Mortal Sin (38 page)

“Fran could have killed him. You’d be an accessory.”

“Fran didn’t kill him.”

“I’m not buying this.”

“I don’t care.” Mallory sighed. “Your warrant was thin, and you know it, but I’m not getting a lawyer, and I’m not going to defend myself. I don’t want to. I’ve given you everything. I’m done.”

Noah frowned, a thought coming to him, but then it left. Hans picked up on the silence and said, “Fran lawyered up. Clark Jager.”

Mallory shrugged. “You really want to put her in prison?”

“She killed at least one man.”

“Who deserved it.”

“Who didn’t have a trial. She’s scared.”

Mallory nodded. “She was always the weak link. But she’s not talking, because the only one she can turn on is me, and I’ve already given myself up. What more can I tell you?”

“Fran’s lawyer is threatening to pull the police records of every WCF staffer—and volunteer. Their argument is that if someone at WCF is involved, it’s not Fran Buckley, but one of her staff.”

Mallory straightened. He immediately saw the repercussions of such a move, which Noah and Hans were counting on.

“That’s bullshit. No one else at WCF was involved. You got Biggler, and he never killed anyone. He was my backup. He watched my ass.”

“And his sister Brenda, who was your lure,” Hans said. They hadn’t gotten the report back from Abigail and the bartender at Club 10, but Hans played the bluff perfectly.

“Please be lenient with Brenda,” Mallory pleaded. “She helped because she worships her brother. I don’t think she ever really thought deeply about what we were doing.”

“It was just the three of you—four including Fran Buckley.”

“Yes,” Mallory said. “Lucy had nothing to do with any of it, except unknowingly setting up the meetings. You know that, both of you.”

“We know it,” Noah said, “but we won’t be able to stop Jager if he petitions for all criminal records. Lucy’s past will be on display during the trial—”

“Fran will plead. She won’t let Lucy suffer—”

“She’s not cooperating. She denied involvement, and implied it was someone else at WCF.”

Mallory pounded a chained fist on the table. “You can prove otherwise! I told you what happened!”

“Your word means shit right now,” Noah stated. “Jager will tear you apart in the courtroom. You could be saying that the sun rises in the east, and no one on the jury will believe you when Jager gets through with destroying what little credibility you might have. It doesn’t matter whether we believe you or not.”

“I have proof.” Mallory hung his head. “I didn’t want it to come to this, but …” His voice trailed off and he was lost in thought for several seconds. “The night before she killed Weatherby, Fran flew commercial from Dulles to Albany. Her college roommate, Sylvia Dunham, lives in Troy. She borrowed Sylvia’s car to drive to Boston. Sylvia had no idea what Fran was doing, I don’t know what excuse Fran gave her, but Sylvia will remember the trip because Fran got into a minor accident driving back on I-90. The car wasn’t totaled, but Fran wrote her a check to pay for damages so that there would be no insurance claim. The accident was the early morning after Weatherby was killed—I told Fran I would take care of everything, and she left.”

All verifiable. “That’s not definitive proof.”

“Other than my word, that’s all I have.”

It might be enough to make her squirm, Noah thought. But it wouldn’t make Jager sweat.

“What about the gun?”

“I disposed of it—you’ll never be able to find it, and even if you did, the water damage would render any forensic evidence worthless.”

“Where did she get the gun?” Noah asked.

Mallory looked at him as if he were smarter than he’d expected. “I never asked.”

Hans said quietly, “Why did you get Lucy involved in the first place? You had to know that one day, this would crash down around you and burn the one person you claim to want to protect.”

“You won’t understand.” Mallory put his cuffed wrists against his forehead. “Even though she didn’t know she was helping us, there was a sense of justice in her getting those guys. She’s so good at this, Hans, she’s
uniquely qualified in separating the online jerks from the true predators.”

“So you stalk her and kill her ex-boyfriend because you
admire
her?” Noah was losing his temper, his tone getting louder.

“I didn’t kill Lorenzo, and I wasn’t stalking Lucy!”

“Mallory, the fake suicide note was written by the same person who sent Lucy a dozen red roses on Monday morning. If it was Lorenzo, it ties everything up in a pretty package. But it wasn’t. Forensics proved it. Admit it was you.”

