David Baldacci - The Innocent

“Rick Wind and Leo Broome,” said Robie. “We know about them.”

“Do you think they might know something about why my husband has disappeared?”

“They might,” said Robie. But he thought, We won’t have much luck asking them.

Vance, obviously reading Robie’s thoughts, said, “We’ll check into that angle.”

“I don’t know why my husband’s military service would come up now, after all these years.”

“Does your husband have anything else connected to his time in the Army?”

“Not that I know of. He had brought some things back. His helmet, boots, and some other things. But he got rid of them.”

“Why?” asked Vance.

Alice Siegel looked surprised by the question. “He thought they were toxic, of course.”

When they returned to the farmhouse, Vance called in to the FBI and got an earful from her superior for going off grid without authorization. After the man finished his tirade Vance was able to ask him to trace the phone call Gabriel Siegel had received at the bank.

He called back twenty minutes later with the answer.

Disposable phone, dead end. He ordered Vance to come in to the office, right that instant.

Robie overheard this part of the conversation. When Vance started to refuse he grabbed her arm and said, “Go, and take Julie with you.”

His gaze went upward where Julie had gone to use the bathroom.

“What?” said Vance.

“Things are going to get really hairy very shortly.”

Vance put her hand over the phone. “How do you know that?”

“I just do.”

“All the more reason for us to stick together.”

“But not Julie. We can’t have her in the middle of this. Take her to WFO and surround her with firepower. Then you can come back and hook up with me.”

She studied him warily, distrust in her eyes.

The voice squawked from the phone.

“Yes, sir,” said Vance into the phone. “I’ll be in directly. And I’ll be bringing Julie Getty with me. I hope we can do a better job of protecting her than we did last time.”

She clicked off and gazed at Robie with a searching look. “If you’re screwing with me…”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you seem to have a propensity for it. If you have this noble idea that you’re the only one in the world who can tackle this thing. Or that you’re somehow protecting me from danger-”

“You’re an FBI agent. You signed up for this. I have no noble thoughts in my head. All I’ve ever tried to do is my job and then survive. If I engage in any sort of fantasy it’s that I keep on believing those goals are not mutually exclusive.”

“Don’t try to confuse the issue.”

“Take your car and take Julie. Get her settled and then come back here.”

“And you’ll just be here waiting for me?” she said skeptically.

“If I’m not here you have my phone number.”

“I don’t believe this, Robie. You’re shutting me out at the very moment-”

Robie turned and walked away.

“Is that your answer? Ignoring me? Walking away again?” she called after him.

“What’s going on?” Julie peered over the stair rail at them.

Vance looked at Robie and then sighed. “Come on, Julie. We need to get out of here.”

“Where are we going?”

“To run down a lead.”

“What’s Will going to do?”

“Run down another lead.”

“Why are we splitting up?”

“Because our fearless leader wants it that way. Don’t you, Robie?” she added in a louder voice.

He was in the next room now and said nothing in response.

Robie watched as the Beemer with the cracked windshield and shattered rear window backed away from the house. Vance slammed it into drive and did a doughnut in the dirt and gravel before careening down the road away from him.

Robie took a deep, cleansing breath. He had never played well with others. For the last dozen years he had worked in almost total isolation. He preferred it that way. He was better alone than with a team. That’s just how he was built.

He felt an immediate freedom. A washing away of responsibility.

He drove from his mind the promise that he had made to Julie to let her help find out what had happened to her parents. It was a false promise anyway. He’d had no business making it. Fulfilling it, he told himself, would only end up getting the girl killed.

Yet it didn’t really matter one way or another to Robie. He kept telling himself that as he prepared to finish what he had started.

His mind had not changed on one thing. This was about him. Despite their detour down to the squad Curtis Getty had been in.

This is about me. And it’s also about something bigger.

Now he had to find out what that was.

This was once more a chess match. The other side had just made a move.

Robie had to decide if it was a legitimate move or something else.

He gunned up and set out to do just that.

The first stop was the bank. Robie talked to the employees, but they had no helpful information. Gabriel Siegel had left his briefcase behind but it contained nothing helpful. Yet its presence did tell Robie that Siegel’s hasty exit had been unplanned and not related to the business of the bank. He was pretty certain of that already, but in his mind it was now confirmed.

As Alice Siegel had indicated her husband’s car was still in the parking lot. It was a decade-old Honda Civic. Robie picked the lock and searched it but found nothing useful. He drove off in his car, wondering what had prompted Siegel to simply leave his place of business.

Next stop was the hospice. He had forgotten something when he was there before.

The guestbook.

The receptionist let him look at it. While she was attending to other business he took photos of the pages for the last month or so. Then he walked down the hall to Elizabeth Van Beuren’s room.

Nothing much had changed. She was still lying in the bed with a big pipe stuck down her throat. The sun was still coming in the windows. There were flowers. The photo of the family.

And she was still dying. Hanging on to life, probably because she was a soldier and it was just part of her psyche. And the ventilator didn’t hurt. At some point the family would have to make a decision about that.

Like the nurse had said, this place wasn’t designed to cure or even prolong life. It was to let folks die with dignity, in comfort, in peace.

As he stared at Van Beuren, Robie decided she didn’t look too peaceful.

They should just let her go. Just let her pass to a place better than this one.

He picked up the photo and stared at it. A nice family. Alexandra Van Beuren was pretty, with soft brunette hair, a playful smile. Robie liked how the camera had captured the energy in her eyes, the life there. The dad looked rugged, but weary and haunted, as though he might have predicted the fate that would befall his wife in the not too distant future.

At some point in his life Robie had supposed he could have had a family like this. He was long past that, of course. But sometimes he still thought about it. Right at that instant, Annie Lambert’s face appeared in his thoughts. He shook his head clear. He just didn’t see how something like that was possible.

He walked back out into the fading sunshine and set off for Arlington.

To the bar that Jerome Cassidy had built.

He made good time and pulled to a stop in front of the bar at around five o’clock.

He walked in, ordered a beer, and asked for Cassidy. The man came out a few minutes later and approached Robie, an uncertain look on his face. He eyed the beer like it was a stick of TNT about to go off.