The Witness (53 page)

“Lindy’s right. I’m going to need the money, Lindy.”

“It’s locked up in my truck.”

“And I’m going to need you to come in, make an official statement, Ty.”

“Missy’s going to be pissed.”

“I think she might be a little pissed about the drinking, but when she hears it all, start to finish? I think she’s going to be proud of you.”

“You think so?”

“I do. I’m proud of you. I’m glad you didn’t try to kill me.”

“So’m I. What’re you going to do, Brooks?”

“I’m going to put all this together, all right and tight, then I’m going to go arrest Blake for solicitation of murder for hire of a police officer.”

T
HE NEXT STEP
, A
BIGAIL THOUGHT, WHEN SHE GOT HOME
from taking Bert to Sunny. It felt strange, and a little sad, she realized, to walk into the house without Bert. It’s just for a short time, she reminded herself. A quick trip—that changed everything.

When Brooks came home, they’d drive to the airport, take the private plane to Virginia, check into their two rooms. She’d have plenty of time to set up the cameras and video feed.

Plenty of time to obsess, worry, overthink, if she let herself.

So she wouldn’t. She focused on the task at hand and began to transform herself into Catherine Kingston.

When Brooks arrived, he called out, “Where’s my woman?” and made her smile.

She was someone’s woman.

“I’m upstairs. Is everything all right?”

“As it can be. Blake’s got his lawyers scrambling, and I expect a deal’s coming along. He might even slip out of this, seeing as Ty was admittedly impaired, but even so, he’ll be done in this town. I don’t expect …” He trailed off as he got to the doorway and saw her.

“I repeat, ‘Where’s my woman?’”

“It’s a good job,” she decided, studying herself in the mirror.

The hairstyle and the careful makeup sharpened the angle of her jaw. Contacts darkened the green of her eyes. The careful padding transformed her from slim to curvy.

“They’ll probably ask the hotel for any security feeds, once they know the hotel. We’ll be in by then, but they’ll run them to see when I checked in, and if I came alone. That’s the reason we take separate cabs from the airport, have different check-in times.”

“You look taller.” Eyeing her, he walked over, kissed her. “Definitely taller.”

“I have lifts in my shoes. Just an inch, but it adds to the illusion. If any of this leaks to one of Volkov’s moles, they shouldn’t be able to match me. Abigail’s not in the system, and that’ll make it very hard to connect Catherine Kingston or Elizabeth Fitch to Abigail Lowery. I’m ready whenever you are.”

“I’ll get the bags.”

He’d never flown private, and decided he could get used to it. No lines, no delays, no crowds, and the flight itself smooth and quiet.

And he liked the wide leather chairs positioned so he could face Abigail—or Catherine, he supposed—and the way the light played over her face as they winged north.

“They’ve started a fresh file on Cosgrove and Keegan,” Abigail told him, as she worked her laptop. “They’ve applied for warrants to monitor their electronics and communications. They may find something. Cosgrove especially tends to be careless. He gambles,” she added, “both online and in casinos.”

“How’s he do?”

“He loses more than he wins, from what I’ve gathered through his finances, and his gambling pattern, it was the gambling—and the losses—that allowed the Volkovs to pressure him into working for them while I was under protection.”

“Gambling problem,” Brooks speculated. “And he caves when pressured. How would he respond to an anonymous source claiming to have information about his connection to the Volkovs?”

She glanced up, tipped down the large framed sunglasses she’d added to her illusion. “That’s an interesting question.”

“If he folds under pressure, blackmail might push him into making a mistake.”

“He’s not as smart as Keegan, which is why he hasn’t moved up the ranks as smoothly, I believe—in the marshals or the Volkov organization. I calculated the Volkovs would have eliminated him by now, but apparently he’s seen as having some value.”

“Have you ever done any fishing?” Brooks asked her.

“No. It appears like a tedious pastime or occupation. I don’t understand what fishing has to do with Cosgrove or the Volkovs.”

He pointed at her. “First, I’m going to take you fishing sometime, and you’ll see the difference between restful and tedious. Second, sometimes you hook a little fish and it can lead to a bigger catch.”

“I don’t think … oh. It’s a metaphor. Cosgrove is the little fish.”

“There you go. Hooking him might be worth a try.”

“Yes, it might. Greed responds to greed, and his primary motivation is money. A threat, something with just enough information that proves the source has evidence. And if he uses his electronics or phones to communicate, they’d have enough to question him.”

“Which could lead to that bigger fish. And it’d add more weight to your testimony.” He held out the bag of pretzels he opened, but Abigail shook her head. “What’s your bait?”

“Because you need bait to hook even a little fish.”

With a nod, he bit into a pretzel. “Wait till you drown your first worm.”

“I don’t even like the sound of that. However, there was a woman in witness protection after testifying against her former boyfriend, a low-level gangster involved with the Volkovs’ prostitution ring in Chicago.
She was found raped and beaten to death in Akron, Ohio, three months after the conviction.”

“Was Cosgrove her handler?”

“No, he wasn’t assigned to her, but everything I was able to gather at the time pointed to his being the one to pass her information on to his Volkov contact. I know enough to compose a believable and threatening message.”

“Another pebble in the river.”

“What river? The one with the fish?”

Laughing, he gave her foot a bump with his. “Could be, except if we were sticking with that metaphor, you don’t want to be tossing any pebbles. Might scare those fish away.”

“I’m confused.”

“In this metaphorical river, we toss the pebbles because we want a lot of ripples.”

“Oh. A pebble, then.” She considered this for a moment, then began to compose.

“I think that’s a nicely formed pebble,” she said, and turned the screen so Brooks could read it.

His smile spread slowly before he shifted his gaze from the screen to her face. “Good shape, good weight. You had all those dates in your head?”

“They’re accurate.”

