GinaSue has written a lot in a relatively short period of time and I think this story is a good example of her work. She has a wonderful way of depicting Jack and Sue as flirty and playful while building their relationship. But there's mystery here too -- a solid case, lots of action and suspense. A real classic romantic suspense.
Full Version: Snow Day
The Nomination: Jack and Sue stranded in a snow storm -- need I say more? GinaSue has written a lot in a relatively short period of time and I think this story is a good example of her work. She has a wonderful way of depicting Jack and Sue as flirty and playful while building their relationship. But there's mystery here too -- a solid case, lots of action and suspense. A real classic romantic suspense.
GinaSue has written a lot in a relatively short period of time and I think this story is a good example of her work. She has a wonderful way of depicting Jack and Sue as flirty and playful while building their relationship. But there's mystery here too -- a solid case, lots of action and suspense. A real classic romantic suspense.
Snow Day
Prologue
As he came to the window on the back of the building, a light came on. The man on the outside looking in started violently, and backed away from the window. As he backed, he noticed the stairway going up – the fire escape.
The second floor window wouldn’t be difficult to access. As he came closer to the second floor window, loud music, singing, and laughter greeted him from the third floor. This was his last chance. He couldn’t go any farther.
He had lost enough blood that he was beginning to get dizzy. Shelter, that’s all he needed right now. Shelter and a hiding place until things settled down and he could figure things out.
The metal stairway gave a loud creak. He flattened himself against the building as he saw the curtain flutter at the third-floor window. It was so cold. This was the building he had been looking for. His mind kept blanking out on him. Maybe it was the lack of blood getting to his brain, maybe it was the cold. Which apartment was it he was supposed to find? It didn’t matter. He had to get inside. He was in danger.
The window was locked. The curtains at the window didn’t flutter. No one was home – they would have heard him by now. The room inside was dark with only a faint light deep inside the apartment. It was a simple enough operation to break the lock and get in. He smiled grimly. These people had no idea that anyone with any intelligence could get in at any time. He was getting weaker, but the potential of finding a warm hiding place gave him incentive to get in.
Quietly climbing in the window, he almost stumbled. He grabbed the windowsill to steady himself, and surveyed his temporary domicile. There was a Christmas tree in the corner, on a table. There were various trinkets, a garish, modern painting above the fireplace mantle, and a framed picture of two young girls on ice skates on a table.
As interesting as it could be going through this apartment, he had to get something to stop the bleeding. He could see a kitchen through the doorway, a towel draped neatly on the sink.
When he pulled the towel away from his wound, it was soaked with blood. This wasn’t going to work. He looked around, found paper towels. Then he heard the sirens. As he doused the lights, he saw another framed picture – two young, attractive women. One of the faces he would never forget.
Prologue
As he came to the window on the back of the building, a light came on. The man on the outside looking in started violently, and backed away from the window. As he backed, he noticed the stairway going up – the fire escape.
The second floor window wouldn’t be difficult to access. As he came closer to the second floor window, loud music, singing, and laughter greeted him from the third floor. This was his last chance. He couldn’t go any farther.
He had lost enough blood that he was beginning to get dizzy. Shelter, that’s all he needed right now. Shelter and a hiding place until things settled down and he could figure things out.
The metal stairway gave a loud creak. He flattened himself against the building as he saw the curtain flutter at the third-floor window. It was so cold. This was the building he had been looking for. His mind kept blanking out on him. Maybe it was the lack of blood getting to his brain, maybe it was the cold. Which apartment was it he was supposed to find? It didn’t matter. He had to get inside. He was in danger.
The window was locked. The curtains at the window didn’t flutter. No one was home – they would have heard him by now. The room inside was dark with only a faint light deep inside the apartment. It was a simple enough operation to break the lock and get in. He smiled grimly. These people had no idea that anyone with any intelligence could get in at any time. He was getting weaker, but the potential of finding a warm hiding place gave him incentive to get in.
Quietly climbing in the window, he almost stumbled. He grabbed the windowsill to steady himself, and surveyed his temporary domicile. There was a Christmas tree in the corner, on a table. There were various trinkets, a garish, modern painting above the fireplace mantle, and a framed picture of two young girls on ice skates on a table.
As interesting as it could be going through this apartment, he had to get something to stop the bleeding. He could see a kitchen through the doorway, a towel draped neatly on the sink.
When he pulled the towel away from his wound, it was soaked with blood. This wasn’t going to work. He looked around, found paper towels. Then he heard the sirens. As he doused the lights, he saw another framed picture – two young, attractive women. One of the faces he would never forget.
Chapter 1
January 2
“You know, this snow is turning into more than those “flurries” Al Roker mentioned this morning, isn’t it?” Sue queried, with a flashing smiled laced with a flicker of concern crossing her face.
“Ah, this is nothin’! You southerners don’t know how to drive when so much as a snowflake appears!” joked Jack, with a boyish grin.
Even as he joked, Jack kept his eyes on the road, not turning toward Sue as was his habit, so that she could “hear” him by reading his lips. This was turning into a blizzard, one of those freak storms that can hit DC every few years.
Even with all the beautiful, and, to him, sacred buildings and monuments, DC can be a gritty place with as much crime and corruption as idealism and hope – sometimes more. Jack liked to think of the snow as somehow occasionally cleansing everything in the city, reminding him of the old hymn, “Whiter than Snow.”
Growing up in Wisconsin, he loved the snow. He learned to drive on snow, so he wasn’t too worried, although he knew all too well that a careless move could be hazardous, and he didn’t want to jeopardize his passengers.
Sue watched with confidence as he deftly maneuvered the government-issue Ford. Levi, Sue’s hearing dog, snoozed in the back seat. He knew he could trust Jack.
“I talked to Lucy as I was getting off the plane, and she’s glad to be in Florida with her Mom and Gran. Lucy isn’t too keen on cold weather!” Sue giggled. Ohio, where Sue grew up, saw a lot of snow, too. Being a figure skater as a young girl, snow always served to excite Sue, and it brought a distinct sparkle to her eyes, even as she wondered about the decreasing visibility as it grew darker. Lucy Dotson, office manager and rotor for their team as well as being Sue’s roommate and best friend, grew up in DC and liked summer weather much more than winter weather.
“I guess it’s a good thing we both were able to get flights in before this hit. I just heard on the radio that they’ve closed the airport. Luce may have a longer Florida vacation than she bargained for.” Jack spoke to Sue as he began to notice stalled cars on side of the road, and the pre-snow ice with snow on top was weighing heavily on trees and power lines. “I’m starting to get reports of power outages in spots.”
“Well,” surmised Sue, “at least I have a gas-burning fireplace and a cell phone! Those two things, plus a good coat, heavy boots, and a sled, can make for a great snow day – of course there’s this pesky dark to get through, first.”
With Lucy gone, Sue wasn’t looking forward to an evening and night alone without power, but she would put a positive spin on it if it killed her.
Jack glanced at her. She was looking out the window, but he could see the shadow of worry cross her face. Ever since the serial killer case they had about 2 years ago, she had been leery of spending the night in the apartment alone. She hadn’t said anything, but he could always tell it worried her a little.
He pulled the car into a parking space close to Sue and Lucy’s Georgetown apartment. “Let me help you in with all your Christmas booty. I’d also feel better knowing you weren’t going into an empty apartment alone.” Jack had more than once, the serial killer incident included, experienced the anxiety of leaving Sue in a place he thought was safe, only to have something happen. That was NOT going to happen again – not on his watch.
“OK. Since you’re issued a gun and I’m not, I won’t argue with you!” Sue flashed Jack a grateful smile. She was looking forward to being back in her home, but it was kind of hard to come down off the holiday, back to reality and the real world. Being with Jack was making all the difference. Sue Thomas loved her job as a Special Investigative Analyst with the FBI unit, but going back to work after Christmas wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without Special Agent Jack Hudson – and the rest of the team, of course.
“So far, so good. The power’s still on, at least! I think Levi’s excited about the snow!” Jack gave Levi a good-natured scratch on the head and Levi thrust his head between them when the car stopped, noticing the change from the weather in the airport parking garage.
“He always gets a little giddy when it snows – kind of like me!” smiled Sue, with a girlish giggle.
“I’ll have to keep that in mind!” Jack said with a sideways grin and an arched brow.
Sue enjoyed Jack’s teasing more than she would ever admit. She could take it, but she could also dish it out. Sue was always a surprise to Jack. Their common love of practical jokes and digs made for a great partnership and a great friendship. Sometimes Sue’s willingness to carry on a joke backfired on her, leaving her the embarrassed party instead of Jack – and Jack never let her forget it.
After carrying in Sue’s luggage, checking the empty apartment, starting the fire for her, and sharing a cup of hot chocolate, Jack got up to take his leave.
“Better see if the roads are passable in ‘my neck of the woods,’ with all these ‘flurries’ falling!” laughed Jack, setting the empty cup on the counter.
“Thanks for seeing me home! I could have called a cab, or parked my car in the garage at the airport . . .”
“Sue, in case you don’t realize it yet, you do a lot of things for a lot of people – including me. Let me do this little thing for you without your apologizing. It was NOT an inconvenience. I missed you . . .”
“Levi and I missed you, too . . .” Sue said, averting her gaze.
Jack looked at her and smirked. When Sue was embarrassed, she would look away to break off eye contact, since she couldn’t read his lips if she wasn’t looking at them!
“Well, better go!” Jack said briskly, after touching her arm to get her attention. “Take care of her, fella,” he told Levi as he gave him a good rub on the head and neck.
“Be careful out there!” Sue quipped with a smile, borrowing a line from the old TV cop show, “Hill Street Blues.”
Jack looked at her closely and signed to her, “Call me if you need me.”
“OK,” she signed back. “Thank you.”
After saying goodnight, Sue locked and bolted the door, then went to the window to watch Jack leave. He pulled away slowly, raising a gloved hand when he saw her in the window.
“It sure is snowing hard out there, Levi.” Sue said aloud, with a slight sigh. “Let’s catch some weather. They’ll probably say ‘sunny and 65!’”
As she crossed the room to turn on the TV, the lights flickered. “Uh-oh, Levi. We may be in the dark soon!” And with a last flicker, the lights went out as Sue got to the kitchen drawer that she hoped held the flashlight they had used in the last power outage.
January 2
“You know, this snow is turning into more than those “flurries” Al Roker mentioned this morning, isn’t it?” Sue queried, with a flashing smiled laced with a flicker of concern crossing her face.
“Ah, this is nothin’! You southerners don’t know how to drive when so much as a snowflake appears!” joked Jack, with a boyish grin.
Even as he joked, Jack kept his eyes on the road, not turning toward Sue as was his habit, so that she could “hear” him by reading his lips. This was turning into a blizzard, one of those freak storms that can hit DC every few years.
Even with all the beautiful, and, to him, sacred buildings and monuments, DC can be a gritty place with as much crime and corruption as idealism and hope – sometimes more. Jack liked to think of the snow as somehow occasionally cleansing everything in the city, reminding him of the old hymn, “Whiter than Snow.”
Growing up in Wisconsin, he loved the snow. He learned to drive on snow, so he wasn’t too worried, although he knew all too well that a careless move could be hazardous, and he didn’t want to jeopardize his passengers.
Sue watched with confidence as he deftly maneuvered the government-issue Ford. Levi, Sue’s hearing dog, snoozed in the back seat. He knew he could trust Jack.
“I talked to Lucy as I was getting off the plane, and she’s glad to be in Florida with her Mom and Gran. Lucy isn’t too keen on cold weather!” Sue giggled. Ohio, where Sue grew up, saw a lot of snow, too. Being a figure skater as a young girl, snow always served to excite Sue, and it brought a distinct sparkle to her eyes, even as she wondered about the decreasing visibility as it grew darker. Lucy Dotson, office manager and rotor for their team as well as being Sue’s roommate and best friend, grew up in DC and liked summer weather much more than winter weather.
“I guess it’s a good thing we both were able to get flights in before this hit. I just heard on the radio that they’ve closed the airport. Luce may have a longer Florida vacation than she bargained for.” Jack spoke to Sue as he began to notice stalled cars on side of the road, and the pre-snow ice with snow on top was weighing heavily on trees and power lines. “I’m starting to get reports of power outages in spots.”
“Well,” surmised Sue, “at least I have a gas-burning fireplace and a cell phone! Those two things, plus a good coat, heavy boots, and a sled, can make for a great snow day – of course there’s this pesky dark to get through, first.”
With Lucy gone, Sue wasn’t looking forward to an evening and night alone without power, but she would put a positive spin on it if it killed her.
Jack glanced at her. She was looking out the window, but he could see the shadow of worry cross her face. Ever since the serial killer case they had about 2 years ago, she had been leery of spending the night in the apartment alone. She hadn’t said anything, but he could always tell it worried her a little.
He pulled the car into a parking space close to Sue and Lucy’s Georgetown apartment. “Let me help you in with all your Christmas booty. I’d also feel better knowing you weren’t going into an empty apartment alone.” Jack had more than once, the serial killer incident included, experienced the anxiety of leaving Sue in a place he thought was safe, only to have something happen. That was NOT going to happen again – not on his watch.
“OK. Since you’re issued a gun and I’m not, I won’t argue with you!” Sue flashed Jack a grateful smile. She was looking forward to being back in her home, but it was kind of hard to come down off the holiday, back to reality and the real world. Being with Jack was making all the difference. Sue Thomas loved her job as a Special Investigative Analyst with the FBI unit, but going back to work after Christmas wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without Special Agent Jack Hudson – and the rest of the team, of course.
“So far, so good. The power’s still on, at least! I think Levi’s excited about the snow!” Jack gave Levi a good-natured scratch on the head and Levi thrust his head between them when the car stopped, noticing the change from the weather in the airport parking garage.
“He always gets a little giddy when it snows – kind of like me!” smiled Sue, with a girlish giggle.
“I’ll have to keep that in mind!” Jack said with a sideways grin and an arched brow.
Sue enjoyed Jack’s teasing more than she would ever admit. She could take it, but she could also dish it out. Sue was always a surprise to Jack. Their common love of practical jokes and digs made for a great partnership and a great friendship. Sometimes Sue’s willingness to carry on a joke backfired on her, leaving her the embarrassed party instead of Jack – and Jack never let her forget it.
After carrying in Sue’s luggage, checking the empty apartment, starting the fire for her, and sharing a cup of hot chocolate, Jack got up to take his leave.
“Better see if the roads are passable in ‘my neck of the woods,’ with all these ‘flurries’ falling!” laughed Jack, setting the empty cup on the counter.
“Thanks for seeing me home! I could have called a cab, or parked my car in the garage at the airport . . .”
“Sue, in case you don’t realize it yet, you do a lot of things for a lot of people – including me. Let me do this little thing for you without your apologizing. It was NOT an inconvenience. I missed you . . .”
“Levi and I missed you, too . . .” Sue said, averting her gaze.
Jack looked at her and smirked. When Sue was embarrassed, she would look away to break off eye contact, since she couldn’t read his lips if she wasn’t looking at them!
“Well, better go!” Jack said briskly, after touching her arm to get her attention. “Take care of her, fella,” he told Levi as he gave him a good rub on the head and neck.
“Be careful out there!” Sue quipped with a smile, borrowing a line from the old TV cop show, “Hill Street Blues.”
Jack looked at her closely and signed to her, “Call me if you need me.”
“OK,” she signed back. “Thank you.”
After saying goodnight, Sue locked and bolted the door, then went to the window to watch Jack leave. He pulled away slowly, raising a gloved hand when he saw her in the window.
“It sure is snowing hard out there, Levi.” Sue said aloud, with a slight sigh. “Let’s catch some weather. They’ll probably say ‘sunny and 65!’”
As she crossed the room to turn on the TV, the lights flickered. “Uh-oh, Levi. We may be in the dark soon!” And with a last flicker, the lights went out as Sue got to the kitchen drawer that she hoped held the flashlight they had used in the last power outage.
Chapter 2
Jack smiled to himself as he pulled away from Sue’s apartment, her hand waving to him in the window. He was whistling the old popular standard “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” wishing he had the nerve to carry out the theme of the song!
Picking Sue up at the airport was an act of pure selfishness on his part. He had returned to DC a few days earlier, and was bored out of his skull with Sue still out of town. Bobby was great fun, but it wasn’t the same anymore. When he saw her through the crowd, his first reaction was a quick intake of breath as he saw her coming toward him, red scarf knotted carefully around her neck, blonde hair spread across her back and shoulders as she scanned the crowd for him. She was beautiful. When she saw him, she gave him her brightest smile and waved excitedly.
Shaking his head to clear it of the haze he was in danger of falling into, he turned on the radio to hear more accounts of weather-related closings, power outages, and accidents. After slowly driving about two blocks in near-zero visibility, Jack slammed on his brakes. There was something in the road.
Jack got out of the car to see what he very nearly ran over. There was absolutely nothing moving on this usually busy street. There were no people on the usually busy sidewalks. There was only one item out of place in the frozen swirling snow. There was a huge tree across the middle of the road, a casualty of the ice, snow, and wind. This sleepy neighborhood seemed oblivious to the fact that an unsuspecting driver could have been clobbered just moments before.
“O-kay.” Jack muttered to himself. There was no way he could move the fallen tree by himself. He got back in the car to take stock of the situation.
“Bobby,” Jack said into the cell phone. “What’s going on in your neighborhood?” Special Agent Bobby Manning was Jack’s best friend as well as living close to Jack in one of the oldest neighborhoods in DC. The big Australian was always ready with a joke and a smile.
“You mean besides the penguins who have decided to stage a protest march illegally? I really don’t think they have a permit. Where are you?” Bobby asked impatiently, more than a little worried about his best mate, but determined to joke around, as usual.
“I picked Sue up at the airport and took her home. I’m still in Georgetown sitting in my car looking at a tree in the middle of the road. I’m going to try to get turned around and get home another way.” Jack said as he started trying to maneuver his car in the snow and ice. “Is it just me, or is the visibility even worse than before?”
“Well, if it tells you anything, they’ve got that poor weather channel bloke Jim Cantore standing on the Washington Mall. You know they wait until the weather is the worst before having him get the parka out!” laughed Bobby. “From what I hear from official sources, they’re closing roads right and left. If I were you, I’d pack it in and find a place to stay the night. You’ll have trouble getting over the bridge to your place, or mine for that matter. The M Street overpass may be priority for clean-off, but there have been accidents right and left. I wouldn’t chance it.”
“It’s that bad? Man, when I went to the airport, it was just a light snow. If you people knew how to drive in this stuff, Washington wouldn’t have to close down every time a low-pressure system comes around” Jack groused. It was worse out here than he let on. “You’re probably right. I guess Sue’s is the closest shelter I’ll find.”
“Oh Ho! So you’re still in our Sue’s neighborhood, eh Sparky?” In his mind’s eye, Jack could see Bobby’s eyebrows shoot up even as he spoke.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Jack replied. Jack was teased incessantly about Sue, but he smiled as he protested. “Better see if there are any spare parkas in the car – Jim Cantore won’t let me use his!”
“Alright, Nanook!” Bobby laughed. “Hey, call me when you get out of this, OK?” he said, with an undercurrent of concern, but not staying serious for long. “After all, Sue may just send yon weary traveler packing!”
Jack laughed and ended the call with his friend. He started backing the car, but the wheels did nothing more than spin and make the car jerk sideways.
“Great. Gotta love front-wheel-drive when you’re trying to BACK out of a slick spot,” Jack muttered to himself. He finally got the car into what he hoped was a parking spot, and started pulling on gloves and scarves.
He pressed Sue’s speed-dial number on his phone. No answer. “Pick up, Sue!” But she didn’t. Her voice mail came on, but he didn’t leave a message. After trying a few more times, he decided to forge ahead out into the swirling snow.
Jack smiled to himself as he pulled away from Sue’s apartment, her hand waving to him in the window. He was whistling the old popular standard “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” wishing he had the nerve to carry out the theme of the song!
Picking Sue up at the airport was an act of pure selfishness on his part. He had returned to DC a few days earlier, and was bored out of his skull with Sue still out of town. Bobby was great fun, but it wasn’t the same anymore. When he saw her through the crowd, his first reaction was a quick intake of breath as he saw her coming toward him, red scarf knotted carefully around her neck, blonde hair spread across her back and shoulders as she scanned the crowd for him. She was beautiful. When she saw him, she gave him her brightest smile and waved excitedly.
Shaking his head to clear it of the haze he was in danger of falling into, he turned on the radio to hear more accounts of weather-related closings, power outages, and accidents. After slowly driving about two blocks in near-zero visibility, Jack slammed on his brakes. There was something in the road.
Jack got out of the car to see what he very nearly ran over. There was absolutely nothing moving on this usually busy street. There were no people on the usually busy sidewalks. There was only one item out of place in the frozen swirling snow. There was a huge tree across the middle of the road, a casualty of the ice, snow, and wind. This sleepy neighborhood seemed oblivious to the fact that an unsuspecting driver could have been clobbered just moments before.
“O-kay.” Jack muttered to himself. There was no way he could move the fallen tree by himself. He got back in the car to take stock of the situation.
“Bobby,” Jack said into the cell phone. “What’s going on in your neighborhood?” Special Agent Bobby Manning was Jack’s best friend as well as living close to Jack in one of the oldest neighborhoods in DC. The big Australian was always ready with a joke and a smile.
“You mean besides the penguins who have decided to stage a protest march illegally? I really don’t think they have a permit. Where are you?” Bobby asked impatiently, more than a little worried about his best mate, but determined to joke around, as usual.
“I picked Sue up at the airport and took her home. I’m still in Georgetown sitting in my car looking at a tree in the middle of the road. I’m going to try to get turned around and get home another way.” Jack said as he started trying to maneuver his car in the snow and ice. “Is it just me, or is the visibility even worse than before?”
“Well, if it tells you anything, they’ve got that poor weather channel bloke Jim Cantore standing on the Washington Mall. You know they wait until the weather is the worst before having him get the parka out!” laughed Bobby. “From what I hear from official sources, they’re closing roads right and left. If I were you, I’d pack it in and find a place to stay the night. You’ll have trouble getting over the bridge to your place, or mine for that matter. The M Street overpass may be priority for clean-off, but there have been accidents right and left. I wouldn’t chance it.”
“It’s that bad? Man, when I went to the airport, it was just a light snow. If you people knew how to drive in this stuff, Washington wouldn’t have to close down every time a low-pressure system comes around” Jack groused. It was worse out here than he let on. “You’re probably right. I guess Sue’s is the closest shelter I’ll find.”
“Oh Ho! So you’re still in our Sue’s neighborhood, eh Sparky?” In his mind’s eye, Jack could see Bobby’s eyebrows shoot up even as he spoke.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Jack replied. Jack was teased incessantly about Sue, but he smiled as he protested. “Better see if there are any spare parkas in the car – Jim Cantore won’t let me use his!”
“Alright, Nanook!” Bobby laughed. “Hey, call me when you get out of this, OK?” he said, with an undercurrent of concern, but not staying serious for long. “After all, Sue may just send yon weary traveler packing!”
Jack laughed and ended the call with his friend. He started backing the car, but the wheels did nothing more than spin and make the car jerk sideways.
“Great. Gotta love front-wheel-drive when you’re trying to BACK out of a slick spot,” Jack muttered to himself. He finally got the car into what he hoped was a parking spot, and started pulling on gloves and scarves.
He pressed Sue’s speed-dial number on his phone. No answer. “Pick up, Sue!” But she didn’t. Her voice mail came on, but he didn’t leave a message. After trying a few more times, he decided to forge ahead out into the swirling snow.
Chapter 3
“Oh, Levi, where is that flashlight?” Sue asked impatiently. She was impatient with herself. “It’s a good thing I’m deaf instead of blind. I’d be in trouble, wouldn’t I? Actually, if it gets much darker, we may have both to deal with!”
She finally found the flashlight and a battery-powered weather radio equipped with a special receiver to print out what is being said on the air, much like her telephone.
“I hope our neighbors are OK, Levi. Before we do anything else, let’s go check on them. It won’t take too long, and then we can snuggle in for the night!” Taking her flashlight, Sue and Levi started with the bottom floor.
Mrs. Larson had told Sue before she left that she was going to visit her relatives in Pennsylvania, and wouldn’t be home until after the first of the year. Sure enough, when Sue and Levi rang the doorbell and knocked on the door, no one came to the door.
Nobody home, Levi! Let’s go check on the Petersens.”
Mrs. Petersen came to the door immediately. “Oh, Sue! I’m so glad you weren’t caught out in this mess!”
After what seemed like a long time, Sue and Levi finally got away, using the excuse that they hadn’t had time to get their heat going yet.
On the fourth floor, elderly Mr. Kinsey was glad to see Sue, as well. He came to the door holding a candle. “I’ll be fine. I’m as snug as a bug in a rug up here! Pretty snow, isn’t it?” Sue helped him find his flashlight, and made sure the apartment was warm enough for him before she and Levi left.
Making their way down the stairs to their apartment on the second floor, Sue told Levi, “I’d like the snow a whole lot more if I knew Jack had made it home OK.”
Armed with a flashlight and a Golden Retriever, Sue arrived at the dark apartment, the only light coming from the flickering fireplace.
“Now to light some candles. I’m cold after going up and down in the unheated stairwell. It wasn’t very warm in here to begin with, and now I’m almost imagining I can see snowflakes falling from the ceiling!” Sue was glad she had Levi to keep her company. She need never feel lonely with him around. Being deaf, voices didn’t mean much to her, but she enjoyed talking out loud to Levi. He seemed to enjoy it, too.
With the fire going, the candles lit, and the wind whistling around the building, Sue and Levi sat on the floor in front of the couch enjoying the flickering fire. “I hope Jack made it across the Q Street bridge before they closed it. If he doesn’t, he’ll never make it down to M Street before visibility is gone.” Sue was enjoying digging her fingers into Levi’s warm, soft fur.
“I wonder what we can find to eat around here. We’ll have to be careful about opening the refrigerator, and we’ll have to cook the old-fashioned way – on the stove, not in the microwave.” Sue and her flashlight went to the kitchen and started searching the cupboards. “Hmm. How does vegetable soup sound?” Levi turned his head sideways, putting his paw on his nose, not really approving of Sue’s choice. “Why am I asking you? You’ve got your entrée all ready for you with just a touch of a can opener – well, a manual can opener tonight!”
Sue started pulling cans of vegetables, meat, and broth out of the cabinet, mixing them into a sweet-smelling concoction that would satisfy any appetite – and have leftovers!! “How about apple pie? Here are some apples that need to be used up!”
Levi took his place on the rug at Sue’s feet as she found candles to light her way as she prepared the feast. He was glad to be home, but he did NOT like the wind howling the way it was. Sue is lucky, he thought. She can’t hear the wind howl like an angry wolf. He would just stick close to Sue in case any other strange sounds came his way that she needed to know about.
As Sue bustled about the kitchen finding this ingredient and that, Levi snoozed on the rug. Airplane travel was wearying for a dog. For some reason Sue seemed to have more energy than ever! Levi picked his head up off his paws and listened. That sounded like a knock at the door, but then something hit the window and it sounded the same way. Oh well.
A few seconds later Levi jerked his head up when he heard a familiar male voice. “Levi! Get Sue! It’s Jack!” Levi leapt to Sue’s side, making her spill a little of the broth she was putting into the large soup pot.
“Levi! Careful, boy! I’m glad I didn’t have a knife in my hand!” Sue protested. She went to the door and checked the peep-hole. There seemed to be a snowman standing in her hallway!
“Oh, Levi, where is that flashlight?” Sue asked impatiently. She was impatient with herself. “It’s a good thing I’m deaf instead of blind. I’d be in trouble, wouldn’t I? Actually, if it gets much darker, we may have both to deal with!”
She finally found the flashlight and a battery-powered weather radio equipped with a special receiver to print out what is being said on the air, much like her telephone.
“I hope our neighbors are OK, Levi. Before we do anything else, let’s go check on them. It won’t take too long, and then we can snuggle in for the night!” Taking her flashlight, Sue and Levi started with the bottom floor.
Mrs. Larson had told Sue before she left that she was going to visit her relatives in Pennsylvania, and wouldn’t be home until after the first of the year. Sure enough, when Sue and Levi rang the doorbell and knocked on the door, no one came to the door.
Nobody home, Levi! Let’s go check on the Petersens.”
Mrs. Petersen came to the door immediately. “Oh, Sue! I’m so glad you weren’t caught out in this mess!”
After what seemed like a long time, Sue and Levi finally got away, using the excuse that they hadn’t had time to get their heat going yet.
On the fourth floor, elderly Mr. Kinsey was glad to see Sue, as well. He came to the door holding a candle. “I’ll be fine. I’m as snug as a bug in a rug up here! Pretty snow, isn’t it?” Sue helped him find his flashlight, and made sure the apartment was warm enough for him before she and Levi left.
Making their way down the stairs to their apartment on the second floor, Sue told Levi, “I’d like the snow a whole lot more if I knew Jack had made it home OK.”
Armed with a flashlight and a Golden Retriever, Sue arrived at the dark apartment, the only light coming from the flickering fireplace.
“Now to light some candles. I’m cold after going up and down in the unheated stairwell. It wasn’t very warm in here to begin with, and now I’m almost imagining I can see snowflakes falling from the ceiling!” Sue was glad she had Levi to keep her company. She need never feel lonely with him around. Being deaf, voices didn’t mean much to her, but she enjoyed talking out loud to Levi. He seemed to enjoy it, too.
With the fire going, the candles lit, and the wind whistling around the building, Sue and Levi sat on the floor in front of the couch enjoying the flickering fire. “I hope Jack made it across the Q Street bridge before they closed it. If he doesn’t, he’ll never make it down to M Street before visibility is gone.” Sue was enjoying digging her fingers into Levi’s warm, soft fur.
“I wonder what we can find to eat around here. We’ll have to be careful about opening the refrigerator, and we’ll have to cook the old-fashioned way – on the stove, not in the microwave.” Sue and her flashlight went to the kitchen and started searching the cupboards. “Hmm. How does vegetable soup sound?” Levi turned his head sideways, putting his paw on his nose, not really approving of Sue’s choice. “Why am I asking you? You’ve got your entrée all ready for you with just a touch of a can opener – well, a manual can opener tonight!”
Sue started pulling cans of vegetables, meat, and broth out of the cabinet, mixing them into a sweet-smelling concoction that would satisfy any appetite – and have leftovers!! “How about apple pie? Here are some apples that need to be used up!”
Levi took his place on the rug at Sue’s feet as she found candles to light her way as she prepared the feast. He was glad to be home, but he did NOT like the wind howling the way it was. Sue is lucky, he thought. She can’t hear the wind howl like an angry wolf. He would just stick close to Sue in case any other strange sounds came his way that she needed to know about.
As Sue bustled about the kitchen finding this ingredient and that, Levi snoozed on the rug. Airplane travel was wearying for a dog. For some reason Sue seemed to have more energy than ever! Levi picked his head up off his paws and listened. That sounded like a knock at the door, but then something hit the window and it sounded the same way. Oh well.
A few seconds later Levi jerked his head up when he heard a familiar male voice. “Levi! Get Sue! It’s Jack!” Levi leapt to Sue’s side, making her spill a little of the broth she was putting into the large soup pot.
“Levi! Careful, boy! I’m glad I didn’t have a knife in my hand!” Sue protested. She went to the door and checked the peep-hole. There seemed to be a snowman standing in her hallway!
Chapter 4
“I thought I’d never get Levi’s attention!” Jack shivered out as he stood letting Sue unwind the scarf from his head. “It’s gotten pretty rough out there.”
“What happened? The power went out about 10 minutes after you left, and I was hoping you got over the bridge to your place before it got any worse,” Sue said.
“I got two blocks away, and there was a tree in the middle of the road. I couldn’t get around it, and then I heard that they closed the bridge and were stopping people on the road unless it was an emergency. I thought the sensible thing would be to take cover, after talking to Bobby. Visibility just seemed to get worse all the sudden.” Jack was trying to get snow-packed gloves off of nearly-frozen hands. “I tried to call, but there was no answer. Was your phone out, too?
“No, you must have called while Levi and I were checking on the neighbors – it took longer than I thought, and I left my phone here. I’m sorry!” Sue apologized, noting the missed calls on her cell phone.
“Don’t worry about it. There’s not much you could have done over the phone, and you couldn’t have gotten your car out if you tried.” Jack continued brushing the snow off, trying to keep it on the small rug at the door – not having much luck.
“I’m glad you came back here. I would have sent out the National Guard if I hadn’t heard from you in about twenty minutes – and I know people who can do that! Good thing we decided to make a big pot of soup, isn’t it, Levi?” Sue smiled down at the dog to mask any shining that may have been in her eyes for Jack.
“Now that my nose is starting to thaw, I do smell some awesome aromas coming from the direction of the kitchen . . . I thought I smelled soup, but . . . is that apple pie I smell?” Jack was getting a rapt expression on his face at the mere thought of apple pie.
“My mom used to make apple pies for us on snow days. I can’t think about snow without thinking of all the good things she would make while bustling about the kitchen cooking and keeping the hot chocolate coming for when we would come in from playing in the snow. Cinnamon rolls for breakfast, soup for any time of the day, hot chocolate at a moment’s notice – and apple pie.” He closed his eyes in remembered ecstasy.
Sue smiled. She was pleased at his reaction. “The soup will be ready in about a half-hour, and the pie will be ready later. The first thing is to get you thawed out. Take off those wet shoes and come stand in front of the fire.”
“I’ve got to call Bobby before I do anything else. He threatened me with my life if I didn’t!” Jack pressed Bobby’s speed-dial number, and Bobby was on the phone immediately, as if he were just waiting for Jack’s call.
“Hey Bobby, I made it to Sue’s . . . Yeah, her power’s out, but she has gas heat and stove so she’s not doing to badly . . . It’s like a ghost town out there. There weren’t ANY people stirring at all . . .” Jack looked up at Sue, “Do you have plenty of supplies?” he asked, cupping his hand over the mouthpiece.
“Yeah, there’s plenty of food in the house.” Sue replied.
“Yeah, Bobby. We’ll be fine. You should smell the soup and pie she already had going before I got here. No, she didn’t know I was coming. Hey, I’m probably in better shape than you, even if you do have power still. . . Ha, ha.” Jack paused as he listened to Bobby’s comments. “Watch it, bub.” Jack blushed and looked at Sue with a sheepish grin at what Bobby had said on the phone. “Keep me posted. Alright, ‘bye.”
“Well, Bobby wishes us the best surviving the blizzard,” Jack said looking at Sue furtively, leaving out key phrases that Bobby had used in teasing him about ‘close quarters.’ “I think he wishes he were here, too, after I told him about our food situation.”
He looked at Sue, getting a little bolder, “I think there was a comment about ‘domestic bliss’ in there somewhere.” Jack arched a brow and laughed at that. Bobby had commented that Jack and Sue certainly had had the opportunity to know what it’s like to experience domestic bliss, having gone undercover as a married couple more than once.
Sue blushed slightly. “Well, if domestic bliss is standing in a cold hallway dripping all over the floor when you could be standing in front of a fire drying off, I’d have to question what your idea of ‘bliss’ is!” Sue directed him into the living room after he took off his shoes. “Good thing you had your long coat in the car with you, or you would be soaked to the skin! At that, your poor feet have to be freezing!”
“Aw, it’s not too bad. You forget I was a hockey player! We’re trained not to feel the cold!” Jack said toughly, even as he was enjoying soaking in the heat from the blazing fireplace.
“Well, I was an ice skater, but I still feel the cold!” Sue worked on getting the water off the floor from when Jack came in, and brought out some warm socks that her dad had left when he visited last. “Here. Put these on. Cold feet are a sure path to a bad cold.” Sue handed him the socks and turned to go to the kitchen to stir the soup.
“Yes, mom . . . uh, I mean, Sue,” Jack said with a wink as he touched her arm.
“Ha. Ha. When people won’t take care of themselves, somebody has to, don’t they, Levi?” Sue hid her blush by looking down at the dog.
“The laptop battery is dead.” Jack and Sue had finished their soup, and while Sue put the kitchen to rights, Jack had checked online to see if there were any weather updates. “It looks like the city is pretty much in the dark right now, but the snow should be moving out by the middle of tomorrow morning.”
“Have you heard from anybody else on the team?” Sue asked, as she brought Jack a slice of hot apple pie.
“No, just Bobby, but if they knew how good this pie smelled, they would put on snowshoes to get over here!” Jack smiled as he thanked Sue for the pie, and went with her back into the living room. “I’m sure everybody’s OK. Maybe the bad guys will take a break for a blizzard.” Jack smiled at Sue as they settled in front of the fire with their pie, Levi between them on the couch.
After they finished their dessert, Sue and Jack sat in front of the fire, alternately chatting about their respective trips home, and falling silent, comfortable with one another, staring into the fire. Sue was lost in reverie.
Jack touched her shoulder across the back of the couch. “What are you thinking about?” he asked, looking into her eyes.
“Just how thankful I am to be home, safe and sound, that I know all my friends are safe.” Sue glanced back at Jack with a shy smile. “Thankful that I had enough food for a hungry snowman that showed up at my door.”
“I’m thankful for that one, too!!” Jack laughed. “What do you think is going on out there? It’s almost like we’re cut off from the rest of the world, isn’t it?” The wonder in Jack’s eyes made Sue smile. She liked it when the boyish side of Jack came out. He had seen and experienced a lot of the seamier side of life in his work as a member of the SWAT team and as an FBI Special Agent, but there was still a magical quality about him that endeared him to her.
“People are still doing what people do any other day of the week. They’re just hoping to be able to do it inside out of the weather.” Sue thought for a moment, staring again at the fire. “I hope Charlie is OK.”
Jack touched her arm and leaned toward her to get her attention. “I called him while you were in the kitchen – he’s fine. He’s battened down the hatches and actually warmed up some soup on the stove instead of in the microwave! Troy is there with him, so they’ll take care of one another,” Jack smiled.
“Thank you for checking on him! He accuses me of being a ‘mother hen,’ so I didn’t want to overstep. I’m glad Troy is with him. They have been good for one another, haven’t they?” Sue asked, a distant look in her eyes as she thought about the trouble that Troy had been in the past, and the bright prospects he had now as an artist.
“You had a lot to do with Troy’s success. Nobody else had ever stepped out on faith for him before. You and Charlie have been like the family he wished he had. I’m glad his brother is back in his life, but there’s still a lot of healing needed with that relationship.” Jack was proud of Sue. She had discernment about people, always expecting, and often getting, the best out of even the most hardened cases. He and the rest of the team had learned as much from her as she had from them.
“Troy just needed someone to believe in him. Getting him away from bad influences was a big part of it, and letting him be a part of something bigger than him was an even greater part. Charlie has loved having someone to ‘watch over,’ and Troy has felt like he was helping ‘watch over’ Charlie! Funny how God worked that out, isn’t it?” Sue gave Jack a big smile, proud of how far both Charlie and Troy had come in the last four years.
“Funny, indeed!” Jack returned her smile, and patted her on the shoulder, leaving his hand resting there.
Sue looked over at him, feeling his hand heavy on her shoulder. She liked it there, but she wondered if he even noticed what he was doing. He gazed into her eyes for a moment before he thought about how good it was to feel her shoulder under his hand.
He dropped it down to Levi as they broke their gaze in embarrassment. Levi just looked at each of them and almost visibly shook his head in disgust. What were these people waiting for, anyway?
“I thought I’d never get Levi’s attention!” Jack shivered out as he stood letting Sue unwind the scarf from his head. “It’s gotten pretty rough out there.”
“What happened? The power went out about 10 minutes after you left, and I was hoping you got over the bridge to your place before it got any worse,” Sue said.
“I got two blocks away, and there was a tree in the middle of the road. I couldn’t get around it, and then I heard that they closed the bridge and were stopping people on the road unless it was an emergency. I thought the sensible thing would be to take cover, after talking to Bobby. Visibility just seemed to get worse all the sudden.” Jack was trying to get snow-packed gloves off of nearly-frozen hands. “I tried to call, but there was no answer. Was your phone out, too?
“No, you must have called while Levi and I were checking on the neighbors – it took longer than I thought, and I left my phone here. I’m sorry!” Sue apologized, noting the missed calls on her cell phone.
“Don’t worry about it. There’s not much you could have done over the phone, and you couldn’t have gotten your car out if you tried.” Jack continued brushing the snow off, trying to keep it on the small rug at the door – not having much luck.
“I’m glad you came back here. I would have sent out the National Guard if I hadn’t heard from you in about twenty minutes – and I know people who can do that! Good thing we decided to make a big pot of soup, isn’t it, Levi?” Sue smiled down at the dog to mask any shining that may have been in her eyes for Jack.
“Now that my nose is starting to thaw, I do smell some awesome aromas coming from the direction of the kitchen . . . I thought I smelled soup, but . . . is that apple pie I smell?” Jack was getting a rapt expression on his face at the mere thought of apple pie.
“My mom used to make apple pies for us on snow days. I can’t think about snow without thinking of all the good things she would make while bustling about the kitchen cooking and keeping the hot chocolate coming for when we would come in from playing in the snow. Cinnamon rolls for breakfast, soup for any time of the day, hot chocolate at a moment’s notice – and apple pie.” He closed his eyes in remembered ecstasy.
Sue smiled. She was pleased at his reaction. “The soup will be ready in about a half-hour, and the pie will be ready later. The first thing is to get you thawed out. Take off those wet shoes and come stand in front of the fire.”
“I’ve got to call Bobby before I do anything else. He threatened me with my life if I didn’t!” Jack pressed Bobby’s speed-dial number, and Bobby was on the phone immediately, as if he were just waiting for Jack’s call.
“Hey Bobby, I made it to Sue’s . . . Yeah, her power’s out, but she has gas heat and stove so she’s not doing to badly . . . It’s like a ghost town out there. There weren’t ANY people stirring at all . . .” Jack looked up at Sue, “Do you have plenty of supplies?” he asked, cupping his hand over the mouthpiece.
“Yeah, there’s plenty of food in the house.” Sue replied.
“Yeah, Bobby. We’ll be fine. You should smell the soup and pie she already had going before I got here. No, she didn’t know I was coming. Hey, I’m probably in better shape than you, even if you do have power still. . . Ha, ha.” Jack paused as he listened to Bobby’s comments. “Watch it, bub.” Jack blushed and looked at Sue with a sheepish grin at what Bobby had said on the phone. “Keep me posted. Alright, ‘bye.”
“Well, Bobby wishes us the best surviving the blizzard,” Jack said looking at Sue furtively, leaving out key phrases that Bobby had used in teasing him about ‘close quarters.’ “I think he wishes he were here, too, after I told him about our food situation.”
He looked at Sue, getting a little bolder, “I think there was a comment about ‘domestic bliss’ in there somewhere.” Jack arched a brow and laughed at that. Bobby had commented that Jack and Sue certainly had had the opportunity to know what it’s like to experience domestic bliss, having gone undercover as a married couple more than once.
Sue blushed slightly. “Well, if domestic bliss is standing in a cold hallway dripping all over the floor when you could be standing in front of a fire drying off, I’d have to question what your idea of ‘bliss’ is!” Sue directed him into the living room after he took off his shoes. “Good thing you had your long coat in the car with you, or you would be soaked to the skin! At that, your poor feet have to be freezing!”
“Aw, it’s not too bad. You forget I was a hockey player! We’re trained not to feel the cold!” Jack said toughly, even as he was enjoying soaking in the heat from the blazing fireplace.
“Well, I was an ice skater, but I still feel the cold!” Sue worked on getting the water off the floor from when Jack came in, and brought out some warm socks that her dad had left when he visited last. “Here. Put these on. Cold feet are a sure path to a bad cold.” Sue handed him the socks and turned to go to the kitchen to stir the soup.
“Yes, mom . . . uh, I mean, Sue,” Jack said with a wink as he touched her arm.
“Ha. Ha. When people won’t take care of themselves, somebody has to, don’t they, Levi?” Sue hid her blush by looking down at the dog.
*
“The laptop battery is dead.” Jack and Sue had finished their soup, and while Sue put the kitchen to rights, Jack had checked online to see if there were any weather updates. “It looks like the city is pretty much in the dark right now, but the snow should be moving out by the middle of tomorrow morning.”
“Have you heard from anybody else on the team?” Sue asked, as she brought Jack a slice of hot apple pie.
“No, just Bobby, but if they knew how good this pie smelled, they would put on snowshoes to get over here!” Jack smiled as he thanked Sue for the pie, and went with her back into the living room. “I’m sure everybody’s OK. Maybe the bad guys will take a break for a blizzard.” Jack smiled at Sue as they settled in front of the fire with their pie, Levi between them on the couch.
After they finished their dessert, Sue and Jack sat in front of the fire, alternately chatting about their respective trips home, and falling silent, comfortable with one another, staring into the fire. Sue was lost in reverie.
Jack touched her shoulder across the back of the couch. “What are you thinking about?” he asked, looking into her eyes.
“Just how thankful I am to be home, safe and sound, that I know all my friends are safe.” Sue glanced back at Jack with a shy smile. “Thankful that I had enough food for a hungry snowman that showed up at my door.”
“I’m thankful for that one, too!!” Jack laughed. “What do you think is going on out there? It’s almost like we’re cut off from the rest of the world, isn’t it?” The wonder in Jack’s eyes made Sue smile. She liked it when the boyish side of Jack came out. He had seen and experienced a lot of the seamier side of life in his work as a member of the SWAT team and as an FBI Special Agent, but there was still a magical quality about him that endeared him to her.
“People are still doing what people do any other day of the week. They’re just hoping to be able to do it inside out of the weather.” Sue thought for a moment, staring again at the fire. “I hope Charlie is OK.”
Jack touched her arm and leaned toward her to get her attention. “I called him while you were in the kitchen – he’s fine. He’s battened down the hatches and actually warmed up some soup on the stove instead of in the microwave! Troy is there with him, so they’ll take care of one another,” Jack smiled.
“Thank you for checking on him! He accuses me of being a ‘mother hen,’ so I didn’t want to overstep. I’m glad Troy is with him. They have been good for one another, haven’t they?” Sue asked, a distant look in her eyes as she thought about the trouble that Troy had been in the past, and the bright prospects he had now as an artist.
“You had a lot to do with Troy’s success. Nobody else had ever stepped out on faith for him before. You and Charlie have been like the family he wished he had. I’m glad his brother is back in his life, but there’s still a lot of healing needed with that relationship.” Jack was proud of Sue. She had discernment about people, always expecting, and often getting, the best out of even the most hardened cases. He and the rest of the team had learned as much from her as she had from them.
“Troy just needed someone to believe in him. Getting him away from bad influences was a big part of it, and letting him be a part of something bigger than him was an even greater part. Charlie has loved having someone to ‘watch over,’ and Troy has felt like he was helping ‘watch over’ Charlie! Funny how God worked that out, isn’t it?” Sue gave Jack a big smile, proud of how far both Charlie and Troy had come in the last four years.
“Funny, indeed!” Jack returned her smile, and patted her on the shoulder, leaving his hand resting there.
