Mindhunters 4 - Deadly Intent (31 page)

“I’m working for Stephen Mulder. His daughter is missing.”

He nodded. “I heard. It’s made national news, although someone is doing a damn fine job of keeping details out of the press.”

“That would be the CBI assistant director. At least he’s been earning his keep in that respect.”

Shepherd leaned forward, clearly intrigued. “After losing her once, I can’t believe Mulder took any chances with her.”

“He didn’t. High-tech security all the way. Someone still managed to snatch her out of her bed and off the property.”

“Inside job?”

“Looks like it. I’ve been reinterviewing the perps caught up in the kiddie swap. All are accounted for, but I was looking for someone with an interest in the girl. Maybe with friends on the outside. Nothing has panned out yet. I wondered if you had any thoughts on it.”

“Me?” Shepherd managed to look surprised and pleased at the same time. “I never had anything to do with those you prosecuted.” He made a face. “Wish I had. But that was your angle. We pushed hard on the gardener they’d fired, if you recall. Never could quite hang it on him.” He made a dismissive gesture. “Once you were on the scene, I discovered why.”

“They moved halfway across the country and have all new household employees. But some of the friends and associates remain the same.” Adam flexed his fingers on the polished mahogany knob of his cane. “I just wondered if anything came to light about the Mulders’ finances, their business dealings, enemies . . . or of their friends that might be of use to us. Something that wasn’t included in the case file.”

The man gave him an amused glance. “Don’t tell me you managed to get a copy of the case file from two years ago.”

Adam inclined his head. “I still have a few friends in the bureau.” He’d studied the thing on the long plane rides and every evening as he’d made the rounds, and nothing had surfaced for him. He was hoping the man next to him had something to offer.

But Shepherd was shaking his head. “I can’t think of anything that wouldn’t be in the file. You don’t think this was another pedophile snatching?”

“More likely motivated by revenge or greed. Or both.”

The buzzer on his old-fashioned desk phone sounded. “Excuse me.” Shepherd got up to stab at the intercom button impatiently. A disembodied voice sounded.

“State police on the line, sir.”

“In a minute.” He turned with an apologetic expression on his face, but Adam was already rising.

“I appreciate the time. Good to see you again.”

“Same here.”

Adam was at the door, his hand on the knob, when Shepherd stopped him. “There was one thing . . .” He looked half-embarrassed, as if he wished he hadn’t said anything. “I left it out of the case file because it has absolutely nothing to do with the investigation. Ancient history.”

Interest sharpening, Adam said, “What’s that?”

“I discovered it by accident and saw no reason to share it with anyone else involved in the case. God knows those people were handling enough misery. But Althea Mulder . . . years ago she and Lance Spencer had an affair.”

Adam was still mulling over the information on the way to the airport. Ancient history, as Shepherd had said. And dredging up that sort of information was always distasteful. Neither Althea nor Spencer had included that detail in their statement. Why the hell would they? He didn’t blame them. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have to find a way to question them about it, discreetly of course, and maybe set Paulie to digging on the details.

He scowled out the window at the bleak flat snowy landscape. It was enough to make him wish he’d never stopped here at all.

His cell rang then, and he dug the phone out of the pocket of his cashmere overcoat, checking the number on the screen. Finding it unfamiliar, he answered, “Raiker.”

The news on the other end of the line elbowed aside his earlier irritation. It took a moment to decide whether to go with honesty or a lie. In the end, honesty lost. “Yes. I did. I’m sorry I didn’t call myself, I just walked out of a meeting.” He listened for a moment longer. “I appreciate you arranging it. Thank you.”

He disconnected, clenching the phone so tightly he could feel the individual keys of the touchpad against his palm. A deep breath didn’t help. Adam knew he had a fierce temper. Which was why he kept it so tightly leashed.

It was threatening to break free now.

His teeth gritted so tightly his jaw ached. And when the Bismarck airport came into sight, he still hadn’t figured out what the hell Macy Reid thought she would accomplish at Terre Haute Penitentiary.

It took far more courage than it should have to not bolt for the exit from the private conference room the warden had arranged. If Adam found out she’d defied his orders, he’d be livid. And Adam Raiker in a temper was something to be avoided at all costs.

A small sound had her turning wildly. It took a moment to realize the noise was from her fingers on the table in front of her, engaged in that rhythmic tapping she couldn’t quite shake under stress.

One, two, three. One, two, three.

Deliberately, she stilled the movements. And felt a newfound courage in the anger that seared through her. Castillo had cost her six years of therapy. Another decade on anxiety medication. And she weaned herself off both because she’d refused to be a victim anymore. She’d decided to do something proactive with her life, and her work had always been rewarding.

Helping put Enrique Castillo behind bars had been an unexpected bonus.

And had provided the kind of therapy one couldn’t pay for.

But facing him again at that trial had been harder, far harder, than it should have been. Which meant he still had a hold on her. She’d be a victim of sorts until she broke free of it.

The clock on the wall ticked loudly. Macy could feel the blood pounding through her veins. She couldn’t swallow around the boulder-sized knot in her throat. If she craned her head, she could see the profile of the guard stationed outside the door she’d been led through. She could leave. Now. Before they brought in Castillo. No one would have to know.

