Stalked

by Allison Brennan

  Sean said, “Now!” He grabbed Peter and propelled him toward the open door.

  “Peter!” Alexis shouted.

  Sean heard gunfire and a searing bolt of pain shot up his calf. He rolled into the car; Peter stumbled and hit his head on the pole.

  “Stay down!” Sean shouted.

  Sean pushed back the pain and trained his gun toward the closing door. He saw Alexis’s stunned expression. Then she raised the gun to fire again, aiming at Sean, not Peter. Two teenagers ran behind Alexis toward the exit, preventing Sean from having a clear shot.

  Sean rolled away from the door as Alexis fired again. The bullet hit the side of the train as the doors closed.

  No one else was in the car. Peter lay on the floor, unmoving.

  “Are you hurt?” Sean asked.

  Peter didn’t say anything.

  “Peter! Are you injured? Dammit, were you hit?” Sean crawled toward him.

  “I’m okay,” he said, voice cracking. Shock.

  “Are you sure?” Sean looked for visible signs of injury. Peter had a bump on his forehead from hitting the pole. Other than that, he was fine.

  Sean waited until they were in the tunnel before he examined his own wound.

  “You’re bleeding,” Peter said.

  Sean took out his pocketknife and cut off his jeans at the knee. The bullet had gone through the muscle in his calf, straight through. Not serious, but he needed to stop the bleeding.

  He cut the jean scrap into strips and tied one as a tourniquet right below his knee. Then he took off his T-shirt and tied it tight around the open wound.

  This wasn’t the first time he’d been shot, nor would it be the worst, but damn, it hurt like hell. He pulled out his cell phone. No signal. He typed in a message to send as soon as he had one bar.

  PM and I are on R train, will exit at Whitehall. Please meet there with first-aid kit.

  “Peter, listen to me. Alexis Sanchez is not an FBI agent. She was at the FBI Academy for the past four weeks in training. Why, I have no idea. It may have been to collect information, or to target someone. She may have killed a federal agent, tried to kill another. Her sister was Camille Todd, who was kidnapped and murdered around the same time as your sister. I don’t have all the answers, but if she has the chance, she will kill you.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Noah had been on the phone for the last ten minutes while driving to the Whitehall subway station in lower Manhattan, talking with NYPD and the FBI to determine what went on at the 95th Street subway stop. Police were already on the scene and Alexis Sanchez was gone. Suzanne and Detective DeLucca were getting a copy of the security tapes and Lucy hoped they provided some answers. She had a lot of questions.

  Sean didn’t say who’d been shot, but Lucy knew it was Sean. If it was Peter, Sean would have told her to call an ambulance.

  As soon as they arrived, Noah flashed his badge at the cashier and he and Lucy were let through the kiosk. They ran down the stairs while Lucy dialed Sean. “We’re here,” she said.

  “I have Peter under the sign on the west side of the station.”

  “West side,” Lucy said to Noah.

  “I see him.”

  Sean was sitting bare-chested on a bench, his bloody leg out in front of him. He had a hand on Peter, who looked like he wanted to bolt.

  “It’s not serious,” Sean said by way of greeting. “Just grazed.”

  By the amount of blood, it wasn’t just a graze.

  “Lucy, escort Mr. McMahon to the car; I’ll assist Rogan.”

  “I can walk,” Sean said, standing. He hobbled toward the elevator.

  “Manning,” Peter said. “I legally changed my name to Gray Manning. But I guess you can call me Peter.”

  “We have a lot to discuss,” Noah said. “But I don’t like this exposure.”

  “I have a safe hotel,” Sean said.

  “We’re going to the Bureau,” Noah countered. He glanced at Peter, assessing, then looked at Lucy.

  Lucy knew what Noah wanted. What kind of state of mind was Peter in?

  “Peter,” she said softly, “we need to talk about what’s been happening. You may have information that’s vital to finding Kip Todd and Alexis Sanchez. Are you up for it? We wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t crucial.”

  “Okay,” he said, still in a daze.

