by J. L. Brown
Washington, DC
Jade hit a speed-dial button on her phone. “I need to see you.”
A few moments later, Christian’s bulky frame filled the doorway.
“Come in,” she said, “and close the door.”
She signed off on a report and set it aside. Christian sat in one of the chairs across from her. His blond hair, cut military short, stood at attention.
“Missed you this morning,” she said.
“I was busy.”
Jade mentally reviewed all his cases but didn’t come up with anything pressing in his caseload. “Doing what?”
“This.”
He handed her a sheet of paper.
A letter addressed to her. His resignation.
She tore it up without reading it in its entirety.
He scrunched up his face. “I could print out another one.”
Leaning back in her chair, she said, “I guess the gesture isn’t as dramatic as it once was.”
This elicited a small smile from him. “No.”
“You can’t close cases if you don’t show up.”
Christian stared at a spot on the wall behind her. She followed his gaze to the FBI emblem and looked back at him.
“I no longer want to close cases here,” he said.
“We need to talk about this.”
“Rather late for that.”
“I meant to talk to you beforehand. About my decision. Time got away from me.”
He said nothing, his fist clenching and unclenching.
“I stand by my call.” She paused. “Give him a chance.”
“I. Can’t.” He stood and turned to leave.
“I wasn’t finished,” Jade said.
He hesitated before returning to his seat.
“Dante approaches things in a way I’ve come to appreciate.”
Christian winced. “You don’t need to explain this to me now.”
“I want to.”
“He’s a hothead and he’s lazy.”
“He’s overcome his anger issues,” she said, “and he’s not lazy. Rather… unchallenged. This situation won’t last forever. Ethan will be back soon. I’ll return to my job full time, and you’ll report directly to me again. Roll with it for now. This team needs you.” She locked eyes with him. “I need you. You’re still my rock.”
“I’m more experienced. Closed more cases. I’m the better person for the job.”
“You’re prepared. Smart. One of the best FBI agents I’ve ever worked with. You’ll get your chance. I promise.” She stood and extended her hand. “I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”
He sat there, waiting so long she thought he’d leave her hanging. Finally, he grasped her hand.
“Let’s go grab a sandwich,” she said.
“I need to do something first.”
*
On their way back from lunch, Jade’s phone vibrated. She swept it off her hip.
“Talk to me,” she said.
“Got an ID back on the victim,” Dante said. “Briggs called and said someone from his precinct recognized her photo.”
“How?”
“Because she’s a bigwig. Her name’s Finn Hurley, CEO of Hurley Technologies, a cybersecurity firm headquartered in Crystal City, not too far from the Pentagon. I’m headed over there now to interview her employees.”
“Sounds good. Take Micah with you.”
“Already asked him.”
“What do we know?”
“Divorced. No children. Lived in Old Town.”
“Talked to the ex?”
“Still tracking him down. No prints came back on the bike, except for hers. Either the killer didn’t touch it or he wore gloves.”
“Makes sense, if he was riding a bike.”
“And it was cold,” he said. “You got jokes?”
“Excuse me?”
“Who hung the poster in my office?”
“What poster?”
“Those dudes from Miami Vice. The eighties version. Guys with their shirts open to their belly buttons, lots of chest hair, showing off their bling. Someone wrote ‘Dante’ and ‘Micah’ on their chests. You know anything about that?”
Jade stole a glance at Christian, who had found something interesting to admire in the sky.
“No,” she said into the phone, “I don’t. But you’re an FBI agent. Figure it out.”
She clicked off and looked at Christian. They both laughed.
Back in her office, Jade grabbed the file on top of a stack. Inside it, she located a phone number with a 312 area code.
“Lieutenant Blanchard.”
“Lieutenant, this is Agent Harrington.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Learn anything from the head of security at Carr Holdings?”
“He gave us a lot of leads. Too many. Still chasing them down.”
“I have a weird question,” she said. “Did you find a poem or a sonnet?”
“Not on the victim,” he said.
Wishful thinking.
“But,” he continued, “we found a poem on his computer. Didn’t think much of it. It was sent via email. Just the poem. Nothing else. No subject. No greeting. No text. No signature. Thought it was spam. One of a thousand emails he’d received that day.”
“Who sent it?”
“Need to double-check. I remember it, though, because I thought it was odd.”
“How so?”
“Because it wasn’t a modern poem. It was old. Like from Shakespeare’s time.”
Jade’s heart quickened, as it did whenever she uncovered a lead. “Can you send it over?”
“Sure can.”
Ten minutes after they hung up, an email arrived in her inbox.
So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon,
Unlook’d on diest, unless thou get a son.
—Bard of Avon
Jade was as unfamiliar with this sonnet as the one found on Finn Hurley.
She entered the first line of the poem in the search bar and clicked on the first result. The sonnet sent to Jared Carr was the seventh one. These were its last two lines.
