Mortal Sin (34 page)

“And?”

“I left before the police came. Dillon didn’t tell anyone I was there.”

“They must know.”

“Probably, but right now the important thing is
you
. The guy was obsessed with you. Maybe not in a sexual way, but it’s so wrong.”

“Sean, I need this to be over. I have to do it.”

She was right, of course, but Sean didn’t let her go. She straddled his lap and hugged him tightly. Slowly, she began to relax in his arms.

“I wish I could keep you here, safe, forever,” Sean whispered.

“Hiding is never the answer. I can do this, Sean. Mick Mallory can’t hurt me.”

“You’re amazing, Lucy. I’ve never met anyone braver than you.”

She rested her forehead on his. “I’m not. I just can’t sit in a corner, scared of dark shadows and creaking stairs for the rest of my life. I made that decision six years ago. Mallory isn’t going to change that.”

Lucy was the epitome of courage, but Sean didn’t repeat the obvious. “I’m going to wash my face,” she said, “then we should go. I’m relieved this will be over tonight.”

“You don’t have to talk to him,” Kate said when she saw Lucy.

Lucy had admired Kate from when she first met her, for more reasons than Lucy had ever shared with her. But the primary reason was that Kate was willing to face evil and fight for what was right, that she could put her pain and her anger aside to do the right thing
all the time
, even when it came at great personal or professional or physical risk. She spoke her mind, and was more of a sister to her than her own flesh-and-blood sisters.

Lucy hugged Kate spontaneously—neither of them was demonstrably affectionate, and the physical display came as a surprise to both. “I love you, Kate. I don’t think I ever told you that.”

Lucy stepped back and Sean took her hand. He’d accepted her decision to talk to Mallory, even if he wasn’t happy about it.

Lucy observed Mick Mallory through the one-way glass. He sat rigid, though he’d been there for several hours. His hands were on the table in front of him, shackles on his feet.

He was much older than she remembered. But she didn’t really remember what he’d looked like. She’d
blocked him from her mind the way she’d blocked what happened to her on the island.

There were only two things she remembered clearly from that time: when Dillon pulled her up from the filthy floor of the cabin and gave her his shirt to wear, and when she shot Adam Scott two days later.

Everything else was dark and fuzzy, and she preferred it like that.

But she’d know Mick Mallory if she saw him on the street. That he was living in nearby Herndon seemed unreal. She didn’t hate him, and that surprised her.

He hadn’t raped her.

But he watched
.

He’d apologized.

He did nothing while the others hurt her
.

He had nearly died sending Kate information.

He may have killed Cody
.

Lucy might be able to forgive the past, if only because harboring lifelong anger and pain would destroy any chance of living a normal life. But what if Mallory had killed Cody because of her? Because she’d asked Cody to look into Prenter’s murder?

Maybe it would have been better if she’d looked the other way. If she’d ignored her suspicions. Prenter was a rapist. Cruel, sadistic, he didn’t care about the women he hurt, drugged them so they didn’t remember, couldn’t testify. Drugged them into a coma.… He was better off dead. She had no remorse that he was gone. No guilt. No grief. No sympathy.

Did that make her as cold and calculating as Mick Mallory?

Yet she would never have killed Prenter. She would never have killed any of those men, unless they were a
direct threat. She’d never have thought of it … but she’d thought about killing Adam Scott. Not only thought about it, but took a gun from her father’s safe and walked the three blocks to Dillon’s house and shot the bastard who’d kidnapped her. Six times. She remembered it as clearly as if she’d shot him yesterday, felt the recoil of the handgun each time she pulled the trigger.

Maybe she was more like Mick Mallory than she thought. More like him than she wanted to be.

Cody was dead and even though he had been following her, he wasn’t a rapist or a killer. Had he found something that incriminated Mallory? If that was the case, his death was for nothing—the FBI had found the connection to Mallory only hours after Cody died.

But if Cody had committed suicide, then he’d done it because of her. In her head she knew that if Cody was distraught enough to kill himself, he had a lot of problems. But in her heart she couldn’t help but think that the way she treated him yesterday—that her inability to love him the way he wanted—that her rejection of his marriage proposal last year—that somehow, all that turned him suicidal.

