Chapter Nine
Jude had been trying her best not to lie to Cole any more than she had to, and technically, it was true that she was meeting an old friend, but she’d left out the details of where the meeting would take place, that the man was an ex-lover, and that she had to travel roughly six hundred miles to ambush him.
With the broad exception of the Pentagon, which had seemingly endless resources both financial and logistical, working for the federal government was an exercise in alphabetized horse-trading.
The DEA oftentimes worked with the IRS, who worked with the EPA, who sometimes availed themselves of DHS, who inevitably called in the DOJ to send the FBI to straighten everything out.
Jude had often worked with the United States Marshals Service’s child abduction unit, who coordinated with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a private non-profit that received funding from the federal government.
The USMS’s vast experience with capturing fugitives made them uniquely adept at locating child predators.
Though it was the smallest law enforcement agency under the umbrella of the DOJ, tendrils of the USMS reached into every corner of the world through their fugitive-tracking network.
Their asset forfeiture program was responsible for auctioning off ill-gotten gains of criminals and their organizations that are seized by the federal government.
In other words, the Marshals were the ones who got all the fun toys, from confiscated Lamborghinis to mansions to yachts to private jets.
A commercial flight to Richmond would’ve necessitated a two-hour drive to Atlanta, then at least an hour at the gate, then another two hours on a plane, then the same math again, but backward.
Hitching a ride had managed to cut the travel time in half.
It had also been a hell of a lot easier on her body.
Every time Jude let herself forget about the bullet that had come within millimeters of punching a hole in her skull, her aching elbow and throbbing hip reminded her that she’d still taken a hard fall.
The hip pain was particularly galling. The closer she got to Medicare eligibility, the more that jokes about joint replacements stopped being funny.
The rental car drive to the north-eastern corner of Prince William County had offered a scenic view of the Potomac River snaking along the eastern boundary of a sprawling military base.
Quantico was many things to many people.
It was a quaint small town in Virginia a little over half an hour from DC.
It was a Marine Corps base. HQ to the investigative branches of the Navy, Army and Air Force.
Training academy for the DEA. Home to both the FBI Academy and the FBI laboratory services.
Obviously, Jude had trained at Quantico, but over the years, she’d also served as a guest lecturer and an adjunct to the behavioral sciences unit, which is why her credentials still got her through multiple security gates.
There’d been a time in the early 2000s when her textbook on child abductions and kidnappings had been mandatory reading for all NATs, or new agent trainees.
When Jude had put in her retirement papers, she’d been offered a teaching job, but instead, she had chosen to return to North Falls to sleep on a lumpy couch and share a bathroom with a charming but messy twenty-three-year-old boy and a forty-two-year-old woman who glowered at her every time she walked into the kitchen.
Jude paced the visitor’s lobby of the Intelligence and Investigative Training Center, which was sandwiched between Bureau Parkway and Hoover Road.
She could hear the distant pop of firearms from Hogan’s Alley, the mock small town where agents trained to clear buildings and negotiate the release of hostages.
The sound took her back to the car with Cole and Emmy after her mother’s funeral.
They’d been taking the long way through Clifton Gardens.
Cole had been teasing Jude about being old, then several minutes later, Jude had been on the floor of Allison Vickery’s upstairs hallway with blood sliding down the side of her face.
Her fingers found the small Band-Aid on the side of her head that covered the graze wound. She forced herself to stop touching it. She looked at her watch. This was taking a hell of a lot longer than it needed to.
Assistant Director Samuel Callaghan routinely spent his weekends at work.
For nearly ten years, Jude had thought his dedication to the job made him an ideal man for long-distance dating.
Then she’d found out he was cheating on her.
To Jude’s great shame, she had taken him back, but a year later he’d left her to marry a younger woman.
Predictably, he’d been caught cheating on his young wife with an even younger woman, and then he’d cheated on both a year later.
Which was how Jude knew exactly where to find him on a late Saturday afternoon. Men like Samuel never changed.
“Dr. Archer?” A young woman in gray cargo pants and a black FBI ACADEMY polo walked through the lobby with a giant smile on her face.
