Stalked lk-5

by Allison Brennan

  Jason Aragon was older and mature, a lawyer, and according to his personnel file he took on cases and causes that most would shy away from. He’d never been married, but according to his file he had been engaged once, right out of law school. His fiancee was killed in front of him during a gang-related shooting in Los Angeles-wrong place, wrong time. He’d become an anti-gang crusader, and his personal statement indicated he wanted to work the anti-gang task force as a special agent. He had extensive knowledge of gang activity and warfare, plus an acute understanding of the law. He’d made a name for himself as a prosecutor going after the most violent offenders, at great personal risk.

  Lucy had known him four weeks and he’d never talked about his past. He wasn’t chatty like Reva, but why hadn’t any of this come up?

  What was she thinking? She knew why-because he didn’t want to talk about it. Just like she didn’t want to talk about her past. Some things were better left unsaid.

  Jason had no connection to the East Coast in any way, but an event like what had happened to his fiancee would change him.

  She switched databases and using Noah’s log-in checked to see if there was a case file on the nine-year-old shooting. Nothing federal.

  She made a note to look into that case deeper, then went on to Alexis Sanchez.

  She’d been recruited out of the Denver FBI office after she applied for a special agent position. She was highly desirable because of her accounting background.

  Marital status: Divorced, Carl Sanchez.

  Lucy frowned and made a note. She thought Alexis was still married. Didn’t she mention a husband? Or did she say “ex-husband”? Lucy couldn’t remember the specific verbiage, but she definitely believed from their conversations that Alexis was married.

  She had a four-year-old daughter, Melissa Camille Sanchez, born in Denver.

  Lucy relaxed a bit. Husband or ex-husband, Alexis still had family issues to deal with, and it couldn’t be easy being two thousand miles away from her daughter. She’d mentioned that her mother-in-law was watching the child and that she didn’t like Alexis, which would make it doubly difficult.

  But it was one small discrepancy between what Alexis had said and the truth.

  Noah came in. “I thought I’d find you here,” he said. “Have you found anything?”

  “Nothing major, but I’m looking. I’m halfway done.”

  “Good.” He sat down, not behind the desk but on the couch. “I talked to Stockton about Rich Laughlin.”

  “I wish you hadn’t. I didn’t intend to use our friendship.”

  “You’re not. Your instincts were dead-on. Last year, in the middle of Laughlin’s joint undercover operation with DEA to take down a major international drug operation centered in Detroit, he lost his partner. She was DEA, but what Laughlin didn’t know at the time was that she had a personal vendetta. She’d grown up on the streets of Detroit, lost friends and family to the drug war. She came back to fight it. From what Stockton said, she was extremely good at her job, extremely bold. In undercover work bold is good-but it can also make you reckless.

  “Just before she was killed, Laughlin told her to back down or their cover would be blown. She pushed-sacrificing herself to save Laughlin. Her actions saved a lot of people, and ultimately gave the FBI and DEA the information we needed to take down the largest and most violent gang working drugs between Detroit and Canada.”

  All the pieces of the puzzle slipped into place. “She died and Laughlin believes it was because her past made her reckless.”

  “Maybe it did.”

  “And maybe it made her better at her job. She succeeded.”

  “She died. She bled out after multiple gunshot wounds.”

  “We all risk dying. The question is, was there any other way? If she hadn’t pushed, would more people have died?” No one could know, especially since they hadn’t been there.

  Noah handed her a thick file. “Eyes only, Lucy. It doesn’t leave this office.”

  “Thank you.” She put it in the drawer of the desk she was using and looked back at her computer screen. Noah sat at Tony’s desk. “I’m not reckless, Noah.”

  “I never said you were.”

  Lucy viewed Laughlin in a completely different way. His anger and rage, focused on Kate-who had been part of a clandestine operation that ended up with both her fiance and partner dying and Kate going off the grid for revenge-and Lucy, who had suffered at the hands of a brutal rapist and killer before taking his life. She could see how Laughlin thought they were risky as agents.

