“Before you stepped in after her, raised the gun and shot her. Thinking she was Jamie.”
He had to make her see. To tear away all her optimism, all her seeing the good in people, and see the harsh truth that the young man she cared about had meant to kill her.
Would kill her now.
And he couldn’t take his eyes off the guy to check if she understood.
“How did you know she was dead, Adam?” he asked.
“She had to be. I was sure she was. She made— There was a … sound… when I went past her to turn off the air conditioning. But I didn’t look at her. Not directly at her. So I couldn’t be entirely sure. I should have checked. I really, really should have. I realized that when I got home. Because then I couldn’t be absolutely sure and I had to wait. You know, for the official confirmation… Waiting. That was hard.
“The only time I could stop thinking about that was at the foundation, working. And then it was all okay. They found her. You found her. Everything was clear again. And it was all worthwhile, because the donations were amazing. Truly, amazing, Jamie.” His face changed. The confusion gone, the zealotry vivid. “Then you came back. And that ruined everything. Have you seen the numbers? They’re down. Down. How many people will that hurt? All so you can keep living?
“Maybe some of them believe Oz. Believe what he said about maybe it was all a publicity stunt by you, when it wasn’t. But it’s okay now, because they’ve arrested him. And donations rise again when the story goes back the way it was.”
Belichek came up another stair. From his peripheral vision, he could see Jamie in the chair. Between the window and the door to the bathroom.
“Or they’ll dry up completely,” he said, “because people will know it’s a publicity stunt. You doing this to try to get publicity for more donations.”
“No. No. It’s not like that.” Adam stepped forward. Better, but not clear of the door. “You shut up or I’ll shoot you first.”
SWAT hadn’t had near enough time to get here and set up a shot. And even when they did, Jamie would be between them and their target.
He needed to get Jamie out of here or Adam out of that bathroom.
“How would you explain that, Adam? Two dead bodies.”
“I’d… I’d think of something.”
“Better to let Jamie go and keep me. Detective as a hostage — you can’t beat that.”
He shifted the gun toward Belichek, but said, “You wouldn’t help the foundation any. Jamie needs to be shot. But you shut up or I’m going to—”
“No. Please. Adam, talk to me.” Jamie twisted more in the chair. The barrel swung back toward her.
“I have to do this, Jamie. I have to.”
Tears tracked down his cheeks. Sorrow, loss, even a kind of remorse before committing the act — none of that changed that he would pull the trigger.
“I don’t want to die, Adam. Not even for the foundation. I would never sacrifice you for the foundation.”
“But you said—”
“I was telling Hendrickson he would not be running the foundation. Even though I was taking a step back, he wasn’t going to step up, the way he thought he would — assumed he would. I was telling him there would be a new structure when the management company came in. That was the sacrifice — his ego and my ego, sacrificed to make room to help us grow. But never, never to sacrifice people, Adam. You know we want to help people. We don’t sacrifice the families we help, even to help other people.”
“You should,” he said earnestly. “If it can make the foundation stronger, you should. You see that, don’t you, Jamie? I have to. I have to.”
He tightened his hold on the gun, his finger on the trigger.
Different light filled his eyes.
Belichek had seen that light before. But Jamie kept trying.
“If you thought I wanted this, you wouldn’t have stolen my key and sneaked in. You know you shouldn’t do this. You know it’s wrong.” Her eyes flicked to him, then back to Adam. “Just like reading someone else’s journals is wrong.”
Her journals…
“No, no, you’re trying to confuse me. Stop that. Stop.”
Belichek surged up the stairs as Jamie threw the journal at Adam. He flinched as the hard spine connected with his cheek, fired off one deafening barrel into the ceiling. Before he could do more, she threw another journal, then another.
But he was lowering the barrel to aim at her again when Belichek cleared the stairwell and shot him.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
Adam Delattre was expected to survive his injuries, but he’d have no escape from a list of charges topped by murder and attempted murder.
The people around Maggie saw her brain spinning a narrative for the trial … along with a strategy to try to sell her boss, the Fairlington County Commonwealth’s Attorney, that she should prosecute the case. Wasn’t going to happen with her connection to Jamie, but she’d try her damnedest.
Oz Zeedyk admitted to setting up the bugs for his “leaks,” paying delivery guys extra for including certain items, though they hadn’t known about the bugs. In addition to the napkins, they found a bug in each of three new sets of salt shakers.
He was on the hook for charges. If Belichek and Maggie had any say there’d be major charges for exposing Jamie to danger. But at least he didn’t face a murder charge.
The Sunshine Foundation faced major changes. But Jamie had already talked to the management company about proceeding. Celeste remained. Jamie asked Denise to transition from volunteer to paid staffer, especially focusing on donors. Hendrickson tried pretending nothing had changed, Jamie didn’t. They had only gotten as far as agreeing to talk.
But today, they were all at the Fairlington County Police Department, having been individually debriefed in preparation for a wrap-up news conference tomorrow.
Nancy Quinn was also here, using spare moments with Maggie to catch up on work, or so she said. Some observers suspect it was more of a mother hen checking in on her chick and her chick’s cousin.
