Allison Brennan - Playing Dead

Using similar methodology, she eliminated half the Frank Lowes she’d uncovered. Then she started going through the remaining individuals more carefully, making notes. She was particularly interested in any jail time or arrests. If Taverton had made a plea agreement with Frank Lowe, he had to have been arrested at some point.

“He’s dead,” she said out loud when she came to a petty thief who had done time for burglary. She almost deleted his records from the search except for one thing: He’d died in a fire in the early morning hours of November 18, 1993. Less than a day after Chase Taverton was murdered.

She switched to LexisNexis, where she pulled up all newspaper articles related to the fire. Lowe had been a bartender who lived above a bar called Tip’s Blarney in downtown Sacramento. The fire was ruled arson, but the owner, Tip Barney, had been cleared of any wrongdoing and no one had been arrested. The building was a complete loss. One body was recovered, burned beyond identification. There were no dental records for Frank Lowe, but Barney said Lowe was the only person who lived in the building, and he’d left him there at one a.m. when Lowe closed for the night.

Maybe she had the wrong Frank Lowe. Oliver had told her father that Frank Lowe had information. How could a dead man have information?

She made notes on the remaining Frank Lowes, but she kept coming back to the dead bartender. He’d died the night after her mother and Taverton were killed. In an arson fire. She ran a search on Tip Barney, not knowing what, if anything, would pop up.

She almost jumped out of her chair. Barney now owned a bar in Isleton. Oliver’s Explorer was found in the river outside of Isleton.

That was a coincidence Claire planned to follow up on. Tonight.

She glanced at her watch. It was nearly four!

She was supposed to meet Mitch at her house at six, but first she needed to see Bill. She’d told him she’d stop by this afternoon. She had questions about Oliver Maddox as well as about her father’s trial. Questions that Bill might have the answers to-she’d just never wanted them before.

Four o’clock was shift change, from day to swing. Dave walked into the locker room and caught up with Phil and Eric arguing about the Kings game from the night before.

“It’s over,” Dave said. “There’s another game tomorrow.”

“Want to get a beer?” Eric asked.

“I told my dad I’d stop by,” Dave said. “He’s having problems with his air conditioner again.”

“He needs to hire a real repairman,” Phil said.

“How’s Claire?” Eric asked. “She left early last night.”

Dave didn’t want to talk about what he thought was going on with Claire. He had talked about it with his dad this morning, and Bill was concerned as well, but said Claire had called earlier and asked to come over that afternoon. Maybe it was a good sign. Claire had always been able to talk to Bill about what was troubling her. Bill was a great father, and Dave was glad he could share him with someone who needed a great father figure.

Tom O’Brien’s crimes had hurt everyone who knew him. Dave had respected the older, wiser cop. Tom had trained him, and Dave thought he’d known him. But he hadn’t. Dave had never thought Tom was capable of murder.

And worse, Dave hated that Claire paid the price, and was still in turmoil.

“Claire’s fine,” Dave said. “She had a date.”

“She should have brought him over for us to meet,” Eric said, then winked at Phil. “We’d have made sure he was good enough.”

“Why didn’t she bring him?” Phil asked Dave. “That’s unlike her. Especially someone she’s been seeing for a while.”

Dave tried to dismiss it with a wave. “She’s tired of the third degree on her boyfriends.”

“She’s never cared before,” Eric said.

“Maybe this guy’s different,” Dave said, feeling uncomfortable with this conversation. “Look, Claire is practically my sister. I can give her a hard time, but I think we should leave this alone until she’s ready to share.”

“Aren’t you curious?” Eric asked.

“Yeah,” Dave admitted.

“We can check up on him,” Phil suggested. “Just a quick look. Make sure he doesn’t have a record or anything.”

“Last time we did that we learned what’s-his-name had two DUIs.”

“She was pissed,” Eric said.

“She thanked us later,” Phil reminded them. “She was madder at the jerk than she was with us.”

Claire’s best friend in high school had been killed by a drunk driver. She had zero tolerance for it, and Dave had known that when he told her about the boyfriend. His dad had jumped down his throat when he found out, telling Dave to stay out of Claire’s personal life or she wouldn’t forgive him.

“People need to screw up on their own. That’s how they learn.”

But Dave was overprotective of Claire, he couldn’t help it. He remembered when she first came to live with them-she never slept through the night, waking to terrifying nightmares that had him and Bill running to make sure she was okay. She’d been a scared teenager who needed them. Just because she was a grown woman who carried a gun and Taser didn’t mean she didn’t still need them.

“Just a quick look,” Dave said. “Make sure he’s clean, and we don’t say anything, okay?”

“Unless he’s a wanted mass murderer,” Eric teased.

Dave hit him on the arm as they walked to Dave’s desk in the bull pen.

“Mitch Bianchi isn’t a common name,” Dave said as he sat down at the computer. “We should have something-or nothing-pretty quick.”

He brought up the DMV database and typed in the name. Nothing. He typed in “Mitchell” for the first name. Nothing.

“Odd,” Dave said. “Maybe Mitch is a middle name or something.”

“Or he never got a driver’s license,” Eric said.

“In California? Rare,” Phil said.

“Maybe he’s not from California,” Dave said. “Claire said he was house-sitting in her neighborhood. He’s a writer.”

He put a search into the criminal database. Nothing popped up. “He’s clean,” Dave said.

“Except he doesn’t have a California driver’s license,” Eric said.

“Okay, what about a broader search,” Phil suggested. “Noncriminal.”

Dave was curious as well. He went into the full files.

Nothing.

“Shit,” Dave said. “Who is this guy? There’s nothing on him.”

He played around a bit more with the database. He could find nothing. He broadened the search nationally. Nothing. Then he decided to Google Mitch Bianchi and opened an Internet browser.

Fewer than two dozen webpages had the name. Most were genealogy related.

One article popped up.

It was a newspaper article from the Dillon Tribune, a small weekly paper out of Montana.

Sheriff Tyler McBride credited agents with the FBI in helping track the two San Quentin fugitives during the worst blizzard of the season.

“Hans Vigo and Mitch Bianchi went above and beyond helping protect residents of the Centennial Valley. I commend both of them, and consider them friends.”

* * *

“He’s an FBI agent?” Phil asked, shocked.

“Claire’s going to flip,” Eric said. “Why did he tell her he’s a writer? Is he undercover?”

“He’s using Claire to get to Tom.” Dave wanted to strangle him. How dare a Fed insinuate himself into Claire’s life, date her, lie to her?

“Shit,” Eric muttered.

“Bastard,” Phil said. “Do you think Claire knows where Tom is?”

“No,” Dave said, though after his conversation with her last night he wasn’t so sure. “I have to tell her.” His heart sank. The last person he wanted to hurt was Claire.