Major Brooke Grant's farmhouse
Near Berryville, Virginia
B
rooke Grant's preacher father had taught her that love was unlimited. You could never run out of room in your heart, he'd proclaimed. She was learning the same could be said for hate. She had thought it was impossible for her to be filled with more hatred than she'd felt after her parents had been murdered. She'd been wrong. The heart could hate without bounds or limits, and she hated Akbar.
She could not sleep. She was sitting in the kitchen at four a.m. reviewing everything that had happened in the past several hours. The text messages from Akbar. The explosion at the dock. Finding Aludra's body. The phone call from Akbar. Hearing Jennifer scream. Checking with the phone company only to discover dead ends. What could she have done differently to protect the child she loved?
Her cell phone rang and she gasped. Was it Akbar calling again to torment her? The Caller ID showed it was FBI Agent Wyatt Parker, but that didn't ease her fear. Had Jennifer been found? Had Akbar murdered her?
She answered.
“We got a body,” Parker said.
“Jennifer?” Brooke asked, her voice an instant mixture of fear and alarm.
“No! No! A Washington lobbyist named Mary Margaret Delaney.”
Brooke's feelings of relief turned to anger. Hadn't Parker known she would think first of Jennifer? Was he really that stupid? Or had he wanted in some sick way to frighten her?
“I'm sorry,” he said. “Still a bit groggy. They woke me up.” But he didn't sound regretful.
“Who's Delaney?”
“A Washington political fixer. She ran Governor Coldridge's presidential campaign last year against President Allworth. Her body was discovered an hour ago by the Park Police. They asked us to take a look, although it appears to be a simple case of suicide.”
“The Park Police?” Brooke repeated.
“Yeah, Delaney was found inside her car on the George Washington Parkway near the Three Sisters, so it falls under their jurisdiction. You need to hurry before they send her body to the morgue.”
“Why are they asking us?”
“Delaney visited Rudy Adeogo's house the other day shortly before he announced to the world that his brother was an international terrorist. The FBI is assuming Adeogo was planning on hiring Delaney to help him with damage control since she was a professional spin-meister. You know, make the fact that his brother was the most hated man in America a bit more palatable for the public. Now she's dead and they want to make sure there's no possible link with terrorism. It's a stretch, but everyone's so flustered by what's going on that terrorism is the first thing they think every time a body shows up. As far as I'm concerned, you can go back to sleep.”
“No, I'll leave right now.”
It was a good forty-minute drive from her farmhouse, but the morning commuter traffic hadn't yet started so she reached the George Washington Parkway in record time. The “GW,” as it was known, was a double-wide freeway that snaked along the Virginia side of the Potomac River and featured several dramatic overlooks. One of the most popular was near the Three Sisters, tiny rocky islands that jutted from the center of the river. Like nearly every landmark in the area, there was a legend behind them. The most popular tale was about a Native American chief who'd marooned three maidens on the rocks after they'd refused to marry braves whom he'd chosen. While most of the Potomac River near Washington, D.C., was only four feet deep, the Three Sisters were the result of a geological fall line, and the channel around them plunged to depths of eighty feet. The women could not escape because of the deep, swift currents, so they cast a deadly curse on the three rocks. Onlookers claimed a strange moaning sound could be heard whenever another victim was about to be swallowed by the river swirling around the islands. Sadly, the legend attracted an occasional despondent individual looking to end his or her life either by tumbling down the embankment into the water or by some other means.
Mary Margaret Delaney had not drowned. Brooke found her still perched behind the steering wheel of her leased BMW. There was a .22-caliber Derringer resting on her lap. Agent Parker had arrived before Brooke and already chatted with the Park Police investigators. The fatal round had been fired upward into the roof of Delaney's mouth but had not exited the back of her skull. The bullet was still lodged inside her brain.
“Some people think a twenty-two short round is fairly harmless,” Parker explained as Brooke bent down to look at Delaney inside her car. He was eager to demonstrate his knowledge of gunshots. “But it can be deadly at close range.” As he continued babbling about how a .22-caliber handgun had been a popular pistol used by Mafia hitmenâbecause its quiet discharge blended with other noises such as a car door closingâBrooke focused on the crime scene before her.
Delaney was dressed in Saint Laurent studded jeans, a button-down pleated floral blouse, and silver leather jacket. Not counting Delaney's black leather boots, Brooke guessed the ensemble had easily cost around six thousand dollars. Her bright red hair was meticulously styled and her makeup was immaculate, as were her manicured nails. There was no wedding band, but she had diamond rings on both hands, along with a gold bracelet on her left wrist. She smelled of Versace perfume.
“Was the Derringer hers?” Brooke asked.
“I have no idea and, quite frankly, don't care,” Parker replied. “Delaney wasn't a terrorist and I don't see anything here that would make me believe this is linked to terrorism, do you?”
“I can't see any connection between her death, Akbar, or the Falcon,” Brooke acknowledged.
“Great. I'll tell the Park Police that we're done and thank them for including us.” Parker checked his watch and added, “How about breakfast? We might as well grab some before we head back to the command post.”
“Let's skip breakfast, go back to the command center, and get permission to interview Mohammad Al-Kader.”
“Not again! You can't just let it die, can you?” Parker moaned. “Ever since Chairman Stanton accused him at a news conference of having possible links with radical Islamists, you've been busting my balls to interview that Imam. You know we don't have any evidence that Al-Kader has ever even met Akbar. You know he has lawyered up and you know we don't have the authorization to go pounding on his mosque's door, especially with all of the media stink that Representative Stanton has raised about sending the FBI into mosques.”
