Allison Brennan - Silenced

No answer.

He pounded again, shouted, “FBI! Search warrant! We’re coming in!” He waited a beat, then commanded SWAT to prepare to ram the door. Two men held the heavy steel battering ram.

“FBI! Stand back! We’re entering the premises!”

He nodded to the team, who rammed the door, breaching in one swift movement. Everyone stood aside, while two more agents held assault rifles on the room, visually searching for any threat.

The smell in the apartment was horrendous.

Noah walked down the hall, away from the apartment. Josh Stein looked confused. “What happened? Why aren’t you going in?”

Noah didn’t respond. He waited for the SWAT team leader to issue the all-clear report.

“Agent Armstrong?”

“Here.”

“We’ve cleared the apartment. One deceased, female.”

“How?”

“Appears to be a gunshot to the back of the head.”

“Silencer?”

“Poor man’s silencer. The pillow is still in place.”

Noah walked carefully through the apartment. Betty Dare had been murdered in her bedroom. On the bed was a half-packed suitcase. Had she been scared of prosecution? Or more terrified of who she worked for?

She’d used the extra bedroom as her own private office. Stacks of video-recording equipment were in the closet. The hard drive had been pulled from her computer. She had an industrial-strength paper shredder, filled.

“Call forensics,” he said to Josh. “This place is all yours.”

He left the apartment building on Park Way and called Kate. “I’m on my way, where are you?”

“We just arrived at St. Anne’s. Lucy and I are going to talk to the priest, I’ll let you know.”

“Be alert. Betty Dare, our potential witness, is dead.”

Devon Sullivan and her husband, defense attorney Clark Jager, lived on a sprawling country estate in Chantilly, Virginia, about forty minutes southwest of DC.

Sean stopped far from the property line, uncertain of the security layout. He downloaded all public satellite data of the spread as well as property records. There was only one way to get to the main house, down a quarter-mile-long driveway.

With all that land, Sean figured there would be security cameras at any potential breach point. A seasonal creek ran along the western edge of the property. The southern edge backed up to their neighbor’s horse stables. Twelve properties were listed on the long, narrow dead-end street.

The benefit for surveillance was that Sean could park out of sight on the main road because everyone in the Sullivan/Jager neighborhood had to drive to the main road to leave. To the right was the small town of Chantilly. To the left, two miles away, freeway access.

Sean parked his Mustang at a closed business on the main road where he could watch the cars leaving. He had pulled the vehicle ownership records for both Sullivan and Jager. She drove either a gold E-class Mercedes or a white Lexus SUV. Jager had a small black Mercedes C300. Sean would love to drive the C300 someday. All three vehicles were pricey. The spread had been bought when they first married nine years ago, for nearly three million dollars. Now, even with the market slump, it was worth over four million.

Sean had run basic financial profiles on the couple. Jager was a partner in his law firm and specialized in criminal defense. Sullivan had opened her lobbying firm nearly twenty years ago, after she divorced her first husband, with whom she had two sons. Both of them lived in the greater DC area.

Even with two successful careers, this was an expensive piece of land filled with expensive toys. A place that would have hired staff.

Normally, a breach like this required intelligence gathering and extensive planning, but Sean didn’t have time for anything like that. Winging it was his MO, and if he was feeling nervous, he had to trust his instincts.

He considered what little he knew of Sullivan and Jager. They blackmailed people either for money or out of the thrill of the game, or both. Information was power. They would be extremely private people. Have staff, but probably not live-in. If they did have live-in help, they would have a separate residence on the property, not in the main house. Security would be tight, but primarily they would rely on surveillance equipment with a direct line to the police rather than more involved options. Response times would be quick, considering Jager’s line of work. Though many cops probably didn’t care for him, no one would want a defense attorney dead on their watch.

Sean needed a partner. He was loath to call Sergio Russo, but he didn’t have a choice. He needed backup.

Paxton must have already given Russo a heads-up, because he told Sean he was less than ten minutes away. Sean wouldn’t let his guard down-the senator had been furious with Sean when he’d left this morning. He might be thinking he could get the locket and simultaneously take out Sean.

Sean scanned additional information about Jager on his laptop while he waited and came across an article dated more than twenty years ago, showing a young, suave attorney. He’d just won his first case, an acquittal for a suspected killer.

Harper Acquitted!

Prosecution “Stunned”; Defense “Pleased”

Falls Church, VA

Reginald Douglas Harper was acquitted this morning of all charges in the rape and torture of coed Amanda Jane Morris. Morris died of her injuries four days after she was found, without regaining consciousness.

Harper, who didn’t take the stand in his defense, sat stone-faced during the reading of the jury’s verdict, which came after six hours of deliberation. Harper’s attorney, Clark Jager of Acuna amp; Bigelow Law Offices, took Harper’s case pro bono because he said the defendant wasn’t getting a fair trial.

At a press conference immediately following the reading of the verdict, Jager said, “Justice has been served. For too long, prosecutors in our state have been violating the constitutional liberties guaranteed to all citizens, both victims and criminals. When one innocent man goes to jail, the entire system is corrupt. Reginald Harper is innocent of the charges he faced; a corrupt system extracted a confession under extreme duress. As we proved to the jury, Mr. Harper was tortured through the denial of water, bathroom breaks, and sleep. Six detectives questioned him for twenty-nine hours straight until he broke down and confessed to a crime he didn’t commit.”

Jager, who has a degree in criminal justice from Boston College and a law degree from Columbia Law School, practiced in the public defender’s office in New York City for three years before joining the established law firm of Acuna amp; Bigelow late last year. His biography says, in part, “I became a defense lawyer because my brother was convicted of a crime he did not commit, and died in a prison brawl five years later. After his death, a court overturned his conviction when DNA evidence proved him innocent.”

Sean suspected that “Hang ’em High” Senator Jonathon Paxton wasn’t Jager’s favorite person. Yet Jager had represented Fran Buckley, charged with conspiracy in the murders of several paroled felons. Was it for information? Jager and his wife thrived on information, and who better to share than Paxton’s bitter fall guy.

Sean looked up to see a car stopped at the end of the private road. Jager. He turned left toward the highway. It was 7:10 A.M.

A few minutes later, Sergio Russo pulled up. He slid into Sean’s passenger seat. “I’m glad you called.”

“I’m not,” Sean said. “I need backup, and you’re the only one who can do it.”

“‘Thanks’ doesn’t seem quite right for the comment.”

“I don’t trust you, but I trust you more than Paxton. That’s not saying much.”