Forgotten (3 page)

Of course Portia knew. Everyone who had ever worked with—or for—John knew. He was just shy of being a living legend because of it.

“Anyway, there were others. Kids who’d disappeared during that time who were never found.

Kids we knew Woods had killed, but without his confession, without any evidence, not even the bodies…”

“He couldn’t be convicted.” She finished the thought for him.

“Right. We all knew he was holding on to the others as bargaining chips, for some future date when he could use it to his advantage.” He turned and looked at her. “And that day just might be here.”

“What does he want?” Portia asked.

“This time it’s not about what he wants.”

There was a quiet rap on the door. Eileen stepped into the room and handed John a folder.

“This is all I have right now,” Eileen told him, “but I’ve requested the rest of it from headquarters. We should have it by tomorrow. Also, I’m printing out everything I was able to access from the system for Agent Cahill. As soon as we set her up with a password and get her cleared for one of the department computers, she’ll have access to the information herself.”

“Thanks, Eileen. Does she have an office yet?” John glanced up at his efficient assistant.

“Please. You insult me.” Eileen rolled her eyes and feigned indignation. “Third door on the right.”

“You
are
good.” John smiled.

“Damn right, I am.” Eileen winked at Portia and closed the door behind her as she left the room.

“So, you have an office. Eileen will get you set up on the system, show you what you need to know here in the office, give you whatever paperwork you need…” John pushed the folder across the desk in Portia’s direction.

“Wait, you didn’t tell me what I’m supposed to be doing. What’s my assignment?”

“Oh. Right. Well, there was a boy—eight years old back in nineteen ninety-seven. Boy from Maryland, up near the Pennsylvania border. Kid’s name was Christopher Williams. Disappeared on his way home from soccer practice, less than two blocks from his house. The more I looked at that case, the more I knew it was one of Woods’s but I couldn’t get him to admit it. Even when the boy’s mother confronted Woods in the courtroom—pleaded with him—he wouldn’t give us an inch.” His eyes had darkened again, and Portia suspected his mind was replaying the scene. “Said he’d agree to thirteen, he’d given us thirteen, and that was all we were getting.”

“I’m assuming that something has brought this case back to active status?”

“Active only in the sense that I’d like to see if we can get Woods to tell us where he buried Williams.”

“Why now?”

“Because the boy’s mother is dying. She wants to be buried with her son.”

“Oh, that’s rough,” Portia acknowledged. They’d all faced a lot of rough scenarios. Very few of their cases ever had happy endings.

“This woman—Madeline Williams—courageously sat through every minute of the hearings. Sat by and listened while Woods described in horrific detail what he’d done to these children. Sat there, knowing that he’d done pretty much the same to her boy, but she never said a word.” John swallowed hard. “After the sentencing, as Woods was being led away, Mrs. Williams reached out for him, begged him to tell her where they would find her son. Woods asked her who her son was. ‘Christopher Williams,’ she told him. He just smiled and looked at this grieving woman and said, ‘I’m sure he was a lovely boy.’ Turned his back and they led him away, leaving her standing there, sobbing,
knowing.
”

“One of those moments that just stays with you,” Portia whispered.

“It’s one of the great regrets of my life that I wasn’t able to protect Madeline Williams from that moment. That I wasn’t able to find that boy and return him to his family. I promised her that I’d do whatever I could to find her son, but once the case was over, there were others…” John shrugged his shoulders. “There was never any time. Now she’s dying, and if there’s any way we could give her this…”

“I understand,” Portia said, and she did. Every agent had at least one case that haunted him or her. The unsolved case, the missing closure for heartbroken loved ones, the killer who was never found. “I just don’t understand how I fit into this.”

“If I could do this myself, I would. But if Sheldon Woods had any reason to suspect I had an interest in this, he’d never give an inch.”

“Because you arrested him.”

“That and other reasons.”

“What other reasons?”

“Woods felt that by sharing his kills with me, by letting me ‘witness’ his depravity, that we’d become sort of soul mates.”

“Jesus. Was he serious?” Portia’s stomach turned.

“The bastard felt I’d betrayed him by arresting him.”

“It never occurred to him that maybe you were only keeping him on the line long enough to try to pinpoint his location?”

