Forgotten (14 page)

“No.” He sighed. “I didn’t.”

Portia leaned back against the headrest. “An accomplice, or a protégé of Sheldon Woods. What an absolutely terrifying possibility.”

He slowed at the entrance to the diner and parked up near the front door. They both got out and went inside.

“Two?” the waitress asked.

“Yes.” Cannon nodded. “Maybe someplace sort of off by ourselves.”

“Oh, you want to be alone?” She winked at Portia. “How about this cozy corner?”

“Perfect.” Cannon smiled and took the menus the woman held out to him. “Thanks.”

“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked.

“Coffee?” he asked Portia, and she nodded.

“Yes, please. Lots of coffee. Make it high-test.”

“I’ll bring you a carafe,” the waitress told them.

“What’s your pleasure? Breakfast, lunch, or dinner?” His eyes scanned the menu. “Looks like a little something for everyone.”

“I’m going with breakfast. Eggs, toast, bacon—the works.”

The waitress returned with the coffee and they both ordered the breakfast special.

“God, I really needed this.” She took her first sip of coffee and sighed. “Thank you so much. I don’t know why you did this—why you came out in the middle of the night like this—but I am very grateful that you did. I probably would have kept on driving until I got back to the house.”

“Or until you hit a pole, or another car.”

She made a face. “It’s funny, but when I was in…” She paused. “…the place I was before I came here, I often went more than a day without sleep or food. It never affected me like this.”

“When you were…wherever it was…were your emotions engaged, like they have been for the past few hours?”

“Not to that extent. I was so filled with rage back there in the prison, I could very well have done serious damage to Woods had I had less control.

There’s something about this case—something about Woods—that brings out the worst in me.”

“He has that effect on a lot of people,” Cannon told her. “Look, our emotions can do strange things to us. Especially if they’ve gone into overdrive.”

“Mine were definitely in overdrive tonight,” she nodded.

The waitress served their food and asked if they needed anything else.

“I think we’re fine, thanks.” Cannon told her.

“God, this smells good.” Portia smiled and dug in. “I can’t remember the last time I had a breakfast like this.” She thought, then corrected herself. “Yes, actually, I do. At my dad’s house a few weeks ago.”

“You don’t normally eat breakfast?” He looked incredulous. “What do you have in the morning?”

“Coffee. Maybe a piece of toast if I can steal one from my sister on the way out of the house.”

“You live with your sister?”

“Temporarily. She’s out of town right now, as is her significant other, so I have their place to myself. Only for another day or so, though. I expect they’ll both be back soon.”

“Are they on vacation?”

“On assignment.” She raised the cup to her lips. “They both work for the Bureau.”

He raised one eyebrow but didn’t comment.

She took a bite of toast and chewed, a thoughtful look on her face.

“You said you had a list of people who’d wanted to meet privately with Woods back in the day,” she said. “The prison is preparing a list for me of all of Woods’s visitors since day one. Everyone who’s visited since he was incarcerated. So far, they’ve only had time to pull the first three years,” she held up the file she’d brought in with her, “but given recent developments, my guess is that this is probably where we’re going to find our man.”

She pushed her eggs around on the plate, deep in thought.

“Here’s an idea. What if he confided in someone, and now that person is acting under Woods’s guidance? Or what if he’s acting independently for reasons of his own?”

“If Woods was giving someone else instructions, it would have had to have been recent. He just gave you the Miller boy yesterday, right?”

“Yes, but he could have been planning this since last week. Woods could have planned to give up the Miller boy yesterday, but he could have told his buddy about it a week ago.” She pulled the lists from the envelope. “Would you take a look, see if any name rings a bell? Maybe someone who started hanging around way back then who’s still coming around?”

Cannon put his cup down and took the sheets of paper.

“I left my list in the car. I’ll be right back.”

She watched him walk down the aisle to the front door, then to the car and back again. He took the steps two at a time and was back at the table in under two minutes.

