either."

  Tobias ruminated on it a moment. "The window blows out, Hennings is shot, one of them extinguishes the light, then they create a distraction so they can safely get out of the building."

  Lawson said, "Looks like. A few people remember seeing them outside, but after that, zilch. They vanished."

  "Neither is answering their cell phone."

  "They left a car in the garage here. Two bags were in the trunk, one obviously belonging to Hart, the other to her. The clothes were new. Still had tags attached." He told Tobias that they'd tracked down a personal shopper at Neiman's who admitted to having the clothes delivered to Melina Lloyd earlier that day. "I described the jacket we found here near Hennings's body. It's one she sent. It ain't so new-looking anymore."

  "They're traveling light."

  "Lighter now than before. We're running leads on the car they arrived in. It's not hers. Hart's has been impounded by the city off a nightclub parking lot."

  Tobias ran a hand down his face. Their preliminary search of the Waters Clinic had turned up nothing substantive about Dale Gordon other than that he had the know-how and the opportunity to tinker with sperm specimens. There was no proof that he had. Tobias had put Patterson in charge of rounding up sperm donors.

  The assignment caused Patterson to grimace. "I don't have Io watch them while they jerk off, do I?"

  Tobias sighed. "Samples will be collected in a clinical environment with medical personnel supervising. Your job is to contact the donors and get them there. Okay?"

  "Yes, sir," the young agent had said, looking relieved.

  "Anything on him?" Tobias asked now, drawing Lawson's attention to the gurney bearing Hennings's body as it was being wheeled into the elevator.

  "Nothing. Not even a parking ticket. Last purchase on his credit card was the pendant he gave to Gillian—actually Melina—the night before the murder."

  "Hey, Lawson." One of the other detectives poked his head through the door and motioned him into the apartment. Tobias would have followed, but his cell phone rang.

  Lucy Myrick felt as though she'd been born inside the windowless room with the ugly walls. Actually the normally sick color had taken on a rosy tint, but that was because it was being viewed through bloodshot eyes.

  She had gas from subsisting on fast food and not getting her daily requirement of roughage. Caffeine had her nerves clawing at her skin from the inside, while at the same time her head was muzzy from lack of sleep. She needed a shower.

  "But I can't regret what I did for love, what I did for love," she warbled.

  Love for her work, love for Tobias, had kept her here for two days, working straight through and nonstop, searching for the link that connected the Lloyd twins, Dale Gordon, and the Andersons. Recently Tobias had thrown a new name into the mix. Jem Hennings. Caucasian male. DOB 10-2-60, as it appeared on his Texas driver's license issued only thirteen months ago. Five feet eleven inches tall. Weight, one sixty-eight.

  Fine and dandy.

  Except that Social Security didn't have him in their records under the number he'd given the firm with which he was presently—until tonight—affiliated. Nor had that Social Security number ever filed a tax return with the IRS.

  "Something's rotten in the state of Denmark," Lucy mused aloud.

  Actually, it tur
ned out to be the state of South Dakota.

  She read the information three times before calling Tobias. "It's Lucy."

  "It's one o'clock in the morning in Washington."

  "You owe me massive overtime and a weekend on the Chesapeake. You may even consider throwing in a bottle or two of fine wine."

  "You've got something."

  "South Dakota. Seven years ago. One Janine Hennings, age fifteen. Poor grades in school, in with a bad crowd, rebellious at home. Generally running amok. Taken under wing by a school nurse named Dorothy Pugh. Dorothy's all heart, goodness, and light. Within months Janine has done a one-eighty. Gets religion. Prays all the time. Peace and love, the whole nine yards.

  "End of the school year rolls around. Dorothy Pugh resigns her post to relocate in New Mexico. Janine is disconsolate and runs away to join her. The parents freak out. Janine's swung too far the other way. Their daughter is still lost to them. They suspect Dorothy Pugh to be a member of a religious cult. They retain the services of a cult-buster—"

  "A what?"