She looked giddy enough to float away, which Jude took to mean the updated paper on locating the remains of Freddy Henley’s last victim was making the rounds.
“Assistant Director Callaghan asked me to bring you upstairs.”
Jude had let herself forget how much the agency loved titles. “Thank you.”
She walked alongside the girl and asked the usual questions—what was it like being a NAT, what were her areas of interest, out of which field office would she like to work.
They were in the elevator when Freddy’s name finally came up, which was some kind of record.
The NAT was so clearly in awe that Jude had to remind herself she would be returning home to Emmy soon.
It would do her no good to become accustomed to being respected.
The elevator doors opened on a depressing alcove with a strip of worn carpet and a row of mismatched chairs. The dirty windows showed feathered outlines of birds who’d miscalculated their flight patterns. An apt metaphor, Myrna would’ve said.
“I’ll let Assistant Director Callaghan know you’re here.”
Jude assumed she was being told to stay put. She hadn’t seen Samuel in five years. He was making her wait to show that he could make her wait. Which was fair. She probably would’ve made him wait, too.
She fished her phone out of her purse. She was just as bad as Cole, who was incapable of enduring prolonged moments of solitude. The only difference was she needed her reading glasses to see the damn screen.
She scrolled past a text from Penley, who wanted Jude to weigh in on yard signs for Emmy’s campaign for sheriff.
Tommy had texted back an exclamation point to Jude’s question mark, which she supposed was how they communicated now.
Before getting on the flight, Jude had apologized to Taybee for skipping the family gathering at the farmhouse.
Taybee had sent back three thumbs up emojis. Then three more. Then three more.
Most Cliftons had some level of OCD, but Taybee’s branch of the family had it in triplicate.
The last text was from Cole, who’d updated her on his progress. She sent him a few words of encouragement, which was more than he’d get from his mother.
Jude felt a familiar unease as she returned her phone and reading glasses to her purse.
Emmy didn’t seem capable of giving much of anything lately.
She’d literally swayed from the weight of her grief at Myrna’s graveside.
She’d kept clasping her shaking hands, but that hadn’t stopped the trembling.
To Jude, it seemed unlikely that Emmy was going to be able to investigate a murder and attempted murder on top of everything else she was dealing with.
The only way Jude could think of helping her right now was to follow the advice she’d given Cole: the way you get onto a case is to make yourself valuable to the case.
Unfortunately, Samuel didn’t seem to get the urgency. Jude glanced down the hallway. Still no sign of the NAT. This had stopped being a power play and started being annoying.
She sat down with a sigh of resignation.
Jude started to cross her legs, but a pinch in her hip put both feet back on the floor.
She’d worn jeans, a leather jacket and her motorcycle boots on the plane because it was never a good idea to let convicted felons see more of your skin than necessary.
Samuel was a different story. Jude had changed into a low-cut blouse and a tight skirt in the Richmond airport.
She wasn’t tossing out her feminist card so much as looking for a way to expedite things.
“Dr. Archer?” The NAT had returned. “Assistant Director Callaghan is ready for you.”
Jude’s boots tapped out rewarding thumps against the floor as she followed the girl down the hallway. The NAT’s black leather derbies had a softer shuffle, like a jewel thief tiptoeing across a silk rug.
They took a right turn, then another, basically leading to the back side of the elevators. The open plan offices were all dark, but Jude could see light coming from the doorway that led to what the NATs called the Sniper’s Nest.
“Hey, stranger.”
Samuel was standing by the window. Sunlight cut across his face.
His hair had gone more salt than pepper.
Weekends were casual, so he was wearing jeans with his usual black leather derbies.
His arms and chest were still muscled under his long-sleeved black T-shirt.
He was clearly luxuriating in that sweet spot of ageing, right before his chiseled features slid down his neck and developed suspicious-looking spots that had to be removed under a local anesthetic.
He gave her an appreciative once-over, his eyes lingering in the expected places. Jude was holding up well, too.
He asked, “How’s retirement treating you?”