“Was that an update?” she asked him.

  “It was. And I hate to say it, but it seems you were right. The bureau ran a trace on Wes Dalton’s phone and it turns out he wasn’t in New York. Not even close.”

  “Then where is he?”

  “At a hotel…right here in Richmond. And from what they can tell, he’s been there for at least two days.”

  Though it was a no-brainer for Rachel to remain with Jack for this sudden break, the guilt came at full force, too. This has to be it for today, Rachel told herself. After we check this lead out, it’s back home to Paige.

  But even then, she knew it might be a difficult promise to keep. What if this lead led to another, then to another? Where did she draw the line?

  She didn’t know. And in that moment, as they raced to the hotel, Rachel was a bit worried that she couldn’t even see that line anymore.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  The hotel was a simple little Best Western, located on the opposite side of the city. As Jack made the drive over, Rachel was again filled with conflicting feelings: relief from being pulled away from the truths Grandma Tate had dropped on her, and regret because she was electing to stay on the case. She understood that there was a bit of conceit to what she was doing—the feeling that the case could only be brought to a satisfying close if she was on it. She knew if she dug a bit deeper, the truth of the matter was that her daughter needed her at home a hell of a lot more than Jack needed her to help close out this case. But that, of course, was yet another truth she was not ready to face.

  Jack pulled the car into the parking lot, taking up a spot right in front of the office. “All I got was the address,” he told Rachel as they got out of the car. “Of course, tracking the phone wasn’t nearly specific enough to give us a room number.”

  “Well, I very seriously doubt he checked in under his real name,” Rachel said.

  “Yeah, doubtful. We’ll just have to hope to get lucky.”

  They walked inside the office where a middle-aged woman was typing something into her phone. She looked up to them and smiled as they approached the desk. “Good afternoon,” she said. “You folks need a room?”

  “No, thanks,” Jack said, showing his badge. “We’re Agents Rivers and Gift, with the FBI. We’ve traced a suspect’s phone to this hotel and are hoping he used his real name to check in.”

  The woman turned her attention immediately to the desktop monitor in front of her. She looked very stern and serious, anxious to help the FBI. “What’s the name?”

  “Wes Dalton.”

  She typed the name in and shook her head. “No such name. Hold on…I can check to see if that name comes up on any credit card transactions. Do you know when he would have checked in?”

  “No,” Jack said. “We just know he’s been here for at least the last two days.”

  The woman nodded and clicked away at the keyboard. After a few more seconds, she scrolled with the mouse, scanning the screen. “Nothing. But if he used a fake name, which some people do because…well, affairs and all, he probably paid cash. And as far as I know, there have only been four or five rooms that were paid with cash in the past two days. And all but one of them checked out earlier today.” She glanced to the monitor again and added: “This morning, in fact.”

  “So there’s one more guest currently staying here that paid cash?” Rachel asked.

  “That’s right. Room 27. They gave the name of Allison Kelvin.”

  The name seemed familiar, but Rachel didn’t waste time trying to figure it out. Jack thanked the receptionist and they headed out, taking the first flight of stairs on the outside of the building and making their way to the walkway along the second floor. It was the sort of hotel where the doors were all exposed to the open air, the concrete walkways covered only by the underside of the walkway above them.

  They came to the door of room 27 and paused outside. Jack took a steadying breath and knocked. Perhaps, Rachel thought, he had the same feeling she did—of knowing that one way or the other, they were about to step into a pivotal moment for the case.

  There was a space of roughly three seconds between the knock and their response. It was a woman’s voice, presumably Allison Kelvin. “Yes, who’s there?”

  The woman sounded tired and out of sorts. Hearing her voice seemed to help Rachel make the connection. She suddenly understood why the name seemed so familiar.

  “Agent Rivers, with the FBI,” Jack said. Once he’d gotten that out of the way, Rachel leaned in closer, whispering in his ear. “Allison Kelvin is a name on the Life Fulfilled waiting list.”

  Jack stared at the door, waiting for a response, his eyes narrowed and focused. “Is this Ms. Kelvin?” he asked through the door.

  Again, there were several seconds before he got an answer. Rachel could imagine her inside the room, formulating an answer that would pacify them. Or being given an answer by someone else in the room.

  “It is. And I’m not feeling well,” she finally answered.

  “Ma’am, I need you to open the door.”

  Jack’s hand went to his Glock. Rachel understood the impulse, as the fact that there was a woman on the waiting list inside a room they highly suspected Wes Dalton to have rented out was beyond suspicious.

  “No. I’m not feeling well and I need you to go away.”

  “I assure you, it’s for your own safety. Now, I ask that you stand back because if you aren’t going to open this door, I’m going to kick it down.”

  “That’s highly uncalled for!”

  “You have three seconds, ma’am.”

  Rachel stepped to the side, giving Jack enough room to get some sort of momentum from the thin area of the walkway between the door and the rail of the walkway. He nodded to her and started counting.

  “One. Two. Th—”

  “Hold your damned horses!” Allison yelled from inside the room.

  The sound of a chain coming unlocked from a clasp could be heard, followed by the hollow-sounding thunk of the door’s lock being disengaged. Jack relaxed a bit, his hand coming away from his Glock as he started to take a step forward.

