Jonathan gaped. “You never cease to amaze me.”

She beamed.

“You up for doing some more magic?”

Her face fell. “Like what?”

“Like finding me everything you can about a place in West Virginia known as Brigadeville.” It took less than a minute to share the spotty information he’d learned from Andrew Hawkins.

Venice scowled. “That’s not much to go on.”

“You saying you can’t?” Jonathan asked.

“I’m insulted,” she said.

“I thought you might be.” Jonathan looked at his watch. “It’s seven-fifteen now. Let’s meet again in three hours and see where we are.”

Now she looked shocked. “You know it’s seven fifteen in the evening, right?”

Jonathan stood. “Three hours and fifteen minutes, then. You, Box, and I will meet up in the office at ten thirty.” He looked to Boxers. “That work for you, big guy?”

He stood, too. “Doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of choice.”

“Then I’m communicating,” Jonathan said. “Now, if y’all don’t mind, I’d like some time alone.”

The mood in the room. Her eyes should have been closed-or nearly closed, with perhaps a half-moon of iris showing above or below her eyelid. The flaccid flesh of her face should have brought her thin nose and high cheekbones into sharp relief. In Jonathan’s mind the dead never looked at rest so he didn’t expect that, but he did expect a look of peace. With the frowning muscles as lifeless as their smiling counterparts, he expected a deathly smoothness to her face.

Yet he found none of that.

Ellen’s face was barely a face at all; it was a bloated purple eruption of battered tissue. On her left side, the one closest to Jonathan, the cheekbone, eye socket, and brow had merged into a blood-filled globe. In the middle of the mass, the slit that was once the opening between her lids appeared to be glued shut. The angle of her jaw told him that it had been badly broken and wired back, and the odd cast of her lips was a clear indication that her teeth had been broken.

Looking at her like this, Jonathan understood why no one wanted him to be here. No one should ever have to see a loved one in a condition like this. Emotion blossomed behind his eyes, but it wasn’t driven by sadness. There was some of that, sure, but the redness of his eyes was all anger, as was the tightly locked jaw and the fists that he didn’t realize he’d clenched. He inhaled deeply and noisily, suddenly aware that for a long while he hadn’t been breathing at all.

“Sir, are you all right?” Jimmy asked. He looked terrified that he might have to care for the living instead of the dead.

Jonathan glared at him, at the long thin neck. Inexplicably, he thought how easy it would be snap it. One blow was all it would take. Or one violent twist. In his mind he could see himself doing it.

He shook the thought away. This wasn’t a time for violence. Certainly not against this clean-cut kid who’d tried every way he’d known to keep Jonathan away from this very moment. No, the time for violence would come later.

“I’m fine,” Jonathan said, returning his gaze to Ellen.

“You don’t look fine,” Jimmy said.

Jonathan didn’t answer. Instead, he turned on his heel and left the only woman he’d ever loved behind him on the gurney. He didn’t want to watch as Jimmy pulled the zipper shut again.

On the other side of the heavy door, in the paper-and equipment-strewn office, he nearly collided with Detective Weatherby of the Fairfax County Police Department.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Gail had never met the woman who stepped out of the shadows on her porch, but she recognized her on sight. “My goodness,” Gail stammered. “Director Rivers.” She extended her hand to the highest ranking law enforcement officer in the country. “What an honor.”

FBI Director Irene Rivers returned the handshake warmly and smiled. “The honor is mine, Sheriff Bonneville.”

Gail flushed. She found herself oddly speechless in the presence of the woman whom she admired perhaps more than any other. “Madame Director. Why are you here?” she asked, and then winced at the seeming rudeness.

“Please dispense with the ‘Madam Directorre the other day. That must be very unsettling in a community this small.”

“I’d think it’s unsettling in any community,” Gail said.

Irene gestured up the steps toward the front door. “May I invite myself inside for a chat?”

Gail gave a little start and headed for the steps. “Where are my manners? Yes, please come inside.”

They settled at the kitchen table because that was the only room that was furnished. Irene Rivers told her that she loved the place. Gail smiled and offered a soft drink, which the director refused, and they settled in to the business at hand.

“I know how difficult your last few days have been,” Irene started. “I’ve run high-profile cases myself over the years, and the pressure to produce results can be overwhelming.”

Gail crossed her arms and leaned them on the table. As her head cleared from celebrity shock, she decided to resist small talk. This was not a social call, after all. “Does this meeting have something to do with the shootings?” she asked.

Irene ignored the question. “Can I trust that what we discuss here in the next few minutes will remain in this room?”

“Absolutely not,” Gail said, surprised to hear her own words. “Not until I know what you’re about to say. My first allegiance is no longer to the Bureau.”

Irene arched her eyebrows and smirked. It was a look of admiration, not derision. “Why am I not surprised?” she said. She regrouped her thoughts. “Okay, then, tell me who you think the killer is.”

Gail hesitated, but she wasn’t sure why. “By name?”

Irene cocked her head. “Could you answer by name?”

The sheriff nodded. “I think so.”

“Then no,” Irene said. She looked a little embarrassed. “You’ll see when we’re done that I’ll need plausible deniability. Tell me instead where your deductive path has led you.”

Deductive path, Gail thought. How very Bureau-speak. Her eyes narrowed as she weighed her options. “I must confess, Madam Dir-” She cut herself off. “I’m not entirely comfortable sharing those details. Not at this stage of the investigation.”

“Because the Bureau has a history of, what, screwing people over?” Irene ventured. “Because we have a history of hogging credit when things go well and of passing the buck when they go sour?”

The director’s bluntness startled Gail. “Well, yes,” she said.

“I don’t blame you. As you might imagine, when you sit in my chair in the Emerald City you learn to trust your instincts on whom you trust and whom you don’t. In this case, I’m asking for the benefit of reasonable doubt.”

Gail liked this woman. She had always respected Irene Rivers, and after the shoot-out that involved the death of her predecessor in the job, the whole world had come to admire the woman’s courage under fire. “Okay,” Gail said at length. “I think that our shooter is a professional of a very high order. I think that he has advanced tactical training, perhaps Special Forces, perhaps HRT or SWAT. He knows how to make a big entry, and he knows how to shoot extremely well. He also did not work alone. He appears to have arrived by helicopter.”

Irene nodded and pinched her lower lip as she listened. “So you this.”

This is what Alice must have felt like as she stepped through the looking glass. “And the perpetrators? I still have my constituents to answer to.”

“Of course. They’ve left the country. You should be furious about that, by the way. You should be over-the-moon pissed that the FBI didn’t clue you in on the operation they were performing, and I’m willing to go on the record telling the world what a pain in the ass you’ve been dragging information out of us. That should play well here, don’t you think?”