Deadly Sins (38 page)

“You look good, kid.” Paulie Samuels finally set Jaid down and released her from the bone-crushing hug. “You should have run away with me years ago when you had the chance.”

It was impossible to dislike the man. The three of them went way back, to when he and Adam were still in the bureau, although Paulie had bounced between the forensic accountant and cyber units at the time. It had been he who had notified her when Adam had been in the CCU, clinging to life. Both times. He’d earned a permanent place in her heart for that alone. “So you’re saying there’s a statute of limitations on the offer? I’m crushed.” She smoothed a hand down his vest decorated with greenbacks. “I’ve never found a more dapper dresser. You’ve ruined me for other men.” She smiled at his bark of laughter.

“You remember Kellan Burke from Philadelphia, right?” Paulie jerked a thumb at the younger man who had followed him silently into the apartment. She nodded at Burke, whom she’d seen from a distance, along with several of Adam’s other operatives, when she’d made a brief visit to Adam’s bedside in May. That had been their only meeting, but she recalled his name from when she and Adam had been together. There was a relationship between the two that had never been fully explained. Which wasn’t unusual, given Adam’s reticence.

Which made his earlier openness all the more out of character. She and Adam had been together for fourteen months. She’d never been introduced to Kellan. Or to Jerry. She couldn’t recall a time that he had mentioned his mother. Foster homes. He’d told her once he refused to live in the past. But she recognized now that he’d effectively compartmentalized his life by shutting segments of it away from her. Which had been, she assumed, one more way to keep her from getting too close.

That made tonight’s reversal all the more intriguing.

“Macy’s findings sure kicked up a firestorm, didn’t they?” Kellan’s light green eyes were shrewd behind the fashionable glasses. “Discovering a connection between Ferrell and whoever’s pulling the strings in the DC murders puts Adam right in the center of this.”

“I was worried about that from the beginning,” Paulie muttered as he made a beeline for the bar. “Told you we needed to consider that idea carefully. Oh, no, you said. Ferrell’s attempts weren’t of the same caliber as the other homicides, you said.”

“No one appreciates an I-told-you-so, Paulie.” Adam’s voice was relatively mild as he headed to the bar to play host. “What I said then is still true. And I believe more than ever that Ferrell was a red herring. Meant to get me removed from the case, one way or another.”

“The question is, why?” Kell moseyed over and wedged a place for himself between the other two men. Jaid had thought to bring her wineglass and laptop down with her. She had some familiarity with war meetings, as Paulie liked to call these nights. They often ran late into the night. Might as well get comfortable. She carried her things over to the sage leather couch and curled up on one end.

“When Jennings’s place was searched after he was killed trying to assassinate Adam last May,” Jaid managed the words in a fairly steady voice, “did the bureau happen to find any written communication from whoever hired him?”

“Good idea.” Paulie pointed at her while he swallowed from the drink Adam had poured him. “Try to tie whoever hired Jennings to the DC mastermind.” He looked at Burke. “What was in the final report?”

He shook his head. “Nothing like that. The only link I know of is when you traced the money in his account from part of the ransom paid last January in the Mulder kidnapping.”

Disappointment reared. “And what about the ransom notes received in that case? Can Macy use those to test and see if their authorship matches with these latest communications she tested?”

Kellan shook his head. “Macy and I were the operatives on that case. Whoever was calling the shots was damn careful to have someone else assume all the risk. The victim’s father is Stephen Mulder of Mulder Department Stores. Very deep pockets. But it was his longtime friend and attorney who was blackmailed, he claims, into sending the ransom notes and stealing the security specs for the estate.”

Jaid looked at Adam meaningfully. “That sounds familiar. People are disposable tools to the offender we’re looking for. Sorenson. Lambert. Sanchez. And you’ve already said in your latest profile that the hits are professional.”

“Hired a professional to snatch the Mulder girl, too.” Kell stopped, took a sip, and grimaced. To Adam he demanded, “Seriously. You have to have more behind that bar than Scotch.”

In response Paulie reached out and grabbed the other man’s glass to dump the liquor into his. “It’s wasted on him, Adam. Give him the cheap stuff.”

Burke continued, “Vincent Dodge was the kidnapper’s name. But his background was far more colorful than that. He’d been directed to kill the girl as soon as the ransom cleared. We arrived before he could carry out his orders. And we’d barely gotten clear of the cabin he was keeping her in when the place blew.” He accepted the replacement drink Adam slid toward him. “Which tells us that the mastermind of the whole thing does not like loose strings.”

She wasn’t ready to drop the idea. “What about this Dodge? Maybe he had some sort of written . . .”

Kell was already shaking his head. The overhead lights shot his dark hair with reddish highlights. “He’s not around to ask. Macy killed him when he tried one final time to get at the girl.” He grinned fondly. “It’s always a mistake to underestimate my fiancée.”

“Fiancée?” She looked at Adam. He grimaced. Set the whiskey bottle back under the bar.

“I have no idea what it is with these people. I send them out on assignment, and they come back wanting to get married.” He looked honestly baffled. “Damnedest thing I ever saw.”

“Yeah.” Kell’s voice was good-natured. “We’re all waiting for the time when you meet your match and we can all . . .” He was interrupted then by Paulie’s fit of coughing. “Geez, Paulie, don’t lose a lung.” Burke gave the man a companionable thump on the back.

