Lady Liberty (18 page)

“Disappeared—how?”

“Check it out, Sam. You’ll be glad you did.”

Now that he had been told the tip, Sam felt free to ask. “I’m sorry. I know I should recognize your voice, but I don’t. Who is this?”

“What? You mean you don’t even know who’s talking to you?” The guy huffed, blowing static through the line. “I shoulda called my buddy at the
Post.”
The line went dead.

Thoughtful, Sam bit his lower lip and hung up the phone. The PUSH caller. That’s who he’d been.

Sniffer looked up at him. “You okay, Sam?”

“I’m fine.” He could ignore the tip or call Conlee, but his sixth sense warned him not to mention it until he had checked it out himself. Not if he wanted to know if there was anything to it. When Sybil Stone was involved, only an idiot would take anything at face value or for granted. “Actually, I could use a little help. You busy?”

Buried neck-deep in files, Sniffer looked Sam straight in the eye. “No, sir.”

“Find a home address on Ken and Linda Dean.” Sam dialed police headquarters and spoke to Detective Karla Costillo. “Karla, it’s me, Sam.”

“I’m still pissed off at you.”

He’d broken their last three dinner dates. “I’m sorry, and I’ll eat all the humble pie you want to shovel my way later. Right now I need help.”

Karla’s reprimanding tone disappeared. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure,” Sam admitted. “Anyone file a missing report on a family named Dean?”

“Hold on and I’ll check.”

“Thanks.” This situation bothered Sam. Why had PUSH called him?

Karla came back on the line. “Nothing’s been reported, Sam. If you want us to take a look, I need more info. Dean’s a common name here.”

He made the decision split second but didn’t know why. “Probably just a crank call.”

“Saturday night?” she asked, trying to set up their next dinner date.

“Eight o’clock.”

“You’d better not break this one, Sam. Remember, I’m armed.”

He smiled at her sass. He loved a little spunk and sass in a woman. “I won’t.”

Sam hung up the phone and looked at Sniffer. “Got that address?”

“Working on it.” Scrolling through the
Herald’s
accounts directory, Sniffer turned the subject. “I’ve picked up something interesting on Sybil Stone. You know how she used to walk to the Vietnam Wall every morning she was on the Hill?”

“Half of Washington walks by there, Sniffer. Get to the point, man.”

“Half of Washington doesn’t meet the same old man or
give him white, number-ten envelopes. He wears a black rumpled coat even when it’s hot, Sam, and someone else is watching them and me.”

Sam’s stomach lurched and his curiosity slid into high gear. “Who’s the old man? And what’s in the envelope?”

“Working on both. I’ve noticed something weird that’s made me more suspicious.”

The entire envelope-passing affair was weird and suspicious. Was she disseminating classified information? Paying a blackmailer? “How long has she been meeting this guy?”

“About four months. I didn’t give it any weight because the Secret Service had been right there with her. She’s not hiding the meets or the envelopes from them.”

“So what’s weird that’s made you more suspicious?”

Sniffer leaned closer. “When she’s not on the Hill, the old man’s a no-show, too.”

“He knows she’s going to be gone,” Sam speculated. Strange. The Secret Service would have a fit at anyone having that kind of advance notice on her activities. She was setting herself up for a terrorist attack in a big way. “Who else is watching and following you?”

“A foreign guy about thirty. He’s just started tagging us.” Sniffer dragged a blunt fingertip down the computer screen. “Kenneth and Linda Dean, 2257 Hillside Drive.”

“Let’s go.”

Sniffer grabbed his jacket. “I guess it doesn’t really matter what the veep was doing at the Wall anymore. I mean, she’s dead now, so what’s the difference? The old man and the foreigner won’t be back.”

“Is
she dead?” Between the PUSH caller about the Dean family and Sybil Stone’s standing rendezvous with the old man in the rumpled coat, Sam had his doubts. The veep could be alive and well and up to her armpits in espionage or something equally sinister. She could have staged her death.

It wouldn’t surprise Sam. Add Commander Conlee’s transmissions to the equation, and she could be pulling anything.

Sam and Sniffer piled into Sniffer’s van. It still had that new-car smell. Hell, Sam had no proof what he was doing for Conlee carried the weight or knowledge of the President. Conlee could be crooked, too.