She didn’t know if she could face this every day as an FBI agent.

She asked quietly, “Do you know if forensics has a report on Cody’s death? Suicide or murder?”

Noah said, “The D.C. police are giving our people full access. We have our best ERT processing all evidence. Our people are canvassing with the police to find any witnesses. We’re talking to everyone whom Officer Lorenzo had contact with over the last seventy-two hours. We’ll have an answer, but we can’t rush it.”

Lucy said, “I’m ready.”

Noah started with her toward the door. She shook her head. “I need to talk to him alone.”

“Hell no,” Sean said.

She squeezed his hand. “I’m okay.”

Noah agreed with Sean. “I’m not putting you in the room alone with that killer. He promised to talk to you, but he said nothing about being alone with you. We’d never agree to it.”

Hans said, “Kate can join them. Mallory and she have a history. He may be more forthcoming with Kate in the room, Noah.”

Exasperated, Noah ran a hand through his hair. “Okay. Fine.”

Hans said, “Lucy, I’m confident you’ll know what to say and do, but he did promise a full confession if you talk to him, so get everything you can out of him. Plus, we have a few questions for him—like why Robert Ralston went to Seattle. Why he waited until Morton was in D.C. before killing him. Confirm how they select their targets, and why Ralston was killed. Was Ralston working only for Morton, or playing for both teams?”

Lucy took a deep breath. “And why he killed Cody.”

Hans nodded. “The minute you feel uncomfortable, you can leave. You don’t have to stay. Even if you just need a couple of minutes, take them.”

She nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

Sean turned her face to his. “I’m right here.”

She gave him a smile that she hoped wasn’t as weak as it felt, then stepped inside the interview room behind Kate.

To say Mick Mallory brightened when he saw her was an understatement. He sat straighter. He didn’t so much as smile as open his mouth slightly in surprise and something
that felt like awe. Lucy considered turning around and having Sean take her home. She didn’t want to be in the same room with this man.

But there was no going back. She would face Mallory and get the answers they all needed. The answers
she
needed.

She sat down. Kate sat next to her. Lucy didn’t take her eyes from Mallory’s face.

“You wanted to talk to me.”

“Thank you.”

She shook her head. “I’m here so you will confess. I want the truth.
The truth will set you free
.” She intentionally quoted from Cody’s fake suicide note. Mallory nodded, not flinching or showing any other reaction. He was cold. Colder than she remembered.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“I don’t want your apology. I want the truth. Start with why you have a picture of me in your house.” She hadn’t intended to start with that piece of information, but her mind had gone blank when she saw him sitting there.

He nodded and showed his first sign of discomfort as he reached back and rubbed the back of his neck, licking his lips at the same time. “I took that a year after I got out of the hospital. I came back here and didn’t know what I was going to do. I wanted to kill myself, but didn’t have the courage. Then I heard about the plea agreement between the government and Roger Morton, and my anger over that kept me alive. Guilt and vengeance fuels me; it runs through my veins. It’s the air I breathe.” He cocked his head. “You didn’t know, did you?”

She shook her head.

“I wanted to see how you were doing, to make sure you were, I don’t know, living as normal a life as possible.

“I shouldn’t have tried to find you, but I couldn’t help myself. I learned your schedule and waited one afternoon for you to leave one of your classes, I don’t remember which one. You looked both sad and happy at the same time—I didn’t know how that was possible. I was looking at you through a long lens because I didn’t want you to see me. I didn’t want to scare you. And I snapped a picture, without intending to.”

For the first time, Lucy feared she’d been wrong about Cody—that he hadn’t been the one stalking her. Trying to keep the anger out of her voice, she asked him, “Have you been stalking me?”

“No, I swear. The last time I saw you was at the WCF fund-raiser, but before then it had been a long time.”

Lucy couldn’t keep the shock off her face. “You were
there
?”

“Yes. You wouldn’t have recognized me.”

“You were in disguise?” Her head began to spin. She willed her breathing to even out.

“Pretty much.”

