CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE

Arlington National Cemetery
Dr. Samantha Owens

Fletcher was very unhappy with Sam. She’d apologized about fifty times, but he was still rigidly upset, the lines of his face tight and drawn, his shoulders combatively forward as he towered over her.

“Why didn’t you signal, or call out? My God, Hart was right there.”

“I’m sorry. I told you, I didn’t know it was him. He looks different than the photo. He wasn’t wearing sunglasses, to start, and he had a beard and long hair. He wasn’t dressed like the other soldiers. And I wasn’t … I was … Well, hell, Fletcher, I loved Donovan, too. I was saying goodbye to him, not looking for a killer. That’s your job.”

That calmed him down. Fletcher ran his hands through his hair. “I know, I know. I understand. Run me through it again. Anything you can think of. What exactly did he look like? What was he wearing? Did he smell like cigarettes?”

She went through it again and again, leaving out only the little bit of information that he’d handed her a card. She was being an idiot. She knew that. But she wanted to see what the numbers meant before she shared with them. Whitfield, if that was him, had approached her for a reason, and as much as she wanted to see Donovan’s killer caught and punished, something told her there was more to Whitfield’s involvement than met the eye. Donovan trusted Xander. His feelings on the man’s character and integrity were clear in the journal. She decided she would honor those thoughts until Whitfield proved himself a villain, beyond a reasonable doubt.

Fletcher stowed his notebook in his back pocket. “All right. You did good. I know you want to get to the reception.”

“Not really,” Sam said. “But I don’t think I have much of a choice. I’ll be at Eleanor’s if you need me.”

“You need a ride?”

Sam looked at the string of cars leaving the cemetery and realized that, yes, she did need a ride. She’d come over with a friend of Susan’s, not wanting to intrude on the family in their limousine, and the woman had obviously forgotten her, or figured she was catching a ride with another, and left.

“Come on,” Fletcher said.

She followed him to the nondescript unmarked. Hart was already leaning against the car, waiting. Fletcher barked instructions as he walked around to the driver’s side.

“We’re going to give Dr. Owens a ride to the reception. Then I’m going to go talk to Taranto. You stick around the reception, see if Whitfield shows his face again, comes back to show his respects to the wife privately. And get someone you trust to watch this grave site overnight.”

“Got it.”

They climbed in, Sam in the back feeling strangely like a fugitive, especially considering her white lie to the detectives. She debated telling them about the card again, then stopped. She was breaking every rule she knew, but something told her to hold off.

Donovan, you ‘re going to be the death of me.

Fletcher got on the phone to someone named Danny, asked him to track down the real reporter and get Fletcher on his schedule ASAP. He hung up after a few minutes and looked in the rearview mirror.

“So, Doc. We have another piece of the puzzle. Want to hear?”

“Lay it on me,” Sam said.

“Woman who lives across the street from the scene where Hal Croswell was killed? Name’s Margaret Lyons. Goes by Maggie. Three kids. Disappeared off the face of the earth the same day we found Croswell’s body. Hasn’t shown up for work, kids haven’t shown up for school. Turns out she served in the same region in Afghanistan as Donovan’s crew. What do you make of that?”

Sam didn’t hesitate. “There are two possible scenarios that come to mind. Either she’s the killer, and you got too close and she split, or she’s a victim, like the rest of them.”

“Mighty convenient that Croswell was killed in a house that Lyons knew was empty. She was the one who told us the owner travels all the time. She’d be in a position to know.”

“That’s true. But I thought you had Whitfield pegged as the main suspect?”

“We have several leads we’re pursuing right now.” He emphasized the several, which made Sam think he still wasn’t sharing everything he knew. Either not sharing, or at a loss and not as good a detective as she needed him to be. She tucked that into her head while he continued.

“It’s possible that Maggie Lyons is in it with Whitfield. Her husband, drunken lout that he is, claims she came back from Afghanistan preggers, and insists the kid isn’t his. He divorced her over it. We got a brief look at her financials last night, and she’s got a steady stream of income that’s unaccountable. Just a little extra each month. It helps keep her afloat.”

“Being paid off?”

“That’s a distinct possibility. Maybe being paid to keep quiet about something? Or her ex is right and the kid isn’t his, and the real father is making some sort of off-the-books child support payment?”

Sam looked out the window. They were driving over the Key Bridge, the Potomac River murky below them. She saw the fine square outline of the Kennedy Center reflected in the waters, the elegant white marble structure perched on the eastern bank of the river, and wished things were easier. She used to spend a lot of time at the Kennedy Center.

“Detective Fletcher, maybe you need to listen to what this Taranto guy has to say. Maybe the key to all of this is an incident that occurred in Afghanistan, and has nothing to do with Donovan and Croswell here in the States. Did you ever speak with that Culpepper man again? His mentor? I didn’t find a lot in Donovan’s journal referencing him, outside of the fact that he was one of his favorite commanders, though I can go back and look some more. I’d need his nickname—that’s the biggest problem. Donovan’s shorthand used the nicknames for his compatriots.”