Landis had arranged coffee and refreshments — provided in an empty glass office, since everyone was still shying away from the break room — while they waited for questioning of the foundation staff to end in case there were follow-up questions for them.
As they headed for the office, they encountered Landis escorting Oliver “Oz” Zeedyk out of an interview room. Hemmed in by the pods, there was no way to avoid each other.
Belichek angled to be between the guy and Jamie, but she put a hand on his arm and stepped forward to the podcaster.
In someone else, Belichek would say the guy was thrown by coming face to face with the woman whose danger he’d traded on for podcast ratings, and trying hard to hide it with defensive bravado.
“I’m so sorry about your sister, Mr. Zeedyk. Your sister and your family.” Without diverting any focus from what his family had suffered, she’d connected into his experience because of her own.
No one could doubt Jamison Chancellor’s sincerity. Not even Oliver Zeedyk.
The clenched muscles that had twisted his face relaxed a half turn. Not completely. But they eased. Some.
Before he said anything, another joined the clot. Detective Danolin said, “Would you come with me, Mr. Zeedyk, please?”
His facial muscles reclenched. Not quite as tightly, though. “What? More? I thought—”
“This is a separate matter. About your sister, sir. I wasn’t on her case, but I remember it and something of interest’s come up.”
“My … sister?”
“Yes, sir. If you’d come this way.”
The rest of them stayed where they were, watching Danolin guide Oz around the bullpen pods to the Chief of Detectives’ office.
Belichek asked, “Did you find something, Landis?”
“Wasn’t me. All Danolin.” Landis gestured them toward the office as he explained. “When Sandy Zeedyk’s case came up in connection with this, Danolin remembered a similar case
over in D.C., a couple years after he made detective, about seven years after Sandy Zeedyk’s murder. They got the guy on the more recent murder. Danolin dug through case files and contacted the retired lead from D.C., who said he’d always believed his guy wasn’t a first-timer, that he’d killed before, but the communication wasn’t like it is now. They went through the cases and several points matched. Danolin checked the evidence on Sandy Zeedyk’s case and there was enough to run DNA with methods available now, but not back then. He got Palery to put in a request. It’ll be a while, but we’re working the case again — Danolin is working it.”
“What I want to know,” Maggie said, when they were all in the office, “is about this case. Did you two have any idea it was Adam Delattre before he showed up in Jamie’s house? And how the hell did he get in? When did he get in?”
“Working backward on those question,” Landis said, handing Nancy a coffee cup. “He got in while Belichek was running, using a key he’d copied when he swiped the new set from Jamie’s purse in the foundation office.”
“I shouldn’t have left—”
Jamie talked over him. “I should have heard him and I shouldn’t have left my keys out. I never thought…”
“Enough with the self-blame,” Nancy ordered. “Did you two suspect him?”
Landis nodded to Belichek to answer. “Not soon enough. I should have picked it up early. Adam said he’d planned to drop Bethany Usher’s background into the management company’s lap and Jamie would never have to know. But if she’d come back like she was supposed to, she would have had to know, even with the management company running the office. Only if Jamie was dead would she not have ever needed to know Bethany Usher’s background — because she’d be past caring.”
“He was going to murder her, but spare her feelings over a con — in both senses of the word — in their midst,” Landis added. “Mixed-up little shit. Just before the shit hit the fan, Bel called me, saying Adam Delattre was the guy.”
“How did you arrive at that conclusion, Bel? That’s what I want to know,” Maggie said.
“Was thinking about … things, and I remembered Landis saying he was having a hard time getting a grasp on a motive because he kept coming up against the foundation employees being do-gooders.”
Jamie’s gaze slid to Landis. He shrugged unapologetically.
“And he said the foundation folks weren’t trying to cash in. I agreed when he said it. But then I got thinking maybe they were trying to cash in, just not in the way we’re used to seeing. Hendrickson York was. Only his currency was ego. Celeste’s was unrequited love. Even Jamie’s in a way was—”
“That’s—”
Belichek cut across Maggie’s protest. “Protection. Security. Hiding out.”
Jamie’s cheeks pinkened but she never looked away from him.
“And then I started thinking about Adam Delattre. What was his currency? What transaction was he after? Making the Sunshine Foundation a major player. A force to be reckoned with — how much from self-interest, how much from a twisted version of altruism—?” He lifted one shoulder. “But then it started to make sense. Without professional management coming in, the foundation couldn’t keep running without Jamie. So it was never even a possibility, a consideration. But bringing them in changed Jamie’s role. She didn’t have to handle the day-to-day running — you said it and Celeste repeated it. You wanted the foundation to be able to survive without you. And it could. But that made Adam look at how you could become even more valuable to the foundation. The financial fuel that could keep the engine going for a long, long time.
“As long as you became a story that was big enough, tragic enough to supply that fuel, he considered you worth more to the foundation dead than alive.”
“For God’s sake, Belichek—”
“He’s right, Maggie,” Jamie interrupted.
“Not me. Adam.”