  She nodded at Noah, and Noah said, “Just for a debrief. Then you can secure him, Rogan.” He looked at Sean’s leg. “I can get a protective detail.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Hardly,” Lucy muttered.

  “I heard that.”

  Noah drove and Lucy sat in the back with Sean. She turned on the lights and took off the shirt he had wrapped around his leg. “This isn’t a graze,” she said.

  “Do we need a hospital?” Noah asked.

  “Yes,” Lucy said at the same time Sean said, “No.”

  Sean said, “I’m not going to the hospital. The bleeding has stopped. It was a twenty-two. The hole isn’t much bigger than a bee sting, and that’s what it feels like.”

  “You need stitches.”

  “Maybe one stitch. You can handle that, princess.”

  She glared at him. He smiled.

  “Bureau,” Sean said. Lucy decided to let it go. There’d been a lot of blood, but Sean was right—the damage was minimal.

  She cleaned and taped the entry and exit wounds, then bandaged the leg. “You should still get checked out.”

  “Time enough when we catch the Todds,” Sean said.

  “Were you followed?” Noah asked.

  “No. Sanchez was following Peter. Where were you coming from?” Sean asked Peter.

  “I had a staff meeting this afternoon; stopped at a place I often eat dinner. I didn’t want to go home after talking to Charlie.”

  “They could have followed him from school,” Sean said.

  “How did they know where I teach? How’d they know my name?”

  “I don’t think they did, not at first,” Lucy said. “I haven’t seen the evidence from Kip Todd’s apartment, but going on what Suzanne said, he spotted you in the city back in March. He knew you were here.”

  “It’s a big city,” Noah said. “Peter was a needle.”

  “Not really. Alexis, when she was Cami, knew Peter was studying early childhood education. It was reasonable to think that Peter had become a teacher. If they troll the Internet for staff, they might get a hit, but seeing Peter in the city narrowed them to this region.”

  Sean said, “Never underestimate someone determined to find you. It’s extremely difficult to go completely off the grid, even with a name change and new Social Security number.”

  Noah added, “They may have hired someone to do it.”

  “She could have had anything on me,” Peter said. “We were together for over year.”

  Sean said, “Peter, you said you thought you were being watched. When did it start?”

  “It’s been on and off. I always felt safe at home, but after I read about Rosemary Weber’s murder I had a feeling my life was going to be turned upside down. Anytime there’s another article in the paper, I wait for reporters to track me down. After I changed my name and moved to Brooklyn, I thought it would end.”

  “How did Sanchez get to New York so fast?” Sean asked.

  Noah said, “She left Quantico at three in the afternoon and told the gate she was going to a drugstore. She never returned. Her car was found at Dulles long-term parking, and she boarded a four thirty-two flight to JFK, no luggage.”

  “Do you know what tipped her off?” Sean asked.

  Lucy had worried she’d said or done something, but she couldn’t think what. “No. She was gone before I pulled her personnel records and discovered the connection with New Jersey.”

  “If I had to bet,” Sean said, “it came from that lowlife street thief who pawned the ring.”

  “How so?”

  “NYPD released him; what if he went back to Todd and told him about the i
nterview? Maybe Todd got antsy and called his sister.”

  “We’re pulling her cell phone records and all Todd’s records, but so far we’ve found nothing,” Noah said.

  “They could have burner phones,” Sean said.

  Noah turned into the federal building parking lot and showed his ID. “We’re running down leads. The brother hasn’t returned to his apartment or his office at the library. NYPD has staked out both places, and we have a patrol covering Weber’s sister.”

  “They’ve had this plan in the works for years,” Lucy said. “He has another place.”

  “How can you know that?” Peter asked.

  “Alexis befriended you six years ago. They could have killed you then, if they wanted you dead. They had something else planned, but wanted to keep you in sight.”

  “Let’s brief everyone together,” Noah said. He parked and they got out. Sean had to surrender his gun at the security desk.

  They went up to the Violent Crimes squad and Suzanne greeted them at the elevator. “So you’re the famous Noah Armstrong,” she said, shaking his hand. “Good to finally meet you.”

