I ignored him, looked at Basque. “Richard, where is Professor Renée Lebreau?”
He did not reply.
“Is she here in DC?”
Nothing.
“Did you harm—”
“This is not about Mr. Basque!” Wilby whined at me.
I glared at him, then at Lansing and Basque, and barely managed to hold back a rather pointed response, but I knew that if I said what I was thinking, it wouldn’t be in Tessa’s best interests; that it would only serve to reinforce Wilby’s claims about my allegedly bad temper.
So instead, I followed Missy into the hallway, and although I was tempted to close the door rather decisively behind me, I let it drift softly shut instead.
In the hallway, before we reached Tessa, I told Missy, “Good job.”
She was quiet.
“You did a good job in there, Missy.”
“I heard you.”
As we entered the reception area, Tessa approached us. “So? What happened?”
Missy did not reply but headed straight for the exit doors; I was punching a number into my cell phone. “I’ll explain when we get outside,” I told Tessa.
“What’s going on?”
“Please, wait with Missy. I’ll be right there.”
She gave me a disparaging look: I can’t believe you! You’re totally reneging on your promise to tell me everything that happened in there!
I was waiting for Doehring to pick up.
“It’s all good,” I said to her. “I think Paul might drop this thing.”
“Honestly?”
“Yes. Now, outside. I’ll be right there.”
Hesitantly, she obeyed.
Doehring answered, and I asked him to get an undercover officer over here ASAP to tail Basque as he left the meeting. “And call Ralph Hawkins.” I gave him the number. “Tell him we know where Richard Basque is.”
Then, I went outside and joined my stepdaughter and our lawyer on the sidewalk.
Missy was upset.
And I had a feeling that her anger wasn’t just directed at the people who’d been sitting across the table from us.
94
Missy Schuel was stone quiet until we reached the car halfway down the block. “What happened at that funeral, Patrick, the one Basque made reference to? Did you threaten his life?”
“What?” Tessa exclaimed.
“I told him I would find enough evidence to send him back to prison. He said he didn’t think I was capable of—well, at that point I cut him off and said that he had no idea what I was capable of.”
“Which funeral?” Tessa asked. “You mean Dr. Werjonic’s?”
“No idea what you were capable of?” Missy said, her eyes fastened squarely on me.
“Yes.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“Nothing more specific?”
Tessa threw her hands to her hips. “Can somebody please tell me what’s going on!”
“Richard Basque was in the meeting,” I told her. “Paul is obviously looking for anything he can find to use against me.” Then I replied to Missy, “No. Nothing more specific.”
That seemed to at least partially satisfy her. “Anything else? Any more surprises I need to know about?”
“Probably.” I saw an unmarked car with Officer Lee Anderson behind the wheel drive up and park across the street. “But none that I can think of right now.”
It had to have been less than three minutes since I called Doehring. An amazingly fast response. Anderson must have already been in the area.
I averted my eyes so I wouldn’t draw undue attention to him. “Let’s go,” I said to Missy. “I’ll drop you off at your office.”
She was free.
Free.
She scanned the woods as she crept through them, keeping an eye out for anyone, any movement at all.
It had taken her a long time to loosen the strap around her neck and even longer to get the other arm free. But after that the legs had been easy.
Free.
She arrived at the stream where she’d seen the corpse last night when she first entered the body farm with the man who had left her to die.
Stopping upstream from the body, she stripped off her reeking, insect-infested clothes and washed herself, scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing to get the stench and dirt and rot off her body.
Then she rinsed the clothes and wrung them out as much as possible, and she soaked her ankles in the cool water to relieve the pain of the ripped flesh where she’d been bitten by the scavenging animals.
The Academy’s admin building wasn’t far, less than a half mile from the trailhead. If she could just get to the parking lot she could steal a car, drive to a bank, drain the money from her betrayer’s account, and be gone.
But be smart.
He had turned on her, yes, betrayed her, lied to her, tried to kill her. Yes, yes, yes. But—
A terrible chill ran through her as she was forced to admit that he was smarter than she was, smarter than any cop or FBI agent she’d ever run into. He would find her, yes, he would; it was inevitable. And considering what he’d done to her last night—strapping her to a rotting corpse—she couldn’t even begin to imagine what he would do to her if he caught her now.
Or what he might do to her baby.
Even if he didn’t come after her, he would certainly plant evidence that would lead the authorities to her.
He had the means to fake IDs.
He was good with disguises.
He could cover his tracks better than anyone she knew.
He would disappear and she would end up in prison for life.
And worst of all, they would take her baby away.
Foster care.
She’d gone down that road herself and she was not about to let her baby grow up that way.
She put on her wet clothes.