Jade hoped this wasn’t the seventh killing.
Next she searched for Sonnet VII. The first link provided an analysis of the seventh sonnet. She read the poem again. It didn’t yield any clues as to why Carr was killed.
But it linked the Chicago and Virginia murders. Why did the murderer leave a sonnet on Hurley’s person but email one to Carr? Were the sonnets relevant to the victim? Or the killer?
Were there others?
She forwarded the email containing the sonnet to Dante and Pat with the message:
Dante and Pat,
The attached sonnet was found on Jared Carr’s computer. Call the detective in New York and ask if they found a sonnet. Also, try to trace the origins of this email.
Jade
A few minutes later she received a reply from Dante.
I could’ve done that for you.
A minute later, a second email arrived from him:
Isn’t this my case?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Washington, DC
“According to Finn Hurley’s coworkers, she rode her bike every morning before work,” Dante told Jade later that afternoon in her office. “Sometimes during lunch. Most weekends. She was always training for races, sometimes the distance was over 100 miles.”
“They’re called centuries,” Jade said. “What else did they say?”
“As a boss, she was demanding but fair. Didn’t take shit from anyone.” Dante grinned. “Sounded like someone else I know.”
From him, an unusual compliment.
“She spent most of her time with major clients out of the office,” he continued. “Worked late. Competing demands on her time. Quarterly investor calls. Press requests. Information requests.” He paused. “Seemed to be under a lot of pressure.”
Looking across her desk at him, Jade said, “Customers?”
“Her assistant is send
ing over a client list with contacts, but the government made up the bulk of their business. Other Fortune 500 companies. Hurley’s products and services don’t come cheap.”
“Could her death be related to her work?”
“Maybe. In the cybersecurity industry, she dealt not only with competitors and suppliers but also hostile agents: Russia, China, Ukraine, et cetera. Or it could have been an employee. They all knew her routine.”
Jade frowned. “How does she fit with the other victims?”
“Don’t know.”
She aligned her basketball paperweight with the edge of the desk. “What happens to the firm now?”
“Although she founded it, it shouldn’t die with her. The board will find a replacement.”
“And its corporate life will go on. If the perp was a competitor, he bought some time at best. Who are her possible successors?”
“I don’t know.” He patted his pockets, then looked at her. “Can I borrow a piece of paper?”
Grabbing the legal pad on her desk, she tossed it to him. “You should always keep something to write on with you.”
“I thought I was coming in here for a brief chat.” He hesitated. “Can I borrow a pen too?”
She handed him one and opened her mouth to share further words of wisdom.
He held up the hand with the pen. “I got it, boss.”
As he wrote, she asked, “Was she seeing anyone?”
Dante shook his head. “She didn’t discuss her private life. Most of her employees assumed she didn’t have one.”
“Did you talk to her neighbors?”
“She lived on S. Lee Street, in one of those federal-style townhouses. Micah and I canvassed the neighborhood. It’s a quiet one. Neighbors aren’t very neighborly. They seldom saw her, except for her comings and goings on her bike. One neighbor resented that sometimes she left her trash and recycling bins out on the street for days after they were emptied.”
“Did she entertain much?”
“No.”
“Social media?”
“Pat’s looking into it.”
“Reviewed the autopsy report?”
“Haven’t received it yet,” he said.
“Anything back on the commuter’s recording?”
“I watched it. It’s from far away. Looks like a guy riding his bike before work, not like a guy who just stabbed someone. Forensics is going over it frame by frame.”
“What about the ex?”
“Talked to him on the phone. He lives in Atlanta and was at the office at the time of the murder. He’s an accountant. January is a busy month. Said the two of them barely spoke.”
“Bad blood?”
“No. More like indifference.”
“Remarried?”
“Live-in boyfriend,” Dante said with distaste.
“Oh.”
“The ex had no idea who would do this to her. Oh, one more thing: Pat said Hurley was a major contributor to Ellison during the last campaign.”
Was that significant? After a moment, she said, “You’re going to need a bigger team. A task force. Daily briefings.”
“I agree. Is that your approval?”
She nodded. “We can’t let the sonnets get out. The media will have a field day.”
“Anything else?”
Jade rattled off next steps. “Got it?”
He waggled the legal pad next to his head. “I got it. Thanks.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The White House, Washington, DC
Whitney pumped hard on the elliptical in the Residence gym. The television atop the machine was on, but she wasn’t paying much attention to it. She was thinking about how to resurrect her signature legislation.
A breaking news chyron scrolled across the bottom of the screen. The name Sampson snapped her out of her reverie. She pressed the up arrow on the display to increase the volume.
The red-headed male MSNBC commentator said, “This just in. Early this morning, ICE raided the offices of PS Corporation, which owns the farming operations of Republican Senator Paul Sampson and his family. You might remember that Sampson was a vocal proponent of building a wall between the United States and Mexico and a staunch opponent of illegal immigration ever since he switched parties after losing the Democratic nomination for president.
