Deadly Sins (34 page)

They were already on Interstate 66 toward Manassas before Jaid hung up the phone that time. “I spoke to a Deputy Watkins. He promised to get back to me once he speaks with Sanchez.” While she spoke, she checked her incoming message box, which had sounded while she was on the phone.

Her mouth tightened when she saw yet another message from Bolton. Same general idea. Cockier now. He thought he had her. He really thought she was going to cave to his threats and intimidation.

Maybe he should have spent more time getting to know her before trying to cop a feel a decade earlier. Because there had to be a way out of the corner he’d boxed her into. She wasn’t through looking for it.

“That conversation between you and Bolton a few days ago”—she realized by Adam’s immediate stillness that she could have introduced the topic more smoothly—“you said he’d gotten an extension from his publisher.”

“I’ve made it a point to stay abreast of his progress.” If he wondered at her sudden renewal of interest in the topic, he didn’t reveal it. Just switched lanes to go around a slower-moving passenger bus. “From what I’ve been able to discover, Bolton sold a proposal for a book on my life with the promise of inside information.” His smile was chilly. “He has since learned that the people in position to have those sorts of details aren’t willing to share them with him.”

Jaid knew she needed to proceed cautiously. The last thing she wanted was for Adam to find out about Bolton’s threats. He had a fierce protective instinct. And she didn’t want the reporter to get another shot at him on her account.

She also didn’t require a man to fight her battles. “How long will the publisher be patient with him?” It’d help to know how much time she had. She just needed to come up with a reason to put him off long enough for her to come up with a way to get rid of him for good.

“Hopefully, if he can’t deliver as promised in the next few months, it will cause him some serious issues. I’ve already had my attorney contact the publisher about our readiness with a lawsuit if he publishes anything not based in fact. Hopefully, that will ensure that they’ll be certain he can substantiate anything he puts in the book.”

She stared, momentarily distracted from her reason for asking. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

“I value my privacy,” he said shortly. “And I don’t intend to become Bolton’s stepping stone to his next award.”

It was a sentiment she could echo. She had no intention of letting the reporter trample her son in his quest to further his career at Adam’s expense, either.

If she were smart, and maybe a bit lucky, she’d come up with a way for both her and Adam to accomplish their goals.

Mose Ferrell paused just inside the doorway as he was being shown into the interview room, shock apparent in his expression. With a nudge from the green-clad guard at his back, he continued into the room. Neither his hands nor his feet were bound.

“Sit down, Ferrell.” Adam slid a chair on the opposite side of the table out with a push from his cane. “I have a couple more questions for you.”

The man looked back toward the guard who’d brought him in, only to find the door closed behind him.

“They won’t come back for you until we tell them we’re finished here. Sit.”

The man seemed reluctant to follow Adam’s direction. “Who’s she?”

“Special Agent Marlowe, FBI.” The man’s brows rose when Jaid spoke. And he finally approached the table.

“Need to bring backup, this time, Raiker?” The man dropped heavily into the wooden institution-issued chair. Stared at Jaid. “Guess I shouldn’t complain. Don’t see too many females in this place. And my assistant public defender sure isn’t much to look at. She’s no damn good at all, tell ya the truth. Couldn’t even get bail set.”

“Well, give her some slack. You didn’t exactly hand her an easy case.” Jaid folded her hands on the table. “I hear they’re considering adding terrorism to the attemptedmurder charge.” She’d just made that up, but the idea had merit. From what the superintendent had told her, Ferrell had used enough explosives to take out the entire street Adam’s loft sat on. If the prosecutor weren’t piling on more charges, he wasn’t doing his job.

The man’s eyes bugged. “What? That’s bullshit! Where’d you hear that? C’mon, Raiker, tell her that’s bullshit. I wasn’t blowing up the town. Just your place.”

“Remind me again how that admission helps you?” Remarkably, there was a note of amusement in Adam’s voice. Jaid had the odd thought that his self-proclaimed sense of humor picked the oddest moments to appear.

“This thing,” Ferrell wagged his finger between him and Adam, “it was just between the two of us. And nothing personal. Hey, I spilled my guts while you held a gun on me in your garage, right?” The man made an expansive gesture. “I got no secrets. We’re looking for a plea deal, but the prosecutors are being dicks about it. Maybe you can do something there for me.”

For sheer gall, Jaid figured that suggestion topped the list. But Ferrell uttered it with a straight face. She had to wonder if the man were playing with a full deck. In the next moment she recalled Adam saying this guy was nowhere near the caliber of Jennings, the assassin who had made four attempts before nearly killing him last May. Which made her wonder anew at Ferrell’s hiring. Had he been meant to get caught? To fail? If so, she couldn’t imagine a reason for that, other than to get Adam off the case.

“Maybe we can work something out.” Her attention snapped to Adam. It took a moment to recall that this was exactly why they had come. “Have you ever seen this man before?”

She hadn’t realized he’d brought along the likeness of Lambert they’d shown to Sorenson. But there was no flicker of recognition on Ferrell’s face. “No, should I know him?”

Raiker just tucked the picture away again and said, “I’d like to hear more about how you were contacted by this mystery employer of yours.”

Ferrell’s expression went sly. “I been around the block a time or two. I ain’t doing anymore talking ’til you put something in writing. Like if I help you out, you drop the charges against me.”

Jaid’s eyes slid shut in sheer frustration. Where’d this guy been found?

“Only the prosecutor can drop the charges.” Adam obviously had far more patience than she did. A discovery that wasn’t exactly a news flash. “All I can do is tell them about the level of cooperation you exhibit. It will be up to them to factor that into their consideration when determining the sentence they ask for. I can, however, make a strong suggestion on your behalf.”