Twenty minutes later they located Hillside Drive. It was a lazy winding road lined with old oaks, manicured lawns, and stately homes on wide lots. The Dean home was a three-story gray Victorian with forest-green trim. Lights from inside shone through sheer drapes on the first and second floors. The third floor was dark.

Sniffer pulled up to the curb and parked. “Should I wait here?”

“No, go watch the back door and make sure no one comes out.”

“What if someone does?”

“Stop them from leaving.” Sam got out of the van, walked up the bricked path to the front door, and then rang the bell.

No answer. He tried again. Still no answer.

Sayelle looked around and saw no one. Bushes rustled at the corner of the house. He stepped over and saw Sniffer’s shoulder scraping against the shrubs.

“Sam, come with me to the back.”

The high-pitched strain in Sniffer’s voice had the hair on Sam’s neck standing on edge. “What’s up?”

“Something bad.” Sniffer sucked in a sharp breath. “Back door’s wide open.”

“Did you see anyone?”

Sniffer shook his head. “But I think Mrs. Dean left in a hurry”

Sam walked inside, into the kitchen, then turned on the light. “Mrs. Dean? Anyone home?” He called out, but he didn’t expect an answer. The house felt empty. A half-cooked meal stood on the stove. Pasta in a pot filled with
water. Broccoli positioned on a cutting board, the knife set down beside it. A cookbook on the counter and an entire shelf packed with others under the cabinet.

“It looks like she turned the fire off on the stove and just walked out.”

Sam tested the pasta pot for heat. The noodles had already been dropped into the water, but the pot felt cold. “Appears so.” From all signs, she had left some time ago.

Sniffer checked the entry hall. “Uh-oh, really bad sign, Sam. Her purse is in here.” He ducked back into the kitchen. “You know any woman who’d leave and not take her purse?”

Sam walked in and Sniffer pointed to a black handbag on a mahogany table. “Check the garage. See if her car is here.”

He went out the back door and was back before Sam finished searching the downstairs. Nothing else seemed disturbed.

“Two cars in the garage. A Volvo and a Jeep.”

Hers and Ken’s, Sam figured. He walked through to the stairs. A boy’s white sneaker was on the third step, and black scuff marks marred the wall. Linda Dean kept a clean house; she wouldn’t tolerate scuff marks on her wall.

A bad feeling gelled in Sam’s stomach. He left the stairs and moved down the hall. A doll with a frayed yellow dress that looked as if it had been wagged around a while lay facedown on the carpet. Not purposely positioned, but dropped. In a little girl’s room—judging by the decor, maybe she was six or seven—the sickly feeling in his stomach melted and burned with dread. The bedspread was missing from her white canopy bed. In a room next door, obviously belonging to a boy a little older, Sam ran into the same thing—no bedspread.

He moved on to the master bedroom. Nothing disturbed there, but if this had been an abduction—it sure as hell felt like an abduction—and Linda Dean had been
downstairs in the kitchen preparing dinner, there wouldn’t be anything disturbed in the master bedroom. Burglary clearly wasn’t the motive here. He lifted the phone. Dead. Whoever had done this had wanted the Deans, not their VCR and silver.

On a nightstand beside the bed, Sam spotted a family photo of Kenneth, Linda, and their two kids. His stomach churned. He didn’t really know the man, but he had seen him around and he had briefly talked to Linda at a Christmas party once. Looking at that photo, the Deans looked like the all-American family, but Sam had an unshakable feeling they wouldn’t be posing for any more photos.

His objectivity slipped and, distancing himself, he went back downstairs, avoiding looking at the doll and the tennis shoe.

Sniffer stood waiting near the kitchen door. “They were snatched.”

“Yeah.” The muscles in Sam’s neck coiled into knots. He rubbed at them, pulled out his cell phone, and got Karla on the line. “The call wasn’t bogus.” The PUSH claim was credible. He had to warn Conlee—after Karla claimed jurisdiction.

The shelf of cookbooks caught his eye—one brown book in particular. He pulled it out. “Journal” was written on its front. Highly unlikely anything written in a woman’s journal would give him any insight. He shoved the book back into its place on the shelf.

Sniffer looked at Sam. “This is what your hot tip was about, right?”

“Yeah.” A bad taste filled Sam’s mouth and a bad feeling came with it that Linda Dean and her kids were in serious trouble. If this was a typical abduction, there would be damage, signs of a struggle. There would be some evidence of serious resistance by Linda, and there wasn’t. So she had either known her abductors or she had been blindsided. The alarm system was armed; the red light still glowed. So why
hadn’t the monitoring service called the cops? They would have… unless someone had circumvented the system.

