Kill Plan (Ingrid Skyberg FBI Thrillers -) (23 page)

The morning seemed an eternity away. She hoped she’d be able to get back to sleep, but she knew she’d be endlessly reliving events and running through the hasty plan she’d put together a few hours ago to apprehend her attacker. Under McKittrick’s strict supervision, she’d arranged for a security contact of hers, Nick Angelis, who worked for what was effectively a private MI5 and MI6 combined, to follow whoever might still be following her. Angelis had been trailing marks for the past two decades. If there was a mark to spot, Angelis would spot him. In the meantime, there were two cops sitting in an unmarked car parked up outside McKittrick’s building. It felt like overkill, but Sol and McKittrick had made it quite clear they weren’t prepared to take any chances.

Ingrid padded back to bed and discovered that her cell phone was buzzing on the floor. It would be Marshall again. He’d tried her at least a half-dozen times already. She almost felt a little sorry for him. In her sleepy daze, she found herself scooping the cell from the floor and answering the call.

“Hey, Marsh.”

“Honey… I’ve been worried about you.”

“I texted you back.”

“I needed to hear your voice.”

“Well here I am.”

“How are you?”

“Fine.”

“Come on, honey—you can tell me how it really is.”

“I’m a little tired maybe. But it is three in the morning here.”

“I’m sorry—I’ve been trying you for hours. I just had to speak to you. Satisfy myself you were OK. I feel better now.”

Well good for you
. Ingrid regretted picking up the call.

“I think you should come home,” he said, his voice a little whiny. “I miss you. I want to protect you. You must have been so scared.”

Scared? Fear hadn’t really come into it. Maybe when she had time to sit back and consider just how close she’d come to death, she might get a little terrified. But right now she was too goddamn frustrated that her theory about Cory Ellis had come to nothing. Marshall was wasting his time if he thought he could
scare
her into returning to the US.

“Do the police have any leads?” Marshall asked.

“They’re working on several lines of inquiry. No one’s really telling me very much of anything—I’m the frail victim in this scenario.”

“What do you think? You must have a hunch.”

“I really haven’t been in London long enough to make any enemies. I’m no threat to anyone.” Her head had started pounding again. She let out an exaggerated yawn. “Listen, Marsh, I’m really exhausted—I’ve got to get some rest. It’s what the doctor ordered.”

“Sure, sure. I feel so much better for hearing your voice. Goodnight, baby.”

Ingrid hung up and tossed her cell into her purse that was sitting on her neatly folded clothes on a chair in the corner of the room. It wasn’t until she got back under the quilt that she realized she didn’t remember seeing her engagement ring since she’d slipped it into her purse at the hotel.

*

Showering and dressing early the next morning, Ingrid was eager to start her day. When she emerged from the spare room she was surprised to see McKittrick already perched at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, nibbling at a slice of toast.

“There’s coffee in the cafetière. I can make you a fresh pot if you’d rather.”

“This is fine—thank you.”

“That shirt really suits you. I never wear it—you can keep it if you like.” McKittrick popped the final corner of toast into her mouth. “Have you spoken to your spook man yet this morning?”

“I don’t have to—Angelis knows exactly what to do.”

Twenty minutes later Ingrid was standing outside McKittrick’s building waiting for an embassy car to convey her to work. She looked up at the tall, white stucco Victorian house. There had to be at least six apartments inside. McKittrick’s was on the second floor. Ingrid saw her looking out of the living room window, like an anxious mother waiting for the school bus to arrive to take her child to its first day at school. Ingrid waved and smiled at her, giving her the thumbs up. Her head still hurt like hell, and her brain was fuzzy if she tried to concentrate too hard, but she was playing down the symptoms in order to be freed from what felt like house arrest.

The thirty minute journey from Kentish Town to Grosvenor Square was without incident, much to Ingrid’s dismay. She’d been hoping for a little action. She wanted to flush out her attacker and be done with it. When she disembarked from the black sedan in the parking lot beneath the embassy, she phoned Nick Angelis to find out what he’d seen.

“Anything?” she asked.

“Not a sign.”

“Is it possible you missed him?”

