Full Disclosure (23 page)

“No, I don't have any of that word that shall not be mentioned for you to share.” Laughing, she backed into a chair. She let Black have the last bite of her sandwich and rubbed his furry head.

“Did Wisconsin get solved?”

“Maybe pushed a little further along. The primary is going to take another look at the brother. Something odd is going on with the case, but whatever it is, it's not obvious to either of us. I expect I'll go back in a few days if this idea goes dry.” She found Black's ball and sent it rolling down the hall with the dog in corner-crashing pursuit. “How are things going for you?”

“She's got the agreement. We're still waiting on the four tapes to arrive.”

“So you're watching a ball game. I'm proud of you. You're not working.”

“And I'm shopping for birthday presents. I could use some help.”

“Sure.”

“The first is for Kelly.” He clicked through pictures, found one of the group at the last family picnic, and slid it into the video portion of the screen for Ann. “She's the one with the pink shirt and shoes. She is fifteen, exuberant, outgoing, loves dogs, and talks about being a vet.” He held up a catalog with two circled ideas. “So tell me—which of these do you prefer?”

“The red bag. Very useful.”

“Good call. Birthday two is Emily.” He studied the photo. “Sitting on the picnic table, holding her two-year-old brother. Emily is thirteen, a touch shy, loves babies and dolls, and has a good eye for fashion. She sketches clothes.”

“A nice set of pastel pencils. She'd love them.”

He wrote it down. “Thanks. Got plans for your evening?”

“None.” She picked up her glass and settled more comfortably into her favorite chair. “I might dig out a jigsaw puzzle later if I get really bored.”

“Then I've got a question for you. Something I've wondered at. Who do you talk to, Ann, when you've had a really bad day?”

“Where did that question come from? Shari, Kate, Rachel, Vicky, whichever one I happen to talk with first, all of them before I'm done. I don't have that many bad days. Bad cases, sure. But personal bad days—that's when Black about gets hit by a car, or I get violently sick from something I ate. I can roll with the odd flat tire, a water-heater problem, and the ants that got into the kitchen.”

“You got ants in your kitchen?”

“A couple of months ago. The worst part was Black deciding he could help by licking them up. They started running all over him and got into his eyes and nose and ears, and he went howling on me and frantically wild. I had to tackle him and put the hose in his face to wash out his eyes and mouth and nose and ears and then give him a bath on top of it. He didn't speak to me for days afterwards, and he'd walk out of any room I entered.”

“Steak bribed him back?”

“The second one. The first one he actually looked at me,
looked at the steak I'd cut up for him, and I could almost hear him say, I'm still upset with you, and then he turned and walked away.” She laughed. “Midnight and I have had our moments.”

She tipped her near-empty glass toward him. “New question.”

He thought about it as he studied her, then smiled. “An observation and a question. Most people are constantly interacting—texting, emails, phone calls, visits. You aren't. Numerous shared evenings now, and it's a pattern. Is there a reason you are so solitary, Ann? Your days flow by without seeing people unless they come into your circle.”

“I've spent some evenings with you.”

“Set us aside, and think about it. I'm curious, Ann.”

“Hold on, I'm going to get a refill.” She came back in a minute and settled in the chair she favored. “I don't easily give up a day or evening alone to fill it with people. The MHI requests always eventually come, so I guess I treat every day I'm home as a vacation. I tend to keep my vacations people-free. I like to sleep in, read, write, walk with Black, and just have time to think. Fill my time up and there isn't time for that. Book ideas are born in those quiet days, after I'm still enough for long enough that my subconscious can begin to lay out something interesting. I can't think deeply if I'm interrupted every few hours. I like the solitude.”

“Do you feel like you need more of it than you have now?”

“If I had a month of solitude, I'd love it—I'd make good progress on a book. But life's a pretty good balance right now, I have to say. I'm somewhere on an MHI case most of the time. I'm often seeing friends or talking with them. I'm just not planning when it happens. I enjoy people, I enjoy a good conversation and doing something together, but I don't require it in my week. I do need several hours of quiet.”

“I'm much more people-involved,” Paul offered, “even though I can do without the crowds. I need those interactions to feel like I know what's going on. If I don't talk to someone for a few weeks, it feels wrong.”

“You're wired to be head of the family, head of your team. You'll be good at it. You need the day-to-day. I guess I don't.”

Her phone rang. She looked over at it, then gave him an amused smile. “Want to guess? MHI or friend?”

“Hope it's not MHI.”

She answered the phone. “This is Ann.”

She started writing, and he knew she was about to be leaving.