Fear shot up his backbone. Pros staged the abduction. “Sniffer, check the box and see if the phone wires on the alarm were cut or bypassed.”

“You got it.”

Minutes later Sniffer was back at the door. “They were—hey, you okay, Sam? You look a little green around the gills.”

Stone herself could have done this. Maybe Dean knew too much. Maybe snatching his family was Sybil’s insurance. Maybe Conlee was doing her dirty work—

“Sam? What’s wrong with you, man?”

He was pissed. Disillusioned, and cynical as hell. “I’m fine.” Sam walked outside, toward the van. “You know, Sniffer, sometimes this job really sucks.”

“Sometimes every job sucks.” Sniffer stuffed his fists in his pockets, stared down the street. “Do you think somebody was bleeding the veep?”

Blackmail was a possibility. So was treason. “Maybe.” Cap Marlowe needed to know about this. The caller had said there was a connection. Maybe he could shed a little light for Sam. “What have you gotten so far on the old man at the Wall?”

“Nothing.” Sniffer snorted his frustration. “It’s like he comes out of nowhere. I’ve tried shadowing him. Usually I’m good at it, but he’s better.”

“But you are working on it.” Sam leaned against the van’s front fender.

“Yeah. I hired a skateboarder to track him. I figured he wouldn’t notice a kid. But the veep’s gone now. When she’s gone, he never goes to the Wall.”

He was a pro. Being good kept him alive. “Find out who he is and what’s in the envelopes, and I’ll see to it Edison moves you upstairs.” Sniffer wanted that promotion in the worst way.

“You got it.” He looked so young Sam thought he could pose as the skateboarding teen. “This Dean abduction is wired into the veep, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” How, Sayelle didn’t know… yet.

A cop car drove down the street, heading toward them. “Let’s move.” Sam crawled into the van and let his mind drift. Since her divorce, Sybil Stone had appeared to be squeaky clean, but she had to be leaking critical information. When the news broke on whatever it was, Cap would feel vindicated.
Lance bypassed me for a woman, and she’s a damn traitor.

That bothered Sam. He’d made no bones about not liking the veep, but he’d watched her closely for the past year. She had lied about her medical condition, but she played straight on her job. Even a fool had to admit that she loved her country. Her committing treason just didn’t fit. Her Secret Service guards knew she met the old man at the Wall; they were with her when she did it. Yet the odds of her passing inconsequential, personal correspondence were about zip. So she had either duped the Secret Service, or they were in on whatever she was doing.

If Westford were still guarding her, Sam could buy into that. He was a straight arrow, but he was also nuts about the woman. Problem was, he wasn’t guarding her anymore. Yet she could still be a traitor. It was possible. Hell, in the past five years on the Hill, Sam had seen it all.
Anything
was possible. But to levy charges, he needed proof.

Maybe it was the journalist in him, the training on ethics he had learned at home and had reinforced at Marcus Gilbert’s knee. Or maybe the reason had nothing to do with journalism but everything to do with that damn spark of idealism in him that wouldn’t die. His inbred penchant for fairness, a commitment to truth, and Sam wasn’t so sure looking in the mirror without those things would be easy for any man, much less a man who still saw reflections of that fresh-faced kid he once had been.

Whatever the reason, at this point, Sam couldn’t call Sybil Stone a traitor—or deny that she could be one. Whatever she was passing the old man in those envelopes concerned Sam and, he had to admit, intrigued him. This Dean business concerned him, too. Kenneth was away from home because he was piloting Sybil Stone’s plane. Now his family had been abducted by pros. The two events had to be connected.

When Sniffer turned into the
Herald’s
parking lot, Sam decided what he had to do. “Drop me off at my car, will you?”

“Sure thing.”

Sam switched cars, cranked his engine, and then pulled out his phone and dialed a number he had memorized years ago. A man answered, his voice thick with sleep. “Cap, it’s me, Sam.” He stared through the windshield, wishing he had already unraveled this damn mess and knowing in his gut he had just scratched the surface. “We need to talk.”

“Now? It’s the middle of the night.”

“Captain Dean’s family has been abducted, it looks like your favorite politician could be involved, and she might be committing treason.”