  But Kate had proved herself over and over, and Lucy didn’t have a death wish. She wanted to be an agent to affect change and make a difference in the lives of innocent people and victims, not simply to take out as many sexual predators as she could before she died in the process.

  Her past definitely shaped her present, but it also made her smarter and sharper, not more violent or reckless.

  She put Laughlin out of her mind and focused again on digging into the background of Alexis Sanchez.

  She’d graduated from Penn State in Scranton with a major in accounting. She’d had jobs in Scranton and Syracuse before moving to Denver six years ago.

  Syracuse.

  Sean was following a lead on Peter McMahon in Syracuse.

  Alexis was born in Trenton, New Jersey, and moved to Newark after her parents divorced, when she was twelve.

  New Jersey.

  Rosemary Weber had lived in Newark and was the crime reporter for the major paper.

  It was a connection. Tenuous, but the only connection in all these files to McMahon or Weber. Alexis had worked in Syracuse during the year Peter McMahon had fallen off the grid. She’d lived in Newark when Rachel was killed. Had they been friends? Lucy checked birthdates. Doubtful-Alexis had been seventeen at the time.

  Alexis’s maiden name was Todd-that name sounded very familiar. Lucy looked over all the personnel notes and couldn’t find a “Todd”-first name or last-anywhere. But she’d seen the name recently. In a newspaper article?

  In Tony’s notes.

  The name Todd had been in Tony’s original file, the one that had been stolen from his office.

  Lucy carefully read Alexis’s entire file, focusing on the background check from her childhood. And there it was:

  Camille Todd.

  When Alexis was seventeen, her twelve-year-old sister, Camille, was abducted-one week before Rachel McMahon. But Camille’s body wasn’t found for nearly a year.

  There was nothing else in Alexis’s file about her sister’s murder. Alexis went to college, moved to Denver, and seemed to have no contact with New Jersey after. Her father remained in Trenton, retired career military, and her mother remained in Newark, where she’d died of breast cancer three years ago. Alexis had a brother, Kip, who lived in New York-

  — Kip Todd. Weber’s research assistant.

  Suzanne had mentioned him when Lucy and Sean were in New York Saturday. He was a grad student at Columbia and would know how to make Weber’s files disappear in archives.

  “I got it, Noah,” Lucy said. “Can you check if there’s a federal case on the abduction and murder of Camille Todd? Same year as Rachel McMahon.”

  Noah typed. “We have a file. Give me a minute to access it. What did you think of the sketch Sean sent? Did you recognize her?”

  “Sketch? I didn’t get anything from Sean.” She looked at her phone. No service.

  On Tony’s computer she logged in to her personal e-mail account. Sean had sent a picture he’d taken with his phone.

  She stared at the image. If she’d seen it on its own, it might look familiar, but because she had just been reading Alexis’s file she knew it was Alexis Todd Sanchez. There were some differences-the nose in the picture was larger and the hair was completely different-but it was her eyes that gave her away.

  “This is Alexis Sanchez. She’s in my new-agent class.”

  Noah picked up his phone. “Chief?… We have a suspect. Alexis Sanch
ez. I’ll meet you in your office.”

  He turned to Lucy. “You’re certain.”

  “Yes. She lived in Newark, where Weber lived. Her sister was abducted and murdered at the same time as Rachel McMahon. Her brother was Weber’s research assistant.”

  “There’s no proof that she killed anyone. Where was she Saturday night?”

  “In her room. But there are ways of getting around that.” She thought of all the times her group had entered the building together. Only one person needed to use their passkey. “I think I can prove she left.”

  “Why would she?”

  Lucy walked over behind Noah’s desk and took the keyboard from him. She scrolled through Camille Todd’s file and stopped on the autopsy report. “I have an idea. Camille Todd went missing before Rachel McMahon. Bob Stokes was the responding officer. Because it was a suspected abduction of a child under fourteen, the FBI was called. Tony Presidio was the case agent. One week later, Rachel McMahon goes missing and all resources move to her disappearance.”

