Authors: Mariah Stewart
“I’m here.” He looked up from the file notes he was making on the Joseph Maynard case. He could have admitted that he’d been deliberately quiet coming in that morning because he hadn’t really wanted to engage anyone in conversation. He’d been up most of the night trying to decide how best to handle the dilemma he found himself in.
“Trula said you had a meeting with the FBI over the weekend.” Mallory took a sip of coffee. Sam craned his neck to see if he could read the mug but she was too far away. “How’d that go for you?”
“Fine.” He debated how much to tell her. He decided to keep it simple for now. “There are two cases—one in Nebraska, another in Illinois—where the crime scenes are very similar. The special agent handling those two—Fiona Summers is the agent—was kind enough to bring her files along so I could take a look at them and copy some reports and things that might be useful to us.”
Mallory smiled. “Now, see, that’s exactly what I hoped would happen, with you being a former agent. Not that I wouldn’t have hired you anyway for your experience,” she hastened to add, “but those contacts at the federal level are priceless. I’ll bet the information you got from her will prove to be very helpful to your case.”
“It’s beginning to look that way.” Sam sighed. He hated deception in any form. He looked at Mallory, who was so pleased to have him on her staff, and knew he couldn’t keep any of this from her. She deserved to know what was going on. What the hell had he been thinking, that he’d hesitated to tell her?
He had just needed to remind himself who he was working for here.
“Actually, Mallory, there’s something we need to—”
Mallory’s cell phone rang and as she reached into her pocket for it, the hand holding the mug turned toward Sam.
WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, MANIPULATE THE DATA,
it read.
She glanced at the number. “Gotta take this—it’s the boss. Maybe you can fill me in at lunch. Trula’s doing burgers and homemade fries today.”
She answered the call as she left the room and Sam tapped his pen on the side of his own mug.
(GOOD MORNING! LET THE STRESS BEGIN!
)
He’d placed a call to John Mancini earlier that morning and was still awaiting a callback. He knew Fiona was tied up, so he didn’t expect to hear from her until later in the afternoon, and then only if she had something new to tell him. In the meantime, Sam was trying to separate his personal feelings from his
professional responsibilities. Any way you sliced it, he needed to lay it all out for the others here at the Foundation. They needed to know that he could possibly be a player in the case he was supposed to be resolving for their client.
But how could he possibly look Lynne Walker in the eye and tell her that had it not been for someone with an ax to grind with
him
, her husband would still be alive?
He ran a hand through his hair and thought that if this were happening to someone else he probably wouldn’t believe it.
“Hey, good news.” Mallory poked her head back in. “That was Robert. He and Susanna are on their way back. They should be here in a few hours, so you’ll finally get to meet your new boss.” She glanced at her watch. “Gotta run. I’m supposed to be interviewing someone right now.”
“Talk to you later.” Sam nodded and forced a smile.
“And I’m sure looking forward to meeting Robert Magellan today,” he muttered after Mallory disappeared into the hall. “So I can tell him about the wrench I’m throwing into his new case.”
“Walk me through this again, Sam,” Robert said after the hoopla of his return had died down and Sam had been called in to his office to meet him. “You think our client’s husband may have been murdered by someone who’s trying to get your attention?”
Sam had been surprised to find the man alone in the room. He’d been hoping that Mallory would be there, too, so he could get this over with once and for all.
“It’s beginning to look like it.” Sam’s jaw clenched with the tension. This was one hell of a way to introduce yourself to your new boss. “I’d like to say that maybe I’m wrong—maybe the FBI is wrong—but I’ve gone over this thing backwards and forwards and I honestly can’t see this any other way. Someone is playing with my head, and it’s working.”
“Have you discussed this with Mallory?”
“Not yet, sir. I was going to this morning but she—”
Robert groaned. “Please. Do not
sir
me. I hate to be
sirred
.”
“Sorry. Habit.”
“Have you mentioned this to our client? What’s her name?”
“Lynne Walker.”
“Right. Walker. Does she know about this?”
“No. As I said, this theory just came to light yesterday, and I wanted to discuss it with Mallory. And you, of course.”
