Deadly Sins (15 page)

“It was an eventful evening.” His words broke off then. When they resumed, his voice had hardened. “Shove off, Bolton.”

Surprised, she turned to look behind her. Saw Kale Bolton approaching them down the sidewalk at a fast clip, wearing a sports jacket, flannel slacks, and his usual smug smile. “Bolton,” she said without enthusiasm when he stopped beside them. The reporter had a knack for being in the right place at the most inconvenient times. He also had an aversion to taking no for an answer when he was drinking, which was frequently. The slight bump in his nose was a permanent legacy of its contact with Jaid’s elbow ten years ago when he’d sought to change her no to a yes in a downtown bar by grabbing her breasts like a high school freshman in the backseat of his daddy’s car.

The sight of the slight imperfection still filled her with a sense of satisfaction.

“What can you tell me about the progress on Reinbeck’s killing?” He looked from one of them to the other with an expression that managed to be hopeful and sly at once. “Any suspects in the case yet? What leads are you following?”

“All media releases are being handled through the bureau’s public relations office, Bolton.” And he knew that, damn him. He’d probably come straight from the morning’s news conference.

“C’mon, throw me a bone here, Jaid.” His smile was wheedling. “You at least owe me that much.”

“I gave you what I owed you a decade ago,” she said, with a meaningful look at his nose. “We aren’t talking about details of the case. Go away.”

“Fine.” He shifted his gaze to Adam. “Then let’s talk about Mr. Raiker here. Why are you attached to this investigation? Whose decision was that? What do you think you can bring to the case that the entire bureau can’t?”

“What makes you think I’m working the case?”

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Raiker. I’ve got contacts. You should know that.”

Jaid saw Shepherd swing the SUV around the corner. She gave Adam a nudge. “C’mon.”

“That’s not what I hear.” Adam’s voice was hard. “I hear the contacts you thought you had aren’t giving you the information you want. I heard your publisher is making noises about rescinding the advance they paid you for your next book. What is it, six months past deadline already?”

Mystified, Jaid looked from one man to the other. The two had squared off like pugilists awaiting the starting bell. The other agent forgotten for the moment, she turned her full attention to figuring out what the hell was going on.

“Whoever told you that is full of shit. I got an extension. Happens all the time in the publishing world.” The breeze tousled the man’s dark brown hair. If she didn’t know what a snake he was, she’d consider his dark looks and square jaw attractive. He’d been charming that night they’d talked about his work over a couple drinks. Not so much when he’d gotten more liquor in him, however. From what she’d heard since, he had a taste for the stuff. Maybe that’s what was slowing down the production of this book the two were talking about.

“Great. Let me know what happens when you ask for another extension.” Adam began to step around him.

“Hell, contacts or not, all I have to do is wait. You provide another chapter for the book every week or so, don’t you? Heard about your near escape last night. Have they examined the explosive yet? Was it really powerful enough to take out your whole building?”

Stunned, she stared at Adam, a sick clutch of fear in her chest. “Last night?” A quick scan of his figure assured her there were no injuries other than the one he’d shown up with a couple days ago. The bruise on his forehead was a mottled blue with a cut in the center of it that had almost certainly needed stitches. But she could see no new injuries.

“I’ll be sure and call you when all the details are in,” Adam said with mock politeness. “Anything I can do to help you meet that deadline.” He headed away and Jaid started after him. Bolton stepped between them. Grabbed Adam’s sleeve.

“Think you’re all powerful, don’t you?” His face twisted. “Believe me, there are lots who are willing to talk about the mysterious Adam Raiker. I’ve got plenty of material to go to my publisher with. Plenty. And I will. If you don’t want to set the record straight, I’ll tell the story without you. Either way this book is getting written.”

Adam looked at the man’s hand. Then at Bolton. Slowly, the other man loosened his grip. Stepped back. “Is that the deal you made with your publisher? Hard to understand why you missed that first deadline, then.” This time when he started walking, the reporter stayed put.

Jaid waited until they were out of earshot of the reporter. “What the hell, Adam?” Her tone was furious. This was so typical of the man. He took closemouthed to new heights. “What happened? Was anyone hurt? Did you catch who did it?”

“I did, yes.” The light turned green, and he put a courteous hand at the base of her back as they began to cross, the old-fashioned act curiously intimate.

She shook off his touch. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”

“It has nothing to do with this investigation . . .”

“So you say.” She wasn’t sure where the anger was coming from, but it was there, bubbling perilously close the surface. “But it’s not your call to make. I’m serious. I want to know what the hell Bolton is referring to. About last night. About the book. You don’t get to make the determination of what’s relevant and what isn’t. You’re not running this task force.”

His gaze narrowed. Once upon a time the expression on his face would have had her retreating. But that time was long in the past. “I’m serious. If I can’t trust you to be open with me, I’m asking to have you placed on another team. Because I damn well won’t work with someone I don’t trust.”

“If you’re worried about Hedgelin . . .” he started.

She leaned toward him. “Don’t you dare. Don’t even try to make this about him.”

He studied her for a moment. They’d reached the side of the vehicle. Neither of them made a move to get in it. “My point is that he’ll have this information soon enough. Hell, Bolton already had it.”

Stonily, she said nothing. Just looked at him.

The window on the SUV buzzed down. “Hey, I’m double-parked here,” Shepherd called out.

Adam blew out a breath. “Fine,” he muttered bad temperedly. “We’ll discuss it after work.” When she opened her mouth, he glared at her. “I’d as soon not have this discussion in the vehicle, and we have more important things on our plate today, don’t we?”