“If he’s good enough to be able to follow you across London without me spotting him then we are dealing with a very talented individual indeed. Better than anyone currently working for the CIA, Mossad or MI6. Trust me—no one followed you this morning. Give me a call as soon as you want to leave the embassy and I’ll do the same again.”

“Thanks, Nick.”

“You really don’t have to thank me. I’m not having anyone hurt you again.”

Ingrid hung up. She was a little surprised to hear Angelis sound quite so paternalistic. She didn’t like it one bit.

She took the elevator to the third floor—her one concession to her impaired fitness—and tried to slip into the office and behind her desk without anyone noticing.

She failed.

“Ingrid!” Jennifer jumped up and hurried toward her. “How’re you feeling? Can I get you anything?”

Ingrid waved her away. “I’m fine. Really.”

Isaac hurried from his desk too. “Did you like the flowers? Agent Franklin let Jennifer and I choose them.”

“They were just beautiful—thank you.” Ingrid hadn’t even laid eyes on the flowers Sol delivered to her hospital room. Hopefully somebody some place was enjoying them on her behalf.

“Do you know who tried to kill you?” Isaac said.

Jennifer shot him a look.

“I mean, you must have some idea, right?”

“I don’t think it’s anything you need to concern yourself with,” Ingrid told him.

“Maybe we could help—look into the cases you’ve handled since you’ve been here. Work out who might be targeting you.”

“That won’t be necessary, Isaac. I’d appreciate it if you both got back to work. It’s what I’m trying to do.”

Jennifer grabbed Isaac’s arm and forcibly marched him back toward his own desk. Although Ingrid was grateful for Jennifer’s intervention, she did feel a little like an invalid. It wasn’t a feeling she planned on getting used to.

37

For the next two hours, Ingrid laboriously researched the cases Barbara Highsmith worked while she was an Assistant US Attorney. If Cory Ellis hadn’t murdered the ex-congresswoman, it was just possible that the answer to who had was right here in the files, waiting to be discovered. If Ingrid dug deep enough, she might just find it. But as she struggled to concentrate, fighting the fuzziness in her head, she felt she was making no progress at all. She switched databases and brought up Barbara Highsmith’s details again. Maybe it was time to get back to basics. She was just starting to jot down a few notes about Highsmith’s early life when her cell phone rang. She answered hesitantly, not wanting to have another awkward conversation with Marshall.

“Hey it’s Mike.”

Ingrid let out a sigh.

“Are you sitting down? You need to be when you hear this. How’s that head wound of yours?”

“It’s the least of my worries. What is it, Mike?”

“You know how I like to be thorough? How good I am at my job? How I can’t leave something I’m investigating half-assed and incomplete?”

Ingrid really wished she could dispense with the ‘boosting Mike Stiller’s ego’ section of the conversation just this once. Nevertheless, she played along. “You Mike, as has been well established, are something of an investigative genius. A god among men. A professional in a world of amateurs. A—”

“OK! You coulda stopped at the ‘god’ part. I’ve been looking into your suspect’s file a little more closely. I wondered if he’d kept the family tradition of suicide going. I was curious, I guess.”

Ingrid presumed he must also be very, very bored with whatever he was supposed to be working on. “And did he? Was it pills? Hanging? Or maybe he jumped in front of a subway train?”

“You sound a little pissed.”

“I just got out of the hospital yesterday, give me a break.”

“All right—take it easy.”

“So how did he die?”

“According to eye witnesses, in September 2002, Cory Ellis paddled into Possession Sound in a sea kayak and was never seen again.”

“He drowned?”

“Presumed drowned. Declared dead after seven years.”

Ingrid swallowed. “His body was never found?” She snatched a breath.

“Nope. Never found.”

Ingrid closed her eyes and let the news sink in for a moment.

“You still there?”

“Sure.” The game was still on. She tried to remember what theory about Cory Ellis she and McKittrick had been discussing just before she’d called Mike and discovered Ellis was supposedly dead. But her foggy brain just wouldn’t cooperate.

Dammit
.

“Mike, OK if I call you back in a little while? This news has sent me into a bit of a tailspin.”

“Just as long as you rehearse your speech of infinite gratitude and endless thanks first.”

She hung up. Now she really was pissed. If Mike Stiller hadn’t told her Cory Ellis was dead in the first place, she might not have wasted all morning trying to identify an alternate candidate for Highsmith’s killer. Sometimes Mike tried just a little too hard to be indispensable. Ingrid looked up at Jennifer, who was hovering nearby her desk.