Sue looked over at him, feeling his hand heavy on her shoulder. She liked it there, but she wondered if he even noticed what he was doing. He gazed into her eyes for a moment before he thought about how good it was to feel her shoulder under his hand.
He dropped it down to Levi as they broke their gaze in embarrassment. Levi just looked at each of them and almost visibly shook his head in disgust. What were these people waiting for, anyway?
Chapter 5
January 3
Morning came, bright with the whiteness of the snow – and freezing. Jack woke with the light streaming through the windows of Sue’s living room. He looked at the electric clock, only to see a blank face with no numbers shining. The power was still out. His watch read 8:15. The fire still blazed cheerily, warming the cold room, especially in the circle of the living room.
“How did I sleep that long?” Jack asked Levi, who was sitting on the floor next to the couch where Jack had crashed after Sue went to bed.
Jack looked up to see Sue standing in the doorway, smiling.
“Good morning, sleepyhead! You must have been exhausted after your walk in the blizzard! You fell asleep on the couch and I covered you up without your ever waking up!”
“Sorry. I guess I wasn’t very good company last night.” Jack rubbed his face and hair to complete the waking-up process. “If I recall, you are the morning person of our little team, and I’m not.”
“Well, last night you weren’t exactly a night-owl, either!” smirked Sue with a twisted little smile.
“Very funny. And I was going to offer to cook breakfast this morning – it’s the one meal that I do fairly well, if I do say so myself. My mom refused to let me leave home without knowing how to at least cook eggs and bacon.” Jack busied himself straightening up the blanket Sue had put over him in the night.
Sue laughed. “I won’t ever turn down an offer like that! I think I do still have some eggs and bacon in the ‘frig. And maybe some canned biscuits! Do you like gravy?”
“Now I may turn into a morning person yet, with encouragement like that.” Jack, fully awake now and all senses alert, looked straight at Sue with a warm smile. She had that bright cheery look, even with tousled hair and no makeup. He sure would like to give her a good-morning hug, but pushed the impulse aside – for now.
In the kitchen, Jack and Sue worked together with an easy camaraderie born of hours and days working in the field together, as well as spending time together outside of work.
“It’s a lot easier to see this morning than it was last night! I had to forage for canned vegetables with a flashlight! Sue was busily finding ingredients for this and that.
Sitting across from one another, they talked about this and that, wondering how the city was faring after the blizzard. After lingering over coffee, they reluctantly got up to clean up before checking on the outside world.
“Where are your dish towels?” Jack asked, Sue pointing to a drawer on the far left of the kitchen.
Jack opened the drawer and stopped. He touched her arm to get her attention. “Sue, did you cut yourself last night or sometime recently?” he asked, looking at her closely. There was a towel stuffed in the drawer, covered with what looked like blood.
“No. Why?” Sue looked at him inquiringly. Then she looked in the direction he was looking and pointing.
“What IS that?” Sue looked horrified. Surely it wasn’t blood. Unfortunately, both of them had seen enough blood to be positive when they saw it.
“Lucy left for Florida before I left for Ohio, so I was the last one still at home. That wasn’t there when I left. I don’t think I ever opened that drawer last night, but if I did, it was the darkest part of the room.” Sue had a frown on her face, trying to figure out how the blood-soaked towel could have gotten there.
“We need to search the apartment. There may be other signs that someone has been here while you were gone.” Jack didn’t want to scare Sue, but he was all business now.
“Do you really think someone was here . . . in my apartment, while I was gone?” Sue looked at Jack with a shadow of concern on her face.
“Well, we can assume that if it isn’t your blood or Lucy’s, it had to come from somewhere. Just makes sense. Did you notice anything out of place last night?” Jack asked.
Sue frowned, thinking. “I couldn’t find the paper towels last night while I was cooking, but I just thought it was because it was dark. This morning I found part of a roll under the sink. I thought I had an extra roll, but it isn’t in the cabinet where we usually keep it,” Sue answered, lost in thought.
Jack was looking around the room more closely, finding a pair of tongs with which to pick up the bloody towel. It was dried, but not hardened, indicating that it hadn’t been there over a few days. He put the towel into a plastic bag and sealed it.
Sue started at the front door, checking every window, nook, and cranny for signs of an intruder. “Jack,” she called out, and he came immediately. “Take a look at this. We couldn’t see it last night because by the time I would have noticed it, the power was out.” On the window leading to the fire escape, there was a brown smudge on the window sill, as if someone had dripped paint and tried to wipe it off with a rag, but too late to get it off completely. There were also signs of forced entry. The window lock was broken, but put back very carefully so that it wouldn’t be noticed.
Jack came over to the window where Sue was standing. “Look at the floor here,” Jack pointed, directly below the window. “There are some other smudges. Whoever it was must have noticed that he was bleeding and caught it after this point. Keep looking. There may be other signs.”
Jack’s investigative senses were always sharp, but this was cause for concern. Who could have done this? Was Christmas Eve at Sue and Lucy’s apartment the scene for a bloodied intruder – perhaps on the run from who knows what kind of activity – to take cover and lick his – or her – wounds? Who was it, and will they come back?
January 3
Morning came, bright with the whiteness of the snow – and freezing. Jack woke with the light streaming through the windows of Sue’s living room. He looked at the electric clock, only to see a blank face with no numbers shining. The power was still out. His watch read 8:15. The fire still blazed cheerily, warming the cold room, especially in the circle of the living room.
“How did I sleep that long?” Jack asked Levi, who was sitting on the floor next to the couch where Jack had crashed after Sue went to bed.
Jack looked up to see Sue standing in the doorway, smiling.
“Good morning, sleepyhead! You must have been exhausted after your walk in the blizzard! You fell asleep on the couch and I covered you up without your ever waking up!”
“Sorry. I guess I wasn’t very good company last night.” Jack rubbed his face and hair to complete the waking-up process. “If I recall, you are the morning person of our little team, and I’m not.”
“Well, last night you weren’t exactly a night-owl, either!” smirked Sue with a twisted little smile.
“Very funny. And I was going to offer to cook breakfast this morning – it’s the one meal that I do fairly well, if I do say so myself. My mom refused to let me leave home without knowing how to at least cook eggs and bacon.” Jack busied himself straightening up the blanket Sue had put over him in the night.
Sue laughed. “I won’t ever turn down an offer like that! I think I do still have some eggs and bacon in the ‘frig. And maybe some canned biscuits! Do you like gravy?”
“Now I may turn into a morning person yet, with encouragement like that.” Jack, fully awake now and all senses alert, looked straight at Sue with a warm smile. She had that bright cheery look, even with tousled hair and no makeup. He sure would like to give her a good-morning hug, but pushed the impulse aside – for now.
In the kitchen, Jack and Sue worked together with an easy camaraderie born of hours and days working in the field together, as well as spending time together outside of work.
“It’s a lot easier to see this morning than it was last night! I had to forage for canned vegetables with a flashlight! Sue was busily finding ingredients for this and that.
Sitting across from one another, they talked about this and that, wondering how the city was faring after the blizzard. After lingering over coffee, they reluctantly got up to clean up before checking on the outside world.
*
“Where are your dish towels?” Jack asked, Sue pointing to a drawer on the far left of the kitchen.
Jack opened the drawer and stopped. He touched her arm to get her attention. “Sue, did you cut yourself last night or sometime recently?” he asked, looking at her closely. There was a towel stuffed in the drawer, covered with what looked like blood.
“No. Why?” Sue looked at him inquiringly. Then she looked in the direction he was looking and pointing.
“What IS that?” Sue looked horrified. Surely it wasn’t blood. Unfortunately, both of them had seen enough blood to be positive when they saw it.
“Lucy left for Florida before I left for Ohio, so I was the last one still at home. That wasn’t there when I left. I don’t think I ever opened that drawer last night, but if I did, it was the darkest part of the room.” Sue had a frown on her face, trying to figure out how the blood-soaked towel could have gotten there.
“We need to search the apartment. There may be other signs that someone has been here while you were gone.” Jack didn’t want to scare Sue, but he was all business now.
“Do you really think someone was here . . . in my apartment, while I was gone?” Sue looked at Jack with a shadow of concern on her face.
“Well, we can assume that if it isn’t your blood or Lucy’s, it had to come from somewhere. Just makes sense. Did you notice anything out of place last night?” Jack asked.
Sue frowned, thinking. “I couldn’t find the paper towels last night while I was cooking, but I just thought it was because it was dark. This morning I found part of a roll under the sink. I thought I had an extra roll, but it isn’t in the cabinet where we usually keep it,” Sue answered, lost in thought.
Jack was looking around the room more closely, finding a pair of tongs with which to pick up the bloody towel. It was dried, but not hardened, indicating that it hadn’t been there over a few days. He put the towel into a plastic bag and sealed it.
Sue started at the front door, checking every window, nook, and cranny for signs of an intruder. “Jack,” she called out, and he came immediately. “Take a look at this. We couldn’t see it last night because by the time I would have noticed it, the power was out.” On the window leading to the fire escape, there was a brown smudge on the window sill, as if someone had dripped paint and tried to wipe it off with a rag, but too late to get it off completely. There were also signs of forced entry. The window lock was broken, but put back very carefully so that it wouldn’t be noticed.
Jack came over to the window where Sue was standing. “Look at the floor here,” Jack pointed, directly below the window. “There are some other smudges. Whoever it was must have noticed that he was bleeding and caught it after this point. Keep looking. There may be other signs.”
Jack’s investigative senses were always sharp, but this was cause for concern. Who could have done this? Was Christmas Eve at Sue and Lucy’s apartment the scene for a bloodied intruder – perhaps on the run from who knows what kind of activity – to take cover and lick his – or her – wounds? Who was it, and will they come back?
Chapter 6
“Yeah, D. There are definitely signs of forced entry, a bloody towel stuffed in a drawer, a broken window lock, a smudge on the windowsill, and spots of blood on the floor next to the window. She hasn’t noticed anything missing except paper towels and some bandages, so it’s my guess whoever it was stayed long enough to clean himself up and dodge the police.” Jack had called Demetrius as soon as they finished searching Sue’s apartment. As Supervisor of their unit, Special Agent Demetrius Gans was the one to make the call for a full-scale investigation.
“I don’t know if it’s really in our jurisdiction to launch an FBI investigation at this point. Why don’t you call Metro PD and see if there have been reports of any robberies, domestic violence, or anything else during the time Sue and Lucy were out of the apartment.” D was on the case, but there wasn’t much he could do from his house in Arlington.
“Thanks, D.” Jack turned away from Sue so that she couldn’t see what was being said. “I don’t like the idea of someone being in here while Sue and Lucy were gone, and I really don’t like the idea that this joker knows where there is a window with a broken lock just waiting for him to climb in.”
“I’ll call Metro, and then Sue and I are going to go door to door to see if anybody in the building heard or saw anything out of the ordinary,” Jack told him as he turned back toward Sue.
“By the way, what’s going on with the roads in the city? This neighborhood hasn’t even seen a snowplow.” Jack looked at Sue and winked, trying to keep her from worrying about this latest development.
Demetrius laughed on the other end of the line. “Snowplows? From what I hear, they’re starting in Maryland and working their way South. I may have to get out the snowshoes yet. I think we got about 8 inches of the stuff, and it’s on top of ice. Listen Jack, if there is a clear danger to Sue and Lucy, don’t hesitate to use any means at your disposal to solve this. You shouldn’t have any problem getting a DNA sample from the towel. Getting to the lab, on the other hand, could be a problem.”
“Yeah. Thanks, D. We’ll keep you posted if we come up with anything. Until we get power, we’re going to be investigating ‘the old fashioned way.’” Jack ended his conversation with Demetrius, then turned to Sue.
Sue watched intently as Jack filled her in using a combination of speaking and signing. “Do you think we should call Lucy to let her know what’s going on? “
Jack thought a minute. It had just occurred to him that if he weren’t here, if her cell went out, Sue would be cut off from anyone on the telephone. Scary thought. “We probably should. I would like us to go to the neighbors and see if they’ve seen or heard anything. After that, we’ll have more to tell her.”
“Good deal. I know Mrs. Larson on the ground floor is still out of town. I checked at her apartment when the power went off to make sure she had heat and candles. I checked the other tenants, so I know they’re home. I don’t like the idea of someone breaking in to an empty apartment, so I’d kind of like to check Mrs. Larson’s place, too, if we can. Do you still have that ‘handy dandy’ electronic lock pick,’ just in case?” Sue was already pulling shoes on and walking toward the door.
Jack touched her arm and stood her in front of him. “Hold on, Nancy Drew. Before we go off half-cocked, I’d like to know a little something about your neighbors first. How well do you know them? Have you noticed anything odd, or interesting about any of them, strangers in and out visiting them or any of your other neighbors along the street?”
Sue rolled her eyes, gave Jack a brave smile, and filled him in on the three other tenants in her building. She was in a hurry to get the investigation started.
Sue’s tenacious streak was a great asset as an Investigative Analyst, but Jack also knew that she hadn’t really thought through the implications of someone having invaded her home. He loved her fearlessness, but sometimes it scared him just a little.
Jack spoke to one of his contacts at the DC Metro Police Department. They had not had any reports of burglaries or anything else out of the ordinary. Apparently, there had been a traffic accident, but everything was pretty routine.
As they left the apartment with Levi in tow to meet the neighbors, Jack touched Sue’s arm to stop her in the hallway. “Are you OK?” he signed and looked deep into her eyes.
“I’m OK,” she smiled and signed back, determined to be OK. The tears only pricked behind her eyes because of the concern she saw in Jack’s eyes. She didn’t let on, but she understood the danger she could be in. She was glad not to be alone in this. He smiled and nodded, and they walked on.
“Let’s go see Mr. Kinsey first. He’s on the fourth floor, and he lives alone. If there had been anything strange going on, he would probably know.” Sue led the way into the cold stairwell. With the power out, the only light came from the windows in the landings and the flashlight they carried.
Sue rang the doorbell, and then knocked on the door. “Tara taught me that trick. She says that you can’t always tell if the doorbell works, but most people can hear a knock. Me – I can’t hear either one, so I figure I’ll double my chances to get their attention!” She smiled at Jack, reassuring him that she was truly okay.
The door opened to reveal an elderly gentleman whose eyes brightened up when he saw Sue.
“Sue! Come in! Come in!” Mr. Kinsey led the way into the living room, where he, too, had been enjoying his gas fireplace as an alternative to the electric heat that usually heated the building.
“Levi and I thought we’d check on you to make sure you were OK this morning. Mr. Kinsey, this is my friend Jack Hudson. We work together at the FBI. He got stranded last night after picking me up at the airport.” Sue shifted a little uncomfortably in her seat next to Jack on the couch as the two men shook hands. She didn’t want any of her neighbors to think anything was “going on,” so to speak.
“Good to meet you, young man.” He turned to Sue. “I appreciate your checking on me last night after the power went off. If you hadn’t come by, I never would have found that blasted flashlight! How does Levi like this snow?” Sue’s neighbor was rubbing Levi’s neck, but surreptitiously giving Jack a once-over. Is this young man good enough for our Sue? He was reserving judgment. He did have a good firm handshake.
“I’m glad to meet you, sir,” Jack began. “It’s good to know that Sue has neighbors close by in case anything happened – such as this blizzard, or any number of things.” Jack didn’t want to worry Sue’s neighbor with the details of what they had found. Their goal was just to find out if the neighbors had noticed anything odd in the building while Sue was gone.
“Did anything exciting happen in the neighborhood while I was gone?” Sue asked brightly, as if she were just catching up on community gossip. Jack smiled at her. She was good – he had to give her credit for being a natural at interrogation.
“It’s been pretty quiet – well, quiet is relative when you live near the Petersens. With Mrs. Larson gone on the first floor, and you and Lucy gone, the Petersen’s and I were rattling around in this old building!” Mr. Kinsey chuckled. “There was a bit of a ruckus across the street on Christmas Eve. Apparently there was a hit-and-run in front of Starbucks. I saw the police get there after the accident, but never heard any more about it.”
“Hmm. I wonder if anyone got hurt.” Sue queried casually.
“I don’t know. I heard someone yelling after the crash, but didn’t see anything from up here. In a busy neighborhood like this, anything can happen. We’ve got so many new folks coming in and going out it’s hard to keep up with who’s new and who’s been around a while – I consider you and Lucy to be part of us ‘old-timers.’ Some folks never seem to fit in, no matter how long they live somewhere, but you girls just came in and stole the hearts of everyone in the building.” Mr. Kinsey patted Sue’s hand warmly. “An old man appreciates having sweet young faces to look at – especially if their natures are as sweet as their faces!”
Sue smiled at the old man and gave him a hug as she stood to leave. “It didn’t take Lucy and me long to feel like this is home now. I like having you around, too!” Levi barked in agreement. “If you need anything, call my cell phone – my other phone’s dead with the power out.” She gave him a card with her cell number on it, and then looked at Jack to take their leave.
“Good to meet you, sir.” Jack shook his hand again, and opened the door for Sue.
Out in the hall, they discussed what Mr. Kinsey had told them.
“Okay, so there was a hit-and-run in the street just outside. Mr. Kinsey didn’t see anyone run from the scene, but he didn’t have a good view from up here. I wonder if the Petersen’s heard or saw anything.” Jack cupped Sue’s elbow in his hand as they walked and talked together toward the stairwell.
“Mr. Petersen is an opera singer. When he’s not singing, his wife is playing the piano or giving piano lessons. I would almost bet that they had a singing engagement for Christmas Eve, but you never know. We didn’t pinpoint a time for the hit-and-run with Mr. Kinsey. I couldn’t seem to work it into the conversation once he got off topic.” Sue smiled shyly.
“Time shouldn’t be a problem. My contact at Metro gave me some of the details of the accident Mr. Kinsey mentioned.” They were making their way town the stairs to the third floor apartment. “Mr. Kinsey seemed like a really nice man. You have at least one good neighbor!” Jack smiled down at Sue.
“The Petersen’s are nice, just a little noisy. It took Lucy a while to get used to it, but for some reason it has never bothered me!” Sue gave Jack a wink and a smile as they made their way to the Petersen’s apartment.
“Yeah, D. There are definitely signs of forced entry, a bloody towel stuffed in a drawer, a broken window lock, a smudge on the windowsill, and spots of blood on the floor next to the window. She hasn’t noticed anything missing except paper towels and some bandages, so it’s my guess whoever it was stayed long enough to clean himself up and dodge the police.” Jack had called Demetrius as soon as they finished searching Sue’s apartment. As Supervisor of their unit, Special Agent Demetrius Gans was the one to make the call for a full-scale investigation.
“I don’t know if it’s really in our jurisdiction to launch an FBI investigation at this point. Why don’t you call Metro PD and see if there have been reports of any robberies, domestic violence, or anything else during the time Sue and Lucy were out of the apartment.” D was on the case, but there wasn’t much he could do from his house in Arlington.
“Thanks, D.” Jack turned away from Sue so that she couldn’t see what was being said. “I don’t like the idea of someone being in here while Sue and Lucy were gone, and I really don’t like the idea that this joker knows where there is a window with a broken lock just waiting for him to climb in.”
“I’ll call Metro, and then Sue and I are going to go door to door to see if anybody in the building heard or saw anything out of the ordinary,” Jack told him as he turned back toward Sue.
“By the way, what’s going on with the roads in the city? This neighborhood hasn’t even seen a snowplow.” Jack looked at Sue and winked, trying to keep her from worrying about this latest development.
Demetrius laughed on the other end of the line. “Snowplows? From what I hear, they’re starting in Maryland and working their way South. I may have to get out the snowshoes yet. I think we got about 8 inches of the stuff, and it’s on top of ice. Listen Jack, if there is a clear danger to Sue and Lucy, don’t hesitate to use any means at your disposal to solve this. You shouldn’t have any problem getting a DNA sample from the towel. Getting to the lab, on the other hand, could be a problem.”
“Yeah. Thanks, D. We’ll keep you posted if we come up with anything. Until we get power, we’re going to be investigating ‘the old fashioned way.’” Jack ended his conversation with Demetrius, then turned to Sue.
Sue watched intently as Jack filled her in using a combination of speaking and signing. “Do you think we should call Lucy to let her know what’s going on? “
Jack thought a minute. It had just occurred to him that if he weren’t here, if her cell went out, Sue would be cut off from anyone on the telephone. Scary thought. “We probably should. I would like us to go to the neighbors and see if they’ve seen or heard anything. After that, we’ll have more to tell her.”
“Good deal. I know Mrs. Larson on the ground floor is still out of town. I checked at her apartment when the power went off to make sure she had heat and candles. I checked the other tenants, so I know they’re home. I don’t like the idea of someone breaking in to an empty apartment, so I’d kind of like to check Mrs. Larson’s place, too, if we can. Do you still have that ‘handy dandy’ electronic lock pick,’ just in case?” Sue was already pulling shoes on and walking toward the door.
Jack touched her arm and stood her in front of him. “Hold on, Nancy Drew. Before we go off half-cocked, I’d like to know a little something about your neighbors first. How well do you know them? Have you noticed anything odd, or interesting about any of them, strangers in and out visiting them or any of your other neighbors along the street?”
Sue rolled her eyes, gave Jack a brave smile, and filled him in on the three other tenants in her building. She was in a hurry to get the investigation started.
Sue’s tenacious streak was a great asset as an Investigative Analyst, but Jack also knew that she hadn’t really thought through the implications of someone having invaded her home. He loved her fearlessness, but sometimes it scared him just a little.
*
Jack spoke to one of his contacts at the DC Metro Police Department. They had not had any reports of burglaries or anything else out of the ordinary. Apparently, there had been a traffic accident, but everything was pretty routine.
As they left the apartment with Levi in tow to meet the neighbors, Jack touched Sue’s arm to stop her in the hallway. “Are you OK?” he signed and looked deep into her eyes.
“I’m OK,” she smiled and signed back, determined to be OK. The tears only pricked behind her eyes because of the concern she saw in Jack’s eyes. She didn’t let on, but she understood the danger she could be in. She was glad not to be alone in this. He smiled and nodded, and they walked on.
“Let’s go see Mr. Kinsey first. He’s on the fourth floor, and he lives alone. If there had been anything strange going on, he would probably know.” Sue led the way into the cold stairwell. With the power out, the only light came from the windows in the landings and the flashlight they carried.
Sue rang the doorbell, and then knocked on the door. “Tara taught me that trick. She says that you can’t always tell if the doorbell works, but most people can hear a knock. Me – I can’t hear either one, so I figure I’ll double my chances to get their attention!” She smiled at Jack, reassuring him that she was truly okay.
The door opened to reveal an elderly gentleman whose eyes brightened up when he saw Sue.
“Sue! Come in! Come in!” Mr. Kinsey led the way into the living room, where he, too, had been enjoying his gas fireplace as an alternative to the electric heat that usually heated the building.
“Levi and I thought we’d check on you to make sure you were OK this morning. Mr. Kinsey, this is my friend Jack Hudson. We work together at the FBI. He got stranded last night after picking me up at the airport.” Sue shifted a little uncomfortably in her seat next to Jack on the couch as the two men shook hands. She didn’t want any of her neighbors to think anything was “going on,” so to speak.
“Good to meet you, young man.” He turned to Sue. “I appreciate your checking on me last night after the power went off. If you hadn’t come by, I never would have found that blasted flashlight! How does Levi like this snow?” Sue’s neighbor was rubbing Levi’s neck, but surreptitiously giving Jack a once-over. Is this young man good enough for our Sue? He was reserving judgment. He did have a good firm handshake.
“I’m glad to meet you, sir,” Jack began. “It’s good to know that Sue has neighbors close by in case anything happened – such as this blizzard, or any number of things.” Jack didn’t want to worry Sue’s neighbor with the details of what they had found. Their goal was just to find out if the neighbors had noticed anything odd in the building while Sue was gone.
“Did anything exciting happen in the neighborhood while I was gone?” Sue asked brightly, as if she were just catching up on community gossip. Jack smiled at her. She was good – he had to give her credit for being a natural at interrogation.
“It’s been pretty quiet – well, quiet is relative when you live near the Petersens. With Mrs. Larson gone on the first floor, and you and Lucy gone, the Petersen’s and I were rattling around in this old building!” Mr. Kinsey chuckled. “There was a bit of a ruckus across the street on Christmas Eve. Apparently there was a hit-and-run in front of Starbucks. I saw the police get there after the accident, but never heard any more about it.”
“Hmm. I wonder if anyone got hurt.” Sue queried casually.
“I don’t know. I heard someone yelling after the crash, but didn’t see anything from up here. In a busy neighborhood like this, anything can happen. We’ve got so many new folks coming in and going out it’s hard to keep up with who’s new and who’s been around a while – I consider you and Lucy to be part of us ‘old-timers.’ Some folks never seem to fit in, no matter how long they live somewhere, but you girls just came in and stole the hearts of everyone in the building.” Mr. Kinsey patted Sue’s hand warmly. “An old man appreciates having sweet young faces to look at – especially if their natures are as sweet as their faces!”
Sue smiled at the old man and gave him a hug as she stood to leave. “It didn’t take Lucy and me long to feel like this is home now. I like having you around, too!” Levi barked in agreement. “If you need anything, call my cell phone – my other phone’s dead with the power out.” She gave him a card with her cell number on it, and then looked at Jack to take their leave.
“Good to meet you, sir.” Jack shook his hand again, and opened the door for Sue.
Out in the hall, they discussed what Mr. Kinsey had told them.
“Okay, so there was a hit-and-run in the street just outside. Mr. Kinsey didn’t see anyone run from the scene, but he didn’t have a good view from up here. I wonder if the Petersen’s heard or saw anything.” Jack cupped Sue’s elbow in his hand as they walked and talked together toward the stairwell.
“Mr. Petersen is an opera singer. When he’s not singing, his wife is playing the piano or giving piano lessons. I would almost bet that they had a singing engagement for Christmas Eve, but you never know. We didn’t pinpoint a time for the hit-and-run with Mr. Kinsey. I couldn’t seem to work it into the conversation once he got off topic.” Sue smiled shyly.
“Time shouldn’t be a problem. My contact at Metro gave me some of the details of the accident Mr. Kinsey mentioned.” They were making their way town the stairs to the third floor apartment. “Mr. Kinsey seemed like a really nice man. You have at least one good neighbor!” Jack smiled down at Sue.
“The Petersen’s are nice, just a little noisy. It took Lucy a while to get used to it, but for some reason it has never bothered me!” Sue gave Jack a wink and a smile as they made their way to the Petersen’s apartment.
Chapter 7
“I heard about the accident across the street!” Mrs. Petersen seemed glad to have company. She had been making herself some hot chocolate, and offered some to Sue and Jack. She usually had piano students most of her time away from teaching music and practicing with her husband. Sometimes she felt starved for social contact that was non-musical! “We’ve been so busy; I haven’t even been over to Starbucks. Pretty crazy, since it’s right a cross the street and I walk past it most days! So you work with Sue? I know we’ve met a few times, but I didn’t know you two saw one another outside the office.” As she talked, Mrs. Petersen looked from Sue to Jack and back, trying to find some hint of a relationship that would relieve the boredom that came with a power outage, cancelled music lessons, and a husband out of town.
She took a breath in monopolizing the conversation to assess this good-looking young man sitting beside Sue on the couch. What a catch! Was there something going on here that she didn’t know about? She handed them both a steaming cup of cocoa.
Sue and Jack glanced at each other, and Sue pounced on the break.
“Jack got snowed in here after picking me up at the airport. He couldn’t get past a tree that had fallen in the road a couple of blocks from here, and the blizzard had started in earnest by then, so he ended up on my couch.” Sue blushed as she rushed through the explanation of why Jack was sitting beside her with the shadow of a beard showing on his usually clean-shaven face.
Jack had to smile at Sue’s discomfort. A laugh wanted to escape, but he knew better than to do that to Sue. Sue was sweet, but she had a pretty good ‘backhand’ when she was embarrassed. With Mrs. Petersen, you had to rush to get a word in edgewise. Glancing at Sue, Jack decided he’d better wade into the conversation.
“I guess it was pretty quiet around here through the Christmas holidays?” Jack smiled made small talk, albeit pointedly. He glanced at Sue, who seemed grateful to have the topic switched from her love life to the life of the community.
“What is quiet? We had some friends over on Christmas Eve – some of Carl’s friends from his opera company. They ended up trying to outdo ‘the three tenors’ on ‘O, Holy Night’ – it was quite good, but there will never be another Pavarotti.” A faraway look clouded Mrs. Petersen’s eyes, and she sighed as she thought of the great loss to the opera world with the death of Pavarotti.
“Anyway, I did hear something about the accident, but we didn’t actually hear anything. Our cat was acting strangely that evening. She kept going over to the fire escape window and yowling. I looked out and didn’t see anything. Probably another cat outside somewhere that she heard.”
“That’s odd. Did you hear anything on the fire escape? Maybe some kids were playing on it, or trying to get into some trouble?” Sue casually tried to steer the questions to stay on topic.
“On Christmas Eve? Surely there wouldn’t be anyone out that night? I did hear the stairs creak, but the wind was up that evening, and they do that sometimes if the wind hits it just right. So how long will you be staying with Sue?” Mrs. Petersen was trying desperately to get back to Jack and Sue’s status.
“Oh, just until I can get my car moving again. I’ll probably check it this afternoon when the snowplow has come through. I’m sure I won’t have to impose on Sue’s hospitality any longer than necessary.” Jack smiled at Mrs. Petersen, not giving her the satisfaction of thinking he and Sue were carrying on a clandestine affair. He and Sue got up to leave, thanking Mrs. Petersen for the hot chocolate.
“Oh. Well, it was nice to talk to you. Thank you, Sue, for checking on me last night. With Mr. Petersen away in Boston, it was a little lonely for me sitting in the dark. I hadn’t talked to anyone in person for hours before you came!” Mrs. Petersen walked them to the door, and with a hasty goodbye, Sue and Jack took their leave.
Comparing notes, Jack said, “So that’s why you didn’t answer your phone while I was stranded – you couldn’t get away from Mrs. Petersen! Now I understand why. She’s a talker, isn’t she?” Jack gave way to laughter as soon as they got to the stairwell, out of earshot of the nosey neighbor.
“She talks so fast that sometimes I only catch about half of what she says. She doesn’t seem to mind, though. She’s mainly carrying on the conversation with herself. She asks the questions, and then answers them immediately!” Sue rolled her eyes as she recalled the conversation the evening before. She had left her cell phone in the apartment as she quickly checked on her neighbors after finding her flashlight – at least she intended to check on them quickly. Last night’s visit to check on Mrs. Petersen lasted about 30 minutes – which was about 20 minutes longer than Sue intended.
“That only leaves Mrs. Larson’s apartment, and you said she had been out of town since before you left for Christmas. Do you have a key to her apartment, or do I need my handy-dandy lock-pick?” Jack was walking down the stairs with Sue, heading for the ground floor.
“Yes, I have a key. I was just kidding about the lock-pick. I knew it was too cold to wait for you to pick the lock manually,” Sue said, sidling a teasing glance at Jack, and laughing at his defensive stance. It was well-known in their team that while Jack was the best shot on the team and he was one of the top team members in picking locks, Bobby always beat him hands down.
“Seriously, one of the stipulations of our getting this apartment was that Lucy and I watch over the building for the owner, which gives us access to the apartments in case of emergency. I think this qualifies as an emergency!” Sue pulled out a large ring of keys she had stuck in her jacket pocket as they approached the door.
Sue rang the doorbell and knocked. Seeing Jack’s quizzical look, she said “if she decided to beat the snow home, I wouldn’t want to walk in on her unannounced!”
“That makes sense. Advance notice is always good. You never know when you might find someone in the bathtub with their dog.” Jack looked straight ahead and tried to keep a straight face as they both thought of the first time Jack visited Sue’s apartment when she lived over the bowling alley. A still-in-training Levi failed to get Sue’s attention that someone was at the door, and only succeeded when he jumped into the bubble-bath with Sue!
“Very funny. Levi’s learned a lot since then, haven’t you, boy? Like to be discerning when to tell me to open the door – you never know what crazy person might be standing out there!” Sue smiled mischievously at Jack as she pulled the correct key from the ring and placed it in the lock. “You’re just lucky I didn’t offer you some ‘soup to go’ last night, buddy!”
The apartment was empty, and it was cold. “I think I’ll turn on her gas logs to knock the chill for a few minutes. I wouldn’t want the pipes to freeze and her plants to die.” Sue took seriously the responsibility for watching over their building and their neighbors.
“Good idea. It won’t hurt my feelings to have it warmer in here,” smiled Jack. He started looking around. “Did you come down to check on Mrs. Larson last night?”
“Yes, I tried, but got no response. I didn’t come in, though.” Sue continued her search for anything out of place. There was nothing. Mrs. Larson, at 73, was an immaculate housekeeper. She would never think of leaving town without her apartment being in tip-top shape.
“I notice that some of her lights are on timers. That may have stopped whoever broke into your apartment from breaking into hers.” Jack pointed out the timer on the outlet underneath the window closest to the fire escape. “This would have been the easiest to get in, being on the ground floor, but if the lights came on as he was approaching, he thought twice about breaking and entering.”
Sue thought aloud. “Then he climbed up to our apartment on the second floor, where there was no movement, no lights except the night-light in the bathroom. He heard music and a party going on at the Petersen’s on the third floor, so that wouldn’t work.”
“Mr. Kinsey’s apartment escaped notice because he got to your place first. If he had been home, but asleep or not hearing the break-in, he could very well have been hurt, or killed. Until we know who this joker is and what he was up to, we’re flying blind.” Jack looked at Sue, standing with arms crossed in the middle of Mrs. Larson’s apartment. “We’d better give Luce a call, and I’ll call D and Bobby to fill them in, and maybe hear about what’s going on in the outside world.”
“How does a bowl of leftover soup sound?” Sue asked.
Jack smiled. Sue sure knew the way to this man’s heart. “I always say that an investigation always goes better on a full stomach.”
“I heard about the accident across the street!” Mrs. Petersen seemed glad to have company. She had been making herself some hot chocolate, and offered some to Sue and Jack. She usually had piano students most of her time away from teaching music and practicing with her husband. Sometimes she felt starved for social contact that was non-musical! “We’ve been so busy; I haven’t even been over to Starbucks. Pretty crazy, since it’s right a cross the street and I walk past it most days! So you work with Sue? I know we’ve met a few times, but I didn’t know you two saw one another outside the office.” As she talked, Mrs. Petersen looked from Sue to Jack and back, trying to find some hint of a relationship that would relieve the boredom that came with a power outage, cancelled music lessons, and a husband out of town.
She took a breath in monopolizing the conversation to assess this good-looking young man sitting beside Sue on the couch. What a catch! Was there something going on here that she didn’t know about? She handed them both a steaming cup of cocoa.
Sue and Jack glanced at each other, and Sue pounced on the break.
“Jack got snowed in here after picking me up at the airport. He couldn’t get past a tree that had fallen in the road a couple of blocks from here, and the blizzard had started in earnest by then, so he ended up on my couch.” Sue blushed as she rushed through the explanation of why Jack was sitting beside her with the shadow of a beard showing on his usually clean-shaven face.
Jack had to smile at Sue’s discomfort. A laugh wanted to escape, but he knew better than to do that to Sue. Sue was sweet, but she had a pretty good ‘backhand’ when she was embarrassed. With Mrs. Petersen, you had to rush to get a word in edgewise. Glancing at Sue, Jack decided he’d better wade into the conversation.
“I guess it was pretty quiet around here through the Christmas holidays?” Jack smiled made small talk, albeit pointedly. He glanced at Sue, who seemed grateful to have the topic switched from her love life to the life of the community.
“What is quiet? We had some friends over on Christmas Eve – some of Carl’s friends from his opera company. They ended up trying to outdo ‘the three tenors’ on ‘O, Holy Night’ – it was quite good, but there will never be another Pavarotti.” A faraway look clouded Mrs. Petersen’s eyes, and she sighed as she thought of the great loss to the opera world with the death of Pavarotti.
“Anyway, I did hear something about the accident, but we didn’t actually hear anything. Our cat was acting strangely that evening. She kept going over to the fire escape window and yowling. I looked out and didn’t see anything. Probably another cat outside somewhere that she heard.”
“That’s odd. Did you hear anything on the fire escape? Maybe some kids were playing on it, or trying to get into some trouble?” Sue casually tried to steer the questions to stay on topic.
“On Christmas Eve? Surely there wouldn’t be anyone out that night? I did hear the stairs creak, but the wind was up that evening, and they do that sometimes if the wind hits it just right. So how long will you be staying with Sue?” Mrs. Petersen was trying desperately to get back to Jack and Sue’s status.
“Oh, just until I can get my car moving again. I’ll probably check it this afternoon when the snowplow has come through. I’m sure I won’t have to impose on Sue’s hospitality any longer than necessary.” Jack smiled at Mrs. Petersen, not giving her the satisfaction of thinking he and Sue were carrying on a clandestine affair. He and Sue got up to leave, thanking Mrs. Petersen for the hot chocolate.
“Oh. Well, it was nice to talk to you. Thank you, Sue, for checking on me last night. With Mr. Petersen away in Boston, it was a little lonely for me sitting in the dark. I hadn’t talked to anyone in person for hours before you came!” Mrs. Petersen walked them to the door, and with a hasty goodbye, Sue and Jack took their leave.
*
Comparing notes, Jack said, “So that’s why you didn’t answer your phone while I was stranded – you couldn’t get away from Mrs. Petersen! Now I understand why. She’s a talker, isn’t she?” Jack gave way to laughter as soon as they got to the stairwell, out of earshot of the nosey neighbor.
“She talks so fast that sometimes I only catch about half of what she says. She doesn’t seem to mind, though. She’s mainly carrying on the conversation with herself. She asks the questions, and then answers them immediately!” Sue rolled her eyes as she recalled the conversation the evening before. She had left her cell phone in the apartment as she quickly checked on her neighbors after finding her flashlight – at least she intended to check on them quickly. Last night’s visit to check on Mrs. Petersen lasted about 30 minutes – which was about 20 minutes longer than Sue intended.
“That only leaves Mrs. Larson’s apartment, and you said she had been out of town since before you left for Christmas. Do you have a key to her apartment, or do I need my handy-dandy lock-pick?” Jack was walking down the stairs with Sue, heading for the ground floor.
“Yes, I have a key. I was just kidding about the lock-pick. I knew it was too cold to wait for you to pick the lock manually,” Sue said, sidling a teasing glance at Jack, and laughing at his defensive stance. It was well-known in their team that while Jack was the best shot on the team and he was one of the top team members in picking locks, Bobby always beat him hands down.
“Seriously, one of the stipulations of our getting this apartment was that Lucy and I watch over the building for the owner, which gives us access to the apartments in case of emergency. I think this qualifies as an emergency!” Sue pulled out a large ring of keys she had stuck in her jacket pocket as they approached the door.
Sue rang the doorbell and knocked. Seeing Jack’s quizzical look, she said “if she decided to beat the snow home, I wouldn’t want to walk in on her unannounced!”
“That makes sense. Advance notice is always good. You never know when you might find someone in the bathtub with their dog.” Jack looked straight ahead and tried to keep a straight face as they both thought of the first time Jack visited Sue’s apartment when she lived over the bowling alley. A still-in-training Levi failed to get Sue’s attention that someone was at the door, and only succeeded when he jumped into the bubble-bath with Sue!
“Very funny. Levi’s learned a lot since then, haven’t you, boy? Like to be discerning when to tell me to open the door – you never know what crazy person might be standing out there!” Sue smiled mischievously at Jack as she pulled the correct key from the ring and placed it in the lock. “You’re just lucky I didn’t offer you some ‘soup to go’ last night, buddy!”
The apartment was empty, and it was cold. “I think I’ll turn on her gas logs to knock the chill for a few minutes. I wouldn’t want the pipes to freeze and her plants to die.” Sue took seriously the responsibility for watching over their building and their neighbors.
“Good idea. It won’t hurt my feelings to have it warmer in here,” smiled Jack. He started looking around. “Did you come down to check on Mrs. Larson last night?”
“Yes, I tried, but got no response. I didn’t come in, though.” Sue continued her search for anything out of place. There was nothing. Mrs. Larson, at 73, was an immaculate housekeeper. She would never think of leaving town without her apartment being in tip-top shape.
“I notice that some of her lights are on timers. That may have stopped whoever broke into your apartment from breaking into hers.” Jack pointed out the timer on the outlet underneath the window closest to the fire escape. “This would have been the easiest to get in, being on the ground floor, but if the lights came on as he was approaching, he thought twice about breaking and entering.”
Sue thought aloud. “Then he climbed up to our apartment on the second floor, where there was no movement, no lights except the night-light in the bathroom. He heard music and a party going on at the Petersen’s on the third floor, so that wouldn’t work.”
“Mr. Kinsey’s apartment escaped notice because he got to your place first. If he had been home, but asleep or not hearing the break-in, he could very well have been hurt, or killed. Until we know who this joker is and what he was up to, we’re flying blind.” Jack looked at Sue, standing with arms crossed in the middle of Mrs. Larson’s apartment. “We’d better give Luce a call, and I’ll call D and Bobby to fill them in, and maybe hear about what’s going on in the outside world.”
“How does a bowl of leftover soup sound?” Sue asked.
Jack smiled. Sue sure knew the way to this man’s heart. “I always say that an investigation always goes better on a full stomach.”
Chapter 8
As Sue busied herself in the kitchen, Jack got a call from Myles. In his neighborhood of Columbia Heights, a gated community, the power was back on, and he had even seen a snowplow. “Our neighborhood association would never put up with such slow service as is seen in most of this city. Every homeowner on my street has had their snow blower out, and I’m even starting to see people venture out in their cars.”
The Boston-born and Boston-bred Special Agent Myles Leland III had a way about him that brooked no argument when HE thought something should be so.
“Well, in Georgetown, we have to wait our turn. Bobby said there hasn’t been much movement in DuPont, either. Have you talked to Tara?” Jack rolled his eyes at Sue as he listened to Myles’ rant.
“Yes, I spoke to Tara. She’s fine. Why she insists on living in such a place, I’ll never know. Chinatown may be handy to work, but what a neighborhood. I’m all for multiculturalism, but reading the Starbucks sign in Chinese is something I could never get used to.” Myles kept talking, and Jack was smiling and motioning to Sue with his hand flapping much like Myles’ mouth.
“Myles, the reason I called is to fill you in on something that’s going on here at Sue’s. Apparently someone broke in to the apartment while she and Lucy were both gone. Probably on Christmas Eve. We’re not launching a full-scale investigation yet, but we’re poking around. Were you in town Christmas Eve?” Jack got down to business.
“Why? Am I a suspect? Just kidding. I was home. I didn’t leave until Christmas morning. Ann had to work until 6, and we wanted to drive up to the Cape together. My little sister still feels the need for protection from our parents after her little brush with the law. It was a ghost town. You know how it is during any major holiday. You’re better off being in town than on I 95 going north OR south. Less traffic. Was there any damage? Anything missing?” Myles did have a note of concern in his voice. Whatever negative feelings Myles had toward Sue when she first joined their unit, they had become good friends since. Each understood the value of the other to the good of the team.
“So you’re stranded at Sue’s – how . . . handy!” Myles couldn’t resist giving Jack a poke. Having noticed the attraction between the two, he often wondered if it would take a memo from the director to get THEM to notice.
“No. No damage, nothing really missing. Just a bloody towel stuffed in a drawer and some paper towels missing. Did you hear about anything going on, robberies, accidents, in Georgetown that night?” Jack ignored Myles’ last comment, and hoped Myles had heard something.
“Ah, a bloody towel. Nice. Well, at least we can get some DNA from that, and see if it matches up with anyone in the database. Have they had any problems with break-ins before this?” Myles was getting down to business.
“Not recently. If you think of anything, give me a call.” Jack said. “The roads will surely be passable tomorrow, and I understand that there is power in the neighborhood of the Hoover building. Thanks Myles, and take care.”
“You, too. Uh, Jack, don’t get too comfortable there at Sue’s. I’m sure she’ll get tired of feeding both you AND Levi the Wonderdog,” Myles quipped.
“She IS a good cook – you should be so lucky as to get snowed in here – but I’ll try not to wear out my welcome. Later, Myles.” Jack ended he call and turned to Sue, eyes rolling.
“Is it just me, or is it getting darker in here?” Jack was finishing up his soup – his second bowl, by the way – when he noticed the shadows getting deeper in the apartment.
“No, it is getting darker. My windows mainly face East, so it gets darker earlier – especially in winter.” Sue was getting some candles put in place for lighting later. “It’s actually starting to clear off. Do you think we should go check on your car before it gets dark?” Sue gave Jack a bright look as she suggested the outing. She wanted to get outside in the snow before it became a dirty, slushy mess that is common in the city.
“I think that is a fantastic idea. I want to play in the snow, too.” Jack spoke seriously, but with a smile and a spark of mischief in his eyes that matched Sue’s.
“At least we have a ‘rescue dog’ with us in case we get trapped in an avalanche or something!” Sue laughed as she hurried to don gloves, a hat, a scarf, and boots, as well as getting Levi’s leash out. Levi was starting to get excited at the possibility of an outing, too.
Jack smiled as he pulled on his now-dry things from last night. Getting out of the building would be good for Sue. They both needed some time to clear their heads of the mystery of what had happened in the building. It would help give them some fresh perspective, as well as giving them a chance to investigate outside where the intruder had come into the building.
Out in the sunlight, people were beginning to stir. The Starbuck’s across the street was closed, as there was still no power, but sidewalks were beginning to be cleared, and a snowplow had made one pass through the street. Kids were throwing snowballs at one another – and sometimes at an unsuspecting passer-by. Jack and Sue only had one lobbed at them.
“You could have hurt that kid!” Sue admonished, as Jack laughed at the kid scrambling away after getting creamed by the snowball that Jack threw in retaliation.
“Hey, if he wants to play with the big boys, he’ll have to do better than that! You know, I once thought of going pro on the snowball circuit, but I had to give it up.” Jack’s face had a glow that only comes from being out on a brisk day.
“And why was that?” Sue asked, warily.
“My mom called me in to supper,” Jack grinned.
“Very funny. I’m sure you could have made it all the way to the top of your field, had you not had your hopes dashed so early . . .” Sue gave Jack a sunny smile that matched his. It was good to be outside in the sunshine and crisp, cold air.
“Where is my car? It was snowing so hard that I couldn’t really tell if I was parking in a parking spot or not.” Jack was nearing the location he thought his car should be in. The fallen tree had been dragged to one side, and the snowplow had been through, but no car.
“You do realize that sometimes they tow vehicles that are in the way of the snowplow?” Sue had a tentative look on her face. She had heard of several incidents of this happening in years past.
“Wait. Here it is. It just has a mound of snow on TOP of it! Great.” Jack started trying to clean off the top of the Ford Taurus, and then gave it up as a bad job.
“There’s no way we can get this cleaned off with our bare hands. Plus, the snowplow will be coming back soon and will just throw more this way.” Sue was being sensible, but was wondering at the idea of having Jack in the apartment for another night. Would the neighbors understand? Would their co-workers understand?
On the other hand, last night she didn’t know that there was a bloody towel in her kitchen drawer. She didn’t know that there was a broken lock on her window. She didn’t know that there had been an intruder in her apartment.
