Silenced

by Allison Brennan

  “Steal from the rich and give to the poor?”

  “You make it sound like a crime.”

  “It is a crime.”

  “What if he stole from a thief?”

  “It sounds like you have a complicated case.”

  “I’m trying to help him fix things so he doesn’t do any jail time.”

  Sean had such a soft spot for young people. The teenager in the Adirondacks who nearly burned down the lodge they were staying at, who nearly killed Sean, had been only the most recent in a long line of desperate kids who felt they had nowhere to turn for help. She knew part of his drive was because of his own troubled childhood, losing both of his parents in a plane crash when he was fourteen, and his subsequent rebellion against a brother who was himself too young to know what to do with a grieving genius.

  “I know whatever you do, you’ll fix it and everyone will get what they need.” She smiled and kissed him. “That kid is lucky to have you on his side.”

  There was a loud knock on Lucy’s door. “Get your butt downstairs, Lucy,” Kate said, “and tell Sean he wasn’t so smart that I didn’t know he broke into my house again.”

  “You need a better security system,” Sean called back.

  “Ass,” Kate said. “Two minutes, Lucy.”

  Sean grinned. He really liked Kate. “She loves me,” he said.

  “That doesn’t mean she won’t get back at you,” Lucy teased.

  “That’ll be fun.” Sean wished he had more time with Lucy. He needed her. But she had a job to do. And so did he. He probably shouldn’t have even stopped by this morning, but it was early and he’d just wanted to see her.

  “I have to go—set the alarm on your way out, or Kate really will have your hide.”

  Lucy kissed him one last time and left. Sean wondered if she would have been as understanding if she knew the kid from MIT he’d told her about was himself, nine and a half years ago.

  He heard Kate and Lucy drive off. He retrieved the note from the trash can, glad he had changed his mind. Lucy didn’t need any additional pressure, and he shouldn’t leave it in writing. He blamed lack of sleep for his near-slip.

  Luce—

  You were right about Paxton. Do not trust him. Do not believe anything he says. He’s not your friend.

  He tore it into quarters, then went downstairs to Kate’s office. He pushed each piece through the shredder, glad that there was already paper in the can beneath. To be safe, he mixed up the small squares, then left.

  He had another house to break into.

  * * *

  SSA Josh Stein acted like a kid on a sugar rush, he was so excited by the new intel, coupled with the financial statements of all the businesses and individuals who had rented executive suite 710 in the last six months. Noah almost began to like him.

  “Look—they all connect somehow to DSA. Enviro Solutions hired them as their lobbyist. They get the suite, and then their retainer doubled. Mrs. Erica Craig is in the suite and wham, she makes a big donation to a nonprofit client of DSA.”

  “It’ll still be difficult to prove there was illegal activity. Unless someone comes forward as a blackmail victim, Devon Sullivan can claim she’s just a good saleswoman.”

  “I’m going to prove that she’s corrupt. Because she is. It’s all here—I feel it. And when I get little old Betty Dare in interrogation, she’s going to sing. She gives us one word that Devon Sullivan bribed or attempted to bribe, blackmailed or attempted to blackmail, even one person, the AUSA has a judge on standby. This is the biggest case of my career. Of your career!”

  Noah didn’t agree. It would probably be the most high-profile case of Noah’s career, but he would much prefer to stick to the relative anonymity of violent crimes, putting killers behind bars rather than gunning for con artists and corrupt politicians. But he realized while working with Josh that they needed agents with passion for what they did, because criminals, violent or not, needed to be stopped.

  “Devon Sullivan didn’t kill five people,” Noah said. “Betty Dare has only been implicated as part of the blackmail scheme.”

  Josh waved his hand in dismissal. “You know what they say—we get them any way we can. Al Capone was a killer, but we nailed him on tax evasion. So if we can’t get her on conspiracy of murder, then we get her with this.” He tapped his files.

  “I want the killer. There are three young women in grave danger, Josh,” Noah said. When he saw that Josh wasn’t paying attention, Noah barked out, “Stein!”