“You didn’t see Culpepper? He was at the funeral. The tall gray-haired man wearing a chestful of medals who spoke at the end. We’ve talked a couple of times. He’s been … very helpful. Donovan didn’t have a second phone issued by Raptor.”

She watched Fletcher for a moment. “Culpepper is a suspect, too?”

“He was their commander in Afghanistan.”

“But I thought he was out of the country when the murders took place.”

“He was. Doesn’t mean I don’t have my eye on him. He might not have held the gun, but the man does own a firm that employs mercenaries. He certainly knows enough killers to arrange a murder. I’ve already been lied to once by a suspect in this case. Right now, everyone is in play as far as I’m concerned.”

When Sam returned to Eleanor’s, the post-burial reception was well under way. The house was full of people. Some cried, some gawked, some got quietly drunk in the corner. Eleanor was shell-shocked, too busy keeping everyone in food and drinks to grieve with them, and Susan had stepped out onto the back porch with the girls to have a private moment.

Hart walked Sam around to each guest personally, but unless Whitfield was a master of disguise, he wasn’t there. Finally excusing her from her manhunt duties, he went to the kitchen for some coffee, and Sam took the opportunity to escape upstairs. It was quiet in her room. Blissfully quiet. She shut the door and it seemed the whole world disappeared, leaving her alone for the first time in hours.

She’d been a solitary being for so long that she forgot what it was like to be around people all the time. Work was a different story—there she was focused on the task at hand and the people were fully under her control. She could close the door to her office and be assured no one would bother her, go home and turn off the phone, revel, or wallow, in the silence. Here, in D.C., she was at their mercy, and she was starting to get frachetty. Between Susan and Eleanor and Fletcher, someone was always calling, or wanting to feed her, or ask questions or talk earnestly, and it was wearing her out.

Despite that weariness, Sam realized that something had changed. She hadn’t had the urge to wash her hands at all today. Something in her deep and abiding grief had altered, and she wanted a little time and space to figure out what was happening.

She pulled her laptop from her bag and opened it. It booted quickly, and she went to Google immediately. She typed in “Friendly Fire Edward Donovan Afghanistan.”

There was nothing that stood out. She surfed through to a few sites, but none of the references were about her Donovan.

Then she pulled the card Whitfield had given her out of her wallet and looked at the numbers. Typed them into Google, as well.

A fraction of a second later, up popped a map with the header “Savage River State Park and National Forest.”

Coordinates. The numbers were latitude and longitude. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen that before. Blaming grief for making her senseless, she brought up several more maps and looked through them all. The coordinates seemed to be rather general. The closest thing to them was probably the forest ranger station.

Sam resisted smacking herself on the forehead. Well, of course it was. Donovan was an Airborne Ranger, and so was Whitfield. With a bit of cunning, he was telling her where to look. Where to find him.

“See anything interesting?”

Sam jumped, turning toward the voice. Hart. Standing in her open door, his arms crossed nonchalantly.

“Don’t you knock?” she snapped, hitting the screen saver so the page disappeared.

“When I’m trying to sneak up on someone, generally not. Shoulda locked your door. I saw Whitfield hand you something, and you didn’t tell us. Naughty-naughty. So, give—what was it?”

Busted. Sam didn’t even bother pretending. What was the point now? She had the information she needed. So Fletcher and Hart would, as well. She’d insist on going along, that’s all. She would find a way to talk to Whitfield without their overbearing presence making him disappear. She hoped.

She held out the card. Hart turned it over in his hands.

“Lat and long? For where?” He sounded genuinely curious.

“Savage River State Park. A ranger station.”

“Clever.” Hart pulled out his cell phone, hit a single number. Calling his partner, of course. The tattletale.

“Not answering. I’ll leave him a message. Fletch, we got a little trip to take. Probable location of Alexander Whitfield. Call when you’re done talking to Taranto.” He hung up and looked at Sam disapprovingly. “I thought you of all people knew better. Withholding vital evidence? There is a better than fifty-fifty chance that this man is a killer.”

“I know that.”

“So now you cope with loss by being stupid?”

“Hey,” Sam shot back. “Mind your own business.”

“Sweetheart …” The look on her face must have been terrifying. “Dr. Owens,” he began again. “You know better than this. Three people are dead. One whole family is missing. For all we know, you’ve read something in the journals that Whitfield thinks can tie him to the murders, and this is a well-planned trap to get you off on your own, away from our protection. Out in the wilderness, where no one will know where you’ve gone. It’s pretty easy to hide a body in the woods, you know. Takes a while for us to track it down.”

Sam hadn’t considered that she might be a target. That thought was sobering, to say the least. She hadn’t felt threatened by Whitfield in any way at the funeral. Of course, as Hart pointed out, that was probably the idea. Spider to the fly. Coaxing her into a web of deceit. Sadly, she found herself unafraid. She didn’t have any reservations about putting herself in harm’s way. Not anymore.

“I’m coming with you,” Sam said.

Hart’s phone rang. He opened and listened, then nodded curtly and said, “Yeah. On our way.” He shoved the phone in his pocket and said, “Yes, you are. Pack a bag. We’ll be gone overnight. But first, we need to make a stop. You want to play detective? Now’s your chance.”