“As much as you hope the mission’s enough, a good story trumps all,” Jamie said. “And what’s a better story than the founder being murdered?”
“The young, attractive founder being tragically murdered leaving an unsolved mystery behind,” Landis said. “Hell of a story.”
Jamie nodded. “The donations after the discovery of my supposed corpse prove that.” Her mouth twisted. “They’ll drop hard after this. Not only a staff member arrested, but the end of the story.”
“Not necessarily,” Maggie said. “Feed the media monster right and you could draw this out. Lots of interest now, then resurgence for the trial. Of course, you’ll need to be the one out there flogging the stories. Then the public will eat it up.”
“Oh, Maggie. I don’t know…”
“It’ll help the foundation. You’ll do it,” her cousin said with certainty. “Now, get back to Adam, Bel.”
“Not much to get back to. After that motive turned on the light to view his words and deeds from a different angle, it was obvious. He practically told us the first day. He said, Since her death — since the news of it — donations are through the roof. He was the only one to separate out those times. For the rest, it was like the news of Jamie’s death was also the day she died. Not for Adam. Because he knew when the death happened. He’d been waiting and waiting for the body to be discovered.”
“Poor Adam.”
The rest of them groaned at Jamie’s words.
“No, really. I know he’s done horrible things, but also think what strain he was under from the time he shot Bethany until the body was found. That must have been so difficult.”
“A difficulty he could have avoided by not shooting someone in the face, thinking it was you,” Maggie reminded her.
“So, what about you two now?” Nancy waggled two fingers between Belichek and Jamie.
They didn’t look at each other or speak.
“I wondered. J.D. said, but I thought he was crazy, but then…”
“Pretty obvious,” Nancy said. “He read her deepest and darkest in her journals—”
“Maggie,” Jamie protested.
“I didn’t tell her. Didn’t tell anybody. J.D. already knew.”
“—and accepts her clouds along with the rest. Woman would be a fool to pass that up. At some level Jamie knows it, too. Because she’s been able to be cranky and irritated at him when she didn’t trust anybody else with that part of herself except her cousins. And—”
“Okay, I did tell her that,” Maggie confessed.
“—if Belichek doesn’t grab Jamie, he’s stupider than I ever thought.”
“On that cheery note,” Landis announced, “the rest of us are all wanted — somewhere. Including you, Nancy. Only Bel and Jamie get off from this round. Everybody out.”
Maggie, J.D., and Nancy cooperated fully.
Just before Landis closed the door, he hung on the frame on one side and the edge of the door on the other and said to his partner, “Jesus, Belichek, I said you were like the detective in that Carol Burnett skit, preferring the portrait — or journals — to the real-life woman because it’s simpler, but don’t be an idiot.”
Then he closed the door.
“Carol Burnett? A portrait? What’s that about?” Jamie’s voice didn’t sound quite right.
“Ravings of Tanner Landis.”
Belichek caught a faint reflection of himself and Jamie in the window of the office, now empty of everyone except them.
They stood with the corner of the desk between them. Her looking up. Him looking down.
“You don’t have to say anything, Jamie. Now or —”
“Now,” she said.
But he could hear her breathing. Fast, uncomfortable.
“Thank you, Ford.” She rushed out the words.
“Doing my job.”
“You were right about me. I needed to stop closing my eyes to what I didn’t want to see because I was trying so hard for all sunshine.”
“Like I said, doing my job.”
In the reflection, her chin came down, so she was looking toward
him. He didn’t meet her gaze. “Was that all? I was a job to you?”
Say yes, and he’d know right where he was. Where he’d been for a long time.
“No.”
Breath streamed from her. Still, he didn’t look toward her.
“I needed your strength, your knowledge of the dark side, Ford. You made me face it, accept it. Those minutes with Adam, I don’t think I could have accepted what could really happen. I wouldn’t have acted. And now. I won’t ever be without a piece of that, no matter how much I look on the bright side. But you need my strength, my vision of the bright side, too.”
He breathed, feeling pain in his chest.
“Look at me Rutherford Belichek.” He did. “You can’t afford to be a pessimist all the time. You can’t survive without ever looking on the bright side. I won’t let you. Because you’ve been hiding out, too. Hiding out where it’s dark and familiar.”
As if she’d seen inside his thoughts.
“Jamie.”
“We’re going to do that for each other — so we see both sides. Together.”
“You have no idea what being with a cop’s like. Especially me.”
“You have no idea what being with Little Mary Sunshine’s like. Especially when I’m not.”
“I wanted to watch out over you — all three of you. It was a boy’s dream to help his grandfather. To carry on for him. I owed it to him. That’s not a basis—”
She stepped up close to him, tipping her head back. “Quit hiding behind that. Because then you fell in love. With me. Not with Maggie. Not with Ally. Me. What was it Tanner said? It was safe for you to fall for me because I was dead?”
She leaned in, her body close enough to his that breathing made them brush.
“But I’m not dead, Ford.”
“Jamie.” Two syllables. Warning. Stern. In control. Then none of that, as he said the same two syllables again. “Jamie.”
Price of Innocence Page 35
