* * *
Ivy waited until the FBI agent had left before she came downstairs.
“He’s still outside. I see him watching.”
“You’re safe here. I locked the front door.”
“The Reverend is coming. He’s going to take Sara. He’s already lied and they believe him.”
Only one person would have told the FBI that she had been diagnosed mentally ill. Her father.
Her entire body shook so hard she thought she’d crack right down the middle. She had to get it together or she’d never make it out of town.
Marti came over and put her large, narrow hands on Ivy’s shoulders. “You are no longer safe here. The FBI will be back.”
“I know.” She breathed deeply. “You’ll find Mina a home?”
“I have an old friend in Fort Hood. We went to theology school together. She’ll love Mina like we do. I’m already getting the papers in order. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, Mina is her niece from upstate New York. No one will question it. You’ve done the best you can, Ivy. You saved Mina, protected her all this time. Now let me. Let me help.”
Ivy nodded. “Thank you.”
“Your identities will be here in the morning. Take Sara, do not tell me where. I am not a good liar.”
“And I’m too good.”
“God has forgiven you. Now forgive yourself.”
Ivy chest heaved in silent sobs. Marti pulled her into a tight, bony hug, and Ivy had never felt so loved since the night her mother tried to save her from the monster.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Sean did not take well to being threatened.
He considered calling his brother Duke about Paxton’s bombshell, but decided to keep it to himself for now. He didn’t want to tell Duke what he’d done. Not because he regretted it, but because he’d learned the hard way to keep his not-quite-legal activities a secret.
It was nearly eleven years ago while at Stanford University that Sean hacked into a tenured professor’s computer and exposed him as a child pornographer. It was a brilliant plan. When the FBI got involved over the illegal hacking, he came forward, admitted what he’d done, expecting a medal for getting the pervert thrown off campus and under indictment.
Instead, he’d been arrested.
Duke had fixed it, but Sean had never trusted the FBI after that. Duke got him into MIT, even though Sean wanted nothing to do with any educational or government institution. But of course he went. He’d always done what Duke wanted, at least on the surface.
Sean knew exactly what Paxton was referring to, because there was only one felony Sean had committed that had a statute of limitation of ten years. The ten years was up next March. Eight months, one week from yesterday.
He had to put the situation on hold because right now, there were far more important things to worry about than his freedom. As soon as he solved Paxton’s blackmail problem, he’d find the answer he needed.
He pushed the thoughts aside and got to work. Paxton had e-mailed Sean his appointment schedule from the week he said the note Lucy wrote had been stolen.
He hated being put in the position of keeping something this important from Lucy. His stomach ached, a sure sign that he was torn. And there was no one he could talk to about it. Patrick was out of town, and Sean didn’t know how he would react if he knew Lucy had kept such an important piece of information secret. Her sister-in-law Kate would understand, and Sean trusted her more than any other fed, but Kate was
still
a fed and Sean would be putting her in a compromising position.
Sean wasn’t as conflicted about keeping the information about Lucy’s acceptance into the FBI a secret. It would destroy her, and Sean wasn’t going to be party to that. If she quit because he told her, it would taint their relationship forever. Worse, she’d give up on her dream. She would say she understood, but he remembered how upset she’d been when she failed her first personal interview.
She not only deserved this assignment, she would make an amazing cop. Better than most cops out there. Sean would much rather she work for RCK. Her instincts were sharp and she certainly had the brains for private security work, but that’s not what
Lucy
wanted.
Paxton’s schedule had been full the last week of June. He had meetings with locally elected officials, lobbyists, nonprofit groups, other congressmen—more than a dozen meetings on Monday alone. How could someone work like that? Sean kept meetings to a minimum. Sitting around doing nothing, in Sean’s mind. He knew part of it was his kinetic personality—he had to be doing
something,
physically or mentally.
Normally, Sean would forward the list to RCK West and have their support staff do the grunt work, but he didn’t trust anyone else with this job, and he didn’t want to explain it to his brother. This kind of work, though simple, needed to be thorough. At least it kept his mind going, and he ran multiple searches simultaneously.
