Labyrinth

by Catherine Coulter

  Savich said, “Quint drugs them to keep them calm. They interact with Cyndia, watch old movies with her. Why? Because Cyndia wants one of them to replace her missing daughter? That’s over the top.”

  Griffin said, “Yes, it sounds flat-out crazy. I mean, you want to replace your daughter so you commit a federal crime by kidnapping four girls who vaguely resemble her?”

  Sherlock said, “Guys, remember when Cyndia hurt me that first time we visited Eagle’s Nest? I was coming back to the house to tell Dillon I thought something was off with the garage. I’ll bet they’ve built rooms, apartments, under the garage, and that’s where they’re keeping the girls. Can we get the plans? Someone had to have done the building.”

  Savich said, “That makes sense, Sherlock. You’d need to have the girls close to have full control, to study them, to monitor them, give them drugs, whatever. I’ll set MAX on it, see if he can find plans.” He typed in instructions as he listened to Carson, who said, “Don’t forget Jessalyn, the sheriff’s wife. Is she involved?”

  Griffin said, “We’ll have to consider all of them involved until proven otherwise. Savich, Sherlock, please write down everything you remember reading before it was erased. We need all the ammunition we can get. Any chance we can get a warrant?”

  Savich said, “Unfortunately, a warrant went out the window with my hacking Quint’s computer, a primo illegal search. We knew that going in. But it leaves no doubt where we’re headed.”

  Sherlock said, “You know what I think? Even though Quint wrote that journal, and he probably administers the drugs, my bet is it’s Cyndia who wanted this, it’s Cyndia who’s driving the bus. I’ll bet she’s the one with the power to control all of them.”

  Griffin said, “I will say after our interview with them this evening, it was obvious she has complete control over Rafer.”

  Savich said, “Okay, quick search. MAX didn’t spot any plans immediately for construction under the garage, which means either they weren’t ever filed, or Quint had them destroyed. Griffin, anything to report on Linzie Drumm’s kidnapping?”

  Griffin told them about the little girl seeing Rafer Bodine in Whytheville at the burger place, and gave them more detail about their visit to Eagle’s Nest. “After what happened at the Bodines’ this evening, I have a feeling time’s running out.” He stopped. He wasn’t about to tell his boss he knew he had to act quickly now or those girls might die. He wasn’t about to lay this on Savich. He would call Bettina Kraus at Richmond, arrange for backup. For tonight.

  Griffin said easily, “Sounds like I need to do interviews tomorrow with each of the kidnapped girls’ parents, verify if they were considered different, had special abilities. Send me what you remember from Quint’s file before it was erased.”

  “Yes, I will.” After Savich punched off, he and Sherlock recorded everything on MAX they could remember before the wipe program had erased the words, emailed it to Griffin. Savich turned off the light and eased a bit closer to Sherlock.

  He felt her warm breath on his shoulder, said against her hair, “It’s coming together. Don’t worry about Griffin. He’s not stupid. He’ll do what’s smart and needful.”

  Savich also trusted Griffin to arrange for backup. “Now we figure out what’s going on with Justice. At least he’s with us and as safe as we can make him. Justice made me promise no one would know where he is, not even Mr. Maitland, which will piss him off, royally.”

  Sherlock said thoughtfully, “I wonder what ‘smart walls’ means?”

  He loved her brain, the way she looked at things, made leaps and connections. “We’ll ask Justice more about all of it tomorrow. You ready to sleep, sweetheart?”

  Sweetheart. Was that his usual endearment for her? She swallowed, took a leap. “Maybe you want to kiss me, Dillon?”

  Did he want to kiss her? Was she nuts? He’d like a whole lot more, but it was a wonderful start, and it was her idea. He turned his head to smile into her beloved face. “I don’t know,” he said slowly, “what if you start singing and wake up Justice?”

  She was dead silent for about a second, then she laughed, her warm breath fluttered against his cheek. “You willing to chance it?”

  “Yeah, well, maybe.” Control, he had to keep control, he couldn’t scare her. Start slowly, let her take the lead.

  She did. She kissed his cheek, his nose, his chin—light forays, then at last she lightly touched his mouth, her lips seamed. She touched her forehead to his. “That was nice.”