Having Jack there made her feel safe, secure.
“I guess you’re stuck with my cooking for another evening,” Sue said, with resolve.
As Sue busied herself in the kitchen, Jack got a call from Myles. In his neighborhood of Columbia Heights, a gated community, the power was back on, and he had even seen a snowplow. “Our neighborhood association would never put up with such slow service as is seen in most of this city. Every homeowner on my street has had their snow blower out, and I’m even starting to see people venture out in their cars.”
The Boston-born and Boston-bred Special Agent Myles Leland III had a way about him that brooked no argument when HE thought something should be so.
“Well, in Georgetown, we have to wait our turn. Bobby said there hasn’t been much movement in DuPont, either. Have you talked to Tara?” Jack rolled his eyes at Sue as he listened to Myles’ rant.
“Yes, I spoke to Tara. She’s fine. Why she insists on living in such a place, I’ll never know. Chinatown may be handy to work, but what a neighborhood. I’m all for multiculturalism, but reading the Starbucks sign in Chinese is something I could never get used to.” Myles kept talking, and Jack was smiling and motioning to Sue with his hand flapping much like Myles’ mouth.
“Myles, the reason I called is to fill you in on something that’s going on here at Sue’s. Apparently someone broke in to the apartment while she and Lucy were both gone. Probably on Christmas Eve. We’re not launching a full-scale investigation yet, but we’re poking around. Were you in town Christmas Eve?” Jack got down to business.
“Why? Am I a suspect? Just kidding. I was home. I didn’t leave until Christmas morning. Ann had to work until 6, and we wanted to drive up to the Cape together. My little sister still feels the need for protection from our parents after her little brush with the law. It was a ghost town. You know how it is during any major holiday. You’re better off being in town than on I 95 going north OR south. Less traffic. Was there any damage? Anything missing?” Myles did have a note of concern in his voice. Whatever negative feelings Myles had toward Sue when she first joined their unit, they had become good friends since. Each understood the value of the other to the good of the team.
“So you’re stranded at Sue’s – how . . . handy!” Myles couldn’t resist giving Jack a poke. Having noticed the attraction between the two, he often wondered if it would take a memo from the director to get THEM to notice.
“No. No damage, nothing really missing. Just a bloody towel stuffed in a drawer and some paper towels missing. Did you hear about anything going on, robberies, accidents, in Georgetown that night?” Jack ignored Myles’ last comment, and hoped Myles had heard something.
“Ah, a bloody towel. Nice. Well, at least we can get some DNA from that, and see if it matches up with anyone in the database. Have they had any problems with break-ins before this?” Myles was getting down to business.
“Not recently. If you think of anything, give me a call.” Jack said. “The roads will surely be passable tomorrow, and I understand that there is power in the neighborhood of the Hoover building. Thanks Myles, and take care.”
“You, too. Uh, Jack, don’t get too comfortable there at Sue’s. I’m sure she’ll get tired of feeding both you AND Levi the Wonderdog,” Myles quipped.
“She IS a good cook – you should be so lucky as to get snowed in here – but I’ll try not to wear out my welcome. Later, Myles.” Jack ended he call and turned to Sue, eyes rolling.
*
“Is it just me, or is it getting darker in here?” Jack was finishing up his soup – his second bowl, by the way – when he noticed the shadows getting deeper in the apartment.
“No, it is getting darker. My windows mainly face East, so it gets darker earlier – especially in winter.” Sue was getting some candles put in place for lighting later. “It’s actually starting to clear off. Do you think we should go check on your car before it gets dark?” Sue gave Jack a bright look as she suggested the outing. She wanted to get outside in the snow before it became a dirty, slushy mess that is common in the city.
“I think that is a fantastic idea. I want to play in the snow, too.” Jack spoke seriously, but with a smile and a spark of mischief in his eyes that matched Sue’s.
“At least we have a ‘rescue dog’ with us in case we get trapped in an avalanche or something!” Sue laughed as she hurried to don gloves, a hat, a scarf, and boots, as well as getting Levi’s leash out. Levi was starting to get excited at the possibility of an outing, too.
Jack smiled as he pulled on his now-dry things from last night. Getting out of the building would be good for Sue. They both needed some time to clear their heads of the mystery of what had happened in the building. It would help give them some fresh perspective, as well as giving them a chance to investigate outside where the intruder had come into the building.
*
Out in the sunlight, people were beginning to stir. The Starbuck’s across the street was closed, as there was still no power, but sidewalks were beginning to be cleared, and a snowplow had made one pass through the street. Kids were throwing snowballs at one another – and sometimes at an unsuspecting passer-by. Jack and Sue only had one lobbed at them.
“You could have hurt that kid!” Sue admonished, as Jack laughed at the kid scrambling away after getting creamed by the snowball that Jack threw in retaliation.
“Hey, if he wants to play with the big boys, he’ll have to do better than that! You know, I once thought of going pro on the snowball circuit, but I had to give it up.” Jack’s face had a glow that only comes from being out on a brisk day.
“And why was that?” Sue asked, warily.
“My mom called me in to supper,” Jack grinned.
“Very funny. I’m sure you could have made it all the way to the top of your field, had you not had your hopes dashed so early . . .” Sue gave Jack a sunny smile that matched his. It was good to be outside in the sunshine and crisp, cold air.
“Where is my car? It was snowing so hard that I couldn’t really tell if I was parking in a parking spot or not.” Jack was nearing the location he thought his car should be in. The fallen tree had been dragged to one side, and the snowplow had been through, but no car.
“You do realize that sometimes they tow vehicles that are in the way of the snowplow?” Sue had a tentative look on her face. She had heard of several incidents of this happening in years past.
“Wait. Here it is. It just has a mound of snow on TOP of it! Great.” Jack started trying to clean off the top of the Ford Taurus, and then gave it up as a bad job.
“There’s no way we can get this cleaned off with our bare hands. Plus, the snowplow will be coming back soon and will just throw more this way.” Sue was being sensible, but was wondering at the idea of having Jack in the apartment for another night. Would the neighbors understand? Would their co-workers understand?
On the other hand, last night she didn’t know that there was a bloody towel in her kitchen drawer. She didn’t know that there was a broken lock on her window. She didn’t know that there had been an intruder in her apartment.
Having Jack there made her feel safe, secure.
“I guess you’re stuck with my cooking for another evening,” Sue said, with resolve.
Chapter 9
Sue and Jack checked out the fire escape stairway on the outside of the building before going in. They also checked the position of the security camera outside of Starbuck’s.
“We’ll know more after we get DNA test results from the bloody towel, but I’m thinking our ‘accidental hit-and-run’ may have been more of a professional hit gone bad.” Jack was making a list of the clues that they had come across, and Sue had come up with poster-paper left over from playing “Pictionary” at a party she and Lucy had thrown, to make a flow-chart.
“If Metro PD hasn’t already asked for the video from the security camera, we should do that when they open up again. Surely they’ll be there tomorrow.” Sue was drawing a diagram of the outside of her apartment building – the side with the fire escape – with each floor and window labeled.
“I already thought of that. I called my contact there, and they didn’t ask for the tape. No one pressed charges, so they pretty much dropped it. That should have told them that something was out of whack. In my thinking, there are a few possible scenarios.” Jack prepared to start listing them for Sue to add to her chart.
“The bloodied intruder – what should we call him?” Jack looked at Sue as he paused to ask. Sometimes giving an unknown suspect a silly or descriptive name helped to distance them from the gravity of the situation, enabling them to think objectively. In the past, they had dubbed suspects everything from “The Four Freshmen” to “Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria.”
“Anything but ‘the bloodied intruder.’ How about ‘the abominable snowman’?” Sue asked, “or would that be you?” referring with a grin to his entrance into her living room the evening before.
“I like to think of myself as more of a ‘Frosty the Snowman’ type of guy. You know, the one where that little girl wraps him around her little finger and he ends up melting for his trouble?” Jack gave Sue a sly look, which made her blush a little.
“Abominable it is, then.” Sue turned back to the chart to print the word ‘abominable’ as she tried to get her redness under control. “We’ll think of him the way he was before he was rehabilitated.”
“Good idea. Back to the scenarios – Abominable could have been in the vehicle that wrecked, and ran away in the confusion. He could have been clipped by the car. He could have been shot by a gunman with a silencer. There were no reports of gunfire. Then again, there could have been a gunman somewhere else, and the accident could have been purely coincidental.” Jack and Sue kept coming up with possible solutions to the mystery.
“Theories are great, but until we see the security tape and get the DNA evidence, we’re at a standstill.” Sue loved a good mystery as much as anyone, but there came a time to wait on evidence. Proving those theories would have to wait until tomorrow. Eating, on the other hand, couldn’t wait any longer. Their little trek out in the snow had given them both a hearty appetite. “Let’s go raid the pantry. I don’t think I want soup again this soon!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is probably the best vegetable soup I’ve ever had – even the third time out!” Jack was stirring a small pan of soup while Sue cut wedges of cheese and made sandwiches.
“You’re just saying that because there’s very little else in the house – and this is already cooked,” Sue grinned.
“Hey, if it were desperate, we could get somewhere to replenish the pantry. I figure tomorrow we’ll have to go out into the real world . . .” Jack spoke while he was stirring, and looked up to see Sue stop to stare at him, head cocked to one side, as his sentence trailed off.
He stopped stirring, turned off the burner, and walked over to Sue in the dimly-lit kitchen. He took her hand to emphasize what he was about to say. “I don’t want you here, alone, until we figure out what’s been going on here. You have had an intruder, a broken lock, and some things just don’t add up.”
“I know. And I appreciate your being here. I do feel safer.” Sue was starting to feel warm, even in the cold kitchen. Jack was a true friend, maybe more, but definitely a true friend. He was the kind of friend that did not hesitate to help, and used any means at his disposal to do so. It just so happened that today, his best way of helping Sue was simply to be there.
“Good. Why don’t we sip our soup in front of the fire, and then put that flow-chart away and play some cards or something?” Jack looked down at the hand in his, gave it a squeeze, and smiled at Sue.
Sue smiled and signed “good deal,” glad that the darkness hid the tears that were pricking her eyelids at the tenderness Jack showed. She didn’t trust her voice.
After a warm meal and Sue beating Jack at Gin Rummy best-two-out-of-three, Jack and Sue sat on the floor in front of the fire, Levi’s head resting in Jack’s lap. The candles and a kerosene lamp lit the room enough for Sue to be able to read Jack’s lips and to see his signing.
Looking up at the modern painting above the mantle, Jack randomly asked, “Have you ever figured out why Lucy loves that painting so much?” It had been the household joke between Lucy and Sue that Sue’s idea of fine art was a poster of Brad Pitt.
Sue laughed as she answered. “No. She has tried to explain it to me, but to me it’s just a mishmash of colors and weird angles. At least the colors are nice. I guess you can get used to anything.” She shrugged and smiled across at her companion.
Jack turned his head this way and that, trying to see if the viewing angle made any difference. “I don’t know what she sees in it. Give me a good landscape any day.” He looked over at Sue and smiled as she nodded agreement. They had so much in common. A companionable silence fell over them as they rested in front of the fire. After a little while, Sue broke the silence.
“Why did you join the FBI?” Sue was determined to learn more about this man who had been so good to her, had made her way so much easier than anyone ever had. He seemed to have a gift for anticipating things that would help her function seamlessly alongside the rest of the team. Of all the members of their team, Jack had buckled down and learned ASL faster than any of them. He didn’t brook mistakes from her or anyone else, but never backed down from admitting his mistakes, either.
Jack leaned back on the couch and thought a minute before he spoke. “I started out to become a high-powered attorney. The law intrigued me, and I must admit that the thought of the money that an attorney makes was a little incentive.” Jack stopped to sip his coffee.
“What changed your mind?” Sue was watching the thoughts and memories flit across his face.
“My first experience in Washington. If you remember, I interned with a federal judge. That was an eye-opener. I saw every kind of lawyer – the good, the bad, and the ambivalent. Then I also saw the law enforcement personnel. Some of the worst criminals got off on technicalities because the people on the front lines protecting the public were out-maneuvered by slick lawyers. That was when I knew that I wanted to be on the ‘good guys’ side – the law-enforcement side.” Jack had a faraway look in his eyes as he thought about his early days with the Bureau.
“I told you that I trained to be a sniper. I started out in the FBI SWAT unit. Talk about the front lines – but you have to start somewhere, and then prove yourself up. It doesn’t matter how good you are as a sniper, nobody can take that kind of intensity for very long without losing it. Eventually, I was able to use a combination of my legal training and SWAT training to solve some cases that got the attention of the powers that be. When I got to be a Special Agent, I found that more likely than not, the agents were like me – determined to make a difference. More importantly, they were determined to make that difference STICK.” Jack looked at Sue and smiled. He signed to her, “There’s also never a dull moment at the FBI!”
Sue nodded her head and smiled as she spoke. “I would say that determination is a word that describes our unit very well. It’s good to be a part of a team that wants to make a difference in the world, even if it’s making a difference one criminal or situation at a time.” Sue was proud of her unit. As she spoke, Jack looked intently at her.
“What about you? What were your dreams, growing up?” Jack turned the tables on Sue, making her smile.
“Well, after giving up on the idea of being a princess,” Sue began with a smile as Jack laughed, “I thought I’d be the first professional deaf figure-skater. You know how that turned out.” Sue faltered as she thought of the tragic death of her best friend and fellow skater at such a young age. It was supposed to be her on that bus to the championship, but because of a mistake in her skating routine in the final round, Sue had lost the competition.
“When I went to college, I found that my mother’s insistence that I remain in regular school was a good thing. I could function in a regular setting better than some of my friends who had attended deaf schools. I’m not saying that deaf schools don’t give other advantages, but for who I am, and for what I want to do, I need to be able to function in the hearing world.”
Sue stopped, looked across at Jack, wondering whether to share her innermost feelings with him at this moment. Her decision to pursue a career with the FBI had more to do with her relationship with Jesus Christ than personal ambition.
“I know you studied International Relations or something like that. What did you plan to do after college?” Jack was very interested in this intense girl who always seemed to have surprises up her sleeve.
Sue drew a breath and plunged ahead. “I knew that I had to do something that helped people. I have always considered becoming a missionary.” There – she’d said it out loud.
“Wow! How do you get from missionary work to the FBI?” Jack was definitely intrigued.
Sue laughed. “Think about it. What do we do every day? We try to make the world safer for people. We try to make a difference in their lives. We try to make the world a better place. It’s just a different mission field.”
Sue and Jack checked out the fire escape stairway on the outside of the building before going in. They also checked the position of the security camera outside of Starbuck’s.
“We’ll know more after we get DNA test results from the bloody towel, but I’m thinking our ‘accidental hit-and-run’ may have been more of a professional hit gone bad.” Jack was making a list of the clues that they had come across, and Sue had come up with poster-paper left over from playing “Pictionary” at a party she and Lucy had thrown, to make a flow-chart.
“If Metro PD hasn’t already asked for the video from the security camera, we should do that when they open up again. Surely they’ll be there tomorrow.” Sue was drawing a diagram of the outside of her apartment building – the side with the fire escape – with each floor and window labeled.
“I already thought of that. I called my contact there, and they didn’t ask for the tape. No one pressed charges, so they pretty much dropped it. That should have told them that something was out of whack. In my thinking, there are a few possible scenarios.” Jack prepared to start listing them for Sue to add to her chart.
“The bloodied intruder – what should we call him?” Jack looked at Sue as he paused to ask. Sometimes giving an unknown suspect a silly or descriptive name helped to distance them from the gravity of the situation, enabling them to think objectively. In the past, they had dubbed suspects everything from “The Four Freshmen” to “Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria.”
“Anything but ‘the bloodied intruder.’ How about ‘the abominable snowman’?” Sue asked, “or would that be you?” referring with a grin to his entrance into her living room the evening before.
“I like to think of myself as more of a ‘Frosty the Snowman’ type of guy. You know, the one where that little girl wraps him around her little finger and he ends up melting for his trouble?” Jack gave Sue a sly look, which made her blush a little.
“Abominable it is, then.” Sue turned back to the chart to print the word ‘abominable’ as she tried to get her redness under control. “We’ll think of him the way he was before he was rehabilitated.”
“Good idea. Back to the scenarios – Abominable could have been in the vehicle that wrecked, and ran away in the confusion. He could have been clipped by the car. He could have been shot by a gunman with a silencer. There were no reports of gunfire. Then again, there could have been a gunman somewhere else, and the accident could have been purely coincidental.” Jack and Sue kept coming up with possible solutions to the mystery.
“Theories are great, but until we see the security tape and get the DNA evidence, we’re at a standstill.” Sue loved a good mystery as much as anyone, but there came a time to wait on evidence. Proving those theories would have to wait until tomorrow. Eating, on the other hand, couldn’t wait any longer. Their little trek out in the snow had given them both a hearty appetite. “Let’s go raid the pantry. I don’t think I want soup again this soon!”
*
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is probably the best vegetable soup I’ve ever had – even the third time out!” Jack was stirring a small pan of soup while Sue cut wedges of cheese and made sandwiches.
“You’re just saying that because there’s very little else in the house – and this is already cooked,” Sue grinned.
“Hey, if it were desperate, we could get somewhere to replenish the pantry. I figure tomorrow we’ll have to go out into the real world . . .” Jack spoke while he was stirring, and looked up to see Sue stop to stare at him, head cocked to one side, as his sentence trailed off.
He stopped stirring, turned off the burner, and walked over to Sue in the dimly-lit kitchen. He took her hand to emphasize what he was about to say. “I don’t want you here, alone, until we figure out what’s been going on here. You have had an intruder, a broken lock, and some things just don’t add up.”
“I know. And I appreciate your being here. I do feel safer.” Sue was starting to feel warm, even in the cold kitchen. Jack was a true friend, maybe more, but definitely a true friend. He was the kind of friend that did not hesitate to help, and used any means at his disposal to do so. It just so happened that today, his best way of helping Sue was simply to be there.
“Good. Why don’t we sip our soup in front of the fire, and then put that flow-chart away and play some cards or something?” Jack looked down at the hand in his, gave it a squeeze, and smiled at Sue.
Sue smiled and signed “good deal,” glad that the darkness hid the tears that were pricking her eyelids at the tenderness Jack showed. She didn’t trust her voice.
After a warm meal and Sue beating Jack at Gin Rummy best-two-out-of-three, Jack and Sue sat on the floor in front of the fire, Levi’s head resting in Jack’s lap. The candles and a kerosene lamp lit the room enough for Sue to be able to read Jack’s lips and to see his signing.
Looking up at the modern painting above the mantle, Jack randomly asked, “Have you ever figured out why Lucy loves that painting so much?” It had been the household joke between Lucy and Sue that Sue’s idea of fine art was a poster of Brad Pitt.
Sue laughed as she answered. “No. She has tried to explain it to me, but to me it’s just a mishmash of colors and weird angles. At least the colors are nice. I guess you can get used to anything.” She shrugged and smiled across at her companion.
Jack turned his head this way and that, trying to see if the viewing angle made any difference. “I don’t know what she sees in it. Give me a good landscape any day.” He looked over at Sue and smiled as she nodded agreement. They had so much in common. A companionable silence fell over them as they rested in front of the fire. After a little while, Sue broke the silence.
“Why did you join the FBI?” Sue was determined to learn more about this man who had been so good to her, had made her way so much easier than anyone ever had. He seemed to have a gift for anticipating things that would help her function seamlessly alongside the rest of the team. Of all the members of their team, Jack had buckled down and learned ASL faster than any of them. He didn’t brook mistakes from her or anyone else, but never backed down from admitting his mistakes, either.
Jack leaned back on the couch and thought a minute before he spoke. “I started out to become a high-powered attorney. The law intrigued me, and I must admit that the thought of the money that an attorney makes was a little incentive.” Jack stopped to sip his coffee.
“What changed your mind?” Sue was watching the thoughts and memories flit across his face.
“My first experience in Washington. If you remember, I interned with a federal judge. That was an eye-opener. I saw every kind of lawyer – the good, the bad, and the ambivalent. Then I also saw the law enforcement personnel. Some of the worst criminals got off on technicalities because the people on the front lines protecting the public were out-maneuvered by slick lawyers. That was when I knew that I wanted to be on the ‘good guys’ side – the law-enforcement side.” Jack had a faraway look in his eyes as he thought about his early days with the Bureau.
“I told you that I trained to be a sniper. I started out in the FBI SWAT unit. Talk about the front lines – but you have to start somewhere, and then prove yourself up. It doesn’t matter how good you are as a sniper, nobody can take that kind of intensity for very long without losing it. Eventually, I was able to use a combination of my legal training and SWAT training to solve some cases that got the attention of the powers that be. When I got to be a Special Agent, I found that more likely than not, the agents were like me – determined to make a difference. More importantly, they were determined to make that difference STICK.” Jack looked at Sue and smiled. He signed to her, “There’s also never a dull moment at the FBI!”
Sue nodded her head and smiled as she spoke. “I would say that determination is a word that describes our unit very well. It’s good to be a part of a team that wants to make a difference in the world, even if it’s making a difference one criminal or situation at a time.” Sue was proud of her unit. As she spoke, Jack looked intently at her.
“What about you? What were your dreams, growing up?” Jack turned the tables on Sue, making her smile.
“Well, after giving up on the idea of being a princess,” Sue began with a smile as Jack laughed, “I thought I’d be the first professional deaf figure-skater. You know how that turned out.” Sue faltered as she thought of the tragic death of her best friend and fellow skater at such a young age. It was supposed to be her on that bus to the championship, but because of a mistake in her skating routine in the final round, Sue had lost the competition.
“When I went to college, I found that my mother’s insistence that I remain in regular school was a good thing. I could function in a regular setting better than some of my friends who had attended deaf schools. I’m not saying that deaf schools don’t give other advantages, but for who I am, and for what I want to do, I need to be able to function in the hearing world.”
Sue stopped, looked across at Jack, wondering whether to share her innermost feelings with him at this moment. Her decision to pursue a career with the FBI had more to do with her relationship with Jesus Christ than personal ambition.
“I know you studied International Relations or something like that. What did you plan to do after college?” Jack was very interested in this intense girl who always seemed to have surprises up her sleeve.
Sue drew a breath and plunged ahead. “I knew that I had to do something that helped people. I have always considered becoming a missionary.” There – she’d said it out loud.
“Wow! How do you get from missionary work to the FBI?” Jack was definitely intrigued.
Sue laughed. “Think about it. What do we do every day? We try to make the world safer for people. We try to make a difference in their lives. We try to make the world a better place. It’s just a different mission field.”
Chapter 10
January 4
After the second night on the couch, Sue offered Jack a razor.
“Don’t worry, it’s a new one,” she assured as Jack looked questioningly at the lavender razor. “I don’t want my neighbors to think I have friends who have poor personal hygiene”, although personally, she thought the two-day beard quite attractive.
“Just don’t tell MY friends that I shaved with a purple razor!” Jack said, smiling, as he pointed his finger at her.
While Jack showered, Sue put the kitchen to rights after breakfast. As she was washing the last dish, the lights came back on.
“Well, Levi, back to reality.” Sue sighed as she rubbed Levi’s head and looked up as Jack came into the room, fresh and ready to face the world. “I’ll get a quick shower, and then we can go try to dig your car out!”
“Good. I’ll make some calls and try to set some things in motion while you’re getting ready, then we can go in together. Just leave your car parked. We’ve stuck together this long, may as well save the city streets from one more car on slippery roads!” Jack rubbed his hands together, anticipating getting back to work. He was starting to get antsy.
“I hope everyone can make it in. I called Tara while you were in the shower. She made it in yesterday, on foot! I think she was a little bored having no one but Myles to talk to all day!” Sue laughed as she thought of the perky, talkative girl and the arrogant, snide Myles trapped in an apartment for two days as she and Jack were. “I don’t know if they would have survived two days with no power together!”
“I can think of worse things than being trapped for two days with a pretty girl – especially one that can cook . . .” Jack gave Sue a sideways look.
“I’ll be glad to get back to work – I may have exhausted my domestic gene. Do you think the lab will be up and running?” Sue ignored Jack’s personal comment. She had the bloody towel and the DNA test on her mind.
“There were probably some people there who were trapped in the Hoover building during the blizzard. Fortunately, there are accommodations there for emergencies. I’m sure they just used it as a chance to get caught up. I hope so, anyway! I want to rush this one through before we get the Metro PD involved.” Jack plugged in his as well as Sue’s laptop, and they both sprang to life instantly.
The car wasn’t as difficult to get out as they feared. Between the two of them, a broom, and a snow shovel, they soon had it out. They drove back to Sue’s apartment to pick up their things, and go in Starbuck’s to ask for the surveillance tape.
“I’ve pulled the surveillance tapes from the Starbuck’s across from Sue’s apartment. I put from the day Sue left, until the day she got back, and I did find one traffic incident on Christmas Eve.” While Tara was talking, she was turning the computer monitor toward Sue to let her see the video in question. Tara had been working on the case since they handed her the tape that morning. “Here is the ‘accident’ that the neighbors reported as happening on Christmas Eve.”
“Could you back it up to the beginning of the accident?” Sue and the others were watching intently for anything that could be a clue.
Tara backed it up and played it again, slower this time.
“I don’t see anything. Run it back to about a half-hour before the accident.” Sue stared intently at the screen as she watched customers coming in and out of the store, laden with packages, excited about the holiday.
“We must be missing something.” Jack was sitting next to Sue staring at the monitor.
“Unless,” Sue began, “the intruder had nothing to do with the accident. ‘Abominable’ may have come from another direction, and may never have crossed the path of the camera.”
“Sue, Lucy’s on the phone, line 2.” Tara was answering the phone in Lucy’s absence. There were no temps to be had in the aftermath of the blizzard. They were all pitching in to get everything done.
“I made it! I thought I’d never get out of the house!” Demetrius came in, coat, scarf, and gloves in hand, with the air of a conquering hero. “My wife loves snow days with the kids. I’m glad she does, because after the first day of sledding with the kids and building the requisite snowman, I get cabin fever, big-time.”
“Aw, and we were going to go out during recess and build a snow fort!” Myles, having been there with no one but Tara to taunt, was in rare form today, glad to have a larger audience.
“I’m glad you’re here, D. We’re running up against a wall with this ‘abominable snowman’ intruder.” Jack was ready to get the team on task and get the mystery solved.
“Hey Luce,” Sue began, speaking into the microphone connected to her computer, which she used as her phone. “How’s progress on getting home? I’ve missed you!”
“Please”, Lucy’s words appeared on Sue’s computer screen, and Sue imagined she could almost hear her low, husky, laugh. “How could you miss me when you had ‘Sparky’ taking care of you?”
“Very funny. We won’t go there.” Sue glanced around. She was hoping no one would come and look over her shoulder.
“Gotcha. We got back to Atlanta last night, and Gran and I will be coming in at 3:15.” Lucy gave Sue all the pertinent details, but declined her offer to pick her up.
“We’ll get a cab. Your car’s probably still snowed in anyway, isn’t it? Remember, I know how the snow clean-up goes in DC!” Lucy laughed.
“You’re right. I came in with Jack this morning. We only had time to clean off one car before coming in to the office. See you this afternoon, then.” Sue ended the call with her roommate, and got back to the business at hand.
“What’s the story behind calling your unwanted intruder ‘abominable?” Bobby asked with a curious smile.
“That’s as opposed to ‘Frosty’ the snowman, which Jack prefers to be called. When he showed up at my door the other night, he was covered in snow from head to toe, and he looked like a snowman!” Sue laughed at the memory of poor Jack standing frozen in her dark hallway.
“Considering the mess he must have made, I would have thought you’d call Jack ‘abominable,’ instead!” Tara quipped with a sideways glance at Jack.
Sue just smiled, and stole a glance at Jack, who happened to be smiling and stealing a glance at her at the same time. Neither of them was going to go into details on why Jack preferred to be called “Frosty.”
“Ah, Sparky, something tells me that there’ll be a story there someday.” Always on the alert for passing glances between two of his favorite people, Bobby had been looking between Jack and Sue all morning for signs of anything more than their professional relationship. They were good, these two – the occasional glance or smile, but nothing more. Bobby just shook his head.
January 4
After the second night on the couch, Sue offered Jack a razor.
“Don’t worry, it’s a new one,” she assured as Jack looked questioningly at the lavender razor. “I don’t want my neighbors to think I have friends who have poor personal hygiene”, although personally, she thought the two-day beard quite attractive.
“Just don’t tell MY friends that I shaved with a purple razor!” Jack said, smiling, as he pointed his finger at her.
While Jack showered, Sue put the kitchen to rights after breakfast. As she was washing the last dish, the lights came back on.
“Well, Levi, back to reality.” Sue sighed as she rubbed Levi’s head and looked up as Jack came into the room, fresh and ready to face the world. “I’ll get a quick shower, and then we can go try to dig your car out!”
“Good. I’ll make some calls and try to set some things in motion while you’re getting ready, then we can go in together. Just leave your car parked. We’ve stuck together this long, may as well save the city streets from one more car on slippery roads!” Jack rubbed his hands together, anticipating getting back to work. He was starting to get antsy.
“I hope everyone can make it in. I called Tara while you were in the shower. She made it in yesterday, on foot! I think she was a little bored having no one but Myles to talk to all day!” Sue laughed as she thought of the perky, talkative girl and the arrogant, snide Myles trapped in an apartment for two days as she and Jack were. “I don’t know if they would have survived two days with no power together!”
“I can think of worse things than being trapped for two days with a pretty girl – especially one that can cook . . .” Jack gave Sue a sideways look.
“I’ll be glad to get back to work – I may have exhausted my domestic gene. Do you think the lab will be up and running?” Sue ignored Jack’s personal comment. She had the bloody towel and the DNA test on her mind.
“There were probably some people there who were trapped in the Hoover building during the blizzard. Fortunately, there are accommodations there for emergencies. I’m sure they just used it as a chance to get caught up. I hope so, anyway! I want to rush this one through before we get the Metro PD involved.” Jack plugged in his as well as Sue’s laptop, and they both sprang to life instantly.
The car wasn’t as difficult to get out as they feared. Between the two of them, a broom, and a snow shovel, they soon had it out. They drove back to Sue’s apartment to pick up their things, and go in Starbuck’s to ask for the surveillance tape.
*
“I’ve pulled the surveillance tapes from the Starbuck’s across from Sue’s apartment. I put from the day Sue left, until the day she got back, and I did find one traffic incident on Christmas Eve.” While Tara was talking, she was turning the computer monitor toward Sue to let her see the video in question. Tara had been working on the case since they handed her the tape that morning. “Here is the ‘accident’ that the neighbors reported as happening on Christmas Eve.”
“Could you back it up to the beginning of the accident?” Sue and the others were watching intently for anything that could be a clue.
Tara backed it up and played it again, slower this time.
“I don’t see anything. Run it back to about a half-hour before the accident.” Sue stared intently at the screen as she watched customers coming in and out of the store, laden with packages, excited about the holiday.
“We must be missing something.” Jack was sitting next to Sue staring at the monitor.
“Unless,” Sue began, “the intruder had nothing to do with the accident. ‘Abominable’ may have come from another direction, and may never have crossed the path of the camera.”
“Sue, Lucy’s on the phone, line 2.” Tara was answering the phone in Lucy’s absence. There were no temps to be had in the aftermath of the blizzard. They were all pitching in to get everything done.
“I made it! I thought I’d never get out of the house!” Demetrius came in, coat, scarf, and gloves in hand, with the air of a conquering hero. “My wife loves snow days with the kids. I’m glad she does, because after the first day of sledding with the kids and building the requisite snowman, I get cabin fever, big-time.”
“Aw, and we were going to go out during recess and build a snow fort!” Myles, having been there with no one but Tara to taunt, was in rare form today, glad to have a larger audience.
“I’m glad you’re here, D. We’re running up against a wall with this ‘abominable snowman’ intruder.” Jack was ready to get the team on task and get the mystery solved.
“Hey Luce,” Sue began, speaking into the microphone connected to her computer, which she used as her phone. “How’s progress on getting home? I’ve missed you!”
“Please”, Lucy’s words appeared on Sue’s computer screen, and Sue imagined she could almost hear her low, husky, laugh. “How could you miss me when you had ‘Sparky’ taking care of you?”
“Very funny. We won’t go there.” Sue glanced around. She was hoping no one would come and look over her shoulder.
“Gotcha. We got back to Atlanta last night, and Gran and I will be coming in at 3:15.” Lucy gave Sue all the pertinent details, but declined her offer to pick her up.
“We’ll get a cab. Your car’s probably still snowed in anyway, isn’t it? Remember, I know how the snow clean-up goes in DC!” Lucy laughed.
“You’re right. I came in with Jack this morning. We only had time to clean off one car before coming in to the office. See you this afternoon, then.” Sue ended the call with her roommate, and got back to the business at hand.
“What’s the story behind calling your unwanted intruder ‘abominable?” Bobby asked with a curious smile.
“That’s as opposed to ‘Frosty’ the snowman, which Jack prefers to be called. When he showed up at my door the other night, he was covered in snow from head to toe, and he looked like a snowman!” Sue laughed at the memory of poor Jack standing frozen in her dark hallway.
“Considering the mess he must have made, I would have thought you’d call Jack ‘abominable,’ instead!” Tara quipped with a sideways glance at Jack.
Sue just smiled, and stole a glance at Jack, who happened to be smiling and stealing a glance at her at the same time. Neither of them was going to go into details on why Jack preferred to be called “Frosty.”
“Ah, Sparky, something tells me that there’ll be a story there someday.” Always on the alert for passing glances between two of his favorite people, Bobby had been looking between Jack and Sue all morning for signs of anything more than their professional relationship. They were good, these two – the occasional glance or smile, but nothing more. Bobby just shook his head.
Chapter 11
After watching the Starbuck’s security video all day, finally a welcome face appeared. Ronnie, from the lab, had a zip-lock bag in one hand, and a folder in the other.
“We hit pay dirt.” Ronnie was waving the folder. “You’re lucky we were stuck here overnight. We were able to run this through because we were pretty much caught up with the backlog.”
“Let’s see it,” Jack said as he grabbed the folder.
“Well?” Sue was impatient to find out who her uninvited guest was.
Jack went pale as he checked and double-checked the data. “We’ve just moved into a whole new ballgame.” Jack looked at Sue, then at the others.
Bobby, standing next to Jack, let out a low whistle. “Achmed Kalihd. Arif Dessa’s number one. The right-hand man of the Prince of Terror himself has been in Sue’s apartment.”
“Do you think it was accidental? I mean, you and Sue did put quite a crimp in their last operation.” Myles looked concerned, yet intrigued. “We should probably check on Dessa’s wife Betty. If he can find Sue, he could probably find Betty, even in Witness Protection.”
“We’ll have to bring her in. Sue, you’ve had contact with her. Has she said anything about contact with ANYONE from her past life?” Jack turned to Sue with a furrowed brow.
“She hasn’t said anything, but then I haven’t heard from her in about three months. I’ll get in touch with Witness Protection, and get in touch with her through them. If this isn’t a coincidence, I don’t want to run the risk of my phone or computer being compromised.” As she spoke, Sue was using the secure line to contact the authorities who could connect her to Betty.
Sue and Betty had become friends as a result of an undercover operation she and Jack had been on when cell phone conversations were traced from Arif Dessa, a terrorist, to a man named Joseph VanDerwylen in Arlington. It turned out that the suburban Arlington resident wasn’t just Dessa’s contact – he WAS Dessa. Betty was devastated when she learned that her husband, Joseph, was in reality Arif Dessa – one of the most wanted terrorists in the world. And now a known associate of Dessa’s was in Washington – or at least he had been.
D looked up and asked “What time does Lucy’s flight get in?” The whole group was concerned that Sue and Lucy’s apartment might be targeted for more trouble, if indeed this was not a coincidence.
“3:15 – She was going to get a cab and go straight home, but I’m thinking someone should meet her, just in case, and bring her here, instead.” Sue had just ended her call with the Attorney General’s office. They would contact Betty and have her call Sue on a secure line.
“Good. As soon as you hear from her, let me know,” Jack nodded at Sue, and then continued. “D, go to the airport and meet Lucy. Bring her back here, and then Bobby and Myles, meet us at the apartment. Tara, check on any intel that may have come around about Dessa in the last two years since we saw him. Check all sources. Oh, and check to see if Lucy’s flight is on time.” Jack was in charge of the operation.
The involvement of Dessa’s terrorist cell’s involvement changed the odds completely. This was no longer a simple housebreaking for the Metro PD to solve. This was a wanted terrorist known to be in the city within the last week.
“Sue, now that the lights are back on, you and I are going to your apartment to do a more thorough search. When the others get there, we’ll start fingerprinting. This changes things completely. When we come back, we’ll need to go over that security tape with a fine-toothed comb, and we need to check the back of the building to see if anyone in the neighborhood has any type of surveillance equipment that may have shown something on that side of the building.” Jack was getting his coat as he spoke. He signed “Ready?” Sue grabbed hers and was putting it on as they walked out the door to the elevator.
“Lucy’s flight is on time, and will be landing in about an hour. We’ll make sure she gets here safely!” Tara called out to them as they were heading out the door.
After watching the Starbuck’s security video all day, finally a welcome face appeared. Ronnie, from the lab, had a zip-lock bag in one hand, and a folder in the other.
“We hit pay dirt.” Ronnie was waving the folder. “You’re lucky we were stuck here overnight. We were able to run this through because we were pretty much caught up with the backlog.”
“Let’s see it,” Jack said as he grabbed the folder.
“Well?” Sue was impatient to find out who her uninvited guest was.
Jack went pale as he checked and double-checked the data. “We’ve just moved into a whole new ballgame.” Jack looked at Sue, then at the others.
Bobby, standing next to Jack, let out a low whistle. “Achmed Kalihd. Arif Dessa’s number one. The right-hand man of the Prince of Terror himself has been in Sue’s apartment.”
“Do you think it was accidental? I mean, you and Sue did put quite a crimp in their last operation.” Myles looked concerned, yet intrigued. “We should probably check on Dessa’s wife Betty. If he can find Sue, he could probably find Betty, even in Witness Protection.”
“We’ll have to bring her in. Sue, you’ve had contact with her. Has she said anything about contact with ANYONE from her past life?” Jack turned to Sue with a furrowed brow.
“She hasn’t said anything, but then I haven’t heard from her in about three months. I’ll get in touch with Witness Protection, and get in touch with her through them. If this isn’t a coincidence, I don’t want to run the risk of my phone or computer being compromised.” As she spoke, Sue was using the secure line to contact the authorities who could connect her to Betty.
Sue and Betty had become friends as a result of an undercover operation she and Jack had been on when cell phone conversations were traced from Arif Dessa, a terrorist, to a man named Joseph VanDerwylen in Arlington. It turned out that the suburban Arlington resident wasn’t just Dessa’s contact – he WAS Dessa. Betty was devastated when she learned that her husband, Joseph, was in reality Arif Dessa – one of the most wanted terrorists in the world. And now a known associate of Dessa’s was in Washington – or at least he had been.
D looked up and asked “What time does Lucy’s flight get in?” The whole group was concerned that Sue and Lucy’s apartment might be targeted for more trouble, if indeed this was not a coincidence.
“3:15 – She was going to get a cab and go straight home, but I’m thinking someone should meet her, just in case, and bring her here, instead.” Sue had just ended her call with the Attorney General’s office. They would contact Betty and have her call Sue on a secure line.
“Good. As soon as you hear from her, let me know,” Jack nodded at Sue, and then continued. “D, go to the airport and meet Lucy. Bring her back here, and then Bobby and Myles, meet us at the apartment. Tara, check on any intel that may have come around about Dessa in the last two years since we saw him. Check all sources. Oh, and check to see if Lucy’s flight is on time.” Jack was in charge of the operation.
The involvement of Dessa’s terrorist cell’s involvement changed the odds completely. This was no longer a simple housebreaking for the Metro PD to solve. This was a wanted terrorist known to be in the city within the last week.
“Sue, now that the lights are back on, you and I are going to your apartment to do a more thorough search. When the others get there, we’ll start fingerprinting. This changes things completely. When we come back, we’ll need to go over that security tape with a fine-toothed comb, and we need to check the back of the building to see if anyone in the neighborhood has any type of surveillance equipment that may have shown something on that side of the building.” Jack was getting his coat as he spoke. He signed “Ready?” Sue grabbed hers and was putting it on as they walked out the door to the elevator.
“Lucy’s flight is on time, and will be landing in about an hour. We’ll make sure she gets here safely!” Tara called out to them as they were heading out the door.
Chapter 12
The ride back to the apartment was a quiet one. This morning Sue and Lucy were the victims of a simple housebreaking. They thought it would turn out to be a petty thief or a gang shooting – bad enough in itself, but now the thought of a known terrorist being in Sue’s apartment brought the feeling of being invaded to a whole new level.
Jack was quiet as he drove, but his mind was speeding ahead. Sue would not be staying in that apartment until they figured this out. He had already decided that. No arguments. While they were at the apartment searching, Sue would pack some bags, and they would put her and Luce up in a hotel. Lucy already had her luggage, so she wouldn’t even have to come back here unaccompanied.
They arrived at the still snow-packed street in front of the Georgetown apartment. Starbuck’s had reopened, there were smiling, gloved and mittened children and adults pulling sleds and drinking hot drinks offered at the café. A peaceful scene.
Sue looked up at the apartment. “Before we go in, let’s drive around the block to the back to check on any surveillance equipment.” She knew that they couldn’t stay in the apartment. Jack thought he’d have to convince her, but he was wrong. She might be determined, but she wasn’t stupid!
They left the car to look around, but didn’t see much. It was an alley, with another apartment building backing up to it. No cameras that they could see.
“I guess the next step would be to question the people whose apartments overlook the alley, in case they noticed anything strange during the time you were gone. I’ll get Bobby and Myles on that when they get here.” Jack took Sue’s elbow and they walked toward the car.
“What should we tell my neighbors?” Sue looked up at Jack with a worried frown. “I don’t want to put them in danger, either.”
“Right now, we don’t tell them anything. The building will be under surveillance from all angles. Right now we don’t know for sure what the guy even looks like. The last time we saw Dessa, he had had plastic surgery from the time before that. Chances are his compatriots would do the same thing.” Jack walked Sue into the building, and they began to climb the stairs.
As they were about to mount the stairs, Mrs. Larson from the ground floor apartment came out to greet Sue.
“Sue! Thank you for leaving me a note about the power being off! I just got in this afternoon. My son-in-law and daughter drove me down as soon as we heard the roads were passable. They didn’t get as much snow in Pennsylvania as we got here – I think they wish they’d just kept me with them,” Mrs. Larson said.
“I’m glad you’re home. You remember Jack? Did you have a good Christmas with your family?” Sue tried to sound more light-hearted than she felt.
“Of course I remember this young man. It’s good to see you,” she said as Jack smiled in greeting. She looked back at Sue, answering her question. “Christmas isn’t Christmas if you can’t be around children! My grandchildren and great-grandchildren made my week!”
“I’m glad. I have some nephews and nieces, what with having three brothers! It was a madhouse at my parent’s house, too!” Sue laughed with Mrs. Larson, and then with a touch on her arm from Jack, she said her goodbyes.
“Well, it’s good to be home. Maybe someday you’ll have children of your own to enjoy at Christmastime! Have a good afternoon!” Jack and Sue looked at one another with a chuckle and an embarrassed smile. Mrs. Larson went back inside as they made their way upstairs.
Sue looked away from Jack as she spoke. “Mrs. Larson is sweet. I would rather someone break into my apartment than hers any day. At least I have ways of dealing with it. I know we’re here to protect everyone, but I know what it’s like to feel very alone in a situation.”
“You do know that you don’t have to feel that way any more, don’t you?” Jack stopped, took her hand, and looked at Sue as they stopped at her front door.
“I know. I’ve not felt a part of anything except my own family as much as I feel a part of our team. In a way, being part of our team has been even better than having brothers and sisters. You know what the Bible says about a friend that ‘sticks closer than a brother?’ That’s what all of you are.” Sue looked away, hiding the tears that threatened, attempting to unlock the door with a shaking hand.
When they came in, everything was just as they left it that morning. The kitchen was clean, Levi’s dog toys were in their place, and Sue’s sweater was draped over the back of a chair.
“Let’s turn all the lights on and look closely. We need to think like a terrorist would think.” Jack started turning on lights as Sue stood in the middle of the room looking at the window, trying to get Kalihd’s profile in her head.
“He came in the window after breaking the lock. We know he was hurt, because of the blood. If he had lingered in the living room, he would have dripped more blood on the rug. He couldn’t have done more than turn on the lamp so that he could see.” Sue was moving slowly around the room as she spoke, her eyes zooming in on the table with a lamp closest to the window where Kalihd made his entrance.
Jack saw the direction of her gaze. On that table, beside the lamp, were a few trinkets, and a few picture frames. One was of Sue and her best friend on ice skates. The other was of Sue and Lucy with their first Christmas tree.
His blood almost froze when he saw that picture. He looked up at Sue. “If his coming here were a coincidence, it won’t be if he comes again. He knows where you live – or at least where you are quite often. That means you and Lucy won’t be safe until we get this solved.”
“I know. I had already decided not to argue when you ‘suggested’ Lucy and me stay in a hotel for a few days.” Sue smiled, but looked haggard as she said it.
“Bring me the fingerprint kit. We won’t wait until the others get here to start.” Jack took the kit from Sue and began dusting the lamp, the table, and the picture frames. He didn’t like to think of this guy even coming close to touching Sue and Lucy’s picture.
One thing he was sure of, he wanted to know if Dessa’s old friend were involved in more terrorist activity, or if he were just here for revenge for their last thwarted attempt at immortality.
A knock on the door heralded the arrival of Bobby and Myles. Jack was still dusting for prints in the living room; Sue was searching for anything that might be out of place, or anything that might give them a clue as to what Kalihd did while he was in the apartment.
“I’ve told you before, these terrorists seem to be a very fastidious group.” Myles told Sue as she admitted that she hadn’t found anything to indicate how long he had been in the apartment. “He may have spent the night here, or several nights. The bloody towel is interesting. It’s almost as if he wanted you to find out he had been here, which makes it all the more sinister.”
Myles heard Bobby yell at him behind Sue’s back, who was totally unaware of the altercation. “Are you trying to scare her to death? Have a heart, Leland.”
“I’m just being realistic. It’s happened, and we can’t protect her from everything. I think she can handle a little reality. It’s not like she’s not had experience with the seamier side of life – after all, she’s just finishes spending two days with Jack.” Myles shrugged off Bobby’s reprimand, and turned to Sue.
“Bobby thinks I should sugar-coat the situation, but I know you have enough common sense to deal with this. At least now we can give him a name and stop calling him ‘abominable!” Myles was trying to lighten up the atmosphere even as the darkness overtook the apartment. It seemed dark – even with the lights on.
A quick knock and Demetrius had joined them. Jack filled him in, and D told them that Lucy had arrived on time, safely, and that she was with Tara at the office until she heard from Sue and Jack.
Bobby and Myles left to interview the tenants in the building across the alley from the back of Sue’s apartment.
