What Lies Behind

by J. T. Ellison

  Cautious now, she pulled her Glock, kicked off her heels. Moved quietly through the bottom floor. There was a catch-all desk in the corner of the living room. Someone had stirred through the household detritus—mail and flyers and grocery lists and magazines were scattered across the desk and onto the floor.

  Looking for something. All the hair on her neck stood on end.

  Up the stairs, creeping, quiet as a mouse, her breath the only sound.

  The two men were together, face-to-face, on the floor of the master bedroom. One was bound, hands tied roughly behind his back. The other was loose, long limbs splayed out, as if he’d reached for his friend in the last moments.

  There was no blood, but each had a small froth of foam around their mouths. They’d been fed poison of some kind.

  She didn’t need to check their pulses—they were clearly cyanotic and clearly dead—but she did, anyway, out of habit more than anything else.

  Dead. Sprinkled with gray.

  She stood, went to the front window, looked out onto the street. Dialed Riley.

  “Problem. Z squared, Amanda’s place.” It was their own code, a personal shorthand her team developed to bypass any eavesdroppers on the lines who might be familiar with standard military speak. She heard the sharp intake of breath.

  “Let me scramble this.” A moment later. “All right. We’re safe. I’ll send help.”

  Help was a cleaning crew.

  “I think that’s premature. This has nothing to do with us. Let’s allow it to play out.”

  “You sure?”

  She nodded, looking at the young men. Too young. In the wrong place at the wrong time. They’d been treated roughly. There was bruising around their throats and...what was that, wedged under the unbound boy?

  She stepped quickly, lightly, used the Glock to slide the piece of paper out. Handwritten, spiky script, practically scribbled. Hurriedly written. Wrong, all wrong.

  I’m sorry, I had no choice. It’s better this way.

  Another note. She’d been right, damn it. Cattafi probably hadn’t killed her sister. And whoever had was looking for something, and tying up the loose ends as they went.

  “Are you there?”

  “Yes. There’s a note. Same basic scenario as Mandy.”

  “Murder-suicide?” Silence. White space. Then he asked quietly, “What are the odds?”

  “That’s what I’m wondering. Perhaps the police were hasty in their assessment of the scene in Georgetown. These two have been dead at least a day.”

  And the blood began running hard, pumping slick and wet through her veins, adrenaline pushing with it. If Mandy hadn’t been killed by Cattafi, who had killed her?

  And why?

  The email came back to her.

  Did you get it in?

  The email was the key. Whoever sent it was behind this, she was sure of it.

  And Amanda had it, whatever that may be.

  Or did.

  Chapter 18

  State Department

  Washington, D.C.

  FLETCHER WAS BEHIND the wheel, the wipers squeaking away the downpour, and Sam was thinking about the news they’d received. A bigger picture was beginning to form.

  “I think we’re onto something with all this regeneration talk. Cattafi might have been harvesting cells to use in his experiments. That explains him removing ejaculate and blood from the cadavers. Not terribly ethical, but not unheard of. Especially if he was trying to prove a theory—regenerating a cadaver’s cells makes for a convincing presentation.”

  “What?” Fletcher asked, cutting off a bike messenger without braking.

  “Whoa. You nearly hit that kid.”

  “Yeah, well, he shouldn’t have been driving through a red light. Would serve him right.”

  “You haven’t heard a thing I just said. What put you in such a foul mood all of a sudden?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s the idea of messing with the dead. I don’t get it.”

  He glanced over at Sam. She raised an eyebrow.

  “You do know who you’re talking to, right? What I do?”

  Fletcher went quiet. The rain pattered harder. His wipers were due for a change; the one on her side left a wide streak in the middle, making her center line of vision blurry. The tension built in the car.

  “What is it, Fletch? Spit it out.”

  “I mean, what you do, it’s for the greater good. No one likes an autopsy.”

  “I beg to differ, but I hear what you’re saying. Go on.”

