Bug Man Suspense 3-in-1 Bundle (90 page)

Then he remembered something: The “alert” that the dog was trained to perform whenever she detected the presence of remains was to lie down—that was her way of communicating a find. But Trygg was standing, and suddenly Nick understood what the dog was telling him:
There's nothing here. I detect no presence of death.

Nick heaved a sigh of relief.
She could still be alive.

But his relief was short-lived. Where was she now? Alena had obviously been taken away by force, but not enough force to draw blood— Trygg would have detected it. That meant she was alive and relatively unharmed when she was taken—but Nick knew that was no guarantee of continued health and well-being. Alena wasn't a kidnapping victim; no one intended to exchange her for ransom. She had been taken for the same reason that her father had been killed—because of her ability to find the dead. Whoever took her wanted her dead, and they were probably just looking for a better place to dump the body.

Nick sat down and looked at the dog. “You saw the guy who took her, didn't you? I wish you could tell me who it was. You keep staring down this road—does that mean they left together? A fat lot of good that does me; I need to know where they are now.”

Cui bono?
he thought—a Latin phrase that means “Who stands to gain?” Who else would want Alena dead? Who had something to gain from her death—or something to lose if she kept on living?

He thought about Agnes again, and he thought about the scrapbook.

He jumped up from the ground and ran into the trailer. He searched the countertops and end tables until he found the keys to Alena's truck. As he was about to leave, he noticed a small peg rack on the wall beside the door. Four wooden pegs projected from it, each one holding a brightly colored bandanna printed in a distinct pattern. Nick stopped and looked at them—then swept up all four and ran for the truck.

37

Victoria Braden sat at her office desk with the door securely locked. It was very late, and she had an exhausting agenda the next day, but she couldn't tear herself away from the stack of photocopies that lay on her desk.

She'd been over them at least a dozen times and there was nothing new to find in their contents, but still she kept reading them again—like a man staring at an X-ray that revealed a malignant tumor. She shuddered at the realization of what these pieces of paper implied; she trembled at the thought of what would happen if it ever became public knowledge. The photocopies from the first scrapbook—the one that revealed her true background and identified the old librarian as her biological mother—she could survive that revelation. But this—this would mean the end of everything she had worked for: the election; the presidency; the White House—everything.

Through the office door she heard the main doorbell ring once, followed by an insistent knock. She looked at her watch. Who in the world would be visiting Bradenton at this hour? A few seconds later she heard the knock again, even louder this time. She listened for the sound of the dead bolt unlatching and the hinges squeaking open, followed by the sound of Chris's deep voice dealing with this arrogant intrusion. It never came.

But the knock came again—and this time it was almost pounding.

She immediately gathered the photocopies and dropped them into a desk drawer, then shut the drawer and locked it with a brass key; she tugged on the drawer pull twice to make certain it was secure. She went to her office door and unlocked it; she opened it a few inches and peered out. A second later she saw the foyer light switch on, and she saw Johnny in his bathrobe and pajamas headed for the door. The sight of the soon-to-be president of the United States answering his own door in the middle of the night made her feel indignant; in another month the Secret Service would be crawling all over this place, and no one would get near that door without credentials and a full security clearance—but until then all they had was Chris.

Chris—he wasn't even a decent security guard, and he expected to be a player in the big game? What a joke. Victoria had made a few mistakes along the way, and Chris was definitely one of them; but she had always learned from her mistakes and moved on—that's what it took to survive in Washington. And Victoria was a survivor; she had learned her lesson; she had moved on, and she wouldn't make that mistake again.

But where was Chris tonight? She wondered—but part of her didn't want to know.

Across the foyer she saw the door open and a man stepped into the doorway—a man she recognized. He was wearing large glasses that flashed white in the bright foyer light. Beside him was a dog—a dog with only three legs.

She wrapped her robe tighter and stepped out into the foyer.

“We need to talk,” she heard the man say to her husband.

“This is completely unacceptable,” the senator replied. “I told you never to come here again. Now you get out of here before I—”

Both men stopped and looked at her as she approached.

“Victoria, you needn't concern yourself with this. I was just telling Dr. Polchak to—”

“It's all right, Johnny,” she said. “I don't think Dr. Polchak would have come here at this hour unless it was very important.” She glanced at Nick and froze; tucked under his left arm was a large leather scrapbook. She stared at it for a few seconds, then looked up at him.

Nick met her eyes and nodded. “
Very
important. In fact, it's a matter of life and death.”

“Very well then,” the senator said, stepping aside to allow Nick to enter. “We'll talk in my study—but if you don't mind, leave that ugly cur outside. What a pathetic-looking creature.”

“I'd like to keep her with me,” Nick replied. “She's a service dog.”

The senator grimaced. “A service dog? What service could that mongrel possibly provide?”

“She's sort of a seeing-eye dog. She picks up things that I have trouble spotting.”

They moved to the senator's office and took seats—the senator in his usual captain's chair, and Nick and Victoria across from him. The dog sat quietly on Nick's left.

“Now what's this all about?” the senator demanded.

Nick held up the scrapbook and looked at Victoria. “Do you know what this is, Mrs. Braden?”

“I'm not sure I do. May I see it?”

Nick handed it across.

Victoria set the scrapbook in her lap and slowly turned the pages without changing expression. She recognized the documents immediately. It was the same scrapbook her mother had shown her at the Endor library—but how did Polchak get it?