“At first he’d cut the conversation short so we couldn’t trace the calls. Later, though, it was as if he’d lost all sense of fear of being found. Almost as if he really believed I wasn’t actually looking for him, but somehow participating,
sanctioning…
”

“Dear God, John.”

He stood and ended the meeting abruptly.

“I want you to go to Arrowhead Prison and talk to Sheldon Woods. Find out how to persuade him to give up Christopher Williams’s body.”

“All right.” Portia picked up the file and tucked it under her arm.

“Madeline Williams’s daughter tells me that her mother only has maybe three weeks left,” John told her. “That’s how long you have to make a deal with Woods and find the boy’s remains. Use the time wisely.”

FOUR

T
he air in the tiny, windowless room was stale and smelled of sweat, Lysol, and anxiety. Portia grimaced before taking a seat on one of two orange plastic chairs, both marked with questionable smears and bolted to the floor. Whoever had cleaned the room last had apparently focused all his efforts on the floor, which was spotless except for a few black heel marks under the table. Fortunately, Portia’d had the good sense to wear old pants and a matching jacket in a dull shade of brown. Whatever the last visitor left on the chair would probably blend right in.

When the door opened, she watched Sheldon Woods shuffle in. His ankles and wrists were chained together and secured to another chain wrapped around his waist. Inmate and agent took their time sizing each other up, each studying the other’s face while initially avoiding direct eye contact. Portia had seen photos of the man, but somehow had missed any references that may have been made to his size. He was in his late forties, was around five foot five or so, and weighed about 120 pounds. His appearance was youthful as well. His hair, though thinning slightly, was still as blond as it was in the photos taken over twelve years ago, his skin smooth and relatively free of lines, his fingers long and thin, the nails trim and clean. His eyes, however, were those of an old man: a pale, watery blue, with thin lashes. Portia noted they were totally devoid of any sign of humanity.

Woods calmly took the seat across the table from Portia, in no more hurry to speak than she was.

“Ma’am,” the guard, whose badge identified him as CO DeLuca, broke the silence. “I’ll be right here on the other side of the door if you need me.” To his prisoner, the guard said, “You behave yourself, hear?”

Sheldon Woods smiled. “I always behave for the ladies. And we’ll do fine, don’t you think, sweetheart?”

“It’s Agent Cahill.” Portia could barely disguise her disgust. “Not a good way to start, Woods.”

He raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Playing games,” she said flatly. “I really don’t have time for that.”

“Pity.” He leaned back against the chair. “I have all the time in the world.”

“Then it looks like this will be a very short visit.” Portia rose. “I have better things to do.”

“Whoa, whoa, hold up there.” He raised his manacled hands and held them in front of his chest. “You were the one who called this meeting. Surely you wouldn’t walk out without even telling me why?”

“Unless you can keep the bullshit to a minimum, yes.” She nodded. “I would have no problem ending this interview.”

“Interview, eh?” His rubbed his cheek close to the right side of his nose with a finger. “The FBI already interviewed me. Many times, as a matter of fact. Now, why at this late date would someone think they missed something?”

She was halfway to the door and paused to think about how best to answer without giving away too much.

“Ahhh, of course. Of course.” He grinned as the thought occurred to him. “You must want something from me. Now, what could that something be, Agent…forgive me, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Cahill.”

“Yes, of course. Agent Cahill. I’ll remember.” He nodded with more animation now. “Come sit back down and tell me what it is that you want from old Sheldon.”

She continued to stand. “Nineteen ninety-seven. Palmer, Maryland. Eight-year-old Christopher Williams disappeared on his way home from soccer practice. He was never seen again.”

“And…?” Woods smiled and gestured with his hands for her to continue.

Bastard knows what’s coming,
she realized, as an urge to knock him off that chair, chains and all, threatened to overtake her. It was an effort to maintain a neutral demeanor.

“I understand that following your sentencing hearing, the boy’s mother approached you and asked you to tell her where you left her son’s body.”

“She assumed so much, didn’t she?” His eyes narrowed and he studied Portia’s face. “She assumed that I had something to do with his disappearance. Or at the very least, that I knew what happened to the boy.”

“You’re doing it again,” she said stonily.

“What’s that?”

“Playing with me. I don’t care for it.”

“And just who are you, Agent Cahill, to take that attitude with me?” He lowered his voice to a near whisper. “You came here to ask a favor of me. I don’t think I’ll grant it.”