“Jack,” D began as Sue went into the bedroom, “Tara found out from some of her sources that communications from Kalihd have been tracked from Pakistan. They’ve been watching it for about 3 months.”
“Any word from Betty?” Jack had put two and two together. Sue hadn’t heard from Betty in about 3 months. Kalihd has been back on the radar the same amount of time.
“No. Witness Protection lost touch with her about the time Kalihd came back on the scene. That’s about the time Sue last heard from her, isn’t it?” D asked.
Sue came back into the living room from the bedroom. She had seen the last of what D had told Jack. “They’ve lost track of Betty?”
The ride back to the apartment was a quiet one. This morning Sue and Lucy were the victims of a simple housebreaking. They thought it would turn out to be a petty thief or a gang shooting – bad enough in itself, but now the thought of a known terrorist being in Sue’s apartment brought the feeling of being invaded to a whole new level.
Jack was quiet as he drove, but his mind was speeding ahead. Sue would not be staying in that apartment until they figured this out. He had already decided that. No arguments. While they were at the apartment searching, Sue would pack some bags, and they would put her and Luce up in a hotel. Lucy already had her luggage, so she wouldn’t even have to come back here unaccompanied.
They arrived at the still snow-packed street in front of the Georgetown apartment. Starbuck’s had reopened, there were smiling, gloved and mittened children and adults pulling sleds and drinking hot drinks offered at the café. A peaceful scene.
Sue looked up at the apartment. “Before we go in, let’s drive around the block to the back to check on any surveillance equipment.” She knew that they couldn’t stay in the apartment. Jack thought he’d have to convince her, but he was wrong. She might be determined, but she wasn’t stupid!
They left the car to look around, but didn’t see much. It was an alley, with another apartment building backing up to it. No cameras that they could see.
“I guess the next step would be to question the people whose apartments overlook the alley, in case they noticed anything strange during the time you were gone. I’ll get Bobby and Myles on that when they get here.” Jack took Sue’s elbow and they walked toward the car.
“What should we tell my neighbors?” Sue looked up at Jack with a worried frown. “I don’t want to put them in danger, either.”
“Right now, we don’t tell them anything. The building will be under surveillance from all angles. Right now we don’t know for sure what the guy even looks like. The last time we saw Dessa, he had had plastic surgery from the time before that. Chances are his compatriots would do the same thing.” Jack walked Sue into the building, and they began to climb the stairs.
As they were about to mount the stairs, Mrs. Larson from the ground floor apartment came out to greet Sue.
“Sue! Thank you for leaving me a note about the power being off! I just got in this afternoon. My son-in-law and daughter drove me down as soon as we heard the roads were passable. They didn’t get as much snow in Pennsylvania as we got here – I think they wish they’d just kept me with them,” Mrs. Larson said.
“I’m glad you’re home. You remember Jack? Did you have a good Christmas with your family?” Sue tried to sound more light-hearted than she felt.
“Of course I remember this young man. It’s good to see you,” she said as Jack smiled in greeting. She looked back at Sue, answering her question. “Christmas isn’t Christmas if you can’t be around children! My grandchildren and great-grandchildren made my week!”
“I’m glad. I have some nephews and nieces, what with having three brothers! It was a madhouse at my parent’s house, too!” Sue laughed with Mrs. Larson, and then with a touch on her arm from Jack, she said her goodbyes.
“Well, it’s good to be home. Maybe someday you’ll have children of your own to enjoy at Christmastime! Have a good afternoon!” Jack and Sue looked at one another with a chuckle and an embarrassed smile. Mrs. Larson went back inside as they made their way upstairs.
Sue looked away from Jack as she spoke. “Mrs. Larson is sweet. I would rather someone break into my apartment than hers any day. At least I have ways of dealing with it. I know we’re here to protect everyone, but I know what it’s like to feel very alone in a situation.”
“You do know that you don’t have to feel that way any more, don’t you?” Jack stopped, took her hand, and looked at Sue as they stopped at her front door.
“I know. I’ve not felt a part of anything except my own family as much as I feel a part of our team. In a way, being part of our team has been even better than having brothers and sisters. You know what the Bible says about a friend that ‘sticks closer than a brother?’ That’s what all of you are.” Sue looked away, hiding the tears that threatened, attempting to unlock the door with a shaking hand.
When they came in, everything was just as they left it that morning. The kitchen was clean, Levi’s dog toys were in their place, and Sue’s sweater was draped over the back of a chair.
“Let’s turn all the lights on and look closely. We need to think like a terrorist would think.” Jack started turning on lights as Sue stood in the middle of the room looking at the window, trying to get Kalihd’s profile in her head.
“He came in the window after breaking the lock. We know he was hurt, because of the blood. If he had lingered in the living room, he would have dripped more blood on the rug. He couldn’t have done more than turn on the lamp so that he could see.” Sue was moving slowly around the room as she spoke, her eyes zooming in on the table with a lamp closest to the window where Kalihd made his entrance.
Jack saw the direction of her gaze. On that table, beside the lamp, were a few trinkets, and a few picture frames. One was of Sue and her best friend on ice skates. The other was of Sue and Lucy with their first Christmas tree.
His blood almost froze when he saw that picture. He looked up at Sue. “If his coming here were a coincidence, it won’t be if he comes again. He knows where you live – or at least where you are quite often. That means you and Lucy won’t be safe until we get this solved.”
“I know. I had already decided not to argue when you ‘suggested’ Lucy and me stay in a hotel for a few days.” Sue smiled, but looked haggard as she said it.
“Bring me the fingerprint kit. We won’t wait until the others get here to start.” Jack took the kit from Sue and began dusting the lamp, the table, and the picture frames. He didn’t like to think of this guy even coming close to touching Sue and Lucy’s picture.
One thing he was sure of, he wanted to know if Dessa’s old friend were involved in more terrorist activity, or if he were just here for revenge for their last thwarted attempt at immortality.
*
A knock on the door heralded the arrival of Bobby and Myles. Jack was still dusting for prints in the living room; Sue was searching for anything that might be out of place, or anything that might give them a clue as to what Kalihd did while he was in the apartment.
“I’ve told you before, these terrorists seem to be a very fastidious group.” Myles told Sue as she admitted that she hadn’t found anything to indicate how long he had been in the apartment. “He may have spent the night here, or several nights. The bloody towel is interesting. It’s almost as if he wanted you to find out he had been here, which makes it all the more sinister.”
Myles heard Bobby yell at him behind Sue’s back, who was totally unaware of the altercation. “Are you trying to scare her to death? Have a heart, Leland.”
“I’m just being realistic. It’s happened, and we can’t protect her from everything. I think she can handle a little reality. It’s not like she’s not had experience with the seamier side of life – after all, she’s just finishes spending two days with Jack.” Myles shrugged off Bobby’s reprimand, and turned to Sue.
“Bobby thinks I should sugar-coat the situation, but I know you have enough common sense to deal with this. At least now we can give him a name and stop calling him ‘abominable!” Myles was trying to lighten up the atmosphere even as the darkness overtook the apartment. It seemed dark – even with the lights on.
A quick knock and Demetrius had joined them. Jack filled him in, and D told them that Lucy had arrived on time, safely, and that she was with Tara at the office until she heard from Sue and Jack.
Bobby and Myles left to interview the tenants in the building across the alley from the back of Sue’s apartment.
“Jack,” D began as Sue went into the bedroom, “Tara found out from some of her sources that communications from Kalihd have been tracked from Pakistan. They’ve been watching it for about 3 months.”
“Any word from Betty?” Jack had put two and two together. Sue hadn’t heard from Betty in about 3 months. Kalihd has been back on the radar the same amount of time.
“No. Witness Protection lost touch with her about the time Kalihd came back on the scene. That’s about the time Sue last heard from her, isn’t it?” D asked.
Sue came back into the living room from the bedroom. She had seen the last of what D had told Jack. “They’ve lost track of Betty?”
Chapter 13
The break-in at Sue and Lucy’s apartment had opened up a firestorm of inter-agency activity. When the DNA of a terrorist connected to one on the top-ten list shows up in a simple housebreaking, it gets some attention.
Several prints had been lifted from around the apartment – the lamp, the picture frame, the faucet, the drawer knob, and other places. They were able to track that he had been in the living room, the kitchen, the bathroom – and Sue’s bedroom. Lucy’s room was untouched. He had gone through Sue’s desk and nightstand.
“Jack, if he went through my nightstand, he found the letters from my parents. He knows their name and address.” Sue looked more frightened at the prospect of her family being in danger than the thought of a terrorist having invaded her space.
“Don’t worry. We’ve contacted the Cleveland office, and they’ve got people watching your parent’s house around the clock. When you get to the hotel, you can call them and fill them in as much as possible.” Jack knew how upset she was. The best way to get over this was for her to work hard at putting Kalihd out of business.
Sue just stood there a minute, looking mutely at Jack and Bobby, her hands palm up, as if she were begging them to tell her everything would be OK. There were only a few times that they had seen her look as frightened and worried as she did now, when she first started with the FBI and saw Jack get shot, when Jack had a heart attack in front of her building, and when Levi was missing.
It was difficult for them to see the fear in her eyes. Both men wanted to fix this for her, but they knew that it would have to be a group effort to solve this case and bring Kalihd to justice before someone got hurt.
She turned without speaking to get her things from the bedroom. There was a slump to her shoulders that wasn’t there this morning.
Bobby and Jack stood in the living room when she left. “This has really gotten to her, hasn’t it?” Bobby asked.
“Yeah. This is a tough one – the fact that he’s been in her house, gone through her things, has information about her that he didn’t have before.” Turning from looking in the direction of Sue’s room, he turned to his friend. “Bobby, I want to protect her, to keep her from all of this, but I can’t. It’s part of the job. More than anything, I want her to know that she’s not alone.” Jack looked back at the door she had just gone through. The break in his voice was telling. “This morning it was a simple break-in. She was like a kid playing in the snow – we both were.”
“I know. I’ve seen the realization gradually dawn on her that this isn’t an ordinary break-in. When she learned that Betty hadn’t been in contact with her Witness Protection handlers, it went to a whole new level.” Bobby put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “We’re all here for her, you know – and for you, too. If he’s on to Sue, he’ll be on to you, too. You were part of it, too. You probably need to check into that hotel, too.”
Jack looked around the warm, inviting room. “I’ve slept pretty well on this couch the last two nights. I won’t need a hotel – I’ll be on the job until this is solved.” He gave Bobby a grim look and went into the other room to check on Sue.
It was late, and Sue was quiet as she and Jack made their way back to the Hoover building.
“What are the chances that a contemporary of Arif Dessa just happened to find my apartment? It’s been two years since we caught him.” Sue was trying desperately to make this a chance happening, but couldn’t.
“My question is a different one. Where is Betty, and does our new friend, ‘abominable Kalihd,’ know where she is? If he got to Betty, he may have gotten information about you from her.” Jack pulled into his parking spot in the parking garage underneath the Hoover building.
Turning to Sue, his hand touched her shoulder as he spoke to her. “Whatever is going on, we’ll figure it out. Let’s concentrate on what few leads we have, and build on that.”
“I’m not the only one in danger, Jack. You are, too. If he knows about me, he’ll know about you. We were both in on getting Dessa.” Sue’s eyes were dark with concern, a quiet desperation there.
Coming off the elevator on their floor, Tara met them almost immediately. “We have a break. I contacted the Federal Prison in Allenwood. Apparently Dessa has had visitors in the past three months.”
“Fifty bucks says it was our new friend and unwanted houseguest, Achmed Kalihd,” Jack joked, in all seriousness.
“You would be a winner – on one count. He’s actually had two visitors. The other visitor was a woman, who came with friend Kalihd.” Tara cut her eyes between Jack and Sue as she spoke. “Her name is listed as Bonnie VanWyss,” she said as she looked closely at them both.
Sue looked puzzled. “Who is Bonnie VanWyss?” Her hands were raised in question.
“That’s what I wondered, so I started looking for her on any and all databases. She’s in her late forties, Caucasian, born in the US, works as an administrator for a charitable organization. The name didn’t come up on anything until about two years ago. It was like she appeared out of thin air.” Tara still looked expectantly between the two of them, head and eyebrow cocked slightly. Sighing impatiently, she asked, “Who do you think MIGHT fit that description?”
Jack and Sue both shook their heads impatiently, and then realization began to dawn on them.
“Betty?” Jack and Sue looked at one another and said the name simultaneously.
“Betty.” Tara said smugly.
“We need to get security tapes of all Dessa’s prison visits. There may be something said that would be useful.” Jack was starting to feel his way on this case, finally.
“I would like to see Betty’s body language during these visits, too. It would help us to know whether or not she was there voluntarily or under duress.” Sue wanted so badly to believe that Betty could be trusted.
As the team gathered around, Jack started relaying theories. “If the Witness Protection handlers have lost track of Betty, it could mean one of three things. First, she may have gone underground when she hooked up with Dessa and Kalihd. Second, she may have been kidnapped by Kalihd, and they’re using her to find out about how we operate.” Jack looked down and didn’t say anything else for a moment.
“What about ‘third?’” Sue looked at him, a frightened look in her eyes.
Jack looked at Sue, and he didn’t want to say what he had to say. “Third, she may have outlived her usefulness to them.”
The break-in at Sue and Lucy’s apartment had opened up a firestorm of inter-agency activity. When the DNA of a terrorist connected to one on the top-ten list shows up in a simple housebreaking, it gets some attention.
Several prints had been lifted from around the apartment – the lamp, the picture frame, the faucet, the drawer knob, and other places. They were able to track that he had been in the living room, the kitchen, the bathroom – and Sue’s bedroom. Lucy’s room was untouched. He had gone through Sue’s desk and nightstand.
“Jack, if he went through my nightstand, he found the letters from my parents. He knows their name and address.” Sue looked more frightened at the prospect of her family being in danger than the thought of a terrorist having invaded her space.
“Don’t worry. We’ve contacted the Cleveland office, and they’ve got people watching your parent’s house around the clock. When you get to the hotel, you can call them and fill them in as much as possible.” Jack knew how upset she was. The best way to get over this was for her to work hard at putting Kalihd out of business.
Sue just stood there a minute, looking mutely at Jack and Bobby, her hands palm up, as if she were begging them to tell her everything would be OK. There were only a few times that they had seen her look as frightened and worried as she did now, when she first started with the FBI and saw Jack get shot, when Jack had a heart attack in front of her building, and when Levi was missing.
It was difficult for them to see the fear in her eyes. Both men wanted to fix this for her, but they knew that it would have to be a group effort to solve this case and bring Kalihd to justice before someone got hurt.
She turned without speaking to get her things from the bedroom. There was a slump to her shoulders that wasn’t there this morning.
Bobby and Jack stood in the living room when she left. “This has really gotten to her, hasn’t it?” Bobby asked.
“Yeah. This is a tough one – the fact that he’s been in her house, gone through her things, has information about her that he didn’t have before.” Turning from looking in the direction of Sue’s room, he turned to his friend. “Bobby, I want to protect her, to keep her from all of this, but I can’t. It’s part of the job. More than anything, I want her to know that she’s not alone.” Jack looked back at the door she had just gone through. The break in his voice was telling. “This morning it was a simple break-in. She was like a kid playing in the snow – we both were.”
“I know. I’ve seen the realization gradually dawn on her that this isn’t an ordinary break-in. When she learned that Betty hadn’t been in contact with her Witness Protection handlers, it went to a whole new level.” Bobby put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “We’re all here for her, you know – and for you, too. If he’s on to Sue, he’ll be on to you, too. You were part of it, too. You probably need to check into that hotel, too.”
Jack looked around the warm, inviting room. “I’ve slept pretty well on this couch the last two nights. I won’t need a hotel – I’ll be on the job until this is solved.” He gave Bobby a grim look and went into the other room to check on Sue.
*
It was late, and Sue was quiet as she and Jack made their way back to the Hoover building.
“What are the chances that a contemporary of Arif Dessa just happened to find my apartment? It’s been two years since we caught him.” Sue was trying desperately to make this a chance happening, but couldn’t.
“My question is a different one. Where is Betty, and does our new friend, ‘abominable Kalihd,’ know where she is? If he got to Betty, he may have gotten information about you from her.” Jack pulled into his parking spot in the parking garage underneath the Hoover building.
Turning to Sue, his hand touched her shoulder as he spoke to her. “Whatever is going on, we’ll figure it out. Let’s concentrate on what few leads we have, and build on that.”
“I’m not the only one in danger, Jack. You are, too. If he knows about me, he’ll know about you. We were both in on getting Dessa.” Sue’s eyes were dark with concern, a quiet desperation there.
Coming off the elevator on their floor, Tara met them almost immediately. “We have a break. I contacted the Federal Prison in Allenwood. Apparently Dessa has had visitors in the past three months.”
“Fifty bucks says it was our new friend and unwanted houseguest, Achmed Kalihd,” Jack joked, in all seriousness.
“You would be a winner – on one count. He’s actually had two visitors. The other visitor was a woman, who came with friend Kalihd.” Tara cut her eyes between Jack and Sue as she spoke. “Her name is listed as Bonnie VanWyss,” she said as she looked closely at them both.
Sue looked puzzled. “Who is Bonnie VanWyss?” Her hands were raised in question.
“That’s what I wondered, so I started looking for her on any and all databases. She’s in her late forties, Caucasian, born in the US, works as an administrator for a charitable organization. The name didn’t come up on anything until about two years ago. It was like she appeared out of thin air.” Tara still looked expectantly between the two of them, head and eyebrow cocked slightly. Sighing impatiently, she asked, “Who do you think MIGHT fit that description?”
Jack and Sue both shook their heads impatiently, and then realization began to dawn on them.
“Betty?” Jack and Sue looked at one another and said the name simultaneously.
“Betty.” Tara said smugly.
“We need to get security tapes of all Dessa’s prison visits. There may be something said that would be useful.” Jack was starting to feel his way on this case, finally.
“I would like to see Betty’s body language during these visits, too. It would help us to know whether or not she was there voluntarily or under duress.” Sue wanted so badly to believe that Betty could be trusted.
As the team gathered around, Jack started relaying theories. “If the Witness Protection handlers have lost track of Betty, it could mean one of three things. First, she may have gone underground when she hooked up with Dessa and Kalihd. Second, she may have been kidnapped by Kalihd, and they’re using her to find out about how we operate.” Jack looked down and didn’t say anything else for a moment.
“What about ‘third?’” Sue looked at him, a frightened look in her eyes.
Jack looked at Sue, and he didn’t want to say what he had to say. “Third, she may have outlived her usefulness to them.”
Chapter 14
On the large board on the wall, there were pictures of three people, their status listed below them. Arif Dessa, in custody at Allenwood Federal Prison in Pennsylvania; Betty VanDerwylen, aka Bonnie VanWyss, location unknown; Achmed Kalihd, DC area within the last week, injured.
Waiting for the security tapes from Allenwood, Sue, Jack, and Tara spend hours going over the tapes from Starbuck’s, located across from Sue’s apartment, and also the security tapes from the camera in the alley behind a business on the same street as Sue’s. By one am, they were all ready to take a break, when Sue spotted something on one of the first Starbuck’s tapes – one that they had watched many times.
“Look at that. Did you see the flash in the upper-left-hand corner of the screen?” Sue was going closer to the screen to get a better look. “Run it back and zoom in.”
When Tara did this, Sue asked her to freeze the frame. There was a tiny bright light – very brief, but it was there. When the video started back, even at a slower speed, it was so fast as to be imperceptible. It was a gun shot.
“There was a shooter up there. Tara, see if you can put an infrared filter on it, so that we can get a location pinpointed.” Jack had got his second wind now. This was his territory.
“This gets more bizarre as the case wears on. A seemingly random housebreak, a terrorist, a missing federal witness, and an attempted murder. If Kalihd were the target, then who was shooting at him? What is the connection, if any, between a shooting and a car accident?” Jack looked at Sue and Tara, the questions hanging in the air between the three of them.
“I’m afraid that question might cost you more than that fifty bucks you won earlier tonight.” Tara looked at Jack with wide eyes as she spoke.
Jack looked at Sue. It was more than evident that she was past going. It had been a roller-coaster day. “Let me get someone to take you to the hotel where Lucy is,” he said softly.
“I’ll only go if you do. I’ve at least had my own bed the last two nights. You’ve been on a couch.” Sue could be a stubborn as he. She knew what he was doing. He was trying to protect her, make it easier for her. Well, mister, two could play at that game.
He smiled at the tired woman sitting before him, then looked over at Tara. “Tara you go on home. We’ll hit it again first thing in the morning. I’ll make sure this one,” he said, smiling tiredly and motioning to Sue, “gets at least a little sleep. I don’t think any of us has much left to give tonight.”
“I won’t argue, even if she will!” Tara was pulling on her coat and placing her laptop into the case even as she spoke. “Tomorrow, we’d better go double-caff in the lattes!” And with that, Tara was out the door.
“Come on. I’ll take you to the hotel.” Jack was holding Sue’s coat out as she sat there looking at him.
“I meant what I said. I won’t go if you don’t get some rest, too.” She stubbornly refused to get out of the chair until she heard what she wanted to hear.
“I give up,” Jack said wearily. “I’m too tired to argue, and you know me. I can argue with a stump. Right now you’re harder than any stump I ever tried to argue with. Come on. I think they’ve booked me in next door to you and Lucy.” Jack smiled and helped Sue on with her coat, placed a hand on her back, and led her out the door to the elevator.
Waiting for the elevator, Sue turned to Jack. “I wonder where Betty is right now.” When he gave her a stern look, she put up her hands and said, “I know, I should try to put all this out of my mind, but I keep finding myself praying for her, whether or not she is in on all this.”
“Me, too.” Jack’s look softened as they stood there alone in the hallway. This hallway held many moments for them. He remembered trying to explain his old girlfriend Allie to Sue in the aftermath of his heart attack. He remembered the emotion he felt when he told Sue that he wished she weren’t leaving for the New York office. He thought he had waited too late, that she would be out of reach forever.
He remembered the good times, too. He remembered the first time he saw Sue swing in the door of the office looking for the Personnel office, righteous indignation at being dubbed a “special project.” The time when they had all crowded into the elevator and left poor Myles standing outside, barking coffee orders to him for the next day – the day Myles had to report to Randy, VP of Office Services for thirty days. He remembered the exhilaration he felt upon finding out Sue wasn’t leaving after all.
“Why are you smiling?” Sue smiled tiredly and asked with a wondering look on her face. She had watched different emotions flit across his face as he stood there thinking.
“Oh, just thinking that Frosty didn’t have it all that bad, after all.” He smiled down at a curious Sue as he pulled her hand into the crook of his arm to escort her into the elevator.
On the large board on the wall, there were pictures of three people, their status listed below them. Arif Dessa, in custody at Allenwood Federal Prison in Pennsylvania; Betty VanDerwylen, aka Bonnie VanWyss, location unknown; Achmed Kalihd, DC area within the last week, injured.
Waiting for the security tapes from Allenwood, Sue, Jack, and Tara spend hours going over the tapes from Starbuck’s, located across from Sue’s apartment, and also the security tapes from the camera in the alley behind a business on the same street as Sue’s. By one am, they were all ready to take a break, when Sue spotted something on one of the first Starbuck’s tapes – one that they had watched many times.
“Look at that. Did you see the flash in the upper-left-hand corner of the screen?” Sue was going closer to the screen to get a better look. “Run it back and zoom in.”
When Tara did this, Sue asked her to freeze the frame. There was a tiny bright light – very brief, but it was there. When the video started back, even at a slower speed, it was so fast as to be imperceptible. It was a gun shot.
“There was a shooter up there. Tara, see if you can put an infrared filter on it, so that we can get a location pinpointed.” Jack had got his second wind now. This was his territory.
“This gets more bizarre as the case wears on. A seemingly random housebreak, a terrorist, a missing federal witness, and an attempted murder. If Kalihd were the target, then who was shooting at him? What is the connection, if any, between a shooting and a car accident?” Jack looked at Sue and Tara, the questions hanging in the air between the three of them.
“I’m afraid that question might cost you more than that fifty bucks you won earlier tonight.” Tara looked at Jack with wide eyes as she spoke.
Jack looked at Sue. It was more than evident that she was past going. It had been a roller-coaster day. “Let me get someone to take you to the hotel where Lucy is,” he said softly.
“I’ll only go if you do. I’ve at least had my own bed the last two nights. You’ve been on a couch.” Sue could be a stubborn as he. She knew what he was doing. He was trying to protect her, make it easier for her. Well, mister, two could play at that game.
He smiled at the tired woman sitting before him, then looked over at Tara. “Tara you go on home. We’ll hit it again first thing in the morning. I’ll make sure this one,” he said, smiling tiredly and motioning to Sue, “gets at least a little sleep. I don’t think any of us has much left to give tonight.”
“I won’t argue, even if she will!” Tara was pulling on her coat and placing her laptop into the case even as she spoke. “Tomorrow, we’d better go double-caff in the lattes!” And with that, Tara was out the door.
“Come on. I’ll take you to the hotel.” Jack was holding Sue’s coat out as she sat there looking at him.
“I meant what I said. I won’t go if you don’t get some rest, too.” She stubbornly refused to get out of the chair until she heard what she wanted to hear.
“I give up,” Jack said wearily. “I’m too tired to argue, and you know me. I can argue with a stump. Right now you’re harder than any stump I ever tried to argue with. Come on. I think they’ve booked me in next door to you and Lucy.” Jack smiled and helped Sue on with her coat, placed a hand on her back, and led her out the door to the elevator.
Waiting for the elevator, Sue turned to Jack. “I wonder where Betty is right now.” When he gave her a stern look, she put up her hands and said, “I know, I should try to put all this out of my mind, but I keep finding myself praying for her, whether or not she is in on all this.”
“Me, too.” Jack’s look softened as they stood there alone in the hallway. This hallway held many moments for them. He remembered trying to explain his old girlfriend Allie to Sue in the aftermath of his heart attack. He remembered the emotion he felt when he told Sue that he wished she weren’t leaving for the New York office. He thought he had waited too late, that she would be out of reach forever.
He remembered the good times, too. He remembered the first time he saw Sue swing in the door of the office looking for the Personnel office, righteous indignation at being dubbed a “special project.” The time when they had all crowded into the elevator and left poor Myles standing outside, barking coffee orders to him for the next day – the day Myles had to report to Randy, VP of Office Services for thirty days. He remembered the exhilaration he felt upon finding out Sue wasn’t leaving after all.
“Why are you smiling?” Sue smiled tiredly and asked with a wondering look on her face. She had watched different emotions flit across his face as he stood there thinking.
“Oh, just thinking that Frosty didn’t have it all that bad, after all.” He smiled down at a curious Sue as he pulled her hand into the crook of his arm to escort her into the elevator.
Chapter 15
Sue was having the most pleasant dream.
She and Levi were in the car, a convertible. The road was wide, there was little traffic, and the sun was shining. The top was down, the wind was blowing through her long, blonde hair, and Levi was hanging his head out the side, tasting the fresh air.
She was smiling, totally at peace. In her world of silence, she didn’t dream of sounds, but of light, scent, and color. In her dream she looked across, to her left, to the driver. He was smiling, too. His dark wavy hair rippled in the breeze, and his shirt was open at the collar.
In the back seat, in the place of briefcases and laptops was a picnic basket. Life was good. Sue looked out the passenger side of the car, and the landscape beckoned. “Jack, let’s stop over there to have our picnic.” She smiled, totally at peace, and turned back to her left, and her smile froze.
Smiling at her – an evil smile, was Arif Dessa. At the jolt in her dream, Sue found herself screaming as she woke.
“Sue! Sue, wake up!” Lucy was shaking her; Levi was pawing and licking her. Both looked worried, and more than a little frightened. Sue couldn’t hear their pleading with her to wake, but she could feel the shaking and Levi’s licks on her face. She struggled to pull herself out of the nightmare and into the present.
There was a banging at the connecting door, which Lucy sprang to answer. She knew that if it were Jack or Bobby, they wouldn’t hesitate to break it down if they heard Sue’s screams.
“We’re OK. Sue was just having a nightmare.” Lucy looked over at her friend, still sobbing. Jack’s eyes followed hers. He looked over at Sue, putting his gun into the holster, sleeplessness showing on his face.
He went over to Sue, kneeling at the side of the bed, and gathered her in his arms. She pulled back to tell him the dream, fear still in her eyes at the memory.
“It was so real, Jack. I looked over where you had been in the car, and it was him – Dessa. Everything was so peaceful. It’s like every time I think any of us can have a normal life, something horrible stands in the way.” Sue broke down again, burying her face in Jack’s shoulder.
He looked over Sue’s head at Lucy, who looked as frightened as Sue.
He just sat there, holding her until she cried it out. When she pulled away, she looked a little embarrassed. After handing her a tissue, he touched her arm, and then spoke to her. “Sue, just because you are an FBI agent, it doesn’t mean you have to give up dreams of peace and a normal life. That’s why we do what we do – so that we can preserve that dream for everybody else.” The agony in Sue’s eyes was mirrored in Jack’s.
“I’m sorry, Jack . . .” Sue began, only to be interrupted by an impatient Jack.
“Don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong. We’ve had a rough day. It would be nice to just be waking up to another snow day, wouldn’t it?” Jack put his hand on Sue’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. She gave him a grim, watery smile and blew her nose.
“We’ll be OK, won’t we, Jack? The last thing I want to be is a victim. I know this sounds unreasonable, but it just makes me so angry to be the victim.” Sue had stopped crying, looking directly into his eyes. The storm had passed with a combination of fearful and angry tears, and now it was simply anger coming out – anger and extreme weariness.
Jack simply looked at her and smiled. “Everybody is a victim at some point. There’s nothing that says trusting God will make our path straight – or easy. He just says he’ll be with us.” Jack sat down wearily on the floor next to Sue’s bed. She climbed down and sat next to him, Levi’s head lying in her lap, her hand beginning to relax as she brushed her fingers through his fur.
“I know, life’s not fair – I just somehow keep expecting it to be. I’m sorry I woke everybody up.” Sue looked at Jack and Lucy, a sad little smile on her face.
“I wasn’t asleep.” Jack admitted as he gave Sue a sad half-smile back. “I’m not thrilled at the situation, either.” He looked a little embarrassed at his admission.
Lucy had come to sit with them on the floor. The three adults and Levi found comfort in one another as they sat side by side.
“I had to get up anyway to pull a dog off my best friend.” Lucy smiled and reached across Jack to squeeze Sue’s hand as they chuckled together. “Would anybody like some hot chocolate? I think I can scare up about 3 packets.”
“Sounds good. How would you like me to spend the rest of the night in here on the couch?” Jack took Sue’s hand as Lucy got up to make the cocoa.
“You’ve got to get your rest, Jack. We’ll be fine. I’m usually a one-nightmare-a-night person.” Sue smiled at Jack as she spoke. She was beginning to feel like herself, finally.
“OK, how about we open the door between the rooms? I know you probably won’t need me, but it would make me feel better.” Jack looked at Sue with total honesty in his eyes.
Sue started to argue, looked into his eyes, and changed her mind and smiled mischievously. “I can loan you Levi, if you want some company. Lucy does a pretty good job of alerting me!”
“That won’t be necessary. If I can hear you through two doors and a wall, I think an open door will be sufficient.” Jack looked at her and squeezed her hand again before accepting the cup of hot cocoa Lucy handed him.
Sue was having the most pleasant dream.
She and Levi were in the car, a convertible. The road was wide, there was little traffic, and the sun was shining. The top was down, the wind was blowing through her long, blonde hair, and Levi was hanging his head out the side, tasting the fresh air.
She was smiling, totally at peace. In her world of silence, she didn’t dream of sounds, but of light, scent, and color. In her dream she looked across, to her left, to the driver. He was smiling, too. His dark wavy hair rippled in the breeze, and his shirt was open at the collar.
In the back seat, in the place of briefcases and laptops was a picnic basket. Life was good. Sue looked out the passenger side of the car, and the landscape beckoned. “Jack, let’s stop over there to have our picnic.” She smiled, totally at peace, and turned back to her left, and her smile froze.
Smiling at her – an evil smile, was Arif Dessa. At the jolt in her dream, Sue found herself screaming as she woke.
“Sue! Sue, wake up!” Lucy was shaking her; Levi was pawing and licking her. Both looked worried, and more than a little frightened. Sue couldn’t hear their pleading with her to wake, but she could feel the shaking and Levi’s licks on her face. She struggled to pull herself out of the nightmare and into the present.
There was a banging at the connecting door, which Lucy sprang to answer. She knew that if it were Jack or Bobby, they wouldn’t hesitate to break it down if they heard Sue’s screams.
“We’re OK. Sue was just having a nightmare.” Lucy looked over at her friend, still sobbing. Jack’s eyes followed hers. He looked over at Sue, putting his gun into the holster, sleeplessness showing on his face.
He went over to Sue, kneeling at the side of the bed, and gathered her in his arms. She pulled back to tell him the dream, fear still in her eyes at the memory.
“It was so real, Jack. I looked over where you had been in the car, and it was him – Dessa. Everything was so peaceful. It’s like every time I think any of us can have a normal life, something horrible stands in the way.” Sue broke down again, burying her face in Jack’s shoulder.
He looked over Sue’s head at Lucy, who looked as frightened as Sue.
He just sat there, holding her until she cried it out. When she pulled away, she looked a little embarrassed. After handing her a tissue, he touched her arm, and then spoke to her. “Sue, just because you are an FBI agent, it doesn’t mean you have to give up dreams of peace and a normal life. That’s why we do what we do – so that we can preserve that dream for everybody else.” The agony in Sue’s eyes was mirrored in Jack’s.
“I’m sorry, Jack . . .” Sue began, only to be interrupted by an impatient Jack.
“Don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong. We’ve had a rough day. It would be nice to just be waking up to another snow day, wouldn’t it?” Jack put his hand on Sue’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. She gave him a grim, watery smile and blew her nose.
“We’ll be OK, won’t we, Jack? The last thing I want to be is a victim. I know this sounds unreasonable, but it just makes me so angry to be the victim.” Sue had stopped crying, looking directly into his eyes. The storm had passed with a combination of fearful and angry tears, and now it was simply anger coming out – anger and extreme weariness.
Jack simply looked at her and smiled. “Everybody is a victim at some point. There’s nothing that says trusting God will make our path straight – or easy. He just says he’ll be with us.” Jack sat down wearily on the floor next to Sue’s bed. She climbed down and sat next to him, Levi’s head lying in her lap, her hand beginning to relax as she brushed her fingers through his fur.
“I know, life’s not fair – I just somehow keep expecting it to be. I’m sorry I woke everybody up.” Sue looked at Jack and Lucy, a sad little smile on her face.
“I wasn’t asleep.” Jack admitted as he gave Sue a sad half-smile back. “I’m not thrilled at the situation, either.” He looked a little embarrassed at his admission.
Lucy had come to sit with them on the floor. The three adults and Levi found comfort in one another as they sat side by side.
“I had to get up anyway to pull a dog off my best friend.” Lucy smiled and reached across Jack to squeeze Sue’s hand as they chuckled together. “Would anybody like some hot chocolate? I think I can scare up about 3 packets.”
“Sounds good. How would you like me to spend the rest of the night in here on the couch?” Jack took Sue’s hand as Lucy got up to make the cocoa.
“You’ve got to get your rest, Jack. We’ll be fine. I’m usually a one-nightmare-a-night person.” Sue smiled at Jack as she spoke. She was beginning to feel like herself, finally.
“OK, how about we open the door between the rooms? I know you probably won’t need me, but it would make me feel better.” Jack looked at Sue with total honesty in his eyes.
Sue started to argue, looked into his eyes, and changed her mind and smiled mischievously. “I can loan you Levi, if you want some company. Lucy does a pretty good job of alerting me!”
“That won’t be necessary. If I can hear you through two doors and a wall, I think an open door will be sufficient.” Jack looked at her and squeezed her hand again before accepting the cup of hot cocoa Lucy handed him.
Chapter 16
January 5
The hot cocoa did the trick. The three slept peacefully the rest of the night until the alarm went off at 6:30am. At the first alarm sound, Levi was on the job, tugging first at Sue’s blanket, then at Lucy’s, and then into the other room to wake Jack.
“I know, I know – I can hear the alarm, remember?” Lucy laughed and signed to Sue Jack’s reaction to being awakened by the Golden Retriever. Jack was not what you’d call a morning person. The two girls looked at one another and laughed at the probable scene in the next room.
Jack knocked on the door facing before peeking through the doorway between the two rooms. “Everybody decent over there?” Jack called.
“Come in, Jack, we’re up.” Lucy laughed as she signed to Sue what Jack had said, and then called out to Jack in answer.
Jack stood in the door and waved a good morning to Sue.
“I see you have that cute, unassuming hairdo thing going again,” Sue said, as she smiled a good morning to Jack, tying her robe on as she spoke.
“Yeah, you too,” Jack answered grumpily, even as he smiled.
“Levi likes everyone in the house to be up at the same time. That way he can pester everyone until he gets someone to take him out and then feed him.” Sue was getting Levi’s collar and leash out to take him out.
“How about I take him this morning, since I showered last night? I’ll rustle us up some Krispy Kreme’s while I’m out? I think there’s one just down the street, and it would give Levi a good walk,” Lucy was gathering things up to go into the bathroom.
“That works for me. This may be a multiple-donut day, along with Tara’s double-caff lattes!” Sue smiled her thanks at Lucy as she sat on the edge of the bed giving Levi a good morning rub.
“OK, but wear a hat, wear sunglasses, and keep an eye on everybody you see. Remember, Kalihd saw your picture, too.” Jack hated to be the one to bring the mood back down, but it had to be said. He looked from one formerly-smiling face to another, and spoke softly, signing as he spoke. “I’m sorry, but we have to be careful. If he has Betty, it’s one thing. If he gets one of us, it’s a whole new ballgame.”
Lucy nodded silently, and went to get ready. Sue looked up at Jack and asked him, “Any ideas?”
“Yeah. I’m going to take a shower to finish the wake-up process that Levi started.” Jack gave Sue a half-smile. “What about you?”
“After I shower, I think I’ll call my mom and dad. I never got around to it yesterday, and it was so late when I thought of it last night, I didn’t want to call. What can I tell them? I don’t want to go into any classified information with them, but how much do I need to tell them?” Sue was still worried about Kalihd’s going through her personal things, which included letters and photographs of her family.
“Just tell them that we have reason to believe that a person connected with a former arrest you were involved with has information about your family, and that there are undercover surveillance teams in their area simply as a precaution. That should be general enough.” Jack was leaning against the door frame, running his had over his face.
“Go take your shower, sleepyhead. I’ll handle any questions Mom may have. If not, I’ll sick her on YOU!” Sue threw a pillow at Jack as he scooted into his room and pushed the door closed.
Lucy came out, freshened up and ready to go. “Do you have any sunglasses? I left mine at the office.”
Sue dug in her coat pocket and found hers. She smiled at Lucy as she thought about those glasses. “Remember the first time Jack yelled at me? It was when I jumped out of the surveillance van, put on my sunglasses, and pretended to be blind instead of deaf to bump into the bad guy!” Sue giggled as she handed the glasses to Lucy.
“Yes, I remember. It was a good idea. I heard Jack say so himself later that day. Now we’ll put that idea to work again!” Lucy was glad to hear her friend giggle.
“He said that?” Sue smiled with satisfaction. Lucy and Levi left for the donut shop as Sue thought about that incident as she got ready for the day.
It had happened on the first case she worked on. They had gone to New York to flush out a diamond-smuggling operation, and Sue had not been able to read the lips of the people in question because of all the foot traffic between the camera and the target. All at once, as it looked like the meeting was breaking up, Sue jumped up, grabbed Levi’s leash, jumped out of the van, threw on some sunglasses, and crossed the street to the bad guys, pretending to be blind. Jack, in hot pursuit of Sue, caught up with her just as she bumped into the head bad guy himself.
As the subject walked away unaware of their interest in his activities, Jack grabbed both her arms and basically told her that unless she wanted to retire in Fingerprinting, she’d better not EVER pull a stunt like that again.
“They were speaking Russian, Jack,” Sue told him. That was the turning point in the case. They had only spoken about it once since then, when he apologized for coming down so hard on her. Usually any compliment from Jack was a gruff “Good job, Thomas.”
“He was scared for me, even then. He didn’t even know me.” Sue was thinking as she showered, smiling to herself.
As Jack pushed the connecting door to, fending off the pillow that was thrown at him, he got his things together to shower, too. He wasn’t thinking about this case. He was thinking about the case that brought them to Dessa’s attention. He wasn’t really thinking about the case, per se, but about the undercover assignment he and Sue went on as a married couple. He smiled as he thought about the fun the team had at their expense. They were showered with shredder-machine “wedding rice” and Myles was their moving company foreman.
He was also thinking about how much fun they had had together. Coming up with their cover story had been comedic, to say the least, and the way Sue had played up to him in public was a sight to behold. They had their first fight on that assignment.
They had been teased unmercifully about the undercover assignment at the law firm, too. While that case stood out in other ways – they had had to kiss in order to establish their cover (yeah, that was it!), that first undercover, seeing Sue in a home setting would always be the most precious to him.
“Donuts and coffee are here!” Lucy called out, her voice interrupting Jack, and Levi’s bounding energy interrupting Sue as they both thought about happier times in the past.
Jack knocked on the adjoining door and entered at Lucy’s “Come in!”
Levi was chomping on his dog food, looking longingly at the jelly-filled donut Jack picked up. “Sorry, buddy. Maybe later. Catch me when Sue’s not looking,” he said, looking up at Sue, who was smiling with one eyebrow arched.
January 5
The hot cocoa did the trick. The three slept peacefully the rest of the night until the alarm went off at 6:30am. At the first alarm sound, Levi was on the job, tugging first at Sue’s blanket, then at Lucy’s, and then into the other room to wake Jack.
“I know, I know – I can hear the alarm, remember?” Lucy laughed and signed to Sue Jack’s reaction to being awakened by the Golden Retriever. Jack was not what you’d call a morning person. The two girls looked at one another and laughed at the probable scene in the next room.
Jack knocked on the door facing before peeking through the doorway between the two rooms. “Everybody decent over there?” Jack called.
“Come in, Jack, we’re up.” Lucy laughed as she signed to Sue what Jack had said, and then called out to Jack in answer.
Jack stood in the door and waved a good morning to Sue.
“I see you have that cute, unassuming hairdo thing going again,” Sue said, as she smiled a good morning to Jack, tying her robe on as she spoke.
“Yeah, you too,” Jack answered grumpily, even as he smiled.
“Levi likes everyone in the house to be up at the same time. That way he can pester everyone until he gets someone to take him out and then feed him.” Sue was getting Levi’s collar and leash out to take him out.
“How about I take him this morning, since I showered last night? I’ll rustle us up some Krispy Kreme’s while I’m out? I think there’s one just down the street, and it would give Levi a good walk,” Lucy was gathering things up to go into the bathroom.
“That works for me. This may be a multiple-donut day, along with Tara’s double-caff lattes!” Sue smiled her thanks at Lucy as she sat on the edge of the bed giving Levi a good morning rub.
“OK, but wear a hat, wear sunglasses, and keep an eye on everybody you see. Remember, Kalihd saw your picture, too.” Jack hated to be the one to bring the mood back down, but it had to be said. He looked from one formerly-smiling face to another, and spoke softly, signing as he spoke. “I’m sorry, but we have to be careful. If he has Betty, it’s one thing. If he gets one of us, it’s a whole new ballgame.”
Lucy nodded silently, and went to get ready. Sue looked up at Jack and asked him, “Any ideas?”
“Yeah. I’m going to take a shower to finish the wake-up process that Levi started.” Jack gave Sue a half-smile. “What about you?”
“After I shower, I think I’ll call my mom and dad. I never got around to it yesterday, and it was so late when I thought of it last night, I didn’t want to call. What can I tell them? I don’t want to go into any classified information with them, but how much do I need to tell them?” Sue was still worried about Kalihd’s going through her personal things, which included letters and photographs of her family.
“Just tell them that we have reason to believe that a person connected with a former arrest you were involved with has information about your family, and that there are undercover surveillance teams in their area simply as a precaution. That should be general enough.” Jack was leaning against the door frame, running his had over his face.
“Go take your shower, sleepyhead. I’ll handle any questions Mom may have. If not, I’ll sick her on YOU!” Sue threw a pillow at Jack as he scooted into his room and pushed the door closed.
Lucy came out, freshened up and ready to go. “Do you have any sunglasses? I left mine at the office.”
Sue dug in her coat pocket and found hers. She smiled at Lucy as she thought about those glasses. “Remember the first time Jack yelled at me? It was when I jumped out of the surveillance van, put on my sunglasses, and pretended to be blind instead of deaf to bump into the bad guy!” Sue giggled as she handed the glasses to Lucy.
“Yes, I remember. It was a good idea. I heard Jack say so himself later that day. Now we’ll put that idea to work again!” Lucy was glad to hear her friend giggle.
“He said that?” Sue smiled with satisfaction. Lucy and Levi left for the donut shop as Sue thought about that incident as she got ready for the day.
It had happened on the first case she worked on. They had gone to New York to flush out a diamond-smuggling operation, and Sue had not been able to read the lips of the people in question because of all the foot traffic between the camera and the target. All at once, as it looked like the meeting was breaking up, Sue jumped up, grabbed Levi’s leash, jumped out of the van, threw on some sunglasses, and crossed the street to the bad guys, pretending to be blind. Jack, in hot pursuit of Sue, caught up with her just as she bumped into the head bad guy himself.
As the subject walked away unaware of their interest in his activities, Jack grabbed both her arms and basically told her that unless she wanted to retire in Fingerprinting, she’d better not EVER pull a stunt like that again.
“They were speaking Russian, Jack,” Sue told him. That was the turning point in the case. They had only spoken about it once since then, when he apologized for coming down so hard on her. Usually any compliment from Jack was a gruff “Good job, Thomas.”
“He was scared for me, even then. He didn’t even know me.” Sue was thinking as she showered, smiling to herself.
*
As Jack pushed the connecting door to, fending off the pillow that was thrown at him, he got his things together to shower, too. He wasn’t thinking about this case. He was thinking about the case that brought them to Dessa’s attention. He wasn’t really thinking about the case, per se, but about the undercover assignment he and Sue went on as a married couple. He smiled as he thought about the fun the team had at their expense. They were showered with shredder-machine “wedding rice” and Myles was their moving company foreman.
He was also thinking about how much fun they had had together. Coming up with their cover story had been comedic, to say the least, and the way Sue had played up to him in public was a sight to behold. They had their first fight on that assignment.
They had been teased unmercifully about the undercover assignment at the law firm, too. While that case stood out in other ways – they had had to kiss in order to establish their cover (yeah, that was it!), that first undercover, seeing Sue in a home setting would always be the most precious to him.
“Donuts and coffee are here!” Lucy called out, her voice interrupting Jack, and Levi’s bounding energy interrupting Sue as they both thought about happier times in the past.
Jack knocked on the adjoining door and entered at Lucy’s “Come in!”