The man was silent, looking from one to the other of them as if still trying to figure an angle. Jaid pushed her chair back and said to Adam, “We’re wasting our time here. He’s got nothing.”

“Well, maybe I do and maybe I don’t.” Ferrell appeared to be mulling something over. It didn’t seem to be a quick process. “Don’t get yourself in a hurry there. To answer your question, I got a package in my mailbox.”

Adam fixed him with a dark look. “You said he always contacted you over the phone. Using a voice distorter.”

“And he did. Later. But I didn’t have a phone at first.” Ferrell obviously felt the need to explain this lack to Jaid. “After I got out of the joint, I fell on hard times, y’know? Couldn’t get a decent job, and there wasn’t money for extras.”

“Tough economy,” she responded, tongue in cheek.

He nodded vigorously. “You said it. So I’m working odd jobs, just taking what comes my way, right? And about three weeks ago I find this big envelope shoved in my mailbox. In it is one of them phones you can get at the store. With a card of prepaid minutes instead of a plan.”

“TracFone,” Adam murmured.

“Right. And there’s this short typewritten note, saying how if I wanted a job, someone would be contacting me, and I should take the call where no one would hear.” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “So I do it, right? Get a call the next night. The guy tells me what he wants me to do and what he’ll pay.”

“And do you still have this envelope? And the note inside it?”

“That first night, the guy told me to destroy both.”

Jaid sat back, a hiss of frustration escaping her. But Ferrell wasn’t done. “But I figure, hey, hang on to them until I know the guy is good for the money. In case there was a way to trace either one of them if he stiffed me.”

“Where are they?” Her patience had reached the breaking point. “I suppose when they searched your place investigators picked them up.”

Ferrell shook his head. “Doubt that. I never kept much in that rat hole I lived in. You could get in the place through the cellar windows with just a screwdriver. I didn’t have much to steal, but if I had, it would have been gone the first week. Naw, I stashed it in a box for my sister to keep for me. She lives a couple miles from here. She isn’t my biggest fan, but if she still has the box, you can see for yourself that I’m telling the truth.”

His gaze bounced from one of them to the other, his eyes anxious. “What I want to know is what’s it going to be worth to you?”

“We won’t know that until we see what’s in that box. If she still has it.” Adam rose, went to the door, and gestured for the guard outside. “Let’s see if we can get permission for you to make a phone call and let your sister know we’re on our way.”

Martha Montrose didn’t share her brother’s last name, but she did share an unfortunate resemblance in terms of build and looks. She must have been waiting for them, because when Adam turned into the rutted dirt driveway beside the address they’d been given, the woman opened the door and came out on the porch, holding a cardboard box tied shut with string.

Her hair was a longer version of the grizzled gray-brown of her brother. She wore a black sweater over a flannel shirt and jeans, and a grim expression. Thrusting the box toward Jaid, she said, “You tell that no-good brother of mine that I’m done with him. I don’t want to hold any more of his stuff. I don’t need feds sniffing round here because of him. He’s been nothing but trouble since he first got sent up.”

“Has anyone else been by asking about him?” Jaid was unsurprised when the woman shook her head vigorously in response, but it had been worth a shot.

“No, and if they know what’s good for ’em they won’t be. Don’t want the sort he hangs with coming round here any more than I do cops.” Her gaze lingered on Adam, as if unsure in what category to place him. But she didn’t wonder long. As soon as Jaid took the box from the woman, she stomped back in the house and closed the door with a resounding slam.

“You know, I actually find myself liking her brother better?”

Jaid smiled at Adam’s words as they headed back to the car. A couple stray cats darted across their path and disappeared through the broken lattice below the porch. “I’ll feel a lot more friendly toward her if that note Ferrell told us about is in here.”

When they got in the car, he made no move to start it. Not without some difficulty she removed the string and opened the box. There was little in it. A sheaf of papers outlining the conditions of Ferrell’s last parole with a card bearing the parole officer’s name and number. A list of businesses, which Jaid thought might have been offered as possible job opportunities. And a folded empty manila envelope.

It was that which she took out, smoothed. There was nothing written on it but Ferrell’s name and address, but it carried a local postmark. That alone wouldn’t help them trace the sender. Anyone could drive up to the mail drop box and leave a package, as long as plenty of postage was affixed.

She drew out a slip of paper from inside the envelope, smoothed it out. The typed message read:

Excitement kick-started in her system. She looked at Adam. “Is this enough for your linguist to match with Lambert’s statement and the message the cyber crimes unit recovered on Lambert’s computer?”

“Only one way to find out.” He started the car, began to back out of the drive. Jaid noticed that Martha was watching them from between two slats of the blinds covering the front window. “It’s almost five. My place isn’t far from here. I can scan the information needed and get it sent to Macy from my apartment. Or we can head back into the city, and you can get your vehicle and maybe actually get home in time to see your son tonight.”

The silence of her phone took on new meaning. No one had called her about the warrant on Newell’s house. Logically, Jaid knew that meant it hadn’t come through yet. “How long does it take to run the written communication samples for a match?”

“Macy has to diagram them first.” Adam straightened the car and headed across town. “Once she has that done, she feeds them into a database, and from there it’s only ten or fifteen minutes.”

Jaid hesitated indecisively. She was anxious to get an answer from the linguist. Unlike other portions of the case, the information wouldn’t be a long time coming. And she wasn’t unmoved by the prospect of actually tucking her son into bed herself tonight.