Hotwire (23 page)

Maggie sank down into the recliner opposite Lucy and petted each dog. She had never had her own mother wait up for her. Instead, Maggie—even as a twelve-year-old—was the one waiting up for her mother, who sometimes didn’t come home at all. Now suddenly she was struck by how good this place felt—warm, cozy, and safe. Not even twenty-four hours and it felt like home.

Lucy looked up at her over half-moon reading glasses and set her book aside.

“You look exhausted,” she said. “How are you?”

“Exhausted.” Maggie smiled. “But I’m okay.” Jake pushed his snout under her hand, asking to be petted and she automatically obeyed. The others had settled by Lucy’s feet again.

“Someone takes care of your dog while you’re away?”

“Yes.”

“Someone who takes care of you, too, when you’re there?”

“Oh, no.” She shook her head and was immediately embarrassed that she had protested so quickly. At the same time she didn’t want to explain that her FBI partner, R. J. Tully—who was taking care of Harvey—was very much involved with her best friend, Gwen Patterson.

“But there is someone? Someone new in your life?”

Maggie stared at the woman, wondering how she seemed to have the power to look deep beneath the surface.

“Maybe,” Maggie said, still thinking about her conversation with Platt, how good it was to hear his voice. She loved the sound of his laughter. Just sharing with him the events of the last twenty-four hours had made her feel less alone in the world. “Trouble is I’ve gotten used to being on my own. I like scheduling my time without getting someone else’s approval.”

In her mind she added that being alone meant being safe. No one could hurt or disappoint you if you didn’t let them get close. The fact that she missed Benjamin Platt annoyed her. It felt like a weakness, a vulnerability. “Is that being independent,” she asked, “or selfish?”

“There always has to be a balance. It should never be all or nothing.” Lucy hesitated, deciding whether or not to go on. “You should never deny who you are to please someone else. If that’s the choice, then it’s not meant to be.

“My mother was full-blooded Omaha. She did everything she possibly could to deny it, to leave it behind. I think that’s why she married my father. He was the son of Irish Catholic immigrants. A railroad engineer who had dreams as big as a Nebraska sky. But he absolutely adored American history and the Indian culture. He was the one who taught me about the Omaha tribe and my Indian heritage. I think my mother finally learned to love it, through his eyes.

“Your independence, your time alone, when you find someone who loves those things as much as you do and wants them for you, you’ll find that those things no longer matter unless you also have that particular person beside you. A bit ironic, I suppose.”

Lucy didn’t push the matter. Instead she asked, “How’s the boy doing?”

Maggie had told her on the phone about the intruder and the attempt on Dawson’s life.

“He’s scared. But his dad’s with him and Skylar has a deputy outside his door now. Donny seems certain the stranger’s footprint is going to match the one we found in the forest. It has the same distinctive waffle pattern. Same size.”

“Even if it matches, it might not lead us anywhere. There must be hundreds of pairs of work boots in this area. Did Dawson tell you anything?”

Maggie shook her head. “Not really. They used the campsite to experiment with drugs. He did admit they had a camera.”

“And we didn’t find it. Could they have caught something on film?”

“I have no idea. What else is out there besides a bunch of trees and pasture?”

“The university has a new field house on one side and there’s the nursery on the other side.”

“Nursery?”

“The Forest Service grows their own trees. The forest doesn’t replenish itself. Trees don’t grow well in sand.” She smiled, then realized that wasn’t enough of an explanation. “It was an experiment at the turn of the last century— 1902, if I remember correctly. Every tree was hand planted. About twenty thousand acres. Originally it was believed that settlers would come to the area if they were provided an easy supply of timber to build with. It’s been sort of an open-air laboratory ever since. When trees die, as many of those original pine are doing now, they have to be replenished.”

“Doesn’t sound very sinister.”

Lucy laughed. “No, I’m afraid not.”

“What’s in the field house?”

“I’m not sure. The university built it several years ago. I think it was supposed to be a research laboratory for developing plant hybrids. I’m not a fan of genetic-engineering our food. But from what I heard they decided to use someplace else.”

“So it’s empty?”

“No. I believe the Department of Agriculture uses it for something. Not sure what. You can’t see it from the road. Once in a while I’ve seen a vehicle coming out.”

“You’ve never been curious?”

“It’s a secured entry and fenced off.”

“Electric fencing?”

Lucy took off her eyeglasses. “What exactly are you thinking?”

“Not sure. I don’t remember seeing the facility when we were there. Can you see it from the kids’ campsite?”

Lucy gave it some thought before answering. “I don’t think so.”

Maggie sighed, disappointed.

“However,” Lucy added, her long fingers massaging her right temple, “I think you might be able to see the private road that goes from the main route to the facility.”

Maggie’s cell phone rang in her jacket pocket. She jumped up to retrieve it realizing that she hoped it was Platt. He had caught her off guard earlier with his question about children. Recently she had almost convinced herself she wanted to take their relationship to the next level, but not if it meant embarking on an emotional mission to replace his beloved dead child.

She yanked the phone from her pocket. It wasn’t Platt. She tried to keep her disappointment from Lucy. Too late. The woman didn’t miss a thing.