  An understatement. “Yes, nice,” he repeated as he lightly stroked his hands up and down her back over her tiger stripes. He wasn’t going to lose it, wasn’t about to let that happen. He stilled his hands. “So what do you think? Maybe another kiss?”

  “I can’t imagine having a lover since we’ve been married. I mean, look at you.”

  “No, you haven’t. Neither have I. You and I—we’re a team, Sherlock, a unit.”

  She was silent a moment. They were a unit. That sounded right. She put her palm flat on his chest, wished he didn’t have on a shirt, wished for a moment his boxers were on the floor. She pressed him back onto his back, bent over him, and kissed his chin. “If we made love, it would be like taking a lover. I know that sounds weird, but I don’t remember us as a unit, and I see you as a kind of hot stranger—”

  “Sherlock? Savich?” Their bedroom door burst open and there stood Justice Cummings, sounding both scared and excited.

  Sherlock snapped to immediately, jerked up. “What’s wrong, Justice?”

  He realized what he’d interrupted and took a quick step back, stammering, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have barged in like this, but I remembered something and I knew it was important and you’d want to know right away. I remembered because of my dream.”

  61

  * * *

  Savich turned on the bedside lamp to see Justice Cummings in the pair of blue pajamas Savich’s mother had given him the previous Christmas. They were too big for Justice, but the drawstring kept them up. He was pale, but his eyes were bright and focused. He was very nearly vibrating.

  He gulped, took a quick step back. “I’m sorry, really, I’ll leave—”

  “It’s all right, Justice,” Sherlock said, and pulled the sheet up to her shoulders. “Come sit down on the chair by the dresser. How is your leg?”

  “I took another of Dr. Breaker’s pain pills, so it hardly hurts at all now.” Still, he walked carefully to the chair, pulled it closer to the bed, and sat down. He lightly touched his fingers to his bandaged nose and smiled. “My nose doesn’t hurt, either.”

  “Tell us about the dream,” Savich said.

  “Okay, but I’ve got to back up first. Maybe a week and a half ago, I was having lunch with one of my co-workers, Peach—that’s what everyone calls her because she’s from Atlanta—and all she wanted to talk about was the upcoming NFL season and if I was going to play fantasy football. Finally, I told her I really don’t like sports very much, even football, sorry, and I went back to my workstation early. And there at my workstation was my boss’s boss, Assistant Director Claire Farriger. She looked up, saw me, and nodded, told me she wanted to read that Russian hacker’s commentary I’d flagged about that new surveillance technology I’d reported, and could I show it to her. I did. She thanked me and left. I didn’t give it another thought.”

  He drew a deep breath, whooshed it out. “Then I saw her in my dream tonight, sitting at my computer, and she wasn’t trying to access that file, she was actually downloading something. And when she looked up at me, her expression was—well, furtive—I guess that’s the right word. Furtive, like she was doing something she shouldn’t be doing, not looking for that chatter like she’d told me. Then in my dream she ran her hand along the base of my workstation and pulled something out of the USB port, had to be a jump drive. She flipped it in the air, caught it. As she walked away, she started singing that song ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy,’ but not those words. She belted out, ‘Sorry, sorry, but you’
re the best goat I’ve got.’ ”

  He looked embarrassed, but plowed ahead. “You know how dreams are, they’re crazy-sounding when you think about them the next morning, if you even remember them, but those words—I jerked awake and I knew something was real about the dream. I can’t get the words out of my head, the way she sang them, like she was really pleased with herself. And I wondered if my subconscious was trying to tell me something. Did I really see what she did, but not realize it?” He finished in a rush and stopped, stared at them.

  Savich said, “I agree, Justice, your subconscious is banging on the door. You saw things you didn’t pick up on at the time and your dream clarified them. Now you’re remembering details you dismissed earlier. Relax and close your eyes a moment. Yes, that’s good. Now go back and see yourself at your workstation. You see Farriger at your computer.”

  Justice kept his eyes closed, slowly nodded. “Yes, I see Farriger sitting there, her head is down and she’s focused on something on my computer and yes, she’s authorized to be there, but why wouldn’t she call me if she wanted something?”