  Josh looked at him, startled.

  “Did you hear me?” Noah said.

  “Yeah, you want to find the killer.” He was already turning his head away to look at his columns of numbers. “I’m with you on that.”

  Noah grabbed his wrist and squeezed.

  “Shit, Armstrong! Let go!”

  Noah held on. “If you blow this, if you and your pet AUSA offer any immunity without talking to me, I will make your life Hell. Devon Sullivan did not kill Wendy James. She did not slit the throat of Nicole Bellows, or stab a social worker to death. I want to know who did it, and if she hired the killer, I want her, too. For first-degree, premeditated, special circumstances, homicide.”

  Josh’s eyes darted to the SWAT driver as if looking for rescue, but the other cop didn’t acknowledge him. Noah dropped his wrist. He’d made his point.

  The small SWAT team that was helping Noah and Josh execute the warrant reported that they had arrived, were in position, and were awaiting instructions.

  Noah took the command headset from Josh. “On my call,” he said.

  They got out and entered the lobby two minutes after seven that morning.

  Noah took the stairs up to Betty Dare’s second-floor apartment. He pounded on the door. “FBI! We have a warrant! Open up!”

  No answer.

  He pounded again, shouted, “FBI! Search warrant! We’re coming in!” He waited a beat, then commanded SWAT to prepare to ram the door. Two men held the heavy steel battering ram.

  “FBI! Stand back! We’re entering the premises!”

  He nodded to the team, who rammed the door, breaching in one swift movement. Everyone stood aside, while two more agents held assault rifles on the room, visually searching for any threat.

  The smell in the apartment was horrendous.

  Noah walked down the hall, away from the apartment. Josh Stein looked confused. “What happened? Why aren’t you going in?”

  Noah didn’t respond. He waited for the SWAT team leader to issue the all-clear report.

  “Agent Armstrong?”

  “Here.”

  “We’ve cleared the apartment. One deceased, female.”

  “How?”

  “Appears to be a gunshot to the back of the head.”

  “Silencer?”

  “Poor man’s silencer. The pillow is still in place.”

  Noah walked carefully through the apartment. Betty Dare had been murdered in her bedroom. On the bed was a half-packed suitcase. Had she been scared of prosecution? Or more terrified of who she worked for?

  She’d used the extra bedroom as her own private office. Stacks of video-recording equipment were in the closet. The hard drive had been pulled from her computer. She had an industrial-strength paper shredder, filled.

  “Call forensics,” he said to Josh. “This place is all yours.”

  He left the apartment building on Park Way and called Kate. “I’m on my way, where are you?”

  “We just arrived at St. Anne’s. Lucy and I are going to talk to the priest, I’ll let you know.”

  “Be alert. Betty Dare, our potential witness, is dead.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Devon Sullivan and her husband, defense attorney Clark Jager, lived on a sprawling country estate in Chantilly, Virginia, about forty minutes southwest of DC.

  Sean stopped far from the property line, uncertain of the security layout. He downloaded all public satellite data of the spread as well as property records. There was only
one way to get to the main house, down a quarter-mile-long driveway.

  With all that land, Sean figured there would be security cameras at any potential breach point. A seasonal creek ran along the western edge of the property. The southern edge backed up to their neighbor’s horse stables. Twelve properties were listed on the long, narrow dead-end street.

  The benefit for surveillance was that Sean could park out of sight on the main road because everyone in the Sullivan/Jager neighborhood had to drive to the main road to leave. To the right was the small town of Chantilly. To the left, two miles away, freeway access.

  Sean parked his Mustang at a closed business on the main road where he could watch the cars leaving. He had pulled the vehicle ownership records for both Sullivan and Jager. She drove either a gold E-class Mercedes or a white Lexus SUV. Jager had a small black Mercedes C300. Sean would love to drive the C300 someday. All three vehicles were pricey. The spread had been bought when they first married nine years ago, for nearly three million dollars. Now, even with the market slump, it was worth over four million.

