"But in reality," Loren went on, more to herself than to him, "it could have been true. It would have been tough timing, sure, but I could have called a federal judge on my way down here. The subpoena would be a no-brainer. Any member of the bench would have rubber-stamped it in five minutes. No judge in their right mind would refuse unless…"
Randal Horne waited. It was almost as if he hoped she'd put it together.
"Unless someone on the federal level- the FBI or U.S. attorney's office- shut you down."
Horne cleared his throat and checked his watch. "I really have to go now," he said.
"Your company was cooperating with us at first. That's what Eldon said. Suddenly you stopped. Why? Why would you suddenly change your mind unless the feds told you to?" She looked up. "Why would the feds care about this case?"
"That isn't our concern," he said. Horne then put his hand to his mouth as if he'd been aghast at his own indiscretion. Their eyes met and she knew that he'd done her a favor. Horne wouldn't say any more. But he had said enough.
The FBI. They were the ones who had shut her down.
And maybe Loren understood why.
Back at her car Loren ran it through her head.
Who did she know at the FBI?
She had some acquaintances there, but nobody who could help on this level. The found-a-lead tingle rushed through her. This was big, no question about it. The FBI had been looking into this case. For some reason they wanted to find whoever was pretending to be Sister Mary Rose, leaving trip wires and calling cards everywhere, even with the company who supplied her breast implants.
She nodded to herself. Sure, this was mere speculation, but it made sense. Start with the victim: Sister Mary Rose had to be some sort of fugitive or witness. Someone valuable to the FBI.
Okay, good. Go on.
A long time ago Sister Mary Rose (or whatever her real name was) ran off- hard to say how long ago, but she'd been teaching at St. Margaret's, according to Mother Katherine, for seven years. So it had to be at least that long.
Loren stopped, considered the implications. Sister Mary Rose had been a fugitive for at least seven years. Had the feds been looking for her all that time?
It added up.
Sister Mary Rose had gone into deep, deep hiding. She'd changed her identity, for certain. Probably started off in Oregon, at that conservative convent Mother Katherine had mentioned. Who knows how long she was there?
Doesn't matter. What does matter is that seven years ago, for whatever reason, she chose to come east.
Loren rubbed her hands together. Oh, this is good.
So Sister Mary Rose moves to New Jersey and starts teaching at St. Margaret's. By all accounts she's a good teacher and nun, caring and devoted, living a quiet life. Seven years pass. Maybe she thinks she's safe now. Maybe she gets careless and reaches out to someone from her old life. Whatever.
Somehow, some way, her past catches up with her. Someone learns who she is. And then someone breaks into her small convent room, tortures her, and then suffocates her with a pillow.
Loren paused, almost as if she were offering up a respectful moment of silence.
Okay, she thought, so now what?
She needed to get the identity from the feds.
How?
Only thing she could think of was classic quid pro quo: Give them something in return. But what did she have?
Matt Hunter, for one.
The feds were probably at least a day or two behind her. Would they have the phone logs yet? Doubtful. And if they did, if they knew about the call to Marsha Hunter, would they have already figured in a Matt Hunter connection?
Very doubtful.
Loren hit the highway and picked up her cell phone. It was dead. She cursed the damn thing. The greatest lie- right up there with "the check is in the mail" and "your call is very important to us"- is the stated battery life of a cell phone. Hers was supposed to last a week on standby. She was lucky if the cursed thing gave her thirty-six hours.
She flipped open the glove compartment and pulled out the charger. One end she jammed into the cigarette lighter, the other into her phone. The phone's LCD jumped to life and informed her that there were three messages waiting.
The first was from her mother. "Hi, sweetheart," Mom said in a voice strangely tender. It was her public voice, the one she usually saved for when she thought someone might overhear and thus judge her maternal skills. "I thought I'd order us a pizza from Renato's and pick up a movie at Blockbuster- the new Russell Crowe is out on DVD- and, I don't know, maybe we could have a girls' night, just the two of us. Would you like that?"
Loren shook her head, tried not to be moved, but the tears were there, right below the surface. Her mom. Every time she wanted to write her off, to dismiss her from her life, to hold a grudge, to blame her once and for all for Dad's death, she came along and said something surprising and pulled herself back from the brink.
"Yeah," Loren said softly in the car. "I'd like that a lot."
The second and third messages blew that idea out of the water. They were both from her boss, County Prosecutor Ed Steinberg, and were short and to the point. The first one said: "Call me. Now." The second one said: "Where the hell are you? Call me. Doesn't matter what the hour. Disaster on the way."
Ed Steinberg was not one for overstatement or for having people call at all hours. He was old-fashioned in that approach. Loren had his home number somewhere- not on her, unfortunately- but she had never used it. Steinberg didn't like to be bothered during off hours. His motto was: Get a life, it can wait. He was usually out of the office by five o'clock and she couldn't recall a time when she'd seen him in his office after six.
It was six thirty now. She decided to try his office line first. Thelma, his secretary, might still be there. She'd know how to reach him. After one ring, the phone was picked up by Ed Steinberg himself.
This was not a good sign.
"Where are you?" Steinberg asked.
"On the way back from Delaware."
"Come straight back here. We got a problem."
Chapter 18
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
FBI FIELD OFFICE
JOHN LAWRENCE BAILEY BUILDING
OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE
FOR ADAM YATES IT STARTED out as another day.
At least, that was what he wanted to believe. In a larger sense, no day was ever just another for Yates- at least, not for the past ten years. Each day felt like borrowed time, waiting eternally for the proverbial ax to fall. Even now, when most rational people would conclude that he'd successfully put his past mistakes behind him, the fear still gnawed in the back of his brain, tormenting him.
Yates had been a young agent then, working undercover. Now here he was, ten years later, the SAC- Special Agent in Charge- for all of Nevada, one of the FBI's most plum positions. He had risen up the ranks. In all that time, there had not been the smallest inkling of trouble.
So heading into work that morning, it seemed to be another day.
But when his chief advisor, Cal Dollinger, walked into his office, even though neither had spoken about the incident in nearly a decade, something in his old friend's face told him that this was indeed the day, that all others had merely been leading up to this.
Yates glanced quickly at the photograph on his desk. It was a family shot- he, Bess, the three kids. The girls were in their teens now, and no amount of training adequately prepares a father for that. Yates stayed seated. He wore his casual uniform- khakis, no socks, brightly hued polo shirt.
Cal Dollinger stood over his desk and waited. Cal was huge- six-seven and nearly three hundred pounds. Adam and Cal went way back, having first met as eight-year-olds in Mrs. Colbert's third-grade class at Collingwood Elementary School. Some men called them Lenny and George, referring to the Steinbeck characters in Of Mice and Men. There might be some truth to it- Cal was big and impossibly strong- but where Lenny had a gentleness, Cal had none. He was a rock, both physically and emotionally. He could indeed kill a rabbit by petting it, but he wouldn't care much.