CHAPTER THREE
Since Terrance Dever – the head of the Doyle investigation – was now full-time at HQ, he’d been awarded an office on the fourth floor. Ella was standing in there for the first time now, and she was less than impressed with what he’d done with the place.
‘Ella, take a seat, would you?’ Dever asked. Richard Vernon, known around these parts as Slick Rick, was in there too.
‘If I must,’ Ella said. She took a seat in one of the chairs against the far wall, which faced not the desk but a filing cabinet.
The desk itself was pushed into the corner at an angle, like it had been shoved there during a move and never corrected, and Dever’s chair was wedged between the desk and the window so that he sat with his back to the room.
The layout of this so-called office confused her, but a lot of things about Terrance Dever confused her.
‘You probably want some answers,’ Dever said.
‘It would be nice, yes.’
‘Well, where do I start?’
Ella looked at Vernon, who was idling against the door. ‘You could start by telling me why you sent me to see a woman we don’t legally have access to, and why you made me look like a jackass in front of Doyle’s lawyers.’
‘That’s my bad,’ offered Vernon. ‘I thought you just being you would be enough. But I guess the prison informed the lawyers you were visiting, so they came down just to put a stop to your meeting. Those rat bastards.’
‘Fine. I don’t care that Doyle’s off limits for the time being, but you couldn’t have waited until she was definitely accessible? Why’d you send me there if you knew I was going to get turned away?’
‘We were hopeful,’ Dever said.
‘Hopeful? Right. How long have you known she was off limits?’
‘Two days.’
‘Great. And what about the other thing?’
Dever waved off the question and said, ‘It’ll sort itself out.’
Ella peered over at Vernon, who looked as reluctant as she felt.
Ella wasn’t sure what the hell Dever actually did around here, because by her math she and Luca had done everything to catch Doyle themselves except physically put her in chains.
‘How do you mean? Doyle’s lawyer told me they don’t know who she is. We have to sort that out.’
‘I’ve got guys at Doyle’s house right now. They’ll find something that confirms her identity.’
‘Terrance, what does it even mean that you can’t confirm her identity? There are pictures of the woman online. She’s on the Louisiana prison website for God’s sake. Match her face to the woman sitting in that prison cell.’
‘We did, but it’s not as simple as that.
Doyle had no ID on her. The car she was driving wasn’t registered to her.
The fingerprints we took from her don’t match the fingerprints she submitted to the prison when she first joined.
Her face looks the same, but the DNA and circumstantial evidence say otherwise. ’
Ella was just about ready to stomp a hole through the hardwood and push Dever down to the third floor.
‘Terry, I’ve seen that woman twice before in the flesh.
She was sitting next to me in that courtroom.
She was in Austin Creed’s interview room.
Yes, her hair is different and she’s done something to her face, maybe prosthetics, but everything else is exactly the same.
Face, bone structure, height, build, profile, you name it.
I might have only seen her through a car window but it was enough to know I was staring at Lindsey Doyle. ’
‘Well,’ Dever began, scratching his jaw, ‘there is another issue there.’
‘Of course there is.’
‘You remember how we learned – or thought – that Doyle was still in Louisiana?’
‘Yes. Doyle’s sister told us.’
‘Right. And Doyle’s sister – Tracy Doyle – isn’t just her sister.’
Ella raised an eyebrow. ‘Then what is she? Her wife too?’
‘No, she’s her twin sister.’
Ella sat back in her chair and pressed her fingertips to her eyes. She sighed heavily out of her nose, then clasped her hands together and stared at the ceiling for a moment. ‘Tell me you’re messing with me. Tell me this is one big April Fool’s joke.’
‘April Fools was yesterday,’ said Vernon.
‘This is real, but even so, I think Doyle is just trying to do whatever she can to get out of this. This bizarre situation is her last ditch effort, but it’s only a matter of time before we confirm who she really is.
And yes, we’ve tried to locate her sister, but she’s not home, nor has she been since we apprehended Doyle. ’
Ella stared at the wall behind Dever’s desk and tried to make sense of what she’d just heard.
Twin sister.
Tracy Doyle.
‘And these two sisters are… identical?’
‘Close enough,’ Dever said.
Two women who looked identical. One of them a corrections officer. One of them – what? An accomplice? A patsy?
‘So let me get this straight,’ Ella said slowly.
‘Lindsey Doyle has a twin sister named Tracy. Tracy told us Lindsey was still in Louisiana when she clearly wasn’t.
And now the woman we arrested either is Lindsey, or she’s Tracy pretending to be Lindsey.
Is there a way to confirm it’s Tracy in that cell and not Lindsey? ’
Dever said, ‘We’re working on that too, but it’s hard to confirm that too. It’s not like Tracy is on any database we can match her to. You see why we wanted you in there so badly? You’re the only person that’s seen Lindsey Doyle in the flesh before.’
Ella shook her head and said, ‘No, I might not have. If these two women look identical, how am I supposed to know which one was next to me in that courtroom and in the prison? My rational mind says Lindsey is doing all of this and her sister has gone missing on purpose so they can pull this little scheme. They probably had it planned out in case Lindsey got caught.’
‘You can see why we’re struggling here,’ Vernon said, ‘but we’re trying to stay level-headed.’