Levi was chomping on his dog food, looking longingly at the jelly-filled donut Jack picked up. “Sorry, buddy. Maybe later. Catch me when Sue’s not looking,” he said, looking up at Sue, who was smiling with one eyebrow arched.
Chapter 17
“Yes, Mom, I’m fine. Don’t worry about Lucy and me. We stayed in a hotel last night, and Jack was in the next room.” She wasn’t about to tell her about her wee-hours nightmare. No point in worrying her about her mental state. “Yes, we slept fine until Levi woke us up with the alarm this morning.”
After assuring her parents that their house in Ohio was being watched to make sure nothing out-of-the-ordinary happened, and that she and Lucy were in good hands, Sue ended the call with a sigh.
“Why the sigh?” Jack asked as he finished up his second donut – this time a cream-filled chocolate-iced.
“I guess I always think I have to prove to my mother that I’m tougher than I really am. It’s a mother-daughter thing,” Sue said, with a shrug of her shoulders.
“I know what you mean. I think as a daughter, you try to protect your parents from worrying about you mostly as a self-defense mechanism. You don’t want them to worry because when they do, they’re likely to swoop down and take over the situation, whatever that might be.” Lucy’s eyes glittered as she theorized.
“I think you watch way too much Oprah and Dr. Phil. I will admit, though. Sons can be that way by their dads. On the other hand, moms tend to baby their baby boys, so we let them worry all they want. I think it makes them feel better to bake your favorite pie to make YOU feel better!” Jack polished off his cup of coffee, and started gathering up the remains of breakfast.
“Wow, and I thought those kind of ideas went out with Ozzie and Harriet!” Lucy put her hand on her hip as she laughed at Jack’s lighthearted solution.
Jack laughed with her as his phone rang. “Hudson here.”
“Jack, it’s D. We’ve had a tip on Betty’s picture. She was seen at a hotel in Southeastern Pennsylvania about two weeks ago.” Demetrius gave Jack the pertinent info, and Jack hung up with a “Thanks, D.”
Turning to Lucy and Sue, Jack gave them the information D had relayed to him. “Betty was seen about two weeks ago at a hotel close to Allenwood Federal Prison. Let’s get to the office, and get a plan in place.”
“Do you think we’d get anywhere to speak directly to Dessa? It seems to all hinge on him,” Sue said, as she started gathering her things to take to the office.
“Believe me, somebody will speak to him. I don’t think we’re the ones to do that. We’re too close to the situation.” Jack held the door for the ladies as they exited the room, giving it another glance before shutting the door firmly behind him.
The sighting of Betty in the neighborhood of the prison that housed Arif Dessa brought about a storm of activity in the bullpen. Arrangements were made for two agents, Myles and D, to pay Dessa a visit in Allenwood. In the meantime, video tapes from Dessa’s visitations in prison were delivered by courier to Lucy.
“We’ve got our work cut out for us people,” Jack began. “While Myles and D go on their joy-ride to Allenwood to visit our old friend Dessa, Tara, you and Bobby go and interview the hotel staff where there was a Betty sighting. Lucy, you get with your sources at the Attorney General’s office and see what you can find out about the last two years of Betty’s life in the Witness Protection program. We’ve got to find out how Kalihd found her, and the sooner we do that, the better for Betty, if it’s not too late already.”
“Sue, you and I will continue looking at the security tapes from Starbuck’s AFTER we’ve looked at the tapes of Dessa’s visitors.” Jack handed Sue the package of tapes, and Sue nodded at him in agreement.
“We’re keeping a low profile, aren’t we?” Sue narrowed her eyes and looked closely at Jack, watching for signs that he was trying to keep her from knowing the danger they were in.
Jack sighed. He should know by now that Sue was too sharp to not know what was going on. After all, she was an expert in surveillance, and could read people better than anybody he’d ever seen. Everyone else had left the bullpen. He finally answered her question. “We have to. We can’t take the chance that Kalihd knows our location through Betty. When we find Betty, and find out what her involvement is in the break-in at your apartment, I’ll feel better about you, me, and Lucy being on the street again.”
“I know – it’s not punishment,” Sue said, with a little smile, and turned to put the first tape into the machine. When she turned back toward him, she rose to her full height – almost as if she were putting an extra rod of iron in her spine – tilted her head and said, “So are you going to make the popcorn, or shall I? Levi likes his with extra butter.”
Jack smiled and walked over to where they would settle in to watch tape after tape. “We’ll save the popcorn for when we’re REALLY bored.”
After what seemed like hours of watching video, making note and identifying everyone who had seen Dessa in the last two years, they finally got a break. Starting about three months ago, there seemed to be an increase in visits for Dessa – but only two people visited. A man and a woman.
The man was of Middle-Eastern descent, and the woman was Caucasian, medium height, dark hair.
“The hair is different, but it’s Betty alright. I would recognize her anywhere.” Sue positively identified the woman in the video.
“She looks good, but frightened. On the first visit, it almost looked like the man was forcing her into the chair.” Sue observed. “How does she sound?”
“She speaks very little. The man is definitely Achmed Kalihd. How can he be on our lists of suspected terrorists, and be able to walk into a prison to visit a fellow terrorist?” Jack was stumped.
“Another thing, I know the man couldn’t have a gun in a high-security prison. What hold could he have on her?” Sue looked wonderingly at Jack.
“That’s the million-dollar question . . .” Jack began.
“And one that I would love to be able to answer for you – but can’t.” Bobby and Tara came striding through the door, taking off coats and gloves as they settled in for some hot coffee and fresh donuts.
“So, what did you find out about the ‘Betty-sighting’?” Jack asked. He could tell that Bobby and Tara had had at least a semi-successful trip.
Tara took a bite out of the melt-in-your-mouth donut, took a sip of coffee, and began her report. “We talked to the housekeeping staff, the desk clerk, and the groundskeeper. All of them remembered seeing her. Apparently, she had stayed there more than once, and was always very pleasant to the staff.”
“She was always with a man, identified as Kalihd. They were last registered as Mr. and Mrs. VanWyss. According to one of the housekeepers, there was a marked difference when he was nearby and when he was not. The desk clerk said that once she came to the front desk and asked for a map and a phone book. As he was about to give them to her, Kalihd walked toward them, and Betty walked away without a word,” Bobby added.
“Almost as if she were trying to get away, or get in touch with someone,” Sue said. “I think she’s been kidnapped by Kalihd, and I think Dessa is behind it – even from prison.”
“It’s looking more like it. Her body language on the tapes, coupled with the account from the desk clerk, is making it look more and more like a hostage situation. What was the date on the last sighting?” Jack asked Bobby.
“About ten days ago. Not long before Kalihd’s little break-in at Sue’s apartment.
Lucy hung up her phone. “I think I may have something from the AG office. Betty’s emergency contact people reported a phone call traced to Betty’s cell phone about ten days ago. They hadn’t heard from her before that in several months. These are the people at the number witnesses are given for emergencies only. Emergencies like seeing-the-people-they’re-being-protected-from emergencies.” Lucy paused for effect, looking at the group with round eyes.
“According to my sources, when a witness is put in protective mode, there are handlers that check on them from time to time to make sure everything is going alright, make sure the job is going well, and to make sure there has been no contact with undesirables.”
“Where was Betty placed?” Sue was concerned about her friend. She had talked to her on the phone, but never knew from where she was speaking.
“She’s been in Denver for the past two years. She was working for a charitable organization connected to service animals. She actually helped to place animals with blind, deaf, and mobility-challenged people. Right down her alley, wasn’t it?” Lucy smiled at Sue.
“Anyway,” Lucy continued, “Betty’s emergency contact reported to headquarters that they had a call about ten days ago. They sent me the recording and transcript of the call.” Lucy pointed the remote control toward the large screen on the wall, where it sprang to life.
Betty’s voice came on, with the words typed across the bottom of the screen. “Hello, is this housekeeping?”
“This is emergency contact. What is your ID number and situation,” the agent’s voice asked.
“We will be checking out tomorrow, and I wondered if I might have some extra blankets and towels? We are in room 201. Thank you, I have to go now.” Betty cut the conversation off quickly.
“Please give your ID and situation, please,” the agent pressed, but the call had been cut off.
“How did she sound?” Sue asked with a worried expression on her face. “According to the transcript, it seems like she knew what she was doing. She was trying to get a message across.”
“Especially since she and Kalihd were registered in room 201,” Tara confirmed, an eyebrow arched smugly.
Snow had started falling lightly once again as the day wore on. By evening, another three inches had fallen, but it was a gentle snow, unlike the blizzard that had hit only days before.
Working on leads until the wee hours of the morning, attention was once again focused on the bright light in the corner of the screen on the Starbuck’s security tape.
“I’ve zoomed in on where the flash comes from, and slowed it down. Infrared helps to brighten it up, but it’s still impossible to see exactly where it’s coming from.” Tara had been working on this for hours.
“Let’s look at it one frame at a time,” Jack suggested. “It might give us more perspective if we start a bit before the flash, through the flash, and a bit after the flash.”
Jack sat next to Sue as they watched the screen closely, eyes narrowed, both of them tired. At one point, while Tara was backing the tape up for what seemed like the hundredth time, Sue leaned her head back on the chair and closed her eyes. Jack looked over at her, noting once again how lovely she was. The furrows on his brow relaxed as he watched her. After a few seconds, she turned her head, still leaned back on the chair, and looked straight at him with a weary, but tender smile.
“Hi, Jack,” she said softly.
He leaned forward, still close to her, stretching his shoulders and back, still looking at her eyes. “Hi. Tired?”
“For some reason, I didn’t sleep well last night,” Sue said with a smile, but a sad smile, her eyes never leaving his face. “And it was such a nice dream until Dessa got in on it.”
Elbows on his knees, he turned his head to look over at her. Straightening up in his chair, he reached out and took her hand, holding it between his two hands, looking down at it – such a small hand, but such a strong one. He didn’t say anything. He just sat there, her hand in his.
She withdrew her hand, and when she did, he looked up at her.
“Are you OK?” Sue signed.
“Back hurts a little,” Jack signed back.
“Need a back rub? I’m pretty good, you know.” Sue signed with a smile and an arched brow.
“Not here, not now,” he signed back, with a laugh – and a slight blush. He remembered all too well the last time she had given him a backrub. It was the day of his heart attack. He thought he had just slept wrong. It had started out as a simple massage, but as she ministered to him, when their eyes met, they both startled at what they saw.
It was hard to remember exactly what had brought them to this point today. What started out as a winter storm, a snow day, had turned into a storm of another kind – and Jack sat there with a grin on his face – the team liked to call it a ‘goofy’ grin, glad that if he had to face the storm he had Sue there beside him. Sue and the rest of the team, of course.
Myles interrupted their thoughts. “Jack, Sue, come and take a look at this. This is one of the tapes from the parking lot of the hotel where we had the ‘Betty sighting’ in Allenwood.” Myles ran the tape back, showing Kalihd forcing Betty into a silver sedan. “Does that car look familiar?” Myles looked over at Tara.
Jack and Sue had walked over to where Myles was looking at video. At Myles’ gesture toward Tara, their eyes followed Myles’ gaze.
“I think we have a hit.” Tara was still staring at her computer screen. The glow from the monitor was reflected in her eyes. “The license plate on the vehicle registered at the hotel, that they are getting into in the hotel video, is the same as this vehicle – the one seen speeding away from Starbuck’s in front of Lucy and Sue’s place, on Christmas Eve.” Tara looked up triumphantly. Finally, a connection.
“Bravo, Myles and Tara - now if we can just determine whether or not it was a coincidence that our ‘abominable’ friend Kalihd ended up in the girls’ apartment.” Bobby smiled at Tara, bowed to Myles, and settled back into his chair before throwing his feet up on his desk.
“Do you think the vehicle and the flash were part of a professional hit?” D asked Jack.
“It definitely has sniper characteristics, except for the time between. There was about 20 minutes between the flash of gunfire and the car speeding away . I’ll go and check rooftops and other possible sniper staging grounds tomorrow when it gets light. Did we get any useful info from the neighbors overlooking the alley behind the apartment?” Jack was getting his second wind, and turned toward Lucy to see if she’d gathered any more info.
“As the break-in occurred on Christmas Eve, most of our neighbors were either out of town, out of the apartment, or partying enough that they weren’t paying attention to what was happening in the alley.” Lucy frowned at the lack of information.
Second wind or not, Jack could see everyone starting to flag. It had been an intense day, and tomorrow would be more of the same. It was time to wrap it up and start back tomorrow. “OK guys, we’re not waiting for any more new information tonight. We’ve made progress today – and tonight. Let’s get some sleep, and hit it first thing in the morning. Bobby, meet me at the hotel in the morning and go with me to look for signs of a shooter. It won’t be easy with all the snow we’ve had since then. Oh – and bring some donuts and coffee. Tara, you come and take Sue and Lucy to work in the morning. Myles and D, you have your date with Dessa in the morning – sounds like fun – hate to miss that one.
“Nothing like a friendly conversation with the Prince of Terror himself!” Myles said, raising a tired eyebrow.
As they all began gathering up things to take their leave, Bobby stopped Jack. “Are you guys OK there at the hotel? I can bunk in with you if you like. More fire power might not be a bad thing if Kalihd finds out where you’re staying.”
Jack turned away from Sue and Lucy to answer his friend’s question. “Thanks, Bobby. We’ll be alright.” He hesitated, but then decided to tell Bobby about their late-night scare. “Last night Sue had a nightmare that nearly scared the rest of us to death. She started screaming, and I started beating on the door. I just knew somebody had gotten to them.” Jack ran his hand over his face, remembering the sound of her voice. “We left the connecting door open the rest of the night. I don’t think I’d have gotten any sleep at all if she hadn’t agreed to that.” Jack smiled as he remembered what the dream had started out about, and then was very sober.
Like Sue said, it was such a NICE dream, until Dessa stepped in.
“Yes, Mom, I’m fine. Don’t worry about Lucy and me. We stayed in a hotel last night, and Jack was in the next room.” She wasn’t about to tell her about her wee-hours nightmare. No point in worrying her about her mental state. “Yes, we slept fine until Levi woke us up with the alarm this morning.”
After assuring her parents that their house in Ohio was being watched to make sure nothing out-of-the-ordinary happened, and that she and Lucy were in good hands, Sue ended the call with a sigh.
“Why the sigh?” Jack asked as he finished up his second donut – this time a cream-filled chocolate-iced.
“I guess I always think I have to prove to my mother that I’m tougher than I really am. It’s a mother-daughter thing,” Sue said, with a shrug of her shoulders.
“I know what you mean. I think as a daughter, you try to protect your parents from worrying about you mostly as a self-defense mechanism. You don’t want them to worry because when they do, they’re likely to swoop down and take over the situation, whatever that might be.” Lucy’s eyes glittered as she theorized.
“I think you watch way too much Oprah and Dr. Phil. I will admit, though. Sons can be that way by their dads. On the other hand, moms tend to baby their baby boys, so we let them worry all they want. I think it makes them feel better to bake your favorite pie to make YOU feel better!” Jack polished off his cup of coffee, and started gathering up the remains of breakfast.
“Wow, and I thought those kind of ideas went out with Ozzie and Harriet!” Lucy put her hand on her hip as she laughed at Jack’s lighthearted solution.
Jack laughed with her as his phone rang. “Hudson here.”
“Jack, it’s D. We’ve had a tip on Betty’s picture. She was seen at a hotel in Southeastern Pennsylvania about two weeks ago.” Demetrius gave Jack the pertinent info, and Jack hung up with a “Thanks, D.”
Turning to Lucy and Sue, Jack gave them the information D had relayed to him. “Betty was seen about two weeks ago at a hotel close to Allenwood Federal Prison. Let’s get to the office, and get a plan in place.”
“Do you think we’d get anywhere to speak directly to Dessa? It seems to all hinge on him,” Sue said, as she started gathering her things to take to the office.
“Believe me, somebody will speak to him. I don’t think we’re the ones to do that. We’re too close to the situation.” Jack held the door for the ladies as they exited the room, giving it another glance before shutting the door firmly behind him.
*
The sighting of Betty in the neighborhood of the prison that housed Arif Dessa brought about a storm of activity in the bullpen. Arrangements were made for two agents, Myles and D, to pay Dessa a visit in Allenwood. In the meantime, video tapes from Dessa’s visitations in prison were delivered by courier to Lucy.
“We’ve got our work cut out for us people,” Jack began. “While Myles and D go on their joy-ride to Allenwood to visit our old friend Dessa, Tara, you and Bobby go and interview the hotel staff where there was a Betty sighting. Lucy, you get with your sources at the Attorney General’s office and see what you can find out about the last two years of Betty’s life in the Witness Protection program. We’ve got to find out how Kalihd found her, and the sooner we do that, the better for Betty, if it’s not too late already.”
“Sue, you and I will continue looking at the security tapes from Starbuck’s AFTER we’ve looked at the tapes of Dessa’s visitors.” Jack handed Sue the package of tapes, and Sue nodded at him in agreement.
“We’re keeping a low profile, aren’t we?” Sue narrowed her eyes and looked closely at Jack, watching for signs that he was trying to keep her from knowing the danger they were in.
Jack sighed. He should know by now that Sue was too sharp to not know what was going on. After all, she was an expert in surveillance, and could read people better than anybody he’d ever seen. Everyone else had left the bullpen. He finally answered her question. “We have to. We can’t take the chance that Kalihd knows our location through Betty. When we find Betty, and find out what her involvement is in the break-in at your apartment, I’ll feel better about you, me, and Lucy being on the street again.”
“I know – it’s not punishment,” Sue said, with a little smile, and turned to put the first tape into the machine. When she turned back toward him, she rose to her full height – almost as if she were putting an extra rod of iron in her spine – tilted her head and said, “So are you going to make the popcorn, or shall I? Levi likes his with extra butter.”
Jack smiled and walked over to where they would settle in to watch tape after tape. “We’ll save the popcorn for when we’re REALLY bored.”
*
After what seemed like hours of watching video, making note and identifying everyone who had seen Dessa in the last two years, they finally got a break. Starting about three months ago, there seemed to be an increase in visits for Dessa – but only two people visited. A man and a woman.
The man was of Middle-Eastern descent, and the woman was Caucasian, medium height, dark hair.
“The hair is different, but it’s Betty alright. I would recognize her anywhere.” Sue positively identified the woman in the video.
“She looks good, but frightened. On the first visit, it almost looked like the man was forcing her into the chair.” Sue observed. “How does she sound?”
“She speaks very little. The man is definitely Achmed Kalihd. How can he be on our lists of suspected terrorists, and be able to walk into a prison to visit a fellow terrorist?” Jack was stumped.
“Another thing, I know the man couldn’t have a gun in a high-security prison. What hold could he have on her?” Sue looked wonderingly at Jack.
“That’s the million-dollar question . . .” Jack began.
“And one that I would love to be able to answer for you – but can’t.” Bobby and Tara came striding through the door, taking off coats and gloves as they settled in for some hot coffee and fresh donuts.
“So, what did you find out about the ‘Betty-sighting’?” Jack asked. He could tell that Bobby and Tara had had at least a semi-successful trip.
Tara took a bite out of the melt-in-your-mouth donut, took a sip of coffee, and began her report. “We talked to the housekeeping staff, the desk clerk, and the groundskeeper. All of them remembered seeing her. Apparently, she had stayed there more than once, and was always very pleasant to the staff.”
“She was always with a man, identified as Kalihd. They were last registered as Mr. and Mrs. VanWyss. According to one of the housekeepers, there was a marked difference when he was nearby and when he was not. The desk clerk said that once she came to the front desk and asked for a map and a phone book. As he was about to give them to her, Kalihd walked toward them, and Betty walked away without a word,” Bobby added.
“Almost as if she were trying to get away, or get in touch with someone,” Sue said. “I think she’s been kidnapped by Kalihd, and I think Dessa is behind it – even from prison.”
“It’s looking more like it. Her body language on the tapes, coupled with the account from the desk clerk, is making it look more and more like a hostage situation. What was the date on the last sighting?” Jack asked Bobby.
“About ten days ago. Not long before Kalihd’s little break-in at Sue’s apartment.
Lucy hung up her phone. “I think I may have something from the AG office. Betty’s emergency contact people reported a phone call traced to Betty’s cell phone about ten days ago. They hadn’t heard from her before that in several months. These are the people at the number witnesses are given for emergencies only. Emergencies like seeing-the-people-they’re-being-protected-from emergencies.” Lucy paused for effect, looking at the group with round eyes.
“According to my sources, when a witness is put in protective mode, there are handlers that check on them from time to time to make sure everything is going alright, make sure the job is going well, and to make sure there has been no contact with undesirables.”
“Where was Betty placed?” Sue was concerned about her friend. She had talked to her on the phone, but never knew from where she was speaking.
“She’s been in Denver for the past two years. She was working for a charitable organization connected to service animals. She actually helped to place animals with blind, deaf, and mobility-challenged people. Right down her alley, wasn’t it?” Lucy smiled at Sue.
“Anyway,” Lucy continued, “Betty’s emergency contact reported to headquarters that they had a call about ten days ago. They sent me the recording and transcript of the call.” Lucy pointed the remote control toward the large screen on the wall, where it sprang to life.
Betty’s voice came on, with the words typed across the bottom of the screen. “Hello, is this housekeeping?”
“This is emergency contact. What is your ID number and situation,” the agent’s voice asked.
“We will be checking out tomorrow, and I wondered if I might have some extra blankets and towels? We are in room 201. Thank you, I have to go now.” Betty cut the conversation off quickly.
“Please give your ID and situation, please,” the agent pressed, but the call had been cut off.
“How did she sound?” Sue asked with a worried expression on her face. “According to the transcript, it seems like she knew what she was doing. She was trying to get a message across.”
“Especially since she and Kalihd were registered in room 201,” Tara confirmed, an eyebrow arched smugly.
*
Snow had started falling lightly once again as the day wore on. By evening, another three inches had fallen, but it was a gentle snow, unlike the blizzard that had hit only days before.
Working on leads until the wee hours of the morning, attention was once again focused on the bright light in the corner of the screen on the Starbuck’s security tape.
“I’ve zoomed in on where the flash comes from, and slowed it down. Infrared helps to brighten it up, but it’s still impossible to see exactly where it’s coming from.” Tara had been working on this for hours.
“Let’s look at it one frame at a time,” Jack suggested. “It might give us more perspective if we start a bit before the flash, through the flash, and a bit after the flash.”
Jack sat next to Sue as they watched the screen closely, eyes narrowed, both of them tired. At one point, while Tara was backing the tape up for what seemed like the hundredth time, Sue leaned her head back on the chair and closed her eyes. Jack looked over at her, noting once again how lovely she was. The furrows on his brow relaxed as he watched her. After a few seconds, she turned her head, still leaned back on the chair, and looked straight at him with a weary, but tender smile.
“Hi, Jack,” she said softly.
He leaned forward, still close to her, stretching his shoulders and back, still looking at her eyes. “Hi. Tired?”
“For some reason, I didn’t sleep well last night,” Sue said with a smile, but a sad smile, her eyes never leaving his face. “And it was such a nice dream until Dessa got in on it.”
Elbows on his knees, he turned his head to look over at her. Straightening up in his chair, he reached out and took her hand, holding it between his two hands, looking down at it – such a small hand, but such a strong one. He didn’t say anything. He just sat there, her hand in his.
She withdrew her hand, and when she did, he looked up at her.
“Are you OK?” Sue signed.
“Back hurts a little,” Jack signed back.
“Need a back rub? I’m pretty good, you know.” Sue signed with a smile and an arched brow.
“Not here, not now,” he signed back, with a laugh – and a slight blush. He remembered all too well the last time she had given him a backrub. It was the day of his heart attack. He thought he had just slept wrong. It had started out as a simple massage, but as she ministered to him, when their eyes met, they both startled at what they saw.
It was hard to remember exactly what had brought them to this point today. What started out as a winter storm, a snow day, had turned into a storm of another kind – and Jack sat there with a grin on his face – the team liked to call it a ‘goofy’ grin, glad that if he had to face the storm he had Sue there beside him. Sue and the rest of the team, of course.
Myles interrupted their thoughts. “Jack, Sue, come and take a look at this. This is one of the tapes from the parking lot of the hotel where we had the ‘Betty sighting’ in Allenwood.” Myles ran the tape back, showing Kalihd forcing Betty into a silver sedan. “Does that car look familiar?” Myles looked over at Tara.
Jack and Sue had walked over to where Myles was looking at video. At Myles’ gesture toward Tara, their eyes followed Myles’ gaze.
“I think we have a hit.” Tara was still staring at her computer screen. The glow from the monitor was reflected in her eyes. “The license plate on the vehicle registered at the hotel, that they are getting into in the hotel video, is the same as this vehicle – the one seen speeding away from Starbuck’s in front of Lucy and Sue’s place, on Christmas Eve.” Tara looked up triumphantly. Finally, a connection.
“Bravo, Myles and Tara - now if we can just determine whether or not it was a coincidence that our ‘abominable’ friend Kalihd ended up in the girls’ apartment.” Bobby smiled at Tara, bowed to Myles, and settled back into his chair before throwing his feet up on his desk.
“Do you think the vehicle and the flash were part of a professional hit?” D asked Jack.
“It definitely has sniper characteristics, except for the time between. There was about 20 minutes between the flash of gunfire and the car speeding away . I’ll go and check rooftops and other possible sniper staging grounds tomorrow when it gets light. Did we get any useful info from the neighbors overlooking the alley behind the apartment?” Jack was getting his second wind, and turned toward Lucy to see if she’d gathered any more info.
“As the break-in occurred on Christmas Eve, most of our neighbors were either out of town, out of the apartment, or partying enough that they weren’t paying attention to what was happening in the alley.” Lucy frowned at the lack of information.
Second wind or not, Jack could see everyone starting to flag. It had been an intense day, and tomorrow would be more of the same. It was time to wrap it up and start back tomorrow. “OK guys, we’re not waiting for any more new information tonight. We’ve made progress today – and tonight. Let’s get some sleep, and hit it first thing in the morning. Bobby, meet me at the hotel in the morning and go with me to look for signs of a shooter. It won’t be easy with all the snow we’ve had since then. Oh – and bring some donuts and coffee. Tara, you come and take Sue and Lucy to work in the morning. Myles and D, you have your date with Dessa in the morning – sounds like fun – hate to miss that one.
“Nothing like a friendly conversation with the Prince of Terror himself!” Myles said, raising a tired eyebrow.
As they all began gathering up things to take their leave, Bobby stopped Jack. “Are you guys OK there at the hotel? I can bunk in with you if you like. More fire power might not be a bad thing if Kalihd finds out where you’re staying.”
Jack turned away from Sue and Lucy to answer his friend’s question. “Thanks, Bobby. We’ll be alright.” He hesitated, but then decided to tell Bobby about their late-night scare. “Last night Sue had a nightmare that nearly scared the rest of us to death. She started screaming, and I started beating on the door. I just knew somebody had gotten to them.” Jack ran his hand over his face, remembering the sound of her voice. “We left the connecting door open the rest of the night. I don’t think I’d have gotten any sleep at all if she hadn’t agreed to that.” Jack smiled as he remembered what the dream had started out about, and then was very sober.
Like Sue said, it was such a NICE dream, until Dessa stepped in.
Chapter 18
January 6
Demetrius and Myles kept their date with Dessa. As they entered the interrogation room furnished sparsely with a table and three chairs, Dessa game in with an armed guard, his hands and feet shackled. No one was taking any chances with this prisoner. He had been in solitary confinement since questions arose about his most current visitors.
“At last, I have someone to talk to. It’s a shame you have to be Americans, but until Jihad is complete, I’ll have to make do.” Dessa looked at the two FBI agents with an evil, superior smile.
“It’s nice to see you, too, Dessa. We’ve missed chasing you. I had always hoped that we would get an order to bring you back ‘dead or alive,’ condition being our choice. But here we are, charged to protect the rights of even those who don’t deserve it.” The look of unveiled disgust on D’s face was enhanced by the smile that was there. Demetrius, loving husband and family man that he was, had no time or compassion for creeps like Dessa. These are the people who killed 2000 people on 9/11. These are the people who planned the attack on the Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
“Yes, well – that’s America’s loss. We’ve been informed that you have had some visitors lately.” Myles looked at Dessa with blatant dislike as he spoke, going straight to the point of the visit.
Dessa continued to smile serenely, eyes narrowed. “Yes, even in prison, my followers seek my counsel. Is it illegal to have visitors?
“It is when one of your visitors is a known associate involved in past, shall we say, indiscretions, and one is a part of our Witness Protection program and is coming under duress.” D wasn’t pulling any punches. He was getting to play bad cop this time – actually, they both were.
“And what visitors are you referring to?” Dessa was playing this up to the end. D and Myles just looked at one another with disgust.
“We’re referring to Achmed Kalihd and your former non-wife, Betty. I think they were referred to on the sign-in as ‘Mr. and Mrs. VanWyss?’” Myles repeated the names slowly, looking directly into Dessa’s eyes. There was a flicker, but his smile only deepened.
“Bobby, bring me that bag over there. I think I’ve got something.” Brushing through the snow on the roof of the building next to Sue’s, Jack found some interesting items. A spent shotgun shell, a bag of birdseed, and some blocks of wood. They had looked on top of Sue’s building, but found nothing. This was the next place it could have happened according to the flash on the video tape.
“What’ve you got, Jack?” Bobby was coming toward him with a bag in which to place the evidence.
“Not much individually, but together they make for an interesting little scene.” He showed Bobby the evidence, which they promptly put in the bag to take back to the office. “We need to get over to where the shot would have hit. If it hit our guy Kalihd, we won’t find a slug, but if it just grazed him, we might get lucky and find it somewhere.”
Jack was looking through a scope, trying to get a fix on where the bullet would have traveled. “We’re looking for a .308 Winchester slug.”
“With the snowfall, clearing of sidewalks, moving of furniture, it might be an iffy proposition to find anything that small. Like a needle in a haystack.” Bobby wasn’t trying to get out of the search, but he did want to remind his friend that it wouldn’t be easy.
“Remember me – I love a good haystack.” Jack looked grimly at Bobby, his brown eyes quietly telling him that it wouldn’t matter how difficult the job, he was on it until the case was closed.
“Righto. Let’s get to it then.” Bobby looked at his friend for a second, then clapped Jack on the back and followed him down the stairs to the ground and across the street to the area that they had pinpointed.
Levi bounded to the door of the hotel room when a knock came. “It’s me, Tara. Levi, go get Sue.” Tara’s muffled voice sent Levi shooting across the room to get his human to open the door.
Sue checked the peephole to make sure Tara was alone and OK. As she opened the door with a smile, she said, “Levi is getting cabin fever in this hotel room. He almost demolished the room getting my attention to open the door!”
The girls were laughing together as Lucy came out of the bathroom. “What’s so funny?” she asked, looking from one to the other.
“We’re just laughing at Levi bounding across the room when he heard Tara’s voice. He knows his family, doesn’t he?!” Sue was smiling, rubbing Levi’s head and neck.
“Yeah. He knows Jack well enough that he has even taken to waking him in the morning, just like he does Sue,” Lucy shared, eyebrow raised, head cocked to one side and a gleaming smile on her face as she looked at Tara.
“Oh, really?” Tara was looking expectantly at both girls to hear the rest of the scoop.
Sue looked a little embarrassed. “I – I had a nightmare the other night, so we’ve been sleeping with the connecting door open between the rooms. Jack nearly beat the door down when he heard me cry out, so we decided to save the Bureau some money in door replacement by opening it.”
Sue looked toward the open connecting door and smiled, thinking about Jack’s offer to spend the night on the couch.
“Hmmm. I’ll accept that story, for now. I’ll even keep it to myself. If a girl can’t share her deep dark secrets with another girl and have the secrets kept, who CAN you share with?” Tara tilted her head, arched her brow, and shrugged her shoulders.
Lucy and Sue gathered their things and Levi, and the three girls left the hotel room, heading toward the Hoover Building.
January 6
Demetrius and Myles kept their date with Dessa. As they entered the interrogation room furnished sparsely with a table and three chairs, Dessa game in with an armed guard, his hands and feet shackled. No one was taking any chances with this prisoner. He had been in solitary confinement since questions arose about his most current visitors.
“At last, I have someone to talk to. It’s a shame you have to be Americans, but until Jihad is complete, I’ll have to make do.” Dessa looked at the two FBI agents with an evil, superior smile.
“It’s nice to see you, too, Dessa. We’ve missed chasing you. I had always hoped that we would get an order to bring you back ‘dead or alive,’ condition being our choice. But here we are, charged to protect the rights of even those who don’t deserve it.” The look of unveiled disgust on D’s face was enhanced by the smile that was there. Demetrius, loving husband and family man that he was, had no time or compassion for creeps like Dessa. These are the people who killed 2000 people on 9/11. These are the people who planned the attack on the Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
“Yes, well – that’s America’s loss. We’ve been informed that you have had some visitors lately.” Myles looked at Dessa with blatant dislike as he spoke, going straight to the point of the visit.
Dessa continued to smile serenely, eyes narrowed. “Yes, even in prison, my followers seek my counsel. Is it illegal to have visitors?
“It is when one of your visitors is a known associate involved in past, shall we say, indiscretions, and one is a part of our Witness Protection program and is coming under duress.” D wasn’t pulling any punches. He was getting to play bad cop this time – actually, they both were.
“And what visitors are you referring to?” Dessa was playing this up to the end. D and Myles just looked at one another with disgust.
“We’re referring to Achmed Kalihd and your former non-wife, Betty. I think they were referred to on the sign-in as ‘Mr. and Mrs. VanWyss?’” Myles repeated the names slowly, looking directly into Dessa’s eyes. There was a flicker, but his smile only deepened.
*
“Bobby, bring me that bag over there. I think I’ve got something.” Brushing through the snow on the roof of the building next to Sue’s, Jack found some interesting items. A spent shotgun shell, a bag of birdseed, and some blocks of wood. They had looked on top of Sue’s building, but found nothing. This was the next place it could have happened according to the flash on the video tape.
“What’ve you got, Jack?” Bobby was coming toward him with a bag in which to place the evidence.
“Not much individually, but together they make for an interesting little scene.” He showed Bobby the evidence, which they promptly put in the bag to take back to the office. “We need to get over to where the shot would have hit. If it hit our guy Kalihd, we won’t find a slug, but if it just grazed him, we might get lucky and find it somewhere.”
Jack was looking through a scope, trying to get a fix on where the bullet would have traveled. “We’re looking for a .308 Winchester slug.”
“With the snowfall, clearing of sidewalks, moving of furniture, it might be an iffy proposition to find anything that small. Like a needle in a haystack.” Bobby wasn’t trying to get out of the search, but he did want to remind his friend that it wouldn’t be easy.
“Remember me – I love a good haystack.” Jack looked grimly at Bobby, his brown eyes quietly telling him that it wouldn’t matter how difficult the job, he was on it until the case was closed.
“Righto. Let’s get to it then.” Bobby looked at his friend for a second, then clapped Jack on the back and followed him down the stairs to the ground and across the street to the area that they had pinpointed.
*
Levi bounded to the door of the hotel room when a knock came. “It’s me, Tara. Levi, go get Sue.” Tara’s muffled voice sent Levi shooting across the room to get his human to open the door.
Sue checked the peephole to make sure Tara was alone and OK. As she opened the door with a smile, she said, “Levi is getting cabin fever in this hotel room. He almost demolished the room getting my attention to open the door!”
The girls were laughing together as Lucy came out of the bathroom. “What’s so funny?” she asked, looking from one to the other.
“We’re just laughing at Levi bounding across the room when he heard Tara’s voice. He knows his family, doesn’t he?!” Sue was smiling, rubbing Levi’s head and neck.
“Yeah. He knows Jack well enough that he has even taken to waking him in the morning, just like he does Sue,” Lucy shared, eyebrow raised, head cocked to one side and a gleaming smile on her face as she looked at Tara.
“Oh, really?” Tara was looking expectantly at both girls to hear the rest of the scoop.
Sue looked a little embarrassed. “I – I had a nightmare the other night, so we’ve been sleeping with the connecting door open between the rooms. Jack nearly beat the door down when he heard me cry out, so we decided to save the Bureau some money in door replacement by opening it.”
Sue looked toward the open connecting door and smiled, thinking about Jack’s offer to spend the night on the couch.
“Hmmm. I’ll accept that story, for now. I’ll even keep it to myself. If a girl can’t share her deep dark secrets with another girl and have the secrets kept, who CAN you share with?” Tara tilted her head, arched her brow, and shrugged her shoulders.
Lucy and Sue gathered their things and Levi, and the three girls left the hotel room, heading toward the Hoover Building.
Chapter 19
Jack and Bobby came into the bullpen triumphantly, a baggie containing a slug held high in Jack’s hand. “No autographs, please,” he joked, as the female members of the team just looked at the two red-faced men. The air was brisk, and they had spent about four hours of the day in the great outdoors in Georgetown.
“So much for ‘Hail the conquering Hero,’ eh Jacko?” Bobby took off his coat and gloves as he looked disgustedly, albeit fondly, at the ladies huddled around the computer screen.
“What did you find?” Tara came to herself first, and started the ball rolling.
“What did we find – Oh, not much – just the sniper’s nest with a block of wood, some birdseed, and a spent shell. Then over at our favorite Starbuck’s café, we found a .308 slug that seems to match perfectly with the spent shell. Like I said – not much.” Smug look or not, Jack’s eyes were sparkling as he tried to hide the excitement he always felt when things started coming together. He smiled at them all and laughed, looking at Bobby. “I can’t believe we found the slug. We ought to get paid extra for clearing the café of snow!”
“I hear ya! I haven’t shoveled and swept that much snow since the last time I was at my parent’s house in July!” Bobby shook his head and stretched his arms.
“Well, if you two need second jobs, I know a neighborhood that could use some muscle against the snow on our sidewalks!” Tara tilted her head and told the two men mockingly.
“So where do we go from here? Can we tell anything from the slug?” Sue was ready to get on with this. She, Lucy, and Jack were the ones not able to go home until this was over.
“We can tell if it has any human DNA on it, which it would have if it grazed anyone – notably our old friend ‘abominable’ Kalihd,” Jack told her.
“I’ll take it to the lab. You boys enjoy your hot chocolate and Krispy Kremes after your snowball fight.” Tara grabbed the baggie with the slug from Jack, and swept out the door to the lab.
“How’d she know?” Bobby asked as he looked up, smiling, already standing by the microwave to heat up the water for his cocoa.
“We know you too well,” Lucy laughed.
“It looks like we’re going to have to find a more appreciative group of ladies to impress, doesn’t it, Crash?” Jack teasingly puffed out his chest as he looked at Sue and Lucy, who continued to stand by the computer screen, arms crossed as they looked at the two men. “I guess we should have gone to find some more appreciative females at a bar or something,” Jack laughed, directing his comments toward Sue, who had looked up, rolling her eyes at all the testosterone flying around the room.
“Sparky! She IS cute when she’s steamed!” Bobby laughed and threw himself into his chair, propping his feet on his desk to savor the steamy hot chocolate as he winked at Sue.
In stark contrast to the earlier triumph of Jack and Bobby, late that afternoon Myles and D came into the bullpen in less than a good mood.
“He knows something. I know he does. You can see it in his evil little eyes as he looks right at us and LIES!” Myles face was red with frustration as he spoke.
D continued, “Myles is right. When Betty’s name was mentioned, his face didn’t change – much – but there was a flicker there. Kalihd’s name didn’t register the same reaction, but I would almost bet he knows exactly where Betty is, and what her condition is.”
“Do we have any witnesses who have seen Betty more recently than 10 days ago?” Jack asked.
“We’ve got an APB on her as a Jane Doe, for her protection. We’ve changed her picture to show her with dark hair. Now we just have to wait to see if she pops up on anyone’s radar. So far – nothing.” As D spoke, Jack thought once again that this was the man to have on your side if you wanted oversight of every possible action that needed to take place.
“We’ve let it be known on the street that Dessa’s calling the shots of a new operation. We’ve got SOG out watching every spot she’s been sighted before, and Metro, State, and every other law enforcement are looking for the car to match the description and license plate in the two videos. We’re not leaving any stone unturned. None that we know about, anyway.” D went over to the coffee maker and poured himself a cup, scrambling for a snack. “Did you guys have to eat all the donuts?”
“It’s getting late. Do you think it might be time for more than ‘glazed or jelly-filled?’” Sue asked, looking up after feeling her stomach rumble. “I couldn’t hear my stomach ‘growl,’ but it definitely doesn’t seem happy.”
“I heard mine growl, so it’s official – we’ve got to take a break. Lucy, call the pizza joint and order the pizza, and Sue and I will go and pick it up.” Jack looked at Sue and smiled, ready to spend some one-on-one time with her.
“Do you think it’s a good idea for you two to be seen outside, alone?” Lucy had a worried look as she spoke. “We’ve been trying to keep you semi-under-wraps, for your protection.”
“Maybe I’m feeling the success of the evidence found this morning, or maybe I’m just crazy, but I would like to see if anything happens if we’re out on the street. We can wear armor, if it will make you feel better. I’m thinking Bobby can walk a little ahead of us, on the other side of the street, D and Myles can scope out the neighborhood for the bad guys, and Sue can get some fresh air – so make the call,” As Jack gave Lucy her orders, he looked over at Sue. She nodded her head in the affirmative.
“I’ll be glad to get out of the bullpen!” Sue had a sparkle in her eye at the thought of getting to be out in the snow again. It had snowed another ½ inch this afternoon, which would be just about enough to bring the whiteness back to the already-dirty snow on the sidewalks and streets. It didn’t hurt that she would get to walk with Jack, either. As if on cue, Jack looked over at her just in time to see her blush slightly.
He smiled to himself, and winked at Sue. He wasn’t stupid. He knew that she needed to go outside for a little while after being cooped up. He also knew that her blush meant she wasn’t totally averse to walking with him, even under surveillance.
As they started their little train of agents going to pick up pizza, Sue and Jack were the last of the five to leave the bullpen. Rigged with microphones and earpieces, Jack could pick up any communication the three men wanted to send. Jack, on the other hand, could turn his microphone off if he chose. They had left Levi safe and sound in the bullpen with Lucy and Tara.
Jack took Sue’s hand and put it in the crook of his arm as they walked the block-and-a-half to the pizza joint. When he did this, she looked up at him questioningly. Jack said, “It’s easier if you’re close-by. That way if I want to tell you something, I just have to touch your hand to get your attention.”
“Are you bucking to take Levi’s place, or something?” Sue asked, with a smile.
Jack just laughed, and then grew silent as he thought of possible answers to that question. If she only knew how much he’d like to take Levi’s place sometimes. Was the rosy glow on Sue’s face the cold weather, or could it be that she was enjoying their proximity, as well? He looked down at her wonderingly. Could she read his thoughts just a little bit? That may be a conversation for another time, another place.
“Nobody could take the place of ‘Levi, the Wonderdog.’ He’s one of the best agents I know. Sometimes I would just like you to depend on me – or the rest of the team – as much as you do on Levi.” Jack stammered a bit as he struggled to shift the attention away from himself. “You can, you know.”
Sue looked at him closely, trying to figure out what he was trying to get across. If only she could read minds as well as she could read lips.
“But that’s the whole point of having a service dog – to be independent of other people having to make up for your disability.” Sue decided to go for the impersonal, rather than the personal. It was usually safer that way.
Jack bowed his head in agreement as he spoke. “Yeees, but sometimes we like to feel needed and wanted, too.” He glanced over at her quickly, feeling her eyes on him.
“You almost sound jealous of Levi!” Sue laughed at the thought of Jack Hudson being jealous of Levi. At that, Jack just shook his head.
“You know, for someone who is usually such a smooth talker with the ladies, you sure are a blighter when it comes to talking to Sue, aren’t you?” Jack turned a deep shade of red, not a result of the cold air, as he heard Bobby’s voice and laughter in his earpiece. He was just glad Sue couldn’t use an earpiece.
“I thought I had the mic that could be turned off! Thanks, guys. You’re all real pals.” As Jack laughed at himself, he could hear the rest of the team laughing in his ear. Sue was looking at him as if he’d gone crazy.
“I think somebody switched mics on me. Don’t you just love our team? It’s like working with your brothers and sisters ALL the time.” Jack covered his mic as he looked at Sue. “Well, some of the time.” He was as protective of Sue as he would be of his sister, but he definitely did NOT think of her as a sister.
“Jack, I think we may have a situation.” Myles voice came over Jack’s earpiece, and it was deadly serious.
“What is it, Myles?” Jack was on alert as he continued to walk down the street, surveying as he went, and holding Sue even closer to his side than before.
“The car in the video? There is one suspiciously like it parked on the street in front of the 10th Street, in front of the Ford’s Theater Museum. What do you know . . . the license plate matches. There are two people in the car – a man and a woman. Maybe you and Sue should hang back until we have time to check it out.” Myles and D were on the move.
Jack filled Sue in, and then alerted Tara, who was monitoring the conversation in the office. “Tara, tell SWAT and Metro PD to be on standby, and alert the bomb squad. We may have the chance to take Kalihd in before we have to activate our other scenario.”
“Got it. Lucy’s alerted Metro, and I’ve put SWAT on standby. Be careful, guys.” Special Agent Tara Williams was a whiz not only at computers, but at communication in general. The usually ditzy girl went into organizational overdrive in these kinds of situations.
“The subject in driver’s side of the car is opening the door. He’s getting out. The woman hasn’t moved.” D was giving them a play-by-play from his vantage point ahead of Jack.
Jack filled Sue in on what was going on. “Sue, if I tell you, go into the bookstore and stay there until someone comes to get you.”
Sue nodded her head in assent, ready to follow orders.
Myles’ voice came over the earpiece. “D is closest to the vehicle. The man is out of the car, starting to walk down the sidewalk toward Bobby. He’s running! He has a cell phone out!”
“Sue, get in the bookstore. Myles, Bobby, D, we’ve got to take him! He may be detonating a bomb. We can’t know for sure unless we take him, as well as the woman in the car! Move!” As Sue ran into the bookstore, Jack started running down the street, his hand on his gun.
The street exploded with activity. SWAT, Metro PD, Bomb Squad, as well as the FBI Special Agents swarmed in, blocked the street, had the male on the ground, cell phone flying. Myles grabbed the phone and disconnected the battery. Scrabbling on the ground with the phone, Myles yelled, “We’re clear!”
Guns blazing, Bobby and Jack came up to the vehicle from behind, watching for signs of movement from inside the car. Ensuring that there was only the one person in the front seat, they jerked both front doors open.
“Don’t hurt me,” was all they heard from the feeble voice and saw from the traumatized eyes . . . of Betty.
Jack and Bobby came into the bullpen triumphantly, a baggie containing a slug held high in Jack’s hand. “No autographs, please,” he joked, as the female members of the team just looked at the two red-faced men. The air was brisk, and they had spent about four hours of the day in the great outdoors in Georgetown.
“So much for ‘Hail the conquering Hero,’ eh Jacko?” Bobby took off his coat and gloves as he looked disgustedly, albeit fondly, at the ladies huddled around the computer screen.
“What did you find?” Tara came to herself first, and started the ball rolling.
