The Triangle Conspiracy

Franklin Sanborn.

It was nothing to do with any of her Department Thirty cases. She knew that-all of those names, past and present, were burned into her memory by now. But she’d heard the name Franklin Sanborn, had seen it, knew it.

“Faith?” Hendler said. “Did you want to…” He tilted his head in an are-you-going-to-tell-him gesture.

She’d told Hendler on the way to the restaurant that she intended to give the detective her brother’s name, and describe what had happened with him, carefully omitting details about his suspension from ICE. In a way, he was a missing person as well, and he wasn’t a phantom.

But now…

Cain was looking at her intently. She thought he was seeing for the first time the white line scar that ran from alongside her nose almost to the edge of her upper lip. He didn’t look away.

Faith met his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Hendler’s eyebrows went up.

“I have nothing to say,” she said. “Thanks for the information, Detective Cain.”

But why do I know the name Franklin Sanborn? Faith thought.

She stood up. “I have to get back to my office,” she said abruptly. She needed the DOJ database, and she needed it right now. Hendler had met her at the courthouse and driven them to Barry’s, so he stood with her.

Hendler shook hands with Cain. “I’ll be in touch, Rob,” he said quietly.

Cain clasped his hand a moment too long. “What was all this about, Scott?”

Faith was already halfway out the door. “I’m not sure,” Hendler said.

18

A WEEK PASSED.

The house near Mulhall was alive with activity. Two members were responsible for “media relations” and began drafting press releases. Two others-Daryn and Alan Davenport-kept the troops focused with “pep rallies” every evening, with lectures and readings ranging from de Tocqueville to Marx to Emerson.

Sean and Daryn talked and talked. She gave up more little pieces of herself to him, embellishing the portrait of her fictional father with tidbits from her real father’s life and career. She never mentioned the incest again. Sean played the game with her, creating an authoritarian father and a bad marriage that mirrored his own real life. She’d also kept Sean well supplied with bourbon. She’d learned to watch his signs, knew the tremble of his hands and the furrow in his brow when he’d gone too long without a drink. It was a strange twilight existence.

Every night they unleashed physical passion with wildness and abandon. Daryn let him take her in every way possible, and she took him as well a few times. Sometimes Britt joined. Sometimes she watched. But when she joined the sex, she only touched Sean at Daryn’s urging, at her direction, and only seemed to derive pleasure from Daryn herself.

At six o’clock in the morning of the seventh day since their arrival at the house, Daryn slipped out of bed and pulled on a pair of gray sweatpants and a T-shirt. She rarely slept well anymore and was always tired, but she couldn’t think about herself. Not any longer.

She took three extra-strength Tylenol and went downstairs. Jeannie Davis, the unlikely revolutionary-a social worker from Edmond-was in the kitchen, making coffee.

“Morning, Jeannie,” Daryn said.

Davis turned. “Good morning, Kat.”

Of the Coalition members, only Britt and Franklin Sanborn knew her real identity. The others knew her name wasn’t Kat Hall, and that she’d only been an “escort” long enough to establish a cover, but they hadn’t been told who she really was. They would learn in time.

The whole world will know in time, Daryn thought, rubbing her forehead. And it won’t be too long, thank God.

“Is he out there?” Daryn asked.

Davis nodded. “Every morning. You want some coffee?”

“No, thanks. Wrong chemical for me.”

She reached into a kitchen drawer and took out a pack of cigarettes and lighter. She didn’t smoke often, and had taken up the habit at fifteen mainly to annoy her father. No one smoked in the house, and Daryn escaped to the deck to light up a couple of times a day.

She walked out into the predawn. The humidity was up, and thick mists had formed across the lowlands downhill from the house. She could barely make out the dark ribbon of Skeleton Creek in the far distance, the mists rising off it like steam from a kettle.

Sanborn was standing at the rail of the deck, unmoving, as he did every morning. “Good morning,” he said without turning around.

Daryn lit her cigarette and exhaled. “Morning.”

Sanborn sniffed the air. “Should you be doing that?”

“What’s the difference?” she said, taking a long drag.

She didn’t really like Sanborn, and didn’t trust him at all. But he was the organizer, the one who’d worked out all the exquisite, painstaking details of the plan. He had his own motivations-he’d never made a secret of that-but then, they all came to The Cause from different perspectives, with different ways of thinking. That was part of the beauty of it, that their diversity created unity.

