CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Nash was at his desk at Cytology, relieved that the day was over. He hadn’t felt right about the decision to send the group to school today knowing that one of their teachers was a killer who could be on their trail. Way too risky.

However, Patricia had pulled rank, and the only thing Nash could do was periodically check the grainy camera feeds he’d placed around Cedar Springs High to try to catch a glimpse of each of them throughout the day. Unfortunately, the cameras were sporadically placed.

“You’re still watching them?” Patricia had asked at one point earlier that day when she’d poked her head in.

“Just keeping an eye on things,” he maintained coolly. “Protecting our assets.”

“They’re fine,” Patricia said with a dismissive wave. Was she too emotionally involved with the case, causing her to put lives in jeopardy because she wanted it solved? Or did she see the five of them as merely tools? Either way, her lack of precaution alarmed him. Though he could admit the amount of intel the group had funneled to them by the end of the day was impressive, it didn’t ease his nerves.

He turned his eyes away from the school security feed and back to his laptop. Robert Carpenter. That’s the one he needed to concentrate on right now. Andrew had just called him to report the connection between Greenly and Carpenter — they were old college friends. Robert had an airtight alibi for the evening of Lily’s murder. But if he, Greenly and Devon Warner were working together, Robert could have covered his tracks that night. Suspicion would naturally fall to an ex-husband, particularly an ex-husband aware of the serum’s value. Greenly and Devon could’ve done all the dirty work while Robert was the brains behind the operation.

Now Nash was attempting to piece together an accurate time line for Robert during the time frame of Devon’s murder. Robert may not have been as careful to secure an alibi that night as he had been for Lily’s. Nash was also keen to get a better idea of why Lily and Robert’s marriage had dissolved and what level of acrimony it had reached — and not necessarily from Patricia, who had been too close to Lily to be objective on the matter. Of course, it was possible that Robert hadn’t been involved in any murders at all. Greenly could have learned about the serum from Robert and acted on his own accord with Devon.

Either way, it was a big find from Andrew. So why was Nash having such a hard time focusing on it?

There was something blocking him. A feeling that there was more danger he had missed. Or that there was something else hurtling toward them that he hadn’t anticipated. It was only an instinct, but he never ignored his instincts. Not only had they saved his life and others in the field, they were what had led him straight into the FBI in the first place. It was rare to be recruited right out of high school, but the FBI had been watching him since he was ten years old.

Ever since they killed his father.

Nash had been just a toddler when his father left, and his subsequent visits over the years were rare. Random drop-ins that made Nash, his mother and his stepfather increasingly uncomfortable. Nash’s father was always ranting about something new — secret wars, government robots, apocalyptic notions. Nash might not have understood the bizarre theories, but even as a child, he knew the thinking behind them was flawed and inaccurate.

On his father’s last visit to Nash, they met on his mom’s front porch and Nash made no move to hug him. For one thing, they rarely had physical contact. But his father smelled acrid this time, like motor oil.

He asked Nash what grade he was in and if he still played soccer. After a few more routine questions, his father circled back to soccer.

“You still play over at Woodley Park?”

“Sometimes,” Nash answered.

“When?”

“On the weekends.”

“Never after school?”

Nash told him no. There were too many lowlifes, junkies and cops hanging around the park on weekdays because of the courthouse right next to it. His father made a few comments about how the government was responsible for the mass addiction problems of the poor in this country and how the wrong people were being tried in that courthouse.

Later that night, Nash replayed the conversation in his head, something telling him not to let it go. His father had kept asking him about soccer. Why? He’d never been interested in any sports. Why had he suddenly taken such a keen interest in where and when Nash played?

When Nash woke up the next morning, it hit him all at once. The leading questions to confirm that he wouldn’t be at Woodley Park on a weekday … the stench of motor oil emanating from his father’s body as if he’d bathed in it …

Nash had never been more certain of anything in his life.

His father was going to blow up the courthouse.

He barged into his mother and stepfather’s room and begged them to call the FBI. He was so insistent that they finally did. Agents found his father in the basement of the courthouse that day; he’d already killed two guards to gain access. He was moments away from detonating his homemade bomb, but the agents shot him dead right before he flipped the switch. Ten-year-old Nash had saved hundreds of lives … though he would never forget that it had been at the expense of his father’s life.

When an agent questioned Nash later that day, he was impressed with the boy’s deductions. He gave Nash a few games and puzzles to play with while he waited. At the time, Nash had thought it was to distract him from his father’s death, but now he understood they were tests. The same agent checked in on him every year until he finally realized he was being vetted.

And his performance in the FBI had apparently been as impressive as they had hoped. There were only a select few in the FBI who knew who Nash’s father was, but he still worked doubly hard to distance himself from that infamy. Step by step and year by year, he had built a name for himself within the agency, and he wasn’t about to break his streak now.

He’d never been on a case with so much at stake. Was this imminent danger he sensed something that was right in front of him or something that had yet to show its face?

Nash turned back to his screen.

Time to focus on Robert Carpenter.