“What did we find – Oh, not much – just the sniper’s nest with a block of wood, some birdseed, and a spent shell. Then over at our favorite Starbuck’s café, we found a .308 slug that seems to match perfectly with the spent shell. Like I said – not much.” Smug look or not, Jack’s eyes were sparkling as he tried to hide the excitement he always felt when things started coming together. He smiled at them all and laughed, looking at Bobby. “I can’t believe we found the slug. We ought to get paid extra for clearing the café of snow!”
“I hear ya! I haven’t shoveled and swept that much snow since the last time I was at my parent’s house in July!” Bobby shook his head and stretched his arms.
“Well, if you two need second jobs, I know a neighborhood that could use some muscle against the snow on our sidewalks!” Tara tilted her head and told the two men mockingly.
“So where do we go from here? Can we tell anything from the slug?” Sue was ready to get on with this. She, Lucy, and Jack were the ones not able to go home until this was over.
“We can tell if it has any human DNA on it, which it would have if it grazed anyone – notably our old friend ‘abominable’ Kalihd,” Jack told her.
“I’ll take it to the lab. You boys enjoy your hot chocolate and Krispy Kremes after your snowball fight.” Tara grabbed the baggie with the slug from Jack, and swept out the door to the lab.
“How’d she know?” Bobby asked as he looked up, smiling, already standing by the microwave to heat up the water for his cocoa.
“We know you too well,” Lucy laughed.
“It looks like we’re going to have to find a more appreciative group of ladies to impress, doesn’t it, Crash?” Jack teasingly puffed out his chest as he looked at Sue and Lucy, who continued to stand by the computer screen, arms crossed as they looked at the two men. “I guess we should have gone to find some more appreciative females at a bar or something,” Jack laughed, directing his comments toward Sue, who had looked up, rolling her eyes at all the testosterone flying around the room.
“Sparky! She IS cute when she’s steamed!” Bobby laughed and threw himself into his chair, propping his feet on his desk to savor the steamy hot chocolate as he winked at Sue.
*
In stark contrast to the earlier triumph of Jack and Bobby, late that afternoon Myles and D came into the bullpen in less than a good mood.
“He knows something. I know he does. You can see it in his evil little eyes as he looks right at us and LIES!” Myles face was red with frustration as he spoke.
D continued, “Myles is right. When Betty’s name was mentioned, his face didn’t change – much – but there was a flicker there. Kalihd’s name didn’t register the same reaction, but I would almost bet he knows exactly where Betty is, and what her condition is.”
“Do we have any witnesses who have seen Betty more recently than 10 days ago?” Jack asked.
“We’ve got an APB on her as a Jane Doe, for her protection. We’ve changed her picture to show her with dark hair. Now we just have to wait to see if she pops up on anyone’s radar. So far – nothing.” As D spoke, Jack thought once again that this was the man to have on your side if you wanted oversight of every possible action that needed to take place.
“We’ve let it be known on the street that Dessa’s calling the shots of a new operation. We’ve got SOG out watching every spot she’s been sighted before, and Metro, State, and every other law enforcement are looking for the car to match the description and license plate in the two videos. We’re not leaving any stone unturned. None that we know about, anyway.” D went over to the coffee maker and poured himself a cup, scrambling for a snack. “Did you guys have to eat all the donuts?”
“It’s getting late. Do you think it might be time for more than ‘glazed or jelly-filled?’” Sue asked, looking up after feeling her stomach rumble. “I couldn’t hear my stomach ‘growl,’ but it definitely doesn’t seem happy.”
“I heard mine growl, so it’s official – we’ve got to take a break. Lucy, call the pizza joint and order the pizza, and Sue and I will go and pick it up.” Jack looked at Sue and smiled, ready to spend some one-on-one time with her.
“Do you think it’s a good idea for you two to be seen outside, alone?” Lucy had a worried look as she spoke. “We’ve been trying to keep you semi-under-wraps, for your protection.”
“Maybe I’m feeling the success of the evidence found this morning, or maybe I’m just crazy, but I would like to see if anything happens if we’re out on the street. We can wear armor, if it will make you feel better. I’m thinking Bobby can walk a little ahead of us, on the other side of the street, D and Myles can scope out the neighborhood for the bad guys, and Sue can get some fresh air – so make the call,” As Jack gave Lucy her orders, he looked over at Sue. She nodded her head in the affirmative.
“I’ll be glad to get out of the bullpen!” Sue had a sparkle in her eye at the thought of getting to be out in the snow again. It had snowed another ½ inch this afternoon, which would be just about enough to bring the whiteness back to the already-dirty snow on the sidewalks and streets. It didn’t hurt that she would get to walk with Jack, either. As if on cue, Jack looked over at her just in time to see her blush slightly.
He smiled to himself, and winked at Sue. He wasn’t stupid. He knew that she needed to go outside for a little while after being cooped up. He also knew that her blush meant she wasn’t totally averse to walking with him, even under surveillance.
As they started their little train of agents going to pick up pizza, Sue and Jack were the last of the five to leave the bullpen. Rigged with microphones and earpieces, Jack could pick up any communication the three men wanted to send. Jack, on the other hand, could turn his microphone off if he chose. They had left Levi safe and sound in the bullpen with Lucy and Tara.
Jack took Sue’s hand and put it in the crook of his arm as they walked the block-and-a-half to the pizza joint. When he did this, she looked up at him questioningly. Jack said, “It’s easier if you’re close-by. That way if I want to tell you something, I just have to touch your hand to get your attention.”
“Are you bucking to take Levi’s place, or something?” Sue asked, with a smile.
Jack just laughed, and then grew silent as he thought of possible answers to that question. If she only knew how much he’d like to take Levi’s place sometimes. Was the rosy glow on Sue’s face the cold weather, or could it be that she was enjoying their proximity, as well? He looked down at her wonderingly. Could she read his thoughts just a little bit? That may be a conversation for another time, another place.
“Nobody could take the place of ‘Levi, the Wonderdog.’ He’s one of the best agents I know. Sometimes I would just like you to depend on me – or the rest of the team – as much as you do on Levi.” Jack stammered a bit as he struggled to shift the attention away from himself. “You can, you know.”
Sue looked at him closely, trying to figure out what he was trying to get across. If only she could read minds as well as she could read lips.
“But that’s the whole point of having a service dog – to be independent of other people having to make up for your disability.” Sue decided to go for the impersonal, rather than the personal. It was usually safer that way.
Jack bowed his head in agreement as he spoke. “Yeees, but sometimes we like to feel needed and wanted, too.” He glanced over at her quickly, feeling her eyes on him.
“You almost sound jealous of Levi!” Sue laughed at the thought of Jack Hudson being jealous of Levi. At that, Jack just shook his head.
“You know, for someone who is usually such a smooth talker with the ladies, you sure are a blighter when it comes to talking to Sue, aren’t you?” Jack turned a deep shade of red, not a result of the cold air, as he heard Bobby’s voice and laughter in his earpiece. He was just glad Sue couldn’t use an earpiece.
“I thought I had the mic that could be turned off! Thanks, guys. You’re all real pals.” As Jack laughed at himself, he could hear the rest of the team laughing in his ear. Sue was looking at him as if he’d gone crazy.
“I think somebody switched mics on me. Don’t you just love our team? It’s like working with your brothers and sisters ALL the time.” Jack covered his mic as he looked at Sue. “Well, some of the time.” He was as protective of Sue as he would be of his sister, but he definitely did NOT think of her as a sister.
“Jack, I think we may have a situation.” Myles voice came over Jack’s earpiece, and it was deadly serious.
“What is it, Myles?” Jack was on alert as he continued to walk down the street, surveying as he went, and holding Sue even closer to his side than before.
“The car in the video? There is one suspiciously like it parked on the street in front of the 10th Street, in front of the Ford’s Theater Museum. What do you know . . . the license plate matches. There are two people in the car – a man and a woman. Maybe you and Sue should hang back until we have time to check it out.” Myles and D were on the move.
Jack filled Sue in, and then alerted Tara, who was monitoring the conversation in the office. “Tara, tell SWAT and Metro PD to be on standby, and alert the bomb squad. We may have the chance to take Kalihd in before we have to activate our other scenario.”
“Got it. Lucy’s alerted Metro, and I’ve put SWAT on standby. Be careful, guys.” Special Agent Tara Williams was a whiz not only at computers, but at communication in general. The usually ditzy girl went into organizational overdrive in these kinds of situations.
“The subject in driver’s side of the car is opening the door. He’s getting out. The woman hasn’t moved.” D was giving them a play-by-play from his vantage point ahead of Jack.
Jack filled Sue in on what was going on. “Sue, if I tell you, go into the bookstore and stay there until someone comes to get you.”
Sue nodded her head in assent, ready to follow orders.
Myles’ voice came over the earpiece. “D is closest to the vehicle. The man is out of the car, starting to walk down the sidewalk toward Bobby. He’s running! He has a cell phone out!”
“Sue, get in the bookstore. Myles, Bobby, D, we’ve got to take him! He may be detonating a bomb. We can’t know for sure unless we take him, as well as the woman in the car! Move!” As Sue ran into the bookstore, Jack started running down the street, his hand on his gun.
The street exploded with activity. SWAT, Metro PD, Bomb Squad, as well as the FBI Special Agents swarmed in, blocked the street, had the male on the ground, cell phone flying. Myles grabbed the phone and disconnected the battery. Scrabbling on the ground with the phone, Myles yelled, “We’re clear!”
Guns blazing, Bobby and Jack came up to the vehicle from behind, watching for signs of movement from inside the car. Ensuring that there was only the one person in the front seat, they jerked both front doors open.
“Don’t hurt me,” was all they heard from the feeble voice and saw from the traumatized eyes . . . of Betty.
Chapter 20
Betty had been rigged with a suicide vest – an elaborately crafted vest armed with explosives – enough to take out the car, the people in the area, and half the city block. It was designed to be detonated by the cell phone that Myles rendered useless with little time to spare.
The ambulance had taken Betty to the hospital, Sue going along with her, Jack having called her in the bookstore and a police officer escorting her to the ambulance. In the aftermath of the take-down, Jack called in to Tara. “It wasn’t him.”
“What? It wasn’t Kalihd?” Tara and Lucy looked at one another incredulously. “But he had Betty, didn’t he?”
“Yes. Betty had been drugged, tied up, and rigged with a suicide vest. But the guy wasn’t Achmed Kalihd. Maybe we’ll get some info from the car. We know Kalihd was in that car at some point. Maybe Betty can tell us something. We’ll be in as soon as forensics finishes with the vehicle.” Jack closed the phone in disgust.
“This guy is playing us, D. It’s like he’s standing off somewhere watching our every move.” The two men were standing, observing forensics and the bomb squad as they cleaned up the site. Jack was thinking about Betty and Sue on the way to the hospital. “I’ll go get Levi and get to the hospital to see if Sue’s learned anything from Betty.”
Sue stood beside the hospital bed that held Betty. She was dehydrated, and had been drugged. At this point, she was clinging to Sue’s hand. “I’ve never been so frightened. He made me go see Joseph. I know his name isn’t Joseph, but when I look at his face, that’s who I see, only with shutters over his eyes. I once thought he loved me, Sue. How could I have been so blind?” She was weeping with relief at being found, with sorrow at a love lost, and with horror at what she had been through.
“It’ll be OK, Betty.” Sue dragged a chair closer to the bed, so that she could sit with Betty. “God still has a plan for you. He may not have told you exactly what it is, yet, but he does have a plan.”
Betty smiled at Sue through her tears. “I know. God was there when I met you. You helped me through losing Joseph the first time, and now you’re helping save me from this monster once again.”
As both women wept with joy at having found one another again, a familiar lunge had two paws on the side of Betty’s bed. “Levi! So you’re driving now?” Sue laughed as she looked back at the door to find Jack standing there, smiling at her.
“Oh, it’s so good to see you, Levi. I wish my Lily were here. I hope she’s OK.” Betty was feeling the comfort of running her hands through Levi’s fur, every movement seeing a decrease in her agitated state. She looked up at Sue and said, “I left Lily with a neighbor when I left for work, and I never came back. They’ll think I have deserted her.” Fresh tears threatened.
“You can call them, if you’d like, tomorrow. We’ll get you a secure line. If you’re able to leave the hospital, we’ll take you to the Bureau for questioning, and keep you in protective custody. We’re just glad you’re OK, Betty.” Jack stood next to Sue, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder.
“You know, when you were undercover next door to me, you really had me fooled. I really thought you were a real married couple.” Betty looked at them fondly as the two glanced at one another and then down at their hands, as if uncomfortable with the suggestion.
“We’ll leave you to rest now, Betty. There will be an agent outside your room at all times, and a nurse who is an agent will be taking care of you. You can feel safe now.” Jack took Betty’s hand and squeezed it.
“Thank you. And thank you, Sue, for staying with me. I needed so badly to see a friendly face.” Betty was close to tears again, but this time in gratitude, as she took Sue’s hand.
“You’ve been in my prayers, Betty. I’ll see you tomorrow, and if you need anything, call me.” Sue squeezed Betty’s hand in a quick prayer, and they took their leave.
As they walked down the hallway toward the elevator, Sue spoke. “I think she’s still in shock. She never mentioned the man in the car. It’s like she had blocked out that whole event.” She looked at Jack with tears in her eyes for her friend.
“We don’t know what she knows, Sue. We’ll have to tread carefully. Do you remember the Stockholm Syndrome? That’s what happened with Patty Hearst in the ‘70s. She was brainwashed by her kidnappers to the point that she was willing to commit crimes for them, and was willing to defend them with her life.” Jack didn’t want Sue to get her hopes up. Better to hope for less and get more. That was his philosophy.
“I don’t think so. She talked about Dessa. She called him a monster. She talked about Lily. I think when she gets over the shock of having been strapped into a suicide vest and left to explode, she’ll be able to give us some information.” Sue was starting to get her back up, and was ready to defend Betty.
“Truce!” Jack held up both hands and turned Sue toward him in the lobby of the hospital, taking both her hands. “How about we wait and see what tomorrow brings? We still have a man in lockup ready to be interrogated, and tomorrow we’ll have a chance to talk to Betty. Please?”
She started to relax, Jack’s thumbs massaging her wrists. Sue tilted her head to one side and gave Jack a little grin at his childish use of the ‘magic word.’ She took her hands from Jack, and felt colder, somehow when she did that.
“OK. I won’t yell at you any more tonight. Thank you for bringing Levi. I think that helped Betty a lot.” She glanced up at him through her eyelashes to see him laughing at her quietly.
“What do you want to bet our pizza’s cold by now?” Jack smiled and put his arm around Sue’s shoulders and they exited the hospital in search of cold pizza.
Betty had been rigged with a suicide vest – an elaborately crafted vest armed with explosives – enough to take out the car, the people in the area, and half the city block. It was designed to be detonated by the cell phone that Myles rendered useless with little time to spare.
The ambulance had taken Betty to the hospital, Sue going along with her, Jack having called her in the bookstore and a police officer escorting her to the ambulance. In the aftermath of the take-down, Jack called in to Tara. “It wasn’t him.”
“What? It wasn’t Kalihd?” Tara and Lucy looked at one another incredulously. “But he had Betty, didn’t he?”
“Yes. Betty had been drugged, tied up, and rigged with a suicide vest. But the guy wasn’t Achmed Kalihd. Maybe we’ll get some info from the car. We know Kalihd was in that car at some point. Maybe Betty can tell us something. We’ll be in as soon as forensics finishes with the vehicle.” Jack closed the phone in disgust.
“This guy is playing us, D. It’s like he’s standing off somewhere watching our every move.” The two men were standing, observing forensics and the bomb squad as they cleaned up the site. Jack was thinking about Betty and Sue on the way to the hospital. “I’ll go get Levi and get to the hospital to see if Sue’s learned anything from Betty.”
*
Sue stood beside the hospital bed that held Betty. She was dehydrated, and had been drugged. At this point, she was clinging to Sue’s hand. “I’ve never been so frightened. He made me go see Joseph. I know his name isn’t Joseph, but when I look at his face, that’s who I see, only with shutters over his eyes. I once thought he loved me, Sue. How could I have been so blind?” She was weeping with relief at being found, with sorrow at a love lost, and with horror at what she had been through.
“It’ll be OK, Betty.” Sue dragged a chair closer to the bed, so that she could sit with Betty. “God still has a plan for you. He may not have told you exactly what it is, yet, but he does have a plan.”
Betty smiled at Sue through her tears. “I know. God was there when I met you. You helped me through losing Joseph the first time, and now you’re helping save me from this monster once again.”
As both women wept with joy at having found one another again, a familiar lunge had two paws on the side of Betty’s bed. “Levi! So you’re driving now?” Sue laughed as she looked back at the door to find Jack standing there, smiling at her.
“Oh, it’s so good to see you, Levi. I wish my Lily were here. I hope she’s OK.” Betty was feeling the comfort of running her hands through Levi’s fur, every movement seeing a decrease in her agitated state. She looked up at Sue and said, “I left Lily with a neighbor when I left for work, and I never came back. They’ll think I have deserted her.” Fresh tears threatened.
“You can call them, if you’d like, tomorrow. We’ll get you a secure line. If you’re able to leave the hospital, we’ll take you to the Bureau for questioning, and keep you in protective custody. We’re just glad you’re OK, Betty.” Jack stood next to Sue, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder.
“You know, when you were undercover next door to me, you really had me fooled. I really thought you were a real married couple.” Betty looked at them fondly as the two glanced at one another and then down at their hands, as if uncomfortable with the suggestion.
“We’ll leave you to rest now, Betty. There will be an agent outside your room at all times, and a nurse who is an agent will be taking care of you. You can feel safe now.” Jack took Betty’s hand and squeezed it.
“Thank you. And thank you, Sue, for staying with me. I needed so badly to see a friendly face.” Betty was close to tears again, but this time in gratitude, as she took Sue’s hand.
“You’ve been in my prayers, Betty. I’ll see you tomorrow, and if you need anything, call me.” Sue squeezed Betty’s hand in a quick prayer, and they took their leave.
As they walked down the hallway toward the elevator, Sue spoke. “I think she’s still in shock. She never mentioned the man in the car. It’s like she had blocked out that whole event.” She looked at Jack with tears in her eyes for her friend.
“We don’t know what she knows, Sue. We’ll have to tread carefully. Do you remember the Stockholm Syndrome? That’s what happened with Patty Hearst in the ‘70s. She was brainwashed by her kidnappers to the point that she was willing to commit crimes for them, and was willing to defend them with her life.” Jack didn’t want Sue to get her hopes up. Better to hope for less and get more. That was his philosophy.
“I don’t think so. She talked about Dessa. She called him a monster. She talked about Lily. I think when she gets over the shock of having been strapped into a suicide vest and left to explode, she’ll be able to give us some information.” Sue was starting to get her back up, and was ready to defend Betty.
“Truce!” Jack held up both hands and turned Sue toward him in the lobby of the hospital, taking both her hands. “How about we wait and see what tomorrow brings? We still have a man in lockup ready to be interrogated, and tomorrow we’ll have a chance to talk to Betty. Please?”
She started to relax, Jack’s thumbs massaging her wrists. Sue tilted her head to one side and gave Jack a little grin at his childish use of the ‘magic word.’ She took her hands from Jack, and felt colder, somehow when she did that.
“OK. I won’t yell at you any more tonight. Thank you for bringing Levi. I think that helped Betty a lot.” She glanced up at him through her eyelashes to see him laughing at her quietly.
“What do you want to bet our pizza’s cold by now?” Jack smiled and put his arm around Sue’s shoulders and they exited the hospital in search of cold pizza.
Chapter 21
“OK, here’s what we know.” D was in charge of the briefing after the pizza boxes were discarded. “The car with the suicide bomb was in position to take out a National Historic Landmark, Ford’s Theater. It would also have put a major crimp in FBI activities, being only 2 blocks away from headquarters.”
“Can we really call it a ‘suicide bomb’ if the person wearing the vest was drugged and tied up in the car?” Sue was still hesitant to put Betty in the same category as the terrorists that had held her captive.
“We’ll call it a car bomb for lack of a better term. Sorry, Sue.” Jack signed and bowed to Sue, and continued the presentation. “We know that the man we stopped on the street was NOT Achmed Kalihd. We’re in the process of matching fingerprints and descriptions to our database.”
“Which, I might add, is not going very quickly. We’ve not found a match on fingerprints in the US, so we’re branching out to the international database. We’re trying to match DNA, as well.” Tara looked up from her computer long enough to share this information.
“The bomb was in a well-constructed vest. Very high-quality explosives, very well-crafted detonating device.” Bobby was the bomb expert in the room. “We’ll know more about the bomb-maker when we deconstruct the vest. Lucy’s checking with all sources of this type of explosives to see who has had some go missing recently.”
“So how was Betty?” Myles asked. “Do you think she’ll be able to give us any valuable information?”
“She’s pretty traumatized right now. I’m hoping a decent night’s rest will help her get back on track. We’ll put her under protection as soon as she gets out of the hospital.” Jack had a concerned look, but lifted his hands in a shrug that said he didn’t know.
“OK, let’s get on the interrogation of the bomber and see what we can find out. Bobby?” D led the way out of the bullpen.
“Let’s go bully a bad guy,” Bobby quipped, following D out the door.
As D and Bobby ran the interrogation, Jack and Sue watched on the other side of the one-way glass.
“He’s not giving us anything. Our best hope is forensics and Betty.” Jack watched intently as the other two men went through all the hoops that are used in questioning terrorists. The man in the chair simply looked straight ahead.
“He looks familiar, but I can’t figure out why.” Sue was looking at him closely, not trying to read his lips, but studying his features.
“Guys.” Tara started waving to get Sue’s attention, and calling out to get the attention of everyone else. “Here’s an interesting development. I still haven’t gotten anything from the fingerprints, but the lab did rush the DNA taken from the man in the car.”
“What have you got? It has to be more than we got from talking to the guy.” Bobby was disgusted at the lack of progress in their interrogation.
“We may not have Achmed Kalihd, but we are a step closer. The DNA was not an exact match, but according to paternity matches and mitochondrial DNA tests, we did determine that the man that we stopped today is the SON of Achmed Kalihd.” Tara fairly glowed as she shared this information.
Jack’s eyes glittered at the prospect. “Son of ‘abominable.’ If we can flip him somehow, we might be able to get a line on this whole operation, and get papa to boot.”
“Good luck with that. He’s working on being the ‘strong, silent type.’” D wasn’t so sure about this possibility, but it was worth a try. It was the best lead they had to date.
“I guess that’s why he looked familiar. He does bear a slight resemblance to Achmed, and we’ve stared at his picture enough in the last few days.” Sue still looked at the picture of the new perpetrator as if she wasn’t convinced that this was the reason. He just looked familiar.
“OK, here’s what we know.” D was in charge of the briefing after the pizza boxes were discarded. “The car with the suicide bomb was in position to take out a National Historic Landmark, Ford’s Theater. It would also have put a major crimp in FBI activities, being only 2 blocks away from headquarters.”
“Can we really call it a ‘suicide bomb’ if the person wearing the vest was drugged and tied up in the car?” Sue was still hesitant to put Betty in the same category as the terrorists that had held her captive.
“We’ll call it a car bomb for lack of a better term. Sorry, Sue.” Jack signed and bowed to Sue, and continued the presentation. “We know that the man we stopped on the street was NOT Achmed Kalihd. We’re in the process of matching fingerprints and descriptions to our database.”
“Which, I might add, is not going very quickly. We’ve not found a match on fingerprints in the US, so we’re branching out to the international database. We’re trying to match DNA, as well.” Tara looked up from her computer long enough to share this information.
“The bomb was in a well-constructed vest. Very high-quality explosives, very well-crafted detonating device.” Bobby was the bomb expert in the room. “We’ll know more about the bomb-maker when we deconstruct the vest. Lucy’s checking with all sources of this type of explosives to see who has had some go missing recently.”
“So how was Betty?” Myles asked. “Do you think she’ll be able to give us any valuable information?”
“She’s pretty traumatized right now. I’m hoping a decent night’s rest will help her get back on track. We’ll put her under protection as soon as she gets out of the hospital.” Jack had a concerned look, but lifted his hands in a shrug that said he didn’t know.
“OK, let’s get on the interrogation of the bomber and see what we can find out. Bobby?” D led the way out of the bullpen.
“Let’s go bully a bad guy,” Bobby quipped, following D out the door.
As D and Bobby ran the interrogation, Jack and Sue watched on the other side of the one-way glass.
“He’s not giving us anything. Our best hope is forensics and Betty.” Jack watched intently as the other two men went through all the hoops that are used in questioning terrorists. The man in the chair simply looked straight ahead.
“He looks familiar, but I can’t figure out why.” Sue was looking at him closely, not trying to read his lips, but studying his features.
*
“Guys.” Tara started waving to get Sue’s attention, and calling out to get the attention of everyone else. “Here’s an interesting development. I still haven’t gotten anything from the fingerprints, but the lab did rush the DNA taken from the man in the car.”
“What have you got? It has to be more than we got from talking to the guy.” Bobby was disgusted at the lack of progress in their interrogation.
“We may not have Achmed Kalihd, but we are a step closer. The DNA was not an exact match, but according to paternity matches and mitochondrial DNA tests, we did determine that the man that we stopped today is the SON of Achmed Kalihd.” Tara fairly glowed as she shared this information.
Jack’s eyes glittered at the prospect. “Son of ‘abominable.’ If we can flip him somehow, we might be able to get a line on this whole operation, and get papa to boot.”
“Good luck with that. He’s working on being the ‘strong, silent type.’” D wasn’t so sure about this possibility, but it was worth a try. It was the best lead they had to date.
“I guess that’s why he looked familiar. He does bear a slight resemblance to Achmed, and we’ve stared at his picture enough in the last few days.” Sue still looked at the picture of the new perpetrator as if she wasn’t convinced that this was the reason. He just looked familiar.
Chapter 22
January 7
“His name is Mahlik Kalihd. Or at least that’s what they called him in front of me. Achmed was the bomb-maker.” Betty was sitting in the conference room of the FBI, giving them as much information as she could about her horrific experience at the hands of terrorists.
“Did they ever let any information drop about how long they’ve been in the country?” Jack asked, his eyes boring into Betty as if trying to see into her mind whether or not she was telling them the truth.
“No, but they both spoke English fluently.” Betty was feeling better, but still very weak. They decided that the interrogation room would be too uncomfortable after all she had been through.
Continuing the line of questioning, Sue was concerned about Betty. She so did not want Betty to be involved in this, but it was as Jack had told her. Until there was proof that she WAS taken against her will, she would be considered a suspect – but Betty did not have to know that.
Betty decided to start at the beginning of her story. After a pause to collect her thoughts, she began.
“I was at work at the service and rescue dog training center when I got a strange call. I didn’t really think much about it at the time, but the more I look back on it, the more I could kick myself for not realizing it. I had lulled myself into a false sense of security, I guess. I was making friends, I had a job that I loved, I liked my apartment. Yes, I was alone, but it was a good kind of alone, you know?” Betty looked from Jack to Sue, who nodded in understanding.
“Anyway, one of the things I did in my job was to interview kennel operators who donate animals to be trained as service or rescue dogs. The receptionist passed this call on to me – a breeder that wasn’t on our list of donors and would like to be considered. No problem, I thought. The address was just outside of the city, and it was near the end of the day, so I called a neighbor to look in on Lily, telling them that I would be running late, if they wouldn’t mind to let her out and check on her. We had an arrangement with one another about our animals. I looked in on their animals, they looked in on mine.”
“I went to the address I was given. It was farther out than I thought. When I arrived, it was a run-down farm with one vehicle parked in front.” Betty paused as Jack spoke up.
“Let me guess – it was a silver four-door sedan,” Jack said grimly.
“Yes. The same one that you found me in yesterday. I didn’t really like the idea of getting out there, so I pulled into the driveway and waited a few minutes, looking around. He must have been waiting for me. Suddenly Achmed was standing next to my car, holding a gun on me. He told me to get out without speaking, and I wouldn’t get hurt.” Betty looked down and shivered as she recalled the incident.
“Had you seen either of these men before in the course of your marriage to Joseph?” Sue asked, tenderly.
Betty looked up and smiled at Sue as she answered. “No. He kept that part of his life hidden from me. Joseph, or Dessa, only let me meet his acquaintances that were from Holland, like himself, unless he could tell me that they had gone to school together. From what the Kalihds said in front of me, they were either from Yemen or of Yemeni descent. Occasionally they would speak to one another in Arabic, but they mostly spoke English, and very well.”
“Did Kalihd hold you there at the farm?” Jack asked, already getting the address to Tara to start looking for the farm, and to get a team from the Denver office out there to do a thorough search.
“For a few days. He kept me tied up and alone except to eat and clean up. After he got his orders, or got his plan together, I was blindfolded and put in the backseat of the car, tied at my wrists and ankles. We drove hours and hours. When we would stop, it would always be at out-of-the-way places, and when he stopped to get food, he would lie me down in the backseat and cover me with a blanket. I never saw anyone. You have no idea what it meant to me to see your familiar faces, even in a drugged haze.” Betty’s tears began anew at the relief she had felt as Bobby and Jack came to her rescue.
“When was the first time you saw Dessa?” Jack felt sorry for Betty, but knew they couldn’t digress at this point. “Had Kalihd mentioned his name to you?”
“I didn’t know I was to see Joseph until we were ushered into the room to wait for the prisoner.” She shuddered at the memory. As Betty paused, Sue looked across at Jack and nodded. This was the body language she had seen in the video tape from the prison. Terror and revulsion.
“Betty’s story seems to be checking out,” Jack shared with the rest of the team back in the bullpen. “We could tell from the accounts of the staff at the hotel as well as from the tapes from the prison that she didn’t want to be where she was.”
“Her lie detector test came back. She’s not lying, unless she’s been practicing – and I don’t think you do that on a regular basis working for a service dog organization.” Myles was looking at the results of the test and the background info Betty had given them.
“Betty said that after the visits to Joseph stopped, he brought her to DC, where they picked up Mahlik,” Sue paused, looked down at her hands, and over at Lucy.
“She told me that he had taken her purse from her in Colorado. My card was in her purse, with my phone number on it. They knew it was Georgetown, and had the apartment staked out, but with us gone, they couldn’t tell which apartment was ours.” Sue looked like she was feeling the strain that the past few days had put on all of them.
“If you and Lucy hadn’t been out of town, it might have been a whole different investigation,” Bobby said, nothing flip or joking about his demeanor this time.
“So, if Betty was being held at another location, Dessa was in jail, and Achmed was being shot just outside the apartment, who is the shooter? Mahlik?” Tara was looking more puzzled all the time.
Jack threw his hands up and shook his head, then rubbed the back of his neck in frustration. “I don’t know. That’s the real mystery in this whole thing.”
“Maybe Mahlik was tired of playing second fiddle? Family ties are one thing, but there are all those rewards for those who die in the name of Jihad!” D was trying to make some sense out of the situation. “Ford’s Theater may have just been a practice run. The real target is probably much bigger.”
“Ford’s Theater, historically, is looked upon by some as a tragedy much like the 9/11 ground zero in New York. It isn’t blatantly political, but a place regular people went for amusement – until Lincoln was shot. It’s been looked upon differently ever since.” Myles was waxing poetical, but as usual, it made everyone stop and think about the psychological ramifications of terrorism. “It would be like bombing the Olympics – Oh wait, that was done, as well!” Myles stopped talking and smiled grimly at the rest of the team as he went back to his desk.
“Our next step is to find Achmed. We’ve got to find a way to break Mahlik,” Jack said. He was pulling it back together. Sometimes Myles’ little jags were just enough to get him back on track. He gave Myles’ a nod and a half-smile of thanks.
“We’ll be talking to Betty again first thing in the morning. She needed to rest after giving us the full play-by-play of the last three months. She’s still pretty weak from the drugs they put in her system. I’m hoping we can show her some pictures and see if she remembers some little something that triggers a memory.”
Sue looked over at Jack, who made the sign for ‘hungry?’ She nodded ‘yes,’ quietly. ‘I’m buyin’,’ Jack signed back. Sue just smiled at him quietly
“Alright people, everybody grab a bite and prepare for a long night. There’s a needle in this haystack somewhere. Now it’s up to us to find it.” Jack dismissed the meeting and went to his desk.
“Sue, some of us are going over to Tony’s for some sandwiches. Wanna come?” Lucy was standing by Sue’s desk.
“Thanks, Luce. I’ve got something to clear up here. I’ll catch you next time.” Sue smiled up at Lucy and looked surprised as Jack came up, both his coat and Sue’s in hand, and said “ready?”
“I get ‘cha, girlfriend. Catch YOU later! Hope everything clears up OK!” Lucy slid away with that evil matchmaking gleam in her eyes, and a broad smile on her lips.
Jack, seeing the blush on Sue’s cheeks, said “What was that all about?”
“Nothing. She had invited me to go with them to supper, and I told her I had something to clear up. Did anyone invite you?” Sue was watching Jack carefully as he answered, looking for any hint of why he would go to dinner with just her.
“Yeah. Bobby said they were all going, but I didn’t feel like company. Not that you’re not company!” Jack started backtracking at the lift in Sue’s eyebrows and the stance of her shoulders.
“I mean I wanted a quiet dinner, with good company. I can’t think when there’s so much going on. With you, I can think.” ‘Well, sometimes I can think,’ he thought to himself, as he stumbled over the last few sentences, looking at Sue. His eyes were pleading with her to let him off the hook this time.
When did Jack Hudson learn to use those puppy-dog eyes? Sue was betting that he had been a hard one to say ‘no’ to when he was a kid.
“Well, you came to the right place. Quiet dinners are all I ever have,” she said, with a saucy lift to her chin and a smile on her face. She’d let him off the hook this time, but it was so pleasant to have HIM stumbling over his words instead of her, for a change.
Jack laughed, and helped her on with her coat. “How does the Slovakian restaurant around the corner sound?”
“As long as you don’t make me order that pork, cabbage, and potato thing, I don’t care where we eat.” Sue gave him ‘the look’ that bade him no argument.
“But they make the best Kadliki in the tri-state! What’s not to like about a dish that has only three ingredients?” Jack laughed at Sue as they entered the elevator to go down, Levi in tow.
As they came off the elevator on the ground floor, Jack said “Someday I’m going to experiment making my own Kadliki, you will be required to taste it. Maybe I can make it part of a test for how loyal a partner is!”
“Oh no. I feel sorry for whoever finally takes pity on you and marries you. You’ll be messing up the kitchen all the time, won’t you?” At the thought of Jack married, Sue got a dazed look in her eyes, and lost track of the conversation. Funny, with all that snow, you’d think it would be melting as warm as it was. Feeling Jack shaking beside her, she asked “Did you say something?”
Jack was laughing beside her, a flush coming from the region of his collar, as well. “I just said, you have no idea!”
Dinner passed uneventfully. Jack kept a close watch the whole time they were out. When he and Sue got out on the lightly-traveled sidewalk, it occurred to him that they would be easy targets. Achmed must be keeping a low profile.
Sue noticed him in surveillance mode as they walked down the street toward the restaurant. While they were eating, she asked a question that was more of a statement. “We should have stayed with the group, shouldn’t we. It would have been safer.”
“Maybe. I think Achmed is probably holed up somewhere re-thinking his plan. Besides, this is much nicer than a noisy sandwich shop, don’t you think?” Jack grinned over at Sue, sitting directly across from him.
“The noise doesn’t bother me, but trying to keep up with so many conversations sometimes does. This is nice. Thank you, Jack. Sometimes I like to be with the crowd, and sometimes I like to ‘decompress’ a little, you know?” She looked over, watching not only for his words, but for a signal that he felt the same way.
“Yeah, me too. Thanks for coming with me. Do you realize we’ve spent almost every waking moment together for the past five days, since I picked you up from the airport?” He looked at his dinner companion questioningly.
“We’ll be like old army buddies before this is over.” Sue smiled mischievously across at him, watching his face crease in a warm smile as he looked down at his dinner.
When he looked up at her, she had a hard time looking at his lips. When she did, she saw him say “I never had a buddy that looked – or smelled – quite like you!” That did it. She threw her napkin at him when he laughed at her. When Jack made comments like that, and looked at her like that, it was as if he were just trying to get her flustered.
When they got back from the restaurant, the rest of the team was already hard at work. At the applause that greeted them when they walked in, Jack sputtered and asked Sue, “How long were we gone, anyway?” Sue just shrugged her shoulders, smiled, and walked to her desk.
“You were gone all of 95 minutes, Sparky. I thought you were just going around the corner? You could have driven to Bethesda and back by now!” Bobby was enjoying his friend’s discomfort, as was the rest of the team.
“Oh, Bobby, Jack and Sue haven’t seen much of one another the past few days. They needed a little ‘quality time,’” Myles added, a suspicious gleam in his eyes underneath one arched brow.
“Come on, guys. You must not have much of a life, if you have to go to dinner and dissect mine!” Jack hung his coat up and looked over at Sue, who was diligently looking straight at her computer screen, glancing up enough to keep up with the conversation, a gentle flush creeping up her neck.
“Do you remember Jack’s explanation of their ‘cover’ after the Callahan and Merced case?” D was jogging their memories of another time Jack sputtered at an accusation – he was accused of ‘making out’ with Sue as part of their cover.
“I seem to remember feeling betrayed, as only a wife can feel,” Tara chimed in, mock-tearfully, recalling her spur-of-the moment role as Jack’s wife.
“You’re all a bunch of comedians! It’s nice we have nothing better to do that pick on Jack tonight, isn’t it? So do we have any more LEADS?” Jack asked, trying desperately to get things back on the subject at hand.
Tara raised her hand to get their attention, especially Sue’s. “As much as I would like to continue the comedy routine, actually, we do. SOG got back with me. They’ve heard from the Denver office about the search of the farm where Betty was held. They’ve found bits of things from Betty’s purse, a bottle of hair dye, a dud blasting cap, wire, batteries, basic stuff for the terrorist who has everything.”
“So, they had the ingredients for the bomb – at least part of them – before Achmed left Colorado. That confirms what Betty has been telling us,” Jack said. He looked around at his team. They were focused now. It always amazed him how they could turn on a dime, himself included. “Anything else?”
“We’re still looking for the location Betty helped us pinpoint as to where she was being held her in DC. According to how long she was in the car, sounds, stop lights, etc., we’ve drawn a circle with Ford’s Theater in the center – and Georgetown is in that circle.” D looked at Sue and Lucy. “And with the link to Sue and Lucy’s apartment, I would almost hazard a guess that they were hiding out in their neighborhood.”
“I’m still not convinced that baby bear wasn’t after papa bear in the shooting incident. Unless there is yet another bad guy out there we’re not aware of, or a sleeper cell of terrorists out there waiting for their orders, Betty and Mahlik are the only ones tied to the incident.” Myles was deep in thought. “I wish we could tie Dessa into this even tighter. I would love to add a few more sentences onto his already life-imprisonment.” He looked up at Jack, who nodded in agreement.
“Me, too. We’re not going to get very far until we’ve had another chance to talk to Betty. Maybe she can give us some clues as to what would set Mahlik off and get him to talk. Sue, we’ll brainstorm some questions for Betty that might trigger some memories of where she was held. Right now, she’s the only cooperative witness we’ve got.” Jack looked over at Sue, who made a note, nodding as she wrote. “Let’s go to our respective places, get some rest, and be back here about 7:30 in the morning.”
“I’ll pick up the donuts tomorrow!” Tara called out, as she was gathering her laptop and coat to leave for the night.
“Did you want to stay and talk about Betty’s questioning tonight, or talk about it when we get to the hotel?” Sue asked Jack, before she got her hopes up about leaving.
“Let’s get out of here. I’ve put some yellow legal pads in my briefcase. That and our laptops should be all we need. Lucy, are you ready? The bus to the Comfort Inn is about to make it’s last run.” Jack was gathering his things, handing Sue her coat as he spoke.
“So, Sue, did you have the famous Kadliki at the Slovakian restaurant?” Lucy was in a teasing mood, and just giggled when Sue gave her a dirty look as they left the office.
January 7
“His name is Mahlik Kalihd. Or at least that’s what they called him in front of me. Achmed was the bomb-maker.” Betty was sitting in the conference room of the FBI, giving them as much information as she could about her horrific experience at the hands of terrorists.
“Did they ever let any information drop about how long they’ve been in the country?” Jack asked, his eyes boring into Betty as if trying to see into her mind whether or not she was telling them the truth.
“No, but they both spoke English fluently.” Betty was feeling better, but still very weak. They decided that the interrogation room would be too uncomfortable after all she had been through.
Continuing the line of questioning, Sue was concerned about Betty. She so did not want Betty to be involved in this, but it was as Jack had told her. Until there was proof that she WAS taken against her will, she would be considered a suspect – but Betty did not have to know that.
Betty decided to start at the beginning of her story. After a pause to collect her thoughts, she began.
“I was at work at the service and rescue dog training center when I got a strange call. I didn’t really think much about it at the time, but the more I look back on it, the more I could kick myself for not realizing it. I had lulled myself into a false sense of security, I guess. I was making friends, I had a job that I loved, I liked my apartment. Yes, I was alone, but it was a good kind of alone, you know?” Betty looked from Jack to Sue, who nodded in understanding.
“Anyway, one of the things I did in my job was to interview kennel operators who donate animals to be trained as service or rescue dogs. The receptionist passed this call on to me – a breeder that wasn’t on our list of donors and would like to be considered. No problem, I thought. The address was just outside of the city, and it was near the end of the day, so I called a neighbor to look in on Lily, telling them that I would be running late, if they wouldn’t mind to let her out and check on her. We had an arrangement with one another about our animals. I looked in on their animals, they looked in on mine.”
“I went to the address I was given. It was farther out than I thought. When I arrived, it was a run-down farm with one vehicle parked in front.” Betty paused as Jack spoke up.
“Let me guess – it was a silver four-door sedan,” Jack said grimly.
“Yes. The same one that you found me in yesterday. I didn’t really like the idea of getting out there, so I pulled into the driveway and waited a few minutes, looking around. He must have been waiting for me. Suddenly Achmed was standing next to my car, holding a gun on me. He told me to get out without speaking, and I wouldn’t get hurt.” Betty looked down and shivered as she recalled the incident.
“Had you seen either of these men before in the course of your marriage to Joseph?” Sue asked, tenderly.
Betty looked up and smiled at Sue as she answered. “No. He kept that part of his life hidden from me. Joseph, or Dessa, only let me meet his acquaintances that were from Holland, like himself, unless he could tell me that they had gone to school together. From what the Kalihds said in front of me, they were either from Yemen or of Yemeni descent. Occasionally they would speak to one another in Arabic, but they mostly spoke English, and very well.”
“Did Kalihd hold you there at the farm?” Jack asked, already getting the address to Tara to start looking for the farm, and to get a team from the Denver office out there to do a thorough search.
“For a few days. He kept me tied up and alone except to eat and clean up. After he got his orders, or got his plan together, I was blindfolded and put in the backseat of the car, tied at my wrists and ankles. We drove hours and hours. When we would stop, it would always be at out-of-the-way places, and when he stopped to get food, he would lie me down in the backseat and cover me with a blanket. I never saw anyone. You have no idea what it meant to me to see your familiar faces, even in a drugged haze.” Betty’s tears began anew at the relief she had felt as Bobby and Jack came to her rescue.
“When was the first time you saw Dessa?” Jack felt sorry for Betty, but knew they couldn’t digress at this point. “Had Kalihd mentioned his name to you?”
“I didn’t know I was to see Joseph until we were ushered into the room to wait for the prisoner.” She shuddered at the memory. As Betty paused, Sue looked across at Jack and nodded. This was the body language she had seen in the video tape from the prison. Terror and revulsion.
*
“Betty’s story seems to be checking out,” Jack shared with the rest of the team back in the bullpen. “We could tell from the accounts of the staff at the hotel as well as from the tapes from the prison that she didn’t want to be where she was.”
“Her lie detector test came back. She’s not lying, unless she’s been practicing – and I don’t think you do that on a regular basis working for a service dog organization.” Myles was looking at the results of the test and the background info Betty had given them.
“Betty said that after the visits to Joseph stopped, he brought her to DC, where they picked up Mahlik,” Sue paused, looked down at her hands, and over at Lucy.
“She told me that he had taken her purse from her in Colorado. My card was in her purse, with my phone number on it. They knew it was Georgetown, and had the apartment staked out, but with us gone, they couldn’t tell which apartment was ours.” Sue looked like she was feeling the strain that the past few days had put on all of them.
“If you and Lucy hadn’t been out of town, it might have been a whole different investigation,” Bobby said, nothing flip or joking about his demeanor this time.
“So, if Betty was being held at another location, Dessa was in jail, and Achmed was being shot just outside the apartment, who is the shooter? Mahlik?” Tara was looking more puzzled all the time.
Jack threw his hands up and shook his head, then rubbed the back of his neck in frustration. “I don’t know. That’s the real mystery in this whole thing.”
“Maybe Mahlik was tired of playing second fiddle? Family ties are one thing, but there are all those rewards for those who die in the name of Jihad!” D was trying to make some sense out of the situation. “Ford’s Theater may have just been a practice run. The real target is probably much bigger.”
“Ford’s Theater, historically, is looked upon by some as a tragedy much like the 9/11 ground zero in New York. It isn’t blatantly political, but a place regular people went for amusement – until Lincoln was shot. It’s been looked upon differently ever since.” Myles was waxing poetical, but as usual, it made everyone stop and think about the psychological ramifications of terrorism. “It would be like bombing the Olympics – Oh wait, that was done, as well!” Myles stopped talking and smiled grimly at the rest of the team as he went back to his desk.
“Our next step is to find Achmed. We’ve got to find a way to break Mahlik,” Jack said. He was pulling it back together. Sometimes Myles’ little jags were just enough to get him back on track. He gave Myles’ a nod and a half-smile of thanks.
“We’ll be talking to Betty again first thing in the morning. She needed to rest after giving us the full play-by-play of the last three months. She’s still pretty weak from the drugs they put in her system. I’m hoping we can show her some pictures and see if she remembers some little something that triggers a memory.”
Sue looked over at Jack, who made the sign for ‘hungry?’ She nodded ‘yes,’ quietly. ‘I’m buyin’,’ Jack signed back. Sue just smiled at him quietly
“Alright people, everybody grab a bite and prepare for a long night. There’s a needle in this haystack somewhere. Now it’s up to us to find it.” Jack dismissed the meeting and went to his desk.
“Sue, some of us are going over to Tony’s for some sandwiches. Wanna come?” Lucy was standing by Sue’s desk.
“Thanks, Luce. I’ve got something to clear up here. I’ll catch you next time.” Sue smiled up at Lucy and looked surprised as Jack came up, both his coat and Sue’s in hand, and said “ready?”
“I get ‘cha, girlfriend. Catch YOU later! Hope everything clears up OK!” Lucy slid away with that evil matchmaking gleam in her eyes, and a broad smile on her lips.
Jack, seeing the blush on Sue’s cheeks, said “What was that all about?”
