A Deeper Darkness Part 20

And yet here she was, one of the left behind.

With everything that had happened, she honestly didn't know if she could manage to get through the afternoon. It was too soon. She wasn't ready to face a hole in the ground. And she knew she wasn't ready to bury Donovan, either.

But she didn't have that luxury. Susan and Eleanor needed her. So instead of putting her head in the sand and waiting for the day after tomorrow, she was on M Street, walking into White House Black Market to find an appropriate black dress to wear.

She'd rescheduled her flight home so she could stay for a few more days. Called work and told them she was taking a week of vacation. But she only had three days' worth of clothes, and nothing appropriate for Arlington. Susan had offered to let her go through her closet, but she didn't feel right about that. She and Susan were the same dress size, but there was something really creepy about wearing your ex's wife's clothes to his funeral. Sam had demurred, and set out for a walk down the hill, knowing she would amble by plenty of shops on the way.

Sam used to love to shop. That was another thing loss did to you, it stole your pleasures. But the day was sunny, the air filled with the scent of flowers, and she was surprised to find herself enjoying the outing. She found several pieces that she liked, along with some shoes that were more appropriate than her clogs or loafers.

Walking back up Wisconsin with her bags slung over her shoulder, she ran through the case in her head. She felt like everything had stagnated. She couldn't break the code in Donovan's journals. She'd left three unreturned messages with Detective Fletcher. Her cursory search into the whereabouts of Donovan's friend Xander had turned up nothing. Short of driving up to the Savage River and asking around for him, she was at a loss for what to do next. And if this man was responsible for the death of two men, she couldn't particularly go running toward him. Instead, she wanted to back away, away from everything going on, from her cruel emotions, the hurt she was digging up like pieces of shrapnel caught deep under her skin.

Think like a detective, like Taylor, Sam. What would Taylor do?

She wouldn't back away. She'd charge forward, heedlessly even, and solve the case. But that's why she was who she was, and Sam, well, that's why she was a pathologist. Charging forward had never really been a part of her personal lexicon.

Sam was a cautious woman. To the point that she took pride in the fact that she always looked before she leaped. She thought things through, measured the cost, the impact, the consequences, before acting. Spontaneity was not her strong suit.

Yet here she was in D.C., forging through a murder investigation without a road map. Simon would have laughed at her. He was as cautious as she. It must have something to do with their chosen professions: she a pathologist, he a geneticist. There was comfort in the explained, the immutable constants of science, for both of them.

His death wasn't explainable. The death of the twins wasn't explainable. Her own miscarriage right before she lost her whole family wasn't explainable.

So why did she keep trying to find answers in that which was utterly without reason?

Sam felt her breath coming fast.

s.h.i.t.

She dropped the bags on the street in front of her and pulled the antibacterial gel from her purse.

One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi. Four.

G.o.d, the urge had snuck up on her, laying her bare in front of this street full of strangers. She couldn't help that, ignored their curious glances, just scrubbed and scrubbed until her hands were dry, then poured more gel in her palms and did it all over.

Simon. Matthew. Madeline.

Donovan.

She stopped short when she realized she'd added him into her frantic prayer.

Breathe.

Open your eyes.

Cars driving by, the construction workers on the corner, the scrambling students hurrying past on their way to cla.s.s. Slowly the real world came back. She looked to her left and realized she was standing at the base of the Georgetown University steps.

How many times had she stood in this very spot? Meeting friends before a night on the town carousing, exchanging study notes, sneaking kisses with Donovan, taking a breather after a run. The memories flooded her like waves on a beach, relentlessly crashing into the hard sand.

The code in Donovan's journal.

He was referencing dates. Dates that corresponded to their time together at Georgetown.

As if he'd known Sam was going to see his journals one day.

She shook her head and sat down on the second step from the bottom. Think, Sam. That was crazy. That wasn't it. You're being narcissistic.

And then it hit her.

He wasn't sending her a message. He was sending them to himself.

She sat there for a few minutes, letting the pages of the journal run through her head. She remembered... . Her breath caught. All the tumblers fell into place, and the vault in her mind opened wide.

The code she thought she was seeing wasn't a code, per se. They were memories. Memories. That's how he wrote his journal, covering the parts of his days that seemed so mundane, interspersed with memories. Now that she had that, she could see they certainly didn't all refer to her, though some did, especially recently. But there were many, many moments he'd captured.

The elegance of his system made her smile. But my G.o.d, forty years of memories... Whatever was referenced on the missing pages could have been anything, from any time in his life.