  “I don’t know, the idea of a room full of cadavers, kids cutting them up to learn how they work, and Cattafi, partially undressed near one, messing with the body...ugh.”

  “There are some people who find the dead highly erotic.”

  “Okay, stop trying to gross me out.”

  She laughed. “And some find great peace with the dead. Me, for instance.”

  “Peace? Really?”

  She nodded. “They don’t exactly talk back, you know. Not out loud, anyway.”

  “Hmm. I’ve never asked you why, Sam. Why did you choose pathology over being a regular doctor? You’d have made a great surgeon.” He touched the scar on his neck. She’d given it to him, a month earlier, in the woods near Great Falls, when he’d been shot by a suspect, and nearly bled out. “If you hadn’t been there...”

  “But I was.”

  “Exactly my point. You could be saving lives, not dissecting them.”

  She looked out the window. They were passing through the area of town aptly named Foggy Bottom, one of the oldest in the city. She saw a red door—the home of one of her favorite old haunts, the Red Lion, and the entrance across the way to the Metro. People streamed past in droves, umbrellas up, a dance of the sugarplum fairies in reds and greens and blues and blacks. “My mother said the same thing to me when I was sixteen and told her I wanted to be a pathologist.”

  “You knew that early?”

  “I’d always known I wanted to go to med school, and I didn’t have any problems with dissection. I was in advanced biology, we did a tour of the morgue, witnessed an autopsy. It was fascinating.”

  “But you were only sixteen. Surely you had other interests. Boys, shoes...”

  She glanced at him. “Do I strike you as the shoes type?”

  He pointed at her feet. “How much did those cost?”

  She raised her leg, looked at the supple calfskin Frye boot. Not obscenely expensive, but pricey enough. “Touché.”

  He laughed. “So what is it, really?”

  She gathered her thoughts, tried to find the right words. It was an odd compulsion, and she appreciated why people had a hard time understanding. “You’ve been in enough autopsies. Have you ever noticed, Fletch, that we’re all the same inside? For the most part, identical little machines that whir day in and day out until something, or someone, bids them to stop?”

  “I’ve never really thought about it.”

  “Now’s your chance. We are all alike inside. Everything is meant to work together. The placement, the mechanism, the engine, is sheer and utter perfection. So, if we’re all alike inside, then there’s something that makes us individuals. More than our body type, or our face, because once even that’s stripped away, it’s clear the skin is just a machine casing.

  “Whether it’s an id, or a soul or a spirit, there’s an ineffable something inside that makes us unique, makes each person who they are. How do we make decisions? Why do some of us go bad, become criminals, murderers? Why are some of us shy, and some outgoing? Loving, hateful? Philanthropists, misers. Why are some brilliant, some average, some subpar?” She flipped her hair off her shoulders. “Maybe I’m looking for the last bits of...it, whatever it is, that makes us who we are. Maybe it’s that I�
�m curious about what makes the machine stop. Either way, everyone deserves an answer to why their lives ended. It’s my job to find those answers.”

  Fletcher was engrossed now, all earlier discomfort gone. The philosophy behind life always interested him. “Do you think Nocek feels like that? That it’s more than a job? Is that why you like him so much?”

  “Yes, I do. Not all of us see it this way, mind you. But some of us, I think, are searching for something more. Some answer that there is more.”

  She realized she’d never said that aloud. But it was true.

  “Think about this. You can’t destroy matter. We’re finding that cells live on in the body even after death. Stem cells, for example, can be harvested and used up to seventeen days postmortem. We can take sperm from the dead and use it to make babies. Perhaps more lingers on that we’re not aware of yet.”

  “The regeneration talk got you thinking?”

  She nodded, played with the ring on her finger. “Scientists have always been fascinated by death, dying and regeneration. It’s not too much of a leap, especially if you think about Cattafi taking tissue samples and the like. By all accounts he’s a brilliant young scientist. It stands to reason he might be experimenting.”

