Blind Faith (2 page)

The noise stirred his desire. The fan ruffled the hem of her dress. It wasn't black. Sarah never wore black, refused to accept widow's weeds, even today on this grim occasion. Instead she wore a navy blue dress bought off the rack from the Target down in Merrill, the closest "real" town to Hopewell, twenty-eight miles away through New York's Adirondack mountains on twisty, turning roads designed by a lunatic with a death wish. Her dress had tiny polka dots scattered all over it in some silky material that clung to just the right places. In front there were two dozen buttons that would drive a man wild trying to get her out of it.

A vision of his hands grabbing the material, buttons flying in every direction, filled his mind. Sarah crossed her arms tighter, shivering, her eyes still closed.

He wondered if she ever thought of him that way, wondered if she anticipated their first night together like he did. The hem of her dress slipped, offering him a glimpse of well-tanned thigh.

Soon. If she was as good as he imagined she might be, he might even let her live for a while. A few months after the honeymoon, maybe. Then a quick "accident" and he'd be free to claim the forty-two million dollars that asshole husband of hers had stolen.

It's over, it's over, it's over...
the words threaded themselves through Sarah's mind, spinning a cocoon that blocked out all feeling, providing a soft, safe place to hide. A place where there was no need to think, to do, to react. To be.
It's over, it's over, it's over...

Sarah hugged herself tighter and leaned against the car window, her back to Alan. She'd promised herself that no matter what, she wouldn't break down, at least not in front of anyone.

But Alan wasn't anyone. Alan understood—he'd been through it himself. His wife had been killed by a drug addict who stormed their house looking for cash. That was why he'd left his corporate law practice to focus on victim's rights, to help people like Sarah.

The tires hummed as they spun against the highway, carrying her away from Damian Wright and her last chance to find Sam and Josh.
It's over, it's over, it's over...

Her body sagged against the doorframe, her right hand automatically reaching for the single ring on her left. She had no engagement ring. Instead, Sam had given her his most valuable possession, a guitar pick used by the legendary Stevie Ray Vaughn, and promised that when he sold his first song, he'd replace it with a diamond. Seven years later, the pick still sat in its black velvet jewelry case on her dresser.

Her hand felt cold but her gold wedding band radiated warmth, as if she were touching Sam. She spun the ring in time with the words weaving their way into her soul, inviting her to surrender.
It's over, it's over, it's over….

No! It can't be. Not like this.

Tears pressed against her closed eyelids, burning as they fought to escape. Sarah's grip on the plain, gold band tightened. Her last link to Sam, and through him Josh. She was tired, so very tired. She should give up. What more could she do?

After all, she had a life to live. Sam would want her to be happy. Someday. A ragged breath tore through her and she felt Alan stir beside her. Alan—could she imagine a future with a man like him? A man who'd devoted almost two years of his life to guiding her through this morass of pain and grief, who'd brought her back into the light, had given her this one last chance.

Last chance, last hope, last rites.

It's over, it's over, it's over.

Sarah straightened, opened her eyes and blinked against the harsh Texas sun. She uncurled her legs, stared straight ahead at the black highway stretching hypnotically into the future.

"You all right?" Alan's gaze left the road to stare at her for a long moment.

A small smile curled Sarah's lips. "Yes. I'm fine."

It's over, it's over, it's over
...the words sang through her mind, pounding insistently like a toddler throwing a tantrum, banging his head against the floor when he didn't get what he wanted. Josh had thrown a few of those in his day. Until he learned that when he did, he never got what he wanted.

It's over, it's over, it's over!

Sarah's smile widened and she gave a small shake of her head—the only warning Josh needed now. She'd shake her head, smile and he'd leave his whining behind, take her hand and snuggle against her. "Sorry, Mommy. I forgot."

But I haven't.

It's over, it's over, it's over...No. It's not.

It's just begun.

Wednesday, June 19, 2007: Quantico, Virginia

Supervisory Special Agent Caitlyn Tierney didn't look up at the tentative knock on her open door. Instead she raised a hand, in the universal palm forward gesture of "wait," and kept reading the report on her computer screen. Her latest group of NAT's was in their final week of training. Nerves were frayed as they waited to learn their field assignments, so this hadn't been the first interruption of Caitlyn's morning.

She finished reading her New Agents in Training's scores on their critical incident projects and nodded with satisfaction. They'd done as good as she'd hoped. Even Santos, the diffident, intense twenty-six year old with a background in particle physics, had managed to integrate himself as part of the team. Caitlyn shut the lid to her laptop and looked up at her visitor, half expecting to see Santos himself.

Instead, it was one of the lab geeks—ah, man, she knew his name, he worked in DNA. Not Rogers, no, something close though. She smiled, keeping her face blandly genial as she forced her brain along its circuitous route to match the face of the man before her with his name.

Finally, it clicked—but it took at least twice as long as it would have two years ago, before her accident. Something she'd never admit to anyone.

"Hi, Clemens," she said heartily, gesturing the tech to one of the two wooden chairs beside her overflowing bookcase. "What brings you over here to Jefferson? Teaching a class?"

He shook his head. "Thought it would be easier than asking you to make the trip to the lab building." He was right, the forensic analysis center had more security than Fort Knox. Even FBI staff like Caitlyn needed a special invite and authorization for a pass to enter. Clemens glanced at the open door and shifted his weight in his chair.

She might not be as good with names as she used to be, but Caitlyn was still a pro when it came to nonverbal communication. She rose to her feet, folded her reading glasses and nonchalantly closed the door as she crossed over to sit beside him.

"What's up?" she asked, leaning forward and engaging him in direct eye contact.

