by Lauren Carr
She brought her face close to his. “I think we’d both like that.” She placed her lips on his.
“Hey!”
They parted as if they had been shocked by a cattle prod. Storm stood on her hind legs with her front paws on the stair railing next to Gabriel, who looked down at them. “What’s your Wi-Fi password? You do have Wi-Fi out here, right?”
While Archie slept, Mac paced the length of the dining room. Gnarly lay at the top of the steps and followed him with his eyes.
Occasionally, Mac would stop and peer out across the dark waters of Deep Creek Lake. The waters looked choppy—unpredictable—as unpredictable as those who he had thought were his friends.
One of them was a murderer capable of killing four detectives and two witnesses.
Yet, he had trusted each suspect with his life—and they had trusted him with theirs.
Maybe Harrington is right. Derringer and Underwood went into the liquor supply closet to pretend to hook up while Underwood escaped through the ventilation system or drop ceiling to kill Brie and Trevor.
But that would be such an intricate convoluted exercise. How would Underwood have possibly managed that plan if Joan had not left him to get the wedding present from the car?
Not only that—but Underwood was at Robin’s Pub playing pool with Sanchez while we were chasing the murder suspect.
Mac stopped and turned to Gnarly. “Underwood has to be lying. Who is he protecting?”
Chapter Sixteen
The next morning, Hope drove David to the Spencer Inn. Being a family man took some getting used to. It would have been easier to embrace if he had his police cruiser.
He hoped the federal agent that Mac and he were meeting would help close the case quickly to allow him some down time with Hope and Gabriel. The mother and son intended to get in some racquetball at the club while they were gone.
Gnarly was sacked out in his reserved spot in the lounging area, which Storm quickly joined in on while they went into the restaurant for breakfast. Mac and Archie were eating at a table far removed from the wedding party and guests, who occupied multiple tables near the windows looking out on the ski slopes.
“We thought we’d have a more intimate breakfast,” Archie said after greeting each of them with a hug.
“Better to discuss Underwood’s confession out of earshot of other suspects,” Mac said while buttering a roll.
“What’s to discuss?” Hope asked. “He confessed, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did,” Mac said. “He confessed to everything. What he didn’t do, Derringer did.”
“It was basically a conspiracy,” David said, “which would sound plausible to me if he didn’t have air-tight alibis for some of the murders he’s confessed to. Mac, do you believe it’s possible that Underwood and Derringer could have pretended to hook up in the supply closet while he slipped out through the ceiling?”
“Anything is possible,” Mac said.
“Or he could have killed them before going into the closet with Dani,” Archie said while pouring syrup on her French toast. “The thrill of the murders could have gotten him so excited that he and Dani needed to celebrate in the closet.”
“According to Underwood, he and Derringer had Brie’s and Trevor’s murders planned down to minute detail,” Mac said. “He committed them while Joan was getting the wedding present that she had left in the car. Now, how would they have pulled it off if she had not forgotten their gift?” He paused to glance around the table at their blank expressions. “Does Underwood really expect me to believe they planned and successfully pulled off this grand murder conspiracy under his wife’s and his partner’s noses without them ever finding out—even years later?”
“He didn’t do it,” Hope said with certainty.
“That’s what I think, except for one thing,” Mac said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Underwood said things in his confession that only the killer could have known—like about Trevor being shot first and Brie attacking the shooter.”
“And the murderer removing one of the champagne glasses,” David said.
“Underwood could only have known that if he had been in the room.”
“Unless Derringer told him,” Archie said between bites of her breakfast. “You did say that she had been in the crime scene trying to convince you to allow her to work with you on the case.”
“But then why confess to it?” David said. “If he didn’t do it and Derringer fed information to him—”
“He’s protecting her,” Gabriel said.
“She’s dead,” Archie said. “Why protect a dead person?”
“Maybe his wife was in on the conspiracy,” Hope said while pointing to the steak and eggs on the menu, which the server wrote onto her pad. “The forgotten gift was an excuse to allow Derringer and Underwood to set up an alibi in the closet while he committed the murders.”
David gestured for her to be quiet as they saw Will Harrington cross the restaurant toward them.
Upon reaching their table, Harrington greeted each of them with a somber expression. “Sorry, Mac. I hardly slept last night. All these years, I had thought I would be relieved once we found out who’d killed Trevor and Brie. Now that I know Derringer was in on it—” he sighed. “I trusted her.”
“I know exactly how you feel, Harrington,” Mac said. “I didn’t sleep much last night either.”
“And Underwood conspired with her?” Harrington pulled a chair over from another table and sat down. “I remember how devastated she was when that sniper gunned down Bruno. Angry. She blamed Trevor for not stopping Bruno from getting out of the car. How was he to know there was a shooter on the roof?”
In mid-sip of his coffee, Mac paused. Slowly, he set the cup down on the table. “You’re right, Harrington.” He turned to look at him. “How was Trevor supposed to know there was a shooter on the roof?”
The two men’s eyes met.
An eerie calm fell over the table.
