No Way Back(Jack McNeal #1)(23)

Meyer partying in DC, New York, London, the Hamptons, Milan, the Bahamas, Hong Kong, and everywhere in between. You throw a glamorous party, and she would be there. Dressed impeccably. Powerful connections. Her grandfather had been good friends with a Rockefeller. Her father was one of America’s first billionaires.

“Am I reading this right?” Peter asked. “Maybe I’m fucked up by all this. But this Sophie Meyer woman was found dead of an overdose at her home in Washington, DC, and Caroline is found floating in the Potomac, also in DC? Two separate women? And your late wife was investigating this woman’s death? That’s a red flag if ever there was one.”

Jack scrolled to the next article. “The official version says Sophie Meyer was manically depressed; was addicted to cocaine, amphetamines, barbiturates; had a complicated social life; and had sleeping pills and four other drugs in her system when she died.”

Jack considered. He wondered out loud what the chances were that the woman investigating another woman’s suspicious death would wind up dead too, in suspicious circumstances. The same city. But this was about way more than probability. It was about what Sophie Meyer knew and about what Caroline McNeal knew.

Peter shook his head. “It’s bullshit, Jack. I’m calling it the way I see it.”

“I don’t know.” Jack closed the files. He stared at the screen. He scanned the files before realizing there was one more he hadn’t seen. It was called Encrypted for JM. He clicked it, and the computer prompted him for a six-digit code.

“What the hell is it?” Peter said. “Damn. A fucking code. I can never remember my passwords and goddamn codes.”

Jack held up his hand to calm down his brother. “Let’s work this out. Let’s take our time. Caroline downloaded this to a CD, along with all the other documents about Sophie Meyer.”

“Is it her date of birth?”

Jack tried that, but it came back Password incorrect.

“Damn.”

Jack’s mind was racing. “Hang on, in the video. What was the thing that stuck in my head?” He clicked his fingers, trying to remember. “Yeah. ‘The day I married you.’ That’s what she said.”

Peter grinned. “That was a good day. The day after Independence Day, right?”

Jack entered 070508. The document opened, decrypting before his eyes. A handful of official-looking documents. Pentagon-letterhead notepaper. Partially redacted.

Peter whistled as he read the documents. “Okay . . . What the fuck?”

Jack began to read. Slowly he began to understand. A combination of classified Pentagon intelligence documents and classified diplomatic cables. The latter had been sent to the State Department but leaked by a whistleblower to WikiLeaks. The documents showed conversations about why Sophie Meyer was a liability. A national security advisor had done an assessment showing Meyer as a serious and credible risk to the United States. But what the documents also contained were clandestine options to deal with her. “These are Department of Defense and State Department documents.”

Peter sat quietly, reading another document. “I don’t like this.”

“How did Caroline get her hands on this?”

Peter got up, beer bottle in hand, and began to pace the room. “This is fucked up. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”

Jack took about an hour to read the half-dozen special access Pentagon memos relating to Sophie Meyer. Redacted names discussing options on the table to neutralize the threat. The wording was ominous. The documents were dated three months before Meyer died. He scanned the rest until he came to the final two documents. They were autopsies carried out by two separate medical examiners. An official version showing Meyer died by a drug overdose. A simple suicide. And a second version which showed suspicious needle marks on the neck. There was no mention of the needle marks in the first autopsy report.

He showed his brother the autopsy reports. “Read that,” he said. “What do you make of that?”

Peter leaned over his brother’s shoulder and scanned. “Motherfucker.”

“This is something that Caroline either unearthed or a source in the Department of Defense passed to her.”

“What do you think, Jack?”

Jack’s mind raced. He wanted to watch the video of his wife again. And again. He wanted to listen to her talk. He wanted to not only hear her voice but also listen closely to what she was saying.

“So, what should we do?”

“We need to do the right thing. We need to take what we have to the FBI.”

Peter stared at him. “Do you trust them?”

“I don’t know.”

“This seems to indicate that someone, maybe someone close to Sophie Meyer’s family, ordered a private autopsy. Maybe they didn’t believe the official version.”

Jack nodded.

“It points to foul play. A cover-up. Call it whatever you want. The needle marks.”

“I don’t think this is the full story. Not by a long shot. I say we take what we have to the Feds, eventually. But let’s wait and see if we find out anything else.”

Peter nodded. “Probably our best bet under the circumstances. Do you think these documents got Caroline killed?”

Jack stared at the two autopsies on the screen. “I wish to God I knew.”