Playing Dead

them to get naked, then killed them?”

“O’Brien could have done the same thing. Maybe he knew about the affair, was following her, was in the house-didn’t expect his daughter to come home.”

“But he talked to Claire on the phone. While he was in the house killing her mother? He planned it all out, but didn’t give himself an alibi? Now that is stupid. You have to look at the photos. It looks like an execution.”

“The work of a cold-blooded killer,” Steve countered. “A man who can kill his wife and her lover while his daughter waits for him down the street.

“The job is still the same,” Steve continued. “We apprehend O’Brien and put him back in prison. We’re not the judge, or the jury, or the appeals court.”

“He’s out of appeals.”

“And the Western Innocence Project dumped his case, too. They must have realized there was nothing to it.”

“And Oliver Maddox, the law student working on it, is dead and has been since before the earthquake, if the autopsy goes like I think it’s going to go tomorrow,” Mitch said. He sat ramrod straight, looking at his nearly empty pint of Guinness. He’d been in front of the Office of Professional Responsibility so many times it was almost a joke. Disobeying orders or not following established protocols. He had friends in high places, though they’d only protect him for so long. But every rule he broke was because he was searching for the real truth in the cases he worked. Professional? Maybe not. Responsible? Mitch didn’t see any other option.

The truth may not have mattered to “Hang ’Em High” Rod Bianchi, but it mattered to his son.

Steve looked at his friend. “I agree, the way you laid it out I’d be interested in digging deeper. Okay, this is what I’ll do. I’ll look the other way while you play undercover neighbor with the daughter. I can’t get close to her anyway, she knows I’m a Fed. I’ve done the routine stop-bys and talked to her a couple times. I got the impression that she wouldn’t be very receptive if her father does make contact.”

“I appreciate it-”

“But-” Steve interrupted. “You can’t play the maverick. We’re in this together or not at all. I went to the mat for you with Meg. Though I’ll be damned if I can figure out your relationship with that woman. She goes ballistic when she thinks you screwed up, but then tells everyone that you’re an ace investigator, one of the best.”

He and Meg had always respected each other’s abilities. “We’ve always been friends. That was sort of the problem with our marriage-we liked each other, but you know, that’s not really the foundation a marriage needs.” He shifted uncomfortably. He’d never talked about his past relationship with Meg to anyone, especially someone from the office.

Steve nodded. “If Meg finds out that you’re that close to Claire, you’ll be on a plane to Quantico before you can pack a bag.”

“Fair enough.” Mitch nodded. “And if we do take Tom O’Brien into custody, we keep him in our custody. No locals. Federal holding.” He glanced again at his watch. 8:40.

“I think I can work that. I’ll do what I can.”

“That’s all we both can do. Thanks.”

“Now tell me the truth-why do you keep looking at your watch?”

Mitch could have lied, but after bringing Steve over to his way of thinking he needed to lay everything out on the table.

“Claire is meeting me here at nine.”

Steve nodded, as if he knew the complete truth.

“Then I’d better get the hell out of here.”

Nelia was sitting at the table in the dark when Tom walked in with fast food he’d grabbed at a nearby drive- through. He put the food down and said, “Hi.”

She just stared at him with her large eyes, darker in the dim artificial light filtering through the creases in the blinds.

He turned on a light and saw that her eyes were bloodshot. His stomach flipped. The last person he wanted to hurt was the woman who had saved his life, who believed in him.

“You’re angry because I went to Claire’s without you.”

She tilted her head but remained silent.

“You’re angry because I left in the first place.”

Nelia dipped her head in acknowledgment.

“I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not.”

He sat across from her. “I had to go. I had to see how Claire lived. I had to be near her.”

“I understand that, but we had an agreement. You lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie-”

“You planned all along to go on your own. Don’t make it worse by repeating the excuses you thought up on your way back here.”

“You’re right. But you’ve risked so much to help me. I can’t have you risk anything more.”

“That isn’t your choice, is it?”

“I couldn’t live with myself if you got in trouble-or hurt-because you helped me. Nelia, you have to understand that! I’m an escaped convict. They’re not going to play nice if they spot me. To me or anyone with me.”

“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it. But this is bigger than you and me, this is about the truth. I never knew the truth about what happened to Justin. Never! His killer was never caught. The police never even had a suspect. There were no similar crimes in the area, nothing in the state, nothing in the damn country that they could find. It was as if some phantom killer walked in, killed my baby, and disappeared. I never knew why. Why Justin? Why me?”

“Nelia-”

“Now I have the chance to find the truth for someone else.” She slammed her fist on the table. “For you. You were a cop. You know the first person they look at when a child disappears? His parents. Andrew and I were under investigation. They had to clear us before they seriously started looking at other potential suspects. For days the police looked at me as if I had killed my son. As if I had something to do with it. And Andrew. Either separately or together. They tried to get me to tell them that I knew my husband had killed Justin, implying that I was protecting Andrew. Then in that stupid good-cop/bad-cop game, a vile detective flat-out said we’d conspired to kill Justin. Why? Why would I kill him? But they didn’t care why, they figured if I’d confess they’d uncover the motive later. Maybe I was just crazy.

“Andrew and I didn’t love each other, but I never believed he could hurt Justin. But for a while, after all the questions, after Andrew’s affair became public, after the police showed me the ph-photos-” Her voice cracked and Tom wanted to wrap his arms around her, but Nelia had never talked of this. Tom doubted she’d spoken to anyone about what happened during the weeks after her son was murdered.

“I thought maybe. . and then I thought about my sister. She was babysitting for me that night. What if she had a boyfriend over? Was protecting him? What if she was part of it?” Nelia’s voice trembled. “I blamed everyone. I know Andrew didn’t kill Justin any more than I did, or Carina, or a phantom boyfriend. But when I saw-” She rubbed her face roughly, squeezed her eyes closed, and sank into the chair. Tom took her hand. She was shaking.

“The crime scene photos.” Her voice was barely a whisper, the anguish in every breath. “And.” She cleared her throat. “For a minute, I looked at Andrew. As a killer.” She opened her eyes, stared at Tom. “I knew he wasn’t. He was far from perfect, but he loved Justin with his whole heart.”

“I hate that you went through that.” Even though Tom understood it all too well.

“I was a suspect because I didn’t have an alibi,” she said. “I was working alone at my office.”

“No one believed-”

“Yes, they did. Strangers believed. People who didn’t know me. And for a while, I thought my family-”

“They didn’t think you’d killed your own child.”

She sighed, some of the pain and anger escaping. “No, but for a while they questioned just like I did. Because there were no suspects, there was no one else, and it came down to why? Why would someone randomly break