  “That’s a thin motive.”

  “It’s in the autopsy report. Camille was alive for nearly a year after her abduction. When she was found, the coroner determined that she’d been dead for two weeks. Her killer was never found. Rachel died in less than twelve hours, yet the FBI and Newark police focused on finding her. It makes sense-most kidnapped children are killed within seventy-two hours. The more time that passes, the colder the trail gets.”

  Noah scanned the report. “They didn’t think there was a connection.”

  “Two completely separate cases. But the McMahons had all the attention. The lies, the sex parties, the media-Rosemary Weber-was all over it, relegating Camille Todd to one sentence.”

  “I want you in the interrogation.”

  She nodded. She could do this.

  “I’ll call Suzanne Madeaux and tell her to pick up Kip Todd. Let’s get them both in custody and then piece together the rest of the case. There are some holes.”

  “Not as many as you think.”

  Noah’s phone rang. “Armstrong.” He listened. “I’ll go. I’m taking Kincaid with me.” He hung up. “Alexis signed out at the gate. O’Neal went to her room and her personal effects are all gone.”

  Lucy’s face fell in shock. They were so close to answers! “How did I tip her off?”

  “I don’t think you did.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Five Days Ago

  I don’t read the newspaper or watch the news, but some events are impossible to miss. For example, I pass by the newsstand on 94th twice every day on my way to and from the subway station. I can’t avoid the over-sized headlines. Things like “President Visits Egypt,” and “NYPD Officer Killed in Gang Shoot-out,” and “Lindsay Lohan Back in Rehab.”

  Sometimes I’m amused by what people find important or interesting. But mostly I’m sad.

  Wednesday evening a headline made me stop for the first time in the three years I’d been living in Brooklyn.

  REPORTER AND AUTHOR ROSEMARY WEBER MURDERED

  I stared for a long minute, long enough for the cashier to get antsy and tell me how much the paper cost.

  I handed him the money and took the paper. I didn’t read it on the subway-I wanted to read it in private.

  I teach third grade at one of those schools people want to forget exist. Schools where kids don’t have enough to eat, where parents forget they have responsibilities, where most of the kids only have one parent, or grandparent, to care. Schools where survival is as important as breathing. But the eight-and nine-year-olds I teach still had hope. And my job, as much as making sure they could read and had basic math skills, was to maintain their hope for one more year. Maybe I could do it so well because I remembered third grade better than any other year in school. While some kids forgot the time evil touched them, I lived with it every day. Vibrant and alive.

  I knew when one of my students was being abused.

  I knew when one of my students didn’t have dinner or breakfast.

  I knew when one of my students had seen darkness like I had.

  And even amidst all that, I gave them hope. Like Grams saved me, I tried to save them.

  In my three years, I’ve had ninety-eight students. I remember all their names, from Abraham to Zachary, Anne to Zoey. Nine of them are dead. Six dropped out of school before sixth grade. Twelve moved on to other schools, most because they were removed from violent homes and put in the system. And one is in juvenile hall for murder. He was eleven when he killed his neighbor for no reason he ever shared with me.

  But I knew the reason. He’d lost all hope.

  I took the Times home with me, to my small one-bedroom in a pre-war Bay Ridge building. I’d lived in the apartment since moving to New York, and I didn’t plan on moving anytime soon. I was close to the water and even had a view of the bridge from one window. Bay Ridge was quiet and a good place to relax after spending the day teaching in East Brooklyn.

  Somehow, bringing the paper across my threshold saddened me. As if I’d lost something or violated the sanctity of my home. My appetite was gone as well. I opened a can of diet soda and laid the paper on the table.

  I stared at it for several minutes while sipping my drink until, resigned, I sat down and read the story.

  I read the article, penned by a reporter named Robert Banker, twice. I might have memorized it, because some sentences kept repeating in my head.

  Former Newark reporter and true crime author Rosemary Weber was stabbed to death Tuesday night at Citi Field while the Mets played to victory.

  The police had no clues, no leads, and were investigating her murder with the FBI.

