Always Watching (20 page)

“
Special Agent Joel
Soule,” I whispered.  He was the agent in charge of the
investigation into Sully Marcos, newly appointed after Mark Seleeby
was removed from the case, from the Washington bureau all
together.

“
Surprised to see
me?”

I nodded.  “David said the case against
Marcos was in the hands of the federal prosecutors.”

Soule’s eyes tightened marginally.  “It
is.  We’re here on a different matter, Dr. Eriksson.”

“
Helen, please,” I replied
automatically.  My smooth response didn’t betray the hammering
in my chest.  What other matter?  And why would they be
aware that Danny was here an hour after his shooting?  For
that matter, why would they be interested in him at
all? 

Rick Hamilton.  I groaned
inwardly.  What had they done, exhumed the son of a bitch
trying to determine if my suicide story was plausible?

Soule sobered at my distracted
silence.  “I’m afraid I haven’t got very good news,
Helen.  Datello died on the table five minutes ago.”

“
Our medical examiner
–”

“
Won’t be necessary,” he
said.  “We’re taking custody of Mr. Datello’s remains,
especially since an allegation was made that he was essentially
murdered by an agent of the FBI.  It’s not negotiable.  I
presume that satisfies your sudden presence here.”  Soule made
another quick hand motion to the man who followed me from the
stairwell.  “Let’s get Dr. Eriksson back to an area where the
public is allowed.”

Grief over my failure overwhelmed me, so
much so, that I didn’t question why the FBI would be territorial
over the remains of our murder suspect. I should’ve started
questioning everything. It was yet another mistake in what was a
list that now outnumbered the times I’d been right.

Chapter 16

Since Devlin and I were the ones who
returned Sofia Datello to her mother, we volunteered to inform her
of the unfortunate events this afternoon and the county jail. 
Volunteer might be a little misleading.  It makes me sound
willing to deliver crushing news to a woman who had already known
too much sorrow in her short life.

Responsible
would describe my motivation a little
better.  I failed to protect her husband.  I ignored my
gut instinct that something about Preston wasn’t right.  I let
David Levine lull me into a sense of false security that Preston
was a harmless climber without the ambition to do something so
extreme.  The end result was the same.

I owed it to Celeste Datello to deliver the
confession of my massive failure to her in person. 

She checked out of Saint Mary’s hospital
shortly after Sofia was returned to her custody.  I couldn’t
blame her.  A hospital employee easily absconded with her baby
once.  No sane person would stick around for a second
shot.

We drove in silence out to Hennessey
Island.  I knew what was eating Dev from the inside out. 
The fight he heard this morning was something I wished he hadn’t
witnessed.  He probably thought the worst of Johnny and
me.

“
Dev, about what happened
earlier today –”

“
No need to explain,” he
said. 

“
You seem upset, and I
think we should talk about it.”

“
I feel like a fool. 
What else is there to say?”

“
Devlin, you’re not a
fool.  Things are always more complicated than they appear on
the surface.  Johnny and I needed to talk without yelling,
without overreacting based on some pretty wild emotions that I
think were rooted in fear for both of us.”

“
If the relationship is
that complicated, maybe you should simplify things.”

“
I’m not leaving
him.  I’m not kicking him out.”

“
Yeah, he made that pretty
clear this afternoon.”

“
Please tell me he didn’t
threaten your job,” I groaned.  Johnny always harbored an
irrational vein of jealousy toward him from the moment that I
started working with Dev.

“
No, he told me that what
he had to say in no way applied to the job, and that I am a damned
fine cop that he’s glad to have on his team.”

“
But?”

“
He said if I ever laid
another hand on you, he’d tear it off and feed it to me.”  He
glanced sharply to the right.  “It’s not funny, Helen. 
Next thing you know, he’ll be telling you that we’re not allowed to
see to each other at all anymore.  God knows, I might look at
you the wrong way.”

“
I shouldn’t laugh, but
honestly, Dev.  Do you think he’d really tear your hand off
and feed it too you?”

