Conspiracy

74

Driving back to her hotel after speaking to the doctor, Lia wondered why she was so convinced that Forester hadn’t killed himself. Was it the kid? Amanda Rauci? Or the fact that a Secret Service agent was supposed to be tough enough to stand up to standard strains and stresses, like a marriage gone bad?

Maybe Lia just didn’t like the idea that someone could feel so bad he would want to kill himself. She’d fought so hard to live that she couldn’t imagine the other side of things.

Her sat phone rang. It was Chris Farlekas, the relief Art Room supervisor. Lia, as she often did, had “forgotten” to turn her com system back on after lunch.

But he wasn’t calling to scold her.

“We have something,” Farlekas told her. “It’s another e-mailed threat. We know where it came from. Ambassador Jackson is informing the Secret Service and FBI liaisons, but you may want to tell Mandarin about it yourself.” Farlekas explained the circumstances. The house was just north of Poughkeepsie, not far from the Taconic State Parkway or Pine Plains — but not close enough, Lia thought, to be the target of Forester’s investigation.

“Go with them when they investigate,” Farlekas added.

“We can analyze the computer a lot quicker than their people can.”