Split Second

very well-respected chief of police, Frank Maxwell knew everybody in Tennessee worth knowing. She told her father what she needed.

'Is everything all right? You don't sound too good.'

'I guess you haven't heard, Dad. They blew up Sean King's house last night, and now he's missing.'

'My God, are you okay?'

'I'm fine.' She said nothing about the attempt on her life. Years ago she'd decided not to confide too much to her father about her professional side. His sons could walk into danger, and their father would consider it simply part of the job. However, he'd not take it well that his only daughter had almost been killed. 'Dad, I need that info just as fast as you can get it.'

'I hear you. It won't take long.' He hung up.

She arrived at the inn, grabbed Joan's notes from her room and made a series of phone calls concerning Doug Denby, the last to Denby's home in Jackson, Mississippi. The woman who answered would give her no information about Denby, not even confirmingthat he lived there. That wasn't so odd, since Michelle was a stranger. And yet if Denby had money and no obligation to show up at a job every day, he could be anywhere. And no one she'd talked to could provide Denby with alibis for any of the critical times in question. His position in the Ritter campaign definitely made him a suspect, yet what would be his motivation?

The ringing phone startled her. She snatched it up. It was her father. He spoke succinctly as she wrote down the information.

'Dad, you're the best. I love you.'

'Well, it would be nice if you visited more often. It's your mother who keeps asking,' he added quickly.

'Deal. When this is all wrapped up, I'm heading home.'

She dialed the number her father had given her. It was the law office that had handled the sale of the property in Tennessee to Bob Scott. Her father had already called the lawyer and told him Michelle would be calling.

'I don't know your father, but I've heard wonderful things about him from mutual acquaintances,' the attorney said. 'Now, I understand this has to do with a sale of land.'

'That's right. You handled the closing of that property from a decedent's estate to a Robert Scott, I believe.'

'Yes, your father mentioned that in his call. I pulled the file. Robert Scott was the purchaser. He paid in cash; it wasn't that much actually. It was just an old cabin, and while there's substantial acreage it's all woods and ridges and very remote.'

'I understand the previous owner didn't know there was a bunker on the property.'

'Your father mentioned the bunker. I have to admit I didn't know either. It wasn't in the title search. And I had no reason to suspect there was one. If I had, I suppose I would have gone to the army. I really don't know. I mean what do you do with a bunker?'

'Have you actually been to the property?'

'No.'

'I have. The bunker was accessed through a door in the basement.'

'That's impossible!'

'Why?'

'There was no basement. I have the floor plan for the cabin in front of me.'

'Well, there might not have been a basement when your client owned it, but there is now. Perhaps this Bob Scott knew of the bunker and built the basement to have access to it.'

'I suppose that's possible. I was looking back through the chain of title, and there have been multiple owners since the army. In fact, when the army owned it, there was no cabin. One of the subsequent owners built it.'

'You wouldn't happen to have any photos of Bob Scott, would you? It's really important,' she added.

'Well, we normally make a copy of the party's driver's license when we do a real estate closing-you know, to verify identities since they're signing legal documents for recordation.'

Michelle almost jumped in her excitement. 'Can you send me that picture by fax, like right now?'

'No, I can't.'

'But it's not privileged information.'

'No. That's not it.' He sighed and said, 'Look, when I opened the file this morning, it was the first time I'd looked at it since the transaction closed. And, well, I didn't find the copy of Mr. Scott's driver's license.'

'Maybe you forgot to make a copy.'

'My secretary has been with me thirty years, and she's never forgotten before.'

'So maybe someone took the copy out of the file.'

'I don't know what to think. It's just not here.'

'Do you remember what Bob Scott looked like?'

'I really only saw him once, for a few minutes, at the closing. And I do hundreds of those a year.'

'Would you take a minute and think about it and try and describe him to me?'

The lawyer did so, and Michelle thanked him and hung up.

The description the lawyer had given was too vague for her to know if it was Bob Scott. And in eight years people can change a great deal, particularly those who've fallen out of the mainstream, like Scott. And she had no idea what Denby even looked like. God, she was going around in circles. She took several deep breaths to calm herself. Panicking was not going to help Sean.

Unable to move forward on any of her lines of inquiry, she started wondering about King's. He said he was working on something-something that required extra research. What had he said? He'd gone somewhere. She racked her tired mind trying to think of it.

And then she had it. She grabbed her keys and ran for her truck.

68

Michelle walked quickly into the UVA law library and up to the service desk. The woman who was there wasn't the one who'd helped King, but after Michelle asked, she was directed to the librarian who had.

Michelle flashed her Secret Service badge and told the woman she needed to see what King had been researching.

'I heard on the news about his home burning down. Is he all right? They didn't say.'

'Well, we just don't know right now. That's why I need your help.'

The woman told Michelle what King had asked for, then took her to the same room and logged her onto the system.

'It was the Martindale Hubbell directory,' the woman said.

'I'm sorry, I'm not a lawyer. What exactly is Martindale Hubbell?'

'It's a directory of all licensed lawyers across the U.S. Sean has a set at his office, but it was the most recent one. He needed a directory that went back some time.'

'Did he mention how far back?'

'Early seventies.'

'Did he mention anything else? Anything that would narrow it down more?' Michelle didn't know exactly how many lawyers were licensed in the U.S., but she figured there were far more than she had time to look at.

The woman shook her head. 'I'm sorry, that's all I know.'

She left, and Michelle looked at the screen with a discouraged expression when she saw that the directory contained well over one million names. There are over a million lawyers in the United States? No wonder things are so screwed up.

Not really knowing where to start, she ran her gaze over the home page and noticed a drop-down screen that made her sit up very straight. It was entitled 'Recent Searches.' It listed the last few documents the user from this remote location had been working on.