“Then that’s all this is? A theory?”
“The killer has struck three times in places that have some significance to me—on dates that are significant to me—because he’s trying to get my attention. Send me a message.” Sam slumped in the chair.
“What places?” Robert was obviously intrigued. “What dates?”
“The town in which I went to college …”
“Which was?”
“Lincoln, Nebraska. UNL.”
“University of Nebraska—Lincoln is a big school, isn’t it? Main campus, right?”
“Yes.”
“How many students, would you say?”
“Last alumni bulletin said something in the area of eighteen thousand undergrads.”
“And what’s the population of Lincoln?”
“About a quarter of a million, I suppose.”
“But given all those people, you still think this murder has something to do with you?” Robert looked skeptical. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”
“The murders in Lincoln and in Dutton—I went to high school in Dutton—both occurred on February ninth. Which is also my birthday. The murder in Kendall, Illinois—where my late wife grew up, where she’s buried—happened on August fifteenth. The date of her murder.”
The room was silent as a tomb.
Finally, Robert said, “Your wife … was murdered?”
“Yes. The three-year anniversary just passed.”
“I don’t know what to say, Sam.”
“That’s okay. I guess it’s all been said, but thank you. And condolences to you, too. About your wife. Your son.”
“Changes your life in ways you could never imagine, doesn’t it?”
“To put it mildly, yes.”
The two men regarded each other for a moment, each acknowledging the other’s loss until Robert broke the silence by moving past it.
“This puts a different spin on things.” Robert rubbed his chin. “The dates, the places …” He nodded slowly. “Yeah. It’s all pointing back to you, isn’t it?”
“That’s how it seems to me, and to the FBI as well. So if you want me to resign and go on back to—”
“Why would I want you to do that?” Robert frowned. “Our job is to solve this murder for Mrs. Walker. Who is going to be better able to do that than you?”
Sam was speechless for a moment. “It could be seen as a conflict of interests.”
“A conflict of whose interests? She wants the case solved, you want the case solved. We want it solved. Now more than ever. We’re willing to put all our resources behind you to that end. And the FBI is going to work with you on this, right?”
“Right.”
“I don’t see the conflict. As long as you’re not afraid of pursuing this, I don’t—”
“Why would I be afraid?”
“Because the killer is probably after you, right? Why else would he be trying to get your attention? Why wouldn’t you be afraid?”
“I’ve had killers after me before,” Sam told him.
“And that didn’t scare you?” Robert’s eyebrows rose.
“It made me more aware of my surroundings, made me more conscious of who and what was going on around me, but I wasn’t
scared
to the point where I couldn’t do my job.”
“Let me ask you something. Those cases—the ones where someone was hunting you—how did they end?”
“Twice with the killer being arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced to prison. The other was shot and killed by a SWAT team.”
“So in other words, each time you got your man; he didn’t get you.”
“In other words, yeah.”
“That’s the bottom line, Sam. Get the fucker.” Robert sat all the way back in his chair and it tipped toward the wall. He was about to say something else when Father Burch came into the room.
Robert stood and the two men embraced.
“I heard there’s reason to be optimistic,” the priest said.
“We’re pretty sure Ian was alive, at least while he was in the cabin.” Robert’s joy was written all over his face. Sam got up to leave. This was a family moment, and he thought the cousins might want to have some time alone, but Robert stopped him.
“No, no, don’t feel you have to leave. Tell Kevin what you were just telling me. Wait. Let me get Mallory in on this. And Emme.” He paused with his hand over the phone. “Hell, let’s just all go down to the kitchen and have a meeting and tell everyone at the same time.”
There was something about Robert Magellan that made Sam’s head spin, he was thinking as he followed the other two men down the hall. The man was decisive. He evaluated situations and people very quickly, then made a decision and moved on, which had obviously worked well for him in business.
Sam was almost to the stairwell when his phone rang. He looked at the ID and called ahead to Robert.
“I’ll meet you down there.” Sam held up his ringing phone. “FBI.”
He went back to his office and closed the door.
“Fiona?”