  "I coined the term," Lucy said proudly. "A shrink that detoxes a mind that's been brainwashed?"

  "Got it. Go on."

  "Mr. and Mrs. Hennings and the shrink leave South Dakota to rescue Janine."

  "And?"

  "And they never made it. The RV they'd rented for the trip was found at a campground in Colorado with everything inside intact. But the people were gone."

  "Foul play?"

  "Indubitably. But not a single clue. No bodies. No blood. No

  sign of struggle. No nothing. Another family was camping nearby, but they'd gone into town to have dinner. They left early the following morning without noticing that there wasn't any activity around the other RV. Rain that night ruined any chance of identifying tire tracks. There was absolutely nothing for investigators to go on. It was as though the three people had been beamed up by aliens. Nary a trace of them was ever found."

  "Who filed the missing persons report?"

  "Thought you'd never ask. Jameson, a.k.a. Jem Hennings, the son and older brother. He got worried when his folks failed to call and report in, which they'd promised to do each evening along the way."

  "Was he considered a suspect in the disappearance?"

  "Ironclad alibi. He was at work both days his parents were away and had dinner with friends both evenings. He couldn't have possibly made a round trip to Colorado. But following the tragedy, he liquidates all assets, relocates, and starts using a phony Social Security number."

  "I smell conspiracy."

  "Only one friend ever heard from him after he left South Dakota," Lucy continued enthusiastically. "Guess where he wrote from. Drumroll, please. Oakland, California."

  "Kathleen Asher."

  "No connection so far, but I'd bet that weekend on the Chesapeake that I find one. Meanwhile, the disappearance of Mr. and Mrs. Hennings and the shrink remains an unsolved case in Colorado. When it happened, Hennings grieved publicly. Anguished over it to reporters. `Woe is me. My parents have vanished. My little sister has run away to join a religious community.' Yaddah, yaddah. Note, he never referred to this religious organization as a cult."

  "I don't need to ask, do I?"

  "The Temple of Brother Gabriel."

  "Lucy?

  "What?"

  "Will you have my children?" Before she could recover enough to speak, he'd already hung up. "Lawson!"

  The detective came barreling through the door of the condo, more animated than Tobias had ever seen him. "You're gonna shit when you hear who's on Hennings's autodial."

  Tobias grinned. "Way ahead of you."

  "You could have told me."

  Since taking off, Chief had been subject to Melina's accusatory stare. He'd given Love Field and Dallas—Fort Worth Airport wide berth, swinging out far to the east and then flying well north of the metropolitan area before banking to the west.

  They flew for half an hour before they were past the glittering suburban sprawl. Now small towns showed up as patches of light against a black blanket. The night was perfectly clear. The moon was so slender as to be negligible, and because it gave off virtually no light, stars shone brightly.

  While he was busy navigating, it had been easy to pretend he didn't notice her stare. It wasn't so easy to ignore a blatant admonishment. "Could have told you what?"

  "Don't play dumb, Chief."

  "It wasn't relevant."

  "Maybe not relevant, but it's interesting."

  "Tell me one reason why."

  "For starters, your father is Anglo."

  "You knew I was half. Even Dale Gordon knew I was a breed. Have you ever seen a full-blood Indian with blue eyes?" "Why are you so damn prickly?"

  "Why are you so damn curious?"

  "Why don't you like him?"

  "Jesus, you never let up."

  "Have some chips."

  "Huh?"

  "Potato chips." She ripped open a bag and offered it to him.

  When he looked at her with puzzlement, she smiled insipidly. "I'm letting up."

  He plunged his hand into the bag and crammed the chips into his mouth. He'd burned off a lot of energy since gulping down a few bites of cheeseburger.

  Melina was munching alternately on the potato chips and a box of animal crackers. "Interesting combination," he remarked.

  "I'm hungry."

  "Fine. But if you have to hurl again, remember I can't pull over this time."

  "No barf bags?"