“Well, I’d better leave you and your family to your breakfast.” Harrington stood up and set the chair back. He patted Mac on the back. “I’ll see you later, Mr. Faraday.”
“That was a weird conversation,” Gabriel said as soon as Harrington was out of earshot.
“Beyond weird,” Mac murmured while looking at David out of the corner of his eye.
One hour and twenty minutes from Deep Creek Lake, Sideling Hill in Hancock welcomed travelers with a scenic center offering brochures and exhibits of places to visit in Maryland.
While waiting for their informant, Mac leafed through a thick magazine that sported a glossy full-color picture of Gnarly, the mayor of one of Maryland’s quaintest small towns, on the front cover. The book was filled with articles and pictures. It was really a Spencer Inn brochure masquerading as a travel magazine.
Travelers busily examined the many advertisements to determine where to go to take advantage of the sunny autumn weekend. Mac wondered how many were on their way to the Spencer Inn. Had the news of the two murders scared them away? Jeff Ingles was certain that it did.
Impatient to get back home to spend some time with Hope and Gabriel, David circled the center. Noticing the many travelers flowing in and out of the rest stop, he asked Mac in a low voice, “How is this guy going to know we’re his contacts?”
“Hitchcock said he’ll know,” Mac whispered in a steady tone. He looked him up and down. “Are you late for a date?”
“About fifteen years late.”
Mac shook his head with a chuckle.
“You think I’m not responsible enough to be a good father.” David let out a deep breath. “Hell, I don’t think I’m responsible enough to be a good father.”
“You wouldn’t be one of the best police chiefs in the state if you were irresponsible.”
“You had nine months to mentally prepare yourself,” David said. �
�I’ve had zilch. Suddenly, I’m daddy to a fifteen-year-old with a fancy Porsche and a fake ID. That’s not fair.”
Mac grinned. “Could this by any chance be your father’s curse for putting him through the wringer when you were a fifteen-year-old with raging hormones?”
David’s cringe answered his question. The two men broke into low laughter.
“Can I ask you a question?” Mac asked.
“Depends.”
Mac cocked his head at him. “Why aren’t you freaking out?’
“I thought I was.”
“Shocked, yes,” Mac said. “Stunned disbelief? That, too. But most men would have freaked out—even demanded DNA tests—”
“I’m not going to ask for any DNA tests,” David said. “I trust Hope. I’ve always trusted her. Besides—”
“Gabriel has the O’Callaghan eyes.”
“He’s my son, Mac.”
“I know.” Mac leaned against the bookshelf. “Most men wouldn’t have accepted—even embraced it—the way you have. I’m not criticizing. I’m just—”
“I did freak out at first,” David said. “When Hope and Gabriel told me, I didn’t say anything. I was in such shock that I didn’t even notice when they walked away. I vaguely remember going to sit in my cruiser. But then—” He looked up at him. “You stopped by.”
Mac folded his arms across his chest. “Was there something I said that helped clear things up for you?”
“To tell you the truth, I don’t remember what you said at all.”
“How did that help you then?”
“I remembered something that someone pointed out to me a few years ago,” David said. “You and I have the same father.”
“I am aware of that.”
“You inherited the fame, fortune, and power that comes with the Spencer family, but never once met our father. I didn’t inherit any of that but grew up knowing him. Which one of us is the lucky one?”
Silence stretched between them until Mac said, “I always considered you to be the lucky one.”
A slender man in dark sunglasses and a navy pea coat took the Spencer Inn magazine from the rack. He held it up for them to see the cover. “I hear the Spencer Inn is the place to go if you want a weekend getaway. Have you ever been there?”
“Many times,” Mac replied. “Their floral maze is to die for.”
“I have a friend in Washington who says the same thing.” He leafed through the magazine while casting quick glances at the various security mirrors positioned around the center. “Go get in your vehicle. I’ll join you in seven minutes.”
“How do you know which is ours?” David asked.
His slim grin told them that he had been watching them since their arrival.
David and Mac followed his instructions. Mac left the rear door slightly ajar.
Seven minutes to the second later, he climbed into the rear seat. “Chris Matheson.” He stuck his hand between the front seats.
Mac gave his hand a firm shake. “Mac Faraday. This is David O’Callaghan, he’s Spencer’s police chief.” He noted the retired agent’s salt and pepper hair and athletic build. Dressed in jeans and work boats, Chris moved with the agility of a teenager.
“You look pretty young to be retired,” David said.
“I joined the Army rangers at eighteen.” Chris perched his sunglasses on top of his head to reveal striking gray eyes. “I retired after my wife was killed.”
“Hitchcock mentioned that.” Mac told David, “She died in the terrorist attack in France on Bastille Day.”
While Chris remained silent, David let out a gasp at the news. “I can’t imagine—”
“She was with the state department. I was stateside with the kids. One minute, you’re arguing about should you vacation on the ocean or go camping. The next minute, you’re wondering what was so important about where you spend your time together now that you’re not together.”
“Tragedies like that certainly have a way of adjusting your priorities,” Mac said.