He prepared to stand.

“Did you kill him?” She asked point-blank. “Was Christopher Williams one of your ‘boys,’ Woods?”

“You ask as if you expect me to say, ‘yes, Agent Cahill, I did do this boy.’” He shook his head. “So I say yes, and you charge me with his murder, and the government gets to go back to court and get me that death sentence it wanted so badly so many years ago?” He laughed. “Is everyone stupid now except me?”

“No one wants to charge you with anything. That isn’t what this is about.”

“Then what is it about?”

She debated about telling him the truth. “Christopher Williams’s mother has less than a month to live. She wants to recover her son’s remains before she dies so she can have him buried near her.”

From the look on his face, Woods was taken aback. He studied her for a long moment, then said, “That’s very good, Agent Cahill. Very good indeed.”

“It’s the truth.”

“So who’s the good Samaritan at the FBI, hmmmm?” He pretended to ponder. “Wouldn’t be my old friend John, now, would it?”

“John?” She frowned as if she didn’t know who he meant.

“Oh, please. You talk about
me
playing games?” He laughed harshly. “This has John Mancini’s fingerprints all over it.”

“I don’t recognize the name.” Portia shrugged. “He must be in a different office. The assignment was on my desk when I came into work on Monday.”

“Who is your supervising agent?”

“Will Fletcher,” she responded without missing a beat, Will’s being the first name that popped into her head. “Your guy either retired or got transferred, but he’s not one of the agents assigned to my unit.” Which technically was true, since John was in
charge
of the unit.

“So what happened here?” He leaned forward slightly in his chair. “Walk me through this.”

Portia sat back down again and rested her elbows on the table. “I don’t know what instigated it. I just got reassigned to this office myself.”

“From where?”

“Philly.” Again, a stretch of the truth. Portia had worked in Philly before she volunteered for counterterrorism duty.

“Okay, so you get transferred to this new office and the first day you’re there, you’re assigned to…to what?”

“To do what I’m doing right now. Talk to you, ask you about the Williams boy, try to find out where you left his body. Couldn’t be more simple than that, Woods.”

“Again, there’s that assumption of guilt.” He smiled and the urge to smack him returned.

“Are you denying it?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On what I get in return for the information.”

“You get my word that you won’t be prosecuted for his murder.”

“I’m not being prosecuted for it now, so you’re offering me nothing I don’t already have. You can do better, Agent Cahill.” He leaned even closer. “Assuming I did the boy, and assuming that I could remember where he is, what are you willing to give me?”

“My undying gratitude?”

He laughed out loud. “You’re something, aren’t you? I’d almost be tempted, just because you have such balls. But no,” he shook his head. “You have to do way better than that.”

“Like what?” She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in the chair, giving no sign that she recognized him for what he was—a malevolent, soulless aberration. “What would it take, Woods?”

“I don’t know. I hadn’t expected to have to make a deal today, so I don’t know what it’s worth to me.” He stared at the wall behind her, obviously contemplating the situation. The room was so quiet, Portia could hear her own pulse beat in her temples.

“I don’t know,” he repeated after several minutes. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll think on this, and get back to you. Come back two weeks from today, prepared to make a deal.”

“Christopher Williams’s mother doesn’t have two weeks.” She stood and went to the door and called for the guard. “I’ll be back in two days.”

Portia left the prison and drove directly to Miranda’s townhouse, where she was staying until she had time to find a place of her own. She was grateful to find no one else at home. She unlocked the door and went straight upstairs to the guest room, stripping off her jacket and blouse. Once in the bathroom, she tossed her clothes on the floor and turned on the shower. Being in Sheldon Woods’s presence for almost thirty minutes had made her feel dirtier than a week climbing through mountain crevices and crawling through caves. She stood under the steaming water for almost as long as she’d spent in his company.

When she finished, she dried her hair, changed into fresh clothes, and reapplied her makeup, but did not feel free of the taint of Sheldon Woods’s presence. It clung to her like a stain she could not remove from her skin.

“How long before you no longer felt contaminated?” she asked John when she returned to the office. She stood in his doorway, her bag tucked under her arm.

“You’ve been to see Woods.” He looked up from his desk, and for a moment appeared distracted.

“Yes. This morning.”

“Then if I told you the feeling has never gone away—that I’ve never been able to cleanse my soul of the taint—you’d understand?”

