The Alex Troutt Thrillers: Books 1-3 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set)

by John W. Mefford

  My foot accidentally backed into something metal. “What do we have here?” It was an actual filing cabinet. I pulled open the drawer and searched for the file for names beginning with T.

  “What are you doing, Alex?”

  I flipped my head and found Archie at the entry into the office as a throng of first responders spilled in through the doorway behind him.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” I still had a hand on the open drawer.

  “Don’t we need a search warrant to look through those files?”

  I could feel my face turning red in about two seconds. “Would you be asking that if Teague wasn’t working for the CIA?”

  He twisted his lips and rocked side to side. “Dammit, Alex. My bosses think I’m helping to run this joint task force with you.”

  “And you think that gives you the authority to ignore evidence that could give us more insight into this homicidal maniac?”

  Archie stomped into the room, a single blue vein snaking down his forehead. I’d never seen him so stressed. “Okay, let me help you then. If I’m going to get fired, I might as well do it while we’re working together to stop a cold-blooded killer.”

  I kept my mouth shut, and we dove into the files.

  19

  “I’m sucking fumes, Alex. Need to pull over.” Archie dug his fist into his eye. When he was done, it appeared he’d been in a fight with a couple of hornets.

  “CIA can’t keep up?”

  “Every chance you get, you just keep bustin’ my balls. Is that the way it’s always going to be?”

  “Until we catch a killer that the CIA knew about all along, yes.”

  To keep myself from lashing out, verbally or otherwise, I turned to gaze out the window and spotted an apron of early-morning fog hovering about four feet off the ground in a nearby field. Two cows slumbered, their heads nearly touching. I heard the clinking of the blinker as Archie slowed the muscle car to a slow grumble and turned right into a gas station.

  “You and the bumblebee beast are sucking fumes, huh?”

  “Eh,” he muttered, crawling out of the car. “You want anything from inside?”

  “I just want to stretch my body right now.”

  I got out and was immediately met with the familiar smell of gasoline.

  I glanced east and saw pink and purple rippled clouds, the sun just now rising behind the largest Catholic church in the world, so the sign had said a mile back. I let my mind wander for a moment, trying to recall my youth, when my mom was alive. From what Mark had told me, and my father had reluctantly verified, she was a religious fanatic. While a good part of my memory had come back to me, I’d only had a few quick images flash through my mind of the time before Mom was killed in a car crash. One such clip continued to replay itself, pinging my brain when I least expected—like now. I could recall her holding a rosary, rocking to and fro, chanting something indecipherable while staring at a cross in our living room. I’d tried talking to my dad about it on the phone, but he wasn’t much of a phone talker.

  “You wondering if our little nun might have gone to confessional at the big Catholic church across the way?” Archie said, walking up behind me.

  “Funny.”

  He was referring to the fact that a set of nun’s clothing, smeared with blood, had been found by a local police officer behind a shed in Teague’s backyard, all while Archie and I pored through manila folders searching for notes or reports on the doctor’s counseling sessions with Turov.

  We’d made the assumption that Margaret had donned the disguise to lure her way into Dr. Teague’s home. Since the ME’s office confirmed none of Teague’s teeth were missing, we assumed he’d put up at least some resistance. Perhaps he’d whacked Turov in the jaw with the poker. No sooner had I thrown out that theory, then Archie chimed in. “So, Professor Plum was killed in the library with the candlestick,” he said with a single chortle. “But does that give us any great insight? We’re still fairly certain that Miss Scarlett—Turov—committed the crime.”

  He had a point. “If her jaw hurts bad enough, or gets infected, she might seek care from an oral surgeon.” I shook my head the moment the words spilled out. “Nope. Think about it. She’s been to hell and back in combat. Losing her tooth probably meant nothing more than being bitten by a mosquito.”

  Archie pulled the gas pump from the car, then faced me from the driver’s side, his elbows leaning on the rooftop as he slurped his coffee. “Boy, that’s hot.”