Because it represented far more of a capitulation than she’d hoped for, she nodded. “After work, then.”

Without another word he got in the vehicle. She followed more slowly, getting in the front seat. She was still simmering. Somehow she didn’t think sitting next to Adam in back would be especially safe for either of them in their present moods. She embraced the irritation she still felt. Clung to it.

It was far easier to deal with than the cold spear of dread that had pierced her when she’d heard Bolton mention the events of last night.

Their tasks for the day included tracing the sources of the text messages to Reinbeck’s and Patterson’s phones. It quickly became apparent that it would be far easier to follow up on the judge’s text messages than on Patterson’s.

“Byron wasn’t big on technology,” Adam informed them as they made their way through the strengthened security at the Supreme Court building for the second time in as many days. “I’m not surprised that the LUDs showed the only sources of texts on his phone for the last six weeks as members of his family or staff. He didn’t like to be wired all the time, he said.”

“If we strike out here, I’m sure his family will cooperate by letting the techs examine their phones,” Jaid put in. She nodded toward the same young Supreme Court policeman who had shown them the way the last time they’d visited. “One of his sons’ cells might be the most likely place to look at any rate. Kids are more careless with their personal belongings. Someone could have gotten to one of their phones when it was in their backpack, locker, or car.”

The policeman ushered them into the same room where they’d held the interviews last time. After promising to send them the people listed on the sheet they gave him, he closed the door quietly.

“Jaid’s right.” Tom Shepherd was dressed in a discreet navy wool suit today that made his hair look even lighter above it. “In most instances, kids tend to be advanced compared to adults regarding changes in technology.”

“Technology, perhaps, but not murder.” Adam set his briefcase on the table in front of him and unlocked it. “And we have to consider that if someone sent the victims a link that downloaded spyware onto their phones, that person is either the murderer or an accessory to the acts.”

“I’ve seen some pretty chilling teenage murderers in my time,” Shepherd said. He, too, took his case file from his briefcase and flipped it open. Taking a pen from inside his suit jacket, he looked across the table at Adam. “Ran into a couple in North Dakota a few months before my transfer back. They were burglarizing houses and killed an owner in a panic one time when he came back unexpectedly. Gave them such a thrill that they started hitting houses they knew weren’t empty. One of them actually told me it upped the thrill, you believe that?”

Unfortunately, Jaid did. She’d read the agency’s statistics on youth gang activity in the country. Access to that sort of information had worn down her resistance to allowing Patricia to play a bigger part in her life again. The truth was she’d needed support. She’d struggled on her own for several months when she’d first brought Royce home as a baby. A single parent with a demanding job had a hard time trying to raise a child alone. As much as she often disagreed with her mother’s ideas on child rearing, at least her son had family watching him when he wasn’t in school. Too closely, he’d probably say when he got a bit older. Jaid had certainly rebelled at her mother’s overbearing ways when she’d been a teen.

The door opened then and a familiar tall figure stood diffidently just inside it. Lawrence Dempsey, one of Byron’s clerks.

“The officer said you wanted to talk to me.” The slight frown on his face was reflected in his voice. He looked from one of them to the other, making no move to approach the table.

“Yes, thank you for seeing us again, Mr. Dempsey.” Jaid sent him a smile and gestured for him to take a seat. “We just have a follow-up question for you regarding the text messages you sent to Justice Reinbeck in the last few weeks.”

“The messages?” His tone went puzzled. He still stood inside the door. “What about them?”

“Please sit down.” Jaid was a bit chagrined when the man responded to the authority in Adam’s tone. “You regularly communicated to the justice by text, is that so?”

“I wouldn’t say regularly,” he said, his voice, his mannerisms, cautious as he slipped into a chair and sat gingerly on its edge. “Occasionally, if I found case law pertinent to a petition he was reviewing, I’d text it if he were unreachable.” He looked from one of them to the other. “What’s this about?”

“How about links?” Agent Shepherd asked. “Did you ever send him a link to a website to look at?”

Confusion spread across the man’s face. “I don’t think so. I don’t know why I would have. I mean sometimes we look up articles surrounding legal cases that have been tried, in the course of background and research. No”—he shook his head, slid back a bit in his chair, as he seemed to grow more certain—“I don’t recall ever sending him any links.”

“Do you mind if we look at your phone?”

Startled, his hand went to his suit jacket pocket. Hesitated. “You mean the out-box? There’s nothing in there, I’m afraid. I emptied it a couple days ago.” But when Shepherd’s hand remained outstretched, Dempsey slowly took the cell out and slid it across the table to the agent. “What’s this all about?”

Dodging his question, Jaid asked one of her own. “You don’t deny sending texts to the judge on September thirteenth, October thirtieth, and November second?”

“No. I mean, I guess not.” He stopped, tried to think, before giving up and shaking his head. “I’d have to check my records to be sure, but I distinctly remember sending him some information he requested at least twice recently. But never a link. I’d recall that.”

“Do you ever lend your phone out?” she went on as Shepherd gave him back his cell. “Maybe let someone place a call on it? Leave it where someone can access it? In a gym locker, on the table at a bar when you get up to dance?”

That last had a smile flickering. “I’m not much of a dancer. But no, I keep it with me. That’s an expensive model. And sure, I’d let a friend make a call on it if he needed to, but that hasn’t happened recently, either.”

Krista Temple was next, and the interview was a near duplicate to Dempsey’s. Except she recalled both times she’d texted the justice, down to the approximate time of day and the exact reason. The messages she’d sent him were still in her out-box, both citing case law. Neither of them contained a link.