allowed into the court record.”
“How do you know it’s not in his official records?” Kate asked.
“WCF has backgrounds on all the predators we identify and monitor. But-” She frowned.
“What?” Dillon prompted.
“He was seventeen at the time. His juvenile record is sealed, and the judge refused to unseal it during his trial.”
“Then how do you know about the girl in the coma?” Dillon asked.
“From my briefing at WCF. Fran has a lot of contacts-she could have spoken to the original investigating officer in his hometown. Or even the D.C. detective in charge, because they would have uncovered it in the course of investigating Sara Tyson’s charges.”
“He’s different,” Dillon said. “Something about Prenter doesn’t fit the other parolees, though maybe you’re right and it goes back to his first victim.”
Sean looked at Kate. “You might want to leave the room.”
She glared at him. “Why?”
“I bugged Fran Buckley’s office. It’s a digital bug; everything is sent to a blind server that I can retrieve. I don’t actually need to listen live.” Sean glanced at Dillon. “It’s a gray area.”
“I believe it’s illegal,” Dillon said.
“It
“I’ll dispute that. I’m not stealing corporate secrets, nor am I using these tapes to incriminate her in a criminal investigation.”
“It’s fruit from the forbidden tree,” Kate said.
“All the more reason for you to leave the room,” Sean said pointedly.
Lucy bit her lip. She hadn’t seen Kate this angry in a long time. Her sister-in-law stood abruptly and left. A moment later her office door slammed shut.
“I’m sorry,” Lucy said to Dillon, “but someone is setting me up, and I couldn’t sit by and let it happen.”
“Kate knows that,” Dillon said. “She’s not angry with you. I think it’s the situation-she hates when an investigation gets out of control. She finally has her life back. She doesn’t want to cross the line again. The FBI isn’t big on second chances, and third chances? Forget it.”
“I don’t want to put Kate in a difficult position,” Sean said, “and I didn’t want to bring her in at all until we had something.” Sean caught Lucy’s eye. “You okay with this?”
She nodded. “Play it.”
Sean turned up the speaker on the laptop and cued the recording.
A moment later, Fran’s voice came through surprisingly clearly. She was talking to Gina, her assistant, about following up on donor commitments from the fund-raiser.
Then Fran was on the phone with someone-they heard only her end of the conversation, but it sounded like it was the hotel manager of the event and they were settling some details. Sean fast-forwarded, then said, “This is about seven minutes after the assistant left.”
On the recording, a door closed. “Do you have a couple of minutes?”
It was Cody.
“Of course,” Fran said. “Is something wrong?”
“You could say that. Brad Prenter is dead.”
“I know, I read about it-”
“I think you know more about it.”
Lucy sucked in her breath. Sean took her hand and squeezed.
“Cody-”
Cody sighed loudly enough for the recording to pick up the sound. “I’m sorry, I just-I don’t know anything anymore.”
“Tell me what happened. I really don’t understand what you’re getting at.”
“Someone used Lucy’s chat account-the same account she used to talk to Prenter-to send him to Club 10. He was shot and killed a block away.”
“That couldn’t have happened.”
“But it did. I have proof. At first-God, Fran, at first I thought it was Lucy, because it was her account and I know how meticulous she is. She’d never give out her password. And she was so focused on Prenter because of the girl in the coma. She’d told me when Prenter was first added to our list that Evelyn Oldenburg never got justice.”
“Lucy?”
“I thought she was working with someone.”
“You didn’t accuse her-”
“I feel like shit. I can’t believe what I said to her, but she didn’t have anything to do with it. Not just because of what she said, but she just wouldn’t. I should have known from the beginning, but I got sucked in by the evidence.”
“What evidence?”
“The police found a message on Prenter’s cell phone that had been forwarded from Lucy’s ‘Tanya’ account that sent Prenter to Club 10 instead of the Firehouse, where my partner and I were waiting for him.”
“I’m still not sure what you think happened.”
“Someone used Lucy’s online identity to send that message to Prenter.”
“You mean someone from WCF sent him to that bar.”
“And killed him.”
Silence. A long moment later, Fran said, “You’re accusing one of my people of murder?” She sounded both angry and upset, though her digital voice, without benefit of facial expression, also sounded flat.
“Yes, I am.”
“I don’t know what to say.” A chair rolled on hard plastic. “I don’t believe it.”
“We need to go through everyone’s background reports. I think someone here has a connection to Prenter and took advantage of WCF to kill him. Someone with sharp computer skills, because this individual also went in and completely erased Prenter’s chat account. Gone. The only reason I found this message is that it had been automatically forwarded to Prenter’s personal email, which was on his BlackBerry. It’s in the police report.”
“Do the police think that someone at WCF is involved? Or Lucy?”
“No-they don’t even think it’s connected. They’re focused on finding the man and woman he argued with in the alley.”
“Fill me in-I’m not up to speed on this case.”
“Prenter told the bartender he was waiting for a woman he’d hooked up with online. About forty minutes after he arrived, a girl came up and hit on him-the bartender said she’d come in with another guy, but they fought and he left. They talked for a while, left about fifteen minutes later. The girl’s boyfriend confronted them in the alley, according to a witness, and the girl left with her boyfriend. Less than five minutes later, Prenter was shot and killed next to his car. Four bullets.”
“Robbery?”
“His wallet was taken. Not his Porsche-and he had his keys in his hand.”
“Maybe the shooter got scared. Heard someone.”
“And not take the fastest available transportation? Leave on foot? I don’t think so. I think the wallet was taken to cover up a hit. I think Prenter was intentionally targeted, and whoever did it had access to our computers.”
Fran said, “Our charter isn’t a secret. It’s not like we broadcast what we do to the world, but we don’t keep it to ourselves, either.”
“Shit.” Cody was walking-pacing-the room, his voice getting louder and fainter as he moved away from the bug. “Fran, this is serious.”
“I agree. Let me look into it. I’ll be discreet, of course-I’ll have Gina pull every computer log from every computer and we’ll see who logged into the chat room to send the message after Lucy logged out on Wednesday afternoon.”
“That’s good, but I think you need to review the background reports again, find out if there is any connection