“Nothing. She had invited me to go with them to supper, and I told her I had something to clear up. Did anyone invite you?” Sue was watching Jack carefully as he answered, looking for any hint of why he would go to dinner with just her.
“Yeah. Bobby said they were all going, but I didn’t feel like company. Not that you’re not company!” Jack started backtracking at the lift in Sue’s eyebrows and the stance of her shoulders.
“I mean I wanted a quiet dinner, with good company. I can’t think when there’s so much going on. With you, I can think.” ‘Well, sometimes I can think,’ he thought to himself, as he stumbled over the last few sentences, looking at Sue. His eyes were pleading with her to let him off the hook this time.
When did Jack Hudson learn to use those puppy-dog eyes? Sue was betting that he had been a hard one to say ‘no’ to when he was a kid.
“Well, you came to the right place. Quiet dinners are all I ever have,” she said, with a saucy lift to her chin and a smile on her face. She’d let him off the hook this time, but it was so pleasant to have HIM stumbling over his words instead of her, for a change.
Jack laughed, and helped her on with her coat. “How does the Slovakian restaurant around the corner sound?”
“As long as you don’t make me order that pork, cabbage, and potato thing, I don’t care where we eat.” Sue gave him ‘the look’ that bade him no argument.
“But they make the best Kadliki in the tri-state! What’s not to like about a dish that has only three ingredients?” Jack laughed at Sue as they entered the elevator to go down, Levi in tow.
As they came off the elevator on the ground floor, Jack said “Someday I’m going to experiment making my own Kadliki, you will be required to taste it. Maybe I can make it part of a test for how loyal a partner is!”
“Oh no. I feel sorry for whoever finally takes pity on you and marries you. You’ll be messing up the kitchen all the time, won’t you?” At the thought of Jack married, Sue got a dazed look in her eyes, and lost track of the conversation. Funny, with all that snow, you’d think it would be melting as warm as it was. Feeling Jack shaking beside her, she asked “Did you say something?”
Jack was laughing beside her, a flush coming from the region of his collar, as well. “I just said, you have no idea!”
*
Dinner passed uneventfully. Jack kept a close watch the whole time they were out. When he and Sue got out on the lightly-traveled sidewalk, it occurred to him that they would be easy targets. Achmed must be keeping a low profile.
Sue noticed him in surveillance mode as they walked down the street toward the restaurant. While they were eating, she asked a question that was more of a statement. “We should have stayed with the group, shouldn’t we. It would have been safer.”
“Maybe. I think Achmed is probably holed up somewhere re-thinking his plan. Besides, this is much nicer than a noisy sandwich shop, don’t you think?” Jack grinned over at Sue, sitting directly across from him.
“The noise doesn’t bother me, but trying to keep up with so many conversations sometimes does. This is nice. Thank you, Jack. Sometimes I like to be with the crowd, and sometimes I like to ‘decompress’ a little, you know?” She looked over, watching not only for his words, but for a signal that he felt the same way.
“Yeah, me too. Thanks for coming with me. Do you realize we’ve spent almost every waking moment together for the past five days, since I picked you up from the airport?” He looked at his dinner companion questioningly.
“We’ll be like old army buddies before this is over.” Sue smiled mischievously across at him, watching his face crease in a warm smile as he looked down at his dinner.
When he looked up at her, she had a hard time looking at his lips. When she did, she saw him say “I never had a buddy that looked – or smelled – quite like you!” That did it. She threw her napkin at him when he laughed at her. When Jack made comments like that, and looked at her like that, it was as if he were just trying to get her flustered.
*
When they got back from the restaurant, the rest of the team was already hard at work. At the applause that greeted them when they walked in, Jack sputtered and asked Sue, “How long were we gone, anyway?” Sue just shrugged her shoulders, smiled, and walked to her desk.
“You were gone all of 95 minutes, Sparky. I thought you were just going around the corner? You could have driven to Bethesda and back by now!” Bobby was enjoying his friend’s discomfort, as was the rest of the team.
“Oh, Bobby, Jack and Sue haven’t seen much of one another the past few days. They needed a little ‘quality time,’” Myles added, a suspicious gleam in his eyes underneath one arched brow.
“Come on, guys. You must not have much of a life, if you have to go to dinner and dissect mine!” Jack hung his coat up and looked over at Sue, who was diligently looking straight at her computer screen, glancing up enough to keep up with the conversation, a gentle flush creeping up her neck.
“Do you remember Jack’s explanation of their ‘cover’ after the Callahan and Merced case?” D was jogging their memories of another time Jack sputtered at an accusation – he was accused of ‘making out’ with Sue as part of their cover.
“I seem to remember feeling betrayed, as only a wife can feel,” Tara chimed in, mock-tearfully, recalling her spur-of-the moment role as Jack’s wife.
“You’re all a bunch of comedians! It’s nice we have nothing better to do that pick on Jack tonight, isn’t it? So do we have any more LEADS?” Jack asked, trying desperately to get things back on the subject at hand.
Tara raised her hand to get their attention, especially Sue’s. “As much as I would like to continue the comedy routine, actually, we do. SOG got back with me. They’ve heard from the Denver office about the search of the farm where Betty was held. They’ve found bits of things from Betty’s purse, a bottle of hair dye, a dud blasting cap, wire, batteries, basic stuff for the terrorist who has everything.”
“So, they had the ingredients for the bomb – at least part of them – before Achmed left Colorado. That confirms what Betty has been telling us,” Jack said. He looked around at his team. They were focused now. It always amazed him how they could turn on a dime, himself included. “Anything else?”
“We’re still looking for the location Betty helped us pinpoint as to where she was being held her in DC. According to how long she was in the car, sounds, stop lights, etc., we’ve drawn a circle with Ford’s Theater in the center – and Georgetown is in that circle.” D looked at Sue and Lucy. “And with the link to Sue and Lucy’s apartment, I would almost hazard a guess that they were hiding out in their neighborhood.”
“I’m still not convinced that baby bear wasn’t after papa bear in the shooting incident. Unless there is yet another bad guy out there we’re not aware of, or a sleeper cell of terrorists out there waiting for their orders, Betty and Mahlik are the only ones tied to the incident.” Myles was deep in thought. “I wish we could tie Dessa into this even tighter. I would love to add a few more sentences onto his already life-imprisonment.” He looked up at Jack, who nodded in agreement.
“Me, too. We’re not going to get very far until we’ve had another chance to talk to Betty. Maybe she can give us some clues as to what would set Mahlik off and get him to talk. Sue, we’ll brainstorm some questions for Betty that might trigger some memories of where she was held. Right now, she’s the only cooperative witness we’ve got.” Jack looked over at Sue, who made a note, nodding as she wrote. “Let’s go to our respective places, get some rest, and be back here about 7:30 in the morning.”
“I’ll pick up the donuts tomorrow!” Tara called out, as she was gathering her laptop and coat to leave for the night.
“Did you want to stay and talk about Betty’s questioning tonight, or talk about it when we get to the hotel?” Sue asked Jack, before she got her hopes up about leaving.
“Let’s get out of here. I’ve put some yellow legal pads in my briefcase. That and our laptops should be all we need. Lucy, are you ready? The bus to the Comfort Inn is about to make it’s last run.” Jack was gathering his things, handing Sue her coat as he spoke.
“So, Sue, did you have the famous Kadliki at the Slovakian restaurant?” Lucy was in a teasing mood, and just giggled when Sue gave her a dirty look as they left the office.
Chapter 23
January 8
The team was slowly assembling in the bullpen. Bobby had made coffee, which tasted a little like hydraulic fluid, and D had stopped at the local coffee shop and brought everyone coffee, just in case.
Tara flitted in, two boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts in her hands. “The ‘fresh’ light was on – I couldn’t NOT get the extra dozen glazed,” she said breathlessly with a shrug and a smile.
Myles came in, his sleep-deprived eyes widening at the sight of the extra donuts. “High fat content or not, I refuse to deprive myself of the ambrosia of the gods,” as he bit into his first – but definitely not his last – donut of the day.
Last but not least, the hotel-abiding group came in. They could hear the sounds of grumbling even as they came in the door. “Stop complaining! We can’t help it if we made the breaker go off for both our rooms with our hairdryers all going at the same time. Hey, there’s a lot of hair between Sue and me!” Lucy came in the door rolling her eyes at Jack.
“Sorry we’re late, guys. Women!” Jack rolled his eyes in amusement as Sue gave him a look that told him he was pushing it, but not too far.
“Has the bloom worn off the roses so quickly, Jack?” Myles was salivating his way through his second donut – this time a lemon-filled.
“Let’s just say I feel sorry for any man who has to live with TWO women. Levi and I were grossly outnumbered, weren’t we, buddy?” As Jack reached down to give Levi a contraband bite of donut, Levi whined in agreement.
Lucy answered the phone, waved as she turned to the group and said, “That was the handler with Betty. They’ll be here by 8am.”
“That gives us about 20 minutes to get our act together. We need to get as much information as soon as possible. We don’t know what the timetable is for this operation. Let’s mix it up a bit today. I’m thinking Sue and Tara should talk to Betty this morning, and Bobby and I work on baby bear, Mahlik.” Jack finished the instructions, then went to his desk to call the guards to have Mahlik Kalihd taken to the interrogation room.
“You may as well talk. We’ve got Betty, and she’s singin’ like a canary. She didn’t much like the way she was treated on the trip from Colorado to Pennsylvania with Achmed, and she wasn’t treated any better when you joined them in DC. Getting strapped into a suicide vest against your will doesn’t inspire confidence in your host.” Bobby was getting in Mahlik’s face, getting only a dirty look in return.
Jack took over the interrogation. “We’ve found out that you’re Achmed Kalihd’s son. We have DNA and fingerprint evidence that links you to the farm in Denver and fingerprint evidence that links you to the bomb vest. How’s your relationship with dear old dad? When did you see him last?” Jack was trying to get a reaction, any reaction, before he played the sniper card.
Until his father was mentioned, Mahlik was impassive. At mention of Achmed, there was a flicker of something in his eyes.
Jack continued, this time leaning over Mahlik. “Give us Achmed, and we’ll see what we can do for you. We can’t promise you acquittal, but we might be able to run a plea bargain by the AUSA. We know you weren’t at the meetings with Arif Dessa. That’s one point in your favor.”
Baby bear looked from one man to another, hatred still in his eyes, but now a hint of something more. He said, “I want a lawyer.”
Jack nodded his head. Both men left the room. On the other side of the one-way glass, D nodded to them in approval as they came out.
Betty was on a secure line talking to the neighbors that had her dog, Lily. As she hung up, Tara handed her the box of tissues they had brought into the conference room. “Lily’s fine,” Betty said, brokenly. “They said that she had been despondent, but they felt that something must have happened – family emergency, something. They were praying for me.” Betty looked up at Sue, smiling through her tears. “They were the ones that invited me to go to church with them the first week I lived in my apartment. Without that foundation, I don’t know if I would have made it through this.”
Sue put her hand on Betty’s arm and gave it a squeeze. ‘You’ll be OK,’ Sue signed.
Tara looked at Betty and said, “Betty, we do have some more questions for you. If we’re going to find Achmed Kalihd, it’s going to take looking at the most minute details of your experience. Do you think you’re ready for that?”
“Yes, I know. I’ll do what I can. What do you want to know?” Betty was ready to get this behind her, once again.
“We need to pinpoint the location where they held you since coming to DC. Can you tell us anything about what the room looked like, the sounds, smells, or lighting in the room you were in?” Sue watched Betty carefully as she sat beside her, asking questions.
“I don’t know how much I can tell you. I was always blindfolded coming in and out, and tied up most of the time I was inside. It seemed like an older building. They kept the curtains drawn most of the time, but one day I was passing through another room to the bathroom and the curtain was open where they were talking. It was light, and the sun was coming in very brightly, early in the day.” Betty stopped, looked at the two girls to see if that meant anything to them.
“So, the building was probably facing East. That’s a start. What else do you remember?” Tara prompted.
“I remember waking early one morning to what sounded like a garbage truck. I think it was on a Wednesday. I tried to find out what day it was as often as possible. It was so easy to lose track of time.”
Betty drew a diagram of the apartment she was held in, as well as she could. Tara took the drawing, plus the info that trash pickup may have been on a Wednesday, to the bullpen. Myles was running down leads. “Oh, and look for apartments facing East,” Tara instructed him.
“Yes, m’lady,” Myles said, clicking his heels. Tara just smirked at him as she flew back to the conference room.
“Can you tell us anything about their movements since coming to DC? Did they ever leave you alone, and did you ever hear them talk about what they were doing here?” Sue tried to guide her toward information about her abductors.
“There were times that I was left alone. When they left, I was bound, gagged, and blindfolded until they came back. In the last few weeks there have been more arguments between them. I think there was a disagreement between father and son as to the priority of their ‘missions.’” Betty smiled weakly. “I tried to blend into the woodwork as much as possible, so they started ignoring the fact that I was there after a while.”
Sue nodded in understanding. “I can identify. I’ve learned a lot reading lips around people who didn’t think I was smart enough to figure out what they were saying.” Sue twisted her lips in a grimace as she spoke. She shrugged her shoulders and smiled. “Their loss!”
Betty continued. “One night, a few weeks ago, Achmed left after an argument with Mahlik. They had been arguing loudly, in a combination of Arabic and English. I got the feeling that Mahlik only joined his father in this operation in the last six months. When Achmed left, Mahlik came into the room where I was. He looked at me strangely. I was afraid he was going to do something to me, but only looked at me and said ‘My father and Dessa are mad. I must get out of this, but if I do, they will hunt me down and kill me.’ And then he bound me, blindfolded me, and left. I didn’t see Achmed after that.”
Sue and Tara looked at one another. Tara asked, “Can you pinpoint a date for that incident?” Things were starting to move.
“Not having access to a phone, radio, or TV, I can’t be sure, but I would say it was about two weeks ago.” Betty was looking at both Sue and Tara. “Does that mean something?”
“OK, Mr. Kalihd, we’re prepared to make a deal with you, if you give us information we can use. We need to know everything you know about the mission you, your father, and Arif Dessa were planning. We need to know where your father is right now.” Jack and Bobby had come in with Kalihd’s lawyer, Jack handling this part of the interrogation.
“We have reason to believe that your father has either gone underground or is missing. Can you speak to that statement?” Jack watched the man across the table closely, his lawyer advising him to choose carefully what he told the agents in the room.
Mahlik Kalihd started talking, first about his childhood, and about his relationship with his father.
“I never knew my father until two years ago. My mother told me that my father died when I was a young child. I was born in Yemen, but raised in Chicago. When my mother died, he came to me after the funeral. He brought me to Islam. I had been taken to Christian churches as a child. In my pain, what he told me made sense. I had experimented with different beliefs in college. What I learned from him the last six months has made me question what he has told me. In the last few weeks, it has made me question everything.”
“Where did you hold Betty in DC?” Bobby wanted to cut to the chase. They knew what Betty had told Sue and Tara. They knew that there was a recent rift between the two men, and they knew that it probably had to do with Achmed’s treatment of Betty. If any of them, especially Sue and Lucy, were going to get their lives back, they had to find Achmed.
“My instructions were to find the apartment of an FBI agent. I have lived in Georgetown for six weeks, blending into the community, watching her. She had been instrumental in taking down Dessa and ruining an operation. I was to find an apartment, hotel room, anything close to that apartment. He didn’t tell me why. I found out later the apartment was in the building next to the apartment building that Sue Thomas lives in. It wasn’t our main operation. As a favor to Dessa, we were supposed to take out the woman, as well as you, Agent Hudson.” Mahlik looked at Jack with a combination of fear and hatred.
Jack and Bobby exchanged glances. Jack pressed the point. “We’ve got to find Achmed. Can you tell us where he is?” If Achmed is still out there, they were in danger every time they left the Hoover building.
Mahlik gave Jack a grim smile. “I haven’t seen him since I shot him on Christmas Eve.”
January 8
The team was slowly assembling in the bullpen. Bobby had made coffee, which tasted a little like hydraulic fluid, and D had stopped at the local coffee shop and brought everyone coffee, just in case.
Tara flitted in, two boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts in her hands. “The ‘fresh’ light was on – I couldn’t NOT get the extra dozen glazed,” she said breathlessly with a shrug and a smile.
Myles came in, his sleep-deprived eyes widening at the sight of the extra donuts. “High fat content or not, I refuse to deprive myself of the ambrosia of the gods,” as he bit into his first – but definitely not his last – donut of the day.
Last but not least, the hotel-abiding group came in. They could hear the sounds of grumbling even as they came in the door. “Stop complaining! We can’t help it if we made the breaker go off for both our rooms with our hairdryers all going at the same time. Hey, there’s a lot of hair between Sue and me!” Lucy came in the door rolling her eyes at Jack.
“Sorry we’re late, guys. Women!” Jack rolled his eyes in amusement as Sue gave him a look that told him he was pushing it, but not too far.
“Has the bloom worn off the roses so quickly, Jack?” Myles was salivating his way through his second donut – this time a lemon-filled.
“Let’s just say I feel sorry for any man who has to live with TWO women. Levi and I were grossly outnumbered, weren’t we, buddy?” As Jack reached down to give Levi a contraband bite of donut, Levi whined in agreement.
Lucy answered the phone, waved as she turned to the group and said, “That was the handler with Betty. They’ll be here by 8am.”
“That gives us about 20 minutes to get our act together. We need to get as much information as soon as possible. We don’t know what the timetable is for this operation. Let’s mix it up a bit today. I’m thinking Sue and Tara should talk to Betty this morning, and Bobby and I work on baby bear, Mahlik.” Jack finished the instructions, then went to his desk to call the guards to have Mahlik Kalihd taken to the interrogation room.
*
“You may as well talk. We’ve got Betty, and she’s singin’ like a canary. She didn’t much like the way she was treated on the trip from Colorado to Pennsylvania with Achmed, and she wasn’t treated any better when you joined them in DC. Getting strapped into a suicide vest against your will doesn’t inspire confidence in your host.” Bobby was getting in Mahlik’s face, getting only a dirty look in return.
Jack took over the interrogation. “We’ve found out that you’re Achmed Kalihd’s son. We have DNA and fingerprint evidence that links you to the farm in Denver and fingerprint evidence that links you to the bomb vest. How’s your relationship with dear old dad? When did you see him last?” Jack was trying to get a reaction, any reaction, before he played the sniper card.
Until his father was mentioned, Mahlik was impassive. At mention of Achmed, there was a flicker of something in his eyes.
Jack continued, this time leaning over Mahlik. “Give us Achmed, and we’ll see what we can do for you. We can’t promise you acquittal, but we might be able to run a plea bargain by the AUSA. We know you weren’t at the meetings with Arif Dessa. That’s one point in your favor.”
Baby bear looked from one man to another, hatred still in his eyes, but now a hint of something more. He said, “I want a lawyer.”
Jack nodded his head. Both men left the room. On the other side of the one-way glass, D nodded to them in approval as they came out.
*
Betty was on a secure line talking to the neighbors that had her dog, Lily. As she hung up, Tara handed her the box of tissues they had brought into the conference room. “Lily’s fine,” Betty said, brokenly. “They said that she had been despondent, but they felt that something must have happened – family emergency, something. They were praying for me.” Betty looked up at Sue, smiling through her tears. “They were the ones that invited me to go to church with them the first week I lived in my apartment. Without that foundation, I don’t know if I would have made it through this.”
Sue put her hand on Betty’s arm and gave it a squeeze. ‘You’ll be OK,’ Sue signed.
Tara looked at Betty and said, “Betty, we do have some more questions for you. If we’re going to find Achmed Kalihd, it’s going to take looking at the most minute details of your experience. Do you think you’re ready for that?”
“Yes, I know. I’ll do what I can. What do you want to know?” Betty was ready to get this behind her, once again.
“We need to pinpoint the location where they held you since coming to DC. Can you tell us anything about what the room looked like, the sounds, smells, or lighting in the room you were in?” Sue watched Betty carefully as she sat beside her, asking questions.
“I don’t know how much I can tell you. I was always blindfolded coming in and out, and tied up most of the time I was inside. It seemed like an older building. They kept the curtains drawn most of the time, but one day I was passing through another room to the bathroom and the curtain was open where they were talking. It was light, and the sun was coming in very brightly, early in the day.” Betty stopped, looked at the two girls to see if that meant anything to them.
“So, the building was probably facing East. That’s a start. What else do you remember?” Tara prompted.
“I remember waking early one morning to what sounded like a garbage truck. I think it was on a Wednesday. I tried to find out what day it was as often as possible. It was so easy to lose track of time.”
Betty drew a diagram of the apartment she was held in, as well as she could. Tara took the drawing, plus the info that trash pickup may have been on a Wednesday, to the bullpen. Myles was running down leads. “Oh, and look for apartments facing East,” Tara instructed him.
“Yes, m’lady,” Myles said, clicking his heels. Tara just smirked at him as she flew back to the conference room.
“Can you tell us anything about their movements since coming to DC? Did they ever leave you alone, and did you ever hear them talk about what they were doing here?” Sue tried to guide her toward information about her abductors.
“There were times that I was left alone. When they left, I was bound, gagged, and blindfolded until they came back. In the last few weeks there have been more arguments between them. I think there was a disagreement between father and son as to the priority of their ‘missions.’” Betty smiled weakly. “I tried to blend into the woodwork as much as possible, so they started ignoring the fact that I was there after a while.”
Sue nodded in understanding. “I can identify. I’ve learned a lot reading lips around people who didn’t think I was smart enough to figure out what they were saying.” Sue twisted her lips in a grimace as she spoke. She shrugged her shoulders and smiled. “Their loss!”
Betty continued. “One night, a few weeks ago, Achmed left after an argument with Mahlik. They had been arguing loudly, in a combination of Arabic and English. I got the feeling that Mahlik only joined his father in this operation in the last six months. When Achmed left, Mahlik came into the room where I was. He looked at me strangely. I was afraid he was going to do something to me, but only looked at me and said ‘My father and Dessa are mad. I must get out of this, but if I do, they will hunt me down and kill me.’ And then he bound me, blindfolded me, and left. I didn’t see Achmed after that.”
Sue and Tara looked at one another. Tara asked, “Can you pinpoint a date for that incident?” Things were starting to move.
“Not having access to a phone, radio, or TV, I can’t be sure, but I would say it was about two weeks ago.” Betty was looking at both Sue and Tara. “Does that mean something?”
*
“OK, Mr. Kalihd, we’re prepared to make a deal with you, if you give us information we can use. We need to know everything you know about the mission you, your father, and Arif Dessa were planning. We need to know where your father is right now.” Jack and Bobby had come in with Kalihd’s lawyer, Jack handling this part of the interrogation.
“We have reason to believe that your father has either gone underground or is missing. Can you speak to that statement?” Jack watched the man across the table closely, his lawyer advising him to choose carefully what he told the agents in the room.
Mahlik Kalihd started talking, first about his childhood, and about his relationship with his father.
“I never knew my father until two years ago. My mother told me that my father died when I was a young child. I was born in Yemen, but raised in Chicago. When my mother died, he came to me after the funeral. He brought me to Islam. I had been taken to Christian churches as a child. In my pain, what he told me made sense. I had experimented with different beliefs in college. What I learned from him the last six months has made me question what he has told me. In the last few weeks, it has made me question everything.”
“Where did you hold Betty in DC?” Bobby wanted to cut to the chase. They knew what Betty had told Sue and Tara. They knew that there was a recent rift between the two men, and they knew that it probably had to do with Achmed’s treatment of Betty. If any of them, especially Sue and Lucy, were going to get their lives back, they had to find Achmed.
“My instructions were to find the apartment of an FBI agent. I have lived in Georgetown for six weeks, blending into the community, watching her. She had been instrumental in taking down Dessa and ruining an operation. I was to find an apartment, hotel room, anything close to that apartment. He didn’t tell me why. I found out later the apartment was in the building next to the apartment building that Sue Thomas lives in. It wasn’t our main operation. As a favor to Dessa, we were supposed to take out the woman, as well as you, Agent Hudson.” Mahlik looked at Jack with a combination of fear and hatred.
Jack and Bobby exchanged glances. Jack pressed the point. “We’ve got to find Achmed. Can you tell us where he is?” If Achmed is still out there, they were in danger every time they left the Hoover building.
Mahlik gave Jack a grim smile. “I haven’t seen him since I shot him on Christmas Eve.”
Chapter 24
As they rushed back to the bullpen, Jack and Bobby ran into Tara in the hallway.
“Where’s Sue?” Jack asked Tara, grabbing her arm.
“Sh-she and Myles went to get Levi some dog food,” she said, noting the intensity on Jack’s face. “What’s going on, guys?”
“We just found out that a secondary mission for the Kalihds was to take out Sue and me. She shouldn’t even be out of the building until we find Achmed,” Jack spat out. Jack looked at Tara with fear in his eyes, and the fear was matched in Tara’s.
“The Kalihds were holding Betty in an apartment in the building next to Sue’s,” Bobby told her as Jack got on his cell phone to call Myles.
“Myles, where are you?” Jack talked with a clipped sound to his voice. “You and Sue have to get back to the Hoover building ASAP. There’ve been some developments.”
“What’s going on, Jack?” Myles asked. “Sue’s just gone into the store to get Levi’s dog food. She didn’t trust me to pick out the right kind, for some reason.”
Jack closed his eyes, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. She was so easy to spot with that golden hair, even in a car.
“Is she by herself?” Jack didn’t know if he wanted the answer to the question.
“Nelson went in with her. What’s going on?” Myles was getting the idea that this little side trip of Sue’s wasn’t just a simple trip to the store.
“Get in there and bring her back here. We just found out that Achmed’s instructions are to kill Sue and me, in addition to some other, bigger targets.”
Myles immediately got out of his car and started into the store.
“I’m going in now. We’re about halfway between Hoover and Georgetown, The Pet Palace. I’m entering the store. Looking for Sue.” Myles stayed on the line as he asked a clerk where the dog food aisle was.
“Jack, she’s not here. The store is practically empty. She didn’t come out the front, and she’s not in the check-out line. I’m going to the back. Call for backup.” And he hung up.
“Bobby, call out a squad to comb the area around that store.” Jack ran to the bullpen to grab his coat. “D, Sue’s missing. We’ve got to find her now.”
“Jack . . .” D started to tell him he needed to stay there, but thought better of it.
“I’m going, D. She’s stubborn, and she’s hard-headed, but she’s going to be counting on us to find her. She’s going to be counting on me, D. We can’t lose her.” At the look in Jack’s eyes, D just said, “OK, Jack. We’ll find her.”
When they arrived at the scene, the area was already cordoned off in a two-block radius. Myles met the team, a defeated look about him.
“We found Nelson in the storeroom. They don’t know if he’ll make it. He has a cracked skull. They were in there about three minutes before I went in there. He had to have been waiting for her,” Myles reported.
Jack could feel the anger and frustration boiling up in him. He tried to look away – tried to get it under control, but he couldn’t. He didn’t want to.
“You should have been with her, Myles. You’re the one with experience. You’re the one that should have been protecting her.” Jack was yelling in Myles’ face, lashing out at the only person he could find.
D grabbed Jack’s arm. “Jack, it’s not Myles’ fault. It could have happened with any of us. It could have happened with you, only he would have probably just shot both of you and gotten it over with.” D looked Jack straight in the eyes. He was trying to be the voice of reason.
Myles just stood there, silently. An odd stance for him. He knew it wasn’t personal, as far as he was concerned. It was a nerve-wracking situation that just kept getting more complicated – almost as complicated as the relationship between Jack and Sue. At least Jack and Sue seemed to think it was complicated. It was obvious to Myles, had been for some time, that they had strong feelings for one another.
Bobby walked over to where the men were standing. “It looks like they definitely went out the back door. Metro found a scarf about half a block away. Do you know if Sue had a red scarf?” He held out a red scarf shot through with silver accents.
Jack nodded as he took the scarf, his voice growing husky. “Yeah. It was the one she had on when I picked her up from the airport, and she had it on today.” He looked bleakly at Bobby.
He had always liked that scarf. He remembered picking her out of the crowd at the airport by her gorgeous head of blonde hair and that bright red scarf. When she saw him through the crowd, she waved and gave him her brightest smile, as if she were really glad to see him.
She had been gone a whole week, from Christmas to New Year’s – the longest she had been away on vacation at one time since moving to Washington. She almost seemed giddy with gladness to be back – almost as if the vacation was just something to get through before she could get back home.
“Every minute we don’t find her, she’s farther away from here. The best we can do is follow up on the leads we have, and start leaning really hard on Mahlik. Myles, you and Jack get back to the office and start hammering on Mahlik. Bobby and I will stay here and follow up on any witnesses that may have been around.” Demetrius turned to go, and then turned back to Jack and Myles. “We’ll find her. We’re the FBI, remember, guys?”
Jack followed Myles silently to the car. As Myles started the car, he turned to Jack and said “I’m sorry, Jack. She wanted to get out of the building after being cooped up in interrogation all day. I thought as long as one of us was with her, she’d be fine. I don’t blame you for blaming me. I don’t know if I can deal with anything happening to her.”
Jack was silent for a few minutes, eyes closed, breathing a prayer for Sue. He finally let out a tired breath before he spoke.
“That makes two of us, Myles.” Jack said, his lips tightening in a frown. “I’m sorry for what I said back there. I know it wasn’t your fault. Like D said, it could have gone down the same way with any of us. It might have been any of us in the back of the store with our skull cracked.”
“Let’s go drag Mahlik out of his cozy cell and see what he can tell us about papa bear’s plans.” Myles said as he gave Jack a grim half-smile.
The two men understood each other. If this had happened the first year Sue was with them, Jack would have almost laid bets that Myles had neglected Sue on purpose. Not any more. Sue had earned her way into all their hearts. Always the pragmatist, Myles was prickly on the outside, but Sue had found that soft interior that is inside most people.
As they rushed back to the bullpen, Jack and Bobby ran into Tara in the hallway.
“Where’s Sue?” Jack asked Tara, grabbing her arm.
“Sh-she and Myles went to get Levi some dog food,” she said, noting the intensity on Jack’s face. “What’s going on, guys?”
“We just found out that a secondary mission for the Kalihds was to take out Sue and me. She shouldn’t even be out of the building until we find Achmed,” Jack spat out. Jack looked at Tara with fear in his eyes, and the fear was matched in Tara’s.
“The Kalihds were holding Betty in an apartment in the building next to Sue’s,” Bobby told her as Jack got on his cell phone to call Myles.
“Myles, where are you?” Jack talked with a clipped sound to his voice. “You and Sue have to get back to the Hoover building ASAP. There’ve been some developments.”
“What’s going on, Jack?” Myles asked. “Sue’s just gone into the store to get Levi’s dog food. She didn’t trust me to pick out the right kind, for some reason.”
Jack closed his eyes, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. She was so easy to spot with that golden hair, even in a car.
“Is she by herself?” Jack didn’t know if he wanted the answer to the question.
“Nelson went in with her. What’s going on?” Myles was getting the idea that this little side trip of Sue’s wasn’t just a simple trip to the store.
“Get in there and bring her back here. We just found out that Achmed’s instructions are to kill Sue and me, in addition to some other, bigger targets.”
Myles immediately got out of his car and started into the store.
“I’m going in now. We’re about halfway between Hoover and Georgetown, The Pet Palace. I’m entering the store. Looking for Sue.” Myles stayed on the line as he asked a clerk where the dog food aisle was.
“Jack, she’s not here. The store is practically empty. She didn’t come out the front, and she’s not in the check-out line. I’m going to the back. Call for backup.” And he hung up.
“Bobby, call out a squad to comb the area around that store.” Jack ran to the bullpen to grab his coat. “D, Sue’s missing. We’ve got to find her now.”
“Jack . . .” D started to tell him he needed to stay there, but thought better of it.
“I’m going, D. She’s stubborn, and she’s hard-headed, but she’s going to be counting on us to find her. She’s going to be counting on me, D. We can’t lose her.” At the look in Jack’s eyes, D just said, “OK, Jack. We’ll find her.”
*
When they arrived at the scene, the area was already cordoned off in a two-block radius. Myles met the team, a defeated look about him.
“We found Nelson in the storeroom. They don’t know if he’ll make it. He has a cracked skull. They were in there about three minutes before I went in there. He had to have been waiting for her,” Myles reported.
Jack could feel the anger and frustration boiling up in him. He tried to look away – tried to get it under control, but he couldn’t. He didn’t want to.
“You should have been with her, Myles. You’re the one with experience. You’re the one that should have been protecting her.” Jack was yelling in Myles’ face, lashing out at the only person he could find.
D grabbed Jack’s arm. “Jack, it’s not Myles’ fault. It could have happened with any of us. It could have happened with you, only he would have probably just shot both of you and gotten it over with.” D looked Jack straight in the eyes. He was trying to be the voice of reason.
Myles just stood there, silently. An odd stance for him. He knew it wasn’t personal, as far as he was concerned. It was a nerve-wracking situation that just kept getting more complicated – almost as complicated as the relationship between Jack and Sue. At least Jack and Sue seemed to think it was complicated. It was obvious to Myles, had been for some time, that they had strong feelings for one another.
Bobby walked over to where the men were standing. “It looks like they definitely went out the back door. Metro found a scarf about half a block away. Do you know if Sue had a red scarf?” He held out a red scarf shot through with silver accents.
Jack nodded as he took the scarf, his voice growing husky. “Yeah. It was the one she had on when I picked her up from the airport, and she had it on today.” He looked bleakly at Bobby.
He had always liked that scarf. He remembered picking her out of the crowd at the airport by her gorgeous head of blonde hair and that bright red scarf. When she saw him through the crowd, she waved and gave him her brightest smile, as if she were really glad to see him.
She had been gone a whole week, from Christmas to New Year’s – the longest she had been away on vacation at one time since moving to Washington. She almost seemed giddy with gladness to be back – almost as if the vacation was just something to get through before she could get back home.
“Every minute we don’t find her, she’s farther away from here. The best we can do is follow up on the leads we have, and start leaning really hard on Mahlik. Myles, you and Jack get back to the office and start hammering on Mahlik. Bobby and I will stay here and follow up on any witnesses that may have been around.” Demetrius turned to go, and then turned back to Jack and Myles. “We’ll find her. We’re the FBI, remember, guys?”
Jack followed Myles silently to the car. As Myles started the car, he turned to Jack and said “I’m sorry, Jack. She wanted to get out of the building after being cooped up in interrogation all day. I thought as long as one of us was with her, she’d be fine. I don’t blame you for blaming me. I don’t know if I can deal with anything happening to her.”
Jack was silent for a few minutes, eyes closed, breathing a prayer for Sue. He finally let out a tired breath before he spoke.
“That makes two of us, Myles.” Jack said, his lips tightening in a frown. “I’m sorry for what I said back there. I know it wasn’t your fault. Like D said, it could have gone down the same way with any of us. It might have been any of us in the back of the store with our skull cracked.”
“Let’s go drag Mahlik out of his cozy cell and see what he can tell us about papa bear’s plans.” Myles said as he gave Jack a grim half-smile.
The two men understood each other. If this had happened the first year Sue was with them, Jack would have almost laid bets that Myles had neglected Sue on purpose. Not any more. Sue had earned her way into all their hearts. Always the pragmatist, Myles was prickly on the outside, but Sue had found that soft interior that is inside most people.
Chapter 25
Sue had gone into the pet store just like she had a hundred times. She knew exactly where the dog food was that she wanted, so she knew she could get in and get out in about 5 minutes. There was an argument, of course, about her going in by herself. She was so tired of being monitored so closely!
It was finally decided that Agent Nelson would go in with her. Fine. Let’s just get the dog food and get back. Jack and Bobby should be getting finished with Mahlik pretty soon, and she and Myles needed to be back to hear their report. She decided to leave Levi in the car with Myles. Levi hated rushed trips into the pet store. Sometimes they had treat samples, and he didn’t like to skip those.
As she went in the store, it seemed like there were fewer customers that usual. “Now I’m getting paranoid,” Sue thought. It was close to closing time, so there were very few employees left in the store, and they were all at the front of the store.
Going toward the back of the store, where the dog food was found, she and Nelson turned a corner close to the storeroom door. She saw Nelson go down, and then she saw the gun. She recognized his face from the picture they had been looking at all week in the bullpen.
“Don’t say anything, or I will shoot you right here. Help me drag your friend into the storeroom.” He kept his gun trained on her as he used his other hand and both hers to drag Nelson into the storeroom. As she started to straighten up from dragging him, she felt for a pulse. ‘At least he’s still alive,’ she thought.
Dragging her through the back door, he grabbed her arm and pulled her down the street, the gun in her side at all times. About a half-block from the pet store, Sue stumbled and fell. Taking the opportunity, she pulled her scarf from her neck and dropped it on the ground, in the shadows.
He yanked her up, dragging her farther down the street to a parked car. Throwing her into the vehicle, he brought out duct tape and rope, binding her hands and feet. He then blindfolded her.
“Please! I’m deaf! Don’t blindfold me!” she pleaded.
Before he blindfolded her, he glared into her eyes. “Where you’re going, you don’t want to see. What you’ll be used for, you don’t want to see, and you should be glad you can’t hear.”
She just looked at him, fright evident in her eyes as the blindfold came over them, blocking out everything. She automatically found herself praying. ‘Please God, I’m ready to go whenever you want me, but I know you are protecting me, too. If there’s more for me to do here, please guide my team to find me. God, be with my captor. He doesn’t understand what he’s doing.’
She felt the duct tape covering her mouth. Her captor had effectively cut off all her senses except smell.
Jack and Myles came into the office at a dead run to shed their coats and round up Mahlik. “Tara, call them down in the holding cells and have them drag Mahlik back to the interrogation room,” Jack yelled. “We’ve got to find out what their next move was going to be. It could be that Achmed has been hiding out and is planning to do the big job on his own.”
“He’s already down there – we had him waiting as soon as we heard. SOG just called. They have a line on a vehicle speeding away about a block from where Sue’s scarf was found.” Tara, as usual, was on top of things.
“See if you can get any info on the car, and see if anybody in the area has surveillance cameras to check. It’s almost like he’s in a hurry to get this job done.” Myles was following Jack out the door to the interrogation room as he spoke. He stopped at Lucy’s desk, where she was surreptitiously wiping away a tear. “We’ll find her. Don’t worry. Remember, we’re the good guys!” Myles managed to get a weak smile from her. The usual kidding and bickering was curiously absent in this instance.
“What was your next target? We know Ford’s Theater was just a test run, and we know that you were charged to kill Miss Thomas and me. What’s the biggie?” Jack was in Mahlik’s face this time, every ounce of his energy piercing through his eyes into the eyes of the terrorist.
“He got her, didn’t he? I knew I hadn’t killed him, but I hoped that I had slowed him down.” Fear began to dawn in his eyes. He looked down, and then looked up at the two agents.
“The big target was chosen by Dessa, because of the way you kept stalling his plans. His plan was to start systematically bombing every Field Office of the FBI. But he wanted the first to be this building.” Mahlik paused. “He’s going to kill us all, and he’s going to use her to start the explosions.”
Jack looked up at Myles, who nodded and went out the door to inform the others. D had come back, and was on the outside of the one-way glass, watching. He was already on the phone.
“Why did you shoot Achmed, and then go ahead with the plan to use Betty to blow up the first target?” Jack couldn’t wrap his head around it all. His mind was like the blizzard that blew the other night. Crazy and howling and bitter and cold.
“I wanted to see if I could do it on my own. I have nothing. I have no life. I have a father I have grown to hate, a religion that tells me to hate my brother. I wanted to see if I had what it takes to do this thing that seemed so important to my father and to his associates.” Mahlik looked down at the table. “I know my mother would be in agony over this. I loved her, but I thought she was a weak woman to believe in a God that loves.” He wanted the world to just swallow him up, but it wasn’t that easy.
Jack got up and left the room. He was afraid that if he stayed in there much longer, he would lunge at the guy and tear him apart, making HIM pay for the pain he had caused and was causing, and for seemingly no good reason.
When Achmed took the blindfold off Sue, she looked around immediately as her FBI training went into gear. She knew that she had to figure out where she was by what she looked at. The room looked familiar. She was pretty sure it was the room Betty described as the one where she was held.
Her captor went into the next room, but he left the door open, Sue bound. She could see through the door a table with materials on it. It looked like the bomb-maker was working on yet another ‘suicide’ vest.
She looked around for anything that could help her. She was glad Levi was not here. Achmed would have shot him on the spot, more than likely.
He came back into the room, this time to taunt her more, showing her the vest, filled with explosives. “Does this look like it will be a good fit for you? You are much slimmer than our last victim.”
Sue just sat and looked at him. She was hoping that he didn’t know she could read lips. Perhaps if she just sat there, staring at him in seeming confusion, he would tell her things that he wouldn’t say to a hearing person. “Do you sign?” she signed, trying to look confused and frustrated – which wasn’t far from the truth.
He bought it. He began to sneer at her, his superiority oozing from his eyes. “Look at your uncovered head and face. You are just a worthless female. Your deafness makes you even more worthless than the other woman.”
“Could you write down what you are saying so that I can understand you?” Sue was playing the deaf card brilliantly. “What are you going to do with me?”
“You do not deserve to understand. Your worth will be as a body to deliver explosives to the Hoover Building. I will not fail. My son tried to take over the operation, and now he is dead to me.” Achmed was getting angry thinking about Mahlik. “A son who tries to supersede his father . . . now he is in the very building that we pledged to destroy.” The tone of his laugh was not heard, but his eyes glittered at the prospect of the mission at hand.
“Jack, SOG reported a faint light in a window in what is SUPPOSED to be an empty apartment in the building next to our apartment building – the one where you saw the sniper nest on the roof,” Lucy said as Jack and Myles rushed into the office. “Could she be that close?”
Lucy was looking longingly at the two men as if she were trying to literally pull reassurance from them, where she saw very little.
Jack just looked at her and shrugged. “I don’t know, Luce. We’ll find her. We have to. Tell them to keep watching for movement. We’ll be over there ASAP.”
Running a weary hand over his face as if to clear the images that were threatening to overtake his mind and turn him away from his task, he turned to Tara and Myles.
“Can you get a fix on the GPS signal in her Blackberry?”
“The last signal we got from it was not far from there. Then it just stopped. Achmed probably took out the battery when he found she had it on her.” Tara was still searching the grid for any blip on the screen that would indicate Sue’s location.
Levi stood next to Jack, as he had each time he came into the room. It was as if he were trying to communicate to them ‘I’m ready to go look for Sue now. Take me with you. I can help.’
Jack knelt down at the dog’s side and rubbed both ears comfortingly. Looking into the dog’s eyes he felt the weight of worry shared. “We’ll find her, boy. Stay here with Lucy and Tara. She’ll be OK.” He smiled at the dog, his jaw working as he got up, picked up his coat and motioned for Myles to join him.
“Tara, send SWAT, the bomb squad, and Metro PD backup to close in about a 2-block radius, Jack ordered. I don’t want to spook him into doing something before we can infiltrate his position.”
Around the corner from the scene of the apartment in question, Jack was leading the other squads. “Myles, see if you can get in position across from that apartment and see in the window.”
Staying close to the buildings on the same side of the street as the apartment, Jack, D, and Bobby made their way to the building. They were looking for ways to get into the building without entering by the front door.
The window under SOG surveillance was on the third floor. As the three men made their way down the street, they heard a report. “SAM36, We saw movement at the curtain of the apartment under surveillance. Please advise.”
“SAM33, did you see anything?” Jack spoke into his mic.
“Slight flutter, as if a hand brushed it back to look out the window.” Myles was on top of the building across the street, out of sight, holding binoculars. “Wait. The curtain is moving back. I’m seeing a hand . . . blonde hair . . . it closed back, quickly. We’ve got to get in there, Jack.”
“All personnel, suspect may be holding Sue Thomas in that room. When we go in, hold your fire unless you see the suspect. He will be armed and dangerous. Team one, take your position around the side and back of the building. Team 2, enter from the bottom. SAM 36, 39, and 31 are going in via fire escape.” Jack was leading the way to that room for all directions.
Achmed was absorbed in wiring the suicide vest. It was as if he had forgotten Sue was in the apartment.
Sue was observing everything around her. The longer she was in the room, the more sure she was that this was the room in which Betty had been held. There was a window with the curtains drawn. She needed to get to that window.
She rose from the chair she was in. Her feet were bound loosely, as if it were an afterthought. Her hands were tied together in front of her, which helped her balance. She was not sure how quiet she was being. She edged toward the window, her eyes never leaving the terrorist in the other room.
She went over to the window, lightly touching the curtain, but not opening it. She looked into the room where Achmed was working. He looked up as if hearing something, and she froze. When he looked back down, she put both hands on the curtain, and tried to get her head on the other side of the curtain, in case someone was looking.
Watching Achmed, she noticed that while she was at the curtain, he had moved from where he had been. Closing the curtain quickly, she tried to hurry back to the chair. As she worked toward the seat, Achmed came into the room, his eyes flashing and his hands reaching for her throat. “If I didn’t need your sacrifice, I would kill you here.”
He put one hand on her arm, one hand in her hair, and jerked her onto the bed. When she cried out in pain, he hit her across her face in anger. “Quiet! It won’t be long now and you and your FBI friends will be quiet forever.” He proceeded to tie her hands behind her, tie her to the bed, blindfold her, and put duct tape across her mouth. All contact with the outside world was blocked for Sue.
Sue had gone into the pet store just like she had a hundred times. She knew exactly where the dog food was that she wanted, so she knew she could get in and get out in about 5 minutes. There was an argument, of course, about her going in by herself. She was so tired of being monitored so closely!
It was finally decided that Agent Nelson would go in with her. Fine. Let’s just get the dog food and get back. Jack and Bobby should be getting finished with Mahlik pretty soon, and she and Myles needed to be back to hear their report. She decided to leave Levi in the car with Myles. Levi hated rushed trips into the pet store. Sometimes they had treat samples, and he didn’t like to skip those.
As she went in the store, it seemed like there were fewer customers that usual. “Now I’m getting paranoid,” Sue thought. It was close to closing time, so there were very few employees left in the store, and they were all at the front of the store.
Going toward the back of the store, where the dog food was found, she and Nelson turned a corner close to the storeroom door. She saw Nelson go down, and then she saw the gun. She recognized his face from the picture they had been looking at all week in the bullpen.
“Don’t say anything, or I will shoot you right here. Help me drag your friend into the storeroom.” He kept his gun trained on her as he used his other hand and both hers to drag Nelson into the storeroom. As she started to straighten up from dragging him, she felt for a pulse. ‘At least he’s still alive,’ she thought.
Dragging her through the back door, he grabbed her arm and pulled her down the street, the gun in her side at all times. About a half-block from the pet store, Sue stumbled and fell. Taking the opportunity, she pulled her scarf from her neck and dropped it on the ground, in the shadows.
He yanked her up, dragging her farther down the street to a parked car. Throwing her into the vehicle, he brought out duct tape and rope, binding her hands and feet. He then blindfolded her.
“Please! I’m deaf! Don’t blindfold me!” she pleaded.
Before he blindfolded her, he glared into her eyes. “Where you’re going, you don’t want to see. What you’ll be used for, you don’t want to see, and you should be glad you can’t hear.”
