Next to Die (5 page)

The special agent skimmed the paper with apple-green eyes. “Who is Eric Tomlinson?” she asked.

“He used to be my father’s partner. They worked together at BioTech, a biochemical lab outside of Langley Air Force Base.”

The agent nodded, indicating that she’d heard of it.

“Just before my father died, a toxic by-product called ricin went missing from the lab. There was a big stink about it in the news.”

“Ricin,” repeated the agent, with a spark of interest. As she studied the text, her auburn eyebrows drew together. “‘Sixty-four thousand dollars was wired this morning to the account specified,’” she read out loud. “Why would your father have kept this?”

“He suspected Eric of selling the ricin. It says so right here in his journal in the last couple of entries.” Lia opened the journal to the appropriate page and gave it to the agent to peruse. “My sister thinks that when our father saw the e-mail, he confronted Eric and gave him time to do the right thing.” She pushed their suspicion through a tightening throat. “But Eric was more concerned with covering up his crime.”

The gaze that rose from the handwritten journal was thoughtful, relieving Lia’s fear that their suspicions would be mocked. “And all this happened five years ago.”

“Is that a problem?” Lia asked.

“If we’re talking murder with malice aforethought, then there’s no statute of limitations that would prevent us from pressing charges,” Hannah reassured her. “The problem here is whether the trail has gone cold.”

“Five years is a long time,” Lia conceded.

“Can you tell me where your father died?”

“Somewhere close to Morgantown, West Virginia. He was on a business trip.”

“Do you have a copy of his death certificate?”

“Penny would,” Lia said, realizing that despite her grief, Penny had managed to contact their father’s insurance company, meet with lawyers, plead for Social Security benefits. Meanwhile, Lia had simply taken up a drug habit. She owed Penny bigtime.

“I’ll need you to fax me that certificate as soon as you find it. I’m assuming the car was totaled and hauled to a junkyard. If it hasn’t been scrapped, we can examine it, as well as take a look the first investigation.”

Lia tugged on a dangly earring. “Do you think you’ll find anything, after all this time?”

“You never know,” said the agent with a shrug. “There ought to have been plenty of information documented right after the ricin went missing. We might be able to build a case on that.”

“You don’t, um, offer bodyguard services, do you?” Lia inquired.

The agent’s quick glance gave nothing away. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, I think I might have blown it by confronting Eric over the phone.” Lia bit her bottom lip.

“You made contact with the suspect,” the agent confirmed.

“Yeah, when Penny told me about the journal, I kind of flipped out,” Lia confessed. And that was probably an understatement. She’d been furious to think that the father she’d adored with all her heart had been murdered by his friend and partner, of all people. His death had cast a pall over what ought to have been the best years of her life.

Hannah reached for a pen. “What exactly did you say to Eric Tomlinson?” she asked, pen poised over a legal pad.

“I identified myself.”

“Yes?”

“He . . . made a sound of surprise. Then I asked him how he slept at night, considering what he’d done.”

“You didn’t mention the ricin?”

“No, but I think he knew what I was talking about.”

Hannah jotted herself a note. “What did he say to you?”

“It was hard to understand him because he stutters. But he did say something that sounded like ‘You’re gonna regret this.’” She hadn’t told Penny that part.

“Is that the last time you spoke with him?” the agent asked.

“Not really. He’s been calling me. I sublet my apartment and moved in with my sister to avoid his calls, but last night he found me again.” She shivered at the recollection.

“What does he say when he calls you?”

“Not much,” Lia admitted. “He can barely get a word out.”

Hannah Lindstrom tapped her pen on the legal pad. “We don’t issue personal bodyguards,” she said, answering Lia’s earlier question. “If a witness in a major case is being intimidated, we’ll ask the U.S. Marshal’s service to protect them. That’s not exactly the situation here.”

Lia blushed, feeling chastised.

“If you feel threatened, you can call your local phone company and give them permission to identify your caller,” the woman suggested. “The police handle misdemeanors like harassment.” She pulled a business card from the holder on the desk. “Here’s my card. If you come across anything else related to the ricin, be sure to let me know.”

“I will,” said Lia, dropping the card into her purse. She realized, with a cinching in her chest, that the FBI wasn’t going to rush out and arrest Eric tonight. “So, what now?” she asked.

“I’ll take a look at the earlier investigation and give you a call. I have your contact information,” she added, referring to the sheet that Lia’d filled out in the waiting room. “I assume you’re going to stay with your sister for a while?”

“Yes,” Lia acknowledged with a grimace. As much as she’d like to be back in her own apartment, she couldn’t afford to return, anyway.

A vulnerable feeling accompanied Lia out of the building and into her car. She eased away from the FBI compound with her returned pepper spray, only to find herself stuck in the heavy traffic pouring out of the Norfolk Naval Operations Base.

“What is it with sailors getting off at three in the afternoon?” she groused, wanting desperately to get back to Penny’s in Virginia Beach.

She hadn’t felt safe being in possession of the journal. Now that the FBI was holding it, she strangely felt less safe.

It was a bleak and overcast October day. It wasn’t particularly cold, yet Lia shivered and cranked up the heat in her Oldsmobile. Keeping an eye on the rearview mirror, she scanned the drivers behind her.

Would she even recognize Eric after all these years? She’d met him only a couple of times when he and his wife came to their house for her father’s Christmas dinner. She’d freak out if she saw him behind her now. But what could he do to her, run her off the road and drag her out of the car? She’d blast him with her pepper spray if he did that.

She’d owned the can of pepper spray for three years now and never used it. Oh, crap, that stuff didn’t go bad, did it?

As she grubbed in her purse, the traffic inched forward. Leery of being cut off by a lane switcher, Lia accelerated abruptly, only to brake again. With one hand in her purse, she sifted through the sea of makeup.

