Steven James - The Queen

Probably not.

When I checked the screen I saw that FBI Director Margaret Wellington was on the other end of the line.

Oh, this day was just getting better and better.

I let the phone ring.

Six years ago when Margaret and I were both on staff at the Academy I’d noticed some discrepancies in a case and, not knowing who was responsible, I’d brought it up to the Office of Professional Responsibility. After an inquiry, she was discreetly transferred to a North Carolina satellite office-not a career move in the right direction for her-and she’d blamed me for it. But then, a little over a year ago, after landing back in the good graces of the administration, she rose quickly through the ranks, looking for a reason to fire me every step of the way.

It rang again.

Last summer, Margaret’s predecessor, Gregory Rodale, found himself caught in the middle of an insider trading scandal. Shrewdly, Margaret, then the Executive Assistant Director, had positioned herself to be on the short list for the director position even before he was asked to resign.

The approval process in the Senate went astonishingly smoothly, and now a woman I’d never gotten along with and never really trusted was at the helm of the most powerful law enforcement and domestic counterterrorism agency in the world.

Mid-ring, I finally answered. “Pat here.”

She bypassed a greeting, got right down to business. “What do we know about Reiser?”

“He’s not here, but his car is parked outside. We’re working from the premise that he’s not far. Torres and the team are searching trailer by trailer.”

“All right.” She didn’t sound dismissive, just perfunctory. “In the meantime, there’s another matter to attend to. There’s been an accident not far from you. I need you to have a look around.”

“What accident?”

“An ice fisherman found snowmobile tracks leading to a stretch of open water. Law enforcement didn’t find any footprints to or from the break in the ice. Whoever was driving the snowmobile went down.”

“Where?”

“Tomahawk Lake. Just outside of Woodborough.”

A chill swept over me. That was only fifteen miles from my brother Sean’s home in Elk Ridge.

He’s a snowmobiler.

The moment went deeper. “Who? Do we have a name?”

“It’s not Sean, Pat. Don’t worry.”

Her words caught me by surprise. I couldn’t remember ever mentioning Sean’s name to Margaret, or even indicating to her that I had a brother, so unless she’d been reviewing my personnel files I was at a loss as to how she made the connection so quickly.

A random snowmobile accident would be an issue for local law enforcement to look into, not something for the FBI to investigate. Also, here was the Bureau’s director rather than my direct supervisor on the line. There had to be more or she never would have called me. “What else?”

“A rather astute young deputy took pictures of the tracks and emailed them to the FBI Lab. We identified the type of snowmobile-a Ski-Doo 800 XL-and that led us back to the owner. Forty minutes ago the sheriff’s department found the man’s wife and daughter at the house. Both dead. The woman shot in the back. The girl in the chest.”

My brother didn’t have a daughter, so the dead woman wouldn’t have been his wife Amber, but still I sank onto one of the chairs in Reiser’s trailer. “What are their names?”

“I assure you, Patrick, this has nothing to do with Sean.”

“Margaret, what are their names?”

A small pause. “The missing man is named Donnie Pickron. His wife is Ardis. Their four-year-old girl’s name is Lizzie.”

I felt a deep stab of pain. Knowing their names made the crime all the more real, and hearing Lizzie’s age was almost unbearable.

I tried to process Margaret’s words. It seemed highly unusual for a sheriff’s deputy to call on the FBI in the first place, and even more unusual to ask for their help with something like this right off the bat. “Margaret, I’m not sure I see what this has to do with the Bureau.”

Only after I’d finished my sentence did I realize I’d been calling her by her first name this whole conversation. Over the last eighteen months as she’d moved up the career ladder it’d taken me a long time to get used to referring to her by her title rather than her first name, and I still wasn’t used to calling her Director Wellington. Probably never would be.

“Donnie was ex-military, and the Navy is pressuring us to have someone investigate it. They want to know if this was a murder/suicide, or if his death was accidental.”

“So his death was confirmed?”

A pause. “No. Not yet.”

“So he might still be alive?”

“We don’t know much of anything at this point.” She dodged my question. “That’s why I want you to look into this.”

I imagined that the pressure from the Navy had a lot to do with her decision to make this a Bureau matter, but still, I couldn’t figure out why she’d mentioned the snowmobile accident first, considering it was much less serious than a double homicide. Things just weren’t adding up here. “I want you to go up there,” she went on, “have a look around. I’m sending Jake with you. He’s good at what he does.”

It went unstated, but I guessed she’d added that last comment because she was aware of my history with Jake Vanderveld, how reticent I was to work with him. I left the topic untouched.

“I can’t leave the Reiser case right now, Margaret,” I said. “We’re closing in. He’s in the area.”

“Torres and his team will find him. I need you in Woodborough.”

“I work serial offenses, Margaret, not-”

“You’re the most experienced agent anywhere in the area,” she told me bluntly. “You notice what needs to be noticed.” Coming from her, the words were a sudden, unexpected compliment.

I rubbed my head. “A sheriff’s deputy who’s investigating what appears to be an accidental drowning contacts the FBI Lab-and within forty minutes of identifying a missing man’s deceased wife and daughter, the Navy brass is pressuring the Bureau to look into the case? What’s really going on here, Margaret? There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“You know everything I know,” she said tersely. “Woodborough is eighty-five miles north of you. Go up there, have a look around, and clear this up. There’s a storm moving into your area. Interstate 94 is already shut down east of Fargo, and you’re going to get hit hard.” She paused for a moment as if to process what she’d just said. “I’ll send up one of the ERT agents from the Reiser investigation later tonight to process the scene of the Pickron homicides, but I want you to head up the investigation.”

“Margaret, this is all-”

“Patrick, I’m very busy. I’m not pulling you from the Reiser case. Just go to Woodborough. Figure this out. I’ll talk with you in the morning. I’ve told the sheriff’s department to hold the scene and wait for your arrival.”

I looked around the trailer, exasperated. “What about Reiser?”

“If SWAT finds him I’ll have Torres watch him until you and Jake can drive back down. Beyond that, it’ll take the ERT a couple of days to go through the contents of his trailer. Until then, look into the double homicide.”

“Or triple.”

“Triple?”

“If Donnie was murdered too. We don’t know yet. Not until we find his body.”

“Of course. I’ll call Jake. Inform him of what’s going on.” Without saying good-bye she hung up.

Frustrated, I jammed my cell into my pocket. Torres had pulled the shades open to get more light into the trailer, and now, outside the window, I saw Jake answer his phone.