  Ms. Weber is the author of three true crime books but is best known for her number one bestseller, Sex, Lies, and Family Secrets, which detailed the tragic rape, kidnapping, and murder of eleven-year-old Rachel McMahon and exposed her parents to charges of emotional abuse and neglect.

  And because no newspaper could refrain from repeating the drama that had been my life for the first nine years, Banker brought up my parents’ lifestyle:

  Aaron and Pilar McMahon had been swingers, putting on elaborate sex parties for friends and neighbors while their two children played upstairs. It was one of their “friends” who killed their daughter, but their lies to police stymied the investigation for days.

  I often wondered what would have happened differently had my parents told the truth that morning.

  I often wondered if I could have saved Rachel if I’d called 911 at three in the morning when I found she wasn’t in her bed. Intellectually, I knew she died early that morning and even if I had called and if my parents hadn’t lied Rachel would have still died before Benjamin John Kreig was found.

  I had to believe that, or I would have killed myself.

  Grams told me, before she died, that Rachel had been killed shortly after her abduction and nothing I could have done would have changed that outcome. She knew I harbored deep guilt and anger over what had happened that night and the subsequent days. I believed Grams, because I had to or go insane.

  But I still, sometimes, wonder.

  Though I no longer answered to “Peter,” I was glad my name wasn’t in the article. I wasn’t even mentioned.

  The article ended with:

  Rosemary Weber was researching her next book, about the Cinderella Strangler who suffocated young women at underground parties during a four-month stretch in New York City last winter. Police had no comment as to whether her murder had anything to do with her research.

  I remembered the dead reporter. Not as a person, but as words. Her newspaper articles were talked about by everyone. Even though Grams had done her best to protect me, Weber’s byline was everywhere. But it was the book that hurt the most. She told the world that I had been the one who exposed my parents as lying to police. I didn’t care that people knew, but she made me out to be brave, when I felt smaller than a speck of dust. She printed a picture of me at Rachel’s funeral-alo
ne. Grams had been standing right next to me, but the angle of the picture had cut her out, giving Weber an iconic image that still haunted me.

  Alone.

  Suddenly I didn’t want the newspaper in my house. As if just its presence would bring back despair and fear. As if the paper could somehow transmit my location to the woman I’d been hiding from for years.

  I left my apartment, walked to the alley, and threw the newspaper into a garbage can.

  I didn’t feel any better.

  Something had changed. Maybe I had. Reality invaded my home, reminding me that I didn’t exist. That Gray Manning was a work of fiction.

  I went back to my apartment and waited for the other shoe to drop.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  New York City

  Kip Todd lived in a small studio loft in SoHo. Suzanne met Joe DeLucca and two uniformed NYPD officers outside the building. “No doorman, manager gave me a key,” Joe said. He ordered the uniforms to split and take front and rear entrances. “Second floor.”

  They took the stairs up. Joe knocked on the door. “NYPD, open up.”

  Nothing. No response, no sound of movement.

  Joe glanced at Suzanne. “Ready?”

  She nodded.

  He put the key in. “It’s nice working with you on a case.” He grinned. “We should do it more often.”

  “Just watch my ass,” she said, then moaned when he laughed. “You know what I meant.

  “FBI and NYPD,” Suzanne said. “Kip Todd, we’re coming in.”

  They cautiously entered the one-room apartment, guns drawn. Joe checked the closet and bathroom while Suzanne looked in the cabinets in the small kitchen space. The bed was a futon. There weren’t many places to hide, and Kip wasn’t in any of them.

  They holstered their weapons and looked around. The studio was L shaped, with two walls of windows. Small, but with new hardwood floors, a modern kitchen, and a bathroom not much bigger than an airport stall.

  Kip Todd didn’t have much stuff-a futon, end table, kitchen table with two chairs, and desk. The place was tidy, even the desk, though it was obvious someone had cleaned up and cleared out quickly. The printer was still there, with a cord that had connected to a missing computer. Phone cable for the Internet. A cell phone charger had been left behind.