When she finished she looked up at Nick and said pleasantly, “Yes, I'm familiar with its contents. Why do you ask?”

“Is your husband familiar with its contents too?”

She felt a quick twist in her gut but managed to conceal it perfectly. “It's just a bit of family trivia. I'm not sure John would be interested.”

“It's a little more than ‘trivia,' Mrs. Braden.”

The senator turned to his wife. “What have you got there, darling?”

Victoria closed the scrapbook and smiled at her husband. “Just a few old family mementos that were presented to me during my visit to Endor. Nothing of interest, John—I'll tell you about it later if you like.”

“A man was murdered tonight,” Nick said. “Danny Flanagan—the FBI agent in charge of the investigation at the Patriot Center.”

Braden sat up straighter. “Murdered? How? Where?”

“At the Endor Regional Library, just a couple of hours ago.”

Victoria felt a wave of nausea.

“How do you know this?” Braden asked.

“I was there. I found the killer preparing to dispose of Danny's body.”

“Is the killer in custody?”

“Yes. We'll have a full confession soon.”

“Has a motive been established for this terrible deed?”

“A very clear one.”

Victoria's face felt hot and she wondered if it showed. Polchak's answers weren't answers at all—they were assaults, specifically designed to prod her for a response. She kept her eyes fixed on her husband, but she could feel Polchak staring at her from the side.

The senator hesitated for an instant before asking his next question: “Is this murder connected in any way to the investigation at the Patriot Center?”

“Your compassion for Danny is touching,” Nick said. “His mother lives in Lexington and he's survived by two married sisters—in case you're interested. His skull was smashed in with a baseball bat, by the way.”

“Victoria and I will convey our sincere condolences,” Braden said. “We're not without compassion, Dr. Polchak. We both liked Danny very much, but you have to understand the larger circumstances here. The situation at the Patriot Center is potentially explosive; I need to know about any event that could have bearing on it.”

Nick nodded. “You're right, Senator—you deserve to know.” He looked directly at Victoria. “Don't you think he deserves to know?”

Victoria turned and looked at Nick's face; his umber eyes, magnified by the thick lenses that covered them, darted about like a pair of synchronized swimmers. Victoria was used to being stared at by men—but not like this. These eyes were different; they moved over her, through her, watching the way she sat and moved and even the way the muscles shifted under her skin. Polchak made her feel like a specimen on a microscope slide. His questions were more than simple queries; they were like jabs from a metal probe that he systematically administered while he watched to see which way the specimen would crawl. Polchak knew the contents of the scrapbook, and he knew that she did too; he was offering her the chance to admit it rather than have it exposed through awkward confrontation. But it was more than politeness or nobility; he was testing to see how much her husband already knew—and what she might be trying to protect.

Before she could reply, they were interrupted by a knock on the office door. It was Chris; he poked his head in and said, “I spotted a truck outside. Is everything okay in here?”

“Where have you been?” the senator demanded. “You're supposed to be a security guard. What exactly are we paying you for, anyway?”

“Sorry. I was out—I had an errand to run. I thought you two would be in bed by now.”

“We were, until Dr. Polchak here decided to pay us a visit.”

Chris stepped into the room and looked at Nick.

Victoria watched Chris's face. It showed surprise—alarm—apprehension.
Fool
—he was giving away way too much information, and Polchak wouldn't miss a thing. Even she felt exposed by those eyes of his, and her composure was almost perfect—Chris must have looked like a fish flopping on the floor.

The senator glared at Chris. “You're interrupting a very sensitive conversation. Now if you don't mind—”

“Let him stay,” Victoria said. “Chris is our chief of security after all— at least for another few weeks. I think this issue involves our security, don't you?”

Braden looked at his wife doubtfully, but she gave him a reassuring nod. Chris's interruption was a godsend; she couldn't be expected to reveal family secrets with a low-level employee in the room. Besides, she didn't know how far Polchak was intending to go with this, and Chris's imposing physical presence might serve to remind Polchak of what could happen if things got too far out of hand.

“Pull up a chair,” the senator grumbled reluctantly. “But do us all a favor and keep your mouth shut.”

Chris dragged up a chair equidistant between Braden and his wife and sat down.

All of them stared at Nick.

“Who murdered Danny Flanagan?” the senator asked.

“An eighty-year-old woman named Agnes. She's the head librarian in Endor.”

Chris jerked forward in his chair.
“What?”

Victoria turned on him before he could say another word. “I believe my husband told you to shut up. If you wish to remain in the room,
do so
.”

Chris slumped back with a look of astonishment on his face.

“An eighty-year-old woman,” Braden said. “I find that unbelievable.”

“So did four other men—and one woman. That's probably how she was able to sneak up on them: Nobody expected a grandma to pack such a wallop.”

“Are you saying this woman is responsible for other murders as well?”

“That's right. We found three of her victims buried on top of other graves at the Patriot Center. The fourth we found near a lake outside Endor. The woman—well, we found her
in
the lake.”

The senator blanched. “The Patriot Center? Then this old woman—”

“Is your serial killer. I'm afraid so, Senator—she murdered each of them over a period of about forty years. She apparently dug the holes and buried them herself; great little gardener, that one.”

“But—why? What in the world did she have to gain?”

Nick slowly turned and looked at Victoria. “Do you want to take that one, or should I?”