“I didn’t send Lucy roses!”

“Give it up—”

“I swear to God, I did not.” Mallory leaned forward. “Are you lying to me?”

“We haven’t been doing the lying here.”

He pounded his fist again. “Listen to me! I didn’t send the roses, I didn’t kill Lorenzo, and I didn’t write any fucking notes! If the roses were sent by the same person who killed the cop, then Lucy is in danger! Dammit, where is she? What kind of morons are you?”

A mourner held the outer door of Holy Trinity open for Lucy as she walked in from the snow. A large flake hit her on the back of the neck and she rolled her shoulder so her collar would absorb the moisture. “Thank you,” she mumbled, and walked into the church just after the processional. She looked around and spotted Cody’s partner, April Dunnigan, near the back. Lucy slid into the pew behind her.

April was a well-rounded, fit ebony-black cop a few years older than Cody, with short curly hair and six
piercings in each ear. They’d been partners for as long as Lucy knew Cody.

She tapped April on the shoulder. The cop turned around, her eyes rimmed red but her expression guarded. When she recognized Lucy, she came around to her pew and gave her a hug.

“I’m glad you could come,” she whispered.

“You heard about the evidence?”

April nodded. “Are you okay?”

Lucy shrugged. “I’ll be okay. What about you?”

“I want to shoot the bastard who killed him.” She grimaced. “I shouldn’t say that here.”

“I’m sure God understands.” He had to understand better than she did.

The cop went back to her seat, and that was fine with Lucy. She preferred to grieve alone.

It was hot in the church, and Lucy took off her coat, folding it beside her. She took a deep breath.

There were only a few cops present, but this was the mass before the prayer service. Lucy suspected many would arrive during and after mass. And the funeral on Friday would be a procession through D.C. with every cop in attendance. Lucy had been to the funeral of an officer killed in the line of duty, a friend of Cody’s from the police academy. She and Cody had been seeing each other then, and the murder had hit Cody hard, but at the same time he had never wavered from his duty.

“
No one told us we’d live into retirement. But dying to protect all that we hold precious is easier to accept than dying in vain.
”

The guilt ate at her because there was no reason Cody should have died. In her head she knew that Cody was a
cop, that this was his job, but at the same time, it was a different situation—they should have brought in the FBI from the beginning. Maybe Cody would still be alive.

Lucy stood a few seconds later than everyone else for the Our Father, surprised that the prayer had come so soon. How long had she been here? It didn’t seem like more than a few minutes. She only vaguely remembered the readings. She was still too hot, and her eyes were dry. Too many tears shed in the last two days.

But in the back of her mind, she thought something was truly wrong with her. Was she getting sick? Sean had made her eat a late lunch, though she’d told him she wasn’t interested in food. He cooked chicken noodle soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. She’d eaten half, but now the small meal felt like a lead ball in her stomach.

She breathed deeply.

“Lucy?”

April’s voice sounded far away.

“Are you okay?”

“I—I think I’m going to be sick.”

“I’ll take you to the bathroom.”

Lucy wanted to tell her no, she was fine to go alone, but instead she nodded. April took her arm and led her toward the bathrooms to the right of the vestibule.

Two uniformed officers brought in a flurry of snow as they stepped into the entry. The cold coming in from the outside felt remarkable to Lucy. “April, I’m just going to step outside for a minute. I think I just need air. I’ll be in before communion.”

“I can go with you,” April offered.

Lucy shook her head. “One minute—it’ll clear my head.”

“I’ll wait here.” April spoke softly to the officers while Lucy stepped outside.

The cold air did clear her head, and she watched the snowfall, thicker than when she’d arrived thirty minutes ago. She still felt ill, but she rarely got sick. She figured it must be grief. She missed Cody. She loved him—not in the way he wanted her to, but it didn’t mean she hadn’t cared for him deeply.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered into the cold.

Forgive me for thinking you’d do anything to scare me
.

Though her skin was flushed, she was cold outside. She turned to go back inside, and the door was farther away that she’d thought. Her black sweater was damp and white from the snow, but she didn’t remember walking away from the doors. Everything was too bright—the snow, the lights in the entry, radiating colors and razor edges.