Portia finished eating while he read, then poured herself another cup of coffee, watching him from the corner of her eye. Miranda had said she thought he’d looked hot in the pictures she’d seen of him. She’d have to remember to tell her sister how much better the real thing was.

“Huh. So he’s still around,” Cannon muttered under his breath.

“Who’s still around?”

“Neal Harper.” Cannon tapped his fingers on the tabletop next to his plate. “He’s a journalist—so he said, I don’t know that he ever sold a story—who used to show up in court all the time. Looks as if he’s been a steady visitor these past few weeks.” He looked up from the sheet of paper. “Last visit was on Monday.”

“Time enough to have planned this.” Portia took a small notebook from her bag. “I’ll place Mr. Harper at the top of my to-do list. What do you know about him?”

“Nothing, really. But he’s been in to see Woods eleven times since the beginning of the year.” He looked up and his eyes met Portia’s. “What do you suppose they talked about?”

“I can only imagine.”

His eyes moved down that page and onto the next one.

“Here’s another familiar name.” He took a pen from his pocket and drew a circle around one. “Keith Patterson.”

“Another journalist?”

Cannon shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think he was just one of those demented souls who was fascinated by Woods. Used to hang around the courtroom whenever we were there. He tried to talk to Woods on several occasions.”

“Why would anyone…”

“Oh, here’s a surprise.” He drew a box around a third name. “Eloise Gorman. Used to hand me letters in court to pass on to Woods.” He glanced up at Portia. “Guess she got her message through.”

“What message was that?”

“She was one of those women who…”

“Wait. Don’t tell me. Had a crush on Woods.”

Portia made a face. “Because he was misunderstood. Suffered as a child. Was being framed by aliens and the CIA.”

“All of the above, I think.” He handed the papers back to her. “Just those three, the rest are names I’m not familiar with.”

“You know, you read about these women who form attachments to serial killers, and you want to smack them in the hopes of waking them up.” She tucked the pages back into her bag. “What could any woman—any thinking human being, for that matter—find attractive about a man who has killed children? Not just once or twice, but over and over and over…”

“It’s a sort of celebrity obsession, I suppose. The media gives serial killers a lot of coverage. There are even prison matchmaking websites, where a woman can go pick out her man and start a snail mail correspondence that could lead who knows where.”

“You are making that up.” She put her cup into the saucer.

“I couldn’t make up something that bizarre,” he told her.

“I’ve been out of the country longer than I realized,” she murmured. “Any idea where she lives, where she’s from?”

“Ohio rings a bell. I’ll check my notes.” He frowned. “I should have brought those for you. I was afraid I’d miss you so I left the house in a bit of a hurry.”

“Why?” She pushed her plate aside and rested her arms on the table. “Why did you do that? Come out in the middle of the night?”

“Well, for one thing, you sounded like a crazy woman on the phone and I was afraid you’d do bodily harm to someone, if not yourself.”

“I’m not going to sit here and say it couldn’t have happened. You said one thing—what’s another thing?”

“I skipped dinner, couldn’t sleep with my stomach doing all that growling.”

She shook her head. “Not buying that one. Try again.”

“I thought you might need a friend.”

She smiled. “That’s…that’s really nice of you, Cannon. I did need a friend tonight.” She reached across the table and took his hand. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

“Enough to call me ‘Jim’ instead of ‘Cannon’?”

“Very possibly.” She squeezed his hand before letting go. “So was that it? Three things?”

“There is something else.” He hesitated, but after a moment of collecting his thoughts, he said, “It’s bothering me that, when I was representing Woods, I never considered that he might not have worked alone. I just assumed that he was the sole killer. I never questioned it.”

“From what I’ve read, Jim, no one else did, either. Certainly not John Mancini, and he lived-ate-breathed this case for almost three years.”

“I was his lawyer. I should have looked into this possibility.” He drew a hand down his face. “I’ve read that so many kids go missing each year—some could have been victims of Woods’s partner. All this time, has someone else been out there? Is someone now training a new protégé, as Woods trained him?”

“Those are some heavy thoughts, counselor.” She watched the waitress approach.

“Can I get you anything else?” she asked.

