The Triangle Conspiracy

body, she’d been relatively sure of certain things, even if she inhabited the insane gray world of Department Thirty.

Now she was sure of nothing.

Nothing but the fact that she would find her brother.

And then what, Faith?

She stuffed that thought way down. It led to places she wasn’t sure she could go.

Coming from the north, she drove down May Avenue through The Village. When she passed her street, she glanced down the block eastward and counted four news units in front of her house. She grimaced.

She drove two blocks south on May, turned into the residential area, and drove two blocks farther. Then she backtracked north until she was a block north of her house, having given her own block a wide berth.

She parked the Suburban-at least that fits in this neighborhood, she thought wryly-exactly one block north of her house, got out, and locked it. She jogged across the street, trying to remember which of the homes on this street had the dog in the backyard. She caught a flash of memory-out for her predawn run one bitter cold winter morning three years ago, she’d been chased through this neighborhood by the man she knew as Dean Yorkton. It was her first exposure to him.

She walked up the driveway to the nearest house. The dog was two houses down, or so she thought. She unlatched the wooden gate and carefully entered the backyard. She knew the family who lived here was named Robertson, the husband was in sales, the wife was an obstetrics nurse, and they had two daughters. They were rarely home, either being at work or on the go with the girls’ various activities. There were no cars in the driveway.

She climbed the wooden fence, feeling splinters digging into her hands, then dropped into her own backyard on all fours. Her house had privacy fencing, so even if the news people were standing right at the fence, they wouldn’t be able to see her unless they were on stilts. Faith wouldn’t have put it past some of them, but she saw no sign that any of them were staking out the backyard.

She stayed in a crouch all the way to the back door, reached up and unlocked it, then crawled inside, just in case they were close to her windows and could feel the movement inside. Moving with agonizing slowness, she crept down the hallway to her bedroom.

Her computer was already on. She logged into her e-mail, then navigated to her “Sean” folder. She’d saved her brother’s e-mails over the last few years. There weren’t many, so she’d saved what little communication she’d had with him.

If she was going to get inside her brother’s head, try to track him, she had to know him better. She had to think like him, to feel the way he felt, to know what he knew. Before the days of Department Thirty, Faith had been a deputy U.S. Marshal, albeit for a short time. But one of the Marshals Service’s mandates was tracking fugitives. She’d had a couple of spectacular successes, even helping to apprehend one of the nation’s most notorious counterfeiters a couple of years ago, after he’d been at large for more than fifteen years.

She began to read the few short e-mails, committing passages to memory:

…my best buddy here in Tucson, a geeky little guy named A. J. Helms. Reminds me of that guy back in high school, Norm Delton. Remember him?

…my SAC here, big guy named Weller. You’d appreciate him, sister. He’s completely no-nonsense…

…moonlight in the desert, down by the border. You can see for miles. Sure ain’t Chicago, where all you can see is the next building over…

What did you think of the tiger’s eye? Got it in a little town called Arivaca, about 20 mi. from the border. An old hippie couple sells them. I got to see the guy bend the wires around the gem and then put it on a string. “How much?” I ask him. “Three bucks,” he says. Three bucks! I’m cheap but not free…

…there’s this cantina in Sasabe, half a mile from the port of entry. I never go in there unarmed. But the Jack is cheap and the beer is cold and the bartender’s wife makes the best flour tortillas you’ve never tasted. Sure as hell ain’t Chicago.

Faith nodded. Sean had come to really love Arizona, just as she’d adopted Oklahoma. She knew that much. It was a start. He was on the run-he would seek out a place he knew, and Arizona was the most logical choice. He wouldn’t go home to Chicago. That would mean dealing with their parents, and in his current state, he wouldn’t want to do that.

But would he do something as obvious as returning to Tucson? If Sean had just committed two murders and had deceived his sister-arguably the only person in the world who could help him- would he circle around to the beginning?

The average cop might dismiss it as too obvious. No criminal would be that stupid, they’d argue. That’s the first place we’d look.

But he wasn’t just a criminal. He was her brother, and she knew things that the average cop didn’t. Given his struggle with alcohol, it seemed almost paradoxical, but she knew Sean would seek out a situation where things were ordered and tidy and he knew where everything was. He would seek the familiar. He always had. As a child, he didn’t like family trips because he didn’t like being away from familiar sights and sounds.

Over the last seven years, Arizona had become his familiar.

“Yes,” Faith said.

She made a few notes, names and places: A. J. Helms, Weller, Arivaca, Sasabe.