“According to our sources, the government agency searched for evidence that the corporation employs hundreds of illegal immigrants, the majority of whom are Mexican. Senator Sampson was unavailable for comment. After the break, Senator Maureen McAllister will join us to talk about this shocking development.”
Whitney wasn’t shocked. She wasn’t even mildly surprised. She had ordered the raid based on evidence presented to her by the director of the agency. At one time, she would have been surprised by Sampson’s hypocrisy. They’d worked together on progressive issues they both cared about. His views flipped 180 degrees when he thought they were his route to the highest office. She wondered how Sampson was handling the negative attention.
He loved his farm.
The screen filled with a headshot of Maureen McAllister. The senior senator from Mississippi stood somewhere in the august halls of the Capitol. She was in her early sixties, her fashionably cut short blond hair interwoven with gray. Her outfit was stylish. It didn’t take much of an imagination to understand that she’d been a beautiful woman once. Still was.
“Senator McAllister,” the MSNBC commentator said from the studio, “what do you think of all this?”
The senator laughed. “My colleague wasn’t thinking. He didn’t think he’d get caught? It’s like posting a crime that you committed on Facebook. I swear God wasted His time giving some people brains they don’t use. I’m from the great state of Mississippi. I know something about farming. Agriculture employs almost thirty percent of our workforce—farmers who farm the right way.”
“Should he resign?”
“Not sure if that’s for me to say, but I will say that Senator Sampson should be ashamed of himself. Illegal immigration needs to be addressed, but participating in it and then talking out the other side of your mouth isn’t the best way to do that. Shame on him.”
“He’s a rising star in your party, Senator. What happens now?”
“Look up in the sky, young man. You’ll see a fallin’ star. I hope one day he ends up having to work his farm himself.”
When the interview concluded, Whitney muted the sound, pedaling in silence. After several minutes, she pressed a button on the equipment’s console.
“Yes, Madam President,” Sean said from the Outer Oval.
“Schedule a meeting with Senator Maureen McAllister,” she said. “In the Oval.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Washington, DC
Midmorning the next day, Jade made a trip to the break room for a refill. She could have had a coffee service installed in her office, but she liked how the break room offered chance meetings with her fellow agents. The only way to know how they were doing was to be with them.
On the way back to her office, she stopped in the doorway of Dante’s office.
“What did the detective from New York say?”
“You were right,” Dante said, looking up. “The perp handed Scofield a piece of paper with a sonnet written on it, tucked into the fundraiser program. NYPD thought it was part of the program, so they didn’t think much of it.”
“Scofield dropped it?”
“The wife couldn’t remember. NYPD is reexamining the sonnet now. Dusting it for prints. I emailed you a copy.”
“I don’t want to wait. Bring it up.”
While Dante searched for the document, she walked behind his desk, holding her recently refilled FBI mug. “Was it the perp’s program? Did he attend the event?”
Dante’s long, graceful hands typed on the keyboard. “Don’t know. Might have slipped the sonnet into Scofield’s program.”
“But he’d have no guarantee that Scofield would keep it the entire time. Afterward?”
“Not enough time.”
She sipped her coffee, avoiding the chip on the rim of the mug. Way past time to get a new one. “Cameras?”
“Front of the library. The detective said a hat obscured the perp’s face.”
“Unlucky.”
“It was more than that. She said his head was tilted away, as if he knew about the camera. She offered to send us a copy of the recording.”
“Get it. We need to interview Scofield’s tablemates at the event. All the waitstaff.”
Dante stared at his computer. “We,” he mouthed.
“I saw that,” she said.
He opened the email containing the sonnet and swiveled his monitor.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.
—Bard of Avon
“Which one is this?” she asked.
“Sonnet I.”
“New York could have been a warm-up for Chicago.”
“Or, since we found Sonnets I, III, and VII, there’ve been four other murders.”
“I hope not,” she said. “Any idea what it means? What the other two mean?”
“English was never my best subject.”
She thought for a moment. “You should—”
“I put a call in to an English professor at GWU,” he said. “My meeting with her is in”—he peeked at his watch—“forty-five minutes.”
“Good idea. Mind if I tag along?”
“No.”
“We should bring Micah.”
“Whatever.” Under his breath, he said, “The more the merrier.”
“Don’t hate,” Jade said, draining the dregs of her coffee. “He might surprise you.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Washington, DC
The professor examined the three sheets of paper on a cleared spot on her cluttered desk. The teetering stacks of papers and files and books reminded Jade of Max’s office.
Professor Alaia Bennett stared at the sonnets. She read one, then the second, then the third, then back to the second. She was slender, pretty, and dark skinned, her hair short and natural, shot through with gray. She wore bright red lipstick.