  I checked the time on my phone, then thumbed over to the picture I’d taken of Margaret’s last note.

  “You wondering why she took the time to write the note if we were that close to catching her?” Archie had snuck up next to me, and my weary heart almost popped through my sternum.

  “Shit, Archie. You scared the crap out of me.” I glanced at him.

  He just stood there and bobbed his head, taking another slurp of his coffee, then cramming half a jelly donut into his gaping maw.

  With a pained expression on my face, I pointed at the corner of my mouth. “You got a little something.”

  “Oh.” He used his tongue to lather up all the food remnants.

  “Gross, Archie. The less sleep you get, the more uncouth you get.”

  He held his donut so close I could have taken a bite. But that was the last thing I needed, or wanted.

  “Well, the less sleep you get, the more of a bitch you become.”

  I shook my head. “Okay. We’re even on that front.”

  He bobbed, then he winked and stuffed another bite into his mouth before he’d finished chewing the first one.

  I had to turn my vision, so I stared at the picture of Turov’s last message: Close, but no cigar, AT. Blood rules…MT

  “Was this her way of telling me she was playing by her own set of rules? Blood rules,” I said as much to myself as to Archie.

  I tapped the phone in my hand as I scanned the blur of the colorful horizon, a layer of ozone clinging to buildings at the north side of Washington, DC.

  “I think she might….” He paused and wiped his mouth with an open hand. “She might be just playing games. Anything to get us running one way, while she’s moving another.”

  I blew out a breath, and steam pumped into the sky. “It’s possible. I just know we came within minutes of catching her. Just a few minutes.”

  I opened the car door and pulled out the stuffed folder, setting it on the hood. Earlier in the doctor’s office as crime scene investigators milled about the home and the property, Archie and I riffled through mounds of files and papers, and we came up empty—on the first filing cabinet. We weren’t about to give up. We expanded our search and found another filing cabinet in the office closet, camouflaged by jackets. It also had a lock on it. Without either of us saying a word, Archie left the room and came back with a pair of long-handled bolt cutters.

  “No one asked you what you needed these for?”

  “No. Never do. I just say it’s CIA business, and they scatter like I’ve got an STD.” He lifted his head and smiled. “What can I say? I like to make fun of myself sometimes.”

  “Self-deprecating humor. I’m on board with that, especially when you’re the one talking,” I said, gesturing for him to get to work.

  One flick of his wrist and the ripped metal from the padlock fell to the floor. That was when we sat down on the floor of the closet and began to sift and read. We found case reports on Margaret almost immediately, but the content was mundane. Nothing sensational or telling.

  Almost two hours into the effort, I lifted a finger in the air and said, “You won’t believe this shit, Archie.” While it wasn’t a list of all the people she intended to kill after losing her rocker, I’d found, perhaps, the trigger event that turned Margaret into the killing machine we knew.

  In so many words, Margaret revealed that when she was a teenager, she was a bit of an outsider. One Saturday night she found out about a big party and decided this would be her turn to break free
and make her social introduction to the rest of the teenage world. But it didn’t go well. A number of boys made fun of her, calling her, “A butch and bitch. The double B.”

  The doctor’s notes documented that the boys were relentless, and she felt tremendous embarrassment and humiliation. She ran out of the house after the boys had ripped her clothes to expose her boy-like body. While all of that was alarming, it wasn’t the headline, not by a long shot. Later that school year, a boy went missing—the same one who’d led the hazing. He was found hanging off a remote bridge a hundred miles away. Teague had circled a quote from Margaret: “I made him pay for disgracing me. It’s like someone took over my body, and I just did what I had to do to protect myself. I gotta admit, though, killing him made me tingle inside.”

  Archie pointed at the file on the hood. “We read every word at least twice,” he said, smacking his lips on the last bite of his donut. “I don’t think reading it again will shine a light on where she is right now.”