He fumbled a file folder from his briefcase. It wasn't marked "top secret" or even "sensitive" so she wondered what all the cloak and dagger was about. Then she saw the name on the file. Damian Wright.

Her first assignment two years ago after she'd returned to work. She'd hated everything about that case: the crimes, the travel, the blinding migraines that blurred her thoughts and almost crippled her with their unrelenting pain and nausea, and most of all her fatuous asshole of a boss, Special Agent in Charge Jack Logan. Logan had swooped in and taken over the case from her, without any warnings or explanations.

"You know Wright's dead?" she asked the lab tech. "Executed in Texas." She glanced at the calendar. "Two weeks ago."

"I know." Clemens' voice was mournful. "I'm sorry."

Caitlyn's spine went rigid. Bright flashes of light sparked at the periphery of her vision. "Sorry? You can't be saying you found anything exculpatory?"

Like most LEO's she felt that death was too good for a lot of these sickos—but it was the best punishment they had. That didn't mean that she, like other law enforcement officers, didn't also live in fear of putting an innocent man on death row.

Which was why she'd reviewed the Texas evidence against Wright herself, even though by that time she was off the case. It had been rock solid. Not only had he been caught with the still warm body of his last victim, butchering the boy, but Wright confessed to everything, refused to allow any appeals on his behalf and became the first person under Texas' new law to be fast-tracked to execution. Twenty-one months from arrest to death, a new record.

Clemens shook his head. "No, Wright killed those boys in Texas, Vermont, Tennessee, and Oklahoma." He paused. Caitlyn took a deep breath, forcing the flashing lights to fade into the distance. "It's that one in New York I'm not too sure about."

"Hopewell, New York. Josh Durandt and his father." Caitlyn remembered. The crime scene had been halfway up a mountain and she'd been wearing a skirt after being whisked away from a memorial service for the Vermont boy. Logan had laughed, giving her no time to change into more appropriate attire and cutting her no slack when her migraine had made her sick during the drive down. He'd joked after she puked her guts out on the side of the road, asked her if she was pregnant, adding that was the problem with "today's FBI." He never had to worry about any of the guys letting him down because they went "hormonal" on him.

"See, I was clearing the backlog and I found these samples in the pile to be disposed of," Clemens said, his tone hesitant as he shifted in his seat, obviously having second thoughts. "You know the new director’s protocols. All evidence reviewed prior to disposal, even in closed cases. Turns out the results from Hopewell were never recorded. Not anywhere. Case like that, they should have been top priority. Instead they were almost trashed. If it wasn’t for the new rules—"

"What do you have?" she asked, sliding the folder from his hand and spreading it open on her lap. The familiar dark lines of a DNA analysis filled the first page.

"The DNA from the Hopewell crime scene, it wasn't Wright's."

"There were two blood types found, right? The dad's and one other. We assumed it was Wright's since the field kit said it was his type and we had his prints on the memory card found there."

"Yeah, it was his print and the card came from his camera. Wright's reflection can be seen in some of the photos. He definitely took them."

"Who was at the crime scene with him? Are you saying he had an accomplice? There was no evidence of that at any of the other scenes." She ran her hand through her shoulder length hair, absently rubbing at the puckered skin above her right ear. Her hair hadn't even grown out when she was in Hopewell. Back then it had been so short, it barely covered the surgical scar.

Clemens blew his breath out. "That's where it gets a bit weird."

Caitlyn straightened. It never boded well when a lab geek called evidence weird. "How weird?"

"Conspiracy theory, cover-up, Area 51, political and career suicide kind of weird." He grimaced. "I've gone over everything a dozen times. The data is correct. It's the facts surrounding it that are wrong."

"You mean
my
facts,
my
investigation?"

He looked down at his scuffed Adidas and nodded. "Yeah." He looked up again, pushed his hair back when it fell across his forehead. "Well, yours and Special Agent in Charge Logan's. He was the agent of record. His name was on all the paperwork. But since he's retired, I thought I better come to you." He gave her a hesitant smile. "Maybe you could tell me what to do with it."

Caitlyn stared past him, through her small window that looked out over the expanse of forest that was home to the Yellow Brick Road, the academy's famed obstacle course. Sunlight streamed in, almost bringing her headache back. She'd always suspected Logan of hiding something. He'd hustled her off the Wright case as fast as he could, claiming she was needed to help with the Katrina cleanup efforts. She'd spent weeks working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, identifying over 4800 kids and re-uniting them with their families. An area more suited to a woman's talents, in Logan's words.

She turned to Clemens. "Tell me everything."

September 6, 2005: Hopewell, NY

Dear Sam,

The news is filled with death and destruction. The search for you has pretty much ended as all eyes turn south to Katrina's destruction and chaos. All eyes except mine, of course.

The Colonel's wife still comes every day. She says talking about you, keeping this journal is the best way for me to heal, to understand that our Lord has a plan beyond my mortal comprehension and that I must let go of you and Josh and accept that you are in a better place and soldier on.

Today for the first time, I spoke to her. I told her the truth about how I felt. I told her that she and her good Lord could go to Hell.

The Colonel hustled her out faster than a lightning bolt, her still sputtering about how I should respect her as my stepmother if not as a Christian woman.

Sometimes I swear the Colonel only married her after Mom died because she bakes the best caramel apple pie in the county and knows how to make a bed with hospital corners. Honestly, I know they've been together now for four years, but what the hell was he thinking? Don't say it—I can almost hear you humming that stupid song you wrote about her, Requiem for the Morally Superior and Personality Challenged. Anyway, she's out of my hair and my house, so more's the better.