David Kent - The Triangle Conspiracy

“I didn’t know the exact ages, but I knew you had three.”

“They’re the best part of my life, Scott. I would do anything for them.”

“If you’re saying that Faith or I-”

Cain held up a hand. “No, just listen. What you don’t know is that my older daughter isn’t really my daughter. She’s my niece.”

Hendler cocked his head.

“My wife’s brother was a batterer. He used to beat his wife almost every day, and after Leah was born, he beat her too. She was a baby, less than two years old, and he was hitting her with his fists, day after day. One day he shoved his wife down a flight of stairs. She hit her head.”

“Did it kill her?”

“No, but I wish it had.”

“What?”

“She’s been in a coma for eight years. She’s in a nursing home in Stillwater. Beth’s brother went to prison for attempted murder. We sued for custody of Leah, and the judge granted it. A year later, we went a step further and legally adopted her. She’s my daughter now. But it doesn’t change the fact that her biological father-my own wife’s brother-did what he did. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t wonder how my wife, the best and gentlest and most compassionate person who ever walked on this earth, could be the sister of that monster.”

Hendler nodded. “You didn’t have to tell me that.”

“No, I didn’t.”

Cain walked away and Hendler heard him talking in low tones with the uniformed officers on the other side of the Jeep.

Hendler waited a moment, looking at the evidence bags: the gun, the registration and insurance papers, the Arizona license plates.

Did you do it, Sean?

And if you did, why?

For God’s sake, why?

He thought of Faith. He called her again, got her voice mail again. “Hey, it’s me. Call me when you can,” he said. “I’m thinking about you. I need to hear that you’re okay. Call me, or come by if you’re able to. I’m going to work at home for the rest of the day, trying to organize my thoughts on some new evidence that just came in.” He waited a moment. “I need to talk to you about this.”

He shook hands with Cain again before making his way back to his own car. “Good work on all this. I mean, good police work. Everyone should appreciate the local-federal cooperation.”

Cain saw that he was straining to lighten the mood. The detective held his hand in his grip a moment longer than necessary. “You want to talk, off the record, let me know. I mean that.”

Hendler looked at him for a long moment. “I know you do.” He started walking toward the Toyota, but stopped and turned back to Cain. “Thanks for the perspective, Rob.”

Cain nodded. Hendler pulled out of the parking lot. Cain watched him the whole way.

As Hendler turned onto Shields, another car pulled from a side street and dropped into traffic one car length behind him.

FAITH’S LAST ACT AS HERSELF-AT LEAST FOR Awhile-was to return the Focus to the rental agency at Will Rogers World Airport. Then she walked around the corner to a different rental counter and, as Kimberly Diamond, signed out a Chevy Suburban.

Since I’m a new person, I’ll rent something that Faith Kelly would never get, she thought as she got into the huge Suburban and drove out of the airport.

And now what?

Yorkton had told her-three times, no less-to go to ground. In order words, stay out of sight. It had been a few hours since Senator McDermott had pronounced his public indictment of Faith and Department Thirty. By now, she suspected the media would have found her house. Her home phone was unlisted, but they had their ways-property tax records, that sort of thing. They would be camped out on her quiet street in The Village. They would be talking to her neighbors. Unlike “Katherine Hall,” Faith didn’t hang around with her neighbors. They were mostly families with kids, or retired people. She was the only single person on the block. They would tell the reporters about Faith Kelly being polite but standoffish, keeping to herself most of the time, but making sure her lawn was mowed and her house maintained.

The obvious answer was to go to a hotel and simply stay there and do nothing. Let Yorkton go into damage control mode. Forget about all that had happened.

She remembered Daryn- He’ll kill me, you know- and she remembered Sean, the last time she’d seen him, sprawled drunk on her couch after she’d dropped Daryn off at “Kat’s” apartment.

Sober up, she’d told him. We need to talk.

Then Daryn was dead and Sean was gone.

How could she forget? She might be using documents that identified her as Kimberly Diamond, but her life and her memory and her mistakes all belonged to Faith Kelly. It was a strange twist on the whole idea of Department Thirty. She’d worked with people to assume new identities, had counseled them on leaving their old lives behind.

And now here she was, in the same position her cases had been.

But it’s temporary, she told herself. Yorkton will work this out.

Or so she hoped.

Her own cell phone had rung incessantly, and she’d finally turned it off after a while. Driving north on Meridian Avenue from the airport, she finally turned it on again to check the messages. There were calls from her friends Alex Bridge and Nina Reeves, from Chief Deputy Raines, from her old college friend Jennifer Ghezzi in St. Louis, from her father, and from Scott Hendler.

“Faith, what’s this all about?” her father said on the message. “You call me and tell me what this means.” Click.

Hendler’s message was from a little more than an hour ago. She listened to it twice. He was being her friend, her lover, and an investigator, all at once.

“Oh, Scott,” she said.

She knew she would have to check into a hotel as Kimberly Diamond, sit and do nothing. But that could wait, at least for a while.

I need to hear that you’re okay, he’d said.

And Faith realized, with increasing clarity, that she needed him as well. Needed him to just be there, to be normal and sane and even-tempered, even needed his silly word games.

She headed toward Edmond.

Half an hour later, she turned off Danforth Road onto a side street and parked in front of the condominium fourplex where Hendler lived. It was less than a mile from the Edmond safe house. Hendler’s Toyota was the only vehicle in the lot. He’d told her that the other three units were all occupied by either young single professionals or couples with no kids, who all worked during the day. There were times when he was working a big case that he would escape here in the afternoon to organize data, write reports, and such. It was much quieter than his desk at the FBI field office. Faith smiled. They’d spent a couple of afternoons here engaged in other, less formal activities as well.

All of the condos were split-level, and Hendler’s faced away from the street. Faith walked through a wide breezeway, turned the corner, and rang his doorbell.

She waited a long moment, then knocked.

The condo had two bedrooms, and Hendler had set up the second one as his computer room. It was farthest from the door, and sometimes when he was working back there he wouldn’t hear the knock or the bell the first time, especially if he was wrapped up in whatever he was doing.

Faith waited another minute, then pounded the door with her fist. Even when he was wrapped up in work, it wasn’t like him to not answer the door for this long.

“I’m going to work at home for the rest of the day, trying to organize my thoughts on some new evidence that just came in. I need to talk to you about this.”