She nodded. “I’ve met a lot of wicked people in my time, John, but I’ve never come across anyone so blatantly evil.”

“I’m sorry, Portia,” John said quietly. “I should have just gone myself.”

“Uh-uh. He asked right away if you were behind this, and I denied knowing you. Your first instinct was spot-on: If he thought he could get to you through this, he would, and there’d be no chance of getting Mrs. Williams’s son returned.” She shook her head adamantly. “No. This is the right way to do it.”

“So what happened? How did he react?” John motioned for her to come in and sit down. “Were you able to persuade him to talk about the Williams boy?”

“He was clearly caught off guard at first and thought I was there to try to trick him into confessing to a murder he hadn’t admitted to in the past so that he could be tried and given the death sentence.”

“That’s an idea worth revisiting at another time.”

John smiled. “But go on.”

“When I finally convinced him that there was no plot to entrap him, he perked up a bit and told me we’d have to make a deal, give him something he wanted in return for what we want.”

“What does he want?”

“He told me to come back in two weeks and he’d let me know. I told him he has two days. I’ll go back in on Friday and see what it is he has in mind. Like I said, he hadn’t been expecting a deal, and I guess he wants to take advantage of the opportunity and ask for something he really wants.” She tapped her fingers on the arms of the chair. “How much leeway do I have here, John? What are we willing to give him? What
can
we give him?”

He shrugged. “It’s going to depend on what he asks for. With him, it could be damned near anything. Let’s wait until Friday and see what he comes up with. But I’ll tell you this: After all Madeline Williams has gone through over the past twelve years, I’ll move heaven and hell to find her boy. So unless he wants something totally outrageous, we’ll do our best to make a deal.”

“Y
ou want what?” Portia leaned forward in her seat slightly, not certain she’d heard correctly.

Sheldon Woods smiled, with no small amount of self-satisfaction. “I want to go horseback riding. For an entire hour.”

“Are you crazy?” She all but laughed in his face.

“Not at all. I’m just bored. I’m sure the FBI can find at least one indoor riding facility within an easy drive of the prison. After all, this
is
horse country, you know.” He tried to cross his arms over his chest. The wrist restraints prevented action, so he let his hands drop to his lap. “Shouldn’t be all that hard for you to arrange.”

“I don’t know that the prison would let you go, and besides, I’m not sure…”

“Oh, please.” He laughed at her. “You’re the FBI, girlfriend. You can make it happen.”

“Don’t call me girl—”

“Oh, and I want James Cannon there.” He ignored her protest. “In the car with me, sitting right next to me, to and from.”

“Who?” She frowned. The name was vaguely familiar but she couldn’t quite place it.

“Cannon. My lawyer. Well, my ex-lawyer. He doesn’t represent me now, but he did back then.

And I must say, he did one hell of a job, don’t you think? An admitted child killer, for God’s sake, in a death penalty state, and he gets me life sentences.”

Woods winked at her. “The man’s a genius.”

“He sounds charming,” she said sourly. “I’m sure you deserved each other.”

“He actually is charming, in his own way. You’d like him.”

“I’ve never had much use for men who make deals with the devil.”

“Oh, meaning me, of course. You flatter me, Agent Cahill.” Woods chuckled. “You might change your mind about Cannon after you meet him, though.”

“I doubt it.”

“Anyway, that’s what I want. One hour, out of here, to ride. Immunity. And Cannon has to be there or there’s no deal.”

“Why is his presence so important if he’s no longer representing you?”

“Because he’s the only truly honest man I’ve ever met.” Woods grew serious, the light banter set aside. “And if he’s there, there won’t be any accidents.”

“Accidents?”

“You know. Like me falling off the horse and breaking my neck. Or falling out of the car and having a truck run over me. Or a made-up story about how I tried to escape so they had to shoot to kill. Accidents like that.” He shrugged. “If Cannon is there, I know I’ll be safe. So that’s it.”

“What if he’s out of town?”

“Then we wait until he gets back.”

“We don’t have time to wait. Mrs. Williams is…”

“Please.” He wiggled the fingers of one hand dismissively. “If you’re so damned worried about Mrs. Williams, you’ll get Cannon there, one way or another.” He turned toward the door and called over his shoulder for the guard. “CO DeLuca? We’re done in here!”