Blood Trust (42 page)

When she was a kid, Granny used to tell her stories before she went to bed. Tales of Cherokee warriors and maidens, of course. But the stories Heroe loved best were the ones concerning Aladdin. She was sure Granny had made up most of them, because she was an inveterate storyteller. The story Heroe liked best concerned the genie who lights the way. This was not the famous genie in the lamp, but another one, who taught Aladdin how to see in the dark when everyone else was blind.

Fraine was her genie who lights the way.

She was no more than five minutes from Rachel Cowan’s house when her cell phone emitted a peculiar ring. She unclipped it, then saw her phone was unengaged. The ringtone continued. Rummaging in her handbag, she drew out Naomi Wilde’s cell. For a moment she stared at it, as if it had grown a head. The screen read
UNIDENTIFIED CALLER
. She pressed the green button and heard a man’s voice.

“Naomi?”

“No. This is Chief Detective Nona Heroe, head of the Violent Crimes Unit at Metro. Who’s calling, please?”

There was silence for so long, Heroe felt compelled to say, “Hello. Are you there?”

“This is Jack McClure. Where is Naomi and why are you answering her cell?”

*   *   *

J
ACK
,
SITTING
in the 737 waiting for all the children to get settled, felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. A chief detective answering Naomi’s phone could not be good news.

“… why are you answering her cell?”

“Mr. McClure, I’ve heard of you.”

“You didn’t answer my questions.” His anxiety lent him impatience.

“Agent Wilde is missing.”

“Missing?” Given her communiques while he was out of touch, that was ominous.

“We found her car. It had gone off the road, down an embankment in rural Maryland. But we didn’t find her body, nor did we find any trace that she’d been in the car when it went off the road.”

Now Jack was truly worried. “What does her partner say?”

“Frankly, Agent McKinsey hasn’t been much help, and now, thanks to the intervention of Andrew Gunn, I can’t talk to him.”

“Fortress Securities,” Jack said, “that Andrew Gunn?”

“None other.”

Gunn had ties to Henry Holt Carson. “Why wasn’t it McKinsey’s boss who extracted him?”

“A question that needs to be answered.” There was a small pause. “Listen, Mr. McClure—”

“Jack. Please.”

“Fine. I know from talking to Naomi’s associates that you and she were friends, so I’m thinking maybe I can trust you.”

“You can, Chief.”

“Cut that out. It’s Nona.”

Jack laughed. He liked this woman.

“I’m very sorry to say this, but my gut is telling me that Naomi is dead.”

Jack struggled to accept this. “What gives you that feeling?”

Heroe told him about her suspicions concerning Peter McKinsey.

“It might very well be that you’re right,” Jack said. “I’m in Macedonia. While I was out of cell range, Naomi left three voice mails and now I’m very sorry I didn’t get them until a short time ago.”

Then he told Heroe about Naomi’s suspicions regarding her partner, following him out to Teddy Roosevelt Island. He did not tell her about Annika’s possible involvement, telling himself that bringing her into it would muddy the investigation unnecessarily. Not that that wasn’t true, but for his own reasons he was determined to protect Annika until he could determine exactly what her part in all this was.

“Christ,” Heroe said, “I think I’d better haul my ass out to the island tout de suite and have a look-see.” There was a short pause. “The man who was with McKinsey, could he be this Mbreti you told me about?”

“It’s possible, but I have a feeling not. Judging from Naomi’s description this man is an Arab of some sort. The way these people work, it makes more sense that Mbreti is a Caucasian American.”

The moment the words were out of his mouth, Jack knew he’d hit upon something important, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what.

He was silent so long that Heroe said, “What is it? Have you thought of something else?”

“I’m not sure. But, listen, since it seems clear that neither Naomi nor you trust McKinsey, is there any way to track her movements in the hours before she went missing?”

Heroe sighed heavily. “Without trusting him, I don’t know how. He claimed they were following leads on how Arjeta Kraja was brought into the country. He also said the leads were dead ends. According to his account, they then went back to the office. They were exhausted, which I can believe. He said Agent Wilde said she was going home. That, I’m afraid, is the sum and substance of his account.”

“Doesn’t sound like much.”

“No,” she said, “indeed it doesn’t.”

Jack considered. “So you can’t get to him.”

“He’s become a protected entity,” she said. “Just like your friend, Alli Carson.”

Jack heard the slight rebuke in her voice. “Alli was framed. Believe me, she’s got nothing to do with this.”

“You can’t deny that her frame was the trigger for three, maybe four homicides.”

Now they were skirting too close to Annika for his comfort. “All I’m saying is that pursuing her is going in the wrong direction.”

“Agent McKinsey doesn’t think so,” Heroe said.

“Can you think of a better reason to look elsewhere?”

*   *   *

T
HREE MINUTES
after exchanging cell numbers with McClure, Heroe pulled up outside Rachel Cowan’s house. She figured she’d have to work ten lifetimes to afford that kind of mansion. Plus, the only black people around here were probably housekeepers and gardeners. The nannies were all young girls from Ireland or the Baltics.

She opened Naomi Wilde’s file, which she had obtained from Naomi’s superior, and read it again. Thirty-six years old, born in Wheeling, West Virginia, moved to D.C. when she was four. One living sibling, Rachel, two years her senior. Graduated with honors from Georgetown University, majoring in criminology, minoring in psychology. Tried her hand at forensic pathology before applying to the Secret Service. Partnered with Peter McKinsey for six years. Assigned to protect the FLOTUS following the election of Edward Carson a year and a half ago. Commendations, highest marks, et cetera, et cetera. Heroe decided that she was looking at the jacket of an exemplary agent, and she felt a particular pang of sorrow, of loss, as if Naomi Wilde were her own sister.