When she hung up the phone, she folded the note. “Sorry, Paul. I need to get Black dropped off and get out of here. Nevada. A bit out of my normal territory, but a cop I know needs an opinion before he proceeds, and he wouldn't be asking if it wasn't bothering him. This one's a personal favor. Just for the record, I used to date him.”

“I appreciate you telling me that. How often do MHI calls come in on top of each other?”

“Most of the time they overlap while I'm in the field, and I fly from one case to the next. This is the first time this year I'm arriving and leaving home on the same day.” Ann opened the lockbox and retrieved her side arm, tucked credentials in her pocket, then picked up her go-bag. “Black, want to go for a ride?”

The dog looked like he wanted to protest, then picked up his bear and headed toward the hall.

Ann watched him walk away. “This is going to be fun.”

Paul smiled, knowing Black was going to give her fits, depending on where she dropped him off. “Safe flying, Ann.”

She laughed. “Always. Good night, Paul.” She dropped the link.

He closed down his. She was flying late, but he wasn't worried about the hour or the distance she was going. She did this routinely, and he'd rather have her in the air than on a highway for that amount of time.

The more conversations Paul had with her, the more intriguing she became. She was unlike anyone he had ever met before. Content for the most part just to be. Maybe that was the core of it. She wasn't out wanting more than life was already giving her.

He considered finishing the ball game, then shut off the
television. He'd call it a night. He found, not for the first time, that he was more relaxed after being in her company than anything else he did.

Two days later, Paul shifted in his office chair, reading through emails, sending replies, and trying to pretend impatience wasn't crawling up his spine. His phone rang, he saw the caller ID, and grabbed for it. “Yes, Zane.”

“Four tapes marked High Profile have arrived by courier, along with a signed copy of the agreement.”

“We mail it, it never arrives, and yet she has it. You've got to admire her arrangements.”

“I've already talked to Rita. I'll have them in her hands within the hour.”

“Thanks, Zane.”

Paul entered Suite 906 shortly after six o'clock the next morning. For the first time in his memory he had arrived before Margaret. He passed her desk and walked back to his boss's office. “Good morning, Arthur.”

“Morning, Paul. Grab some coffee. I'll get the director on a conference call, even if I have to bump him off another one.”

“Appreciate it, sir.” He poured himself a mug of coffee and took a seat across from Arthur's desk. Paul had brought no notes, for he wasn't going to forget the information Rita had given him. He needed the coffee since he'd been at the office until two a.m.

“Hello, Paul.” The director's voice came clearly through the speakerphone.

“Director.” A year ago, Paul would have felt at least the edge of nerves at being on a conference call with the FBI's director, but time had changed matters. He was relaxed and tired enough he was fighting to keep from yawning.

“I understand four tapes have arrived. She said they were high profile. Was she stretching that or are they as advertised?”

Paul gave a slight smile, appreciating both the question and the answer he had. “Rita's good at her job. She had them matched in less than a day. One is a former governor, another a mob boss, and two are high-ranking officials in the State Department.”

Arthur stopped what he was about to say to look over.

“The mob boss is Daylor Globe,” Paul added.

“The two at State?” the director asked.

“William Fisher and Jack Chase.”

“I've met Fisher and heard of Chase. Those names alone would draw a press firestorm. She has—what, twenty tapes left?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Makes you wonder what else she has. Thanks for the update.”

“We'll be in touch, Director.” Arthur ended the call. “Daylor Globe. He's been so careful I thought I'd never see that name on an arrest warrant. When this began, I had hopes the tapes would be worth something to us, but I never imaged this. It's going to be more than nice making these arrests.”

“Very. If she's got tapes like this, we want them all.”

“Do whatever you have to, Paul, to clamp down on security for this case. We can't afford word leaking out that the lady shooter has been in touch or that these tapes exist.”

“I've been thinking on it, Arthur. It was a month between the tapes and this last letter. If she stays with that pattern, this could take six months to a year before the thirty tapes are in our hands, before we can turn the corner to ramp up personnel and go make arrests. Security for that length of time is going to be a problem.

“No one involved is the type to say a careless word out of place, but the pattern of people coming and going is a concern. Sam, Rita, and I are spending time in the secure war room; the director and Tori Scott have been in town. You can put together something is happening by watching the people involved.

“I'm going to work on some way to divert attention from what's going on. Vacation time thrown in the mix, a different case that we focus on, or something that involves the three of us that can serve as a cover. I need a way to push the tapes into the background if someone is curious about what we're doing.”

“Agreed,” Arthur said. “Your primary task is to work the letters and tapes when they arrive, and create a smoke screen for the rest of the time. Success is getting to the day of arrests without news of this case getting out. You'll figure it out. Let me know what I can do to help.”

“Thank you, sir.”