Best Laid Plans(63)

But she’d made a promise to herself long ago that she’d never let what had happened to her—or the fallout—stop her from doing her job. Whether it was when she was in college or grad school or working for search and rescue or the morgue … and now the FBI … she couldn’t let her emotional turmoil keep her from her responsibilities.

Sean pulled into a parking spot and turned off the car. “Are you sure you don’t want to go back home? I can make double chocolate chip brownies and we can watch Guardians of the Galaxy for the hundredth time.”

She smiled, genuinely smiled. “You exaggerate. We’ve only seen it fifty-six times.”

Sean touched her face. “Be safe, Lucy. Call me if you need anything.”

“I will. Are you going to HWI?”

“At some point. I have a few things to check on, then I’ll give Gregor my report.”

Lucy wanted to tell him to forget last night, but of course Sean would never be able to, just like it would be burned in her memory forever. She didn’t know if telling Sean about her nightmare was going to help, and she certainly didn’t know if discussing the dreams would stop them, but it had been cathartic. Difficult beyond nearly anything she’d had to do, but when she was done, it was like every drop of blood had been drained from her body. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think, and had allowed Sean to put her back to bed and hold her. Needed him to hold her. Neither of them had slept, but that was okay.

“I love you,” she said.

He kissed her. “Catch a bad guy today, princess.”

She waved good-bye and walked into FBI headquarters. She was late—she was never late—but fortunately, Juan wasn’t a stickler about tardiness. Most of them worked longer than the eight-to-five shift required of them.

She passed Ryan on her way to her desk. “You look like shit.”

“Now I know why you got divorced,” she snapped. She put her hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

“It wasn’t. Just unexpected.” He followed her to her cubicle. She sat down and booted up her computer. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine.”

The response was automatic, and Ryan knew it was a lie.

“As long as you’re not sick. I don’t have any sick time left—took it when my boys had the chicken pox. One right after the other.”

“I’m just tired.” She hesitated, then added, “Insomnia. Some nights it’s worse than others.”

“If you need anything, let me know.”

“I talked to Brad last night about the gang shooting. Anything new?”

Ryan shook his head. “Not much. We haven’t found the van. Haven’t ID’d two of the victims, and no one’s talking. I had a message when I got in that SAPD talked to the kid’s family. The kid was there with his mother and aunt—we confirmed that the baby daddy was one of the gangbangers. They family was hysterical, but gave us nothing useful. Did Brad tell you he’s talking to Nicole Rollins today?”

She nodded. “He’s having a hard time with it, but he’s the only one she’ll talk to.”

“She said that?”

“No—it’s my gut feeling.”

Barry walked past the Violent Crimes Squad cubicles and spotted Lucy. “Good, you’re here.” He handed her a packet of paper. “The tech team finally extracted the data off Harper Worthington’s tablet. Unfortunately, it’s mostly raw numbers and spreadsheets with no key as to what it all means. I had them email the data to our cyber experts at Quantico.”

Lucy looked at the thin packet he’d handed her. “What’s this?”

“Other than the spreadsheets, he kept some notes. I printed them out, made a few copies.”

Ryan said, “I’ll let you two get to work.”

She turned back to Barry. He said, “The tablet has an automatic logging system, so we know that it was first used on May ninth.”

“Almost four weeks ago.”

“The same time his daughter, wife, and assistant thought he was acting preoccupied. And when he stopped using his office phone.”

“We need to retrace his steps leading up to the ninth.”

“Zach and the tech teams are working on it. HWI gave us his schedule for the last three months, so we can compare that with what we find and see if there are discrepancies.” Barry gestured to the thin packet of paper in Lucy’s hand. “Look at the first page.”

She looked down.



Meet G.A. @ 11—Camp Street #115



The White Knight Motel was on Camp Street. Worthington had died in room 115.

“That note was created Friday afternoon. Only minutes before he made his flight arrangements,” Barry said. “The notes are collated from most recent to oldest.”

“Does it correspond to an email or a phone call?”

“Yes. He received a call from a blocked number on his cell phone at the same time that he created the note. Juan is getting a warrant to get the number from the provider. We’ll have it before the end of the day, but my guess is it’ll be a burner phone.”

“It could match one of the other numbers we have. Like Elise or Mona Hill.”

“Could, but we’ll have to confirm that when we get it. Don’t jump to conclusions.”