“He did.”
“How’d the Stevskys handle having their patriarch sent to federal prison?”
“He never made it.”
“That’s right. He died in jail. Heart attack or something. I’m guessing the Stevskys don’t believe it was a heart attack?”
“They do not. We kept it out of the papers, but the Stevskys were quite vocal about their desire to take revenge on our office.”
“And Thad specifically?” Faith asked.
Luke nodded.
Faith tapped and scanned the iPad, desperately hoping Luke wouldn’t realize how furious she was.
She twirled the pen in her fingers. “Did Special Agent Estes investigate the Stevskys?”
“You’ll have to tell us.” Luke made no effort to disguise his aggravation. “Estes has been a jerk.” Luke didn’t meet her eye. “She refuses to tell us anything. You’d think we were the oneswho blew him up, or that we were in league with Stevsky. Which makes no sense at all.”
“I want to hear everything about Stevsky, but I don’t want to get too much in the weeds before we clarify a few other things.”
She could feel the tension pouring off Luke in waves. “What else do you want to know?”
“I can see why the Stevsky family is the obvious choice for Most Likely to Kill Thad Baker, but who else is on the list? He’d been in this business long enough to put more than Stevsky in jail. Did y’all look at his cases from before he came to Raleigh? And since?”
“We did.” There was an edge to Luke’s voice. “We investigate too. And we’re very, very good at it.”
Faith refused to snap back. “I never said you weren’t. I’m asking because I don’t have any record of it, and I’m wondering if you have an email you might have sent Janice. It doesn’t make sense for us to recreate the wheel all because she can’t file properly.”
She pressed her lips together. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “Or so I’ve heard.”
“You can’t stand her either.” There was vindication, and something else—maybe relief—in Luke’s voice.
“I did not say—”
“You didn’t have to. Even Gil, who gets along with everybody, is convinced that Janice Estes is either grossly incompetent or an evil genius working her own plan to take over the entire world.”
It took her a moment to respond. “Be that as it may, do you have the information you provided to her, and is it something I could see?”
Luke was looking at her with an expression she couldn’t quite get a read on. He had been angry earlier. Testy. Quick to assume the worst. But now? There was something hopeful in his eyes. Something that might be inching its way toward trust.
8
FAITH FOCUSEDon her iPad. She had no doubt Janice had the missing information and had simply failed to provide it. She hated the thought that someone as inept as Janice Estes had managed to become an FBI agent.
Luke went to the car to retrieve his laptop. When he returned, it only took him a few moments to find the file and send it to her. She opened it and scanned the list. She remembered a few of these cases. Most she hadn’t heard a peep about.
And she understood why there had been such a singular focus on the Stevskys.
“Not to belittle the work you’ve done here, but most of this is relatively small stuff. Minor players. Electronic crimes are important to their victims, but these are not the type of criminals who are likely to escalate to murdering a federal agent. Unless ... you have classified cases you didn’t provide due to national security concerns. Do you?”
Luke grinned at her. “Funny how your coworker never asked about that.”
Hilarious.
“We did a thorough investigation on the handful of items notprovided to you. Three cases, to be exact. None of which had a particular tie to Thad. None of which had ever been violent in nature. We’ve officially closed out the investigations into all three. They either have rock-solid alibis or a complete lack of motive combined with zero resources to pull off such an attack.”
Part of Faith longed to insist they show her those cases. Let her be the judge of whether they had any merit. But unlike Luke, who had issues with the FBI, Faith didn’t have a beef with the Secret Service. She’d always admired them and what they stood for. She’d never met an agent she couldn’t respect—at least not on the job. And she had no doubt that this group of agents had been deeply motivated to find their friend’s killer. If there had been a minuscule chance that any of the classified cases held the key to a conviction, they would have found it.