She got out of the car and, checking out the sprinkling of A-list cars, went up the steps and rang the bell. She had a flash of a uniformed maid opening the door, but it was Rachel Cowan, ragged as a battlefield pennant, who greeted her and ushered her inside.

The interior did not disappoint. It was a breathtaking display of egregious consumerism run rampant. They stood in the vast living room. Rachel was either too aggrieved or too rude to ask her to sit down. Glancing around, Heroe didn’t know whether she would want to. This level of consumerism gave her hives.

“I apologize for disturbing you at what must be a difficult time,” Heroe said.

“And yet you did.”

Not a promising beginning.

Rachel, perhaps appropriately dressed in the color of dried blood, stood with her hands clasped in front of her. There were deep circles under her eyes, which were red and raw-looking. She looked exhausted, as if she hadn’t slept in days, and her eyes kept darting here and there. Heroe wondered whether she was on some medication, or ought to be.

“No matter,” Rachel continued as if there had been no pause. “What is it you want?”

Heroe took out her pad, giving her a bit more time to assess her subject. She strongly suspected that she needed to strike the right tone to get Rachel to open up.

“I understand your sister was here to see you yesterday.”

“That’s right.” There was a wary note in her voice.

“Can you tell me about it?” Heroe said as casually as she could.

Rachel turned gimlet-eyed and she crossed her arms over her breasts. “Why? Are you investigating her or something?”

Heroe gestured. “It’s nothing like that, I assure you.”

“Because if you are, there isn’t a better or more dedicated agent in the Secret Service.”

“Your loyalty is admirable, Mrs. Cowan, and I appreciate your opinion. But not to worry, we’re interested in Naomi’s partner.”

Rachel seemed to relax somewhat. “I doubt I can help you, then. Peter stayed in the car while Naomi and I were together.”

Heroe made a notation. “You mean he drove her here?”

Rachel nodded. “That’s right.”

“So you didn’t see her car?”

“They came in one car, that much I saw, and it wasn’t hers.”

Interesting,
Heroe thought.
So it stands to reason that Wilde and McKinsey went from here directly to the place where she was killed, otherwise she would have retrieved her cell from her car.

“Do you know McKinsey well?”

Rachel made a sound, as if releasing a puff of air. “I don’t know him at all, beyond meeting him a couple of times.”

“Your sister never spoke to you about him?”

“Naomi never spoke to me—or anyone, for that matter—about anything pertaining to her work. She made that clear to every person she knew, including me.”

Heroe wrote that down, but she needed to be certain, so she said, “Did your sister mention Peter McKinsey yesterday in any context whatsoever?”

“No, she didn’t.”

“Okay, I guess that’s it, then.” Heroe thought a minute. “By the way, Mrs. Cowan, did Naomi mention where she was going after she left you?”

“Work, she said.” Rachel shrugged. “That’s typical of her; work is where her head always is.” She said this without rancor.

Heroe looked up, her inner radar suddenly on high alert. “So she wasn’t going home.”

“No, I told you. Work, work, work.” Rachel bit her thumbnail, her eyes turned inward. “Something I’m quite certain I’m going to have to look into now.”

Heroe nodded and moved toward the entryway. “Okay, thank you, Mrs. Cowan. You’ve been very helpful.”

The compliment appeared to stir Rachel out of her dark ruminations, and she turned toward the chief detective. “Really?”

Heroe knew when to turn on her smile, whose wattage was considerable. “Really.” She paused. “By the way, did Naomi by any chance tell you where she was going, specifically?”

Rachel wrinkled her brow. “She did, actually. Now what was it?”

“You mean
where
she was going, specifically.”

“I
said
what and I
meant
what.” Rachel clicked her fingernails on the crown of her diamond-studded gold watch. “Let me see. What were she and I discussing? Oh, yes. The secret bank account my husband keeps. The moment I mentioned that her face lit up.” She laughed, and for a moment the years, and with them the care and worry, seemed to slip off her face. “I knew that look. I knew it would be useless to ask her to stick around.” Then she pointed. “Now you’re doing it.”

“What?”

“Lighting up like a beacon.”

With good reason.

“A bank, you say.” And Heroe thought,
Middle Bay Bancorp
.
Bingo!

T
WENTY
-
SIX

“J
ACK
, I need to talk to you.”

Alli came and sat next to him. The 737 had been in the air for forty minutes. It would be less than twenty until they set down at a secured airstrip outside Vlorë. Since speaking with Chief Detective Heroe he had been sunk deep in thought. His mind wanted to go to his upcoming reunion with Annika, but it kept slipping back to Naomi. He felt her loss acutely. She had been of great help to both the FLOTUS and Alli after the accident in Moscow that had killed Edward Carson, proving herself quick-witted and unflustered by even the most grievous of events. Afterward, she had kept in touch with him. She always asked about Alli’s emotional state. He could still remember how genuinely happy she’d been by the news that Alli had decided to go to Fearington.
“Finally,”
she’d said,
“she’s on a path that will serve her well.”

In addition, he was concerned by the widening gyre of the conspiracy he found himself investigating. The mission given Dennis Paull and, by extension, him, was on the surface a simple one: Track down and terminate Arian Xhafa. And yet, now, only days later, it wasn’t simple at all. If Naomi was dead, it was at the hands of her partner. McKinsey had been extracted from the Metro police by Andrew Gunn, not McKinsey’s boss, who had somehow been neutralized. McKinsey and Naomi had been pulled out of Secret Service and seconded to Henry Holt Carson. Why them? Was McKinsey secretly working for Carson, as Gunn seemed to be? The odds seemed to favor that theory. But how did these people tie in to Arian Xhafa and his American representative Mbreti? And then there was Annika’s involvement.