“Investigator Fergussen, you must have some new information.”

“Not anything good but I thought you’d want to know. Car accident. About an hour ago.”

She could hear sirens and voices yelling. He must be on the site.

“Victims are Courtney Ressler and Nikki Everett. Looks like they were coming around a curve. Ran right into a six-point buck.”

“A buck?”

“Deer. Probably didn’t see it until it was too late. You know teenagers. Might have been going too fast. Texting.”

“Are they okay?”

“Negative. Both were dead on impact. It’s pretty messy. Just thought you’d like to know.”

“Thanks.”

Lucy hadn’t taken her eyes off Maggie but waited patiently.

“We just lost two more teenagers from last night.”

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10

FORTY-FOUR

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Platt felt like he’d only been asleep for a few minutes when Bix’s phone call dragged him back out of bed.

“United ticket counter. Reagan National. Meet me there at five thirty. We’ve got a six thirty flight.”

“I’m hoping you mean five thirty this afternoon,” Platt had said looking at his bedside alarm clock that read three forty-five.

“Very funny. I’ll see you there.”

Now seated in first class beside the CDC chief, Platt was pleased to see that Bix looked even worse than he did. Bix’s hair was tousled and his eyes were bloodshot. But Roger Bix in a suit and necktie was serious business even if the tie hung loose. The jacket had come off as soon as they stepped onto the plane and was sent away with a flight attendant while Bix rolled up his shirtsleeves and shoved them above his elbows. Platt wore his uniform as instructed, but he had surrendered his jacket to the flight attendant, too.

It wasn’t until they were in the air that Bix started to explain why they were making an early-morning flight to Chicago.

“I think our friend”—
friend
being their code word for the anonymous caller—“got pissed by the USDA’s announcement last night.”

“What announcement?”

“You didn’t hear the news?”

“I went to USAMRIID then home.”

“The secretary of agriculture himself said that the school contamination was caused by a negligent kitchen worker who was being suspended.”

Platt thought about poor Velma Carter. “How did they come up with that? We didn’t even mention the woman at our meeting.”

“Exactly why our friend is pissed. So he’s given us a bigger piece of the puzzle.”

“In Chicago?”

“A processing plant on the north side. They get scraps and chunks of beef from various slaughterhouses, combine them, then grind them up. They take the ground beef and make it into patties, meatballs, spice it up for tacos.”

“Let me guess, those get shipped off to schools.”

“If only it was that simple.” He pulled out a thick file from his briefcase. “I’ve been trying to make heads or tails out of this mess.”

“You’re assuming it was the beef in the taquito that was contaminated?”

“Not assuming.”

“Your guys found something?”

“I can’t frickin’ sit around until you lab nerds finish studying your crap and vomit slides. I pushed our anonymous caller. He was feeling slightly guilty. That ridiculous statement from the USDA pushed him to tell me where to look.”

“He told you it was the beef?”

“Suggested. Not told. My lab nerds are checking it out this morning.”

“So why do we need to go to Chicago?”

Bix shrugged. “Maybe this guy isn’t really a whistle-blower. Maybe he just wants to yank our chain. But I got the feeling giving us this tip was huge.”

“So did you have time to check out this processing plant?”

“Family owned. Been in business for fifty years. I tried to pull up the inspection records at the USDA, and get this—I was told that information was only available by filing a request through the Freedom of Information Act because the records must contain ‘proprietary information.’”

“Why don’t they just black it out?”

“That’s what they will do once we’ve filed our request.”

“I thought Baldwin was going to make everything available?”

“That’s what she said, didn’t she? However, I couldn’t reach her this early in the morning. Got her voice-messaging service. Told her to fuckin’ call me. We need an immediate notice to all schools about beef products and we need a recall.”

“So?”

“Didn’t hear from her before I had to switch off my phone.”

“She seemed genuine last night. Give her a chance to do the right thing.”

“I am. But she has less than forty-eight hours.”

FORTY-FIVE

Mary Ellen hated leaving her husband and son fast asleep. She had barely gotten to see the two of them last night before bedtime. And now, on a Saturday morning, she was back outside the conference room, all props sorted and collated, coffee and Danish laid out. Everyone was here, except for Irene Baldwin. Once again, she was keeping them all waiting for an emergency meeting she had called.

Mary Ellen felt on edge. It didn’t help matters that she had allowed herself three coffees already this morning. Her stomach burned and her nerves were stripped raw. She wanted to be angry at Benjamin Platt and yet all she could think about was how good the bastard looked. She should, at least, take pleasure in his obvious misery when he discovered that she was married and had moved on.

Last night, lying in bed she told herself that she was the luckiest woman in the world. She had been given a second chance at having a family. When she closed her eyes she was shocked that all she could think about was Benjamin Platt and remember so vividly what it felt like to have him make love to her. She rolled over and cuddled into her husband’s back, pressed her cheek against his shoulders, and begged for sleep.

“Wychulis.”

Baldwin’s heels clicked up the hallway. She looked like a woman who had slept eight hours and, unlike Mary Ellen, didn’t need three cups of coffee this morning to get her moving. But on closer inspection Mary Ellen saw that her boss’s attempt at concealing the bags under her eyes had not been totally successful.