  Sean had run basic financial profiles on the couple. Jager was a partner in his law firm and specialized in criminal defense. Sullivan had opened her lobbying firm nearly twenty years ago, after she divorced her first husband, with whom she had two sons. Both of them lived in the greater DC area.

  Even with two successful careers, this was an expensive piece of land filled with expensive toys. A place that would have hired staff.

  Normally, a breach like this required intelligence gathering and extensive planning, but Sean didn’t have time for anything like that. Winging it was his MO, and if he was feeling nervous, he had to trust his instincts.

  He considered what little he knew of Sullivan and Jager. They blackmailed people either for money or out of the thrill of the game, or both. Information was power. They would be extremely private people. Have staff, but probably not live-in. If they did have live-in help, they would have a separate residence on the property, not in the main house. Security would be tight, but primarily they would rely on surveillance equipment with a direct line to the police rather than more involved options. Response times would be quick, considering Jager’s line of work. Though many cops probably didn’t care for him, no one would want a defense attorney dead on their watch.

  Sean needed a partner. He was loath to call Sergio Russo, but he didn’t have a choice. He needed backup.

  Paxton must have already given Russo a heads-up, because he told Sean he was less than ten minutes away. Sean wouldn’t let his guard down—the senator had been furious with Sean when he’d left this morning. He might be thinking he could get the locket and simultaneously take out Sean.

  Sean scanned additional information about Jager on his laptop while he waited and came across an article dated more than twenty years ago, showing a young, suave attorney. He’d just won his first case, an acquittal for a suspected killer.

  Harper Acquitted!

  Prosecution “Stunned”; Defense “Pleased”

  Falls Church, VA

  Reginald Douglas Harper was acquitted this morning of all charges in the rape and torture of coed Amanda Jane Morris. Morris died of her injuries four days after she was found, without regaining consciousness.

  Harper, who didn’t take the stand in his defense, sat stone-faced during the reading of the jury’s verdict, which came after six hours of deliberation. Harper’s attorney, Clark Jager of Acuna & Bigelow Law Offices, took Harper’s case pro bono because he said the defendant wasn’t getting a fair trial.

  At a press conference immediately following the reading of the verdict, Jager said, “Justice has been served. For too long, prosecutors in our state have been violating the constitutional liberties guaranteed to all citizens, both victims and criminals. When one innocent man goes to jail, the entire system is corrupt. Reginald Harper is innocent of the charges he faced; a corrupt system extracted a confession under extreme duress. As we proved to the jury, Mr. Harper was tortured through the denial of water, bathroom breaks, and sleep. Six detectives questioned him for twenty-nine hours straight until he broke down and confessed to a crime he didn’t commit.”

  Jager, who has a degree in criminal justice from Boston College and a law degree from Columbia Law School, practiced in the public defender’s office in New York City for three years before joining the established law firm of Acuna & Bigelow late last year. His biography says, in part, “I became a defense lawyer because my brother was convicted of a crime he did not commit, and died in a prison brawl five years later. After his death, a court overturned his conviction when DNA evidence proved him innocent.”

  Sean suspected that “Hang ’em High” Senator Jonathon Paxton wasn’t Jager’s favorite person. Yet Jager had represented Fran Buckley, charged with conspiracy in the murders of several paroled felons. Was it for information? Jager and his wife thrived on information, and who better to share than Paxton’s bitter fall guy.

  Sean looked up to see a car stopped at the end of the private road. Jager. He turned left toward the highway. It was 7:10 A.M.

  A few minutes later, Sergio Russo pulled up. He slid into Sean’s passenger seat. “I’m glad you called.”

  “I’m not,” Sean said. “I need backup, and you’re the only one who can do it.”

  “‘Thanks’ doesn’t seem quite right for the comment.”

  “I don’t trust you, but I trust you more than Paxton. That’s not saying much.”

