Fear No Evil

Chapter 8

Traffic had slowed to a crawl on the Beltway toward Dulles Airport. Bree kept checking her watch. I was still dealing with the aftershock of knowing that M was back in my life. Again.

M was the name I knew him by, though John Sampson referred to him off and on as Mastermind. Over the years, M had alternately helped and hindered us as we investigated various murders and criminal enterprises and his roles in them.

For a time, M had tried to make me believe that Kyle Craig, an old, dead nemesis of mine, was actually back among the living. He’d done it to mess with my head and with Sampson’s.

And even though this had been going on for years, we still didn’t understand his motivations, which was infuriating. M liked to taunt me, and I knew better than to respond to his texts.

But it was still bugging me.

“Alex, we haven’t moved in five minutes,” Bree said, breaking into my thoughts.

“We’ve got two hours to get there, and it’s only six miles away,” I said. “According to Waze, there’s an accident about a mile up the road. We’ll make it.”

“I better make it. It’s only my career and Bluestone’s reputation at stake,” Bree said. “Can’t you throw up your bubble and turn on your siren?”

“Do it, Dad!” Ali cried from the back seat.

Jannie laughed. “I’ve never been in the car when you’ve done that, Dad.”

I glanced in the rearview and said, “That’s because I don’t make a habit of using the bubble and siren to get around traffic jams on personal time.”

Bree said, “If this goes on another fifteen minutes, I’ll take the heat and do it myself.”

Seeing I wasn’t going to use the siren and lights, Ali and Jannie quickly got bored, put on their earbuds, and retreated into their phones. Bree started to do the same before I said, “You haven’t asked me about my day.”

She frowned. “Oh? I guess I didn’t. I’m sorry. I was so preoccupied with packing for Paris.”

“I get it.”

“You’ve got my undivided attention for the next fourteen minutes. But if we haven’t moved, then you’re lighting up that siren.”

“Deal,” I said, then described the scene beneath the spy museum, the arrival of the CIA officers who’d worked with the deceased, and Sampson’s and my subsequent trip to see Catherine Hingham’s husband and two children.

We’d found Frank Hingham feeding lunch to Emily, their birdlike young daughter, in her large, elaborate wheelchair. He was awaiting the arrival of a nurse’s aide so he could take their son, Luke, to a soccer game. After the aide arrived, we took Hingham aside and told him his wife had been found murdered, was last seen alive in Nogales, Mexico.

After glancing in the back seat to make sure our kids weren’t listening, Bree asked, “How’d he react?”

“Like we’d put a spear through his heart,” I said. “He literally fell down, crashed against his desk. He was shocked and then sobbing. He said he didn’t know how he was going to do it.”

“Do what?”

“Tell his kids, especially his daughter. Emily and her mom were very close.”

“Did you get the family computers?”

“And we searched her office. Hingham gave us permission before taking his son to the soccer game. He said he’d tell Luke and Emily afterward at home.”

“You let him go?”

“If you’d seen him, you’d know he wasn’t involved.”

“You mentioned a confession,” Bree said. “You ask him about it?”

“Not yet,” I said. “It felt like it might be too much, too soon for him.”

“You’ve read it?”

“Scanned it. But we’ll be taking a close look at the family finances before we talk to the husband again. Or a forensic accountant will.”

Bree said, “I’m working with one of those on this case. He’s a Brit, former Scotland Yard, looks like he walked out of Downton Abbey.”

I laughed. “Your life has changed.”

She looked at her watch, said, “Yes, it has, and that’s fourteen minutes and we haven’t moved twenty feet.”

Knowing better than to argue, I leaned over, pulled out the bubble, slapped it on the roof, and threw the siren switch.

Ali and Jannie cheered when the siren started whooping and the bubble started flashing neon blue and red. The cars in front of us moved aside just enough to let me into the breakdown lane, where I hit the gas.

Bree clapped and smiled. “Now I am definitely on my way to Paris!”

I dropped her at the curb at Dulles fifteen minutes later. After hugging her goodbye, telling her I loved her, and wishing her good luck, I watched until she was inside, heading toward the check-in counter.

I’ll admit it — as I got back in the car to take the kids home, there was a small part of me that was envious of Bree’s new and exciting life. And another part that was a little worried about who my wife might be when she returned.