  The door was pulled open quickly and before either Jack or Rachel was fully aware of what was happening, someone came rushing out. All Rachel could tell for certain at first was that it was a man. He came barreling out of the room, directly toward Jack. The two men collided, sending Jack stumbling backwards to the iron rail behind him. As he struck it, the man turned to the right, in Rachel’s direction. He was still moving quickly, head lowered and shoulders just starting to come up from his attack on Jack.

  He saw Rachel at the very last moment. Not expecting a second person, the man hesitated for just a moment. Rachel braced herself as he continued forward. She lowered her own shoulder and assumed a position very much like a linebacker. The man didn’t barge into her with the same force he’s used on Jack; the hesitation made him slower and weaker. The result was Rachel easily being able to stop him, thrusting her shoulder into his chest and sending him down to the concrete in an awkward tackle.

  The man cried out as Rachel pushed herself up, driving a knee into his chest. Knowing she had no cuffs on her, she could only wait for Jack to scramble over. Jack helped flip the man over onto his stomach as he wrenched his cuffs from his belt.

  “What’s your name, sir?” Jack asked.

  The man said nothing. He wasn’t fighting against them and though he grunted and moaned a bit at the harsh actions Jack took in pulling his arms behind his back, he also wasn’t very verbal. Rachel also noticed a woman standing just inside of the doorway, making a few tiny steps further back into the room. One hand was at her heart and the other was covering her mouth in shock. She was a pretty woman of about thirty-five or so. Her hair was perfectly blonde and she had a fairly perfect figure. She watched the entire scene unfold with tired blue eyes.

  “Wes Dalton?” Rachel asked.

  “Yes,” the man grunted.

  This confirmation seemed to put a bit more urgency and anger into how Jack handled the man. He yanked Dalton to his feet and pushed him into the room. “Sit your ass on the bed,” Jack said.

  Wes Dalton did as he was asked. He was bleeding slightly from a cut on the chin but his gaze seemed cool and unaffected. He looked to the woman apologetically and then back to Jack.

  Rachel walked over to the woman. “You’re Allison Kelvin?”

  “Yes.”

  “And recently, you’ve been placed on the waiting list for Life fulfilled, correct?”

  Allison only nodded this time, as if she were ashamed.

  “Leave her alone,” Dalton said. It was the first thing out of his mouth since he’d come rushing through the door, trying to make a run for it. “You can ask me all the questions.”

  Ignoring him, Rachel kept her gaze focused on Allison. She nearly asked Allison if Dalton had been here to kill her. But then she saw the state of the bed, in disarray. The bathroom door behind Allison was partly open and she could see a pair of boxer briefs on the floor. A bra was also hanging from the towel rack. And though Allison was currently dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of shorts, the messy state of her hair made it clear that Dalton had not been here to kill her. Judging from the two separate bags packed over by the other side of the room, Rachel started to assume quite the opposite, actually.

  “Fine then,” Rachel said, directing her gaze back to Dalton. “We can start with the most obvious question: why did you lie about going to New York?”

  “You do know why we’re here, right?” Jack asked.

  “Same reason you gave when you called me, I suppose,” Dalton said. There were nerves in his voice but it was clear he was trying to remain in control, not wanting to seem as if he might cower in front of them at any moment. “You want to know about the people on the waiting list. Wanting to ask me questions about the foundation.”

  “Oh, it’s not quite that simple,” Jack said. “You lied about where you were and why you were there. That’s bad enough, but this lie, if believed, conveniently kept you away from Richmond while people on your waiting list were being killed. Can you follow the bread crumbs, or do I need to spell it out for you?”

  He did look confused for a moment, but then the realization of what Jack was saying settled in his eyes. He leaned back on the bed, his cuffed arms behind his back nearly making him fall over. “You think I’m killing these people? Why in God’s name would I do that?”

  “It’s a good question,” Jack said. “And it’s the main question we want to ask you.”

  “Well, there’s another one,” Rachel said. “And I think that one answers itself by a quick glance around the room. Which of you wants to clear up what’s going on here?”

  “I will,” Dalton said. “Allison has been through enough. Just leave her alone.”

  “I’m so sorry, Wes,” Allison said, standing by the bathroom door. She was crying, unable to take her eyes away from Dalton.

  “Allison came into the office about four months ago,” Dalton started. “I didn’t actually meet her until about a month or so into the process. She’s been diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. The doctors have given her another seven months. She could maybe beat it, but she’s already beaten breast cancer, so her body is very weak.”

  “He was so caring, so kind,” Allison spoke up. “Wes and everyone at Life Fulfilled treated me like any other human being, not just some poor woman who is going to die much sooner than she should.”

  “There was something between us right from the start,” Dalton said. “And after the second time we met, I crossed a line I knew I shouldn’t. I stopped by her house one afternoon on my way home. I used the lame excuse of needing a form signed. She invited me in for coffee and that was it.”

  “We were hooked,” Allison said.

  “So we’ve been spending as much time together as we can,” Dalton said. “And I’m sure you can imagine how bad it would look if the founder of Life Fulfilled was found to be having a romantic relationship with someone on the waiting list. I offered several times to bump her to the top, but she’s refused every single time.”