“What about the skating park?”

He stared at her blankly. “I don’t skate.”

“No, at the skating rink in Arlington.”

He shook his head. “Before Saturday, I hadn’t seen you in over a year.”

“Why were you at the WCF fund-raiser?”

“I’m not going to say.”

“You said you’d tell me everything if I talked to you. I’m here. I’m talking. It’s your turn.”

Kate interrupted for the first time. “It might be helpful,
Mick, if you tell Lucy about why you used her to lure parolees into a death trap. She deserves to know, don’t you think?”

“Yes.” He swallowed, his head falling into his hands. His shoulders rose, then fell. Again. Lucy did not feel bad for him, not even a sliver of empathy.

Mallory focused on Lucy. It was as if Kate wasn’t in the room, though it was clear he’d heard her.

“After my wife and son were murdered, I lost my heart and my soul. Lost everything that was good, everything I loved. After the … 
situation
where I was fired, Fran was the only person I could talk to. We kept in touch.”

“That doesn’t answer Kate’s question,” Lucy said. “Why did you use me?”

“We didn’t. I never wanted you to know.”

“Too late. I figured it out. But not until after seven parolees were killed—seven that I lured into public.”

“Don’t feel an ounce of remorse for those animals! They were all violent predators who are better off dead.”

“Because you’re a god? Is that how you see yourself?” Lucy asked.

“No, I’m sure I’m going to Hell. I figured I’d send some of those bastards there before I arrive.” He paused, glanced at Kate, then turned back to Lucy. “Four years ago, Fran called me from Boston. She’d learned about a rapist who walked on a technicality. The bastard had been raping his niece from the time she was ten until she was fifteen. She committed suicide instead of telling her family that she’d had two abortions. They only found out after she died, from her diary. The
judge wouldn’t allow the diary to be admitted as evidence, and there was nothing else to prove he was a child molester.

“The situation reminded Fran of what happened to her sister. She went to Boston and killed him. In his own house. Then she called me to help her cover it up. So I did. I stole the creep’s paintings and fenced them. He was quite a collector. Look it up—his name was Parker Weatherby.” Mallory paused, then added, “I read the diary, Lucy. It was gut-wrenching. Fran should have gone after the fucking judge. When our own system fails the innocent!” He slapped his palm on the table and a startled Lucy leaned back.

Mallory looked pained that he’d scared her. He said in a rush, “After that, I had an idea. I needed to do
something
to stop these men. I only took a few hits a year to avoid patterns, I never charged more than my minimum expenses, and I rarely did a job in the same state twice. If the Bureau had figured it out, they weren’t looking at me.

“It wasn’t enough. I was so dissatisfied, but couldn’t take on more. Not from lack of opportunity. And if I went after killers and rapists who got off on technicalities, like the prick up in Boston who Fran killed, the Feds would have figured it out pretty quickly. So I asked Fran to identify parolees for me to hit. She’d already started the lure program, it was successful, but honestly—why should these monsters go back to prison on the taxpayer’s dime for two, three, four years to finish their sentence when we damn well know that the minute they get out, they’ll be hunting for their next victim?”

“Did you know I volunteered for Fran?”

He didn’t say anything at first.

“Don’t lie to me!”

“I knew. I kept up with what you were doing.”

“And that’s not stalking? I suppose you’ve already rewritten the criminal penal code to suit your vigilante justice, so why not redefine stalking?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t accept your apology!” Lucy took a deep breath. Her anger wasn’t getting them the information they needed. “So you set these guys up. I copied the database and identified
seven
I was responsible for. Eight including Brad Prenter.”

“You? Responsible? I killed them!”

“
I
set them up. How do you think that makes me feel? That I caused another human being to die?”

“You should feel relieved that they can’t hurt anyone else, that they will never destroy another family.”

In the back of her mind, Lucy realized that she
was
relieved they were off the streets. But she couldn’t accept cold-blooded murder. If vigilante justice ruled, anarchy would soon follow.

“The system is far from perfect. But your way is not the answer. It’s premeditated, cold-blooded murder. That makes you as much a monster as they are.”