The Line Between Here and Now

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It had taken a half hour of pleading and persuasion on Amanda’s part to get the ICU staff to agree to her request. But when she explained what she was desperate to accomplish, they’d finally agreed.

A professional videographer and his assistant showed up just before 7:00 p.m. Amanda thanked her friends profusely for the huge favor. Her instructions were brief-record a five-minute video right outside the PICU window where Justin was sleeping in his crib. They’d have to work overnight to have everything ready and posted on YouTube by morning.

It wouldn’t be easy. But it could be done. And they’d do it.

The video went smoothly. The entire event-from arrival to departure-took seventeen minutes.

Its repercussions would last far longer.

Bleary-eyed and weary, the Forensic Instincts team trudged into the main conference room and reconvened around the expansive mahogany table just after midnight.

As they entered, the wall of floor-to-ceiling video screens began to glow. A long green line slid across each panel, pulsating from left to right as it appeared.

“Hello, team,” Yoda welcomed them. The green line bent into the contour of his voice pattern. “Room temperature is currently at sixty-eight point three degrees. Due to the body heat generated by five humans and one canine, the room temperature will rise to exactly seventy degrees in eight minutes and thirteen seconds. Shall I maintain seventy degrees?” Yoda paused, awaiting further instructions.

“That’s fine, Yoda,” Casey replied. “We’re just fine.”

“Fine?” Ryan muttered reflexively. “How much sleep have you had in the past few days?”

“If you’re addressing me, I don’t sleep, Ryan,” Yoda responded. “You programmed me not to require it. Lumen, Equitas and Intueri were designed to ensure my uninterrupted service.”

Yoda was referring to the three servers that made up the server farm in FI’s secure data center, located downstairs in Ryan’s lair. Ryan himself had named his custom-built servers, giving them the Latin names for light, justice, and intuition.

“I am available twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year,” Yoda continued. “And three hundred sixty-six days every four years, plus or minus an occasional leap second as needed-except, of course, for the century year twenty-one hundred, per the leap year algorithm.”

“Gee, Ryan, and here you claimed you were Superman.” Claire’s tone was dry, but her lips were twitching. “Yoda is clearly superior, needs no sleep and is a lot easier to get along with.”

“Thank you, Claire,” Yoda said politely.

“Oh, shut up, both of you.” Ryan looked as if he’d like to short-circuit his creation. “Yoda, chill. We’ll let you know if we need you.”

“Very well, Ryan.” Yoda fell silent, and the glowing line receded.

“Now that you’ve finished having it out with Yoda, can we discuss our respective evenings?” Casey inquired. “And that doesn’t include your lack of sleep, Ryan. Suck it up.”

Ryan knew that tone of voice. Casey wasn’t in the mood for bullshit.

He nodded. “Sorry. Although I want to go on record as saying that everything Yoda knows, I taught him.” Being Ryan, he couldn’t resist adding that, along with darting Claire a sideways look. “In any case, do you want me to report my findings first?”

“Actually, I think Marc and I should go first. That’ll provide a good baseline for Lyle Fenton. Then, yes, I want to hear what your facial recognition software showed.”

Casey and Marc went on to detail the meeting with Lyle Fenton and their take on it.

“Got it,” Ryan said, summing it up for the team. “A dirtbag and a scumbag.”

“Is there a difference?” Claire asked, amused.

“Yeah. A scumbag’s a slimier dirtbag.”

“Ah. Thanks for enlightening me.”

“No problem.” Ryan pursed his lips. “As far as Fenton getting all weird when you brought Mercer into the conversation, I can explain that one-although I think we already know the answer.”

“Go on,” Casey urged him.

“I’ll spare you the mathematical details and just get to the bottom line. I ran a whole bunch of different facial recognition algorithms, just to see if the results came out the same. They did. There’s more than an eighty-percent chance that Lyle Fenton and Congressman Mercer are related. The percentages drop down somewhat when you compare Fenton with the twins, and even more when you compare Mercer with Amanda. But that’s to be expected, since the relationships are once or twice removed. They’re still high, though. High enough for me to conclude that there are blood ties across the board. Most important, in my opinion, Clifford Mercer is Lyle Fenton’s son.”

