Love me to death

FORTY-FIVE

Four Days Later

Lucy hobbled down the stairs, her left foot in a thick bandage, her right arm bandaged as well. The stitches underneath itched, but she couldn’t do anything about it.

Sean was at the bottom of the stairs waiting for her. He looked tired, but other than a few bruises, he was as good as new.

She kissed him and smiled. He ran a hand through her hair and kissed her again, long and soft, holding her close.

“Is everyone here?”

He nodded.

She tilted her head. “Are you okay?”

He pushed back the collar of her shirt and frowned at the cut from Miller’s whip. She reached up to hide the bright red welt, but Sean took her hand into his and kissed it. “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. “No. Don’t-”

“I should have gone to the church with you. I should never have left you alone.”

Lucy touched his face. “We didn’t know. You couldn’t have known. We all thought Mick Mallory killed Cody.”

Her words didn’t ease his guilt, though she didn’t blame him, or anyone, except Peter Miller.

“I spoke with Carolyn this morning,” she said.

“She’s talking now?”

“Not a lot. I talked more with her mother, who flew in from Pennsylvania to be with her. They’re releasing her from the hospital tomorrow. She has a lot of things to work through, but Dillon’s helping to find her the right counselor, and as I told her, she survived. She won because she lived, and Peter Miller died. I don’t know if it helped, but it gets me through the day.”

Sean kissed her again.

Kate cleared her throat from the hall. “Can I get you both in here? Noah has to head back to headquarters to brief the Assistant U.S. Attorney, and we’re all hungry.”

Lucy and Sean followed Kate to the kitchen, where everyone involved in the case was serving up a buffet that Dillon had brought in from Lucy’s favorite restaurant. Abigail, Noah, Hans-they were all there. Noah’s right hand had been burned and was wrapped in bandages.

Once everyone was seated, Dillon prayed a simple grace. They ate in silence, then Lucy asked Noah, “I need to know what happened out there at the farm. How many?”

She didn’t need to elaborate.

“They found the remains of twelve women,” Noah said. “Seven from just the last six months. The others were from before his incarceration.” He sipped water.

They ate in silence awhile longer, then Noah said, “The U.S. Attorney is going to negotiate a plea agreement with Mallory and Buckley.”

Lucy closed her eyes. Sean sought her hand under the table. “I expected that.”

“That’s what my meeting is about this afternoon. We’re keeping this all under wraps. I don’t have to tell you what would happen if the public got wind that two former FBI agents were vigilante killers.”

“Half the people would support them, the other half would vilify the Bureau,” Lucy said. “I understand.”

Kate said, “But Mallory won’t be getting out of prison, ever.”

Noah said, “They’re still working through the details, but they’re talking about giving Buckley fifteen-to-life and Mallory life without parole. Mallory has been forthcoming, but it took what happened with Miller to get Buckley to tell her lawyer she wanted to cut a deal.”

“What about why those parolees were targeted?” Kate asked.

Noah and Hans exchanged a glance. Hans said carefully, “Some questions are better left unanswered.”

They suspected, Lucy realized, but maybe couldn’t prove it. Or didn’t want to.

“Don’t over-think it,” Noah said. “There is no definitive proof, and neither Buckley or Mallory have added anything to their statements.”

“What happens to WCF?” Lucy asked. “We did good work-”

“They’re shutting it down. They have to,” Noah added. “But Hans is going to make sure the work you were doing-minus the parolee project-will continue.”

She turned to Hans. “You are?”

“I have friends at a similar organization based in Texas. Our field office down there has worked extensively with them, and they’re under the radar. As soon as we get the okay from the Justice Department, all WCF files will be sent to them.”

“Thank you,” Lucy said, though the information was bittersweet.

“There’s one more thing,” Noah said. “I asked Mallory where the box of Adam Scott’s souvenirs was. He wasn’t very forthcoming, but he gave us the key to the safe deposit box. There was one request he had, and I agreed to it, provided you agree.”

Dillon said, “He has no right to ask Lucy for anything.”

“He doesn’t, but-well, essentially, he asked if you would retrieve it and decide whether the families should have the items back.”

Her fork slipped from her fingers. “Why?”

Hans said, “He said he never wanted to hurt anyone, and if seeing the items would hurt the families, you would know.”

Lucy didn’t know how the survivors would react. Some would want the items returned, others wouldn’t.

Noah said, “The jewelry was recovered in the course of a federal investigation, and the rule of the Bureau is to return all personal items not necessary for trial to the victims’ families. But identifying which item belongs to which family could prove difficult.”

Lucy knew that wasn’t completely true. Most families would know what personal effects were missing when the body was found. But Noah was giving her an out.

