Cold Light of Day (22 page)

The man looked him up and down. “Warden isn’t in charge here. I am.”

“Wrong.” A nurse who barely reached Frazer’s chest interrupted. “
I
am. Out of my way, both of you.” She glared at them until the US Marshal dropped his hand.

Frazer didn’t have time for a pissing contest. He glanced left and saw a woman, probably in her mid-to-late fifties, pacing in a nearby waiting room. He turned on his heel and knocked on the door, opened it. “Mrs. Stone?”

She looked up at him. Her red hair had faded a little with time, but her deep brown eyes combined with a bone structure that would keep her beautiful until she was a hundred. Her daughter had inherited the eyes and face. No wonder Lazlo was hooked.

Her expression turned wary when she saw his badge. Lips pursed over barely concealed loathing. “What do you want?”

“My name is ASAC Lincoln Frazer.”

She appeared even less impressed.

He looked over his shoulder. The marshal was standing guard over the entrance. Combined with military security, it should be enough to keep Stone safe for now. “I came to the prison today to speak to your husband about your daughter.”

Susan Stone’s head snapped up. “Scarlett? Where is she? What have you done to her?” She pulled out her cell and shook it at him. “I’ve been trying to reach her to tell her about her dad, but she’s not answering.” She marched toward him. She was way beyond being intimidated by a gold badge or federal title. “Is she safe?”

“Mrs. Stone.” He lowered his voice so it wouldn’t carry through the glass. “Your daughter is safe, I assure you,”—a spark of relief flickered through her eyes—“but something happened last night that I need to talk to you about.”

“What? What happened?”

He looked over his shoulder and saw the marshal eyeing him through the window with a sideways glare. He turned back. “I need your promise that what I’m about to tell you stays between us.”

“And Richard,” she insisted. “I don’t keep secrets from my husband.” She stopped talking and swallowed audibly. Assuming the man lived.

“How’s he doing?” he asked gently. Ideally, he’d hypnotize the woman to try and calm her down, but somehow treading on her civil rights seemed wrong. She’d already been through so much.

“Not good. The knife nicked his liver.” She covered her face and her shoulders shook, though no sound came out.

Frazer used the opportunity to get closer and lay a supportive arm on her shoulder.

She pulled away. Eyes wide and furious. “Don’t touch me.”

He backed off. “Look, I don’t have much time to do everything I need to do and I need your help.”

“Why would I help you?” She began pacing with her arms crossed, so wound up he didn’t know if she’d be capable of helping anyone.

“Because Scarlett tried to plant an electronic listening device in the office of the Russian Ambassador last night and now someone is trying to kill her.”

“What?” Susan Stone stopped pacing and sank to a chair. “No. Oh, no. Why?” She shook her head in denial, then glared at the cell phone in her hand and then at the sign on the wall that said cell phones couldn’t be used. She gave a watery laugh. “It seems I’m the only member of this family who knows how to follow the rules. I can’t even bring myself to call her from here. I have to go out to the coffee shop every single time.”

“Please give me a few moments to explain.” Frazer sat beside her. Close. Closer than strangers usually did. He needed to establish a sense of trust, fast, and he didn’t want anyone overhearing what he had to say. “She’s fine, but please don’t let anyone know that—no one at all. There are hopefully only seven people in the world who know she’s alive and you are one of them. My team members are the others. Keep trying to reach her on her cell. Keep being upset and loud and irritable when she doesn’t answer.” She glared at him. “But please know she’s okay for the time being.”

Susan searched his face, looking for something worth trusting. Finally she nodded. “I guess I don’t have much choice but to believe you.” Her face hardened. “And she can’t know about her father if she’s in danger. She’ll come here if she does, and then they’ll know how to find her. Whoever ‘they’ are?” she said bitterly, clearly not expecting an answer.

“Right now the people trying to kill her think she’s dead. I want it to stay that way. The agents guarding her will keep her safe, but I can’t guarantee they won’t tell her about her father if they think she has a right to know.” They were already lying about Angel LeMay. He pulled the photograph out of his pocket. “Do you remember this photograph? I found it in Richard’s cell.”

She took it with a smile on her face and nodded. Then she turned it over and frowned at the date. “That wasn’t written on it before, and it isn’t Richard’s handwriting.” She ran her finger over the faded ink then turned it back over. “It used to sit on Richard’s desk. It went missing out of the frame on the day Richard was arrested. I assumed…” She frowned. “I don’t know what I assumed. That the FBI had taken it? There were so many people in and out of the house that day. A group of kids were over, playing outside after school. I remember having to call their parents to come and pick them up, even as the FBI executed their search warrant.” Her laugh sounded strangled. “I had another copy of the photograph made from the negative—digital cameras were new back then and we didn’t have one. This was in Richard’s cell?” she asked.

Frazer nodded. He’d send the photograph to the handwriting specialists in Questioned Documents and see if they came up with anything. Unlikely but always possible.

“I think someone took something personal from him, something from inside your house, to prove they could get to you any time they wanted. He kept it under his pillow to remind himself why he was there.”

He looked up. Found Susan Stone watching him carefully, but she didn’t jump all over him with thanks. Too many years of no one believing their story had done serious damage to the Stones’ faith in the system.

“I need your help with something else.”

“What could I possibly help the FBI with?”

He didn’t blame her for her skepticism. He checked the surroundings. No one could see as he carefully drew Richard Stone’s notebook out of his suit pocket. “I took this from your husband’s cell today.”

She took it from his fingers and flipped open the first page. Her eyes widened at the unintelligible scrawl and understanding dawned. “Why would I help you?”

