CHAPTER THREE

Before taking over the Kirk County FBI field office eight years ago, Sam had worked in the Detroit Bureau. Though the Kirk office was small in comparison to Detroit, with only a handful of agents including himself, they covered a large district that extended beyond the three cities that made up the county.

Kirk PD squad cars blocked both ends of the alley Sam had been directed to go to. The alley was behind an old abandoned warehouse in Haldonville, a rundown area that was also the county’s most crime-ridden district.

He pulled his truck up behind one of the cop cars. A couple of uniformed officers and one man in a rumpled suit were moving around. Sam recognized the man in the suit as Millhouse, a detective with the Kirk PD, and the man who’d called him.

The man Sam was looking for was Riley. Special Agent Riley Wingate was one of Sam’s agents. Millhouse had said that Riley would be here waiting when Sam arrived.

Sam opened the door and left the truck. The rain had stopped. As he made his way around to the passenger side, Paige opened her door. Sam’s thoughts, never far from Paige lately, returned to her as he watched her prepare to exit the truck.

She’d gone to her doctor’s appointment with the intention of going to work after and was wearing a navy suit. The jacket fit her a little too loosely now. He’d noticed the same about the pants when she’d walked ahead of him to get into the truck at home. Her brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, baring her pretty face. Without even the light application of cosmetics she wore on the job, her skin was too pale and drawn. She’d lost weight. More weight. It worried him.

While still seated, she set her cane down carefully, obviously attempting to avoid the puddle directly beneath the door that could cause even the thick rubber head of the cane to slip. Fucking rain. Fucking situation. Fucking Thames.

Thames had been dead for five months but even from the grave he was still a presence in Paige’s life. The injury Thames had inflicted on her would forever be a reminder of him. She was tough, gutsy. She had to be to have survived the hell Thames had put her through, survived and come out the other end of that horror sane. But she couldn’t take a step without remembering that son of a bitch.

Sam went still recalling how he’d found her in Thames’s lair. Her body bloody, beaten so badly that Sam had feared he’d been too late getting to her. Remembering that time still had the power to bring him to his knees. He released an unsteady breath, forced the memory back, and made his way to Paige.

She was wound as tight as a spring, holding her body tensely. She was now stepping down from the truck, leaning heavily on the cane. It took all he had in him not to take her in his arms and lift her to the ground, to just stand back and do nothing at all to help her. But he made himself do that. More than her foot had been shattered. Her confidence in her ability to do the job had been shattered as well. She didn’t need him undermining her further by showing her he didn’t think she was even able to get out of his truck. But he stood close enough to catch her should she fall.

“I don’t see Riley.” Sam had told Paige on the drive over that Riley would be here when they arrived.

Paige stood beside Sam on the pavement and glanced around. “No.”

Sam took in the surroundings. Garbage. Condoms. Needles. Broken liquor bottles and crushed beer cans dripped water on to the stained and rutted asphalt from the recent rainfall. The rain hadn’t done any favors in preserving possible evidence.

The alley was between two abandoned warehouses that Sam had noted driving by. The warehouses were dilapidated with the red brick faded and crumbling, and bits of it adding to the mess on the ground.

Graffiti covered the brick walls on both sides of the alley. Gang tags. A colorful array of Fuck Off. Assorted names proclaiming so and so had been here. It was a mystery to Sam why anyone would want to declare they’d been in this place.

Sam went to Millhouse, making room for Paige to stand beside him between two closely parked vehicles, and extended his hand.

Millhouse shook Sam’s hand then Paige’s. “Agent McKade. Agent Carson.”

“Detective,” Paige returned.

“What happened here?” Sam asked.

Millhouse scratched his unshaven cheek. “Stab wound to the chest. One of our uniforms on routine patrol came across it. Found Agent Wingate bent over the body with blood on his clothes and hands.”

Sam saw the knife was still in the body. The knife looked like the one Riley carried. It had a distinctive etching on the hilt that was hard to mistake. Just what the hell had Riley gotten into here? “Was Wingate hurt?”

Millhouse shook his head.

“He isn’t here,” Sam continued. “When you called, you told me he would be here when I arrived.”

Millhouse released a sigh. “That was my plan but Wingate wouldn’t cooperate.”

“That doesn’t sound like Agent Wingate,” Paige said.

Sam agreed. “What do you mean he ‘wouldn’t cooperate’?”

“Wingate said he needed to leave, that he would be back to give his statement but he needed to go somewhere first. When I wouldn’t let him go, he said we couldn’t hold him. We disagreed about that and when he forced it, said he would go anyway, I placed him in custody. He’s on his way to processing now.”

Sam’s brows drew together. None of this sounded like Riley. “Who took him?”

“Detective Orr arrived shortly after I did. He went ahead with Wingate while I stayed here to wait for the crime scene team.”

Sam didn’t know Orr. “So you’re holding him until you get his statement.” Sam made it sound like a foregone conclusion.

Millhouse fingered a red birthmark at the side of his neck. “Might not be as simple as that. It turns out that your agent was acquainted with the deceased. It’s Wingate who identified him for us though we would have gotten there on our own. Turns out the guy was a junkie, has been in trouble with the law more than once. Once we ran him, we would have found out all about him, including his relationship with your agent.”

Sam wasn’t interested in hearing the capability of the Kirk PD to trace a John Doe. “What relationship?”

“Our dead guy is Lonny Corbett,” Millhouse said.

The Corbett name rang a bell. Though Sam didn’t get involved in his agents’ personal business unless he had to, he had met Riley’s girlfriend Hailey Corbett a few times over the years when she’d accompanied Riley to work functions. Sam didn’t know who Lonny was in relation to her. Sam repeated, “What relationship?”

“Corbett was the brother of Agent Wingate’s girlfriend Hailey Corbett,” Millhouse said. “And the knife Corbett was stabbed with belongs to your agent.”

The body was lying on its back. Blood had pooled and congealed around the blade of the knife. Corbett wore a loose jacket that had once been tan or gray but now looked dark with dirt. His shoulder length hair looked like yarn, framing a face that didn’t look old enough to shave. Sam pegged him at just barely legal drinking age. Sam’s eyes went back to Riley’s knife. “Wingate say the knife was his?”

“He did and that he didn’t do it, but that’s all he said about the murder. He clammed up after that except to tell me that he had to leave.”

The crime scene team arrived. As the men and women entered the alley, Sam said to Millhouse, “We can help with the analysis.” Sam couldn’t push this. It wasn’t his call. The Bureau needed to be invited into local investigations and was only permitted to become involved under special circumstances. The arrest of a federal agent was a special circumstance but it was a fine line.

“We’ll let you know. We’re backed up and could use the help.”

Sam was glad of Millhouse’s response. “I’d like to know what you find here.”

Millhouse nodded. “Figured you would.”

Sam turned to Paige. “Let’s go talk with Riley.”