Everyone was looking at her.

“Lucy, you don’t have to do anything, even make a decision, right now,” Sean said quietly.

“I’d like to see the box before I decide.”

Noah drove Lucy to the bank right after lunch. “I hope I’m not making you late,” she said.

He shook his head. “I won’t be too late.”

They were parked behind the bank. The sky was still gray, the day still cold. Some days, Lucy thought that winter would never end. She longed for San Diego and the beaches and warm Januarys.

“Thank you,” she said.

He looked surprised. “For what? It’s only a slight detour.”

“For last week. Saving my life, Sean’s life-”

He held up his hand. “Don’t. I know what you did. You put that woman, Carolyn, ahead of yourself. I wanted to talk to you about that.” He pulled an envelope from his pocket and handed it to her.

She frowned and took it. The return address was FBI national headquarters, but there was no stamp. “Do you want me to open this?”

“Yes.”

Suddenly nervous, she unsealed the envelope and pulled out a single piece of paper.

Dear Ms. Kincaid:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation hiring panel has reviewed your application and assessed your written test. Your score on the written test was in the top 1 percent of applicants also taking the test in your group. Test scores alone do not guarantee that an applicant will continue in the hiring process. The Bureau considers a wide range of information to assess each applicant, including but not limited to preliminary background checks, test scores, education, and special skills.

You have been selected by the hiring panel to participate in a personal interview, the next step in the application process. The granting of a personal interview does not guarantee that an applicant will be offered a job in the FBI, nor is the interview the last step of the application process.

Your interview date is scheduled at:

FBI National Headquarters

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

10:30 a.m.

Most interviews take forty-five minutes to one hour, but please allot extra time. A questionnaire is being sent to your residence, signature required. The questionnaire must be returned at least seven days before your scheduled interview.

Congratulations!

Lucy read the letter twice. “How-I don’t understand. Why do you have this?”

“I asked Kate where you were in the application process, and she told me you were waiting for the interview, but didn’t want to ask for favors from her or Hans. That didn’t include me. All I did was make a couple of calls and find out where your letter was. You earned this, Lucy. I didn’t get you the interview. All I did was bump you to the top.”

She leaned forward and hugged him. “Thank you.” She swallowed back tears that had sprung to her throat. “This means a lot.” She frowned.

“What? I hope those are tears of happiness.”

She squeezed her fingers against her eyes to dry them. “Maybe I’m having doubts.”

“Don’t. You’re smarter than most of the agents I went to Quantico with. And you have common sense and compassion.”

“I panicked-”

“I didn’t see you panic. No one did, which means you handled your fear. We’re all scared sometimes. The Air Force prepared me to control the fear, because that’s what soldiers have to do to survive. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there, and fear, when we control it, makes us smarter.”

Noah hesitated, then said, “I was skeptical about you when we first met. I knew about your past, and I didn’t think you should be in the FBI. Abigail told me not to judge you until I met you, but I did anyway. A hazard in this profession, snap judgments. But you’re nothing like I expected, and I realized we need more like you in the Bureau.”

Lucy took a deep breath, Noah’s support filling her with a deep joy that surprised her. She smiled widely. “Thank you.”

Inside the bank ten minutes later, Lucy was alone in a small room, Mick Mallory’s safe deposit box open in front of her. Inside was an antique pewter box, dirt caked in the cracks of the intricate, stamped design.

She didn’t want to touch it. She stared at it for so long that the bank manager came in to make sure she was okay. Lucy nodded, and after the manager left, she held her breath and lifted the lid from the box.

No care had been taken with the jewelry. It was thrown in together, the chains of necklaces tangled. Except for one small white box.

She took out that box and put it aside, releasing her pent-up breath. Nothing here could hurt her. She saw her ring, the one Adam Scott had pulled from her finger. Bile rose from her throat and she knew she was right-she didn’t want it.

But if she were dead, would her parents want it? Would it remind them of her life, or of her death? She couldn’t make that decision. She wasn’t going to make it for others.

She was about to put the white box back inside and close everything, planning to tell Noah to let the Bureau contact the families and ask them if they wanted the items. But her curiosity about what was inside the smaller box compelled her to open it. Scott thought this was important. Special. Why?

Inside was a gold locket. She didn’t know much about jewelry, but this looked real.

She took the locket from the box and held it up. It was tarnished and needed cleaning, but it was solid. Engraved on the front were the initials MEP.

Her blood ran cold.

She opened the locket to see if she was right, even though she knew she was.

She now knew the truth. Worse, Mallory knew she would know what this was. He’d put an impossible choice in her hands.

She wished she’d never opened the box.

