Bait (14 page)

“You think there's a possibility that it
wasn't
a mistake?” McCabe asked. His tone was neutral—too neutral. He was probing for answers—and Maddie, catching herself up, wasn't about to give any. Not by the hair of her chinny-chin-chin.

“Of course it was a mistake,” she said. “How could it not have been a mistake?”

McCabe's eyes cut her way. “You tell me.”

“I thought it was just a random attack, kind of a sex thing gone wrong,” Jon said, frowning.

“I don't think so.” McCabe glanced in the rearview mirror. “But the possibility is not completely off the table yet. What are the chances, though, two separate perps attack two different women named Madeline Fitzgerald on the same night at the same hotel? Completely unrelated?”

Nobody said anything. The answer, clearly, was
not good.

“So what do you think happened?” Maddie asked.

“We think it may have been a paid hit,” Wynne said.

Maddie felt hope, that small eternal flame, spring to life in her breast.

“A paid hit on the other woman?” She took a deep breath and ran with the ball. “And the killer got the names mixed up and came to my room by mistake. When I got away, he somehow discovered his mistake and went after her.
She
was the target.”

The relief was so intense that she was almost limp with it.
Please, God, please, God, please let that be the answer. Let it all have been a terrible mistake. Let it not have been about me at all.

What she wanted most in the world at that moment was for that to be true. If it was, she could put the whole terrible experience safely behind her and just go on with her life.

“Or maybe it was the other way around.” They stopped at an intersection, and McCabe looked at her as he spoke. “Maybe the killer went to her room first, killed her, figured out his mistake and came after you. Maybe it was you he wanted dead. Maybe
you
were the target.”

Doing her best to keep her face expressionless, Maddie met his gaze.

“Why?” she asked simply.

“Yeah, why?” Jon asked. “Why on earth would a hit man want to murder Maddie?”

“I have no idea,” McCabe said, and glanced at Maddie again. “That's why I'm asking you one more time, and I want you to rack your brain before you answer: Do you know anyone, anyone at all, who might want you dead or have something to gain from your death?”

His gaze reverted to the road as the light changed and they started moving again. Maddie had no idea whether she had imagined the glimmer of doubt in his eyes or not.

What she did know was that her palms were damp. “No,” she said.

He didn't reply to that. For a moment there was no sound in the car except the hum of the air-conditioning.

“Here we are.” McCabe swung into the semicircular drive that fronted the hotel. A waist-high hedge of hot-pink azaleas lined the drive. Beneath the white-columned portico, a uniformed bellman loaded luggage onto a cart. A black Honda with a parking valet at the wheel pulled away from the entrance as the couple who owned the car disappeared inside. The only sign of the previous night's tragedy was the police car parked just past the entrance. “So, you two—you got plans for the rest of the day?”

“We grab our luggage and head for the airport,” Jon said as McCabe stopped the car. “That pretty much sums it up.”

“Want a ride?” McCabe's question was directed at Maddie.

“No.” Maddie was already opening her door. “We'll catch a cab. Thanks.”

“Hang on a minute.” McCabe leaned over and caught her by the wrist as Jon opened the back door. “I have something I need to say to you.”

His hand was warm and dry, big, long-fingered. She'd always liked men with big hands, she thought in that first fleeting instant of surprise at being grabbed. Then she frowned. FBI agents with big hands, however, were in a whole separate category. One she didn't want anything to do with.

She tried to tug her hand free without result. If anything, he tightened his grip. Her eyes met his, narrowed.

“It'll just take a minute,” he promised.

“Look, I've got to go. What with security and everything, getting through the airport takes forever now.”

He didn't let go. Jon, who had gotten out, was leaning down to look in at her through her partially opened door.

“She'll be just a minute,” McCabe said to Jon. Then, as Jon frowned and looked like he was about to protest, Wynne walked up beside him and said something. Jon straightened to talk to Wynne.

“Close the door,” McCabe said. He was looking at her steadily, his expression serious, even slightly grim.