It was the end of her career, yes. The end of her old life, yes, okay, she knew that, but for the sake of her baby she needed to make sure she wasn’t found. Ever.
Then it struck her.
There was one way to keep her baby with her and also stay free from both the one who had betrayed her and the FBI.
To live, she would have to die.
To the rest of the world.
But thankfully the one thing she was good at, the one skill she had, was setting people up for murder.
And this time, she would set her betrayer up for hers.
She headed to the parking lot, considering what it was going to take for her to make her death as believable as it would need to be.
Predator.
Prey.
This time she was going to have to be both.
After dropping off Missy at her office, I needed a minute to sort through my thoughts, figure out what to do next. Too many cables tugging at my attention.
Tessa was upset.
Basque was in town, apparently trying to help Lansing in this custody case.
Dr. Lebreau was still missing.
The killers were still at large.
My arm really hurt.
If there was ever a time for coffee, this was it.
I took Tessa to an indie coffeehouse in downtown DC. She ordered a small soy milk latte; I went for a twenty-ounce Kenya AA and managed to down it and get a refill before she came out of the bathroom.
Now we were walking through a tourist-riddled park near the Capitol on our way back to the car, which I’d had to park about three blocks away.
Above us, the tangled branches of the trees lining the path seemed to snag the late afternoon sunlight, letting only jagged pieces of the day land around us.
Shadow and light, blinking at me every step of the way.
For no stated reason, Tessa and I both moved urgently toward the car.
So many thoughts corkscrewing through my mind.
I wanted to hear what Lien-hua might have discovered about the lack of DNA evidence, figure out what was going on with Margaret an
d her abstruse reference to abortion, go over my geo-profile again . . .
I’d had my phone’s ringer off since the beginning of the custody meeting, and now I glanced at the screen and noticed I had a missed call from Cheyenne.
Great.
Just one more thing to work through.
Yesterday morning Tessa had told me I was being flirty with both of them, and I had to admit she was right.
So now, considering that I seemed to be patching things up with Lien-hua, I needed to make sure my flirtiness with Cheyenne came to an end. Feeling a narrow stab of guilt and not really wanting to go through my texts and perhaps find another message from her, I pocketed the phone.
Took a drink of coffee.
Tessa gestured toward a Metro station. “So, I guess I’ll head home then.”
“I’ll take you. The car is just at the end of the block.”
“You’ve been with me for like over three hours. You need to stay here, get back to this case.”
“That can wait,” I said. “I don’t like it that Basque is here.”
“I get that, but you’ve got an undercover cop following him, so—”
“What makes you say I have a cop following him?”
She looked annoyed at having to explain herself. “Basque shows up, then you make an urgent phone call before leaving the lawyer’s office, then you stare at a guy with a mustache who pulls up outside the building in a sedan. Cops are easy to spot. Who else besides serial killers and cops have mustaches these days?”
“Pakistanis.”
“Yeah, okay, and so do cowboys, but this guy was a cop.”
I bowed out of the mustache debate. “I’m not leaving you alone. I don’t trust Lansing.”
“But in the meeting, Ms. Schuel said she’d get a restraining order if he showed up anywhere near me. He wouldn’t dare follow me.”
“And how do you know she said that?”
Tessa rolled her eyes. “She was yelling when she said it—look, Patrick, I’m fine. I have some stuff to do at home anyhow. I’ll take the VRE. You need to stay here.”
“I don’t think so.”
Our car still lay fifty meters away through the strangled sunlight.
She followed me grudgingly.
We walked.
Shadow to light.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“If you can look me in the eye and answer one question, then I’ll shut up and I won’t argue. You can bail on this case, come home, and babysit me.”
I didn’t like where this was going; I went for some coffee.
“Well?”
“Go on,” I said.
“You have to be honest.”
“I’ll be honest. What’s the question?”
“You have to promise.”
“Tessa. All right. I promise.”
Shadow to light.
“Look me in the eye.”
Good grief.
We stopped walking, and I looked her in the eye.
“Now, tell me that the Bureau has a better chance of finding these killers, of saving people’s lives if you’re not helping. If you can tell me that, then I’ll go home with you and I won’t nag you.”
“That’s not fair. Besides, it wasn’t even actually a question.”
She stood in that slumpy-teenage-girl way and gave me a critical stare.
“Tessa, there are plenty of good people working this case. It’s not like—”
“I can rephrase it if that would make it easier for you.”
“You’re more important to me than—”
“Don’t do that.”
My phone rang. Cheyenne’s ringtone.
Unbelievable.
“Do what?”
“Use me as an excuse.”
“I’m not using you as an excuse.”
It rang again.
“I get it that you love me,” she said. “But do they have a better chance of saving lives if you’re at home babysitting me?”
“Why are you asking me this?”