  His eyes popped open. “Yes, she was typing, and yes, she did take a jump drive out of my computer. I really didn’t think about it at the time because she was so calm, so matter-of-fact. Did she input something classified I’m not authorized to see? Did she create a cyber trail that would burn me? But what? Why me? I was the best she had? The best patsy?” He repeated her words from his dream. “The best goat she’s got? For what? And then someone knew where I’d be and tried to catch me, someone murdered Eleanor Corbitt. Do you have any idea what’s going on here, Agent Savich? Why these people want to kidnap me, or kill me?” He stopped, shook his head, lightly touched the bandage across his nose to make sure he hadn’t dislodged it. He whispered, “Could she have been trying to make me look like a traitor?”

  That was the bottom line.

  Savich said, “My boss Mr. Maitland, Sherlock, and I went to interview Assistant Director Farriger after you went missing. She tried to cut us out completely, even Mr. Maitland. She implied it was your own doing, maybe even a personal matter. All of us agreed when we left Langley she was involved in something we didn’t understand yet. You said in your dream she looked furtive? I’d say that’s close to our own impression. Let’s go downstairs and talk this over.”

  Sherlock said, “Justice, there’s a robe and slippers by your bed. Go to the kitchen and turn on the coffeepot. We’ll be down in a minute.”

  When Savich and Sherlock stepped into the kitchen, MAX under Savich’s arm, Justice was whistling and taking down three mugs from the cabinet. He’d pulled the drawstring tighter on his pajama bottoms.

  Sherlock said, “I’m the blue-and-red Wonder Woman mug, Dillon’s is the Mickey Mouse mug, both twenty ounces.”

  Justice grinned at her, making him look very young. “I’ve got a giant mug that says Hogwarts Forever.”

  While they waited for the coffee to brew, they sat at the kitchen table. Savich said to Justice, “Do you normally have remote access to the files you’re working on at Langley?”

  “No,” Justice said, “not outside the firewall. There are some unsecured CIA databases I can access with my passcodes.”

  “All right,” Savich said. “I’d like you to try.”

  Justice navigated to the sign-in page on MAX, entered his passcodes.

  “As I thought,” Savich said, “access denied. I’d say the CIA thinks you went rogue, and whatever it is Farriger both downloaded into your work computer and copied is more than likely the reason you’re now locked out.”

  Sherlock poured the coffee, handed them their coffee mugs. “Justice, why didn’t Farriger simply enter your computer remotely? Why did she come to your workstation? If someone saw her, wouldn’t they wonder?”

  He stared at her a moment, said slowly, “She came to my workstation because all correspondence, emails, reports, whatever, always identify the computer used, and I guess she didn’t want anyone to see she’d used her own computer to access mine. Although who would even wonder, I don’t know. May I have some milk, please? No sugar.”

  Sherlock nodded, handed him the carton from the refrigerator. She said, “It means it had to be important. She didn’t want to take any chance of it coming back on her, no matter how unlikely. Justice, what day did you find Farriger at your computer?”

  “It was the very next day after my chief spoke to her about the chatter, and he closed me down, reassigned me. Now I’m thinking it was Farriger who told him to reassign me. Then on the following Tuesday, I hit your car, Agent Sherlock.”

  Sherlock sipped her coffee. “What day did you meet Ms. Corbitt?”

  Justice looked startled, slowly nodded. “I see where you’re going. I met her in the parking lot the same day Mr. Besserman reassigned me, when I was leaving for the day.”

  “That’s fast work,” Savich said. “You saw Eleanor Corbitt again when?”

  “Two days later, in the cafeteria, like I told you. We chatted and she was very nice. And then she called me on Monday, wanted to meet at the Blaze Café on Tuesday. That’s when the man and woman chased me and I ran out of the alley and into your car, Agent Sherlock.”

  “Only Sherlock, please.”

  He nodded. “And then they murdered Eleanor while I was still hiding out in the warehouse district in Alexandria Thursday night. She seemed so interested in me, but she had to be involved, didn’t she?” His hands were shaking as he picked up his mug. He didn’t drink, only looked down into it, as if searching for answers.