“Yes, Sam, it’s me.” She sounded rushed and excited. “Listen, Sam, I’m coming back out there in the morning. I’m going to have a little company. Do you think we could use your conference room?”
“I guess so. I don’t know why we couldn’t, but I’ll clear it and let you know if there’s a problem.” He sat on the side of his desk. “Who’s coming with you?”
“Annie McCall and possibly John.”
“Why?” The word tumbled from his mouth before he could stop it.
“Because there’s been another killing.”
“Another …”
“Three Saturdays ago.” She paused as if waiting for him to react. When he did not, she said, “August fifteenth, Sam.”
He hadn’t forgotten the date, but at that moment, he hadn’t been thinking that it had been three weeks since the third anniversary of Carly’s death.
“So we’re gathering the guns to talk this over,” she went on.
“Where this time?”
“Sanderson, Virginia.”
Sam felt his knees go weak.
“We were living there when Carly was murdered,” he whispered.
“I know. John told me. He wants to talk to you tomorrow, alone, so he’s going to arrive around ten if that works for you.”
“That works.”
“Great. I’ll let him know. If there’s a change, give me a call. Annie will be flying in to the Philly airport and I’ll pick her up around eleven, then we’ll drive out there together. I’m having copies of the case in
question delivered to you overnight so we’ll all be getting a first look at the same time. Any questions?”
“No.” Sam cleared his throat. “Not right now.”
“Sam, I’m so sorry. I was hoping … we were all hoping … that the others would turn out to be a fluke somehow.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
No one more than me
. “So, is Will working on that list of cases?”
“He said as soon as he’s done he’ll email it to all of us at the same time.”
“Thanks, Fiona.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Sam.” She disconnected before he could say anything else.
Sam sat for a while staring out the window trying to collect his thoughts, his palms sweating and his stomach in knots.
Another death
. Each one felt so personal to him, obscene gestures only he could see.
He’d been in Barcelona on August fifteenth, one of those places he and Carly always talked about visiting but never found time to get to. His entire trip had been planned that way, taking her memory to every place they’d talked about visiting someday but hadn’t gotten around to. The weeks he’d spent traveling had exhausted him. Mind, body, spirit—all had suffered through every leg of his trip. He’d spent the last two weeks with his parents at their B and B in Tuscany, trying to heal, trying to find the strength to move on. He thought he’d been making some real progress—and then this.
“Sam? Did you get tied up on the phone or something?” Emme called from the hallway. “Everyone’s downstairs in the kitchen, waiting for you.”
“I’ll be right there,” he answered.
He blew out a long hot breath, then went downstairs to join the others. There was no avoiding the meeting, since Robert was the one who’d called it. Besides, Sam told himself, he wanted to get it all out there in the open. Maybe then it wouldn’t feel so much like a festering wound.
In the end, it hadn’t been as bad as he’d feared. Once the initial shock had passed, and the appropriate sympathy had been offered, the core of the Mercy Street Foundation got down to work.
Mallory and Emme—both having been police officers in the past—thought maybe Sam shouldn’t be involved in the case. Kevin, Susanna, Trula, and Robert—none of whom had ever worked in law enforcement—agreed that he should stay at the forefront of the investigation as long as he was comfortable doing so.
“The decision could be taken out of our hands,” Sam told them. “The FBI might want us to back off.”
“Can they do that?” Trula frowned. “If this is a private firm, and we have a client who has asked us for help, how can the FBI make us butt out?”
“I think they can strongly suggest it. But let’s not jump to conclusions. I’m only bringing it up because my former boss—who is head of the special investigative unit I worked with—along with the agent who is handling the federal case and their top profiler will be here in the morning.” Sam turned to the side of the table where Mallory and Robert both sat. “Will it be all right if we use the conference room?”
“Absolutely. Use whatever you need. I don’t think I want us to go head-to-head with the FBI. There are
going to be times when we will need them to cooperate with us.” Robert appeared thoughtful.
“I think I might have mentioned to Fiona—Special Agent Summers—that we had a contract with Lynne Walker.” Sam thought he should clear this up. “Do we?”