No one but her.

She moistened her lips that had gone suddenly dry. Ever since she’d left the courthouse, she’d been making those kinds of deals with herself. She could call the warden. He might say a visit on such short notice was impossible. Raiker had just been there, after all. What could they possibly need to follow up on already?

But the warden had agreed with an alacrity that had taken her aback.

The ride to the airport had been spent engaged in the same sort of mental warfare. The pilot might not agree to the change in plans. It was Stephen Mulder’s jet. This stop hadn’t been on the itinerary.

But the pilot had readily adjusted his flight plan.

No one was going to save her from her decision. And it took a true coward to hope to be delivered from a plan of her own making.

The other door into the room opened. A ribbon of cold sweat rippled down her spine. And then he was there, filling that doorway. Devouring her with his dark gaze in a way that had her hurtling back in time.

“My prayers have been answered.”

“Apparently no one else’s have been, or you’d be six feet under,” she managed to say crisply. She pressed her knees firmly together to keep them from knocking. To the guard behind him, she gave a nod. “Thank you. This won’t take long.”

He waited for Castillo to seat himself across the table from Macy before he withdrew. And she managed, barely, to avoid screaming for his return.

“Your boss, Adam Raiker, surprises me.”

“How so?”

“I did not think he would send you here. He said that he would not.” His expression grew sly. “I wonder why he changed his mind.”

“In the States, that’s known as looking a gift horse in the mouth, Enrique.” The name sounded foreign on her tongue. Tasted bitter. “You asked for me.” She shrugged with a nonchalance she was far from feeling. “Here I am.”

“Yes, you are here.
Mi rosita inglesa
.”

My little English rose. She couldn’t prevent her flinch at the familiar phrase and knew he’d noted it.

“I could not believe my eyes at the trial. Little Macy Reid, all grown up. It was as if you had walked out of my fantasies and back into my life.”

She managed to hide her shudder. The stuff of this man’s fantasies was dark indeed. Looking him square in the eye, she said, “And seeing that you went to prison for the rest of your life was
my
fantasy.”

There was a jangle of chains as he sat back in his chair, hands loosely clasped in his lap. “I thought of you often, Macy Reid. It is only fitting that you have thought of me, too. Our past binds us together. Our fates are entwined, yours and mine.”

She tried for an expression of cool amusement. Hoped she pulled it off. “Our fates? Your fate is to spend the rest of your life behind bars, remember? I can assure you, I have a very different future in mind for myself.”

It was his turn to shrug. “But whatever your future holds, your past is always a part of it,
es verdad
?”

The words struck her with their clarity. And she finally recognized the strange compulsion that brought her here today.

If there was a way, any way at all, to free herself of her past, facing down this man, alone, was it.

Her watch was a dainty silver band, the face fussier than she would have liked, with encrusted diamonds. It had been a Christmas gift from Ian three years ago. She made a show of looking at it now. “Thirty seconds, Enrique, before I walk out that door again. So if you really have something to tell me like you claimed to have when Raiker was here, I suggest you start talking.”

His eyes glinted and the false friendliness was gone. In its place was the mercenary pedophile he’d always been. “You were spoiled growing up. Had you been left with me, you would have learned your place.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t share your views on child rearing.” The old anger was there, a hot bubbling cauldron of rage. She’d never know the names of the children he’d savaged. Never be able to tell them that their tormentor had finally been brought to justice. And right now, at this moment, his sentence seemed much too lenient.

Life in prison. When so many lived in a prison of his making, filled with memories they could never forget.

Sickened, she pushed away from the table and rose. Adam had been right. This was merely one more act of blatant manipulation. And the time was long past that she’d engage in this man’s games.

“Given the environment where you’ll spend it, I wish you long life, Enrique.”

“I am a man of my word. I promised Raiker I had things to share that he would find interesting, and so I do. You must sit down.”

She laid a hand on the chair back. “I prefer to stand.”

He gave a slight shrug. “Your boss, I am sure he does not know this. But that man—the last enemy that he fought—he had a son.”

Nonplussed, she could only stare at him for a moment. She’d expected that he’d bluffed about having information. And certainly hadn’t expected him to know anything about Raiker’s cases. “What man?”

“The one who cost him his eye.” A beatific smile crossed his face. “If the man were alive, I would ask for the details of that moment. I enjoy thinking of Adam Raiker in much pain.”

“John LeCroix.”

“That was his name. Our paths crossed from time to time, much earlier in my career. I remember there was a boy child. I do not know what became of him. But it is my hope”—he leaned forward with a suddenness that had his shackles jangling—“it is my dearest hope that he is even now plotting revenge on Raiker. That would be justice, I think. And make many, many people happy.”

“If there was a child, Adam already knows about him.”

“I am sure you are right. But he will think this child, this man now, is gone. Dead. That is not true. This much I know. I heard it from LeCroix’s lips the last time we spoke. His mother took him away, and LeCroix spent many years trying to find them.”

Bitterness filled her. “A belated attempt at fatherly devotion?”

“Probably not.” He rolled his shoulders. “A man does not change what is inside him. We talked, he and I, about the convenience of fathering many children, giving them a few years to grow. Alas, it was not to be, for either of us.”