FIFTEEN

It was well into the early afternoon by the time Abbie and Clarke could leave the scene. It took an eternity for the local ME to hike in and even longer for him, and the junior officers, to move the body. Abbie gave instructions for every inch of both the top and bottom of the cliff to be searched. There was some grumbling, but Clarke gave his fellow male officers a stern look and they fell in line.

Clarke’s stomach alerted them to the fact that it was past time to eat. They stopped by their favorite barbacoa for lunch. The restaurant, with brightly colored plastic flowers and trees peeking from every corner and crevice, managed to be cheerful despite a complete lack of natural sunlight. Clarke inhaled his first carnitas burrito before Abbie was a third of the way through her shredded-chicken taco.

“They’re connected, aren’t they.” Clarke said the words, between gulps of his Diet Coke, as a statement, not a question.

“It’s unlikely they’re not,” Abbie replied. “We’ll have to wait for the report from the ME. But falls are tough. It’s difficult to distinguish between someone falling or jumping and someone being pushed.”

“Do you think the person who did this is the same person who killed Heber?” Clarke asked.

“I think we need to follow the evidence,” Abbie said. “I want you to follow up everything related to Bryce Strong. Everyone he talked to between Heber’s accident and today, every message he sent, everything he did. We need to find out if anyone knew he’d seen Heber’s accident.”

“What about you?” Clarke asked.

“I’ve got to follow up on something else.”

*   *   *

Abbie knew Flynn would be livid if he knew she’d gone back to her place on her own, but she didn’t see any other convenient option. Even if someone was watching her house, she was a professional. She was trained to take care of herself. Plus, no one would think her plan was a good idea. She needed to do this alone.

Abbie stopped at the local drugstore on the way home to pick up everything she needed. According to the box, she would be sporting long honey-colored tresses within thirty-five minutes. While her hair was slathered in lotion-y chemicals, she painted her fingernails a bright shade of coral. She watched the clock. Another twenty minutes to go.

Wrapped in a bath towel, she walked from her bathroom to her closet. She didn’t want to risk the hair dye touching anything, but she also didn’t want to waste a single minute. She surveyed her closet. When her timer alerted her that she could rinse out her hair, her nails were already dry, and she had picked out the perfect outfit.

Within half an hour, Detective Abbie Taylor was dressed in a knee-length khaki skirt and a simple white blouse. She had sensible loafers on her feet. Her hair was a mass of tousled blonde curls. She applied her makeup with a heavier hand than was her norm.

She grabbed her scriptures, set the alarm on the fancy security system Clarke had installed, and climbed back into Flynn’s SUV. It was a Jeep. Better to be driving American. As she made her way toward Salt Lake, she rehearsed her plan.

Turnabout is fair play. You go rifling through my home turf, I’ll go rifling through yours.

*   *   *

Heber’s funeral was in two days. The viewing would be held tomorrow, in the Conference Center instead of the smaller Tabernacle. The Church leaders evidently expected a lot of people to pay their final respects.

She parked, scriptures in hand, and crossed Main Street into the labyrinth of buildings that made up the city-within-a-city around the Salt Lake Temple. The main administrative buildings for the Church were here. So were Bowen’s and Port’s offices.

Pasting a friendly smile on her sparkly peach lips, Abbie looked younger than her age. Her modest blouse and skirt, along with her long thick blonde hair, made her look like any one of the sister missionaries cheerfully answering tourist questions on Temple Square—well, except for the fact that Abbie wasn’t wearing a black badge announcing that she was SISTER ABISH TAYLOR of THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS. Abbie moseyed her way toward CAB, the Grecian-inspired Church Administration Building on South Temple. Smiling at everyone who smiled at her, Abbie stopped to chat with an elderly woman who asked her a question about the Handcart Pioneer Monument. Then Abbie stopped to read her scriptures near the Reflecting Pool. Well, that’s what anyone watching the young blonde would have thought.

In reality, Abbie was waiting. It wasn’t a complicated plan, but it did require her to be patient and quick. Finally, the moment came. An older man walked into a side entrance. Abbie slipped in the door right behind him. The man, a General Authority, stopped to chat with the security guard. The guard glanced at Abbie’s well-thumbed scriptures and continued his conversation with the important Church leader.

One lucky break. Abbie didn’t expect another one.

An advantage of growing up the daughter of one of the most prominent Church historians was that you got to play in hallways everywhere while your dad had important meetings with important people. Abbie and her siblings had played many a game of hide-and-seek in this 1917 granite structure that housed the offices for the Church VIPs.

Led by childhood muscle memory and a fair amount of reconnaissance training, Abbie slipped into a staircase off the main hall. The offices of the member of the First Presidency were generally on the first floor. The rest of the Quorum of the Twelve were scattered on the next few floors, along with certain General Authorities, including Bowen.

Abbie emerged onto the second floor and strode purposefully down the hall. Just as she came to the main stairs, she heard male voices. She kept her eyes down as two older men walked past. She didn’t recognize either of them, and they didn’t seem to even register that she was there. She kept walking. Bowen’s office was not on this floor. When the hallway was empty, Abbie opened the door to the unofficial staircase. If she met anyone here, it would be a janitor, a personal assistant, or someone delivering lunch. No one likely to ask her any questions.

She heard a door up the flight of stairs open. A woman’s heels clicked on the steps. Abbie crumpled a Kleenex, opened her Book of Mormon, leaned against the wall, and sniffled. The woman passed her. She averted her eyes so as not to embarrass the crying blonde woman. Abbie waited until she heard the door to the first floor close before she stopped her faux crying and walked to the next floor.

Abbie opened the door from the stairwell slowly. She peeked around the corner of the hallway. She saw Port’s profile as he opened a door and disappeared behind it. Port’s office was on the first floor, along with the Prophet’s and whoever would be taking Heber’s place. Abbie felt fresh pain as she thought about Heber, but instead of tears, she felt resolve. She walked directly to the office where she just seen Port. The name on the door was KEVIN BOWEN.