  "This is a no-frills flight." They smiled at one another. He pointed toward her mouth. "You have a crumb." Her tongue dabbed tentatively at one corner of her lips. "Other side." She picked up the potato chip crumb with the tip of her tongue, and it struck him as an intensely erotic gesture.

  He looked away. Checked the gauges. Checked the sky.

  Searched for something to distract him from his disturbing

  awareness of her. "What else have we got by way of cuisine?" "Let's see. Sour-cream-and-chive-flavored popcorn." "Good God."

  "You'll pass?"

  "I'd rather have shuttle food."

  "We're fresh out of that." She dug deeper into the plastic sack. "Cheetos. Chocolate-covered peanuts, which I don't recommend. They've gone a little gray. Lorna Doones. And barbecue-flavored corn chips. Believe me, this was the best of the lot."

  "I believe you. I'd settle for a few of your animal crackers." She passed the box to him. When he thanked her, their eyes met again. "What did Pax do to make you dislike him?" "I don't dislike him."

  "Ah. So I was imagining all that crackling hostility." "He disliked us."

  Melina waited him out. She didn't ask another question, but she assumed a listening aspect that he found himself responding to. Reluctantly, but responding all the same. "Pax was in the Air Force. Stationed at Holloman. My mother was a civilian employee on the base. She was pretty. Petite. I suppose she was a novelty for him, a pretty little Indian girl. Anyway, they married within months of meeting, and I was born before their first anniversary. For a while we were a happy family.

  "My earliest memory is of an air show. It was there on the base. I remember my dad showing me off to his friends. One of them gave me chewing gum, the first I remember having. You know, the candy-coated square kind you get out of machines? He let me pick which color I wanted. Then my dad took me around to all the planes and explained how high they could fly, how fast they could travel. I remember thinking that to know all that stuff, my dad must be the smartest person in the whole world.

  "He carried me on his shoulders so I could see over the crowd. I was scared at first, but he put his hands on my knees to secure me. He told me to hold on to his hair. No matter how tight I grabbed hold, he didn't complain. I knew he wouldn't drop me. I thought he loved me. Loved her."

  He stopped just in time to avoid making a complete fool of himself. He didn't like taking strolls down memory lane, particularly this lane. Melina was forcing him to call forth memories he had deliberately left far behind.r />
  His work had made it easy to take a hard-ass stance against sentimentality. He'd spent years training to respond mechanically to difficult situations, a response technique that he supposed had carried over into his personal life. He performed exclusively on cerebral impulse without allowing any emotional interference to cloud his judgment.

  Letting your head govern was easy. It was this heart stuff that was tough. Dealing with emotional issues wasn't for sissies. "Is there another drink in there?" he asked crossly.

  She opened a can of Mountain Dew and handed it to him.

  "What happened to change your mind? About Pax loving you, I mean."

  "And here I thought you were different."

  "From what?"

  "Other women. Women love to talk. Review. Analyze. Discuss. Dissect. They love to see what makes people tick—particularly men."

  "Because you're so fascinating."

  "Why, thank you, ma'am," he drawled.

  "Relax, cowboy. I meant you plural. Men. How you think, how you react to things is interesting. I guess because it's generally different from how women react. The difference intrigues me."

  "So you like us?"

  "Very much."

  "Yeah?" He turned to her. "When's your favorite time to make love?"

  "When I'm in the mood."

  "No go, huh?"

  To say no, she shot him a wry frown.

  "Okay, then," he said, "let's talk politics. What do you think of the Kuwaiti position?"

  "Old joke, Chief."

  "You've heard it?"

  "'I like it, but my partner says it burns his elbows, '" she said, quoting the punch line.

  "I thought it was a military joke."

  "It got around."

  "So what is your favorite position?"

  She kept her expression impassive. He bobbed his eyebrows, doing his best to coax a smile from her, but she didn't relent. She wasn't going to blush on a bet, and she wasn't going to be sidetracked with flirtatious chatter, either.

  He sighed with resignation. "What was the last question?"

  "What made you think Pax stopped loving you?"

  "I guess the novelty wore off. He was an airplane mechanic.