He held her gaze. She was a smart woman. More intelligent than the reports indicated—
don’t bother with the wife, she’s a crackpot
—or maybe there was a reason for that, or maybe he was reading too much into every little detail now. “I think your husband may have been set up. I believe whoever did it is, or was, another FBI agent. I think they arranged to have him killed today because they are scared that even after all these years their secrets might come out.”

Her eyes filled with tears, but she didn’t let them fall. “Am I supposed to be grateful that someone is finally doing the job Richard was so good at?”

“No, ma’am.” The silence was heavy and condemning. “I don’t expect gratitude. But I do believe this book might hold vital clues, and I don’t have time to go through official Bureau channels, especially when I don’t know who I can trust. So I need your help because I believe you know the key to this code and I
know
you want your husband to get out of prison.”

“If he survives,” she said.

Frazer was well aware of his failings. He blew out an angry breath. Not anger at her or her husband, but at the bastard who’d set this up so convincingly. “Will you help me? If you won’t, I need to know now so I can try another avenue.”

It took a few seconds for her to lose her stiffness. She sank back in her seat and put her hands over her face. “Yes,” she said tiredly. “But we need the copy of
To Kill A Mockingbird
from my house.”

He raised his brows. “That’s the key?”

She nodded.

“I’ll organize it.” Then he frowned. “I didn’t see the book in your husband’s cell.”

She started pacing again. “He memorized the code. He and Scarlett have those annoyingly perfect memories. I need the book.”

It would take hours to get the book out here. Who did he trust? Rooney and Parker were stuck in West Virginia going through the evidence in the case files to see if they missed anything, trying to find a link between the LeMays and Dorokhov, trying to link the Russians to the kidnapping, shooting or bomb by monitoring the police and federal investigations. Shit. Too much for them to handle alone. They didn’t have enough people on this, but he couldn’t risk asking for more because then whoever was the real villain would figure out they were onto him. And the last place Lazlo should take Scarlett was the Stone family home—he had to assume it was being watched. Under normal circumstances he’d turn to Jed Brennan, but the agent was still recovering from a gunshot wound and even the dinner last night had tired him out. The guy wasn’t fit for cloak and dagger maneuvers, not yet anyway.

He paused. There was one guy, but he didn’t like owing the spook any favors. Right now he didn’t have a choice. Hopefully Patrick Killion was near DC.

“Would a photocopy do?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m going to need permission for someone to break into your house.”

“There’s a key in the peg basket in the garden shed.”

His friend from the CIA wouldn’t need a key. “You don’t think that’s a little lax with security?”

She shrugged. “Scarlett might be super smart with a great memory for facts, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t forget her keys on a regular basis. I got into the habit when she went to college, forgot about the spare key until just now. Tell whoever it is that the book is in my bedside table. There’s a photocopier and fax machine in Richard’s office.”

Fourteen years in prison and the guy still had an office at home. Frazer pulled out his cell phone, but Susan Stone pointed to the sign forbidding its use.

“Fine.” He had one of Parker’s gizmos with him so he should be safe from electronic eavesdroppers when they were outside. “But I want you to come with me. In fact, we stick together everywhere except the restroom until I can arrange a bodyguard for you. You’re in danger. I need to keep you safe.”

“Unbelievable—or maybe I finally went crazy and I’m imagining all this, huh?” One side of her mouth curled up in a sad smile. “If my husband ever recovers I think he might like you, ASAC Frazer.”

“Let’s hope we get the opportunity to find out.”

M
att washed up
in the restroom, grateful he was wearing a black shirt and the blood didn’t show. He scrubbed his hands and forearms with soap, watched the dirty, brown water circle the drain. The memory of blood smeared on Scarlett’s skin was not something he wanted to dwell on. There was a very real possibility it could be her blood if he didn’t figure out exactly what was happening.

He didn’t know who in his organization he could trust. He needed to talk to Frazer ASAP, but the guy’s cell went straight to voicemail.

He dried his hands and shoved the crumpled paper towels in the trash. Inside the store, he loaded up with sandwiches, bottled water, chips, wipes, Band-Aids, dental floss. Browsed the t-shirts and found matching his-and-her tourist numbers, a couple of quilted lumberjack shirts, a pair of thick hand-knit socks that might keep Scarlett’s feet warm.

If he could quit picturing her bare legs he might be able to get the image of her naked and under him out of his head, but so far no dice. He found a travel blanket. That would help—as long as she was the only one under it. He glanced at the TV in the corner and saw the news was on. The camera panned to a shot of Quantico Harbor and in the corner of the screen was a picture of him in his dress blues. Matt wore a cap in the photo and right now he was wearing shades so he didn’t think the girl on the register was going to ID him—not that she’d looked up from her cell phone.

“Can I get a coffee and hot chocolate too, please?” Something to warm both him and Scarlett that didn’t involve friction.

He paid with cash, grateful again to Alex Parker for bailing him out in his hour of need. He went back to the car and climbed in.

Scarlett took the drinks and smiled gratefully as she placed them in the cup holders. “Roofie-free, I presume?”

He sent her a doleful look.

She grinned. Her hair was a mess, but it didn’t seem to make any difference to the way his blood heated whenever he saw her—like his body was wired up for her, and her alone. Why did he have to be interested in
this
woman? She was ten years too young and more complicated than the IRS. He leaned over and placed the bags on the back seat. Noticed a squad car pull in beside them in his peripheral vision.

Matt didn’t know if the cops had linked this car to the shooting incident. Rather than hurry away like a guilty suspect, he took Scarlett’s face gently in both his hands and kissed her.

The sensation hit like a thousand volts and blew every fuse in his body. He’d been wanting to do that since they’d met, but she tasted like nothing he’d ever experienced.