Allison Brennan - Silenced

“The press isn’t always right.”

Paxton visibly relaxed. “Good.”

“Good?”

“It’s tragic she was killed. She was a young, beautiful woman with her whole life ahead of her, regardless of the mistakes she made. But to be raped and then murdered is the most vile crime that can be committed on a woman. There’s a special place in Hell for men like that.”

Noah hoped there was a special place in Hell for puppeteers like Paxton. He wished there was some way he could officially bring Paxton in for questioning. He could probably think of something-withholding information from the FBI for one, because he suspected there was more to this story than Paxton had told-but his actions would be out of spite.

The truth was hard to argue against.

Sean stepped out of the closet. He didn’t know how he felt about what he had just heard. He understood Paxton’s motives-he’d done similar things, exposing people who deserved it while keeping his own hands clean. He’d learned the hard way that gloating could get him in trouble.

He didn’t want to like Paxton. He didn’t like Paxton. But he understood him.

What he didn’t understand was how Paxton could hurt Lucy. She would be devastated if she found out that Paxton had pulled strings to get her into the FBI Academy. And if he was determined to be corrupt, her career would be tainted. If that note she allegedly wrote came out, the media, or the FBI, could make it sound like anything they wanted. Even if it was innocuous, they could make it appear like she was keeping Paxton’s secret-accessory after the fact-so that she could get his help. She had made it very well known that all she wanted was to be an FBI agent. The people in charge could even make it look like Paxton got her in so he could have his own bought-and-paid-for agent.

“Now do you understand?”

Sean had been trying to put together the information Paxton had given him earlier with what he said to Noah. “What do the note and locket have to do with exposing Crowley?”

“It has everything to do with it. The locket disappeared after I turned over the photographs to the press.”

“Coincidence?”

“No. I was threatened. If I didn’t back off, the caller would expose the secrets of the locket. The thing is, there are no secrets. It belonged to my daughter. It’s all I have left of her. I want it back. But if they know about Morton-if that’s what they meant about ‘secret,’ then I can’t risk exposure.”

“But you killed him,” Sean said matter-of-factly.

“Lucy will be irreparably damaged as well. I’m not willing to take the risk. Are you?”

“You bastard. You’ve dirtied her entire career.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic, Rogan. I’m going to set things right. I always do.” He almost sounded pained, but Paxton was a politician and a liar. He didn’t care about what happened to Lucy.

“Who else knows about the note?”

“No one. At least, no one knows Lucy wrote the message. But several people know she had the locket. Noah Armstrong gave her Adam Scott’s box and told her to make the decision about whether his victims’ families would want the items back. She worked with the FBI to locate the families and wrote them letters.”

Sean hadn’t known. Six months ago, he and Lucy had just started seeing each other. He shouldn’t be hurt she hadn’t included him, but he was. The experience must have been extremely painful and difficult for her, in light of the fact Adam Scott had kidnapped, raped, and nearly killed her. Yet she worked with Noah on it.

Sean didn’t want to help Senator Paxton, but did he really have a choice? Even if the note could never be linked to her, Paxton’s unspoken threat to reveal that he’d pulled strings to get Lucy into the Academy hit home.

“Whoever took the locket has access to your office,” Sean said.

“I’ve already had you run background checks on everyone I thought might have done it-”

“I’ll run background checks on everyone who’s come in and out of your office.”

Paxton reluctantly agreed. “Very well. I have a window as to when it went missing. I’ll get you my appointment books. But Sergio Russo already went through-”

“Sergio Russo isn’t me.”

“I’ll get you everything you need first thing in the morning.”

“Tonight.”

Sean was about to leave when he remembered what Lucy had said about the three murders. Paxton didn’t know that Wendy James was connected to the two prostitutes. But if the photos started this chain of events, that made Paxton indirectly responsible for all five deaths.

He couldn’t help but rub that in.

“Noah didn’t say anything to you, but the FBI is taking over the investigation into the murders at the Hotel Potomac. They’re connected to Wendy James. The same person who killed her also killed four other people. Think about that, Senator, since you don’t seem to regret what you did. If it were me-and it has been in the past-my fingerprints would never be on it. I’ve destroyed pricks like Alan Crowley. And no one will know who, because I don’t need to brag about my successes.”

Sean grinned, gloating. “Hope you get a good night’s sleep.”

Before he could walk out, Paxton said sharply, “Rogan!”

Sean turned around.

“Watch yourself. The statute of limitations isn’t quite up on one of your successes, as you call it, up in Massachusetts. And I don’t think you would do well in prison.”

After leaving the senator’s office, Noah called Rick Stockton directly and told him about Paxton’s confession.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a crime to expose an extramarital affair. The motive didn’t matter: Truth was almost always a defense.

Paxton seemed contrite that his clandestine release of the compromising photographs might have led to the murder of Wendy James. If he had known that his acts would result in a death, he could be culpable. It was a stretch, and proving it would be next to impossible. Noah didn’t know how many affairs were publicly exposed, but rarely did they end like that of Wendy James.

But Paxton was a politician, and Noah wasn’t sure how much of his sincerity was an act.

Noah needed to find the woman who called herself Ivy Harris, so he drove back to where she was last seen. He had reviewed what little they had on her-under both her alias and her real name.

Hannah Edmonds was one of three daughters of televangelist Kirk Edmonds. A widower, Reverend Edmonds had a successful ministry in Allegheny County in the northwest of Maryland. The closest city to his base was Cumberland, but the small unincorporated town he lived in had less than three hundred people, almost all of whom worked for Hope Ministries.

Noah could imagine that growing up in a small, sheltered religious community was the breeding ground for teenage rebellion, but faking a suicide seemed awfully sophisticated for a fourteen-year-old.

According to the records the local FBI office had on Hannah Edmonds, she’d been diagnosed bipolar manic-depressive when she was thirteen, after she first tried to kill herself. Eighteen months on a variety of medications seemed to be working, then her father learned she’d tricked the household staff and hadn’t been taking her medication at all.

There was a history of mental illness in the family. Hannah’s mother had killed herself and tried to kill her two youngest children. Hannah had been seven at the time. She and the baby, Sara, had miraculously survived when Marie Edmonds intentionally drove her vehicle into a security fence.

Noah didn’t have a lot of experience with mental illnesses like manic depression, but he knew enough to know that Hannah was dangerous to herself and others. If she felt trapped, scared, hopeless, what might she do to her sister? Could they believe anything she said?