Full Disclosure (22 page)

“I'm a night owl. The trip won't be a problem.” She took her time on the last of the cobbler. “She is brilliant with food.”

She brought over her bowl and slid it in the dishwasher. “Thanks for tonight.”

He settled his arms around her and gave her a comfortable hug. She leaned against him. “Glad you came and found me,” he said, relieved when she relaxed in his arms, and content with the moment and the memory tonight would be for them both. “Come on. I'll drop you off at the airport.”

“I can take a cab.”

“You could. I'd rather have that time.”

It was a forty-minute trip, and he let her have the silence. He drove through the private side of the airport and to the hangar she pointed out. “Call me when you land?”

“Sure.”

He took her hand to pause her. “If it gets on top of you, call me.”

She studied his face and nodded. “I will.”

He released her and watched her stride toward the flight line. He could have asked where in Ohio, could have asked who had called. But some of what she did was, by her own definition, private. She'd help who had called, and he'd do what he could to help her when she got home.

Paul watched the news, and it didn't take Ann telling him for him to realize she was working the murder of a cop by another cop. He knew how difficult the days would be for her, but as much as he thought about her, he chose not to call. She'd have
her head down doing the job, and sometimes it took that focus to simply survive a difficult case. He waited for the call saying she was finally home. The video call came five days later. “I'm glad you're home, Ann,” he said, sharing a smile with her.

“So am I.”

She looked exhausted, but he kept that opinion to himself. “How's Black?”

She rolled her eyes. “You want to borrow him for a few days? He's sulking, as only he can. He's not talking to me anymore, and I even brought him presents.” She looked toward the hallway. “Four presents!”

Black howled back.

“I'm going to be paying for this trip for a long time. My dog-sitting friends have two young boys who adore Black. He's had his photo taken wearing their football helmet, created two masterpiece paw paintings, and had his tail braided with ribbons.” She found the photos and held them up so he could see.

Paul laughed at the images. That poor dog.

“Black could put a paw on each boy and hold them in place just by looking at them, so I don't think he particularly minded the boys. I think the real problem was the four kittens that followed him everywhere, thinking he was their mom. Black actively dislikes cats, even small ones, and there wasn't a thing he could do about them. He's not happy with me. He ignored dinner. I'm going to try ice cream next, as that is a decent bribe.”

“Let me know how that goes.”

“Will do.”

“You must be really tired. Why don't you fix yourself some hot chocolate and go stretch out. I'll be around.”

“I think I'd better. Even for me it was a long few days.”

Paul returned to the den with a bowl of popcorn and a cold drink. He looked over at the screen and was relieved to see Ann stretched out on the couch, her writing pad now on the coffee
table. She was either thinking with her eyes closed or she had finally slipped into sleep.

He found a ball game to watch. He was nearly as tired as she was. The hurry-up-and-wait of the case was grinding him down.

The ball game finally ended with a pop-up caught in center field. Paul glanced again at the monitor.

Ann was still sleeping, but it wasn't a calm sleep. He watched as a nightmare rolled across her face, and saw restless movements as her body fought to get out of the dream. He couldn't use the video connection to wake her up—she'd muted the audio and hadn't turned it back on when she'd finished an earlier phone call. He reached for his phone to call and wake her, began to dial. She jerked awake, breathing hard. He slowly put his phone back down. She was deathly pale. She sat up and reached for the balled-up towel and held it against her mouth, trying to stop herself from being sick.

Black, worried, crowded in beside her. She took a deep breath and another and ran a shaky hand through her hair. Black tried to get up on her lap, and she reassured him with a kiss on his head. She got to her feet, but she was unsteady. She disappeared toward the kitchen.

What was she dreaming that put such panic on her face?

Ten minutes later she returned bundled up in a white sweater and sank into one of the tall wingback chairs. She reached for the television remote and flipped through channels, eventually stopping on an old movie. She needed the sleep, but he knew from what he had seen that she wouldn't be sleeping again for several hours.

He could call her and have her un-mute the video for a conversation, but invading her privacy right now risked having her pull away. She was fighting to get her mind settled. He felt slightly sick himself, having seen how bad it was. Vicky's words warning him about the nightmare had just taken substance.

