Hotwire (29 page)

The whistle-blower had agreed to meet them at the FDR Memorial. In the movies wasn’t it always the Lincoln Memorial? But now Platt saw the wisdom. FDR’s was all ground level, no steps to get trapped on. There were separate sections, actually what they called “rooms,” but even that was beneficial. The person could wander through each, bypassing Bix and Platt at will if he didn’t feel comfortable.

Bix traded his suit jacket and Platt his uniform jacket for Smithsonian sweatshirts. Bix carried their folded jackets in a paper bag with the Smithsonian logo, making them look like tourists.

“So how long do we give him to find us?” Platt asked.

“He’s only ten minutes late.” Bix checked his watch. “Twelve minutes.”

Platt still didn’t like this idea but they had no choice. He wouldn’t be surprised if the whistle-blower ended up being someone from the media: a reporter wanting to confirm his tips. Maybe Bix didn’t mind being sent on wild-goose chases but Platt was tired of it. Especially when the chase might involve his parents.

They were staring at one of the walls, neither of them reading the engravings, when a woman came up beside Bix. As long as tourists kept coming and going, their guy would probably stay away. Platt elbowed Bix and nodded for them to move on just as the woman said, “Good evening, gentlemen.”

Both men did a double take. What the hell was Irene Baldwin doing here? They were so busted. Had she followed them?

Bix glanced around and Platt knew he was looking to see if they had just scared away the whistle-blower.

“Hello, Ms. Baldwin,” Platt finally said when it became obvious that Bix couldn’t find his voice.

“How’s the weather in Chicago?”

That was the line. How did she know the line the anonymous caller said he would use?

Then Platt took a good look at her. She, too, was wearing a Smithsonian sweatshirt, jeans, her usual swept-up hair now flowing over her shoulders. Even the eyeglasses were new. Had it not been for her distinctive voice he wasn’t sure he would have recognized her.

“You?” Bix asked. “What the hell’s going on?”

SIXTY-ONE

NEBRASKA

“This is where you get out, O’Dell.”

Griffin grabbed Maggie’s ankles and started to pull.

She couldn’t stop him. Her feet wouldn’t listen to her head telling them to kick. She could barely feel his fingers grabbing her around the ankles. With her wrists tied she couldn’t stop him and she couldn’t break the two-foot fall from the tailgate to the ground.

She landed hard on her right shoulder, hard enough that she thought she must have dislocated it. A fresh wave of pain spiked through her upper body. Better that she came down on her shoulder than her head. The pain didn’t subside and she immediately thought, maybe not better. A tingling sensation spread all the way down to her toes.

He obviously didn’t care how banged up she got now. He’d simply bury any mess he made. He dragged her all the way to the edge of the ridge. She could see only far enough in the dark to know it was a steep drop-off. She remembered climbing down to get to the crime scene. One wrong step and you’d fall until you hit a tree. He left her within a foot of tumbling over. It didn’t matter. There would be no crime-scene techs, no coroner, not even the county attorney to figure out all the marks on her body, because her body would never be found.

Now he didn’t look pleased that she couldn’t stand up. He’d done too good of a job with the Taser. She saw him looking around, devising a new strategy, glancing at his clothing. He went back to the SUV, keeping an eye on her as he looked into the back of the vehicle. He was big enough, strong enough to carry her. But that was obviously not what he wanted to do. He hadn’t dressed for the occasion. Maybe he’d been in a hurry. He didn’t want to risk getting anything from her on his clothing.

Had he heard about her visit with Amanda? Is that what pushed him to do this?

“Why?” she managed to ask. Her mouth was dry. She could taste metal. She wasn’t sure if he could even hear her. But it stopped him.

“I just wanted to scare those kids,” he said, looking at her as he dug inside a tool kit he’d found in the back of the SUV. “They kept snooping around the field house. I told Amanda to stay the fuck away.”

So it had been Mike Griffin that night with a laser stun gun.

“I’ve got a sweet deal here. I’m not about to lose it.”

“They’ll look for me,” she said and realized immediately how lame it sounded.

“Twenty thousand acres of valleys and hills and all covered with trees and thick brush. This time of year, pine needles dropping, leaves dropping over everything. In less than a month there’ll be snow. They might look”—he stopped, squinted because she was no longer in the halo of the parking lights, and tried to meet her eyes—“but they won’t find you.”

In that instant, Maggie realized this wasn’t a man to reason with. She’d met killers face-to-face before. She recognized that empty, hollowed-out stare. When they looked at you like you were an object to be removed—an object and not a person—it was already too late.

Griffin put one knee up onto the tailgate and half climbed into the back of the SUV, pulling out shovel, tarp, and rope for his re adjusted plan. Easier to bury tarp and ropes than his clothes. His back was slightly turned to her. He didn’t need to worry about her running away when she had just proven she couldn’t even protect her shoulder from hitting the ground.