  “Suzanne, likewise,” Noah said. “This is Peter McMahon. He had his name legally changed to Gray Manning and has been a teacher in East Brooklyn for the past three years.”

  “Dangerous schools,” Suzanne said.

  “I teach third grade,” he said quietly.

  “Shelley.” Suzanne motioned to an analyst. “Would you please escort Mr. Manning to an interview room? Get him whatever he would like; keep him company. You’re not under arrest, Peter. But we need to talk.”

  He glanced at Sean as if for permission.

  “Go ahead, Peter. I’m not leaving without you.”

  Shelley walked off with Peter. Lucy, Noah, and Sean followed Suzanne to an interview room. She introduced Noah to Detective DeLucca, who was reviewing digital security tapes.

  Noah asked, “Is that the footage from the subway?”

  “Yep,” Joe said. “We also checked out all survelliance cameras in the area and I’ve pieced it together.”

  He pressed a button. “McMahon—”

  “Manning,” Sean said.

  “Manning, McMahon, whatever he’s going by—”

  “Let’s call him Peter,” Suzanne said. “For simplicity.”

  “Peter,” Joe said, “was on the subway and got off at Fourth and Eighty-sixth at seven oh five pm.”

  “We were meeting at eight on Third and Ninety-third,” Sean said. “Why wouldn’t he take the subway down to Ninety-fifth? It’s the closest.”

  “Because I caught him on a traffic cam going into a mom-and-pop restaurant at Third and Eighty-seventh. He stayed for thirty-nine minutes and left. No cameras until the subway.”

  Sean said, “I spotted him just before eight. I planned on waiting until he slipped into the bar we were meeting at, but I spotted Sanchez trailing him.”

  “Sanchez,” Joe said. “I caught her, too, coming out of the subway behind Peter. He didn’t see her. I don’t know why she didn’t confront him at the restaurant. She passed it and must have been waiting until he left.”

  “Maybe she hadn’t found out where he lived yet, but they knew where he taught.” Suzanne pressed a few keys. “Two weeks ago, this popped up on the school’s Web site.”

  Lucy leaned over. It was a photo of Peter with his class. Suzanne said, “This was last year’s third-grade class. They were recognized at the beginning of this year for achieving the greatest increase in test scores from beginning of school to end of school. The mayor presented the award.”

  The caption read: “Gray Manning says all children are capable of learning if given the right support and motivation.”

  “The article ran in the Times,” Suzanne said. “We know Todd had been trying to find Peter, and with this article he now knew Peter’s new name and where he worked.”

  “And that prompted him to put his plan in motion,” Lucy said.

  “And exactly what was his plan?” Joe said. “It looks like he’s taking out everyone he’s crossed paths with.”

  Lucy shook her head. “He’s methodical. Extremely organized. And he’s been planning this for a long time.”

  “I’m going to have to agree with that,” Suzanne said. “Joe, consider what Cleveland said.”

  Joe nodded. “Professor Cleveland, Todd’s faculty advisor, said that Todd wasn’t Weber’s first choice. Her first two choices backed out at the last minute, no explanation. We’re trying to track them down now. By the time she went back to the applicant pool, several had found assignments. The post went to Todd.”

  “Did Cleveland know about his sister?” Noah asked.

  “No. He said Todd was a competent but not outstanding student and never talked about his family.”

  Lucy said, “I need to see the scrapbooks you found.”

  Joe handed her two evidence bags, each with a scrapbook. She opened them up. The first was essentially a tribute to Camille Todd and media time line of her kidnapping, the investigation, and her subsequent murder. The second, ten times thicker and far less tidy, was a montage of clippings about everyone who had been on the Rachel McMahon investigation.

  Except not everyone. Lucy began to take notes. Fast. Everything came together quickly in her head, pulling together what Sean had learned from Charlie Mead and what Suzanne had found in Kip Todd’s apartment.

  “Lucy?” Sean asked.

  She glanced up. Everyone was looking at her. How long had she been focused on the scrapbooks?

  She smiled sheepishly and said, “I don’t have all the answers, and won’t until I talk to Kip or Alexis, but I know why they targeted Peter.”

