Sunday, September 10, 12:01 A.M.
1000 Eighteenth Street
McBride watched the final moments of the news segment on the wall-mounted plasma in Worth’s office. Ms. Nadine Goodman certainly had all her ducks in a row, including a few to which she shouldn’t have had access.
No one knew better than McBride what Derrick Braden had gone through. There were no words to adequately articulate that kind of pain. McBride would have given anything to go back and fix that moment in time. To save that boy and make his family whole again. But he couldn’t. Quinn had made the ultimate decision and the boy had died. McBride had spent three years blaming him when the truth was … he couldn’t be sure if anything he could have done would have made a difference either.
There was no way to know and that was what he had to live with. Evidently Braden had decided that he could no longer live with the not knowing and had opted to take the man he deemed responsible for his unhappiness with him.
Worth clicked the remote and the recorded broadcast vanished. He shifted his attention to McBride. “Strange that you’re in town barely forty-eight hours and our top-ranked investigative reporter suddenly has all the facts on a
three-year-old case.” His gaze turned openly accusing. “More of that irony, huh, McBride?”
McBride shouldn’t waste his time debating, this prick was going to believe what he wanted to, but for the sake of self-satisfaction he would set the record straight. And make one minor point. “I don’t even know the woman. When would I have had a chance to collaborate with her? Thursday night I never left the hotel, last night and tonight I was with Agent Grace.” Now for his point. “You have a leak.”
Outrage turned Worth’s face an unpleasant hue of purple. “This office does not have a leak.”
McBride turned his palms up. “Then your investigative reporter is psychic. Believe it or not, Worth, suspect interrogations actually work. Have you questioned Ms. Goodman regarding her source?”
The purple faded to more of a reddish-blue color. “She’s not talking. We’re holding her as a person of interest for a few hours to see if she’ll budge.”
“There are certain details,” Grace said, drawing McBride’s attention to her, “that no one at this field office could have given Goodman.”
“That’s right,” Worth said. “The copy of the case file that we received electronically had been declassified.”
Didn’t change McBride’s opinion. “Then the information had to come from someone at Quantico.”
Worth snorted. “We both know that isn’t the case.” He did that little forward-lean intimidation maneuver that wouldn’t have worked had he been standing up. “You and Quinn were the key players in that saga and Quinn is dead. That leaves you.”
“Your powers of deduction are astounding, Worth.” McBride shook his head. “I’m sure the Bureau is very proud.”
Grace shot him a warning look.
“I actually went up against Quantico for you on this
whole Devoted Fan fiasco,” Worth said, his tone incredibly level for a man who clearly wanted to rip off McBride’s head and piss down his throat. “I believed you were a pawn in this case, but that may have been a mistake on my part.”
McBride’d had about enough of this bullshit.
“If we find out you’re Goodman’s source,” Worth warned, “or that you manipulated these events somehow or had any contact whatsoever with Derrick Braden, I will nail your ass to the cross so help me God.”
McBride stood. “I assume we’re finished here.” He had stayed this long out of consideration for Grace. He didn’t want his actions coming back on her after he was gone.
Worth rose, postured himself with that authoritative panache guys like him utilized to distract from their lack of personality. Like the thousand-dollar charcoal suit and crisply starched white shirt accented with a red power tie. He was in charge and he didn’t plan to let anyone forget it.
“Agent Grace will escort you back to the Tutwiler,” he announced. “She and Agent Pratt will be your personal security until you’re on an eight A.M. flight to Miami. A representative from the Miami office will pick you up and escort you back to your residence in Key West.” Worth took a breath. “If you divulge to the press anything you’ve seen or heard during your stay here, formal charges will be forthcoming. Your attitude, your appearance, your whole life is a disgrace to the hundreds of agents who work hard and play by the rules.”
This whole affair had stopped being McBride’s problem when Director Stone ordered him off the case. He should have walked out when this bastard paused to catch his breath.
But he hadn’t and now it was too late for that.
McBride leaned forward, flattened his palms on that glossy desktop, and put himself at eye level with Worth. “I want you to remember this moment when you come begging
for my help again. So that when I turn you down cold you’ll know that whatever happens is on your head.”
Worth backed off first. He shifted his gaze to Grace. “Don’t let him out of your sight until he’s on that plane headed the hell out of here.”
“Yes, sir.” Grace tugged at McBride’s sleeve. “Let’s go.”
McBride held Worth’s gaze for two beats more before walking away. Fury roared deep in his gut. He had come here to do the right thing. Just went to show that doing the right thing was vastly overrated.