Mascara, lipstick, lip gloss, eyeliner. Aha, pepper spray.

She withdrew the can and turned it over. Where was the expiration date on this thing?

Bam!

With an exclamation of horror, Lia looked up to realize that she’d plowed into the back of the Honda Civic she’d been tailing. She dropped the pepper spray and clutched the steering wheel in consternation. Oh, my God, not another accident!

The driver’s door on the smaller car opened slowly. Out stepped a scowling young man in battle dress uniform. Lia had to blink because for a second there she thought she was seeing Al Pacino, the way he looked in
Scarface
. And oh, my God, he was coming toward her car to talk to her. What if he got violent? She groped for the pepper spray she’d just dropped.

“What did you think was gonna happen with you tailgating me like that?” he demanded.

She cracked the window just enough to say, “I barely tapped you.”

“Tapped me?” His eyebrows shot up. He gestured at the back of his car. “Obviously, you haven’t seen the damage, any more than you were looking where you were going.”

“I was looking!” she retorted with heat.

“Bullshit. You were too busy looking at yourself in the mirror and reaching for your cell phone.”

“I don’t even own a cell phone, asshole.” If he wasn’t going to be civil, then neither was she. “I was reaching for this!” She held the pepper spray up to the crack in the window.

“Whoa.” He stepped back, throwing his hands up. “Put that away. Are you crazy?”

“Yes, I’m crazy. Now get back in your car and drive. The traffic’s starting to move.”

He eyed the damage done to the back of his car, then looked at her larger car in disgust—it was probably totally unharmed. “Hell, no,” he said. He went back to his car and came out with a cell phone. With a challenging look, he punched three numbers and held it to his ear.

He was calling the cops. “Stop!” Lia unlocked her door and struggled to get out, breaking a fingernail. “Ouch! Damn it! Stop,” she pleaded. “You don’t need to do that!”

His brown eyes seemed to take a snapshot of her body as she rose from the car. In the next instant, he was slipping the phone into his camouflage trousers. “Oh, so you have insurance?” he asked her, on a far more reasonable note.

“Er, not exactly.” She’d tried to pay her car insurance two months ago, but it was just too much money.

His mouth curled with renewed contempt.

“But I’ll pay you whatever you need to get your fender fixed.”

He stepped back. “Stop waving that thing in the air.”

“Oh. Sorry. I think it’s expired anyway.” She lowered the pepper spray. “Listen, I’ll write you a check. Just give me a ballpark figure.”

“Do you think I’m stupid?” he asked her on a note so incredulous that she took closer stock of him.

Maybe he was a boy genius in uniform, but not likely. “No,” she said carefully. He looked about eighteen years old, but his uniform made him appear important. His black hair was cut so short that the blustery wind had no effect on it, unlike her own locks, which were blowing into her eyes.

“Look, let’s start again,” she proposed. “I’m sorry I tapped your car, okay? I’m a little distracted this morning. Do you want me to pay for the damage or not?”

“Oh, you’ll pay,” he said, in a way that had her snatching her hair out of her eyes. “But I’m not taking a check.”

Perplexed, she tipped her head back to glare at him. He was amazingly good-looking, with chocolate-colored eyes and lush, lush lashes. “Well, a check’s all I’ve got,” she countered, ignoring the sudden tug of sexual attraction. “It’s not like I carry a bunch of cash with me.”

“Come on,” he chided. “I can tell with one glance at your car that your check would be useless.”

She gasped, outraged by his assumption.

“And if my instincts are right, you’ve got some unpaid speeding tickets.”

“Listen, young man,” she snapped, before he issued any more accurate statements, “I don’t have to take this kind of slander from you. Why don’t you get in your car and drive home to mommy?”

He quirked an eyebrow and cocked his head, like,
You did not just say that.
“Tell you what,” he said, with a hint of humor lacing his Philadelphia accent. “How ’bout you take me out to dinner and we’ll call it even.”

“Are you crazy?” she cried, amazed by his presumption.

“Then you’d prefer I press charges,” he said with a shrug. He made to retrieve his cell phone.

“Wait!” Her heart was thumping and her thoughts were still muddled, but she could think clearly enough to realize that there was yet a way out of this predicament. “You’re going to forget about this accident if I take you out to dinner?” she clarified, giving herself time to plot.

“I’m partial to seafood,” he added with a gleam in his eyes. She suspected he was laughing at her, only he didn’t so much as crack a smile.

“How do I know that you’re not psycho or something?”

He shrugged again. “You don’t.”

“Oh, great. That’s reassuring. What are you, like eighteen years old? Do you have a thing for older women?”

“Age isn’t the only mark of maturity,” he said, utterly unperturbed.

“Right.” She glanced back at her car, gauging her ability to jump inside it and take off.

“I’ve memorized your license plate number,” he added, as if reading her thoughts. “I will call the police.”

Lia envisioned Penny’s reaction to the police showing up at her doorstep.

“Meet me for dinner tonight at Peabody’s at seven,” he persisted.

Yeah, right. Like she’d really go out with a kid like him, even if Peabody’s was the hottest spot in town. “Okay,” she lied. “I’ll be there.”

The traffic had begun to flow around them. Someone blew the horn. They were getting dirty looks.

“Give me that necklace you’re wearing.”

“What?” From the necklace dangled a cameo pendant that once belonged to her grandmother.

“If you want it back, you’ll show up tonight.”

“I am not giving you my necklace,” she snapped indignantly. “Here, you can have my ring.” She twisted the opal ring off her right ring finger. It’d been a gift from her last boyfriend, the jackass. She’d never miss it.

He accepted the offering with a suspicious frown.

“Now leave me alone. I’ll see you soon enough,” she added, raking the faces of the drivers passing them, wondering if Eric was having a good laugh.