Deadly Sins (8 page)

“This from the man who doesn’t believe in coincidence.”

The trees alongside the road were thinning. They were nearing the interstate again. “There’s no coincidence. I just have a knack for setting people on edge. Amazing, given my winning personality.”

Samuels didn’t smile. His tone was dogged. “You can’t ignore the possibility that tonight is linked to the other attempts on your life, Adam. The shooter failed in May. Landed you in the hospital and rehab for months, but you’re still around. There’s no reason to believe the attempts will stop. The bank account discovery ties Jennings to the Colorado kidnapper. Who’s still out there and likely still wants you dead. That could be what tonight was all about.”

“If tonight was an attempt, it wasn’t much of one.” Jennings had been nothing if not persistent. Although bullets had been his usual method of choice, he’d turned to incendiary devices twice. The events of a couple hours ago were amateurish in comparison. “It’s likelier that tonight was a direct result of the investigation I’m currently working.” To distract the man and himself, he filled him in on the case so far. There was disappointingly little to report. They’d barely scratched the surface, and he had no idea what ground the other teams had covered that day.

“Hedgelin’s running the investigation?” Paulie’s long whistle was fraught with meaning. “How’d that meeting go?”

“About the way you’d expect.” Paulie had been in the bureau at the time Hedgelin and Adam were partners. Had worked with Hedgelin himself when the man was still in the cyber crimes unit. “You remember Tom Shepherd? He’s on the case.”

“Nice to have one friendly face there, I guess.” Paulie slanted him a glance in the dim interior of the call. “He’s grateful to you. That’s why he came down so hard on the field agents in Philly for getting Jennings’s whereabouts wrong the night you were shot. He believes you were responsible for getting him out of that shit hole North Dakota field office and reinstalled in DC.”

Adam shrugged uncomfortably. He’d never admit to his part in orchestrating just that. The man was a good agent. He hadn’t deserved his banishment nearly three years ago. A case of Adam’s had intersected with one of Shepherd’s back then and returned a missing girl to her parents. The fact that Shepherd and his team had failed to do so must have pissed off someone in the bureau, resulting in the man’s demotion.

Petty politics had always frustrated Adam. And he’d give a lot to discover who had been behind Shepherd’s reassignment after that case. Hedgelin? Or someone higher up? Maybe one of these days he’d ask. Because it was certain that whoever it was wouldn’t have been happy when the senior member on the senate intelligence committee had lobbied the bureau to have Shepherd reinstated to his old post, at Adam’s request.

“So are you going to report tonight to Hedgelin?”

Unerringly, Paulie touched on the most troublesome portion of the night.

“The bureau didn’t want me anywhere near this case.” A thought was forming, fueled only partially by paranoia. “It occurs to me that tonight’s little drama could hand them a perfect excuse for my removal.”

He didn’t have to say more. Samuels followed the line of thought seamlessly. “They’d have to reject their own conclusion that Jennings was working alone and switch gears. Suggest that your would-be assassin is still out there. Still targeting you.”

“Or that I’d attracted a copycat. Either of which would be a huge distraction for an investigation that’s already knee-deep.” The issue settled, he flicked his friend a glance. “I think not.”

“Probably a good idea.” Paulie eased the car onto the interstate. Headed south. “I’ll put some of our people on it. I think Abbie and Ryne are due back from that spree killing case up in Maine, aren’t they?”

Adam frowned, didn’t answer immediately. He was uncertain whether he wanted to bring more attention to the events of the evening by putting the Robels on it. On the other hand, the husband-and-wife team was free, having just wrapped up their most recent case. And they were very highly skilled.

They had to be, or they wouldn’t be working for him.

“I don’t think that’s necessary. At least not yet.” One hand went to his thigh to massage away the cramps that had seized it. They were a leftover from the nerve damage he’d suffered several years ago. He could only hope that an hour in the hot tub later would soothe the worst of them.

Broodingly, he watched the steady stream of lights in the oncoming traffic. It occurred to him that he hadn’t mentioned the other agent he was working on the case with. Paulie knew Jaid, too, even better than he did Hedgelin and Shepherd. They’d all been at the bureau together, a lifetime ago. And although the omission hadn’t been deliberate, he made no attempt to right it now.