Something was wrong with her, but she knew she wasn’t sick. It was something else, and panic rose as her heart pounded. She couldn’t think coherently. She opened her mouth to call for April, but only a squeak came from her throat. The church and snow spun around her, faster and faster, and she thought she was a spinning top. Around and around and around …

 … she was lying in the snow. She’d fallen … but she was at the bottom of the stairs. How? The streetlight above her beckoned her, a hand, as if God Himself was taking her up to Heaven.

She wanted to go. She was so sad, so lost.

Sean
.

Her heart thudded painfully in her chest and she focused
on the steady, too-fast beat. Did her heart really beat this fast?

Sean, help me. I don’t want to die
.

She tried to stand but couldn’t. Her hands dug into the newly fallen snow. She reached for her phone, but it wasn’t in her pocket. It wasn’t there because she’d left her coat in the pew in the church, and her phone was in that pocket.

She wanted to cry, but no sound, no tears, came. She had no control over her body, as if she were paralyzed. She desperately wanted Sean to pick her up and carry her to his bed. To hold her. To kiss her. To make love to her. She hadn’t allowed herself to think about the future, the possibilities, but Sean had walked into her life and she didn’t want him to leave.

She’d crawl. She could crawl home. No, that was two miles away. April would wonder why she was outside for so long. April … who was April? She felt she should know, but she couldn’t remember. What was she thinking? Crawling home? Where was home? Did she have a home?

She tried to call out again but couldn’t. Her mind swirled, as if in a blender, her head aching, her stomach clenching. She was so hot, she stared at the blinding snow and expected to see steam rise from where her fingers clawed the ice.

Sean
.

Who was Sean?

“Let me help you up.”

The voice sounded a million miles away. She rolled over, her body heavy, lying in the snow. She looked up,
but didn’t see anything, only a vague shape and a gloved hand.

“Thank you,” she tried to say, but her tongue was thick and dry.

I want to go home
.

She couldn’t remember her address.

She was lifted off the ground. She thought she heard her name from far, far away …

A female voice calling, “Lucy? Lucy, where are you?”

Sean and Kate pounded on the glass door of the florist shop. It was five after seven and they had closed.

He’d screwed up. Why hadn’t he pushed the florist earlier for a positive ID? He could have come back with Lorenzo’s picture and verified the receipt that showed that he’d bought the roses. Why had he believed it so readily? Because Lorenzo was obviously still in love with Lucy? Because he was her ex-boyfriend?

Mallory could be lying through his teeth about not being Lucy’s stalker, but Sean wasn’t taking any chances. There was too much doubt, and far too much at stake.

Kate called out to the woman behind the counter. “FBI—we have an emergency.” She held her badge up to the glass.

Lucy hadn’t answered her cell phone, but she’d probably silenced it during Mass. He sent her a text message and hoped she’d read it.

Dillon is on his way to Holy Trinity. Don’t leave the church under any circumstances. Text me back, let me know you’re okay
.

If Noah had called thirty minutes earlier, Sean wouldn’t have left Lucy at the church. He’d have stayed with her, even though she told him not to. But he’d
thought she was safe. Mallory and the others were behind bars and no one was going to hurt her.

He pictured her hurt and scared, and his mind snapped into focus. Self-pity wouldn’t help.

He needed to think clearly.

“Dammit,” Kate muttered when the woman frowned at them and didn’t come to the door. Kate pounded harder. “Police! Emergency!”

“Maybe she doesn’t speak English,” Sean said.

“She speaks English,” Kate said. “She just doesn’t want to be bothered.” She hit the door one last time. “Police!”

The woman shuffled to the door. She unlocked it and cracked it open. “We’re closed.”

“FBI, we have some questions about a customer.”

The woman frowned. “I can’t help you.”

“Yes you can. You have security tapes.” Kate pointed to the cameras. “Were you working Monday morning?”

“Yes, but—”

“I have a couple of pictures for you to look at. Please let us come in.” It sounded more like a command than a request.

The woman hesitated, then sighed and let them in. “My daughter said someone was asking about a delivery. She’s not supposed to talk about our customers.”