He left David’s office.David stood where he was, heart thudding.
They don’t know.It’s okay.They don’t know.
Then why did they come here?If they thought he was staying away, then why…
His eyes finally strayed to his computer.The power light was blinking.David always shut his computer down before leaving his office.He gasped and staggered into the guest chair, his knees suddenly weak.
Josiah wasn’t here to thank David.He was here to spy on David.He had cracked into David’s computer and tried to determine if David was still looking into the 93rd.Michael's firewall had held after all.They hadn’t been able to find the other desktop David was hiding.If they had gotten through… If they had discovered what he was doing…
The door opened, and Mary rushed inside.“Doctor?David?Are you all right?”
“Fine,” David said, smiling broadly and getting to his feet.It disconcerted him a little that he was now so good at lying.“That was a very wealthy potential client asking me if I did private house calls.Unfortunately, the animal in question is in Kentucky, and I don’t have room in my schedule for a weeklong trip, even if it is at his expense.I recommended a good horse vet I know.”
“A horse vet.For the Kentucky Derby or something?”
“He didn’t say, but I assume so.”
Mary sighed.“Oh good.I thought you were in trouble or something.”
You don’t have the foggiest clue.“Nope.Nothing to worry about here.”
The animated voices of Rogers and Hammerton floated down the hall.“I’m telling you, man, she looks exactly like my ex.”
“I thought you hated your ex.”
“I didn’t hateeverythingabout her.”
They walked into the room and grinned sheepishly at David.Their uniforms were both stained from chest to knees with coffee.“Sorry we’re late, man,” Hammerton said.“There was a fight at the coffee shop.Couple of girls.Spilled coffee on us, themselves, and a couple of other patrons.We tried to intervene and calm things down until security arrived.Took security a while too.”
I’m not surprised.“Oh yeah?”
“Oh yeah,” Rogers agreed.“I guess some dipshit was running around vandalizing cars too.Just official FBI vehicles.Spray painting… well, inappropriate things.”
“Did they catch him?”David asked.
“No, I guess he bolted, and they decided to just pass his description along to law enforcement.”
That doesn’t surprise me either.
“It’s too bad you weren’t with us, doc,” Rogers said.“Those were the prettiest girls I’ve seen in a minute.It’s too bad you’re married.”
Hammerton chuckled, “Come on, man, don’t say that.”
Mary rolled her eyes and left the room.David listened to Rogers and Hammerton recount their encounter with the CIA operatives and tried to calm the thumping in his heart.
His nose was still filled with the stench of the predator who had come within inches of picking up his scent.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Faith rubbed her eyes and resisted the urge to fall backward onto her hotel bed.Sleep was for the weak and the dead.
She felt like both right now.The first half of her second sleepless night in a row had been spent canvassing D.C.looking for the killer while listening to Metropolitan PD on the radio doing the same thing.The second half of the night was spent realizing that the description of their killer applied to thousands of people as evidenced by the thousands of calls they and the various law enforcement agencies involved received from concerned citizens insisting that they’d seen him.
They’d investigated five of those calls personally.Four of them turned out to be men with beards who otherwise didn’t at all resemble the description.After apologizing to them for waking them out of bed, they investigated the fifth call, a homeless person who was barely coherent enough to recognize that they were law enforcement.
The police didn’t have any better luck.Most of the calls didn’t even rate follow-up.A disturbing number of those were unrelated to the case and instead were entitled people complaining about their neighbors or coworkers.
To make a crappy night even worse, their request for a warrant to look into the art academy was denied.The official story was that they didn’t have enough evidence to justify that search warrant, just an as-yet unsubstantiated hunch.That was true, but Faith had gotten warrants with hunches before.She suspected the real reason for the refusal was the media’s continued coverage and fear that they would pounce the moment there was a whiff of law enforcement overstepping their bounds.Which was also true.