  * * *

  Brian figured out where the girls were hiding based on the unmarked federal car on the street out front.

  He was tired and punchy, but finding the little church had been divine providence. He’d have laughed at the thought if he weren’t so weary and depressed.

  Brian hadn’t thought twice about killing the others. Except the social worker. She had stared at him, eyes wide like a deer, and said, “Please, don’t.”

  He lost it with her. She made him think about what he’d been doing, made him feel bad about it when it was just a damn job. He shouldn’t feel bad about cleaning up this mess.

  He’d gotten over it, because once she was dead it didn’t matter anymore. The choice had been made. But last night at Betty’s …

  He couldn’t stop thinking about her.

  Betty had been nicer to him than his own mother, admired his intelligence, and done her job well. He’d wanted to give her enough money to leave the country. He’d have joined her. And if Betty hadn’t been so demanding, he could have gotten his mother to agree.

  But she asked for a million dollars. His mother said a hundred thou. And Betty laughed at her. Big mistake.

  Once again, Brian was sent to fix the problem. No second chances.

  He didn’t want to scare her, he didn’t want her to know that he was going to kill her. So he went over to see her and lied that he had a deposit on the million Betty wanted. That he would take her to a cabin in West Virginia that he owned, until everything settled down.

  While Betty was packing, he came up from behind her, pushed her down. Heard a bone break and she cried out. As he grabbed a pillow from her bed, she began to crawl away.

  “Brian, please don’t do this.”

  Please, don’t

  Please don’t do this

  He held the pillow on the back of her head and fired two bullets into her brain before he could change his mind. He destroyed all the records he found and left.

  That’s how Betty ended up dead and Brian ended up with a guilty conscience. He couldn’t stop picturing Betty on the ground, scared, crawling away from him. Why couldn’t she have been like the others?

  He told Ned, “I’m parking around the corner. You go sit at the bus stop across the street, got it? Let me know immediately if anyone goes inside.”

  “I still think we should burn it down,” Ned said.

  “Because that worked so well for us last time?” Brian wanted to throttle him. “Do what I tell you.”

  He must have looked mo
re serious than usual because Ned said nothing.

  He let Ned get settled at the bench before he left the car and walked around the block. There was no alleyway, which would have made it easier, but there was a four-story apartment building that backed up to the school.

  The apartment building’s security was minimal, and he entered easily. He headed up the stairs to the roof. The door had a busted lock—people probably came up here to smoke or get fresh air. God knew he couldn’t live like this. The longer he was in DC, the more he wanted to return to the islands. Frankly, any island.

  He didn’t care about the other girls, not anymore. Poison Ivy was the only one who knew anything, she was the only one he was going to kill. Then he was leaving Ned on that damn bus bench, driving to the train station, and saying adios to DC for good.

  His duty to his family was over.

  From the roof, he was blocked from the cops’ view by the surrounding buildings. That gave Brian the opportunity to use the fire escape. He looked at the metal—didn’t look like it would hold him. He didn’t trust these rickety pieces of crap city fire escapes. More than the weight of one person and it looked like the bolts would tear away from the building.

  Carefully, he put his weight on the first landing. Surprisingly, it held him. As quietly as possible, he lowered the ladders to get to the second floor. The ladders didn’t cooperate. They made such a racket that a woman popped her head out of a window two over and yelled at him. He glared at her, and she went back inside.

  On the second-floor landing, he inspected the cinder-block fence that surrounded the church. Barbed wire was embedded along the top of the fence, but if he jumped over it and landed with a roll, he should avoid the sharp barbs. It was only twelve feet.

  He jumped before anyone else popped a head out of a window and made enough noise to alert the feds. He landed on his feet and immediately fell into a roll. But he rolled over a sprinkler head and felt the sharp edges cut into his back.

  The pain made him angry.

  Dammit, that he should have to go through this shit just to find one little whore who tried to play with the big girls. Maybe he would just kill them all before he left, just on general principle. He jumped up, trying to shake off the pain.