Ring.
“Just answer it.”
“I’ll get it in a minute.”
“No, I mean my question.”
“The answer is no—”
“Okay.” She sounded satisfied. “Now, get the phone.”
Another ring.
Annoyed, I picked up. “Cheyenne. Hey.”
“How are you doing? Just touching base. Seeing how the case was going. How your arm is.”
“Listen, can I call you back?”
“Sure.” But she sounded concerned. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
Tessa said, “Ask her what she’s doing tonight.”
I shook my head at Tessa, spoke to Cheyenne, “Just give me a few minutes.”
“Ask her,” Tessa urged.
“Cheyenne, can you hang on a sec?” I held the phone against my chest. “What is it you want, Tessa?”
“It’d be stupid for her to drive into the city to help you out right now. With traffic on a Friday night? Give me a break. It’ll take me like an hour and a half to get home on the VRE, she can work till then, hang with me for supper, and whenever you get back you can fill her in on the case. It’ll give you a couple hours to work, I’ll be safe, problem solved. Everybody’s happy.”
I tried to find a glitch in her plan.
“No,” I said stubbornly.
“Can I see your phone for a sec?”
“Tessa—”
She held out her hand. “Here, just for a minute.”
“I’m—”
She cocked her head and raised her eyebrows. A reprimand from an adolescent girl.
I resisted, but in the end I found myself giving in.
Tessa took the phone. “Detective Warren, hey, it’s me. Um, listen, I’ll be home at like 6:45 or so. Can you stop by until Patrick gets back? Yeah, he’s getting all weird on me . . . I know. Yeah, no, we’re okay . . . Whatever, you will so not beat me this time . . . Yeah, right. So, okay, do you want to talk to him again . . . ?”
She returned the phone to me. “She wants to say hey.”
I said to Cheyenne, “I’m sorry about that.”
“You don’t have to be sorry about anything.”
“Tessa’s trying to flex her wings, and it’s just not good timing.”
“It’s no big deal, really. I’ve been in class all day. I’ll hit the firing range, get my rounds in, then head to your house and see you when you get there. You can bring me up to speed. Besides, this’ll give me a chance to practice my new hobby.”
“Your new hobby?”
“Remember? Coming to your rescue?”
Oh boy.
“Yeah.”
Don’t be flirty.
Don’t be flirty.
Don’t be flirty.
“Well,” I said. “Thanks.” I gave her Tessa’s cell number so it’d be easier for them to connect, and we ended the call.
Tessa was finishing her latte. “So?”
“Are all teenagers like this?”
“It’s possible that I’m gifted.” She hitched her purse strap over her shoulder. “Don’t worry, everything’s cool. She doesn’t have to stop being your friend just because you kissed Agent Jiang. Just remember—”
“Yeah, I know. Don’t lead her on.”
“Exactly.”
I took a deep breath. “Here’s what I want you to do: text me every fifteen minutes until Detective Warren arrives. To let me know you’re all right.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“I’m not kidding.” I held up a cautionary finger to stem a comeback. It didn’t work.
“You’re not supposed to use mobile devices on the Metro,” she countered.
“If you get arrested I’ll make sure you don’t serve hard time.”
She sighed with her eyeballs. “Whatever.”
“Call me if anything comes up, anything at all.”
&nb
sp; “I will.”
I took her to the Metro stop, waited for her to board, then drove to police headquarters.
To map out this cave.
95
4 hours left . . .
5:29 p.m.
Margaret had stepped away, Doehring was at the reins, and it looked like the team had been making some progress.
He filled me in.
The big news: Agent Cassidy had found traces of military grade C-4 on some of the carpet fibers in the back of the van.
“I thought they cleared the van?” I said.
“After you linked last night’s gas station explosion to the crime spree, they started going back over everything, start to finish.”
The ATF has the best explosive and accelerant detection dogs in the business, so their teams had been sent to the Lincoln Towers Hotel as well as the congressman’s office and the Gunderson facility.
The ATF.
One more agency added to the plate.
“Let’s get them to the Capitol Police HQ as well.”
“Right.” He made a note of it. “Next: you know how Fischer has connections with the Gunderson Foundation? Well, a couple of my guys did a little looking into some of his biggest campaign supporters.”
“Let me guess: the Gunderson Foundation?”
He shook his head. “No, but we did find two other organizations in the same neuroscience business, both trying to identify the parts of the brain that lead to psychopathology. And both have pretty deep pockets.”
Hmm.
I recalled my trip to the primate center and Fischer’s concern that his relationship to the Gunderson Foundation not become public.
“Is the info on the electronic case files?”
He nodded.
“All right,” I said. “I’m following up on this. Stay on top of the bomb deal. Keep me informed.”