At the stairwell door, Agent Pratt’s voice interrupted their exit. “Wait up, Grace!” He hustled over to where they stood. “SAC said I was supposed to go with you.”
“I want a drink,” McBride announced to the two of them. His bullshit index had hit maximum.
“That’s not going to be easy at this hour,” Grace warned.
Pratt reached for the stairwell door. “I know a place that’s open all night.”
Things were looking up. McBride clapped Pratt on the back. “Good. You can drive.”
On the landing inside the stairwell, Grace paused and said, “This whole thing is a mistake, McBride.” She searched his face and eyes as if she hoped to see some hint of agreement or sense of indignation.
“If you’re referring to the drink, you can give it up. If it’s that load of crap Worth just dished out, don’t waste the energy, Grace.”
“Look,” she argued, “I have my issues with you, but I’m pretty sure you don’t care for reporters any more than I do. This is crap. The director’s decision was unfair.”
McBride had stopped expecting life to be fair about three years ago. Who knew? Maybe he had started to get a little cynical even before that. After what she had been through, Grace should understand that feeling. Or maybe
she was still looking through the rose-colored glasses of youth.
Whatever, his excursion into the worst of his past was over. “Let’s get the hell outta here.”
1:15 A.M.
Pratt’s source turned out to be a friend who operated a liquor store and who was willing to provide on the house a bottle of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee sipping whiskey.
Grace was annoyed with McBride as well as her colleague, but right now the demons were grumbling and McBride needed some peace. The images and voices in his head just wouldn’t shut up. Mixed in with his own personal demons were some of Grace’s. He had heard more than enough about the ravaged bodies left behind by the serial rapist-murderer referred to as Nameless to have a reasonable handle on how that horror went down for her.
That she had survived that sick son of a bitch and had put her life together so well was an outright miracle.
But the bastard had left his mark.
McBride studied her from the corner of his eye as they exited the elevator on the seventh floor of the Tutwiler. That was why she had balked those two times. Why she had a problem with comments about her body.
Goddamn, he had been an asshole.
He hadn’t taken into consideration that she might have suffered in her life the same as he had. But then, she was so damned young, who would expect such a horrific past? She’d only been seventeen when that twisted fiend took her.
She had every right to be hypersensitive about her body and he had unknowingly capitalized on that.
Outside the door to his room, rather than stick the keycard into the lock, Grace faced him. “Don’t you dare look
at me that way, McBride.” Her eyes warned that she knew exactly what he had been thinking.
McBride kept in mind that Pratt was right behind him. “Sorry, Grace. I was just admiring your … shoes.”
Pratt chuckled.
Grace took it well enough. She arched one eyebrow and suggested, “Shove it, McBride.” She glanced past him. “You too, Pratt.”
She unlocked the door and completed a walk-through of the room and adjoining bath while McBride pulled JD from the brown bag wrapper. He reached for a tumbler. “I don’t suppose either of you would care to join me.”
“You know how it is,” Pratt said with a halfhearted shrug.
Grace tossed her purse onto a chair. “Are you going to drink that straight or do you need a Coke?”
He picked up a glass from the silver tray on the table and poured a hefty serving. “Obviously you don’t know your whiskeys, Grace.” He indulged in a slow, soothing swallow, then turned to the lady glaring at him. “Otherwise you wouldn’t ask.”
“I’ll take the first watch,” Pratt offered.
He grabbed one of the chairs at the table and headed for the door.
McBride looked around the room. No way was he talking openly in here where any number of bugs could have been planted by his friends at the Bureau. But he had things to say to Grace. He opened the French doors and walked out onto the balcony, balanced his drink on the banister, and lit a smoke. He stared out at the city where Grace had grown up and wondered if she recognized that her need to escape to that bigger assignment was more about running away than proving herself. If she stayed clear of the past she didn’t have to own it. Didn’t even have to acknowledge it unless someone, like him, forced her to.
It wouldn’t do anything but fester. And one of these days,
when she least expected it, she would wake up and discover that the infection had spread, consuming her entire existence.
Then she’d be just like him … nothing.
Eventually she strolled out to join him, as he had known she would. As much as she wanted to pretend she was on their side, she wasn’t. She was on his. That was another one of those things she hadn’t owned yet.