“We need to move,” she said, leaning against the railing a few steps away from Sanborn.

“He’s really on board?”

“Just about.” She stared into the mists. “Britt and I have almost literally fucked his brains out. He’s totally under my control.” She took another deep drag on the cigarette, holding the smoke in. The burning in her lungs helped dull the pounding in her head. “Let’s move today.”

“Yes,” Sanborn said.

Daryn ground out the cigarette on the deck railing and left the butt sitting there. She glanced at Sanborn. He’d grown increasingly edgy over the past week, nervous and short-tempered. The open-minded academic and the easygoing host was still there, but an undercurrent to the man was rising. The closer they’d come to today, the more in evidence it was.

“I’ll wake everyone,” Daryn said, and went back in the house.

By eight o’clock all thirteen of them were up and dressed. Tension ran like whitewater rapids through the group.

Sanborn walked into the center of the living room and clapped his hands. “The day is here,” he announced. “Today the message of the Coalition for Social Justice starts to be spread.”

There were general murmurs of approval.

“Four cars should do it,” Sanborn said. “Especially since Jeannie has brought her minivan for us to use.” He looked directly at Sean. “Your Cherokee has some room, Michael. I’m sure Kat and Britt would like to ride with you, but could you take a couple of others?”

Sean looked at Daryn. “Sure, why not?”

“Excellent, then, it’s settled. Michael’s Jeep, Jeannie’s minivan, my car, and one of the trucks. That should be sufficient for all of us. Let’s get ready to roll.”

People talked in low voices and began moving toward the front door. Sean stepped out onto the porch, squinting into the sunlight. The fog and mist had burned away, and the morning was brilliant and blinding. He blinked several times.

“A little bright for you?” Don Wheaton said as he went past him, carrying a suitcase.

“Not too much,” Sean said. He’d taken two big shots of bourbon this morning, then quietly gone into the bathroom and vomited. That had been happening more and more of late, so much so that he almost began to accept it as part of his morning routine. My own kind of morning sickness, he’d thought at first.

Daryn came up beside him and put a hand on his arm. Her touch was both soft and electric at the same time. He thought for a long moment. Soon, very soon, he needed to talk to her about why he was here.

But why am I here?

To find Daryn McDermott, of course. To do a job, to convince her to go back home. To have Senator McDermott put in a good word for me and redeem my career. He repeated the words to himself like a mantra. But even as he did, the images of Daryn-above him, below him, inside her, the way she used her body, giving it to him as if he owned it-crowded his mind, jostling his thoughts like people standing in line for an amusement park ride.

A part of him didn’t want this to end.

God help me, Sean thought.

A communal living situation in an old house outside the tiny town of Mulhall, Oklahoma. All the liquor he wanted, no demands placed on him, and imaginative, unbridled sex every night, sometimes with two women at once.

Sean felt he could just drift away on a tide of the Coalition for Social Justice, with Daryn McDermott, as Kat Hall, steering the way.

He closed his eyes against the sun again. Don’t be stupid. You have a job to do. Don’t be led around by your cock.

Then he looked at Daryn again, the big dark eyes. The conflicting feelings careened through him. He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry.

“Let’s go,” Daryn said.

Sean nodded. Later. Later, after they’d done the demonstration. He’d talk to her then. He’d get her away from Britt, away from Franklin Sanborn, and they would talk.

Later.

They started toward the Cherokee, two others of the group following silently. Daryn stopped, watching Don Wheaton putting the suitcase he’d been carrying carefully into the bed of one of the pickup trucks, then climbing in the bed himself. The man named CJ-Sean had never heard his last name-had an identical suitcase.

“What’s in the cases, guys?” Daryn called.

Wheaton and CJ looked at each other.

“Hello?” Daryn said.

“Nothing,” Wheaton said. CJ nodded. Sean hadn’t heard the man speak once during the entire week.

“Nothing?” Daryn echoed. “Hey, this is me, guys. What’s in the suitcases?”

Sanborn stepped between them. He’d been just about to get behind the wheel of the dark sedan. “Problem?”

“I’m just curious about what Don and CJ are carrying,” Daryn said. “Those cases seem awfully bulky, and I think we have everything we need for today.”