Sean didn’t ask Lucy why she needed to go to the U.S. Senate Chambers late Monday afternoon. He drove her there. He didn’t even balk when she told him she needed to go into the building alone, though she accepted his help in walking inside.

“Do you mind waiting down here?” she asked after they went through security.

“I’m not moving until you get back. You do whatever you have to do, and I’ll be right here.”

She kissed him lightly, then turned and walked on her single crutch to the elevator bank.

She entered Senator Jonathon Paxton’s office and the receptionist, Ann Lincoln, said, “Lucy! What happened?”

“I’m a klutz,” she said, refusing to explain to anyone what happened last week. “The senator is expecting me.”

“He’s still on the floor-”

“He said he’d come up when I arrived. Can I wait in his office?”

“Just a minute,” Ann said and called the senator.

Lucy looked at the pictures on the wall. Senator Paxton signing Jessie’s Law, with Jessie’s mother standing at his shoulder. The senator at a rally to support legislation to put child molesters in prison longer. The senator at his daughter’s memorial service, her senior portrait in the background of the picture.

Monique Paxton looked an awful lot like Lucy. She’d always known she had a resemblance to the senator’s dead daughter, and she suspected that was the reason he’d bonded with her and helped her over the years.

But now … maybe there were other reasons.

Ann called from her desk, “Jonathon said you can wait in his office. He’ll be right up.”

“Thank you.”

She walked into his office and closed the door. Her heart raced. Maybe she didn’t deserve to be an FBI agent.

But then again she would never be able to prove that Senator Jonathon Paxton was behind the vigilante group.

When she saw the locket, everything had become crystal clear. The senator’s involvement in WCF. His close relationship with Fran Buckley. His personal wealth and how he used it.

Senator Paxton’s daughter Monique was Adam Scott’s first victim. It was no coincidence that Mallory wanted this box that happened to contain Monique’s locket, the locket that her father had given her on her sixteenth birthday. Mallory had known it was in Adam Scott’s box.

But it was circumstantial evidence, and Buckley and Mallory hadn’t said a word about Paxton. Unless one of them turned-and Lucy didn’t think either of them would-Paxton’s involvement would simply be an unsubstantiated rumor.

One thing Mallory had said when she spoke with him earlier in the week had been bothering Lucy.

I don’t regret the killing of Morton.

An odd way of speaking. Her subconscious had picked up on it, but she hadn’t realized the importance of the phrasing until now. Mallory had said “I killed” in relation to the other victims, but not Morton. There was no doubt Mallory had been there-the evidence proved it, as well as his own statement-and Noah said he’d signed a statement identifying each man he killed. It included Morton.

But he’d been speaking deliberately. For her benefit.

I don’t regret the killing of Morton.

Mallory hadn’t pulled the trigger. The reason Morton had been lured to D.C. was so the senator could kill him.

Lucy realized suddenly that she didn’t want to see Senator Paxton. What he’d done was wrong, but she couldn’t confront him, nor could she tell anyone what she believed in her heart. That he was guilty of murder.

She couldn’t even hate him for it.

She scribbled a note and put the box on his chair, then left out the escape door, the exit that led directly to the hall from the senator’s office. She didn’t look back.

Senator Paxton stepped into his office.

“Lucy, it’s-”

He heard the click of his side door and frowned. He almost went after her, but saw something on his chair.

Heart racing, he picked up the small white box. It couldn’t be … He removed the lid and stared at the gold locket, tears rolling down his cheeks. Monique.

Monique’s mother had died of cancer when she was still young, and Paxton had raised Monique on his own. Not very well, however. He loved her more than anything, but he’d been so wrapped up in his career that he hadn’t paid enough attention to her. He hadn’t been involved in her day-to-day life. He’d been a distant father, so distant he hadn’t known that she was traveling a hundred miles nearly every weekend to visit her boyfriend-Adam Scott.

He’d loved her, but didn’t realize how important she was to him until she disappeared.

For years he’d believed she ran away, and he blamed her, then himself. He wanted her back so he could beg her forgiveness for his substantial failings as a dad. Until six years ago when he learned what really happened to her. Roger Morton had leveraged that information, as well as the financial information, in exchange for leniency. Senator Paxton had supported the plea agreement because he had to know the truth.

All that time he searched for her, she’d been dead.

He opened the locket. Inside on the right was Monique on her sixteenth birthday, her smile bright and beautiful. On the left was a picture of him holding her the day she was born.

There was a piece of paper on his chair. He picked it up, then sat down heavily, still holding Monique’s locket, a groan of agony and grief coming deep from his lungs.

Several minutes later, he unfolded the note.

This belongs to you.