“No shocker. But it adds a whole new dimension to this investigation.” Casey tapped her fingernails on the table-a gesture that meant she was digesting and analyzing the situation. “Mercer’s being illegitimate wouldn’t mean the end of his career, not these days. But the fact that his biological father has as much to gain from this relationship-now that’s a whole different story. It’s bad enough to be in someone’s pocket. But being in the pocket of the man who’s secretly your father? A pocket deep enough to make or break your career? That’s a scandal-waiting-to-happen.” She gave Ryan a quizzical look. “Who’s Mercer’s mother?”

“She was Catherine Mercer, born Catherine Wilmot. She died of cancer four years ago.” Ryan glanced at his notes. “No eye-openers about her background. Middle-class. Born and bred in a less affluent section of Bridgehampton. Got married at twenty-one to Warren Mercer, a rich, significantly older attorney she met as a secretary in his law firm.”

“Let me guess. One child, Clifford, who was the light of his father’s life.”

“You got it.” Ryan shot Casey an admiring look. “Nice assessment.”

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist,” Casey replied. “If there were other children, keeping the secret wouldn’t have been as crucial. Catherine would still be tied to her husband through the other kids. But an only child? And a son, to boot? Catherine wouldn’t risk her marriage by letting the cat out of the bag.”

“Are we sure Clifford Mercer isn’t adopted?” Claire asked. “We can’t assume Catherine had an affair with Lyle Fenton.”

“Sorry to burst your naive little bubble, Claire-voyant, but they were hot and heavy for a couple of years,” Ryan informed her. “I checked with a few of Catherine’s old friends. At first, they were guarded. But I managed to charm them into talking to me.”

“And how did you manage that?” Claire asked. “I doubt they’d be interested in a trade-their cooperation for one of your Superman comic books.”

“Nope. No need to trade.” Rather than pissed, Ryan looked amused. “Just some finesse on my part. I told them I worked for Congressman Mercer, and that I’d been assigned the job of protecting his political future by preserving his mother’s good name. I asked them to tell me what they knew about her extramarital affair so I could squelch it. Loyal friends that they were, they were happy to supply me with the information.”

“What about Warren Mercer?” Claire demanded. “Did they say whether or not he knew? Or is he still in the dark after all these years? Actually, is he even alive?”

“Oh, he’s alive,” Ryan assured her. “He was Lyle Fenton’s lawyer. And the two of them were golfing buddies.”

“Were?” Casey jumped on the past tense.

“Yup-were. Right around the time of Catherine’s death, all that went to hell. Warren Mercer dropped Fenton as a client right after Catherine died. And from everything I could dig up, he and Fenton had no further dealings after that, business or personal.”

“I smell a deathbed confession,” Marc surmised aloud. “Catherine probably had to clear her conscience. Her son was a grown man, so she wasn’t worried about his reaction anymore. And she probably knew her husband wouldn’t cut off ties with Cliff, not after forty-plus years of being his father.”

“I agree.” Casey’s brows were still knit. “The question is, when did Fenton find out? Did she also tell him when she was dying? Or did he know beforehand? Clifford Mercer certainly didn’t tell him. By the time his mother died, the man was a political figure. The last thing he’d want is to give Fenton that kind of power over him. No, my guess is that Fenton already knew. But for how long?”

“My gut feeling?” Marc replied. “For a long time. Maybe even before Cliff was born. We’re talking about a man with tons of street smarts. He sure as hell knew how to count. And, given the timing of the affair, he had to suspect that he was potentially Clifford’s father. On the flip side, when he went to Catherine and she assured him the child was her husband’s, Fenton was probably überrelieved. He’s a lot of things, but a family man is not one of them.”

“I agree with that,” Patrick said. “I watched the two men together at lunch. There’s no father-son bond there. If anything, they’re distant when it comes to personal matters. Fenton asked about the twins as if he were discussing the neighbor’s kids. He got more intense about business than he did about family. Except where it came to Justin. Then, he was single-minded. He practically forced Mercer to get tested.”

“Justin represents his future,” Casey replied. “A new life, like a blank slate waiting to be written on. A last-chance hope for being the future of Fenton’s business empire. When the congressman was born, Fenton wasn’t thinking along those lines. He was young, unconcerned about the future.”

“Let’s not forget that DNA testing for paternity didn’t come into play until the 1980s,” Ryan supplied. “So even if Fenton had a paternity test, it wouldn’t have been conclusive. I doubt he pushed for it, though. I agree with Marc. I’m sure he backed off with great relief.”

