David Baldacci: First Family

The monster was not persuaded. "Out." He wedged the gun muzzle against the back of her head. A piece of her hair caught against the bump of the gunsight and was pulled out root and all. Tears trickled down the woman's cheeks as she confronted the last few minutes of her life. It was like all the warnings had said:

Know your surroundings. Be alert. It only takes a second.

From Talbot's to death on a lonely strip of dirt.

She opened the car door and started to slide out, her hand clutching her purse. She gasped and let go when the gloved fingers closed around her wrist.

"You won't need that."

She closed the door behind her.

Her hopes sank when he joined her outside the car. She had been praying that he would merely climb over the front seat and take her Honda, instead of stealing her life.

He was older, with thick, longish white hair that looked sweaty and dirty. And his face appeared carved from solid rock with rivulets running all over the surface. He was older, but he was also a big, tall man, well over two hundred pounds with broad shoulders and huge, veined hands. He towered over the petite Wohl. Even without the weapon she had no chance against him. His gun was pointed right at her head. The fact that he wasn't wearing a mask terrified her; she could clearly see his face.

He doesn't care. Doesn't care if I know who he is. He's going to kill me. Rape and then kill me. And leave me out here. She started to sob.

"Please don't do this," she said as he took a step forward and she took a step back, bracing for the attack.

She never noticed the other man come up behind her. When he touched her shoulder, she shrieked and turned. He was smaller and wiry, his Hispanic features clearly defined. Yet she never saw this because he held up the canister and the dense mist hit her squarely in the face.

Choking, Diane took a deep breath to clear her lungs. It didn't work; her senses quickly leaving her, she slumped in his arms. They put her in the back of a rental van parked nearby and drove off.

THE LAW ENFORCEMENT ARMY was here in full, splendid force. Sean and Michelle watched from one corner of the pine needle-strewn yard as cops, techs, and suits swarmed over the stricken Dutton home like ants on a carcass. In certain important respects that analogy was exact.

The ambulances had come and taken the living members of the Dutton family to the hospital. Mrs. Dutton was still inside enduring the swarm. The only doctor she would be seeing later was one who would cut her up even more than she was already.

Sean and Michelle had been questioned three times by uniforms and then tie-and-jacket homicide detectives. They methodically gave detailed answers and notebooks were filled up with their descriptions of the night's horrific events.

Michelle's attention turned to two black sedans skidding into the driveway. When the men and women popped out she said to Sean, "Why's the FBI here?"

"Didn't I mention? Tuck Dutton is the First Lady's brother."

"The First Lady? As in Jane Cox, wife of President Cox?"

Sean just gave her a look.

"So that means her sister-in-law was murdered and her niece was kidnapped?"

"You'll probably see the news trucks pull up any minute," he said. "And the answer would be, 'No comment.' "

"So Pam Dutton wanted to hire us. Any idea why?"

"No."

They both watched as the Fibbies talked to the local detectives and then marched inside the house. Ten minutes later they came back out and headed toward Sean and Michelle.

She said, "They don't look too happy about us being here."

They weren't. It was clear after the first three minutes that the FBI agents were having a hard time believing that the two had been summoned by Pam Dutton but didn't know why.

Sean said for the fourth time, "Like I said, I'm a friend of the family. She called me and said she wanted to meet. I have no idea why. That's why we were coming tonight. To find out."

"At this hour?"

"She set the time."

"If you're so close to them maybe you have an idea who could have done this," one of them said. He was a medium-sized guy with a thin face, buffed shoulders, and an apparently permanent sour expression that made Michelle think he was either plagued by ulcers or had jumpy intestines.

"If I had any idea I would've told the county suits when they asked me. Any sign of the truck? My partner here put a round through the windshield."

"And why does your partner carry a gun?" Sour Face asked.

Sean slowly reached in his pocket and pulled out his ID. Michelle did the same along with her concealed weapons permit.

"Private detectives?" Sour Face managed to make it sound like "child molester" before handing the IDs back.

"And former Secret Service," Michelle said. "Both of us."

"Good for you," Sour Face snapped. He nodded at the house. "In fact, the Secret Service might take some heat for this one."

"Why?" Sean asked. "Siblings of the First Family don't qualify for protection unless there's been a specific threat. They can't guard everybody."

"Don't you get it? It's perception. Mom slaughtered, kid snatched. It won't play well in the papers. Particularly after the Camp David party today. First Family goes safely home. Last Family gets run over by a freaking tank. Not a great headline."

"What party at Camp David?" Michelle wanted to know.

"I'm asking the questions," he shot back.

And for the next hour Sean and Michelle again went through what they'd seen and done in minute detail. For all of Sour Face's irritating characteristics, they both had to admit the man was plenty thorough.

They ended up back in the house staring down at Pam Dutton's corpse. One forensic photographer was snapping close-ups of the blood-spatter patterns, the death wound, and the trace under Pam Dutton's nails. Another tech was typing into a laptop the string of alphabet letters on the dead woman's arms.

"Anybody know what the letters mean?" Michelle asked, pointing to them. "Is it a foreign language?"

One of the techs shook his head. "It's not any language I've ever seen."

"It's more like random letters," suggested Sean.

"There's good defensive trace under her nails," Michelle pointed out. "Looks like she was able to scratch the perp up."

"Nothing we don't know," said Sour Face.

"How're Tuck and the kids?" asked Sean.

"Heading to the hospital now to get some statements."

"If they had to knock the guy out because he was fighting with them, he might have seen something," said one of the agents.

"Yeah, but if he did see something you wonder why they didn't give him the same treatment they gave his wife," said Michelle. "The kids were drugged, probably saw squat. But why leave an eyewitness?"

Sour Face looked unimpressed. "If I want to talk to you two again, and I probably will, I trust I'll be able to find you at the addresses you gave?"

"Not a problem," said Sean.

"Right," said Sour Face as he and his team trudged off.

Sean said, "Let's go."

"How? They shot up your car. Didn't you notice?"

Sean walked outside and stared over at his ruined Lexus before whipping around to glare at her. "You know, you could've told me that before."

"I've had so much time on my hands."

"I'll call Triple A, how about that?"

As they waited for the ride, she said, "So are we just going to leave it like this?"

"Like what?"

She pointed to the Duttons' house. "Like this. One of the pricks tried to kill me. I don't know about you, but I take that personally. And Pam wanted to hire us. I think we owe it to her to take the case and see it through."

"Michelle, we have no idea that what she called me about has anything to do with her death."

"If it doesn't I'd call that the mother of all coincidences."