Maddie's heart skipped a beat. Then she rallied, lifting her chin. “You're good at giving orders, aren't you?”

“Please.” His voice was very quiet.

What could she do? Maddie, keenly aware of a whole summer's worth of butterflies taking wing in her stomach, closed the door.

“So what do you want?” she asked, just barely managing to keep the truculence out of her voice. She felt trapped, panicky, and the unbreakable hold he was keeping on her wrist was not making her feel any more relaxed. It reminded her of a handcuff. ... The image was unnerving, and she instantly banished it. The trick was not to let him realize just how very apprehensive she was.
Did
he realize? He was watching her, the faintest of frown lines between his brows, his expression unreadable.

“If you've got anything you want to tell me, anything at all, this is the moment. I thought you might feel more comfortable doing it if the boyfriend wasn't here.”

It was all Maddie could do not to suck in telltale air.

“I don't have anything to tell you.” She forced a little laugh. Her only hope was that it didn't sound as fake to him as it did to her. “What could I possibly have to tell you? And, just for the record, Jon's not my boyfriend. He's my employee. We work together, and we're friends. We don't sleep together.”

McCabe smiled. If he hadn't been an FBI agent, Maddie realized with some surprise, she might actually be feeling kind of attracted to him about now.

“Duly noted.”

His smile deepened. Oh, God, he had dimples. Deep ones on either side of his mouth. Maddie looked, blinked, then realized that she really, really didn't want to go there. Brows twitching together, she glanced pointedly down at his hand wrapped around her wrist. “Would you mind letting me go now?”

“What?” He looked down at their linked hands, too, and then let go. “Oh, sure.”

“Is there anything else?” Maddie was already reaching for the door handle. “Because I have a plane to catch.”

“Just one more thing.” He was leaning back in his seat, his hands resting casually on the bottom of the steering wheel, his head turned slightly toward her. Her whole side was pressed against the door now. Her hand curled around the handle, and it was all she could do not to simply release it, open the door, and bolt. “Even if the attack on you was a mistake, even if you were not the intended victim, that doesn't let you off the hook, you realize. This guy, whoever he is, attacked you, and you escaped. You lived. You're a witness. He may believe that you can identify him. It's very possible that he might be coming after you to finish the job.”

Maddie's eyes widened. That aspect of the situation hadn't occurred to her. In other words, even if she hadn't been the intended victim originally, now she was? What was this, 101 reasons for someone to want to kill her?

“I can offer you protection. Someone to stay with you twenty-four hours a day until we get this creep.”

Maddie's breath caught. Like she was going to accept protection from the
FBI
? On any other day, in any other mood, she would have laughed.

“No,” she said. “No, no, no. I just want to forget all about this. I just want to go home.”

And with that she opened the door and stepped out into the enervating heat. Something—rising too swiftly, the lack of sleep and food, the multiple traumas she'd suffered over the course of the last twenty-four hours, who knew?—made her suddenly light-headed. The world seemed to tilt, and she had to steady herself with a hand on the car roof. The metal was hot and faintly gritty from dust. The sun bouncing off the pavement was blinding. The smell of melting asphalt was strong.

“Forgot your briefcase,” McCabe called after her, and Maddie stiffened. Then she sucked it up one more time, turned, and dragged her briefcase out of the footwell. The last words he said to her as she slammed the door shut were, “You take care of yourself, Miz Fitzgerald.”

NINE

What the
hell
were you thinking?” Smolski swiveled in his chair, his eyes almost bugging out of his head as they fixed on Sam. His scream was loud enough to make Gardner jump, and it wasn't even directed at her. Sam, at whom it
was
directed, grimaced. Wynne, who was only a secondary target, took a step back. “That thing made us look like the fucking Keystone Cops!”

It was just before six p.m., and they were standing like a trio of schoolkids who had been called before the principal in the uber-luxurious cabin of a private jet that had touched down on the tarmac at New Orleans some twenty minutes earlier. Smolski was seated in a bone leather chair that seconds before had been facing a wide-screen plasma TV. A video clip of the morning incident with Gene Markham of WGMB had just ended with a close-up of Sam's middle finger riding high.

