Silenced

CHAPTER THIRTY

Sean drove too fast to Alexandria, but he needed to calm down before he met with Paxton. His custom Mustang GT gave him the power necessary to purge his anger.

Noah was a prick, he decided. For the last six months he’d been worried that Noah had a thing for Lucy, and Sean didn’t like them spending so much time working together. Stupid jealousy. Lucy sensed it, but not the cause, certainly not that Sean was jealous of Noah. She thought it was all about Noah being a rigid cop. But after they returned from the Adirondacks, his jealousy had lost its edge. After all, Lucy told Sean she loved him, not the damn fed.

If Noah did have feelings for Lucy over and beyond a professional friendship, Sean hoped he continued acting like the jerk he was tonight.

Except Sean couldn’t stand to watch Lucy struggle with the harsh, unwarranted criticism. And Sean couldn’t do anything for fear of messing with Lucy’s career goals. Once she went through the Academy and had her badge, he’d be relieved. Her confidence in her abilities would be validated.

Sean’s left hand gripped the steering wheel tightly as he downshifted to avoid rear-ending a jerk who thought he needed to stop twenty feet behind the red light. He breathed deeply, forcing himself to relax, and prayed Lucy never learned the truth about how she got into the Academy. If Paxton was telling the truth. Sean was fifty-fifty on believing him, and he planned to do his own digging on that angle. But he had to tread carefully. Two of Lucy’s sisters-in-law were Feds and Noah had ins with people Sean didn’t know. He couldn’t afford to let anyone learn he was snooping.

A pleasant breeze had come in with the night, a harbinger that the heat wave might break. As the natural light dimmed and the horizon’s glow darkened, the old, tree-lined street full of narrow, three-story brick homes on which the senator lived became a sepia-toned nostalgic snapshot.

Sean parked around the corner from Paxton’s house. Paxton said he’d be there by nine; it was already eight thirty. Sean didn’t care if Paxton caught him inside—he just wanted the time to find what he was looking for.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure what he was looking for.

He’d come early for two purposes. The first, to find out what the senator knew about his crime in Massachusetts and, more important, how. The second was proof, one way or the other, that Paxton had pulled strings to get Lucy into the Academy. Sean wanted to know who was in Paxton’s pocket.

Paxton’s security was decent enough to thwart would-be burglars, but Sean wasn’t a thief. After a quick assessment, it only took him ten seconds to bypass the alert system, then another ten seconds to crack the alarm code. He was inside in less than a minute.

Sean’s eyes adjusted to the dark and he kept his penlight low to the floor. He was familiar with the general layout of these older homes. The bottom floor was usually storage, an office, utilities. Sometimes the area was a large open space, sometimes an in-home office, sometimes an added bedroom suite.

On the middle level was a large living room overlooking the street, a dining area and kitchen overlooking a small postage-stamp-sized yard, and the alley beyond. The detached single-car garage was accessible only through the alley or backyard. The middle level also had a den and small utility room.

Sean went upstairs mostly to ensure he was in fact alone. Two large bedrooms, each with their own bath, completed the home. One bedroom was sparse with a bed, dresser, and small, empty desk. The closet was full of winter suits and coats—Paxton was a clothing hog. The master bedroom was crowded with more furniture and obviously lived-in. The closet was also packed with suits, pressed shirts, casual clothing, and at least a dozen shoes.

Sean decided to search the bedroom first because if there was something personal that Paxton wanted to hide, it would be in here.

He opened the nightstand and hesitated. Why had Paxton kept the locket at his office and not at his home? His office had visitors, staff, janitors coming and going. But he lived alone.

Sean went through the nightstand. There was little of any personal interest—a few books, mostly military history, and catalogues. There was also a .38 special handgun—simple and effective. As a senator, he could easily obtain a permit to carry, but he kept his gun at home. That didn’t mean he didn’t have a second weapon. Sean started through the closet, looking in the obvious places to store secrets—shoe boxes being common—but he didn’t find anything except shoes.

It was nearly nine when Sean decided to forgo the bedroom for the den. He wished he’d had more time.

He went back downstairs and turned the den knob. Locked.

That was interesting. Security system on the house and a locked door inside?

Sean pulled out his lock-pick kit and popped the lock easily. He slipped in and closed the door behind him. Then he locked it. It would give him a moment’s warning in case Paxton was early.

Sean skipped most of the desk drawers, focusing on the sole locked drawer.

A locked drawer in a locked room in a locked house. Paxton might as well have painted a giant red X on the desk, but this lock was the easiest to pick.

Hanging files held tax forms and other financial documents that didn’t seem to be questionable.

There was an article about a killer named Boylan, who went to prison. Sean almost skipped it, but a name caught his attention: Sergio Russo.

He skimmed the article, his stomach queasy. More than a decade ago, Russo’s twelve-year-old daughter had been raped and killed by a known predator, Barnaby Edward Boylan. Boylan was sentenced to multiple life terms for the rape and murder of six young girls. There was no death penalty in Massachusetts.

Russo was from Massachusetts. Coincidence? Doubtful. If there was a connection, Sean would find it now that he had a nugget of evidence.

According to the article, at the trial Russo broke down and charged at Boylan screaming, “Why?” He was removed from the courthouse, charged with contempt of court, but it was later dropped by the judge.

Three weeks after Boylan went to prison, he was killed. He’d been erroneously placed with the general population instead of a special cellblock for child molesters. It seemed that violent criminals hated child predators, and when it got out that Boylan had a fondness for little girls, the inmates literally gutted him with a knife made from empty toothpaste tubes.