“My father used to say that family comes first. Don’t squander the most valuable blessing given to you by God,” Chris said. “That’s why I retired to raise our three daughters.”
“Yeah, Hitchcock said you were one of his best agents.” Mac noticed David staring straight out the windshield.
“Flattery will get you anywhere,” Chris said with a sly grin. “What do you want to know?”
“About when you were working undercover within the Yurievich organization?”
“The Russian mob,” Chris said. “I worked undercover with them for three years.”
“Three years is a very long time,” Mac said.
“That was the longest single undercover case I worked on. I had gotten quite close to Yurievich’s grandson, who was in training to take over the business. It was a huge risk, but I was gathering so much useful information that I couldn’t pull out.”
Mac turned around in his seat. “Malykhin?”
“That was him. We were the same age and clicked as friends. I ended up spending a lot of time with him and got pretty close with his family.”
“That’s why Hitchcock believed you could help us,” Mac said.
“Becoming close friends with your target and getting close to his family,” David said, “you’re damn lucky your cover didn’t get blown and you ended up cut into little pieces and scattered in the river.”
“That’s what everyone worries about. The physical risk.” Chris tapped his temple. “I’ve known a lot of undercover operators who survived physically but got royally messed up in their heads.”
“How is that?” Mac asked.
“Think about it.” Chris’s eyes glazed over with memories of past cases. “When an agent goes deep undercover, like I’ve done, it’s a total immersion into a different world. You have to fit in. Walk the walk. Talk the talk. If you don’t—you’re dead. You become your cover. The thing is, you are in a different world where everyone plays by different rules. You see things that any agent in any other department would be able to instantly act upon. Drug deals. Assaults. Burglaries. Because you’re playing a part in this other world, you can’t break from the character you’re playing—not if you want to live. The thing is, after so long, it’s easy for the person you are pretending to be to take over who you really are and for the real you to disappear.”
“Did that ever happen to you?” David asked.
Chris shrugged his shoulders. “It’d always take me a long time to shed the cover after coming in, but eventually I’d come back. I think it was because I had such a strong upbringing—I had such a strong sense of who I really was that I’d make my way back home pretty easy. But I have heard of more than one agent who didn’t. Marriages breaking up. Families falling apart because the agent couldn’t fit back into who he was before going undercover. The person he had been before was gone.”
“I guess you were lucky,” Mac said.
“Very.” Chris sucked in a deep breath. He raised his eyes to Mac’s. “Why are you asking about Yurievich?”
“I’m investigating a double homicide. It’s a cold case.”
“My favorite.”
“Sixteen years ago in Washington,” Mac said. “Bride and groom killed on their wedding night.”
“Whoever did that had to be a real bastard.”
“Some witnesses have been pointing the finger at Yurievich. The deaths have all the earmarks of being a professional hit. At the time, there was speculation that Yurievich arranged the hit because of his grandson’s arrest. Trevor Polk was one of the detectives who had arrested Malykhin. The bride was a homicide detective. Brie Pratt.”
“Trevor Polk,” Chris repeated the name with a nod of his head. “His partner was Bruno Gordon.”
“He was gunned down six months earlier.”
“They’d
arrested Malykhin for running an identity theft ring.”
“That’s right. Are you familiar with what went down and what was happening inside the Yurievich family at that time?”
“Familiar?” Chris let out a laugh before muttering, “Hell, I was right smack in the middle of all of it.” He glanced around at the vehicles pulling out of the parking spaces around them. “Polk and Gordon arrested me right along with Malykhin. I’d spent ten days in jail before the feds could figure out a way to spring me without blowing my cover.”
“Ten days?” David asked.
“At that point, I had spent a year getting close to Malykhin. We couldn’t let the whole operation get blown because my butt landed in jail along with my target. Malykhin was attracted to his grandfather’s power and money and jumped into the family business with both feet. Unfortunately, he liked to do things his way. He was reckless, which was why he got arrested. He wanted to prove he could be bigger than his grandfather by becoming a big fish on the dark web. One night, we were running an online poker game. The next thing we knew, vice swooped in and Malykhin and I got hauled off to jail.”
“I’ll bet Artemyev Yurievich was furious,” Mac said.
“Ballistic,” Chris said. “But not at Gordon or Polk. He was mad at Malykhin for being sloppy and getting arrested. He actually let him stay in jail for two days before he bailed him out to teach him a lesson.”
“Two other detectives who had information on the Polk and Pratt murder got killed this weekend,” David said. “Their murders have some earmarks of professional hits. The only suspects in the area are police detectives. Have you ever heard word on the street of a detective moonlighting by doing assassinations for organized crime?”
“If your victims were killed by a pro, the client isn’t Yurievich.” Chris tapped his chest. “I was there. I was eating meals with these people. Yurievich was calculating and methodical. He was not about to risk everything by taking out a lowly local detective, which was how he saw Gordon and Polk. He blamed Malykhin. They got Malykhin on a small potato charge. One phone call from Yurievich to a prosecutor he had on his payroll and the charges were dropped.”