  Ignoring him as much as any human could, I drowned out his obnoxious sounds.

  “Don’t we need to get moving?” he asked as I scanned each page before flipping it over and moving on to the next.

  I’d skimmed through half the packet, then I placed my finger at the center of the next page.

  “I don’t recall reading this.”

  Archie craned his neck. “I guess I read through that one.”

  The report seemed innocuous on the surface—Margaret talking about what her interests were when she was growing up.

  I held up the page and read the passage from the doctor’s notes. “While Margaret isn’t academically inclined in math, physics, or chemistry, or even literature, she does possess an interest in political science. One day, she might aspire to run for local office. Then again, given her past, I doubt this is a realistic goal. But seeing her show a genuine interest in a normal area of work is a positive sign. She’s beginning to show us a beacon of hope—that she can actually function in society without diverting to the violent tendencies of her past.”

  “What’s the date on that report?” Archie asked.

  I looked to the corner of the page. “About six months ago,” I said.

  We traded stares, and then turned our gaze south. On the horizon, the sun peeked through clouds to illuminate downtown DC. I think I made out the top of the capital. Neither of us spoke for a good minute, perhaps wondering if the other would actually say it: the chase for the killing machine had taken us to the edge of the biggest political arena in the country, possibly, the world. Maybe finding the doctor’s notes about Turov’s sincere interest in politics was coincidental.

  My growling stomach interrupted the silence. I closed the folder and stuffed it under Archie’s elbow. “I can’t hold out any longer. I need my caffeine, and I’m hungry.”

  I padded away as a diesel truck lumbered into the lot and squealed to a stop. A man wearing a ski hat with the Redskins logo on it jumped out, pulled open the gate on the back of his truck, and yanked out a bundle of newspapers. I held the door for him.

  “Thanks, lady,” he said.

  “No problem.”

  I made a beeline toward the coffee station, nodding at the man behind the counter wearing an orange and yellow shirt, matching the same colors of the station’s company logo.

  “Just brewed a new pot. Your partner out there got the crap coffee. You get the fresh stuff,” the pudgy man said before unleashing a wet cough.

  I poured my coffee, added some cream and two sugars, then picked up an orange and one of those breakfast bars with lots of nuts and antioxidants and made my way to the counter.

  “Can you believe this shit?” The attendant lifted the newspaper and jabbed a finger into it as he spoke to the vendor who was filling the rack, half paying attention, it appeared.

  I stood at the counter, savoring my first swallow of the dark roast coffee. “Just what the doctor ordered,” I said to myself.

  When the attendant didn’t get a response from his vendor, he turned to me. “Can you believe this shit?”

  “I heard you the first time.”

  The vendor came over to the counter and readjusted the Velcro on his back brace. “Sorry I’m running so late today. They had a late deadline and all. I guess you know why now.” He winked at the attendant and me. “See you tomorrow,” he said, waving a hand as he scampered out the door.

  “Later,” the attendant said, swinging back around to face me. He dropped the paper on the counter.

  I peeled the wrapper off the breakfast bar and turned the paper so I could read the headline: Sex Scandal Rocks the Capitol.

  Then I saw the sub-header: Idaho Senator Blames Devil for His Actions.

  My jaw stopped chewing, and I shot my head up and found Archie casually leaning against the car, eating another donut. Where the hell did that one come from?

  “How much do I owe you?” I asked in rapid fire.

  “Okay, we got the coffee.” He punched the register three times, then he looked at me. “I need the wrapper. To scan it.”

  I pulled off the rest of the wrapper and handed it to him as I took another bite of the breakfast bar. The register dinged and he said, “That will be four twenty-seven.”

  “What about the paper? Did you include that?”

  He picked up his scanner and hovered the red laser over the paper’s barcode. “Six forty-eight.”

  “That paper cost two bucks?” I said, swiping my credit card.