‘There’s nothing level-headed about this. We’ve got a woman in custody who might be Lindsey Doyle or might be Tracy Doyle, and the other one is out there somewhere, and we don’t know which is which.’
Vernon shifted against the door. ‘We’re working on it.’
‘Working on it? Rick, one of these women killed three people and tried to kill two more. The other one covered for her. Either way, they’re both guilty of something.’
‘Agreed.’
‘So what’s the plan?’ Ella looked between Dever and Vernon. ‘Please tell me that in the past few days, you’ve thought of how to approach this.’
Vernon strode across the room and perched himself on the edge of Dever’s desk. ‘Yes, we have a plan, and it’s already in motion.’
‘Oh really?’
‘Really. We’ve taken pictures of Doyle and sent them to people she worked with, and they’ve all confirmed it’s her, but…’
‘But confirmed is doing a lot of heavy lifting there,’ Dever said. ‘Because none of them have seen her sister before. But there is, however, one person who can confirm if the woman in that cell is Lindsey Doyle or not.’
Ella gave it a moment of thought, and one name sprang to mind. ‘Austin Creed.’
‘Yes,’ said Vernon. ‘You know why.’
‘Yes I do. Creed and Doyle were close. If anyone can identify if it’s her, it’s him.’
Dever added, ‘Right, but he can’t confirm it directly, because he’s never seen Doyle’s sister either.
However, Creed knows things about Doyle.
If we put them together in the same room and we have behavioral profilers watching Doyle’s reactions, we should be able to get a pretty solid answer, right? ’
Ella thought it through.
Put Creed in a room with whoever was in that cell. Have him talk to her. Ask her things only Lindsey would know. Watch her reactions. See if she gives herself away.
It was a long shot.
Psychopaths were exceptional actors, and there’d be two of them in that room.
They could both fake anything they needed to sell the performance.
If the woman in that cell was Tracy, and if she’d been working with Lindsey this whole time, then she’d know enough about her sister’s relationship with Creed to fake it convincingly.
But it was better than nothing.
‘It’s not foolproof,’ Ella said.
‘Certainly not,’ Dever said, ‘but there is one… uh... benefit.’
It wasn’t even 10AM and Ella’s head already felt like a solid ball of rock on her shoulders. An hour ago, she’d thought this whole ordeal had been over, but now she was dealing with potential twin serial killers.
She held Dever’s stare. He was talking about a benefit, and Ella was quickly getting a feeling for his way of operating. If she was a betting woman, she’d think that Dever was about to offer Austin Creed a deal.
‘Let me guess. If Creed confirms it’s Lindsey Doyle in that cell, you’ll delay his execution.’
‘No. We’ll reduce his sentence to life imprisonment. No death penalty.’
Ella inhaled deeply. She wasn’t sure how to feel about such a possibility. ‘Can we override the court ruling like that?’
Vernon said, ‘Yes we can. Executions take years to come to fruition anyway, and his lawyers have been fighting tooth and nail to get his sentence reduced all on the taxpayer’s dime. We’d be doing the courts and the lawyers a favor by reducing his sentence. Everyone wins. Which means…’
‘Which means Creed has an incentive to tell the truth.’
‘Bingo.’
‘Sometimes you need to feed the beast to catch the beast,’ Dever said.
Ella wondered just how many beasts Dever had actually caught. By her count, he’d spent most of his career shuffling paperwork, but she kept that thought to herself.
‘Creed is currently at Louisiana State Penitentiary,’ Vernon said. ‘We need him here in D.C.’
‘Right.’
‘And I want you on the escort team that brings him back.’
Ella’s throat constricted. ‘What? Me?’
‘Yes. You heard me.’
‘Why me?’
‘Because it gives you a chance to talk to him. Two hours uninterrupted on the journey. You’re the one who caught him. You’re the one Doyle’s been targeting. I’m aware Creed denies any involvement with this, but he could be lying, and he might slip up.’
Two hours alone with Austin Creed. She’d been the one who’d put him in prison and helped secure his death sentence, and she had no doubt there’d be a visceral reaction from him sitting opposite her in a confined space for two hours. She could use that.
‘I can work with that.’
‘There’ll be a SWAT team and other agents too, including Terrance. We’re flying commercial to avoid drawing attention, but the plane will be locked down. There’ll be no civilians or press.’
‘Flying?’
‘Driving is too risky. Air is safer.’
‘When?’ Ella asked.
‘Soon,’ Dever said. ‘We need you in Louisiana until it happens. Could be a few days. It’s not in motion yet, but when it is, it’ll happen fast. We don’t want any publicity.
We don’t want the media getting wind of it.
And if inmates at Creed’s prison know he’s about to leave, it puts a target on him. ’
‘And after?’
‘After, we keep Creed detained here in D.C. We can keep a closer eye on him. No more relying on state corrections to handle a federal asset.’
Ella pictured the scene. A plane consisting of her, a serial killer, a SWAT team and Terrance Dever. At least she had the SWAT team, she reasoned, but one variable was still missing.
‘I want Ripley with me on the journey.’
Vernon didn’t hesitate. ‘Done.’
Ella tried not to give away that she knew Vernon would jump at that opportunity. He’d never liked Ripley and any excuse to get her out of the office was a win in his book.
‘Alright. When do I leave?’
‘How fast can you pack your bag?’