But that thump must have jolted more than just her collarbone. She could feel her feet. She could feel her hands and her fingers. And they actually worked when she wanted them to flex and move.

Griffin clanked around in the back of his SUV. He didn’t have to worry about sounds out here, either. Hank and the rest of the forest rangers were miles away. Maggie used his noise to cover her scuffs and intakes of breaths. She bit her lower lip to stop any groans.

Her mind raced. She’d never be able to take him down. Not with her wrists tied. Not with her muscles weak and her skull spinning. The keys were in his pocket but she’d never be able to get them and make it into the SUV without him being on top of her. She couldn’t even swing the shovel at him.

She saw him crawl deeper inside the back of the SUV. Then she did the only thing she could. She took a deep breath and rolled over the edge of the ridge.

SIXTY-TWO

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Platt, Bix, and Baldwin found a bench a few feet away from the monument, out of tour guides’ path as they led their groups. And hopefully out of earshot.

“The meat-processing plant you visited is notorious for contaminated beef,” Baldwin explained. “And yet the Department of Agriculture keeps giving them chance after chance to clean up their act.”

“Aren’t they supposed to close them down after so many offenses?”

“Oh, they have. For a day or two. They clean everything. Get it all spotless and sterile. But in case you didn’t notice, processing beef is a messy business. I’m always surprised that there aren’t more contaminations.”

“And some of this plant’s contaminated beef ended up in the National School Lunch Program.”

“Three orders were purchased in late August by the USDA. I thought it was ridiculous to continue to buy from this vendor with their track record, but I’m the new kid.”

“Can you track those orders and see what schools received them?” Platt asked but he already knew it couldn’t be that easy or they wouldn’t be here.

“Once they get sent to state warehouses it’s almost impossible to track where they go. I’ve discovered the NSLP is a complex maze of illogical proportions.”

“So a recall?”

Baldwin bristled, her back straightening. She let out a sigh, more frustration than relief. “I realized the day after the Norfolk, Virginia, outbreak that I wouldn’t be able to do anything from inside.”

“Wait a minute,” Bix said. “You knew about the outbreak the day after?”

“Yes. How do you suppose it came about that you finally were called in?”

Bix crossed his arms over his chest and Platt saw that his right foot had started tapping out his anger.

“Did you know immediately that it was an unusual strain of salmonella?” Platt asked.

“Yes.”

“And still there weren’t any notices sent to schools?” Now Platt was having a difficult time tamping down his anger.

“That’s the part you don’t understand.” Another long intake of breath. She rubbed at the back of her neck. In the faint light from the monument Platt could see the lines at her eyes and mouth. She wasn’t wearing any makeup. “They want to contain this one quietly. They want it to go away unnoted and chalk it up as just another contamination. When they came to me last week they said they had it under control.”

“You didn’t believe them,” Bix said. “So you made sure I was on the case.”

“I knew immediately when I heard about the elementary school in the District that it had to be related. And that there would be others.”

“How did you know already that it was an unusual strain of salmonella?” Platt asked.

“Because they told me the exact strain they had created and put in.”

SIXTY-THREE

NEBRASKA

The first ten feet were the worst. A sharp drop straight down sent Maggie falling into a black abyss. A ledge caught her, pine needles breaking the impact. Somehow she had managed to not cry out though she landed on her right shoulder again. If Griffin had heard the scuffle it would only be seconds, maybe a minute if she was lucky, before he realized where she had gone.

She forced her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Even the parking lights didn’t add a glow of illumination. She knew the ridge continued down, she just didn’t know how far. She pushed up to her knees and tested the small ledge she had landed on. Then she turned around, started scooting down on her butt, feetfirst, testing and feeling. It wasn’t quite as steep.

She glanced up. Still no flashlight aimed down to find her. She allowed herself to slide, bracing her hands in front of her. She wouldn’t be able to grab onto much but she could protect her face and head from slamming into a tree.

The sand gave way and she began to skid. She lost her balance. Her body twisted and she was sliding on her side.

Too fast, way too fast.

Branches lashed out, stabbing and scraping her skin. She needed to slow down, but she couldn’t get a grip. Couldn’t stop. Her bound wrists kept her from grabbing a rock or branch. Her hands became fists trying to protect and getting battered. Her body became a toboggan rolling over anything in its way, her hip bumping a tree trunk and sending her up against another. Branches snapped and cracked, stinging her arms, whipping at her face, catching her hair.

Then suddenly she landed a second time. On her back.

She stared up at the pine trees. In the complete darkness the patches of sky were bright with twinkling stars. She saw the top of the ridge above her. Dear God, it had to be at least sixty feet, more than six stories tall.