1:15 p.m.
Missy Schuel tapped her pencil against her desk.
“You mentioned that in the first eight months following Christie’s death, that you two-you and Tessa-struggled relationally.”
“Yes. Things were a little rough between us at first, but like I said, we didn’t know each other well, we were both hurting.” Our time was almost up, and I didn’t feel like we’d made much progress. There was still a lot to cover.
“All right.” Missy let out a careful sigh. “Here’s what I would say if I were Paul Lansing’s lawyer: after her mother’s tragic death, you uprooted the girl, moved across the country, and there, in Denver, pursued a job that took you away most weekends, forcing her to stay with your parents, whom she barely knew. You endangered her by allowing her into a life that no grieving teenager should have to experience. In fact, as a direct result of one of your investigations, she was abducted, suffered unimaginable mental duress, and was nearly killed.”
When Missy put things like that, I couldn’t imagine any judge landing on my side. “She was at an FBI safe house when she was taken.” The words seemed weightless. Without merit. “I did all I could to make sure she was safe.”
“I’m afraid that might not matter. The fact that this killer managed to find her and attack her, that’s all the judge is going to hear-especially if he sees that scar, and you can be sure Lansing’s attorneys will make that happen.”
I repositioned myself in my seat. “So where do we go from here?”
Rather than answering my question, she asked one of her own: “Do we know for certain that Paul Lansing is Tessa’s biological father?”
“We did a DNA test. It’s confirmed. He’s her dad.”
She slid her notebook aside. “I’m going to be honest with you, this diary, this letter, they trouble me.”
“It wasn’t the letter that convinced Christie to keep her baby.”
“I understand that, but his lawyers will argue that it was, and we can’t prove that his words didn’t influence her, at least to some extent.” After a pause, “Can we?”
“No.” I hated to admit it. “We can’t.”
Over the years I’d worked enough with the judicial system to know where all of this was leading. “He’s got a good case.” I didn’t ask it as a question.
“A tenuous case,” she corrected, but then hesitated for a long time before going on, and I had the sense that she was trying to find a way to put a positive spin on things. “Tessa would prefer being with you, rather than Paul, correct?”
Her question felt acidic, not because of her tone, but because I wasn’t certain of the answer. “Does that matter?”
“When a girl’s her age, yes, it does.”
“I think so.”
A nod. “And you are her legal guardian. You’ve been her sole caregiver and provider for over a year. That counts for a lot. It really does.”
She paused.
There was more.
“But?”
“But, Lansing apparently desired to be involved in her upbringing, and her mother denied him that. If indeed he is her biological father and took legal steps during Christie’s pregnancy to establish his paternal rights, he might… well, he might gain some sympathy from the judge. But listen to me, I’m good at what I do, and I promise I will do my best to help you keep sole custody of your daughter.”
“Stepdaughter.”
“No, your daughter,” she said simply, leaving me to interpret that as I chose.
She glanced at the clock on her desk, and my eyes followed hers.
1:18 p.m.
“I need to go,” she said. “We’ll talk soon.”
We both stood. “Get me that diary and the letter. Today.” She jotted an address on the back of a business card. “If you can’t get it here before 6:00, drop it off at my house.” She handed me the card. “And I’ll contact Paul Lansing’s lawyers. I’ll want to meet with them as soon as possible.”
I hesitated. “Why as soon as possible?”
“People only cower when they’re afraid or have something to hide. We don’t want it to look like we’re stalling or dragging our feet. If we move forward quickly and confidently, it’ll show the judge the truth: that we have a solid case and nothing to fear.”
I liked the way she thought. “I’ll get them to you.”
“One last thing. Does Paul Lansing know that you have his letter and Christie’s diary?”
I let out a small breath. “We showed it to him when we met in Wyoming, when we first met him.”
She kept her face expressionless. Pointed to her card. “Call my cell if you think of anything else that might be helpful. Anything at all. No secrets. Remember-”
“You don’t like surprises.”
“See you soon.”
As I left her office, I glanced at the television screen in the corner of the receptionistless reception area. The congressman was stepping away from the podium. I punched up the volume just in time to hear a female correspondent say, “Bob, to reiterate, Congressman Fischer has just announced that Rusty Mahan, the primary suspect in the case, has been found dead in an apparent suicide. We don’t know the details yet, but we will be covering this breaking story closely as events unfold.”
Great.
While the reporter went on to summarize Fischer’s press conference, his daughter’s smiling photo floated in the upper left-hand corner of the screen and I realized that, apart from the brief glimpse at Cheyenne’s cell before I left the Academy to go to the scene, I had yet to see Mollie’s face.
I observed her closely now. She had a thin jawline, jade eyes, an attractive dimple-I caught myself overlaying her features against the gruesome, chewed-off remains I’d seen the night before, and quickly I blinked the image away… light complexion, a pair of earrings in each ear, a small, delicate nose A shiver ran through me.
It can’t be!
I yanked out my phone, speed-dialed Ralph. He answered immediately, harshly: “Pat, you are in deep-”
“Listen to me,” I said. “Did Mollie Fischer wear contacts?”
“What?”
The picture disappeared from the television screen.
“Contacts. Did she wear contact lenses?”
“What are you-”
“Check it, Ralph. The case files!”
A long pause accompanied by the click of keystrokes.
“No,” he said. “No glasses either. What’s going on?” The hot anger I’d heard in his voice only a moment ago was gone. I felt like we were on the same page again.
“It’s not her.”
“What?”
“The woman we found at the primate facility, it’s not Mollie Fischer. The dead woman had only a single piercing in each ear, Mollie has two; and the iris found at the scene was blue. In her AP photo, Mollie’s eyes are green, and since she didn’t wear contacts-”
“But she was positively IDed by her own father,” he mumbled, and I couldn’t tell if he was disagreeing with me or simply thinking aloud.
“Her face was missing.” I was rushing out the door.
Of course she was positively IDed, everything else pointed to her. The killers had dressed her in Mollie’s clothes, left her with Mollie’s driver’s license, purse, ring, necklace, phone. The depth of the deception we’d fallen for was staggering.
Mollie Fischer might still be alive.
I hit the sidewalk running.
Mollie had been missing for nearly twenty-one hours, and with every minute our chances of finding her grew slimmer; Ralph knew all of this, I didn’t need to tell him. “Call the congressman,” I said. “Tell him to announce it now, at this press conference. If Mollie is alive-”
“Yeah, I know. The public can help. Get to the Capitol, Pat. If he doesn’t listen to me, you can talk to him in person.”
“I’m close. I’ll be there in less than five minutes.”
“I’ll try to get an ID on the dead woman,” he said.
End call.
I bolted to my car.
Brad closed the computer. Done.
The woman lay unconscious; only her chest was moving, rising and falling. Steadily, steadily. With each gentle breath.
For a moment Brad felt a thrill, the same excitement he felt when he was alone with Astrid after each game. He hesitated for a moment, then kissed the woman on the cheek, but that was all. He didn’t touch her, not in an intimate way. After all, he was a gentleman and would never take advantage of an unconscious lady.