On a hunch, Paul saved and replayed the video, wondering all the time if this was too personal, too private. But he cared too
deeply to ignore what he had seen. He moved to slow motion at the point just before Ann jerked awake. And then he saw it. The flinch and sharp pain that coursed through her body in the instant before she awoke. A gunshot. Vicky had said Ann woke to the sound of a gunshot. He replayed that moment and knew it was even worse than that. She woke to the
pain
of a gunshot. Her mind was reliving it.

Paul waited until their conversation had turned quiet the next night before he brought it up. “You had a bad dream last night. What are you dreaming about, Ann?”

She glanced over to catch his gaze for a moment, and he could see the wince as she realized what he had seen, but then she sighed and shrugged as she looked away. “Being a cop brings with it some bad dreams. It's a fact of life for me. I quit my job, maybe I dream less. But since I'm not willing to do that, I live with the dreams.”

“How often do they come?”

“Often enough I simply assume I will have one.”

“I'm sorry for that.”

“So am I. I've learned to cope with it. Change the subject, Paul.”

He knew when a subject was a serious hurt, and this was one. She lived with a dream that left her sick when she woke up. There was something big behind that, more than just work-related events that kept aggravating the memory. He tucked it away to come back to later, and changed the subject.

T
he sun had turned the day hot in a way that made the air shimmer, and sweat had Paul's shirt sticking to his back. He wished he'd thought to wear white today rather than blue, for even the perception of being cooler would be welcome.

Sam peered at the target sheet he was holding. “That last round is on the line. It caught an edge of white.”

Paul finished picking up the ejected casings and glanced again at the target sheet. “You're seeing things, Sam.” They'd been shooting competitive for two hours and were still tied, the count drifting back and forth two points on either side, neither man able to knock the other out by the required five points. “You want to challenge?”

Sam held the target sheet up to the sunlight. “Yeah. I'm challenging.” He dug another twenty out of his pocket, and Paul held up his hand to signal the shooting judge to come over for a ruling. He'd taken eighty dollars off Sam today and would love to make it an even hundred.

His phone rang. Paul dug it out of his pocket. When he saw the caller was Rita, he caught Sam's shoulder and held the phone so they could both hear without putting the call on speaker. “Yes, Rita.”

“Boss, there's a letter from her in today's mail. I recognize
the colored stationery she's using. I can see it through the envelope.”

“Open it, Rita, and see what she's offering.”

“Hold on.”

Sam pointed the shooting judge to the target sheet they were debating. The man pulled out his jeweler's eyepiece and studied the shot. “Clean inside.”

Paul grinned and pocketed Sam's twenty bucks.

“It's the same light green stationery, and the response goes to a street address in Indiana. She's offering four tapes—high-profile names—in exchange for serving her time in a prison in the state of Wisconsin.”

“Who does she know in Wisconsin?” Sam asked, surprised. “Do you remember anything in the file about Wisconsin? I don't.”

“I don't either,” Rita said.

“Run everything for prints, Rita. Sam and I are on the way.” Paul pocketed his phone.

“I was beginning to think she'd disappeared,” Sam said, digging the car keys out of his pocket as they headed to the parking lot. “You said it would be a month, and it was, almost to the day. I hope she doesn't hold to that pattern or it's going to be a long year.”

“It's an asymmetrical deal—four high-profile tapes in return for a location. It suggests someone important to her lives in Wisconsin.”

“Has to be,” Sam agreed. “The difference for her serving time in one state versus another would be marginal based on the climate in the state, but the federal prisons themselves don't differ much in their routines. Maybe someone important to her would visit her in prison in Wisconsin? Or is it something else entirely—someone within the prison system she's bribed to make her life easy once she's inside?”

Paul opened the passenger door. “Our lady shooter just tipped her hand, if we can figure out what Wisconsin means.”

“‘High profile.' Those are interesting words.”

“At least the next few days are not going to be boring.”

“Wisconsin is a peculiar request,” Ann agreed, pulling out the chair at the hotel table to take a seat and finish her dinner. “I'm saying that while ignoring the fact I'm currently in the state of Wisconsin. Four high-profile names in return for a prison in this state is simply odd.”

Paul added a legal pad of notes to the stack of papers destined for his briefcase, then glanced back to the video. “I've been over the case file, and nothing—not a murder she did, not even a middleman phone call—went to the state of Wisconsin. I couldn't even find that state in anything related to one of the victims.”

“She could be simply tossing out a red herring. Here, Agent Falcon, go spin your wheels with this little gem for a while.”