“Not for me,” Portia told her.

“Just the check,” Cannon said.

“Look, you’re getting way ahead of yourself,” Portia said after the waitress had slapped the check on the table and was out of earshot. “You’re assuming that Woods had a partner back then and that you should have known, but somehow you missed picking up on that. I’m thinking that was not the case. Could you, a recent law-school grad on your first big case, have missed something like that? Sure. You could have.” She paused. “But John Mancini? Superagent Mancini? I’d find that real hard to believe. John was inside Woods’s head, Jim. He’d have known if someone else had been in there with him.”

Cannon seemed to take it all in, but didn’t reply.

“Here’s what I think is more likely,” Portia went on. “I think it’s more likely that he’s shared his information with someone else. I could even think he’s been grooming someone to pick up where he left off, except that he was so surprised. That doesn’t fit.”

“Maybe the surprise was not the killing itself but at the timing,” he suggested. “Maybe Woods didn’t expect his protégé to act when he did.”

“There’s a thought.” She nodded slowly, turning it around in her head. “Or maybe it’s someone who, unbeknownst to him, has been studying his technique.”

“Great.” He grimaced. “Just what the world needs. Another Sheldon Woods.”

“Yeah. Scary thought.” She reached for her bag. “You ready?”

“If you are.” He placed a few bills on the table to cover the check and a tip and brushed off Portia’s offer to split it with him.

“Next time we have breakfast, you can buy,” he told her as they walked into the night that was just moving toward dawn.

“I feel so much better now, thank you again,” she said when they got into his car. “Almost human, even.”

“You sure you can drive back? You can grab some sleep at our place, I can drive you back in the morning for your car.”

“Thanks anyway. I think I should just head on home.”

“I’m not hitting on you. My sister and my nephew are home. You don’t have to worry about…”

“I wasn’t. I just have a lot to do, a lot to follow up on.” She lowered the window and let some of the cool night air into the car. “You live with your sister?”

“Temporarily.” He smiled, echoing back her own response to the same question.

“Doesn’t that cramp your style just a little?”

“Does living with your sister cramp yours?”

“I’m afraid right now I don’t have any style to cramp.” She laughed.

“I don’t either, actually.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Heavy workload. One of my associates left about six weeks ago and I haven’t found a replacement yet. What’s your excuse?”

“I’m the new girl in town,” she said. “I’ve been busy. Been back two weeks and this is the most social life I’ve had since I set foot in this country.”

“And before? When you were out of the country?”

“I was a little busy then, too.” She looked out the window and hoped he wouldn’t press her, was relieved when he let it go.

They rode in silence until they got to the prison gates.

“You sure you don’t want to bunk in with us? Dani won’t mind.”

“Dani?”

“My sister. You met her at the office.”

“Danielle is your sister?”

He nodded. “When Dani was younger, she went through a period when she was judgmentally challenged. She made some seriously bad choices. One was marrying the wrong man. He was pretty rough with her, and she took it for a long time without telling anyone. But once she had a child…well, she was more afraid for her son than she was of her husband.”

“So she left him, got a divorce, came home?”

“That’s the short version. Somewhere in there we have threats, a restraining order that he violates every chance he gets, and the death of our dad.”

“So you let her move in with you so you could keep an eye on her?”

“Actually, I moved in with her. She was already living in Dad’s house. I moved back after he died.”

“Is he still around? The ex?”

“He’s in and out of jail. I try to keep track of him.”

“She’s lucky to have you to watch out for her.”

“We’re a dying breed, us Cannons.” He stopped the Jaguar behind her car. “Neither one of us wants to be the last one.”

“I sort of know how you feel. We lost our mother about a year and a half ago.”

“It’s just you and your sister?”

She nodded. “Sometimes we’re really close.

Other times…” She shrugged. “Other times, not so much.”

“Must be tough then, since you’re living together.”

“Only until I decide what I’m going to do.”

“In regards to what?”

“Staying with the Bureau. Or leaving, doing something else.”

“Something else like what? Law school?”