  “Is this the first time you’ve lied about your schedule to create time for the two of you?” Jack asked.

  He shook his head and looked longingly at Allison. “No. This has got to at least be the third or fourth. I did it last month; said I was going to be gone for four days for a training exercise so Allison and I could spend a weekend at an Airbnb in the Blue Ridge Mountains.”

  “He says there are people on the waiting list being killed?” Allison said.

  “Yes, there are,” Rachel said. She then directed her attention to Dalton and added: “And unless you can provide proof or alibis for your whereabouts over the last five days, you’re considered a suspect.”

  “Well, for the last two days, I’ve been in this room with Allison. The only time I left was to go down to Allison’s car to get a phone charger. After…Jesus, after I learned that people on the waiting list were being killed, I was afraid to leave her alone, you know?”

  “He’s right,” Allison said. She gave him what Rachel thought was supposed to be a cute, suggestive grin. “He’s been in here with me for almost two whole days.”

  Many comments came to Rachel’s mind but she clamped down on them. Chief among them was: So you just let the others on the waiting list languish while you were sleeping with this woman?

  “And what about the three before that?” Jack asked.

  Dalton thought for a moment, forcing himself to look beyond the blissful snag of this hotel room and the days that came before it. “Three days ago…I worked in the morning and played golf with an investor after lunch. That night, I visited Allison at her house.”

  “You worked from the office that morning?” Jack asked.

  “Yes. Two others were there and can vouch for me.”

  “Who’d you golf with?”

  “An older gentleman named Maxwell Forbes and one of his assistants. We had a few drinks at the clubhouse bar afterwards, and there were at least a dozen other people there that can confirm this.”

  “And the two days before that?” Rachel asked.

  “Two days ago, I was in DC, having a few meetings. I was going to stay the night but came home late. The next day I went to work and I was there all day. Well into the night, actually, getting ready for the three days I planned to spend with Allison.”

  With every sentence he spoke, Rachel could feel the hope of closing the case slipping farther and farther away. There were too many specifics to his story, and far too many people to verify his location during each murder.

  “We’re going to have agents look into these alibis and stories,” Jack said. His tone had softened, and Rachel could tell that he believed every word of what Dalton had said. “In the meantime, you go nowhere. It’s either this motel room, work, or your home, do you understand? If we get so much as a hint that you’re on the move, you will be brought in as a primary suspect.”

  “Yeah, I got that,” Dalton said. “Understood.”

  Rachel could feel the disappointment oozing off of Jack as they both took one last look around the room. Dalton was a miserable and wretched man, but he was far from a killer. They made their exit, closing the door behind them. Rachel looked down to the concrete where she’d tackled Wes Dalton and saw a small smear of blood from where he’d nicked his chin.

  “You know,” Jack said as they made their way back to the car, “that would almost be a sweet story…what’s going on with Allison and Wes Dalton. But the murders sort of put a damper on it, you know?”

  They’d reached the car and Rachel was reaching out for the door handle on the passenger side when her phone rang. She grabbed for it right away, wondering if it might be Grandma Tate, calling to apologize for her earlier outburst. But when she saw DIR. ANDERSON on her caller display, her heart felt like it was seizing up in her chest.

  “Shit,” she hissed. “It’s Anderson.”

  “Do you think he knows you’re with me somehow?”

  “I don’t know.” And in saying that, she started to wonder if she’d really even give a damn. He may slap her on the wrist and chew her out, but what was the worst he could say, really? Despite this hopeful realization, she still found herself rather afraid to answer the call. When she finally answered, she felt the stirrings of a headache in the back of her head. It came in a low, bass-like rumble at the very top of her head and started to spread right away.

  “This is Agent Gift,” she said, answering in a professional way without realizing she was doing so.

  “Agent Gift,” Anderson said, his voice level and somehow serene. “I’ve just gotten an update from the US Marshals on the hunt for Alex Lynch and I thought you’d want to be filled in. It seems that the trail has gone cold. They’ve got a number of leads and there are still about a dozen bodies on it but it’s not looking good.”

  Rachel felt like she’d been punched right in the stomach. The wind went out of her and for a moment, the world was reeling. She thought of Lynch out there, God only knew where, actually, and just as free as anyone else. She could only hope the maniac was headed down to Aiken, South Carolina. He’d sent Grandma Tate mail there so it stood to reason that would be where he was headed. Of course, the US Marshals would have already considered that and—

  “Rachel? You there?” Anderson said. His voice sounded far away and ghostly.

  “Yes, sir. I’m here. I just…nothing. Thanks for the call.”

  Before he could say or ask anything else, she hung up.

  “What did he want?” Jack asked as he opened the car.

  “To let me know the trail on Lynch is going cold pretty damned quick. He said—”

  She stopped as that low-thrumming headache seemed to expand. It felt as if it had tendrils that were reaching out into her head. It didn’t hurt all that bad honestly, but it came on fast. It was so fast that the world continued to reel as it had when she’d answered the call from Anderson. She leaned against the car for support but even that wasn’t enough.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20