“I'd be inclined to believe that except for the fact she's giving up four tapes with high-profile names to get this agreement.” He'd been working the problem with Rita and Sam all day and there was nothing to be found. “The director decided we'll take the deal, but continue to worry about it because it doesn't make sense. Miss L.S. wants this reply to be sent to an address in Indiana. It's in a subdivision again. But I'm sure she's going to throw something new at us.”

“She doesn't want to get caught. That's the one thing you can count on about her.”

“Such has been my day. What are you up to, Ann?”

“Someone murdered a college student and left his body in a stolen car at a rest stop just outside Madison. It's an absolute puzzle. The primary is stumped and so am I, so I'm hoping for some inspiration by rereading everything tonight.” She held up a three-ring binder murder book.

“Looks like some light reading.”

“I've worked this case before, and we focused on a teaching
assistant from the college, but that idea turned cold. When my cop called, I thought, this time I need to look at the family. I think it was his mom who came and shot him, not someone from the college, not a stranger. Don't ask me why that is sitting out there as an idea, but it is.”

“You picked up something before, and it is just now jelling in your mind.”

“Probably. Anyway, that's my evening.”

“Wish I was there to help you.”

“Wish I could explain Wisconsin for you. If you like I can ask around among the state police guys up here. Maybe there's something odd about federal prisons in Wisconsin.”

“It wouldn't hurt, as I've got nothing now. Don't work too late, Ann.”

“I won't. Thanks for calling, Paul. I appreciate hearing the news.”

After she dropped the link, Paul closed his. She had looked somewhat more rested, focused on the job. He wondered a bit about the murder case she was on, but there was not much he could offer without being there. He picked up his briefcase and took himself home. The idea of going home to an empty place grew less appealing every day.

Two days later in the small war room, Paul looked again at the dark monitor with Ann's name on it. He wished he could make her appear on the screen, if only for a few minutes to see how she was doing. He looked toward the video Sam had set up, watching a second attempt play out to catch the lady shooter. This mailbox had a daisy painted on the top curve of the box.

“I'm back, boss.”

“Any problems?”

“None,” Sam replied. “The postman looked at the address, sorted the big trays in the back of his vehicle, showed me the other mail going to the house, and added our package to the
stack. He's a twenty-year veteran of the post office and a former marine. The reply is safe with him. The only thing that caught my attention was the number of blue-and-white overnight mailers in the bins. I asked, and he said some company had done an overnight prize envelope to every address in the neighborhood. Being a suspicious sort, I'm wondering if those originated with her.”

“I wouldn't be surprised. She'll have something planned, Sam.”

“I'll try to be ready.”

“Boss.”

“Right here, Sam.” Paul pushed through the door and into the war room, looked over at the monitor, and saw mail was now in the daisy mailbox.

“The postman just delivered the mail and our package wasn't part of it.”

“It isn't simply folded over?”

“It isn't there. I'm backing up the video to get a closer look at what he had for the address. A lot of letters, one magazine, one of those prize envelopes, but no blue-and-white package from us. The four corners were marked with a bold red line from a felt-tip pen so I could spot the mailer no matter how it was carried. I'll get back to you. I'm going to go check it out and find the carrier.”

Paul also backed up the video. Sam was right. The package he had given the courier wasn't in the delivered mail.

Sam returned in thirty minutes. “She got it out of the delivery van. The lock has been jimmied. The carrier parks in the same place every day, in the shade in the curve of the road, so his walk on the route is equal distance from the truck both ways. It's out of direct sight to any of the homes, and traffic is light. She could do it without being seen. We'll dust for prints and talk to everyone we had watching the neighborhood, but I
doubt we get lucky. She's slippery, boss, and she's good at this, or more likely, she's paid good help.”

“We never thought it would be easy. Make some inquiries, then come on home, Sam. There will be plenty to do when the four tapes arrive.”

“Will do, boss.”

Paul quickly muted the baseball game and leaned over to accept the incoming video call from Ann.

“I'm home, Paul.” Black stood up and planted his front feet on her desk so he could see what Ann was holding. “Down, you beautiful beast, I'm not sharing.” She backed up and the dog came with her.

Paul laughed. “You're not going to win that conversation.”

“It's bologna and cheese—you'd think it's a steak or something.”

The dog's ears perked up.