He put the out-of-town visitors at the bottom of his list. It wasn’t that they
couldn’t
be guilty, but the chances were minimal. He wrote a quick program to run basic background checks on those people, as well as Paxton’s staff, and forced it to work on another server, to keep his at peak performance. When it was done, the program would e-mail him a report.
There was a national law enforcement group, a national victims’ rights group, multiple congressmen and staff, and several lobbyists representing a variety of clients.
If he were going to steal something, he would prefer to be alone in the room. He made a list of all meetings where there were only one or two other people. That eliminated half the meetings. Two people would work—either a conspiracy, or one of them stepped out.
Paxton wouldn’t have been in the room.
What made Paxton think that someone hadn’t accessed his office after hours? Capitol security was extensive, and Sean bet the first thing Paxton had done was look at the security feeds outside his office for any intruders. But there were no security cameras in the individual legislative offices. So he’d deduced that someone who had access to his inner office had taken the note. Paxton had dismissed his staff as viable suspects, and Sean supposed a man as wily as Paxton would be able to assess his employees accurately.
Then there was his pet PI, Sergio Russo.
Sean knew very little about the PI. How had Paxton found him? Was he from DC or the New York district that Paxton represented?
Running a background on Russo would be a little more difficult. A good PI would have alerts when certain databases were accessed. Sean would have to go into each database through a back door. It wasn’t legal, but at this point, if Russo was not who he appeared to be, Sean didn’t want him knowing that he was digging.
Paxton said that the note and locket had been kept in a box in his bottom right-hand drawer. Close to him, where he could look at it anytime he wanted, but hidden from public view.
There had to be something more than the theft of the locket and note. There was no evidence at all that Paxton had killed Roger Morton. Someone else confessed, the gun had been recovered, no one was even
looking
at Paxton as a coconspirator, let alone the man who pulled the trigger.
Why not call their bluff?
Because Paxton’s lying to you.
He wasn’t lying about killing Roger Morton—why would he confess that to Sean when someone else was in prison for the crime? But he was lying about something else.
Mick Mallory had pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty and gave a detailed rundown on every predator he’d killed.
What’s one more in the big picture?
But if Paxton killed Morton, Mallory knew. Which meant Mallory might know why the locket was so important to Paxton.
Why would someone take the fall for Paxton’s crimes?
Someone like Mick Mallory, the bastard, was so broken he’d take the truth to his grave. But there were others. Lucy’s former boss, Fran Buckley, had made a plea agreement. Did she know about Paxton’s involvement? Sean couldn’t see how she
didn’t.
She took his money, he had headlined a fundraiser for her, they had been friends.
Except … that didn’t fit the rest of the scenario. It didn’t fit why two call girls were dead, a congressional mistress, or a social worker and her husband who were helping them. There was a big gaping hole of information, and in that missing information was motive.
His phone vibrated. It was a text message from Lucy.
I’m finally home. Clean bill of health.
Sean wanted to see Lucy, but he needed to talk to Paxton again. Fill in some of these blanks.
He called to arrange a meeting, and Paxton tried to postpone until tomorrow. Sean wouldn’t let him, and Paxton agreed to meet him at nine, at Paxton’s residence in Alexandria.
He never wanted Lucy to know what had happened in Massachusetts. He would destroy Paxton if it got out.
Sean might take the senator down anyway, just for threatening him.
He responded to Lucy’s message.
Up for a visitor? I have chocolate ice cream for you.
He had enough time to check on Lucy and get to Alexandria early. He planned to do a little investigation on the senator himself.
He grabbed his laptop and bag of tools, locked up, and tossed everything in his trunk.
* * *
Noah watched His Grace Church for thirty minutes.