Sean could see why a man like Sergio would be drawn to a charismatic crime fighter like Senator Paxton. He could see that a man like Sergio, a widower who had lost his daughter to a vile predator like Boylan, would have a skewed sense of justice.

Sean saw Sergio Russo in a different, more tragic light. What he despised was how Paxton obviously manipulated the grieving father’s emotions to pull him into this vigilante justice game.

Another folder had numerous clippings, transcripts, and official records. Sean was about to bypass them when he saw the majority were dated seven years ago.

His vision sharpened and the room blackened around him as he skimmed the articles. They were from a variety of newspapers across the country, all related to Adam Scott and his eighteen-year-long career as a violent sexual predator.

Lucy’s name was never mentioned since she’d been a surviving rape victim, but Hans Vigo was quoted, as well as others Sean knew had been involved in the hunt for Adam Scott.

There were articles about Roger Morton, the man Paxton claimed to have killed, who provided detailed information about the women Scott had killed and what happened to their bodies. FBI documents were mixed with the newspapers, including Morton’s confession to helping Adam Scott cover up the murder of Monique Paxton.

PETERSON: Were you present when Adam Scott killed Monique Paxton?

MORTON: No.

PETERSON: When did you find out Adam killed Monique?

MORTON: He called me and said he needed help with something. I got to his house and she was dead. We got help from Trevor and that whiny snot Ullman and got rid of the body.

PETERSON: How?

Sean didn’t want to read anymore. He flipped through more files and saw a document marked “confidential” that made his skin crawl.

It was Lucy’s debriefing interview after her kidnapping and rape seven years ago.

Too late, Sean heard the key in the lock. He’d been so focused on the papers in front of him, he hadn’t heard Paxton enter the house or come up the stairs. He remained sitting at the desk, made no move to turn off the desk lamp, and waited until Paxton stepped into the room.

“You broke into my house?” Paxton said through clenched teeth.

Sean had to remain sitting or he would have attacked Paxton. His vision was sharp, focused, his hands steady. His heart beat fast, but steady. He was ready to fight. But if he touched Paxton, the senator would be dead.

“You have no right to these files,” Sean said quietly.

“You read them?” Paxton raised an eyebrow. He didn’t come closer.

“Not all. And I’m not going to.”

“You need to. You should know what that bastard did to my daughter. To all those other women. To Lucy.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“You think ignorance is the answer? Our minds sanitize the truth so we can cope. I don’t want the sanitized version of events. I wanted to know what he did to my daughter. That he strangled her while they had sex, then literally destroyed her body with acid he stole from the high school laboratory. Monique suffered at his hands. She shouldn’t suffer alone.”

“It helps you to know? You’re sick.”

“You want to know. I see it. You want to know what Lucy endured. My God, Sean, she suffered and then she fought back and killed him. I want to give her a medal. I had to know how he died, what he said, why he targeted my daughter. You know he picked Lucy because she looks like Monique. He said—”

“Shut the fuck up!” Sean’s arm shot out and all the papers went flying across the den.

Paxton pushed. “You want to know what drives me? You want to know why I can keep fighting when all I want to do is put a bullet in my head and join Monique? It’s because of Lucy. If she can endure, I can endure. If she can fight back, I can fight back.”

“It’s over. I’m not helping you. I’m done.”

He walked over and picked up all the FBI transcripts he could find, tearing the pages.

“Stop!” Paxton shouted.

“You don’t get to keep these. No one does.”

“You’re no saint, stop acting self-righteous.”

“Let the chips fall, Senator.”

“All I have to do is make one call to the FBI Special Agent-in-Charge in Boston and you will be arrested. You know that.”

“I don’t care anymore.” He did care. He didn’t want to leave the country to avoid arrest and he didn’t want to go to prison. Not for what he’d done—something that shouldn’t have been a crime to begin with. But he wasn’t working with this twisted bastard.

“You do care. You’ll lose her.”

Sean’s jaw tightened.

“I love Lucy like a daughter, but I will tell her the truth about how she got into Quantico. I lied to you.”

Sean had suspected as much, but he didn’t know if he could believe Paxton now.

“I tried to pull strings to get her in, but I didn’t have to. One of the panelists, the one I knew would vote for Lucy because he’s a close friend, gave me the heads-up that she was being declined—again, based on a psych profile. I called Hans Vigo and asked him what I could do to get her in. I was willing to pull any string. You know what he said? ‘It’s already taken care of.’”

Paxton sneered and shook his head. Sean was standing in the middle of the office, half-torn papers scrunched in his fists. “Lucy has a lot of friends. But she also has enemies. It would benefit you to find out who they are.”

“I’m not interfering with Lucy’s career.”

“You already have!” Paxton walked around to the back of the desk. “If you don’t want Lucy to know that her friend and mentor Hans Vigo rewrote the psych report so that she could get into the Academy, I’d suggest you sit down and we get to work to find out who has my locket. Because Lucy won’t be the only one to suffer. I would hate to see Dr. Vigo’s stellar career destroyed because of one act of clandestine kindness.”

How could he betray Hans? Did Dillon and Kate, Hans’s closest friends, know? Sean couldn’t be party to damaging their careers, but he wished he didn’t know. He didn’t want to keep this secret from Lucy, but he didn’t have much choice.

In the corner of the office Paxton had a shredder. Sean walked over and shredded the file on Lucy. He wasn’t going to read it, and Paxton would never read it again.