She called Southwest Airlines and booked the first flight that would connect to Tucson. Given how much Faith hated flying, that alone was testament to how serious the situation had become. She used Kimberly Diamond’s credit card and it went through with no trouble at all. Good old Yorkton, she thought.

Her travel bag was already packed and in the Suburban. Her new gun was in it, the Glock that was licensed in Missouri to Kimberly Diamond. She would break it down and put it in her checked baggage. She had the carry permit in her purse, along with her other ID.

She walked back into the living room, glancing at the shattered glass on the floor. She’d meant to clean it up, but as always, other things intervened.

A tide of disgust, anger, and even pity rose in her.

God help you if you did it, Sean. God help both of us.

She took a step, then froze. She looked back. The broken glass was on the hallway side of the bookshelf. Just the other side of it was a book, open and upside down on the floor.

He’d even been messing with her bookshelves. It wasn’t like Sean to leave something lying on the floor, though. Faith bent down, then stopped when she saw which book it was.

Her heart stopped.

She stood absolutely still for a moment. She heard the sounds of the news crews outside, people walking around, voices, car sounds.

She turned the book over and read the dust jacket.

“Oh my God,” Faith whispered.

She snapped the book closed. No longer thinking about hiding herself from the media, she ran full speed for the back door.

Now Faith knew why she recognized the name of Franklin Sanborn, and it changed everything.

33

SHE ARRIVED IN TUCSON AFTER TEN P.M., AND when she stepped out of the airport terminal, was amazed by both the dryness and warmth of the air. It was only early June, yet the temperature was still in the eighties this late in the evening. Still, the clean, clear air of the high desert felt good in her lungs.

“Kimberly Diamond” rented a car, then a motel room close to the airport, where she spent a fitful night. At nine a.m., she called the Tucson office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and asked to speak to Special Agent Helms.

“Helms,” he said a moment later.

“Agent Helms, my name is Kimberly Diamond. I’m an attorney, and I’m representing Sean Kelly in his termination hearing. I’d like to meet with you for a few minutes today, if you can spare the time.”

There was a long pause. “I don’t know that I can tell you anything that would help Sean. Everything’s in the record.”

“Yes, it is, Agent Helms. But I understand Agent Kelly has considered you one of his closest friends in Tucson.”

Another pause. “Yes, we’re pretty close.”

“I’m not interested in facts and figures that are in the record. I’m interested in a more personal view of Sean Kelly.”

“I really don’t know that I’m supposed to talk to you. Everything is-”

“-on the record. Yes, we covered that.” Faith stopped, knowing how most men reacted to silence from a woman.

Helms cleared his throat. “Maybe a few minutes at lunch.”

“Just name the place.”

“There’s a Mexican restaurant on Oracle, just up the street from the office. Noon, maybe?”

“I’ll be there.”

“I really don’t know if I can help, but Sean…well, Sean needs something. I’ve tried to help him before, and…” Helms’s voice trailed away, and Faith wondered what Helms had been through with her brother.

“We’ll talk at noon.”

Armed with directions from the desk clerk at the motel, Faith drove the rented Suburban-might as well be consistent, after all-north on Oracle Road, one of the main north-south drags in Tucson. She skirted the Miracle Mile, with its diners and motels and 1950s-style “tourist courts,” and passed a huge automotive dealership larger than anything she’d seen in Oklahoma. Oracle then branched into a commercial area-at least one indoor shopping mall, numerous strip shopping centers, restaurants.

She found the restaurant on the south end of a shopping center and went in. She glanced around for single men who looked like federal agents. She found him in a corner booth. A. J. Helms was in his midthirties, as tall as Sean but rail thin. He wore glasses and had a lot of gray in his light brown hair. He wore the requisite white shirt and dark suit of a federal agent, but looked uncomfortable in it, as if he were more used to jeans and T-shirts. Faith was wearing jeans herself, with a light blue tank top. She also wore a pair of stylish gray cowboy boots, the first time she’d ever worn them. Hendler had bought them for her as a joke for her birthday last year.

Since you’re becoming more of an Okie than I am, he’d said, laughing. It had seemed appropriate to Faith-important, even-to wear them now.

“Agent Helms,” she said.

He turned, stood up, and froze.

“You’re no lawyer,” he said.

Faith shook her head. “No, I’m not.”

He studied her. “You’re Sean’s sister. Faith, isn’t it?”

“Sorry for the deception. May I sit down?”

Helms indicated the seat. “He had a picture of you in his cubicle at work. You’re in DOJ, right?”

Faith sat down, watching him. He showed no indication that he’d connected her name to Senator McDermott’s statement yesterday. “Yes,” she said.