  Fletcher shuddered, his hands gripping the wheel tightly. Sam noticed his knuckles were red and slightly bruised, like he’d punched something.

  “Sorry. I know that’s a freaky thought.”

  “You could say that. Where’s his lab, then? I didn’t see anything in his apartment that seemed capable of experimentation.”

  “I didn’t, either. Add that to the list of things we need to track down. Maybe his ex-girlfriend or his family will know. Or maybe he did all his work with Bromley, the virologist at GW. And what was his connection to this undercover FBI agent? I don’t want to make any leaps until we get a better idea of what he was up to.”

  “Speaking of leaps, you’re working a case with Baldwin. May I ask?”

  “Sure. It’s a bunch of murders no one has ever been able to connect into a real series, save one commonality. All the women are from New Orleans. They’ve been killed in various ways, all over the country, for years. They have wildly different victimologies, multiple MOs. Baldwin thinks they’re linked, though there is nothing forensically tying them together. I’ve been going over the files, and while I can’t see the connection yet, it feels all wrong. Baldwin and I both think this is a serial. And there’s been two new murders in the past month that fit the pattern. The evidence from those scenes might help us pull things together.”

  “Gut instinct?”

  “Yes. Sometimes it’s the very best way to solve a case.”

  And they arrived at the State Department.

  * * *

  When Fletcher handed over their IDs, they were quickly waved through and given directions on where to park. They were expected.

  Sam was starting to understand how the intricacies of the D.C. government systems worked—if you were on the list, you were golden. And if not? Good luck.

  They were met in the lobby by a young woman in a black pantsuit, with hip black glasses and white-blond hair slicked back in a ponytail. She was thin and tall and lovely, her accent vaguely Southern in the genteel way of broadcast journalists and character actresses.

  “Lieutenant Fletcher, Dr. Owens. I’m Ashleigh Cavort, head of Public Affairs. If you’ll follow me?”

  “Georgia?” Sam asked.

  Cavort smiled. “You’re good. Dahlonega. Born and raised. You?”

  “Nashville. I’ve been to Dahlonega. It’s a sweet little town.”

  “Little being the operative word,” Cavort said, ending the conversation. They followed her, winding through the halls, into an elevator, decanting out on the third floor directly into a conference room. Three people were inside, waiting for them.

  Cavort got them seated, handed out confidentiality agreements with a knowing shrug—the price of doing business in D.C. was a permanent gag order on everything you learned—brought them coffee while they signed, then took a seat herself and introduced the other three people.

  “Shannon Finders, Counterterrorism, Brian de Lete, Narcotics and Law Enforcement, and Jason Kruger, Africa desk. We’re just waiting for Undersecretary Girabaldi, and we’ll get you briefed and out of here.”

  Girabaldi. Sam knew Regina Girabaldi’s name. She was head of Arms Control and International Security for State. Her confirmation hearings had been legendary—between being a hardline Republican hawk nominated by a Democrat administration and her former life as a CIA field agent, her nomination had drawn fire from across the board, including a poorly organized march on the Capitol and multitudes of death threats. Sam didn’t get it—the woman was brilliant, and completely dedicated to the country. But Sam stayed the hell out of politics if she could help it. That was a world she didn’t want to understand.

  Moments later, the doors opened and a sharp-dressed gray-haired woman stepped through. She wore a Chanel jacket and straight black skirt, expensive but sensible sling-back pumps. Her sheer black hose had a seam directly up the back, enhancing her rather curvy calves, a spot of sexiness in an otherwise conservative display. She wasn’t tall, but carried herself like an Amazon. Sam couldn’t help herself; she sat up straighter when Girabaldi’s appraising eyes fell on her.

  Girabaldi nodded to the people from State, nodded to Sam and Fletcher, sat and glanced quickly around the room.

  “Where do we stand?”

