Fool Me Once(84)

Kierce rose and walked toward the television screen. “And I assume,” Kierce said, pointing at the baseball cap smudge, “that this is your mystery source?”

Maya said nothing.

“I assume that this man—just for the fun of it, let’s say it’s a man; I think I see facial hair—was the one who led you to the storage shed?”

Maya folded her hands and put them on the table. “And if he did?”

“He was clearly in your car, correct?”

“So?”

“So”—Kierce came back over, placed his fists on the table, and leaned toward her—“we found blood in the trunk of your car, Mrs. Burkett.”

Maya stayed perfectly still.

“Type AB-positive. The same blood type as Tom Douglass. Do you mind telling us how it got there?”





Chapter 29


They had a blood type, but the DNA test confirming that the blood in the trunk of her car belonged to Tom Douglass was still pending. There wasn’t enough to hold her.

But they were getting close. Time was running out.

Kierce volunteered to drive her home. She accepted this time. For the first ten minutes of the ride, they both sat in silence. Kierce finally broke it.

“Maya?”

She stared out the window. She had been thinking about Corey Rudzinski, the man who, in a sense, started this all. Corey had been the one who released the copter combat video that started her tailspin. Again she could go back even further in time, to her actions on that very mission, to her decision to join the military, all of that. But really, what started her world unraveling, what had directly led to the deaths of Claire and Joe, was releasing that cursed tape.

Had Corey the Whistle played her?

Maya had been so anxious to get him to trust her that she had forgotten that maybe it wouldn’t be wise to trust a man who had done so much to destroy her. She replayed his words in her head. Corey had said Claire had come to him, that she had reached out via his website. Maya had accepted that. But was it true? Think about it for a second. It did in some ways make sense that Claire would contact Corey and try to stop him from releasing that audio. But it also made sense, just as much sense, maybe even more sense, that Corey would reach out to Claire, that he could use the audio to either manipulate or straight-out blackmail her into gathering information on the Burketts and EAC Pharmaceuticals.

Had Corey manipulated Maya too?

Had he gone so far as to manipulate her into taking the fall for Tom Douglass’s murder?

“Maya?” Kierce said again.

“What?”

“You’ve been lying to me from day one.”

Enough, Maya thought. It was time to turn the tables on him. “Caroline Burkett tells me that you’ve been taking bribes from the Burkett family.”

Kierce might have smiled. “That’s a lie.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. I just don’t know if Caroline Burkett lied to you”—he gave her a quick glance and then had his eyes on the road again—“or if you’re lying now to distract me.”

“Not a lot of trust in this car, is there?”

“No,” Kierce agreed. “But you’re running out of time, Maya. Lies never die. You can try to smother them, but lies will always find a way to show themselves again.”

Maya nodded. “That’s deep, Kierce.”

He chuckled at that. “Yeah, that was a bit much, wasn’t it?”

They pulled into her driveway. Maya reached for the door handle, but the door was locked. She looked at Kierce.

“I’m going to find the answer,” he said. “I just hope that it doesn’t lead back to you. But if it does . . .”

She waited for the click of the door unlocking. When the sound came, she opened the door and left without bothering with a good-bye or thanks. When she got inside, Maya made sure that the doors were locked before she headed down the dark stairwell.

The basement had started life as a rather upscale “man cave”—three flat screens, an oak bar, a wine cooler, a pool table, two pinball machines—but Joe had been slowly converting it over into a playroom for Lily. The dark wood paneling had been stripped off, and the walls painted bright white. Joe had found life-sized decals of various characters from Winnie the Pooh and Madeline and plastered them everywhere. His oak bar was still there, though he’d promised to remove that too. Maya hadn’t cared if it stayed. In the far corner of the basement was one of those Step 2 indoor playhouses Joe had bought at Toys “R” Us on Route 17. It was fort-themed (“manly,” Joe had claimed) with a kitchenette (“womanly,” he almost claimed, but his survival instinct took over), a working doorbell, and a window with shutters.

Maya headed for the gun safe. She bent down, checked the basement steps even though she knew she was alone, and then placed her fingertip on the glass. The safe came with the ability to store thirty-two separate fingerprints, but only she and Joe had ever worked it. She had debated adding Shane’s fingerprints in case he ever needed to get one of her weapons or if she needed him to get one out for whatever reason, but she just hadn’t had the chance.

Two clicks signaled that her fingerprint was recognized and the safe unlocked. Maya turned the knob and opened the metal door.

She took out the Glock 26, and then, because it was better to put her mind completely at ease, she made sure all the other guns were still in place—that no one had come here, opened the safe, and taken one.