you play the message your friend left?” Matt asked, not meaning to be churlish, but they weren’t at a getting-to-know-you cocktail party.
“Yes.”
She pulled her phone out of the black leather tote she carried and set it on speaker. They heard a woman’s voice.
One that sounded breathless—and scared.
“Meg, it’s me, Lara. I wanted to let you know I’m going home. Home, as in getting out of DC and heading for Richmond. I’m going as soon as it’s daylight. I’ll talk to you when I can. Love you. Don’t say anything to anyone else, okay? I have to get out of here. Talk soon.”
Meg played the message twice.
Jackson cleared his throat. “She did say she was leaving in the morning.”
“And I wanted to believe it,” Meg said.
There was an awkward silence. Matt wasn’t convinced, but Adam had faith in her conviction.
And they all had faith in Adam.
“So, you see,” Meg said, “something happened during the day or that night that made her want to...run.”
“And meet up with our killer?” Will murmured.
“Or another fate,” Matt replied.
“In other words, you think there might’ve been a different motive to get rid of Lara Mayhew—and she was killed by a different perp?” Angela asked.
“Entirely possible,” Matt said. “But Ian Walker isn’t known for being...”
“Slimy?” Kat supplied.
Matt looked at Meg. “Did she ever suggest that there was anything going on between her and the congressman?”
“No. But... I haven’t spent much time with her since I started at the academy. We talked every other day, but I’ve only actually seen her twice. As far as I knew, Lara adored him, as a father figure. She lost her parents when she was eleven. I think she saw Walker as a fine man, the way she’d seen her dad.”
“Maybe Walker will solve the mystery,” Jackson suggested.
“Doubtful,” Will Chan said.
“And...” Kat began, before hesitating.
“And?” Adam repeated.
“To the rest of the world, the idea that something’s wrong is...mere supposition. She’s a young woman who became disillusioned with politics and left DC.”
“There’s another message,” Adam reminded them.
Meg pressed her phone again. All they heard was a whooshing sound—like the wind—and then a thump.
And the phone went dead.
“I’ll check with her cell phone company,” Angela said. “Meg, I’ll need your phone for the next few hours. We’ll have techs try to decipher those sounds.”
“Of course.”
“You’ll be with Matt if we need to reach you for any reason. We’ll get the recording and return your cell as soon as possible.”
“Whatever it takes,” Meg said.
“And you’re off to see Congressman Walker!” Angela looked from Meg to Matt. “I don’t envy you. Interviewing a politician. I don’t think many of them are capable of telling the truth, even when they’ve got nothing to hide!”
Matt liked Angela. She was down-to-earth, pleasant under the most trying circumstances—and skilled at figuring out past sins that might have emerged in the present. Attractive, in her early thirties, she was light-haired and light-eyed. She was married to Jackson. Matt hadn’t been around when they’d done the deed; they’d slipped quietly away for a small private wedding. In this “special” unit, agents being married to each other was acceptable. Will and Kat were a couple, too.
They all had to work so closely together that Matt felt they were more a family than a workforce. He wondered how their new member was going to fit in.
Of course, when he’d joined, the others had wondered if he’d fit in.
“Your work sounds intriguing,” Meg said.
“It’s different,” Angela agreed. “It’s a million hours a week most of the time. It’s travel when you’re tired of going places. It’s seeing a lot of what can only be described as evil. That would be true whatever position you took after graduation, but then you’ve been through the academy. You know that.”
“Yes,” Meg said. She added a little hesitantly, “I’m grateful to be here. I was going to apply when I was able to. This is all...faster than I expected.”
“Meg is certain that Lara is dead,” Adam said flatly.
There was silence for a minute. Matt realized that Meg was doing a worthy job of hiding her grief. And yet he wasn’t certain that she was right about Lara’s death. He walked over to her. He wasn’t sure why he placed his hands on her shoulders except that he wanted her full attention.
She seemed to draw herself up, stand taller, but didn’t move or back away.
“Meg, are you positive? Maybe you saw her, but she was in your mind, asking for help.”
She still didn’t back away. “I don’t see people who step out of my mind, Agent Bosworth. Do you?”
“Actually, I have. The dead can reach out, as we all know. But sometimes the living can, too, from a distance.”
She slipped away from him and he was almost sorry he’d spoken. She lowered her head. He thought she might have had an expression of hope on her face.
“I haven’t had that experience. I honestly believe that she’s dead.” He asked himself how true that was. He had the impression that she and Lara had often read each other’s minds.
“I’m sorry, Meg,” Jackson said. “Very sorry. Adam, I have some news. We have a match for our first victim. Her name was Cathy Crighton. She worked at the Big Fish down in Georgetown. Her boss assumed she just took off. Apparently, the pay isn’t very high and he has a large employee turnover. Not only that, he considered her a fairly unreliable employee, showing up late and so on. Turns out a friend in Oklahoma, who’d been trying to reach her, reported her as missing. The report took a while to get to us. I’m making inquiries about her last movements.”
“Anything about the girl who was found yesterday?” Adam asked.
“No, not yet,” Jackson answered. “We’ll be cross-referencing all the victims we have on record and missing-persons reports, seeing if we can come up with a common denominator.” Jackson looked over at Matt. “I’ve emailed you all the particulars I have so far.”
Adam turned to Meg. “Make sure you have everyone’s cell phone number.”
“I’ll