“The truth is, he didn’t even want to know he had a child.” Claire’s gray eyes were filled with disgust. “But eventually he found out. So how could he walk away? Better question-what prompted him to come back? Was it because he wanted something out of Clifford Mercer?”

Casey turned toward her. “Are you getting some kind of sense?”

“Nothing.” Claire shook her head. “I’m as stymied as you are. Remember, I’ve never met either Fenton or Mercer.”

“Maybe it’s time you did. Maybe it’s time we all did.”

“You want to show up at the hospital tomorrow.” Marc’s statement was a conclusion, not a guess.

“I sure as hell do. Not just me. You and Claire, too. And Hero. I want him to pick up some initial scents from the congressman. Who knows how corrupt he is? Not just by being in Fenton’s pocket, but worse. What if he’s connected to Paul Everett’s disappearance? For all we know, Everett found out the truth about Mercer and Fenton and blackmailed them. Maybe that factored into his disappearance. And, if it did, we can add Mercer to the list of people who might know where Paul is.” Casey’s gaze shifted to Patrick. “I’d love to get your firsthand take on this, but we can’t risk it. Not when you were sitting next to the congressman and Fenton at lunch. If Mercer were to recognize you, it would blow everything.”

“That’s okay.” Patrick waved away Casey’s explanation. “You’re right. Besides, I want to do some old-fashioned digging of my own. I’ll see what I can learn about Fenton and Mercer, and any mutual ties they had to Paul Everett. That might give us a path to follow.”

“Good.” Casey glanced from Patrick to Claire and back. “Your turn. What happened when you saw Amanda at the hospital tonight?”

“Ladies first.” Patrick gestured for Claire to talk.

Claire blew out her breath. “Justin is the same. Hanging on. Fighting for his life.” A hard swallow. “I saw him through the ICU window. He’s hooked up to so many machines. The ventilator is helping him breathe, and the antibiotics are battling the infection. But he’s so tiny. I don’t know how much longer he can keep up this fight.” She swallowed again, this time to bring herself under control. “On a separate note, something’s up with Amanda. I felt it the minute she walked out to greet us. She was uncomfortable, like she wished we’d go away. She spoke quickly, assuring us that there was no need to stick around, that she was fine and just needed to be with her son. But it was a smokescreen. I could feel her anxiety and her impatience. It wasn’t related only to Justin’s health. There was something else.”

Casey frowned. “It couldn’t have been a reaction to our meeting with her uncle. We didn’t even arrive at his estate until eight o’clock.”

“And we were long gone from the hospital by then.” Claire shook her head. “No, it had nothing to do with her uncle. I think Amanda was expecting someone. Whoever he was, we’ve never met him.”

“Him?” Ryan was all over that one.

Claire rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t some secret lover, Ryan. It was business. Personal business, which I think had something to do with Justin.”

“Then why wouldn’t she talk to you about it?” Casey asked. “What is there that she’d prefer we not know?”

“I can’t answer that.” Claire turned her palms up in a gesture of noncomprehension. “I asked her a few questions, but she only got more anxious and more distant, which clouded the energy between us even more. So I backed off. I decided it would be more productive to try talking to her again in the morning, when she was less on edge and I could get a clearer read.”

“Okay,” Casey agreed. “We’ll find out what time the congressman is being tested, and we’ll work a visit with Amanda around that.”

“He’s due at the hospital at 11:00 a.m.,” Ryan supplied. “Perfect timing for the evening news cycle. He and his wife will give blood, answer the media’s questions and then leave. He’ll be back in Washington before dinner.”

“Okay, then we’ll head out to Southampton first, and be at Sloane Kettering in the late afternoon. I want Marc to do some damage control with Amanda anyway, just in case Fenton spins our conversation in a way that throws her for a loop.” Casey shifted her gaze to Patrick. “What about you? You obviously have something for me, too.”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Claire’s right. We were definitely being followed. Both ways. And whoever did it is a pro. He stayed far enough behind us so I couldn’t catch his license plate. And when we pulled into the parking lot, he drove right by, tinted windows raised, so I couldn’t get a good look at him. But he was right behind us on the trip there, and two cars behind us on the way back. I could try to get security footage from the hospital, but I guarantee it won’t show anything.”

“We’re making people very nervous,” Claire murmured. “And those people aren’t just pros. They’re dangerous.”

“Then I say, let’s keep pushing their buttons.” Marc had that hard, steely edge to his voice. “Eventually, they’ll slip up and let us know who they are.”