  Brian de Lete, who, despite his elegant name, sounded like he’d rolled off the bus from South Boston with a wicked hangover, spoke up. “As you know, Amanda Souleyret was stabbed to death last night in the home of a young med student named Thomas Cattafi. The cops are calling it a domestic incident. There was a note that read, ‘You made me do this.’ She—”

  Girabaldi eyes were black and piercing. She fixed her gaze on de Lete. “What the hell was she doing in the States? She was supposed to be in Paris.”

  Jason Kruger stepped in. He seemed to be a grave man, with dark skin and soulful eyes, and an accent Sam had a hard time placing. He moved between American and British and South African, depending on the words he used.

  “We think she flew in last night and went straight to Cattafi. As far as we know, she hadn’t been made. She just picked the wrong boyfriend. He killed her, nearly killed himself. It’s a shame, but it’s not related to...” He dropped off, and Sam and Fletcher shared a glance. Fletcher started to interject, but Girabaldi looked at him, held up a hand.

  “A moment, please, Lieutenant. Mr. Kruger, do we have records of her being with this young man?” Then, almost to herself, “A lovers’ spat. What a stupid way for her extraordinary life to end.”

  “No, ma’am, not entirely.” Kruger tapped a finger on the pad of paper in front of him. “Cattafi isn’t dead, not yet, anyway. We may have a chance to interview him. Find out what she told him that made him go crazy and kill her.”

  Sam watched the undersecretary purse her lips and stare out the window. What in the hell was going on here?

  Fletcher must have read her mind. He leaned forward. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but you’re misinformed. This was not a murder-suicide. Cattafi did not kill Souleyret. The evidence is quite compelling—they were attacked by a third party. We think the note was a part of the staging of the scene.”

  This was news, and Girabaldi ran a hand through her sleek gray bob, clearly distressed. Sam thought she wouldn’t make a very good poker player, which was surprising, given her position. She hadn’t known many politicians who weren’t experts at being able to hide their emotions. Either she had a glass face, or Amanda Souleyret was closer to the undersecretary than they knew.

  “You’re saying it wrong,” she snapped. “It’s Souleyret, like Chevrolet. And this is distressing news, very distressing indeed. Why wasn’t I
informed immediately?”

  Heads dropped around the table; her team didn’t like being chastened.

  Fletcher shot Sam a glance. “That information has not been released yet.”

  There were murmurs around the table, echoes of relief, Sam thought, that their asses were being covered.

  “Why don’t you tell us everything, Lieutenant, then we can finish our briefing,” Cavort said.

  “First, can you back up a minute? Dr. Owens and I haven’t been fully briefed. We know quite a bit about Thomas Cattafi, but we don’t know anything about Amanda Souleyret. Who is this woman? I assume she works for you. And do you know why someone might want to kill her?”

  Girabaldi’s shoulders tensed, but her voice was surprisingly gentle. “Lieutenant Fletcher, Amanda Souleyret was one of the finest operatives I’ve ever had the honor to work with. She was fearless, capable and, as of yesterday, in France, on assignment, investigating an international pharmaceutical anomaly. Or so we thought. She’s been out of touch for some time, which told us she was very close to achieving her goal, and it wasn’t safe to check in.”

  “I’ll bite. What’s a pharmaceutical anomaly?” Fletcher asked.

  “She had infiltrated an international company based in France that we believe is manufacturing and selling counterfeit medicines. She’s been—had been—deep undercover for the past year, and for her to break cover, pull out and fly to the States, without warning us she was coming, means something major happened.”

  “What’s the State Department doing investigating a pharmaceutical firm?” Fletcher asked.

  Girabaldi merely shook her head. “That’s classified.”

  “All right,” Fletcher said, annoyance creeping into his voice. “Did she fit in? Was she fluent in the language, the culture? What I’m really asking is, could she have been found out? And someone from France followed her to D.C. and killed her?”

  “Anything is possible. Yes, she was fluent, and yes, she was able to fit into the fabric of her environment well. It was part of her training. Now, would you please brief us on the specifics of the crime scene? What makes you so sure Cattafi was not the perpetrator?”