Reverend Marti North knew exactly who Ivy Harris was. He had already called to get a warrant, but it was late and he had not one teeny piece of evidence that Marti had lied to him, that Hannah/Ivy was there, or that she would return. And whenever they were dealing with registered churches, legitimate or not, they had to be extremely careful in how they approached the situation. No one in the Bureau would forget Waco.
Still, Rick Stockton thought Noah was on to something, and was working with his people and the U.S. Attorney to see what they could do. It might mean simply sending in another agent. Or authorizing a stakeout. Or digging deep into Marti North’s past and finding something they could leverage. Not Noah’s favorite approach, but when a fourteen-year-old girl was missing and the people she had been with were all dead, he would do whatever it took.
Cyber crimes had called him with the information obtained from the virtual phone company. The number was registered to a pay-as-you-go phone and the account purchased with a prepaid credit card.
Noah didn’t find it humorous that Sean Rogan had predicted that method to hide the identity of the phone number holder.
The credit card yielded nothing—it was in the dollar amount for the yearlong subscription to several virtual numbers, all of which went to the same disposable phone number. The account had been opened three months ago, and changed disposable numbers four times. The current disposable phone, however, had been reloaded at a nearby location three weeks ago.
When he got the call that the surveillance team had finally arrived to relieve him from the impromptu stakeout, he left to check out the business.
Noah drove to a small convenience store only six blocks from the church, on the corner. Like other businesses in the area, bars covered the windows. When he pulled up, several loiterers left the area.
He walked in and the tall, young black kid behind the counter gave him the once-over. “You a fibbie?”
“Special Agent Noah Armstrong.” He showed his ID. “I’m looking for the owner.”
“That’s my dad. He’s not here.”
“I’m looking for this girl. She lives not far from here, and may have come in to refill a disposable phone.” He showed Ivy’s picture.
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Noah wasn’t certain the number belonged to Ivy, but since it was only a mile from her house, he was taking a chance thinking it was her. With the multiple virtual numbers all going to the same phone, it suggested she was giving different numbers to different people. According to the company, the caller ID was set up to show which virtual number was being used. That would help Ivy keep track of who was calling her.
Noah had also asked about tracing the numbers calling in to the virtual numbers, but the company didn’t keep that data.
This was his closest lead. “The last time the phone was filled was three weeks ago, two hundred dollars cash.”
The kid lit up. “She-et, why didn’t you say so? Two bills, crisp and clean.”
“Was it her?”
“Naw, it was some older dude. Forties.”
“Do you remember what he looked like?”
The kid shrugged. “White. Maybe Mexican, Italian, something like that—but not a spic, if you know what I mean.”
Noah let the racial slur slide. “How was he dressed?”
“How’em I supposed to remember that? Not like a scumbag. No suit, but I thought he might have been an undercover cop. ’Cept the narcs I know try to look like addicts, you know what I mean?”
“You have a good memory.”
“Two bills? Don’t see those here. Counting pennies for a bottle of beer, sure, got that going down.”
“Anything else you can remember?”
“No, and I’d tell you, honest. You just killed my business for the next two hours, buddy. Everyone on the block pegged you for a cop. My dad is going to shoot me.”
Noah handed him his card. “Thanks for your help.” He glanced up and saw the security camera. “Any chance you have that guy on surveillance?”
The kid shook his head. “No chance. We copy over the tapes every twenty-four hours. My dad’s cheap, and tapes cost a lot, and do you know how much it costs to go digital?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Lucy closed her eyes as she savored the dark chocolate Häagen-Dazs ice cream Sean brought her.
“Umm.”
“Good?”
“Umm-hmm.”
Kate hit Sean in the shoulder. “You didn’t bring me any?”
“I’m sure Lucy will share.”
“No I won’t,” Lucy said between bites. “I’m the invalid here.”
Kate snorted and waved her hand around the family room. Lucy had taken over the coffee table with all the files and notes Noah had sent over. Her laptop was open and Noah had given her access to the complete Wendy James file. Because she’d been out of the loop on the James case for the last two days, she wanted to go through those documents first, with an eye for any connection to Ivy Harris or the murder victims.