Jaid had an idea what had brought on the man’s coughing spasm. Deliberately, she skirted Adam’s gaze. “So if we find the professional carrying out the DC murders, maybe he’ll have some sort of written . . .” Her head snapped up. “We don’t need him. I mean we do, but why don’t we get written statements from everyone we’ve looked at so far? Bailey, Newell, Harandi . . . Macy can run matches and see if any of them wrote the messages to Lambert. And Ferrell.” There was a measure of disappointment when she saw the expression on Adam’s face. “You’d already thought of that.”

“It’s a good idea,” he allowed. “But we can’t get ahead of ourselves. This task hasn’t been OK’d by Hedgelin, and we have no idea how he’s going to react to us having used a linguist outside the agency. At the least he’ll want to have the tests duplicated by one of his own people.”

“Macy can run circles around any of those guys,” Kell scoffed. “She’s the best in the country. I’d say the world, but there’s this funny little guy in Belgium she’s always talking about. Seems he’s revolutionizing forensic linguistics over there, and . . .”

“Burke.”

It took just the single word from Adam to silence the man. Jaid arched a brow. It was a neat trick. It was a wonder he could manage at all in a world where everyone didn’t treat him with such deference. “I don’t think the assistant director will completely discount this lead. He can’t afford to. And going forward with trying to match suspect statements to the matches Macy has already run gives us an idea where to focus our energies.”

Adam regarded her over the top of his glass. Drank. Then set the glass down again. “I think you’re overlooking one thing. Once Hedgelin sees the link tying Ferrell to the DC killer, he’s finally proven his contention of conflict of interest. This time when he asks for my removal, he’s likely to get it.”

The words rocked her. The possibility hadn’t even occurred to her, although it should have. And he was right. The assistant director had never made any bones about his reluctance to accept Adam’s help. No doubt this latest development would have the man positively gleeful.

Her gaze dropped to her laptop. “I promised Shepherd I’d file the report tonight. I’d planned to update the assistant director that way about our findings this evening.” She looked up then. Caught all three men staring at her. “But I’ll probably forget to add the part about the match in authorship between Ferrell’s note and the e-mail recovered from Lambert’s computer. I can file that first thing in the morning. That should give Adam a minimum of twenty-four more hours on the case.” It’d take that long for the intelligence analysts to fold the details into the case file.

“Twenty-four hours to stop the offender before he kills again.” His eye glinted as he lifted his glass again. “That seems fair enough.”

It was all coming together too easily. The man being hunted by nearly three hundred federal agents sat with his feet up, watching a Redskins game he’d DVR’d. And really, the game he’d started bore much similarity to the football being played on the screen. Like the coach, he was the brains. But they both had to rely a bit more than they’d like on the players on the field.

The team members he’d selected so far had ranged from functional to near brilliant. But all that mattered in the end was that they’d carried out the plays he’d called. So far it had gone off without a hitch. And the satisfaction felt at a well-executed kill couldn’t be overstated.

But the next one would definitely kick the exercise up to a whole new level.

He looked down at the white card with its red lettering, already safely encased in its Ziploc.

The Redskins were in for the game of their lives. And very soon, so was Adam Raiker.

“The warrant came through. How far out are you?”

Jaid sat up in bed, momentarily disconcerted. The alarm on the bedside table said four A.M. The driver had just dropped her off from Adam’s three hours earlier. “I’m in Centerville. Adam’s in Manassas.”

The suppressed excitement in Shepherd’s voice had an answering emotion firing through her veins. “Okay. Newell’s estate is in Great Falls. Can you be on the road in a half hour? Hedgelin is shooting for seven A.M. to serve the warrant.”

She was already swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “Better give me the address. It’d be easier to meet you there.” She fumbled in the drawer of the bedside table for a paper and pencil, writing as the agent recited it to her. “I’ll call you when I get closer.”

“Sounds good. Talk to you then.” After the agent disconnected, she dialed Adam’s cell. Was unsurprised to hear him answer immediately, sounding alert.

“We got the warrant. We’re to serve it at seven in Great Falls.”

“See, wouldn’t this have been easier if you’d stayed here last night like I suggested?”

“This way I’ll have fresh clothes,” she reminded him. She got up, padded toward the shower. “You picking me up?”

“What are the chances you’d stand for being left behind?”

She grinned into the phone, adrenaline doing a quick sprint up her spine. “Nonexistent.”

The senator lived on an estate set on acres of rolling green lawns in one of the most exclusive suburbs of DC. Driving in Great Falls was usually one of Jaid’s favorite ways to spend a scenic afternoon. The roads were narrow and resembled a roller coaster with the dips and peaks, twists and turns. In the summer the trees formed a canopy overhead, meshing into a solid green overhang with only occasional patches of the sky peeking through.

Some of that charm was lost in the late fall, with the naked branches resembling entwined, skeletal fingers. Still, watching the horses shake their manes and gallop lazily around the paddocks at the estates they passed by, she imagined she could get used to it year round.

“There’s Shepherd. Parked in that drive up ahead.” She leaned forward in her seat. She’d been in contact with the agent along the way and knew where the meeting place was. But when they pulled alongside him and Shepherd buzzed down the window, she could tell immediately from his expression that something was wrong.