  “Eh. It’s a dying industry. I guess they’re thinking only suckers are buying papers now.”

  “Thanks,” I said with a roll of my eyes. I punched the door open. The newspaper truck was pulling out of the parking lot as I marched over to the car and slid the paper across the top over to Archie.

  “Don’t tell me. Political gridlock?” His eyes found the headlines, and then he peeked up at me.

  “Are you—”

  “Drive,” I said, opening the door and sitting in the front seat. He got behind the wheel and turned the ignition.

  “Where to?”

  I tapped my phone, and it started ringing on the other end. I looked over at Archie and pointed straight ahead. “Head to the Capitol.”

  “Alex?” A groggy Nick picked up the line. “We all fell asleep on the tables here in the war room. Sorry.”

  “No problem. Fill me in on your progress later. Where’s Jerry?”

  “Went home.”

  “Home?”

  “He told me to call him if we picked up her trail. Want me to bring him into this call?”

  “Sure.”

  Archie had paused at the exit to the parking lot. “What are you waiting on?” I tapped the center console impatiently.

  “You really think we should be going to the Capitol? It’s Sunday anyway,” Archie said.

  “This is Jerry. What’s up?” he said with little enthusiasm.

  “Go to the Capitol, dammit,” I told Archie.

  Archie burned rubber, fishtailing the muscle car onto the road.

  “Capitol? Why are you guys headed to the Capitol?” It didn’t take long to get my SSA’s attention.

  I grabbed the dash, feeling like I was riding a bull. “Jerry, I’m almost certain I know Turov’s next and maybe her final target. But I’m going to need you to clear some hurdles.”

  “Oh boy. Am I going to do something that will get me fired?”

  “Call the Secret Service. She’s going after a senator.”

  20

  As I stood with my arms crossed in a second-floor hallway of the mostly uninhabited Russell Senate Office Building, watching grown men argue like petulant children, I quickly learned what DC gridlock was all about. Even in the middle of a scandal and a very real threat on the life of a US senator.

  An Ivy Leaguer adjusted his designer glasses, one hand in the pocket of his Burberry gray suit. He stepped outside an office door into the hallway, swapping places with the senator’s chief of staff, Andre Sherman, who’d been pleading hi
s case with the Secret Service and Capitol Police.

  “I’ve heard both sides of the debate, and this is what’s going to happen. First, Mr. Gusset is going to finish his diligent work for the people of the great state of Idaho. Second, he’s going to walk his wife out to the front of the Russell Building and get into a car. And third, they’re going to church so he can atone for his sins. Is that clear to everyone?”

  “You are?” A bald Secret Service official, whose body appeared to have been chiseled from steel, spoke with a penetrating baritone. Flanked by two others who had similar builds, Wesley Hubbard held up a single finger that appeared to have been broken several times.

  “Chad. Chad Levine. CEO of Levine PR Strategy.”

  “Mr. Levine, as director of the Secret Service, we’re offering to protect the senator. This is not part of our normal scope of duties. We wouldn’t be providing this offer if we didn’t believe there was a strong case that he is in danger.”

  “What case? You mean this excuse for how the CIA and FBI have fucked up their investigation of this bizarre series of killings up the East Coast?”

  I stepped forward and broke up the stag party. “I don’t mean to pry, but I’ve seen what this person can do. The senator is a prime candidate to be a target. And if she gets hold of him, we won’t recognize him when she’s done. Is that clear?” I put a little attitude on the final question.

  Chad gave a smug shake of his head. “This is exactly my point. I have sources who tell me that the CIA and FBI have both known about this criminal for some time. She most likely worked for one or both agencies. No offense…”

  “Troutt. Special Agent Troutt,” I said through gritted teeth, my hands curling into fists.

  “Right. Troutt, I’m sure you’re just a mouthpiece for this so-called joint task force. A fancy name for a farce. That’s what it is. It’s a farce.”