Sean shifted on the couch. “He was due to retire anyway.”
“Bullshit,” Faith said. “He could have worked another ten years. They let him retire so he could keep his pension and it wouldn’t tarnish all the commendations he got while he was on the force.”
“What’s your point, Faith?”
Faith folded her hands together and squeezed. Sean saw her knuckles turn white. This was what she had done since she was a teenager when she was talking about something intense. She’d stopped biting her fingernails at sixteen, but then started doing this trick of squeezing her hands together so hard that they hurt.
“Say it,” Sean said.
“We have a family history,” Faith said. “And you’ve been in a really stressful job situation, with the switch to DHS these last couple of years. I guess…I guess I just want to know you’re not losing control.”
Sean flexed his own hands, just to make sure they weren’t shaking. Then he very carefully took Faith’s smaller hands in his, and pried her fingers apart. “You should quit doing that,” he said. “One of these days you’ll break your own fingers.”
Faith didn’t smile.
Sean cleared his throat. “Don’t worry about me. Yeah, I’ve been through a lot. Yeah, I like a good drink now and again. It helps smooth out the hard edges. I’ve seen some stuff down along the border…”
Faith nodded. “I know. I’ve seen some stuff these last couple of years myself.”
Sean let go of her hands. Suddenly it felt awkward, the old Kelly family reluctance toward physical affection. “I bet you have.”
Faith stood up. “What next? You want to do some sightseeing tomorrow, or what?”
“Maybe,” Sean said. “You set your own hours or what?”
“More or less. Right now I’m just finishing up paperwork on this latest project. Sometimes I have to pick up and go at a moment’s notice, so when I’m just hanging out in town doing office work, I’m pretty laid-back on the hours.”
“And your boss likes this?”
“My boss is in another time zone. As long as things go the way they’re supposed to, and as long as he can reach me at any time, he doesn’t care if I’m not in the office nine-to-five.”
“Nice work if you can get it,” Sean said with a smile.
“Sometimes,” Faith said, not smiling.
Sean’s smile faded. He thought of something that had happened when he and Faith were nine and eight, respectively. Sean had wanted a new bicycle desperately, but their father was still just making a patrol officer’s salary and they couldn’t afford it. So Sean-who never believed anything his father said about money-put his old bicycle under the wheels of his dad’s car, and the next morning his father backed over it, destroying the bike and the tire of the car as well. Sean blamed it on one of the neighborhood kids. Joe Kelly, in his wrath-he never believed anything Sean said either-had turned to Faith, as he often did. Sean had teased Faith mercilessly in those days, daring her to tell even the tiniest of white lies, saying she was physically incapable of lying. He had begged her with his eyes not to tell the old man, but she looked straight at Sean and said, “He did it, Dad. I saw him. Sean did it.”
Joe Kelly had beaten Sean’s butt so hard that Sean was sore for ten days. Faith had watched the beating in silence, tears streaming down her face. And Sean never got another bicycle, ever. Sean hated Faith for a long time, with the kind of hate only adolescents are capable of managing. But then some things happened with Faith and she was away from the rest of the family for a while, and when she came back, Sean didn’t hate her so much anymore. The incident haunted him for years, and when they were both in college, he’d called her one night and brought it up again.
Sean looked at his sister now, framed in the lamplight of the messy living room. They were both a long way from what they used to be. Looking at her, thinking of how she evaded any specifics about her job, Sean thought that Faith had probably finally learned how to lie, and that it was tearing her up inside. The thought saddened him.
He nodded at her. “Yeah, we’ll sightsee tomorrow,” he finally said. “I’ve got some more work to do on this thing, but it’ll be tomorrow night.”
“Okay,” Faith said. “I’m going to go to bed, I think. There’s a bunch of junk in the spare bedroom, but that couch folds out. There are pillows and sheets and stuff in the hall closet.”
“I’ll find it,” Sean said.
She looked at him again. Her eyes flickered over the empty whiskey bottle. “Good night,” she said.
Sean puttered around the living room for an hour or so after Faith went to bed. He straightened a few things, then stopped himself, realizing Faith would probably be annoyed with him for doing it. He stopped at her bookshelf, reading spines. Mostly nonfiction volumes on unsolved crimes-same old Faith. But there was one hardcover, something called
Sean thumbed a few pages. The book was by a man named Edward J. Renehan Jr., and appeared to be about wealthy Northern abolitionists who helped John Brown, who went so far as to bankroll his operation leading up to the raid on Harper’s Ferry.
He went into the kitchen and rummaged in the refrigerator, finding several takeout containers and microwave dishes.
“Don’t you ever cook?” he muttered.
He inspected half of a leftover chicken burrito with refried beans and Mexican rice, then found a microwave plate and heated it. It turned out to be surprisingly good, and it was the most he’d eaten all day. He ate it in front of the TV, watching the ten o’clock news. News was as depressing in Oklahoma City as it was in Tucson, he decided, despite the anchors’ attempts to be happy-go- lucky. He turned it off after a few minutes.
After eating, he washed his plate and put it carefully back in the cabinet where he’d found it. Then Sean returned to the living room and powered up his laptop on the coffee table. He turned off the lamp so that the only light in the room came from the glow of the computer screen.
He logged onto the Internet, waited a moment, and typed in www.katpurrs.com.
An image in soft pastel colors settled onto the screen. Sean adjusted the computer so he could see the screen better. He leaned forward.
There were several shadowy pictures of a young woman, mostly in profile, the photographs having been taken in subdued lighting. None of the photos showed a full shot of her face-they all were cropped just above her mouth.
In one photo, the woman straddled a chair, wearing a white bra, matching panties, garter belt, and stockings. In another she wore a black version of the same outfit.
Still, Sean couldn’t be sure. This young woman, though she looked to be Daryn McDermott’s size and build, had honey-blond, shoulder-length hair. All of Daryn’s photos had shown a young woman with much longer, braided, dark hair.
But then, Sean thought, if she wanted to become someone else-some
He entered the website. Another shadowy image, this one in black lingerie, was on the left side of the page. He began to read the text that ran beside it:
“Jesus,” Sean muttered.
He clicked over to a page marked “donations.”
A disclaimer, Sean thought.
He went to the contact page. A phone number and e-mail link were listed. The photo on this page, still shrouded in subdued lighting and still not showing the woman’s face, did feature a close-up of her cleavage inside a pink bra.
The word
“Daryn,” Sean whispered. “It is you. I’ll be damned.”
He sat back. Senator McDermott’s radical activist daughter, living a secret life away from the prying eyes of Washington, as an escort, a high-priced call girl.
He thought for a moment. Daryn had only been missing for a little over a month, according to Tobias Owens. But this website was well done and very elaborate, not something hurriedly thrown together. Plus the domain name was her own, not some free web hosting service. It had taken time, effort, and money to develop this.
How long had Daryn McDermott been planning her new life as Kat Hall? Sean wondered.
Sean realized his heart was beating wildly, and he gradually became aware that he was sexually aroused as well.
“My God,” he whispered.
He slowly pulled out his cell phone and punched in the numbers on the screen.
“Hello, this is Kat,” said the voice a moment later.
Sean was silent a moment, his heart pounding. He felt sweat ringing his forehead. “Hello, Kat,” he finally said. “This is Michael. I’d like to make a date with you.”
9
FAITH LEFT SEAN SLEEPING ON THE COUCH AND was in her office in Oklahoma City’s U.S. Courthouse downtown by seven thirty in the morning. There wasn’t much to the office. It was small, the door unmarked. Official occupancy records for the building showed that the small second-floor room was vacant and being used as storage for the U.S.
