No Way Back(Jack McNeal #1)(8)

Finks sighed. “Your wife is a prominent Washington journalist, right?”

McNeal nodded.

“When we searched your wife’s house, there was no sign of forced entry. We have evidence that suggests she had three laptops. None were there. She also had several cell phones; iPads; hundreds of notepads with details of meetings, longtime confidential sources, and White House briefings. All of it, gone. So, what happened to it? Did you or someone you know take all of it?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Jack, I want to speak frankly. Her disappearance and the missing notes and electronic equipment alarms us. Her sources include senators and congresspeople. She has details of off-the-record conversations with government employees. Some high-level. This might be a serious security breach by someone she knew, or it might not. It might just be a woman who decided it was time to move on with her life and not tell anyone until she’s good and ready. But it might not. And it’s a concern. So, we have to keep an open mind.”

“That makes sense.”

“She may also have a reason to want to disappear.”

McNeal bristled at the tone of the conversation. The insinuation that she wanted to escape him forever hung in the air. He didn’t believe that. “And what might that be?”

“I don’t know. You tell me. Maybe she was just fed up. Maybe she just wanted to get away from it all.”

“Caroline wasn’t like that.”

“Maybe you’d grown farther apart than you realized. Maybe she had changed.”

“I get where you’re going with this line of questioning.”

Finks held his gaze. “Maybe she doesn’t keep you up to date with everything she does.”

“We might have been separated, but we spoke. We were open like that.”

“Did she confide in you?”

“Yeah. Everything.”

“Did she tell you about a prowler?”

“What?”

“Caroline had apparently confided in her coworker, a fellow journalist, about a prowler around her property in the days leading up to her disappearance. Are you sure she didn’t mention that to you?”

“No. I didn’t know about it. Was it reported to the police?”

Finks shook his head. “We’re still checking, but we haven’t found a report.”

“Caroline never mentioned anything like this to me. I would have remembered it.”

“Is that unusual?”

“Is what unusual?”

“Caroline not mentioning stuff like that to you. I would’ve thought a wife, even if separated from her husband, might want to let him know if there was a prowler around. Would she have mentioned something like that to you? You did say she confided in you. Everything. But it appears she didn’t confide in you about this. Why do you think that is?”

McNeal tilted his head back and exhaled.

Finks stared at McNeal. “Your separation was amicable?”

McNeal sensed a frostiness in the tone of voice. “Separation is never easy.”

“Was it her idea? The separation, I mean.”

McNeal knew what they were doing. They were painting him as the angry husband who didn’t want his wife to leave.

“She wanted more space, that kind of thing? How did that make you feel?”

McNeal sighed. “It’s a personal thing. People grow apart, I guess.”

“So, you’re saying she grew apart from you?”

“People change. What can I say?”

“Jack, you’re a rising star with Internal Affairs. I’ve read your file. You were investigated by Internal Affairs five years ago, after you killed your partner.”

“I was cleared. A bullet from my partner’s gun ricocheted and killed my son.”

“And you in turn gunned your partner down. That’s a lot to deal with. You have a college degree. You applied to join Internal Affairs. Why?”

McNeal steepled his hands. It was a question he had answered more than once in his life. “My partner should never have remained a cop so long. I believe strongly after what happened that the NYPD shouldn’t have people like that in its ranks.”

“The file said that you are, to put it nicely, obsessive about your work. I’ve heard that you seem to have become more withdrawn and had been referred to a clinical psychologist who specializes in PTSD, grief, and anger issues.”

McNeal sat in silence.

“It’s clear that you’re struggling.”

“You don’t know the first thing about me.”

“They say you don’t let things go. You’re obsessive.”

“You keep on saying that.”

“Is that what happened here? You couldn’t—or wouldn’t—let her go?”

McNeal took a deep breath to keep these men from getting under his skin. “My job is to investigate allegations of NYPD corruption and criminality. I do so without fear or favor. I care about the investigations. I care that we get resolution. Bad cops need to be outed. I don’t apologize for that.”

“Maybe you’ve taken that same devotion and obsession with your job into your private life. Maybe you didn’t want to let Caroline go. Is that what this is about?”

McNeal shook his head, nursing his fury. It was like they were picking at a raw wound.