She just looked at him, fright evident in her eyes as the blindfold came over them, blocking out everything. She automatically found herself praying. ‘Please God, I’m ready to go whenever you want me, but I know you are protecting me, too. If there’s more for me to do here, please guide my team to find me. God, be with my captor. He doesn’t understand what he’s doing.’
She felt the duct tape covering her mouth. Her captor had effectively cut off all her senses except smell.
*
Jack and Myles came into the office at a dead run to shed their coats and round up Mahlik. “Tara, call them down in the holding cells and have them drag Mahlik back to the interrogation room,” Jack yelled. “We’ve got to find out what their next move was going to be. It could be that Achmed has been hiding out and is planning to do the big job on his own.”
“He’s already down there – we had him waiting as soon as we heard. SOG just called. They have a line on a vehicle speeding away about a block from where Sue’s scarf was found.” Tara, as usual, was on top of things.
“See if you can get any info on the car, and see if anybody in the area has surveillance cameras to check. It’s almost like he’s in a hurry to get this job done.” Myles was following Jack out the door to the interrogation room as he spoke. He stopped at Lucy’s desk, where she was surreptitiously wiping away a tear. “We’ll find her. Don’t worry. Remember, we’re the good guys!” Myles managed to get a weak smile from her. The usual kidding and bickering was curiously absent in this instance.
*
“What was your next target? We know Ford’s Theater was just a test run, and we know that you were charged to kill Miss Thomas and me. What’s the biggie?” Jack was in Mahlik’s face this time, every ounce of his energy piercing through his eyes into the eyes of the terrorist.
“He got her, didn’t he? I knew I hadn’t killed him, but I hoped that I had slowed him down.” Fear began to dawn in his eyes. He looked down, and then looked up at the two agents.
“The big target was chosen by Dessa, because of the way you kept stalling his plans. His plan was to start systematically bombing every Field Office of the FBI. But he wanted the first to be this building.” Mahlik paused. “He’s going to kill us all, and he’s going to use her to start the explosions.”
Jack looked up at Myles, who nodded and went out the door to inform the others. D had come back, and was on the outside of the one-way glass, watching. He was already on the phone.
“Why did you shoot Achmed, and then go ahead with the plan to use Betty to blow up the first target?” Jack couldn’t wrap his head around it all. His mind was like the blizzard that blew the other night. Crazy and howling and bitter and cold.
“I wanted to see if I could do it on my own. I have nothing. I have no life. I have a father I have grown to hate, a religion that tells me to hate my brother. I wanted to see if I had what it takes to do this thing that seemed so important to my father and to his associates.” Mahlik looked down at the table. “I know my mother would be in agony over this. I loved her, but I thought she was a weak woman to believe in a God that loves.” He wanted the world to just swallow him up, but it wasn’t that easy.
Jack got up and left the room. He was afraid that if he stayed in there much longer, he would lunge at the guy and tear him apart, making HIM pay for the pain he had caused and was causing, and for seemingly no good reason.
*
When Achmed took the blindfold off Sue, she looked around immediately as her FBI training went into gear. She knew that she had to figure out where she was by what she looked at. The room looked familiar. She was pretty sure it was the room Betty described as the one where she was held.
Her captor went into the next room, but he left the door open, Sue bound. She could see through the door a table with materials on it. It looked like the bomb-maker was working on yet another ‘suicide’ vest.
She looked around for anything that could help her. She was glad Levi was not here. Achmed would have shot him on the spot, more than likely.
He came back into the room, this time to taunt her more, showing her the vest, filled with explosives. “Does this look like it will be a good fit for you? You are much slimmer than our last victim.”
Sue just sat and looked at him. She was hoping that he didn’t know she could read lips. Perhaps if she just sat there, staring at him in seeming confusion, he would tell her things that he wouldn’t say to a hearing person. “Do you sign?” she signed, trying to look confused and frustrated – which wasn’t far from the truth.
He bought it. He began to sneer at her, his superiority oozing from his eyes. “Look at your uncovered head and face. You are just a worthless female. Your deafness makes you even more worthless than the other woman.”
“Could you write down what you are saying so that I can understand you?” Sue was playing the deaf card brilliantly. “What are you going to do with me?”
“You do not deserve to understand. Your worth will be as a body to deliver explosives to the Hoover Building. I will not fail. My son tried to take over the operation, and now he is dead to me.” Achmed was getting angry thinking about Mahlik. “A son who tries to supersede his father . . . now he is in the very building that we pledged to destroy.” The tone of his laugh was not heard, but his eyes glittered at the prospect of the mission at hand.
*
“Jack, SOG reported a faint light in a window in what is SUPPOSED to be an empty apartment in the building next to our apartment building – the one where you saw the sniper nest on the roof,” Lucy said as Jack and Myles rushed into the office. “Could she be that close?”
Lucy was looking longingly at the two men as if she were trying to literally pull reassurance from them, where she saw very little.
Jack just looked at her and shrugged. “I don’t know, Luce. We’ll find her. We have to. Tell them to keep watching for movement. We’ll be over there ASAP.”
Running a weary hand over his face as if to clear the images that were threatening to overtake his mind and turn him away from his task, he turned to Tara and Myles.
“Can you get a fix on the GPS signal in her Blackberry?”
“The last signal we got from it was not far from there. Then it just stopped. Achmed probably took out the battery when he found she had it on her.” Tara was still searching the grid for any blip on the screen that would indicate Sue’s location.
Levi stood next to Jack, as he had each time he came into the room. It was as if he were trying to communicate to them ‘I’m ready to go look for Sue now. Take me with you. I can help.’
Jack knelt down at the dog’s side and rubbed both ears comfortingly. Looking into the dog’s eyes he felt the weight of worry shared. “We’ll find her, boy. Stay here with Lucy and Tara. She’ll be OK.” He smiled at the dog, his jaw working as he got up, picked up his coat and motioned for Myles to join him.
“Tara, send SWAT, the bomb squad, and Metro PD backup to close in about a 2-block radius, Jack ordered. I don’t want to spook him into doing something before we can infiltrate his position.”
*
Around the corner from the scene of the apartment in question, Jack was leading the other squads. “Myles, see if you can get in position across from that apartment and see in the window.”
Staying close to the buildings on the same side of the street as the apartment, Jack, D, and Bobby made their way to the building. They were looking for ways to get into the building without entering by the front door.
The window under SOG surveillance was on the third floor. As the three men made their way down the street, they heard a report. “SAM36, We saw movement at the curtain of the apartment under surveillance. Please advise.”
“SAM33, did you see anything?” Jack spoke into his mic.
“Slight flutter, as if a hand brushed it back to look out the window.” Myles was on top of the building across the street, out of sight, holding binoculars. “Wait. The curtain is moving back. I’m seeing a hand . . . blonde hair . . . it closed back, quickly. We’ve got to get in there, Jack.”
“All personnel, suspect may be holding Sue Thomas in that room. When we go in, hold your fire unless you see the suspect. He will be armed and dangerous. Team one, take your position around the side and back of the building. Team 2, enter from the bottom. SAM 36, 39, and 31 are going in via fire escape.” Jack was leading the way to that room for all directions.
*
Achmed was absorbed in wiring the suicide vest. It was as if he had forgotten Sue was in the apartment.
Sue was observing everything around her. The longer she was in the room, the more sure she was that this was the room in which Betty had been held. There was a window with the curtains drawn. She needed to get to that window.
She rose from the chair she was in. Her feet were bound loosely, as if it were an afterthought. Her hands were tied together in front of her, which helped her balance. She was not sure how quiet she was being. She edged toward the window, her eyes never leaving the terrorist in the other room.
She went over to the window, lightly touching the curtain, but not opening it. She looked into the room where Achmed was working. He looked up as if hearing something, and she froze. When he looked back down, she put both hands on the curtain, and tried to get her head on the other side of the curtain, in case someone was looking.
Watching Achmed, she noticed that while she was at the curtain, he had moved from where he had been. Closing the curtain quickly, she tried to hurry back to the chair. As she worked toward the seat, Achmed came into the room, his eyes flashing and his hands reaching for her throat. “If I didn’t need your sacrifice, I would kill you here.”
He put one hand on her arm, one hand in her hair, and jerked her onto the bed. When she cried out in pain, he hit her across her face in anger. “Quiet! It won’t be long now and you and your FBI friends will be quiet forever.” He proceeded to tie her hands behind her, tie her to the bed, blindfold her, and put duct tape across her mouth. All contact with the outside world was blocked for Sue.
Chapter 26
Jack was first to get to the window on the fire escape on the third floor. The window led to a hallway, not an apartment. Climbing in the window, Jack, D, and Bobby quietly made their way down the hallway toward the apartment that faced the front of the building. Using hand signals, covering one another as they met with Team 2, all of them in full body armor and breathing apparatus, coming into the building from the ground floor.
Quietly coming to the door of the apartment, they heard sounds of a struggle inside the room, and shouting. The hearts of the three men outside the door froze as they heard a woman’s scream, and then Achmed shouting, “Quiet! It won’t be long now and you and your FBI friends will be quiet forever!”
The door to the apartment had little resistance for the strong leg of Bobby Manning as he kicked in the door. One of the operatives from Team 2 threw in a smoke bomb, obscuring the vision of the terrorist. Taking Achmed down in one blow, D stood guard over him as Jack and Bobby proceeded into the apartment. Bobby checked the area of the bomb vest, and Jack used the information given them by Betty to find Sue in the front-facing room.
As he entered the room where Sue was being held, he took in the chair, the ropes, the duct tape thrown on the floor. In the corner was a makeshift bed with a heap curled in a ball, hands tied behind her back, bound, gagged. The heap was a woman – a woman with blonde hair. She didn’t move.
Jack was almost afraid to approach her. He knew that if she were conscious, it would frighten her. If she were already dead, he didn’t know what he would do beyond grieve for the rest of his life.
As he came closer, he saw her breathing, went to her, and placed his hand on her arm, gently. She immediately jerked and tried to wrench away from him, screaming as best she could with her mouth taped. He kept one hand on her arm, and took off the blindfold so that she could see. He knew that most of her fright came from not being able to see or speak.
As soon as she saw his brown eyes looking down at her, she relaxed, and tears began to form in her eyes. Carefully taking the duct tape from her mouth, she began to cry, and as he untied her arms and legs, he took her into his arms and let her sob. “I’m sorry, Jack. I shouldn’t have argued with Myles about going to the store. It’s all my fault – I made myself a victim this time.”
Jack didn’t say anything for a few minutes, but clung to her. He didn’t want her to see the tears in his own eyes. He wanted to make sure he wasn’t dreaming that they had actually found her.
As he held her, Jack kept saying “It’s OK.” He knew he couldn’t hear him, but he wouldn’t let her go. They both finally stopped shaking as he stroked her hair, rocking back and forth. He held her from him so that she could see his lips. She looked into his eyes, and then at his lips as he said “It’s OK,” and smiled at her. She nodded, never losing focus on his lips.
Jack’s smile wavered as he looked at her. As she looked into his eyes again, she almost became lost in their depths. Jack reached down and kissed her, lightly, on the forehead, a reverent tribute. “I’m glad we found you,” he said.
She gave him a shaky smile, and said, “I knew you would.”
As he went to pick her up off the bed to carry her out, she protested, “Jack, I can walk. He didn’t hurt me.”
Jack just looked at her, smiled into her eyes, and said, “Humor me.” He didn’t want to lose physical contact with her – not for even the few minutes it would take to get her out of the building. He might not let her out of his sight for a little while.
“Do we need an ambulance?” Myles saw Jack come out with her in his arms, concern and remorse written all over his face. “Is she hurt?”
“She’s OK, but she’s been through a lot. I’m taking her back to the office so Lucy and Tara – and Levi! – can see that she’s OK.” As he started to walk out the door with her, Sue put her hand on Jack’s arm and asked him to stop, reaching out to touch Myles’ shoulder.
“Myles, I’m sorry I went in without you. I was stubborn, and could have very easily been killed tonight. Can you forgive me?” Sue looked at Myles with concern as she noted his pale face and bleak eyes.
“I’m the one that should be asking forgiveness. I’m the experienced agent. Nelson wasn’t prepared. I should have been there. That was my job, and I neglected it.” Myles gave Sue a sad little smile and said, “I’m thankful you’re OK.”
Sue just smiled and nodded agreement as tears threatened to flood her eyes again. She looked at Jack, nodded, and with a nod to Myles, he carried her down the stairs and out the front door.
Without speaking to anyone Jack placed her carefully into the SUV. Going around the vehicle to get in the driver’s seat, he never took his eyes off her, as if he were afraid she would disappear.
Jack was first to get to the window on the fire escape on the third floor. The window led to a hallway, not an apartment. Climbing in the window, Jack, D, and Bobby quietly made their way down the hallway toward the apartment that faced the front of the building. Using hand signals, covering one another as they met with Team 2, all of them in full body armor and breathing apparatus, coming into the building from the ground floor.
Quietly coming to the door of the apartment, they heard sounds of a struggle inside the room, and shouting. The hearts of the three men outside the door froze as they heard a woman’s scream, and then Achmed shouting, “Quiet! It won’t be long now and you and your FBI friends will be quiet forever!”
*
The door to the apartment had little resistance for the strong leg of Bobby Manning as he kicked in the door. One of the operatives from Team 2 threw in a smoke bomb, obscuring the vision of the terrorist. Taking Achmed down in one blow, D stood guard over him as Jack and Bobby proceeded into the apartment. Bobby checked the area of the bomb vest, and Jack used the information given them by Betty to find Sue in the front-facing room.
As he entered the room where Sue was being held, he took in the chair, the ropes, the duct tape thrown on the floor. In the corner was a makeshift bed with a heap curled in a ball, hands tied behind her back, bound, gagged. The heap was a woman – a woman with blonde hair. She didn’t move.
Jack was almost afraid to approach her. He knew that if she were conscious, it would frighten her. If she were already dead, he didn’t know what he would do beyond grieve for the rest of his life.
As he came closer, he saw her breathing, went to her, and placed his hand on her arm, gently. She immediately jerked and tried to wrench away from him, screaming as best she could with her mouth taped. He kept one hand on her arm, and took off the blindfold so that she could see. He knew that most of her fright came from not being able to see or speak.
As soon as she saw his brown eyes looking down at her, she relaxed, and tears began to form in her eyes. Carefully taking the duct tape from her mouth, she began to cry, and as he untied her arms and legs, he took her into his arms and let her sob. “I’m sorry, Jack. I shouldn’t have argued with Myles about going to the store. It’s all my fault – I made myself a victim this time.”
Jack didn’t say anything for a few minutes, but clung to her. He didn’t want her to see the tears in his own eyes. He wanted to make sure he wasn’t dreaming that they had actually found her.
As he held her, Jack kept saying “It’s OK.” He knew he couldn’t hear him, but he wouldn’t let her go. They both finally stopped shaking as he stroked her hair, rocking back and forth. He held her from him so that she could see his lips. She looked into his eyes, and then at his lips as he said “It’s OK,” and smiled at her. She nodded, never losing focus on his lips.
Jack’s smile wavered as he looked at her. As she looked into his eyes again, she almost became lost in their depths. Jack reached down and kissed her, lightly, on the forehead, a reverent tribute. “I’m glad we found you,” he said.
She gave him a shaky smile, and said, “I knew you would.”
As he went to pick her up off the bed to carry her out, she protested, “Jack, I can walk. He didn’t hurt me.”
Jack just looked at her, smiled into her eyes, and said, “Humor me.” He didn’t want to lose physical contact with her – not for even the few minutes it would take to get her out of the building. He might not let her out of his sight for a little while.
“Do we need an ambulance?” Myles saw Jack come out with her in his arms, concern and remorse written all over his face. “Is she hurt?”
“She’s OK, but she’s been through a lot. I’m taking her back to the office so Lucy and Tara – and Levi! – can see that she’s OK.” As he started to walk out the door with her, Sue put her hand on Jack’s arm and asked him to stop, reaching out to touch Myles’ shoulder.
“Myles, I’m sorry I went in without you. I was stubborn, and could have very easily been killed tonight. Can you forgive me?” Sue looked at Myles with concern as she noted his pale face and bleak eyes.
“I’m the one that should be asking forgiveness. I’m the experienced agent. Nelson wasn’t prepared. I should have been there. That was my job, and I neglected it.” Myles gave Sue a sad little smile and said, “I’m thankful you’re OK.”
Sue just smiled and nodded agreement as tears threatened to flood her eyes again. She looked at Jack, nodded, and with a nod to Myles, he carried her down the stairs and out the front door.
Without speaking to anyone Jack placed her carefully into the SUV. Going around the vehicle to get in the driver’s seat, he never took his eyes off her, as if he were afraid she would disappear.
Chapter 27
“It’s OK, Levi! You can calm down now!” Sue was smiling, almost back to her old self, at the lavish greeting given her by her loyal hearing dog. He had alternated between sitting at attention next to Lucy’s desk and Tara’s. He knew that they would find Sue, and he was ready to help whenever they asked. They didn’t ask it of him, but they did stop from time to time and give him rubs, hugs, and offer him treats. He accepted the rubs, was thankful for the hugs, but didn’t eat any treats until his Sue was back in sight.
Tara brought Sue a cup of coffee. Lucy and Jack were both standing there, looking at Sue as if in a daze.
Sue looked up as she took the cup, thanking Tara, and she saw them. “Hmm. You must have learned how to use that coffee maker, finally. Either I’m no judge of coffee, or this tastes really good.” She looked up at each them as she sipped, and then put the cup on the desk. “You guys, I was gone less than five hours. I’m OK. It was scary, but I’ve been in worse situations. If you hadn’t found me, I might not be the only one missing. He was planning to bomb this building.”
“You’ve been taken before, but not by a known terrorist. This put it on a whole different level for me . . . I mean, for us.” Jack looked down, breaking eye contact with Sue.
“A scary thought for me is that she was held hostage right next door to where we live. How do you process that? Will it give you nightmares every time you go home, now?” Lucy was impressed at Sue’s calm demeanor, but worried that this would all come back to haunt her - later. It had been a whirlwind from the time that Sue was found missing, clues started coming in, and they found her.
“I’ll be OK, Luce. Really. I think once I give my report, that will settle it all in my mind for me. I may have some nightmares, like after Simon, but God is good. He tells us that he won’t put on us more than He and I can’t handle together. I just have to depend on Him to take the fear away.” Sue was the victim, and here she was counseling her friends, once again.
“Do you feel like giving us your statement?” Jack looked back at her, a worried look in his eyes.
“Let’s get it over with, before everybody gets back. I’ll want to hear from all of them. The pieces of the puzzle are starting to fit together in my mind, and I want to tell it before it starts getting fuzzy, or emotion starts to sway the memories.” Sue was very calm, very professional, but she knew from experience that the longer you push something traumatic out of your mind, the more skewed the memories become.
Jack took her hand and led her to the conference room, where it would be more comfortable. Tara followed, recording device, pen and paper in hand.
Oddly enough, Tara observed, Jack didn’t seem quite capable of letting go of Sue’s hand, although he conducted the interview with the utmost professionalism. “Wait until I tell Lucy about this,” Tara thought to herself as she set up the tape recorder and started taking notes – with one arched eyebrow and a knowing smirk on her face.
Sue, Jack, and Tara came back into the bullpen in time to hear the reports from Bobby, Myles, and D.
“We have officially put a crimp in THAT bad guy’s plans, referring to Dessa, of course,” D began with a note of triumph in his voice. “And we have enough on Achmed to put him away for as long as Dessa, if not longer.”
“Mahlik Kalihd will go up for stalking charges, kidnapping charges, and the car bomb. When we start cross-referencing Dessa, Achmed, and Mahlik, we should have them all behind bars for a VERY long time. Betty’s testimony alone will be enough to put the Kalihd father-son duo away for good,” Myles added.
“Has anyone heard from Agent Nelson?” Tara asked.
“He was in a coma until about 30 minutes ago. He may have a long road ahead, recovery-wise, but the doctors are pretty sure he’ll make a full recovery. It’ll just take time.” Myles had checked in on the agent every hour since putting him in the ambulance at the pet store.
“There were enough explosives in that apartment to level the city block, not to mention kidnapping a federal employee,” Bobby said, with a wink and nod to Sue, sitting at her desk. Jack sat close by, on the corner of her desk.
“I’m glad I could be of help,” Sue said, with a gleam of humor in her eyes. “I guess we could say I was undercover as a hostage this time.”
Jack shifted on the desk with a little jerk, rubbing his hand over his face as if to block out the image of Sue as a hostage. “Yeah, a hostage that was probably minutes away from being drugged and strapped into a suicide vest with enough explosives to level this building.”
Jack’s voice was intense, and he went pale even as he said it, but he felt that it had to be said. It had been one of the most harrowing situations they had been in to date.
He looked down at Sue, who had gone quiet, and a little pale at his words. He tapped the top of her head to get her to look at him. “I’m just saying, let’s not repeat that scenario any time soon, OK?” Jack looked down at Sue and gave her a stern look, relieving the look with a smile, touching her nose.
“I can go along with that,” Sue replied, looking up at Jack quietly. She watched him as he began to relax, focusing on his eyes. He was a hard man to read, and yet she knew what he was thinking much of the time.
Sometimes the shutters came down over his eyes, and he became the professional Jack Hudson. Sometimes, like now, she caught a glimpse of the real Jack Hudson, the man with warm brown eyes, a quick smile, and a big heart.
Jack looked down at her with a smile that both dazzled and touched her heart. This time she reached out and took his hand. Tears swam in her eyes as he gave it a warm squeeze.
“It’s OK, Levi! You can calm down now!” Sue was smiling, almost back to her old self, at the lavish greeting given her by her loyal hearing dog. He had alternated between sitting at attention next to Lucy’s desk and Tara’s. He knew that they would find Sue, and he was ready to help whenever they asked. They didn’t ask it of him, but they did stop from time to time and give him rubs, hugs, and offer him treats. He accepted the rubs, was thankful for the hugs, but didn’t eat any treats until his Sue was back in sight.
Tara brought Sue a cup of coffee. Lucy and Jack were both standing there, looking at Sue as if in a daze.
Sue looked up as she took the cup, thanking Tara, and she saw them. “Hmm. You must have learned how to use that coffee maker, finally. Either I’m no judge of coffee, or this tastes really good.” She looked up at each them as she sipped, and then put the cup on the desk. “You guys, I was gone less than five hours. I’m OK. It was scary, but I’ve been in worse situations. If you hadn’t found me, I might not be the only one missing. He was planning to bomb this building.”
“You’ve been taken before, but not by a known terrorist. This put it on a whole different level for me . . . I mean, for us.” Jack looked down, breaking eye contact with Sue.
“A scary thought for me is that she was held hostage right next door to where we live. How do you process that? Will it give you nightmares every time you go home, now?” Lucy was impressed at Sue’s calm demeanor, but worried that this would all come back to haunt her - later. It had been a whirlwind from the time that Sue was found missing, clues started coming in, and they found her.
“I’ll be OK, Luce. Really. I think once I give my report, that will settle it all in my mind for me. I may have some nightmares, like after Simon, but God is good. He tells us that he won’t put on us more than He and I can’t handle together. I just have to depend on Him to take the fear away.” Sue was the victim, and here she was counseling her friends, once again.
“Do you feel like giving us your statement?” Jack looked back at her, a worried look in his eyes.
“Let’s get it over with, before everybody gets back. I’ll want to hear from all of them. The pieces of the puzzle are starting to fit together in my mind, and I want to tell it before it starts getting fuzzy, or emotion starts to sway the memories.” Sue was very calm, very professional, but she knew from experience that the longer you push something traumatic out of your mind, the more skewed the memories become.
Jack took her hand and led her to the conference room, where it would be more comfortable. Tara followed, recording device, pen and paper in hand.
Oddly enough, Tara observed, Jack didn’t seem quite capable of letting go of Sue’s hand, although he conducted the interview with the utmost professionalism. “Wait until I tell Lucy about this,” Tara thought to herself as she set up the tape recorder and started taking notes – with one arched eyebrow and a knowing smirk on her face.
*
Sue, Jack, and Tara came back into the bullpen in time to hear the reports from Bobby, Myles, and D.
“We have officially put a crimp in THAT bad guy’s plans, referring to Dessa, of course,” D began with a note of triumph in his voice. “And we have enough on Achmed to put him away for as long as Dessa, if not longer.”
“Mahlik Kalihd will go up for stalking charges, kidnapping charges, and the car bomb. When we start cross-referencing Dessa, Achmed, and Mahlik, we should have them all behind bars for a VERY long time. Betty’s testimony alone will be enough to put the Kalihd father-son duo away for good,” Myles added.
“Has anyone heard from Agent Nelson?” Tara asked.
“He was in a coma until about 30 minutes ago. He may have a long road ahead, recovery-wise, but the doctors are pretty sure he’ll make a full recovery. It’ll just take time.” Myles had checked in on the agent every hour since putting him in the ambulance at the pet store.
“There were enough explosives in that apartment to level the city block, not to mention kidnapping a federal employee,” Bobby said, with a wink and nod to Sue, sitting at her desk. Jack sat close by, on the corner of her desk.
“I’m glad I could be of help,” Sue said, with a gleam of humor in her eyes. “I guess we could say I was undercover as a hostage this time.”
Jack shifted on the desk with a little jerk, rubbing his hand over his face as if to block out the image of Sue as a hostage. “Yeah, a hostage that was probably minutes away from being drugged and strapped into a suicide vest with enough explosives to level this building.”
Jack’s voice was intense, and he went pale even as he said it, but he felt that it had to be said. It had been one of the most harrowing situations they had been in to date.
He looked down at Sue, who had gone quiet, and a little pale at his words. He tapped the top of her head to get her to look at him. “I’m just saying, let’s not repeat that scenario any time soon, OK?” Jack looked down at Sue and gave her a stern look, relieving the look with a smile, touching her nose.
“I can go along with that,” Sue replied, looking up at Jack quietly. She watched him as he began to relax, focusing on his eyes. He was a hard man to read, and yet she knew what he was thinking much of the time.
Sometimes the shutters came down over his eyes, and he became the professional Jack Hudson. Sometimes, like now, she caught a glimpse of the real Jack Hudson, the man with warm brown eyes, a quick smile, and a big heart.
Jack looked down at her with a smile that both dazzled and touched her heart. This time she reached out and took his hand. Tears swam in her eyes as he gave it a warm squeeze.
Chapter 28
“Well, I for one can’t WAIT to sleep in my own bed tonight,” Lucy said as she gathered her things to leave. She looked over at Sue, still sitting at her desk, a pensive look on her face. She signed, “Are you going to be OK?”
Sue gave her a sad little smile, and nodded her head.
Bobby came up to Lucy and Sue. “Can I give you girls a ride home? I know you still haven’t gotten your car out of a snow bank.”
“By the way, Bobby and I took the liberty of going to the hotel and packing all your things on our way back from the crime scene.” Myles indicated packed suitcases next to the door of the office. They hadn’t noticed them until now. “I must say, for having spent the last four nights in such small quarters, it was surprisingly clean. Even Jack’s room looked like it had hardly been slept in,” Myles added, a question mark on his face.
“Don’t worry, there were traces of him all over his room, but no traces of Jack in the girls’ room. Your reputations won’t be tarnished. Now Sparky’s, on the other hand . . . well, there was an awful lot of blonde hair all over his pillow . . . !” Bobby had tongue firmly planted in cheek as he tried to get a rise out of both Jack and Sue.
“Didn’t I tell you? I’ve gotten pretty used to being awakened by the kisses of a beautiful blonde,” Jack commented, wagging his eyebrows, looking at Sue, who was about to come after him until he held his hands up in surrender. “Hey, if there was any blonde hair in my room, it was Levi’s. He kinda got used to coming and waking me up every morning, too.” Jack grinned and gave Levi a good rub, not giving Bobby the satisfaction of getting flustered. Too much water under the bridge for that.
Lucy looked at Sue, questioning what she wanted to do. Jack was looking at her, too, signing very quietly, “Go with me?” No one noticed it but Sue and Lucy. Sue nodded assent, and Lucy just smiled.
“I’ll take you up on that offer, Bobby. I think Sue has some unfinished business before she can go home. I can get there and have the place warmed back up before you even get there!” Lucy’s soft laugh was lost on Sue, but the smile on her face was not.
Myles and Tara left, and then Bobby and Lucy. D was on his cell phone on the way out, reporting to his wife Donna that he was finally on his way home.
Jack walked up silently, and held Sue’s coat out for her, helping her put it on. He went to his desk and pulled out the red scarf, tying carefully around her neck. Picking up the two suitcases, they made their way out of the Hoover Building.
“Well, I for one can’t WAIT to sleep in my own bed tonight,” Lucy said as she gathered her things to leave. She looked over at Sue, still sitting at her desk, a pensive look on her face. She signed, “Are you going to be OK?”
Sue gave her a sad little smile, and nodded her head.
Bobby came up to Lucy and Sue. “Can I give you girls a ride home? I know you still haven’t gotten your car out of a snow bank.”
“By the way, Bobby and I took the liberty of going to the hotel and packing all your things on our way back from the crime scene.” Myles indicated packed suitcases next to the door of the office. They hadn’t noticed them until now. “I must say, for having spent the last four nights in such small quarters, it was surprisingly clean. Even Jack’s room looked like it had hardly been slept in,” Myles added, a question mark on his face.
“Don’t worry, there were traces of him all over his room, but no traces of Jack in the girls’ room. Your reputations won’t be tarnished. Now Sparky’s, on the other hand . . . well, there was an awful lot of blonde hair all over his pillow . . . !” Bobby had tongue firmly planted in cheek as he tried to get a rise out of both Jack and Sue.
“Didn’t I tell you? I’ve gotten pretty used to being awakened by the kisses of a beautiful blonde,” Jack commented, wagging his eyebrows, looking at Sue, who was about to come after him until he held his hands up in surrender. “Hey, if there was any blonde hair in my room, it was Levi’s. He kinda got used to coming and waking me up every morning, too.” Jack grinned and gave Levi a good rub, not giving Bobby the satisfaction of getting flustered. Too much water under the bridge for that.
Lucy looked at Sue, questioning what she wanted to do. Jack was looking at her, too, signing very quietly, “Go with me?” No one noticed it but Sue and Lucy. Sue nodded assent, and Lucy just smiled.
“I’ll take you up on that offer, Bobby. I think Sue has some unfinished business before she can go home. I can get there and have the place warmed back up before you even get there!” Lucy’s soft laugh was lost on Sue, but the smile on her face was not.
Myles and Tara left, and then Bobby and Lucy. D was on his cell phone on the way out, reporting to his wife Donna that he was finally on his way home.
Jack walked up silently, and held Sue’s coat out for her, helping her put it on. He went to his desk and pulled out the red scarf, tying carefully around her neck. Picking up the two suitcases, they made their way out of the Hoover Building.
Chapter 29
“Look, Jack. It’s snowing again.” Sue looked up at the swirling snow, noting the gentle path each snowflake took as it fell from the sky, dusting their heads and shoulders as they walked along the street toward Jack’s car, Levi chomping at snowflakes as he maintained his place between the two.
“This is a lot better than the snow we had earlier,” Jack said, smiling, as he remembered the blizzard that had held them hostage less than a week ago.
“I don’t know. I kind of like a good freak snowstorm every now and again. Keeps us on our toes, you know?” Sue was watching Jack closely as they got into the car.
“Yeah, me too. Although I don’t think Jim Cantore probably likes it as much as we do. I wonder where they’ve sent the poor guy this week.” Jack tried to joke about the snow, and the weather channel personality that always seemed to be put on the ‘front lines’ of any major weather story. He kept glancing at Sue, confusion written all over his face, but determined to keep it light – keep it in the bounds of friendship. He wanted to hug her, wanted to yell at her, wanted to . . . what?
“Do you honestly think that if he didn’t like it, he would be out in the bad weather? I guess it’s like anything that you do, that you love. You learn to take the bad with the good, and hope that the bad just makes you stronger.”
As she spoke, Sue was still watching Jack as he slowly made his way through the once-again snowy streets of Washington, and over to Georgetown. Emotions started coming to the surface as she spoke, and once he started talking, it was as if all the frustration of the evening was boiling to the surface. He knew she wasn’t talking about snow. She was talking about them. About what they do for a living, every day. The good and the bad.
“Are you stronger? Have these bad things that have happened to you made you stronger?” Jack’s voice was rough with feeling as both noticed that he had stopped the car in the same parking spot that he had parked in the night he picked Sue up from the airport. He turned toward her, searching her face, the light of the street light enough illumination for her to read his lips and see the pain of the events of the evening in his face.
She faced him in the car, honesty making her eyes dark and her face serious. “I think they have made me stronger, Jack. God has given me the ability to endure many things. I used to think that enduring being deaf in a hearing world was some big accomplishment. That was so minor in comparison to the things He had yet to show me. He showed me that I can go on, even when I hurt. I can go on, even when other people see me as a victim. What about you, Jack. What has made you stronger?”
He just looked at her for a long moment, touched her hair and her cheek, and then said, “Knowing you.”
“Look, Jack. It’s snowing again.” Sue looked up at the swirling snow, noting the gentle path each snowflake took as it fell from the sky, dusting their heads and shoulders as they walked along the street toward Jack’s car, Levi chomping at snowflakes as he maintained his place between the two.
“This is a lot better than the snow we had earlier,” Jack said, smiling, as he remembered the blizzard that had held them hostage less than a week ago.
“I don’t know. I kind of like a good freak snowstorm every now and again. Keeps us on our toes, you know?” Sue was watching Jack closely as they got into the car.
“Yeah, me too. Although I don’t think Jim Cantore probably likes it as much as we do. I wonder where they’ve sent the poor guy this week.” Jack tried to joke about the snow, and the weather channel personality that always seemed to be put on the ‘front lines’ of any major weather story. He kept glancing at Sue, confusion written all over his face, but determined to keep it light – keep it in the bounds of friendship. He wanted to hug her, wanted to yell at her, wanted to . . . what?
“Do you honestly think that if he didn’t like it, he would be out in the bad weather? I guess it’s like anything that you do, that you love. You learn to take the bad with the good, and hope that the bad just makes you stronger.”
As she spoke, Sue was still watching Jack as he slowly made his way through the once-again snowy streets of Washington, and over to Georgetown. Emotions started coming to the surface as she spoke, and once he started talking, it was as if all the frustration of the evening was boiling to the surface. He knew she wasn’t talking about snow. She was talking about them. About what they do for a living, every day. The good and the bad.
“Are you stronger? Have these bad things that have happened to you made you stronger?” Jack’s voice was rough with feeling as both noticed that he had stopped the car in the same parking spot that he had parked in the night he picked Sue up from the airport. He turned toward her, searching her face, the light of the street light enough illumination for her to read his lips and see the pain of the events of the evening in his face.
She faced him in the car, honesty making her eyes dark and her face serious. “I think they have made me stronger, Jack. God has given me the ability to endure many things. I used to think that enduring being deaf in a hearing world was some big accomplishment. That was so minor in comparison to the things He had yet to show me. He showed me that I can go on, even when I hurt. I can go on, even when other people see me as a victim. What about you, Jack. What has made you stronger?”
He just looked at her for a long moment, touched her hair and her cheek, and then said, “Knowing you.”
Chapter 30
The light was on in the window of Sue and Lucy’s apartment. As they made their way to the front door, Jack said quietly, “Let me carry this in for you. It’s been a long day.”
“I won’t argue with you on that one,” Sue replied, softly.
The snow began to come down harder as they went in the door. Mrs. Larson was in the hallway, coming back from taking out her trash. “My dear! I haven’t seen you in days! Have you been ill,” she asked, noting the droop to Sue’s step.
Sue smiled warmly at her concerned neighbor. “No, we’ve just had a big case to work on, and I had to be out of pocket for a few days.” No need to tell her the whole story. She would hear enough as the days wore on. She didn’t need to know about the danger that had lurked just next door.
“Well, it’s good to see you back, and with your nice young man! You’re going to have to take good care of our Sue!” Mrs. Larson gave them both a wink and a smile as she went back into her apartment. Before she got her door closed, she said, “Oh Sue! I heard on the news a few minutes ago that we’re under a Winter Storm Warning again! Make sure you have plenty of candles on hand!”
Sue looked at Jack with a shy smile as she led the way up the stairs.
“What she doesn’t know is that you could probably take better care of me than I could of you,” Jack said, with a grim smile on his face.
“That’s just silly, Jack, and you know it. I could probably do as WELL, but not better,” Sue said, with a teasing grin.
It was good to see his face light up with a smile. Right now, she was more worried about Jack’s state of mind that she was her own. It was hard to remain calm, in control, and in charge for an indefinite amount of time, under extreme stress. Tonight had been extreme stress. It was hard enough for her, who was in direct danger, but at least she knew where the danger was. Jack always thought he had to protect her, keep her from any harm.
“The way this snow is shaping up again, I may have to protect you from icy road conditions again. My couch is always available,” Sue said, a sideways glance at Jack, who was looking straight at her.
“Sue, if you’re afraid tonight, just say so,” he said, taking both arms and turning her toward him as they approached her door. Looking deeply into her eyes, he could see the beginnings of tears forming.
She turned away, fiddling with her door key. Jack took it from her and opened the door for her. As they walked in, on the table next to the door was a note from Lucy. “Gone to BED! Tea kettle is still hot. See you in the morning, Love, Luce.” Sue smiled at the note, but still had a tearful look in her eyes when she looked up at Jack.
It wasn’t so much being afraid that made her feel emotional, although the thought of spending the night here, with just Lucy and Levi, where there had been an intruder, was quite daunting. It was the feeling that after six days of being together almost all the time, it was like severing something to see Jack leave and go back to his apartment.
When he saw that look, he pulled her to him with a loud groan. A groan she could not hear, but could feel. They just stood there for a few minutes, her head resting on his shoulder, his head resting on hers, his hand cradling her head, enjoying the feel of her soft hair underneath it. She thought she felt a kiss on top of her head, but she couldn’t be sure. She could feel him saying something, but couldn’t see him until she backed away from him.
“I’m sorry – I was offering to start the fire for you. Would you let me take care of you for a little while before I leave – or get snowed in, whichever comes first?” Jack had taken both her hands and led her to the couch. “Please?”
“OK, Jack. Thank you.” Sue sat, looking alternately at the fire and at the man who was making her tea in the kitchen and feeding Levi. Relaxation was slowly stealing upon her as she tucked her feet up under her. She was secretly hoping that he would get snowed in again.
When Jack came back into the room bearing a cup of tea for each of them, he noticed her smile. “That’s a sight I like to see,” he said, returning her smile as he sat beside her on the couch.
“Me, too.” She blushed in the firelight. She was taken off guard. She liked to see him in her kitchen. He meant he liked to see her smile. “I mean, I would much rather see you smile at me than glare at me. I’m sorry I worried you, Jack. I’ve never been so glad to see anyone as I was seeing you tonight. I know God has guardian angels around to protect us, but I know He has sent you to help me so many times.” Sue was a little embarrassed and looked down at her cup, but she had to be honest with him.
Jack touched the hand holding her cup to get her attention. “I’d say we compliment one another pretty well. Not just anyone would take in Frosty the Snowman in a blizzard,” he said, looking at her over his cup as he took a sip. “I think getting a little melted is a small price to pay for getting to help a little blonde girl with her troubles.”
Now that they had both relaxed, and gotten over the emotional outburst of earlier, they were beginning to enjoy one another’s company. They looked at one another and laughed, glad to be back on a friendly footing.
Jack’s phone rang. Sue saw him look at it, and say, “It’s Bobby.”
“Where are you, mate?” Bobby asked, a little irritated that his calls had been ignored. “I’ve been calling you for over an hour. You didn’t make Sue endure more questioning, did you?”
“No, I’m at Sue’s. I brought her stuff in, and it’s really started snowing again. We decided to enjoy a cup of tea before I leave. What’s up?” Jack asked.
“Not the barometer! Guess where Jim Cantore is?”
Jack laughed as he finished the conversation, hung up, and turned to Sue. “Before the power goes out, how about we check the weather channel?”
“Probably a good idea. What did Bobby want?” Sue asked, smiling, and curious about the laugh the men shared before hanging up. It was the most natural, relaxed laugh Sue had seen from Jack since before they discovered a bloody towel in her kitchen drawer.
As the television came on, Jack tuned in to the weather channel. Sure enough, there was Jim Cantore, Weather guy extraordinaire.
Jack grinned wickedly as he sat next to Sue, his arm on the back of the couch, pulling her toward him gently. Sue didn’t object, but she did wonder what had made Jack so bold all of the sudden.
“You know, the more I look at that painting, the more I like it,” Jack said, randomly, as he looked at the painting above the mantle, Sue cradled in the crook of his arm. He smiled down at her with a boyish smile and an arched brow.
Sue paused in watching the weather report and gave him a strange look. Where was all this coming from?
“The snow is coming down so hard; I can’t tell where he is. Wherever it is, it looks like the beginnings of a blizzard,” Sue said, squinting, trying to pick out what city he was in by a recognizable landmark.
Soon the caption came on the bottom of the screen – “Jim Cantore, Weather Channel, Washington Mall” . . . and then the lights went out – again.
The End
The light was on in the window of Sue and Lucy’s apartment. As they made their way to the front door, Jack said quietly, “Let me carry this in for you. It’s been a long day.”
“I won’t argue with you on that one,” Sue replied, softly.
The snow began to come down harder as they went in the door. Mrs. Larson was in the hallway, coming back from taking out her trash. “My dear! I haven’t seen you in days! Have you been ill,” she asked, noting the droop to Sue’s step.
Sue smiled warmly at her concerned neighbor. “No, we’ve just had a big case to work on, and I had to be out of pocket for a few days.” No need to tell her the whole story. She would hear enough as the days wore on. She didn’t need to know about the danger that had lurked just next door.
“Well, it’s good to see you back, and with your nice young man! You’re going to have to take good care of our Sue!” Mrs. Larson gave them both a wink and a smile as she went back into her apartment. Before she got her door closed, she said, “Oh Sue! I heard on the news a few minutes ago that we’re under a Winter Storm Warning again! Make sure you have plenty of candles on hand!”
Sue looked at Jack with a shy smile as she led the way up the stairs.
“What she doesn’t know is that you could probably take better care of me than I could of you,” Jack said, with a grim smile on his face.
“That’s just silly, Jack, and you know it. I could probably do as WELL, but not better,” Sue said, with a teasing grin.
It was good to see his face light up with a smile. Right now, she was more worried about Jack’s state of mind that she was her own. It was hard to remain calm, in control, and in charge for an indefinite amount of time, under extreme stress. Tonight had been extreme stress. It was hard enough for her, who was in direct danger, but at least she knew where the danger was. Jack always thought he had to protect her, keep her from any harm.
“The way this snow is shaping up again, I may have to protect you from icy road conditions again. My couch is always available,” Sue said, a sideways glance at Jack, who was looking straight at her.
“Sue, if you’re afraid tonight, just say so,” he said, taking both arms and turning her toward him as they approached her door. Looking deeply into her eyes, he could see the beginnings of tears forming.
She turned away, fiddling with her door key. Jack took it from her and opened the door for her. As they walked in, on the table next to the door was a note from Lucy. “Gone to BED! Tea kettle is still hot. See you in the morning, Love, Luce.” Sue smiled at the note, but still had a tearful look in her eyes when she looked up at Jack.
It wasn’t so much being afraid that made her feel emotional, although the thought of spending the night here, with just Lucy and Levi, where there had been an intruder, was quite daunting. It was the feeling that after six days of being together almost all the time, it was like severing something to see Jack leave and go back to his apartment.
When he saw that look, he pulled her to him with a loud groan. A groan she could not hear, but could feel. They just stood there for a few minutes, her head resting on his shoulder, his head resting on hers, his hand cradling her head, enjoying the feel of her soft hair underneath it. She thought she felt a kiss on top of her head, but she couldn’t be sure. She could feel him saying something, but couldn’t see him until she backed away from him.
“I’m sorry – I was offering to start the fire for you. Would you let me take care of you for a little while before I leave – or get snowed in, whichever comes first?” Jack had taken both her hands and led her to the couch. “Please?”
“OK, Jack. Thank you.” Sue sat, looking alternately at the fire and at the man who was making her tea in the kitchen and feeding Levi. Relaxation was slowly stealing upon her as she tucked her feet up under her. She was secretly hoping that he would get snowed in again.
When Jack came back into the room bearing a cup of tea for each of them, he noticed her smile. “That’s a sight I like to see,” he said, returning her smile as he sat beside her on the couch.
“Me, too.” She blushed in the firelight. She was taken off guard. She liked to see him in her kitchen. He meant he liked to see her smile. “I mean, I would much rather see you smile at me than glare at me. I’m sorry I worried you, Jack. I’ve never been so glad to see anyone as I was seeing you tonight. I know God has guardian angels around to protect us, but I know He has sent you to help me so many times.” Sue was a little embarrassed and looked down at her cup, but she had to be honest with him.
Jack touched the hand holding her cup to get her attention. “I’d say we compliment one another pretty well. Not just anyone would take in Frosty the Snowman in a blizzard,” he said, looking at her over his cup as he took a sip. “I think getting a little melted is a small price to pay for getting to help a little blonde girl with her troubles.”
Now that they had both relaxed, and gotten over the emotional outburst of earlier, they were beginning to enjoy one another’s company. They looked at one another and laughed, glad to be back on a friendly footing.
Jack’s phone rang. Sue saw him look at it, and say, “It’s Bobby.”
“Where are you, mate?” Bobby asked, a little irritated that his calls had been ignored. “I’ve been calling you for over an hour. You didn’t make Sue endure more questioning, did you?”
“No, I’m at Sue’s. I brought her stuff in, and it’s really started snowing again. We decided to enjoy a cup of tea before I leave. What’s up?” Jack asked.
“Not the barometer! Guess where Jim Cantore is?”
Jack laughed as he finished the conversation, hung up, and turned to Sue. “Before the power goes out, how about we check the weather channel?”
“Probably a good idea. What did Bobby want?” Sue asked, smiling, and curious about the laugh the men shared before hanging up. It was the most natural, relaxed laugh Sue had seen from Jack since before they discovered a bloody towel in her kitchen drawer.
As the television came on, Jack tuned in to the weather channel. Sure enough, there was Jim Cantore, Weather guy extraordinaire.
Jack grinned wickedly as he sat next to Sue, his arm on the back of the couch, pulling her toward him gently. Sue didn’t object, but she did wonder what had made Jack so bold all of the sudden.
“You know, the more I look at that painting, the more I like it,” Jack said, randomly, as he looked at the painting above the mantle, Sue cradled in the crook of his arm. He smiled down at her with a boyish smile and an arched brow.
Sue paused in watching the weather report and gave him a strange look. Where was all this coming from?
“The snow is coming down so hard; I can’t tell where he is. Wherever it is, it looks like the beginnings of a blizzard,” Sue said, squinting, trying to pick out what city he was in by a recognizable landmark.
Soon the caption came on the bottom of the screen – “Jim Cantore, Weather Channel, Washington Mall” . . . and then the lights went out – again.
The End
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