Deadly Cross (Alex Cross #28)(79)

“My sister’s lying,” Barnes said. “But it’s moot. I didn’t find anything.”

“Because someone else got to the files first, someone who had suspicions about their contents — a paralegal at Carson and Knight named Belinda Jackson.”

“I remember her,” Willingham said.

I said, “In the hours after Claude Knight had his first stroke, and three days before you went to the storage unit, Ms. Barnes, Belinda Jackson went through your father’s files on Kay Willingham, Roy Sutter, Jefferson Ward, and Napoleon Howard. She put what she discovered in with your files, Mr. Vice President, figuring that they would be seen at some point soon in Howard’s appeals process.”

Mahoney said, “But those files were put in storage. Belinda tried to tell several investigators that there was information pertinent to the case somewhere in the trial boxes. But no one looked. And then Howard died in prison.”

I said, “When Belinda heard, she tried to call Kay to tell her about notes she’d seen, written in Knight’s own hand, that referred to meetings with Roy Sutter after the letter arrived from Switzerland along with specific times and dates where Kay’s father talked about having Ward ‘eliminated.’ But Kay couldn’t take Belinda’s calls because she was in West Briar and not allowed any outside contact at the suggestion of Ms. Barnes.”

“What?” Willingham cried.

“That is not true,” Barnes said.

“But it is, and we’ll get back to that in a few minutes,” Mahoney said, tapping his file. “Right now, it’s important to know that Kay was released from West Briar and finally called Belinda Jackson, who had just broken her hip at age ninety-two.”

I said, “She was on painkillers and out of it, but she managed to tell Kay about the notes and their location. It was late in the last campaign cycle. It could explain Kay’s meltdown as the election approached.”

Barnes said, “I want to see these documents. I have no idea where you could have heard thirdhand about Belinda Jackson’s crazy fantasy, but — ”

“From Belinda Jackson herself,” Mahoney said. “She lives in a rest home in Tallahassee. Hip’s good. Not on meds. Sharp. Another interesting thing? Someone else talked to Mrs. Jackson before we did.”

“Who was that?” Vice President Willingham asked.

“Kelli Ann Higgins,” I said. “A dealer in political dirt.”

“I know who she is,” Willingham said.

“Was, sir. She was beaten to death in her apartment not long ago.”

He looked shocked, then glanced at Barnes. “How did I not know that?”

“You were in Cambodia, sir,” Barnes said, shifting uncomfortably in her chair.

I said, “But you weren’t, Ms. Barnes?”

“No. I, uh, was here, working.”

Mahoney looked at the two Secret Service agents. “Were you part of the overseas detail?”

Special Agent Breit hesitated, then shook his head. “Not that trip.”

His partner, Price, the stocky one, said, “I remained behind as well.”

Mahoney said, “That helps.”

“With what?” Barnes asked.

He opened a file and pulled out a still shot of Special Agent Price walking down a sidewalk.

“That’s from a security surveillance camera down the street from Kelli Ann Higgins’s town house,” Mahoney said. “The day she died.”





CHAPTER 91





PRICE LOOKED CORNERED, BUT THEN he said, “Like eight hours before she died. I went and knocked on her door. Got no answer.”

I said, “Why were you knocking on Higgins’s door?”

Price glanced at Barnes, who said, “Because I asked him to. Because Kelli Ann was dropping hints that she had something potentially damaging to the vice president. If that was true, we wanted to know what this information was so we could prepare.”

Willingham stared at her. “You never told me that.”

She smiled at him a little coldly. “Sometimes my job is to not tell you, sir.”

“What else haven’t you told me?” he demanded, looking at Barnes and then his Secret Service agents.

Breit and Price appeared ready to say something, but before they did, Mahoney asked Barnes, “Have you told the vice president about your arrangement with Bobby Carson and the good doctors of West Briar?”

Willingham’s chief of staff swallowed hard. “I have no arrange — ”

“They’re all under arrest,” I said. “You didn’t think they were going to talk?”

Barnes said nothing but I could see the fight-or-flight reflex kicking in.

Mahoney looked at Willingham. “It was her idea to use Kay’s visits to West Briar to get Bobby Carson named as the heir of the old Sutter plantation.”

“That’s a lie!” Barnes cried.

“No, it’s not,” I said. “They’ve all turned against you, Ms. Barnes, said you were the one who thought the land should be logged and then subdivided for trophy homes. They also say you hired the professionals to take out Althea Lincoln because she was the one closest to Kay, the one who heard everything. She just didn’t count on Special Agent Mahoney and me being there when they tried to kill her.”