“But if Al-Kader does know Akbar, he might know where Jennifer is being held. We need to bring him in and find out. That's what we would do if he weren't an Imam. We need to treat him like any other suspect. Just because he's got lawyers and is a religious figure who's been thrust into the national limelight by Stanton is no reason to treat him differently.”
“You're being naïve, Major Grant, and desperate, but if you insist, I'll pass your request up to the director again. But not until after I have breakfast, because I know asking for permission to interview Al-Kader is a waste of my time. Now do you want to get breakfast or not?”
“No, as long as I'm this close to D.C., I'm going to check on my uncle.” Brooke was irked by Parker's timidity in pursuing Al-Kader and had no interest in watching him enjoy a leisurely stack of pancakes while Jennifer was missing.
“Suit yourself.” Parker shrugged as he turned toward a group of Park Police detectives standing about twenty feet away.
Brooke started walking in the opposite direction toward her car when a young woman wearing a Park Police uniform intercepted her.
“Excuse me, Major Grant, do you have a moment?” the woman asked. “I recognized you from the television newscasts. I'm Cindy Gural, the officer who found Ms. Delaney's body this morning.”
They were speaking out of hearing distance of Parker and the detectives.
“Everyone's decided this is a suicide,” Gural said, “but I'm not so sure. I think this scene might have been staged.”
“Why are you telling me?” Brooke asked.
“Oh, I already told them,” Gural replied, nodding toward the detectives. “But I've only been working on this job for six months, so they blew me off even though I used to be a D.C. cop before joining the Park Police.”
“What makes you think this scene was staged?”
“Lots of things,” Gural said in a low voice, “but the biggest reason is personal. You see, my brother ended his own life and before he did it, he was a mess. He was super depressed. He wouldn't eat. Didn't want to talk to anyone. Just sat in his room with the shades drawn. He certainly didn't get all dressed up and go out bar hopping.”
“I'm sorry for your loss,” Brooke said, “but people react differently to depression and stress. I'm curious, who told you Ms. Delaney was out bar hopping?”
“When I discovered her body parked up here, I looked into her purse for an ID, and there was a credit card receipt in her wallet with a time stamp. It was from the After Hours, a club in D.C. Are you familiar with it?”
“No.”
“It's a new place that caters to really wealthy lobbyists and other big shots. It's got a reputation for being a pickup bar. I telephoned it and spoke to its night manager.”
“He was still there?”
“Yeah, the place was closed but he was still finishing up some paperwork and he said everyone knew Delaney because she was the sort everyone noticed. He said she was there with a girlfriend drinking, so I called that woman.”
“You called her?”
“I know, I should have just let the detectives handle it,” Gural said. “But I didn't. Like I said, I used to be a D.C. cop. Anyway, her girlfriend said Delaney had been in a great mood that night. They were having a good time when Delaney got a call from a client who demanded that she drop everything and meet him. Delaney paid her tab and left to meet this guy.”
“Did Delaney mention a name?”
“Nope, just that he was a new client and she had to meet him even though it was late.”
“Maybe she met him, got upset about some business deal, and drove out here to kill herself on the spur of the moment,” Brooke suggested.
“You know, my brother, he shot himself and I remember the detectives telling us women used pills and always thought things through before they did it. Men, they always shot themselves and it was more impulsive. Another thing, my brother, he stuck a twelve-gauge in his mouth. I'm sure he wanted to make sure he died. He didn't want to end up paralyzed.”
Brooke didn't reply.
“When I found Ms. Delaney's body, I started thinking,” Gural continued, “why shoot yourself in the mouth, knowing it might not do the trick? Why use a small-caliber handgun?”
“Maybe it was the only pistol she owned.”
“And maybe someone else shot her because the murderer knew there wouldn't be much blood splatter. Blood from the wound would pool in her mouth or run down her throat and not drip all over wherever she was killed.”
Brooke wasn't certain if Gural's concerns were legitimate or far-fetched, tainted by memories of her brother's death.
“Did you look at her earlobes?” Gural asked.
“No.”
“The cartilage in one of them was torn. She had a dangling earring in her right ear but no earring in her left ear and the skin was torn, like someone had ripped the earring down through the skin. I think it got ripped out during a struggle. It's not in that car. She also had a missing fingernail tipâa fake fingernail had been torn off. What woman who gets all dressed up for a night at a bar leaves off one fake fingernail?”
“That does seem odd, but I really can't help you,” Brooke replied. “My child is missing.”
“Oh, I know, Major Grant. It's been all over the news and I know you don't have time to waste on this, but after you save your child, after you catch that terrorist, maybe you and I can take another look at this so-called suicide. I don't know the woman who is dead over in that car and she might have decided to end it all. I get that. Like I said, I had a brother who ended his own life. But if she was murdered, then the killer needs to be caught. That woman's friends need to know the truth because, trust me, after a suicide, everyone feels guilty and begins asking if they could have done something different, said something different to save that person. That's a lot to carry on your shoulders.”
Brooke took Gural's number and thanked her before driving her Jaguar south on the GW parkway across the bridge into the city.
She found her aunt Geraldine asleep in the recliner next to Uncle Frank inside the ICU ward at George Washington University hospital. The general's face remained covered with bandages; he still had not awakened from his coma, but they had removed his breathing tube because he was now capable of breathing on his own, which was a hopeful sign. Rather than disturbing her aunt, Brooke spoke briefly to the charge nurse and took the elevator to the ground floor where she ducked into the hospital cafeteria. The grill hadn't yet opened, so she sat at a table and checked the
Washington Post
on her phone. A small item posted only minutes earlier on the paper's website noted the discovery of Mary Margaret Delaney's body near the Three Sisters. The police were quoted saying it appeared to be a suicide.