Donovan had never been shy about the fact that he journaled. He used to talk about the process with their friends. He told them emptying his mind of what was there, regardless of topic or length, helped him sleep, so he did it every night, even when he was drunk, or so tired he couldn't get the pen to run along the page properly.

That's when Sam bought him the fountain pen. She thought it might be more fun for him to write with than a cheap blue Bic ballpoint.

Those close to him knew he wrote in Latin, but she couldn't imagine him telling too many people that fact. Despite the teasing way he'd lorded it over them in school, to share such a detail with just anyone smacked of arrogance, and while Donovan had always had machismo to spare, he wasn't a braggart.

Someone knew that he'd written down something incriminating, and had determined that they needed to stop him from sharing. So they broke into the house and stole the incriminating pages from the journal.

If she was right, if that theory held together, the culprit must be someone very close.

Or...when he received the note, he tore the pages out himself and destroyed them.

G.o.d, she felt like she was running in circles. She picked up her bags and started up the street, anxious to get back and look through the journal one more time. She couldn't help but wonder again about the people he worked with at Raptor, and the men he'd served with. His death wasn't random. Whoever had killed him was someone he knew well.

Sam needed to read Donovan's journals from the time he was overseas with the unit comprised of the five men in the picture. See what story they had to tell. Susan had gone into the footlocker in the attic last night and pulled three dark red leather diaries from the pile. They were waiting for Sam back at the house.

The closer she got to the answers, the farther away she felt. But at least she had an idea of what to look for now. Leave it to Donovan to scatter a trail of bread crumbs, no matter how purposeful or unwittingly he'd done so.

Chapter Thirty-One.

Washington, D.C.

Detective Darren Fletcher

"Thank you, Deputy. I'll wait for that fax."

Fletcher closed his cell phone and leaned back in his chair. The homicide offices were quiet now, in between shifts. He had s.p.a.ce to think.

The folks from New Castle, supplemented by some crime scene techs from Roanoke, had turned out to be a rather quick and talented group; they'd finished the post and gotten the report done in the time it took Fletcher and Hart to get back to D.C. It helped that they had a pathologist on staff who was an expert in entomology. Through the insect activity on both bodies, the doctor had been able to pinpoint the time of death for William Everett to the previous Tuesday, a full three days before Donovan's murder. That made it official; Billy Shakes was not their man.

The cause of death was listed as exsanguination. Method of death was probable suicide. They could not rule out intimidation or coercion, but there was no solid evidence to prove that scenario.

Except for one little detail. One little detail that could be used to suggest that all was not as it seemed.

The crime scene techs had retrieved a goodly amount of trace evidence, including a long dark hair from the wound in Mrs. Everett's head, a hair that didn't match either William, who was blond, or Mrs. Everett, who was steel gray. A hair with intact follicle, which would be used to find DNA. That hair, coupled with the time of the murder, gave Fletcher enough pause that he was unwilling to categorize the murder of Mrs. Everett the sole responsibility of William Everett, and instead added a possible third person to the mix. It was entirely possible that someone had killed Mrs. Everett, and when William arrived home to find his mother dead, he offed himself.

Or, which might be more logical, someone was waiting for him when he got back. Someone who didn't want a witness to their conversation. Someone who was more than willing to take out an old woman so she wouldn't get out of bed and overhear a personal tete-a-tete.

It did appear that Everett had slit his own wrists. There were hesitation cuts beginning an inch below his left palm, deep enough to bleed but not deep enough to hit the artery that would eventually let his life's blood escape into the tub. It was possible that he was forced to use the razor on himself. His BAL was nearly three times the legal limit, which meant he'd gotten very drunk before he killed himself. Drunk, but probably not pa.s.sed out: his liver showed a solid dive into cirrhosis. Billy Shakes was an alcoholic, and most likely a functioning one. His employer had been found; he worked the timber forests in North Carolina. The man was genuinely sorry to hear of Billy's death, he was a good worker, one that kept everyone in st.i.tches or tears as he acted out the great soliloquies from his favorite master, Shakespeare. Billy had been caught drinking on the job a few times, but a stiff reprimand had cured his foolishness.

No fresh granulomas had been found in his lungs, furthering the suicide theory. But there was no note. And more than that-there was no calendar, no mail with his name on it. Only a duffel bag full of clothes, enough for a week's worth of changes. It seemed Everett had come home for a visit and stayed for a few days, which jived with his boss's recollection that Billy had taken a week's vacation to visit his sick mother.

But Mrs. Everett wasn't sick.

Maybe he'd run home as an escape, thinking he could get clear of whatever trouble was hunting him down by hiding out in the holler with his mama's shotgun to protect him. Not the most manly thing for an ex-Ranger to do, but people did crazy things when they were scared.

