“No.” The girl went pale. “Oh, no.” Her aunt put an arm around her shoulder.
Russ leaned forward and braced himself on the rickety table, his large hands spread protectively over the documents there. “But Ellen Bain wouldn’t be bought. She assembled this evidence, and she brought it to the one soldier she knew she could trust. Her brother.”
Clare could picture it. Ellen Bain, picking her brother’s brain for information on the military police and the financial affairs divisions, entrusting the package to him, swearing him to secrecy. Not knowing that within a day or two, he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone even if he wanted to.
“Why didn’t I warn her?” Trip’s voice cracked. “If we talked about all this, why didn’t I call the police and keep her here until the law took over?”
Clare ached for the self-accusation in his voice. She knew what it was like to ask Why didn’t I? after it was all too late. “You couldn’t have known, Trip. She probably thought she was risking her job and her benefits, not her life.”
Russ nodded. “Opperman may not have known she smuggled this stuff out, anyway. He probably thought killing her and purging the original files would be enough to protect him.”
“Wait a minute. Are you saying John Opperman killed Ellen?” Trip sounded torn between disbelief and fury.
“No.” Russ shook his head. “I’m quite sure he was somewhere else surrounded by unimpeachable witnesses when your sister’s brake calipers were cut. He delegates his dirty work. My bet’s on Wyler McNabb. He was shipped over to the construction team in Iraq as soon as we started investigating.”
“Can you get him back?” Will asked.
“Oh, yeah.” Russ grinned, baring his eyeteeth. “And when we do, he’s going to give us John Opperman on a silver platter.”
It seemed anticlimactic to Clare. They had uncovered evidence of a fifty-million-dollar scam. There ought to be screeching police cars and flashing lights and people led away in handcuffs. Instead, it was Russ, on the phone, first with his friend from the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, then with an officer at the Department of Defense. He was talking with a Treasury agent when Lyle MacAuley and Kevin Flynn arrived, toting piles of plastic evidence envelopes, a laptop, and a portable scanner. He was debriefing someone from the Government Accountability Office when the FBI team from Albany pulled in. The Feds walked into Trip Stillman’s office looking skeptical and came out with sharp, satisfied smiles.
Clare, who had been drinking cup after cup of hot, sweet coffee in the Stillmans’ kitchen, snagged Russ before he had the chance to pick up his phone again. “When are they going to arrest Opperman?”
He looked startled. “I don’t know. Another couple of weeks.”
“A couple of weeks?” She lowered her voice. Olivia Bain sat disconsolate at the kitchen table, Will holding her hand. “Why so long? My God, Russ, you said it yourself. That man is responsible for Ellen Bain’s death.”
He put his phone in his pocket. “I know. Believe me, I’d love to drive up to the resort right now and haul his ass in.” He took her hand, rubbing her knuckles with his thumb. “But this is going to be a very complicated case. I’m not even talking about all the agencies who are going to want a piece of the action. We need to have every piece of evidence lined up, every warrant signed, and every cop and agent in place, ready to drop the hammer on everyone involved. Until that moment, you”-he gestured toward the Stillmans with his head-“and they have to keep quiet about all of this.”
“Justice delayed is justice denied.”
“It won’t be. I promise you, there will be justice for Ellen Bain.”
“What about Tally? Will there be justice for her?”
“Clare.” Russ’s voice was gentle. “She knew from Nichols that an investigator was closing in. She didn’t know it was Seelye. All she knew was that she was holding the bag for massive federal fraud and grand theft and she had nowhere to turn.”
“She could have turned to Opperman.”
“His solution was to send her back to Iraq. Maybe she would have had an ‘accident’ like Ellen Bain did. Maybe that’s what she was afraid of.”
Her voice rose. “So she killed herself?”
Russ steered her into the family room. “If she were alive right now, she’d be facing thirty years in Leavenworth and the loss of everything-family, home, money, reputation.”
“If she were alive right now, none of this would ever have come to light!”
“I know.” He didn’t try to argue with her or persuade her. He just stood there, his grip warm and steady. Letting her hold the truth in her hands. Letting her raise it up and swallow it. It was cold, very cold, and no amount of sugar could sweeten its bitter taste.
“She killed herself,” she finally said.
“Some people can’t face the consequences of their crimes.”
Clare pulled away from Russ. “She wasn’t a criminal. She was a damaged soldier.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “She was wounded over there, just as much as Will and Trip were.”
“As much as you were?” Russ looked at her, looked into her, inviting her to lay down all her lies and deep-dive into the truth with him.
She couldn’t face that bottomless well. “I’m afraid,” she whispered.
“Oh, love. Of what?”
“Of what’s in my head. What’s in my heart. I’m afraid I’m not strong enough. That loving you and God won’t be enough to keep me afloat. I’m afraid-”
He wrapped his arms around her. “That if Tally McNabb could choose to end it all, you might make the same choice someday?”
“I don’t know if I’m dealing with it any better than she was,” she said into his chest. “Or Eric, losing his temper, or Trip, pretending he hasn’t lost a chunk out of his brain.”
“I don’t know how you’re dealing with it. I don’t know what you’ve been through, and I don’t know where you’ve been hurt.” He pushed her hair away from her face. “Tell me.”
She wanted to. She was so tired of hiding and lying and going it alone. She opened her mouth-
It’s the same reason Clare doesn’t want to talk about drinking. Because she’s afraid if she does, somebody will stop her from doing it. Tally had said that… and less than a week later, had killed herself.
– and shut it again. “Not now.” She nodded toward the hallway, where a banging door and the sound of raised voices indicated some new investigator had arrived. “You’re going to be here half the night. If Olivia and the Stillmans don’t need me anymore, I’m going to”- get my blood tested -“go home.”
“All right. Not now. Soon, though. I mean it, love. I’m waiting for you to tell me.”
That was what she was afraid of.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21
The Full Moon Bar and Grill was packed by the time Eric got there, but he had no trouble spotting his party. Five helium balloons imprinted with handcuffs bobbed over their table in the corner. When he got closer, he could see they were weighted down with the real thing. MacAuley was being subtle. He had figured the deputy chief would’ve gone for a ball-and-chain motif.
He raised his hand. “Hi, everybody.” A chorus of hellos greeted him. He dropped into a chair near one end, across from the chief. It was also as far away from Hadley Knox as he could get.