He kept his attention on the city lights and the way the skyscrapers thrust toward the night sky with the brooding mountains in the background. Nice view. Out there and next to him. He didn’t have to rest his eyes on her to appreciate the way she looked tonight. Deep emerald skirt and matching jacket that made the green flecks in those dark brown eyes stand out. Black blouse beneath, vee-neck showing just enough cleavage to whet the appetite. And those sexy black shoes he’d already admired.
But the real attention-grabber was her hair. She had worn it down. Maybe because there hadn’t been time to do otherwise. They had been on her deck with a glass of wine in hand talking about her past one minute and the next they had been rushing to get to Eighteenth Street.
He’d almost succeeded in erasing that hurry-up-and-wait Bureau mentality from his head. Jump higher, rush faster. Play by the rules. Make sure the Bureau never looks bad. No risks. No gray area. Just black and white. Do as you’re told
Grace leaned against the railing, asked nonchalantly, “You have any idea who could have leaked those details?”
As casually as she issued the question, he recognized the tension in her posture. He had won her over to some degree and now she wanted to be able to explain away the possibility that he had done anything wrong.
“Not a clue.” He sipped his drink. Not a fucking clue.
She turned to study his profile. “After I left you here that first night, you didn’t hang out at the bar?”
He looked her in the eyes. “Yes, as a matter of fact I did.
But I didn’t talk to anyone. Ask the bartender if you feel the need. He’ll tell you that I repeated a single word several times. Another.”
She looked away. “I had to ask.”
“Sure.” He knew the way it was done. “We all do what we have to.”
“You didn’t bring anything written with you that someone could have taken from your room?”
He had to laugh at that. “Well, Agent, you were there. You saw what I brought with me. The clothes on my back. Not even a toothbrush.” He patted his back pocket. “And I don’t carry a copy of old case reports in my wallet.”
She exhaled a big exasperated breath. “There has to be an explanation. If it didn’t come from Quantico and it didn’t come from you …”
As least she sounded like she believed him.
“Lots of people knew what went down,” he offered for lack of anything else to say.
“But not word-for-word details,” she countered.
She was right about that. “Other than the notes I kept in my office at Quantico and the official file, there was no place to get verbatim information except from a live source.”
A frown tugged at her pretty face. “What happened to your working notes?”
He shrugged. “Who knows? I walked out with nothing.” A memory bobbed to the surface of the cesspool of negativity in his brain. “They shipped my personal stuff to me later. Maybe the notes were in there. I suppose they could have opted to retain the work-related memos and notes.”
“What’d you do with the stuff they sent?”
“Never opened it.” He knocked back the last of the JD in his glass. “Still packed up in boxes at my place in the Keys.”
She reached for her phone. “Worth needs to know that there may have been work notes at your residence. There could’ve been a break-in since you’ve been away.”
“Forget it, Grace. It doesn’t matter. Worth—the
Bureau—wants me out of this. Don’t you get it? No matter what you prove, nothing is going to change. They don’t want the world to know what happened three years ago. As long as I’m guilty, they’re innocent.” He laughed. “The truly ridiculous part is that none of it matters. The boy died. Proving who was responsible won’t bring him back. Won’t change the fact that his daddy blew his brains out. Or that he killed an agent.
“It’s done. Over. Let it go.”
“And what happens when Devoted Fan e-mails us on Monday?” she countered.
“Worth will deal with it.” Tension he tried hard to ignore negated the relaxing effects of the one drink he’d consumed.
“What about the victim? Considering we don’t have a trace of evidence and there’s no pattern to his work, the victim could be anybody. He could be stalking that person right now. Are you just going to let the next one die?”
He turned his face back to hers. “You can do this, Grace. You were the one who figured out Jones was at the steel mill, not me.”
“That’s not true,” she argued. “I just juggled the priority list, that’s all. You were the one who ID’d her so we would even know who we were looking for.”
“The point is, you’ve got Pratt and Schaffer and all those other guys. Work with them. Let them in. If you keep pushing all your colleagues away, you’re never going to make it. This business takes teamwork.”
“You’re pretending this is all going to go away,” she argued, “and you’re wrong. He’s planned this very carefully. Whatever he has in mind for the next round, saving the victim will be about you … not me, or any of the others. He wants to prove how invaluable you are. Each round will be harder, more personalized. Mark my word, without you, we’ll lose and someone will die. That’s assuming we can even fool him into believing you’re still on the case.”
“I need another drink, Grace.”
He went back into the room, reached for the only comfort he trusted.
As much as he’d love to leave Grace feeling warm and fuzzy about the hero she had thought him to be, this wasn’t his problem anymore.