He settled his head against the headrest. The other man would have plenty to say about Jaid’s reappearance in his life. At the best of times his comments on the subject would be unwelcome.

Adam was already aware that of all the distractions this case came loaded with, she might well end up being the biggest one of all.

It was early. Nearly an hour before Adam was due to meet Jaid and Shepherd. But the run-down apartment bearing Danny Shelton’s address wasn’t all that far away from the Hoover Building in actual miles.

It was a lifetime away in terms of inhabitants.

“Doesn’t look like a great place, sir.” Reno Tripp’s voice dripped doubt. As one of the drivers in Adam’s employ, he’d driven in far worse areas. Adam wondered if the man’s show of nerves came from recalling the fate of Adam’s driver in Philly, who had returned fire with Jennings after Adam had been shot. Had taken a bullet himself. “Relax.” His hand went to the door handle. “I won’t be inside long.” Or maybe not at all if Shelton’s family refused to talk to him. “Keep circling until I call.”

“Not much choice,” the man muttered. And that was true enough. Both sides of the narrow rutted street were lined with vehicles in various stages of disrepair. Given the hour, Adam hadn’t expected to see many people about, and other than a few hurrying down steps or along the cracked sidewalks, he was right. The building he was interested in, however, had a steely eyed young man in his twenties sitting on the stoop in a decrepit lawn chair. When Adam exited the car and headed in his direction, the man slowly rose. Positioned himself before the doorway.

Recognizing a sentry when he saw one, Adam climbed a couple steps and halted. “I’d like to talk to Rosa Shelton if she’s feeling up to visitors.”

“She ain’t.”

“I’d feel better if you asked her.” He reached into the breast pocket of his suit, noted the man’s barely perceptible response. He was willing to bet the oversized militarysurplus jacket the guy was wearing concealed a weapon.

Cocking a brow, Adam said, “My card?” But the man didn’t visibly relax, even when Adam withdrew a business card and handed it to him.

The man didn’t look at it. “She ain’t talkin’ to no press.”

“Please.” Adam’s voice was pained. “Do I look like a member of the press to you?”

“She ain’t talkin’ to no one strappin’, neither.” The man gave a meaningful nod to Adam’s jacket. “Leastwise no one without a badge.”

“Well, I don’t have a badge, although I am working with the FBI. So I’ll just give this to you to hold, shall I?” This time when Adam reached into his suit jacket, the man’s hand disappeared into one large cargo-sized pocket of his coat. Pretending not to notice, Adam withdrew his Glock, hit the magazine release, and racked the slide back to eject the cartridge. Dropping both into his pocket, he handed the empty gun to the younger man. “Maybe you could tell Ms. Shelton she has company.”

Indecisive, he stood for a moment, his gaze going from Adam to the weapon. After a moment, he opened up the front door and called, “Tyreque!”

A slighter, much younger man appeared. Still in his teens, Adam estimated. And not nearly as hardened as his companion.

“Stay here.” The older man headed into the building leaving the newcomer guarding the entrance.

This guard, however, was chattier than his friend. “You ain’t no reporter.”

“A fact I give thanks for daily.”

The kid cocked his head, giving Adam a thorough onceover. “Don’t know exactly what you
do
look like. Maybe Pacino in one of them older flicks. One of them where he gets shot at the end.”

Because there was no real answer to that comment—other than to admit how close it came to the truth—Adam asked a question of his own. “Are you related to Danny Shelton?”

“He was my uncle.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

The kid looked away, moving his shoulders jerkily. “Shit happens, right? But it shouldn’ta happen to Danny. He never hurt no one, man. All the time out there sellin’ them stupid flowers. And he gets offed doin’ that? Life sucks.”

Before Adam could agree the older man reappeared and with a jerk of his head motioned Adam inside. “Stay here, Tyreque.” The kid settled himself into the vacant lawn chair as Adam stepped by him and through the front door. Upon closer inspection he saw the lock was broken, probably long ago. It wouldn’t keep out unwanted visitors.

And in the time since Danny Shelton had been killed in the shooting targeting Byron Reinbeck, there had probably been a lot of unwanted visitors.