So what, or who, had managed to scare someone who'd spent the past decade tromping through the deep sand and unforgiving forests hunting terrorists? And had he killed himself, or been forced into that good night?

Fletcher was doing his best not to get frustrated. The case was turning into a sprawling, convoluted mess, spreading across multiple jurisdictions, diving in and out of logic. He had no way of knowing if he was dealing with a single killer or more. Whether the military angle was even relevant. Where the last piece of the puzzle was. All he knew for sure was things just weren't adding up.

Hart had gone home for the day. He had a wife to go home to, a wife who wanted him there. Fletcher didn't mind. Hart and Ginger were good people. He'd never begrudged his partner the family time Fletcher had so blatantly wasted when he had his own young family.

But that absence was felt keenly, because his partner wasn't there to bounce things off of. The case was moving in fits and starts. He was missing something. He knew it was all there in front of him, he just needed to think about things the right way, and it would all fall into place. So he did what all good detectives do when they're stuck. He went back to the beginning. Back to the original crime, the Donovan carjacking.

Donovan's wife had told Fletcher he received a phone call, and skedaddled from the family outing. The number had been traced back to a disposable cell, which meant it could have come from anywhere. Susan Donovan said her husband had left her to go to work. Fletcher had been to Donovan's office, and everyone he'd talked to there had denied calling the man in. He was off for the day. He'd made it clear he wasn't to be disturbed.

That call was where it all started. So that's where he needed to go.

Fletcher grabbed the phone and rang Susan Donovan.

Chapter Thirty-Two.

Georgetown

Susan Donovan

Susan was reading a book to Ally and Vicky when she heard the door chimes. Muted footfalls followed, then the bell-like voice of her mother-in-law, Eleanor, drifted up from the foyer, followed by the deeper tones of Detective Fletcher. Susan sighed and handed the book to Ally, who took it self-importantly and turned to her little sister, more than happy to take over.

"I'll be back in a bit, ladies. If you need anything, call from the landing. I bet Grammy will be up shortly."

"Okay, Mommy," they chimed in unison.

She watched them from the doorway for a moment, her perfect little angels, then took the stairs down. The terrible threesome, as she'd started thinking of them, were lined up in the kitchen, ready to dissect her words yet again.

G.o.d, she just wanted this over. Hiding out at Eleanor's house, dreading the funeral tomorrow, trying to keep the girls entertained and sheltered from the reality of their father's murder, wondering who had broken into her house, and why, was starting to take its toll. And the girls... Tomorrow was going to wrench all of them apart, but especially the children. It would tear asunder the basting st.i.tches she'd put into their little psyches.

Susan had actually entertained the thought of not allowing them to attend, but Eleanor had talked her out of that. She made the entirely valid point that it was important for them to have some finality to the situation or else they might think he was coming back. Apparently Eleanor had lost her father at a young age and was never told the whole story, only that he'd gone away, and figuring out the truth when she was old enough to be cognizant of the realities of life and death had caused a permanent rift between her and her mother.

Susan thought the girls had a handle on things, albeit on a small scale-they'd lost multiple goldfish and a hamster and seemed to grasp the concept of death-but she wasn't altogether sure they would understand that their daddy was never, ever coming back. This wasn't like a deployment, when he'd go a few days without word, then show up in their Skype, smiling and freshly sunburned, with new shadows behind his eyes. For now, being away from home was causing more consternation than anything. They were both out of their routine, and that made for difficulties.

After tomorrow, things would have to go back to normal.

Her new normal.

At least that's what she kept telling herself.

She entered the kitchen and the conversation stopped. The detective stepped forward and shook her hand. His was warm and dry, like he had a fever. She pulled away abruptly; she didn't need to get sick, but he didn't seem to notice. Or care.

"Thanks for letting me come over, Mrs. Donovan."

"You're welcome. Do you have news?"

"Some. I've just gotten back from New Castle, Virginia. We found William Everett. It looks like he committed suicide last week, prior to Major Donovan's death."

Susan rubbed her eyebrow, where a sudden headache had sprouted. Panicked confusion ran through her mind. What did that mean?

"I'm very sorry to hear that," she managed. "But, Detective, please. Is that going to help solve Eddie's case? What's happening? Why was Eddie killed? Why were any of them killed?"

He held up his hands to placate her, which made her even more uneasy.

"Mrs. Donovan, that's exactly what we're trying to figure out. If it's all right with you, I'd like to run through everything again. And have you tell me a bit more about the last man in the picture, Alexander Whitfield."

"G.o.d, Xander's not dead, too, is he?"

"We have no way of telling. We don't know where he is. He has no address on record."