  Savich said, “Justice, somebody at the CIA had to arrange for Eleanor Corbitt to get through security at Langley the day she talked to you in the cafeteria. She needed an invitation, and a guest pass, maybe a fake CIA ID tag for you to see. I’m thinking it was Farriger who arranged it. What about your chief, Alan Besserman? Do you trust him?”

  “Trust? He’s my boss, a career CIA guy. I never even thought about not trusting him.” Justice fell silent, drank some coffee, then looked at them and slowly shook his head. “Do I trust him now? Given what’s happened? I don’t know who to trust. But Besserman? He’s always been fair with all the analysts. Yes, if I trust anyone now, it would be him. This is all so crazy.”

  “There’s someone else who had to know Eleanor was at Langley—Nikki Bexholt, a vice president in the Bexholt Group,” Savich said. “She and Jasmine Palumbo, also at Bexholt and driver of the car that hit Sherlock, both seemed to know Eleanor quite well. Did you ever work with the Bexholt Group, have anything to do with them?”

  Justice said, “Everyone in my unit’s heard of them. We make use of firewalls occasionally, license some of their portable security software, but working directly with them, that would be way above my pay grade.”

  Savich rubbed the beard stubble on his jaw. “Still, it can’t be a coincidence Claire Farriger put a stop to your sleuthing out that new surveillance technology and then set you up to disappear and get locked out of your own workstation. Communications security is the Bexholt Group’s main line of business. Do you know if Farriger is currently working with Nikki Bexholt on some project?”

  Justice shook his head. “Sorry, really, I’m only an analyst, not a CIA mover and shaker.”

  Sherlock checked the kitchen clock, a dragon with a purple tail and numbers, a Christmas present from Sean, doubtless assisted by his grandmother. “I think Besserman would be real interested in what you have to say, Justice. It’s not yet eleven o’clock. What do you say we pay him a visit? Are you up for it?”

  He gave her a grin. “I need more coffee first. With the pain meds Dr. Breaker gave me, I can hardly feel my toes.”

  “Take your time,” Savich said. “I’ll see if MAX can find out how well Claire Farriger and Nikki Bexholt know each other.” He looked up. “There’s no doubt in my mind they’ve worked together, and they’re working together now.”

  62

  * * *

  MCLEAN, VIRGINIA

  ALAN BESSERMAN'S
HOUSE

  FRIDAY NIGHT

  Besserman’s house was in a comfortable, older middle-class neighborhood with lots of mature trees and good-size yards. There was a single black SUV in his driveway, a single light on in what was probably the living room.

  Sherlock sat on Justice’s lap in the passenger seat of the Porsche. They were grinning by the time they’d gotten settled. Neither Savich nor Sherlock had thought yet about a rental car to replace Sherlock’s demolished Volvo.

  As they walked toward the house, they heard Humphrey Bogart’s distinctive voice.

  “Mr. Besserman mentioned once he really likes old action movies,” Justice said. “He likes to quote Bogart—African Queen, sounds like,” Justice added when they reached the front door. “He’s divorced, alone now for about four months, says he likes the peace and quiet, but he hasn’t looked too happy lately.”

  Savich pressed the doorbell. He could picture Besserman checking the late hour, perhaps picking up his Glock if he’d been an operative in the field for a while. He saw the living room curtain twitch. Then they heard footsteps coming toward the front door.

  A deep voice, no real concern, a bit of impatience. Yes, he was very probably holding his Glock. “Who’s there?”

  Savich said, “Mr. Besserman, I’m Agent Dillon Savich, FBI, here with Agent Sherlock and Justice Cummings, your analyst.”

  A moment of silence, then, “Justice?”

  “Yes, Mr. Besserman. May we speak to you, please?”

  Sherlock said, “We’re sorry it’s so late, but Justice has remembered certain details we hope you can explain to us. We could use your help, and perhaps you could use ours.”

  The door opened. Besserman held his Glock pressed against his thigh. He was tall, on the thin side, with thick black hair, his temples sprinkled with white. He was a good-looking man, with an aesthete’s face, long, narrow, hollow cheekbones. He was wearing chinos and a white short-sleeved T-shirt, and his feet were bare. His eyes were an unusual pale gray and looked like they’d seen too much and he was tired of it all.