At the foot of a rickety staircase, the man shot Adam a glance. “Fourth floor. And the elevator ain’t worked since she moved in.”

“Lead the way.” He wouldn’t have trusted an elevator in a place like this in the best of times. But by the time he reached the last flight, Adam was doubly glad for the time he’d spent in the hot tub last night.

Rosa Shelton, mother and legal guardian of Danny Shelton, was standing in the doorway of apartment 431. Nearly filling it, actually. Despite the earliness of the hour, she was fully dressed in a neat navy dress, dark nylons, and low-heeled pumps. Her short hair was styled in soft gray curls around a plump face the color of mocha coffee. She wore her age and weight more easily than her grief. It sat heavy on her shoulders and filled her eyes.

“I’m expectin’ the Reverend Andrews anytime now,” she said, her gaze not moving off Adam. “So Bobby, you take yourself down those stairs and wait for him.”

The man—Bobby—didn’t move. “Tyreque’s already down there.”

“So now you’ll both be down there.” She glanced away then, and the look she gave Bobby was enough to have him shuffling his feet before slowly turning toward the staircase. Then her look pinned Adam again. “State your business, Mr. Raiker.”

“I’m working with the task force formed to look into your son’s death, Ms. Shelton. His and Byron Reinbeck’s.”

Her laugh was short and scoffing. “Weren’t no task force formed for Danny’s death; we both know that. The task force is for that judge. And those bullets was for the judge.” Her large brown eyes filled with tears. “But my Danny’s gone, all the same. And no one wants to tell me why. They just want to ask questions ’bout did my Danny do this or know that. Truth is: He knew his flowers and not much more. But he was a good man. Had a kind way ’bout him; I made sure of that. But now the only thing people knows ’bout him was that he got hisself killed because someone wanted the judge dead.”

“But he mattered.” Adam gave her a slow nod. “His life mattered, too. I’d like to talk to you about that if you have the time.”

Rosa studied him for several long moments. “You look like you know a bit about sorrow and sufferin’ yourself.”

“A bit.”

She stepped back then and held the door wide. “Guess you can come in until the reverend gets here. We been plannin’ the service. Leastways, as much as we can plan, without knowin’ when they’ll let us have Danny’s body.”

He followed her into the dark, cramped apartment. There was a postage–stamp–sized sitting area that opened onto a galley-style kitchen floored with cracked linoleum. The sparse furniture was worn. The shades covering the windows were yellowed and ripped. But the area was neat, and the table holding the lone lamp in the room was polished to a shine. The whole place smelled vaguely of Pine-Sol.

“You must have been very proud of your son.” Adam regarded the woman soberly. Agents would have been dispatched to this address immediately upon learning Danny Shelton’s identity, but the file Hedgelin had given him yesterday hadn’t included copies of the ensuing conversations.

“That school they sent ’im to said he’d never take care of hisself. That he’d have to work at one of them sheltered workshop places. But Mr. Hardt from the church has a flower shop and let Danny sweep up there. Do odd jobs. And Danny learned a lot while he was workin’ for him. After a few years he got a hankering to sell his own flowers.” Rosa settled herself with surprising grace onto the sagging couch. Adam took the remaining chair. “Mr. Hardt came up with the idea of settin’ Danny up as one of them sidewalk vendors. Was always real generous with ’im, too.”

“That must have given your son a sense of accomplishment. To be that self-sufficient.”

Rosa’s chin quivered once before she steadied it. “A man needs to feel he has a purpose. Danny might not’ve been as smart as others, but he had his pride. Never seen him as happy as he was since he worked with Mr. Hardt. Sorry thing is: Another week or two and Danny wouldn’t even have been out on that sidewalk. When it gets too cold, he just works in the shop all day.”

“Where’s the store?”

Five miles from where Danny set up, Rosa informed him. The man had a cart he pulled with his bike that held his wares, a three-sided shelter, and a chair. In the fall he often took a heater to protect the flowers.

The entire thing sounded like a win-win for the “generous” Mr. Hardt as he was expanding his store walls for what was likely a pittance to his employee. But from the sound of things, the job had made Shelton and his mother happy, so maybe Adam was being too harsh in his assessment.

“By any chance did Danny have a cell phone?”