  Joe raised an eyebrow. “You got me. I can see that they were targeting him, but how can you tell motive?”

  “Fifteen years ago, Kip Todd identified with Peter. If you look at the notations in the first scrapbook, he considers himself almost a brother to Peter. They both lost their beloved older sister. They both suffered. There was no hatred of Peter or the McMahons initially. In fact, I suspect that for a while the Todd family believed that whoever killed Rachel had killed Camille, only Camille’s body hadn’t been found.

  “A year later, Camille’s body is found. It’s old news, not generating a lot of press. But the one-year anniversary of Rachel McMahon’s murder is suddenly big news. A weeklong series of articles, rehashing the swingers’ lifestyle, the investigation, the trial—where was the justice for Camille? It’s like no one cared what happened to her.”

  “How old were Kip and Alexis?” Suzanne asked.

  “Eleven and seventeen when she disappeared. There are some holes in the articles. For example, we don’t really know the circumstances of her kidnapping other than that she went to a public restroom at a public park and didn’t come back. Was she with her family? Her brother? Her sister? Guilt is a powerful and deadly motivator.”

  DeLucca said, “I read the police reports. Cops interviewed every sex offender in a twenty-mile radius, everyone at the park that day.”

  “And I have the FBI file. It’s even thinner,” Suzanne said. “No suspects. No substantive profile.”

  “Who wrote it? Tony or Hans? They were both profiling back then, and both worked on the Rachel McMahon case.”

  Suzanne looked. “Hans Vigo. But not until after her body was found. He wrote that the suspect was a pedophile who lived alone in a remote area. Manual labor, farming, or heavy machinery by trade. Worked alone, kept to himself, nondescript. Wouldn’t arouse suspicion. He likely had a dog and used the animal to lure his victims into a place where they could easily be taken. He would be of small stature but deceptively strong.”

  Noah added, “He kept Camille until she started her menstrual cycle, then killed her.”

  “There was a note added to the file two years ago,” Suzanne said.

  “From Hans?”

  “No, it’s an administrative note. Five years ago in Pennsylvania, a forty-nine-year-old man was shot and kill
ed by police after the failed abduction of a ten-year-old girl. The note said that profilers deemed the suspect had a sixty-five percent chance of being Camille Todd’s killer. He’d been living in the neighboring town up until a year after Camille’s body had been found.”

  “How many victims were attributed to him?”

  “Confirmed two—bodies found on his property. Looking through unsolved cases, the BSU determined that five others were definitely his handiwork. Those families were notified. But there were seven victims who were likely but unconfirmed. Their families were not notified.”

  Lucy said, “So the Todds never had closure. The parents divorced before Camille was abducted. Then Camille goes missing and they have no idea what happened to her. They had hope when Rachel went missing that the police would find her because they had to be connected—same age, same general area—but Rachel’s case turned into a media blitz, and when her case was solved everyone forgot about Camille.”

  Joe took issue with that. “No one forgot. I’m a cop; I’ve never forgotten a missing kid. I look at their pictures every damn day.”

  Lucy said, “I’m trying to get into how the Todds felt. How Kip and Alexis turned their confusion and grief into a conspiracy to murder.”

  “What you’re saying,” Sean interjected, “is that they felt Camille was forgotten because Rachel’s case got all the attention.”

  Lucy nodded, then continued, “Look at this second scrapbook. It wasn’t until after the autopsy that the record keeping became messy. When Kip originally started, he felt a kinship to Peter, until he found out that Camille had been alive the whole time. While Rachel was already dead, all the police and FBI were focused on finding her, not Camille. It doesn’t matter that there was more evidence and more witnesses to Rachel McMahon’s murder; they’re looking at the investigation from the outside.

  “Dominic Theissen was the public face of the FBI. He’s the one who verbalized the seventy-two-hour window. The Todds think that the police gave up after seventy-two hours and presumed she was dead.”

  Joe said, “In the police reports, it looks like they felt she might have drowned. The creek was running high and kids playing close to the banks have slipped and fallen in the past, washing to shore miles downstream.”