“Are you OK?” She walked around Ingrid’s desk and stood next to her, touching her gently on the shoulder. “Only you had your eyes closed just now, I thought maybe you were in pain. Can I get you some painkillers?”

Anything that might make her head even a little less clear was something Ingrid wanted to avoid. “How about a strong black coffee?”

Jennifer was staring over Ingrid’s shoulder at her computer monitor. “A long black, right?”

“Make it a double espresso. I need a jump start.”

“If you’re sure.” The clerk couldn’t seem to take her eyes from the screen.

“What is it?”

“Why are you looking into Barbara Highsmith?”

“It’s connected to a case I’m investigating.”

“Which case?” Jennifer sounded a little affronted there was something going on she didn’t know about.

Ingrid didn’t know where to start. She decided not to. “It’s a little complicated.”

Jennifer continued to read what was on the screen. “She’s dead?”

“She was murdered last May.”

“Oh my God.”

“You knew her?”

“No. Not exactly.” Jennifer ran back to her own desk and yanked open a drawer. She pulled out a thick hardback book and flipped to the index at the back. When she’d found what she was looking for, she waved the front cover at Ingrid. It featured a dramatically lit portrait of Ambassador Frances Byrne-Williams sitting at her desk right here at the embassy. Jennifer dumped the heavy tome on Ingrid’s desk and stabbed a finger at the entry for Barbara Highsmith in the index. There were at least a dozen page references.

“Frances is a huge fan of Barbara Highsmith. She didn’t mention anywhere in the book that the congresswoman was dead.” Jennifer then quickly checked the date of publication at the front of the book. “This edition was printed November 2011. I guess it wasn’t updated.” She shook her head. “I’ve read so much about her, how she was an inspiration to Frances, more of a mentor, really, that I feel like I do know her.”

“How did they meet?”

“At Wellesley College. Frances was doing some part-time teaching there when Barbara Highsmith was a visiting lecturer.”

“When?”

“I’m sorry?”

Ingrid had just remembered the conversation she’d had with McKittrick about Cory Ellis, specifically, why he hadn’t left town straight after murdering Matthew Fuller. The fact that he hadn’t finished what he came to the UK to do. “Which year were they both at Wellesley College?”

Jennifer flipped back to the index then leafed through the pages until she found a section on the ambassador’s college years. “They were both there for the academic year 2003–2004. Why do you need to know, anyway?”

Ingrid worked out Cory Ellis would have been twenty-four at the time. Was it possible he’d made some connection between the two women? Could he have been in Massachusetts at the same time?

“What is it, Ingrid? Can I help with anything?” Jennifer was wearing her concerned girl scout expression. Ingrid was getting a little sick of it.

Then Isaac jumped up from his desk. “What’s happening? Anything I can do to help?”

Ingrid wanted to shout at them to shut up and sit down. All she needed was just a little time and space to think. “Jennifer—you can get me that coffee I asked for?”

Jennifer nodded meekly.

“And Isaac—find out anything you can about possible links between Ambassador Byrne-Williams and Barbara Highsmith outside of their college connection. Anything at all. Though I’m most interested in any link the ambassador may have to Washington state.”

“Washington State?”

“Any connection to the US Attorney’s Office there.”

Isaac hesitated.

“You understand what I’m asking you to do?”

“Sure. I’m on it.”

Both Jennifer and Isaac slunk away from Ingrid’s desk. Ingrid leaned back in her chair and exhaled. Was it possible Cory Ellis did plan to kill someone else in London? Could the ambassador be the next victim on his list?

38

After the double espresso had been duly delivered by an unsmiling Jennifer and drunk in two gulps by Ingrid, a good thirty minutes had passed. So far Isaac had found no connection between Highsmith and Byrne-Williams except for Wellesley College. Ingrid’s own search was just as unsuccessful. She got Jennifer on the case too.

“Can I ask why we’re looking for a separate link?”

Ingrid decided not to go into the details. At this stage, the ambassador’s possible connection to her investigation was so tenuous she didn’t want to risk saying it out loud and triggering an overreaction. “It’s just a little theory I’m working on.”