“It was a quick-response kind of situation. We just happened to have read it wrong,” Sam said by way of an explanation. It was lame, and he knew it. The whole situation had been farcical, and he'd made it ten times worse by flipping the news guy the bird. It was juvenile, and he should have known better.

“We thought he was coming after her with a weapon,” Wynne added.
Big mistake.
It sounded like an excuse, and if there was anything Smolski hated more than screwups, it was excuses.

“You thought he was coming after her with a weapon,” Smolski mimicked in a savage falsetto. “It was a fucking
microphone,
you morons. You drew on a TV reporter in the middle of a crowded city street. And they got it all on TV.”

There wasn't much to say to that except “Sorry, my bad,” and Sam refrained. One thing he'd learned in the six years he'd spent working under Smolski in the Violent Crimes division was that being an FBI agent meant never venturing to say you were sorry—because if you did, Smolski would wipe the floor with you. Smolski put no more stock in apologies than he did in excuses. He wanted it done right the first time, and he wanted it done yesterday. The head of Violent Crimes was a former Marine who'd once been muscular but had now gone to flabby seed, and despite the thousand-dollar suit he wore, there was no hiding the roll of pudge that hung over his belt. He had a Mediterranean complexion and thinning black hair. His nose was big; his eyes and mouth were small. His temper was legendary.

Fortunately, at least as far as Sam was concerned, Smolski's bark was worse than his bite.

“I thought we agreed to keep this thing on the down-low? All we need is the media on our asses, telling the whole world how people are being knocked off like ducks in a shooting gallery while you guys make like the Three Stooges. To say nothing of the fact that if the public finds out that the UNSUB's calling you on your cell phone, we might as well throw the damned thing out the window because everybody and his mother will start calling that number and the killer will never be able to get through.” Smolski was still yelling loud enough to cause Melody, his longtime administrative assistant, to make a sympathetic face at Sam behind her boss's back. A plumpish, blue-eyed brunette in a navy pantsuit, she was a nice girl—well, a nice woman now, thirty-three years old, married with a couple of kids. She'd once been a babe, and when she'd first come to work at headquarters, Sam had taken her out a few times. The fling had fizzled when it had become obvious that Melody wanted forever while Sam was allergic to same. But she still retained a soft spot for him, which Sam from time to time took shameless advantage of.

Now, while Smolski spread the love by glaring at Wynne again, Sam seized the moment to nod significantly at the white telephone on the console behind Smolski.

She looked shocked, and then the corners of her lips quivered. Good girl, Melody.

Melody disappeared from view, and Smolski redirected his vitriol toward Sam. “You got anything? Huh? You got anything? Hell, no, you don't got anything, because if you did, I'd already know about it. You've been chasing around the country after this guy for a month now. You've been spending money like you think you're the fucking Sultan of Brunei. And you got what to show for it? A TV clip that's an embarrassment to the Bureau, and that's it. The
vice president
got a call from his sister, who lives here in New Orleans, complaining about my guys pulling weapons on a streetful of innocent civilians. ‘Deal with it,' he says to me, so I have to interrupt my trip to L.A., make a big detour to stop here, and for what? I'll tell you for what: to kick your guys' asses from here to Sunday. What were you
thinking
? You ...”

The telephone rang, cutting Smolski off in full spiel. Melody reappeared to answer the phone, and Smolski turned his head to listen while Melody had a brief conversation with whomever was on the other end. Melody then held the phone out to her boss.

“Your wife,” she said to Smolski, who took the receiver with obvious reluctance.

“Cripes,” he said, one hand covering the mouthpiece. “Why didn't you tell her I'm in a meeting? She's been badgering me to go to some damned fund-raiser for PETA or something. I've had my cell phone turned off all day. How the hell did she know where to reach me?”