“
Looked pretty damned
serious to me.”

“
I have a feeling that his
irrationality is gone,” I said.  “There’s the hotel. 
Celeste is in the penthouse.  Are you ready for
this?”

“
Not until you tell me why
Johnny isn’t going to act like a raving lunatic if I accidentally
touch you again.”

“
Things have
changed.  I think he understands a few things now that he
didn’t before.”

“
So you told him I have no
chance, even if he’s not in the picture.”

“
No, I didn’t say that at
all.”

“
You told him I’m not your
type.”

“
Devlin,” I said
softly.  I reached for his hand, saw the flinch when I touched
him.  “I love Johnny.  That doesn’t mean that I think
you’re a troll.  I don’t.  If I’d met you first, who
knows?  That kind of speculation is pointless.  I didn’t
meet you first.  Neither one of us knows what would’ve
happened if I had.  But with Johnny, the chemistry was
undeniable from the very moment we met.  He understands me in
ways that I doubt anyone else could.  Maybe my father knows me
that well. 
Maybe
.”

He nodded.  “All right then.  We
can still be friends?”

“
The best of
friends.”

A tiny grin quivered at the corner of his
lips.  “I can live with that.”

“
I don’t want you waiting
for things to fall apart between me and Johnny anymore, Dev. 
You need to move on and be happy, whether it’s alone or with
someone who can love you the way you deserve.”

“
And who says I put all my
eggs into one basket?” he smirked.  “Don’t go getting a big
head over this, Eriksson.

I doubted the veracity of his claim, based
solely on the fact that I knew him so well.  Devlin Mackenzie
was an all or nothing kind of guy.  One loyalty, be it to the
job or who he loved or anything else.  It simply wasn’t his
nature to be deceitful.

No, that was a trait that Johnny and I
shared.  It might not apply to our feelings for each other,
but there was never an instant of hesitation when a lie
accomplished what needed to happen in the grand scheme of
things.

I stared up the spire of Datello’s most
lucrative accomplishment in Darkwater Bay.  At the top lay a
responsibility to the truth, one that not even I could justify
deception to cushion the blow.

“
It’ll be all right,
Helen,” Devlin said.  “What happened was not your fault. 
Even if Preston hadn’t killed him in cold blood, Celeste knew that
the odds of Danny beating the charges against him in court were
slim to none.  They had no meaningful future
together.”

“
I know, but at the same
time, incarcerated isn’t the same as dead.  His daughter
could’ve known him.  Celeste could’ve had more time with
him.  There’s such a finality to death.  I don’t think
I’ve ever felt it quite this way before.”

“
Seriously?”

“
Yeah, talk about
irony.  How many deaths have I investigated?  I buried my
mother, my ex-husband, and yet this is the first time it feels so…
personal.  I failed this time.”

Crevan and Johnny pulled up behind us and
waited.  Johnny and I planned to go home after the news was
delivered to a new grieving widow.  Crevan and Dev would do
whatever it was they did during down time.  The plan was to
congregate at my house for breakfast and plan the next steps in our
covert investigation.  There was far more to learn than what
we had uncovered so far.

“
Ready?” Dev
asked.

“
No, but procrastinating
the inevitable isn’t the answer either.  Let’s go.”

We rode in silence to the top of the
towering building.  I fidgeted.  Dev remained stoic.

I rang the doorbell, though the front desk
had to grant us access to the penthouse, so Celeste knew we were on
our way upstairs.  I expected her enormous blue eyes to take
one look and realize why we were there.  Accusations would
surely follow, and probably even threats of lawsuits.  No way
around the truth.  Her husband was murdered in cold blood
while in the custody of law enforcement.

The door swung open.  I startled at the
unfamiliar face staring at us.

“
Detectives, won’t you
come in?  I’m Destiny Gerard, acting CEO of Datello
Enterprises.  We felt in light of recent events, it would be
prudent for Celeste to have someone staying with her.”