“What’s the content of the e-mail you’re going to attach?”

“It said: ‘Sasha Simka, Akron, 539 Eastwood, Apartment 3-B.’”

The smile faded as Brooks eased back from the computer screen. “So Cosgrove killed her for fifteen thousand.”

“Yes, not personally beating her to death doesn’t make him any less responsible. I believe he’ll respond to this. I believe he’ll agree to pay. As soon as I know the surveillance is in place, I’ll send it.”

“What did they pay him for you?”

His tone, hard and cold, had her taking a moment to shut down her laptop. “He owed fifty thousand in gambling debts. Ilya bought—they’re called markers—he bought Cosgrove’s markers, then used the debt to threaten him.”

“And when you weren’t … eliminated?”

“They forgave half, and required him to work off the rest. The fee, even though I lived, was considerably more than the fee for Anya Rinki. You’d have to conclude Korotkii is worth more to Sergei Volkov than Dimitri Bardov.”

He spoke quietly now, and with absolute certainly. “They’ll pay, Abigail, for what they did to you, to Anya Rinki, to all the others. I swear it to you.”

“I don’t want you to make a vow over something you may not be able to control.”

His gaze never wavered from hers. “Whatever it takes, however long it takes.”

Because it touched her, and frightened her a little, she glanced out the window. “We’re starting our descent.”

“Nervous?”

“No.” She took a moment to be sure. “No, I’m not nervous about what happens next. It’s surprising, really, how completely I was convinced I could never do this. And now how completely I’m convinced I can, and must. And the difference is …” She took his hand, linked fingers. “This. Just this.”

“This”—he tightened his grip—“is pretty damn important.”

S
HE CHECKED IN A FULL THIRTY MINUTES
before Brooks, so by the time he knocked on her door she’d already positioned the cameras and mics in the sitting area of what the hotel called an executive suite. In his room—across the hall and two doors down—she set up the monitors, linked the equipment.

In just over an hour, she’d set, interfaced and tested the equipment.

“As soon as we make contact, the feds will put men on the hotel,” Brooks told her.

“I know. But the sooner the better.” Nothing more to do, she determined. No more precautions to take. “Let’s make the call.”

She had to wait alone, but found it comforting to know he could watch her. So she worked while she waited, and, when she had confirmation on the warrant on Cosgrove’s and Keegan’s electronics, programmed a time lag of two hours—long enough for the surveillance to be in place—to send her blackmail note.

A pebble in the river, she thought, and looked directly at the camera and smiled.

As she monitored activities, she knew exactly when the plane carrying
Assistant Director Gregory Cabot and Special Agent Elyse Garrison cleared for takeoff to Dulles International.

“They’re on their way now,” she said clearly, “and should land at Dulles in about an hour and forty minutes.”

She checked her watch, calculated. “I’d estimate they’ll be in the hotel by ten. They may still opt to watch and wait until morning, but I think they’ll come to me tonight, as it puts control in their hands, or they’d believe it would.”

She rose, wished she could open the curtains. But with the right equipment, the right angle from a neighboring building, they could watch her in the room.

“I think I’ll order a meal. It would give them an opportunity to put an agent undercover as a room-service waiter, so they can get a visual of me and the room. The confirmation I’m here, alone, might be helpful.”

She ordered a salad, a large bottle of water, a pot of tea. Finding it oddly intimate, she continued a one-sided dialogue with Brooks as she switched the TV on, volume low, as she assumed someone alone in a hotel might do.

She checked her makeup, her wig—though she really wished she could remove both—and as an afterthought, rumpled the bed a little so it might look as if she’d stretched out with the television.

When the food arrived, she opened the door for the waiter, gestured toward the table in the sitting area.

He had dark hair, a compact build and what she thought of as quick eyes.

“Are you in town for business, miss?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I hope you have time for some fun while you’re here. Enjoy your dinner,” he added, when she signed the bill. “If you need anything, just pick up the phone.”

“I will. Thank you. In fact … perhaps you could arrange for more
water, or coffee, if they prefer, when the assistant director and Special Agent Garrison arrive.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your shoes, your eyes and the weapon under the waiter’s jacket. I hope you’d communicate to the assistant director and agent that I’m ready to speak with them tonight if that suits them.”

And that, she thought, telegraphed clearly that the control remained in
her
hands.

“It can wait until tomorrow if they prefer keeping me under surveillance longer, but I don’t intend to go anywhere. It should save time to talk tonight. And thank you for bringing the meal. The salad looks very nice.”

He gave her a long look. “Ma’am,” he said, and left her alone.

“That wasn’t just impulse, and it wasn’t showing off. Exactly. I felt if they understood I understand, we might move more smoothly through this process. The pebble dropped into the river while I was speaking to the FBI waiter,” she added. “I think I’ll eat. The salad does look nice.”

In his room, munching on some minibar nuts, Brooks just shook his head.

What a woman he had.

When she’d finished, she set the tray outside the door. Plenty of fingerprints, she mused, sufficient DNA as well. They could run her prints and save yet more time.

She sat, drinking her tea, monitoring her computer for alerts and thinking how much she wished to be home with Brooks, her dog, her gardens. She knew now, really knew, how lovely it was to wish for home.

When the knock came, she switched off the computer, rose, walked to the door to look out through the security peep at the lanky man and the athletically built woman.

“Yes?”

“Elizabeth Fitch?”

“Would you please hold your identification up so I can see it?” She knew their faces, of course, but it seemed foolish not to take this step. She opened the door. “Please, come in.”

“Assistant Director Cabot.” He held out a hand.

“Yes, thank you for coming. And you, Special Agent Garrison. It’s nice to meet you in person.”

“And you, Ms. Fitch.”

“Elizabeth, please, or Liz. We should sit down. If you’d like some coffee—”