Frankly, my preference would’ve been that
she mend fences with her family, but Celeste had no intention of
abandoning her husband and pleasing her parents.  Maybe now
that was a moot point of conflict between them.

Dev shook her hand.  “Detective
Mackenzie.  I believe you should know who Dr. Eriksson
is.”

“
Yes,” a little frost
fogged from her lips.  “By reputation if not through a formal
introduction.  Are you here to follow up about this baby
snatching incident?”

“
No,” I said.  “We
need to speak to Mrs. Datello immediately, Ms. Gerard.  Is she
available?”

“
She’s feeding the
baby.  If you’ll wait in the living room, I’ll let her know
you’re here.”

We followed her into the wide open space of
the penthouse.  It reminded me very much of Johnny’s in La
Pierre tower, only this was a home, very much absent Johnny’s
bachelor, minimalist decor.  It was warm, cozy even for a
place that had no clear demarcation from one area to the
next. 

A fire crackled in a fireplace that stood
out in the center of the living room as the focal point.

Dev gestured toward the sofa.

“
I’ll stand,” I
murmured.  I wanted to pace.  A certain amount of decorum
and solemnity is required for a death notification.  I’d never
been very good at this part of the job, even when I remained
emotionally detached from the official function.  Something
about the grief of others unsettled me.  What could I
say?  There’s no way to cushion some blows in life. 
Typically, it stirred feelings of frustration in me.  It was
pragmatic, not cold.  The families of the victims had
information that could help me.  If they floundered in grief,
I couldn’t do my job efficiently.

This felt different.  Ache and dread
grew in the pit of my stomach.  This empathy thing sucks.

Celeste drifted into the room, floated on a
bubble of happiness that we would soon burst.

“
Detectives,” she smiled
warmly.  Little Sofia was nestled in the crook of her
arm.  “I’m so glad you came over this evening.”

A second later, she deposited a child that
was named for the woman her mother believed rescued her into my
arms.  Little Sofia squirmed for a more comfortable position
in the unfamiliar arms and promptly jammed a tiny fist in her mouth
to suckle.

My eyes were dragged from the tiny face back
to that of the mother.  “You look radiant, Celeste.”

“
You gave me my life back
today, Helen.  I can’t ever thank you enough.”

“
It was the least I could
do for you,” I said.  Guilt wrapped around my tongue and
rendered me speechless for a moment.  I owed this woman so
much more than what she got.

“
I still feel like you’re
family,” she said softly.  “Especially now.  I know we
never met before all of this unpleasantness with Danny began. 
Perhaps things might’ve been different if the three of us could’ve
sat down and talked when you came to Darkwater Bay.”

Nothing would’ve undone the murder of David
Ireland.  Yet if a simple conversation could’ve prevented what
happened to Johnny at the hands of Mitch Southerby, I would’ve done
it.  I would’ve been too tempted to leave Danny’s past buried
– if he could’ve done the same for me where Rick was concerned.

Celeste’s smile faded.  I thought it
was because of the absence of the baby in her arms.  I quickly
transferred Sofia back to Celeste.

She sat down hard.  “You’re not here to
see Sofia,” she said softly.  “Something else has
happened.  Am I right?”

I perched on the edge of a chair and peered
at her.  “I am so sorry, Celeste.  I feel like a complete
failure, and I hope you believe that this is not the outcome that
any of us hoped for.”

“
Danny,” she
whispered.  “You’re telling me that Danny is dead, aren’t
you?”

I nodded.  “It happened about three
hours ago at the jail.  An FBI agent from Montgomery came to
assist with the investigation into Sofia’s kidnapping.  By the
time he got here, we had already returned her to you.”

“
Are you telling me that a
federal agent killed my husband?”

“
It isn’t as simple as
that, and what Agent Preston did in no way reflects on the
standards of most FBI agents,” I said.  “They are generally
the most professional, the most dedicated and upstanding law
enforcement officers in the world, Celeste.”