Mariah Stewart - Last Look

“Andrew Shields.”

“I thought he quit after his brother went wacko last year and killed one of his cousins.”

“He didn’t quit. He took some time off, that’s all. But God, what a mess. The Shields family have been serving the Bureau for years. Damn shame, for everyone involved.”

“So is Andrew Shields still in that special unit of John Mancini’s?”

“Yes. He still is.”

“So, Mancini’s effectively calling the shots.”

“Stay out of it.”

“I can’t.”

“Don’t go near the case.”

“Look, I just want-”

“Doesn’t matter what you want. Just keep your fingers off it.”

“This is going to destroy my father. I have to know for certain, because if it’s her-”

“It’s her, Dorse. Accept it.”

“…if it’s her, where’s she been all these years? What the hell happened to her? Was she a runaway? And if so, why? The Randall family was very respectable. Father was a minister, mother a schoolteacher. This kid came from a good background, Decker. Why would she have run?”

“Let someone else find that out. Kids from good homes run away every day, you know that. Just leave it in Andy’s hands and stay out of it.”

I can’t, was again on the tip of her tongue. Instead, she said, “Okay. Thanks a lot. For giving us the heads up. I-and my dad-appreciate it.”

Decker sighed, as if he knew his advice would be ignored the second he hung up the phone.

“Give your dad my best. And if there’s anything I can do…”

“Appreciated. Thanks again.”

She disconnected the call and walked to the end of the driveway, but her father was nowhere in sight. He’d be a while working this one out, she knew. She went inside and found a cold bottle of water in the refrigerator. She took several long deep swigs and returned to her perch on the back porch. She sat with her knees apart, swinging the bottle around by the neck in a mindless circle.

She tapped the phone against the palm of her left hand, then opened it again and dialed.

Grateful for once to be connected to voice mail, she left a brief, to-the-point message for her boss.

“Sorry I missed you, but I need to take some time off. I’m sure you can figure out why. I’ll take whatever personal days I have coming and however many vacation days I have left. Talk to you soon.”

She forced from her mind the open cases she’d left on her desk. They could be reassigned, she rationalized, but there’s no one else to do this for Pop. She reached for her phone one more time. She dialed the number she’d memorized weeks ago while she’d been trying to get her nerve up to call to ask if there was an opening. When the call was answered, she cleared her throat before speaking.

“This is Special Agent Dorsey Collins. I’d like to speak with John Mancini…”

It was well past dusk when Dorsey heard her father’s footsteps on the front porch. The squeal of the screen door followed, then its slap against the door jamb.

She waited silently in the living room, seated in her grandmother’s rocking chair, which had sat for sixty-some years in that same spot near the bow window overlooking what had once been gardens. If Dorsey closed her eyes, she could almost imagine herself curled on her grandmother’s lap, secure and sheltered, the gentle to and fro of the rocker lulling her to sleep.

But there’d be no comfort tonight. Anger, frustration, denial, indignation-her father’s emotions would run the gamut. She wondered if Matt-whose arrogance was a given to all who knew him well-was capable of considering the possibility that Decker had been telling the truth.

“I just saw Mike Summers out on the beach.” Matt made an attempt at normal conversation in spite of the fact that his face was flushed and his voice shaky. He sat in the old wing chair near the fireplace, the same chair he’d been sitting in for over forty years. Like the rocker, it had never been moved. She couldn’t recall that anything in this house had been moved out of place, ever.

“How’s he doing?” Dorsey responded, because she had to.

“He just sold his place up on Bay Road. You won’t believe how much.”

“How much?”

“Seven hundred grand. For that shack.” Matt shook his head. “Just think what you could get for this place. You could sell it, you know. Your grandmother left it to you, not me,” he reminded her without rancor. “You don’t need my permission.”

“It’s not for sale.”

“You’re never here. Why hold on to it?”

Because it is the only place I ever lived that when I left, I had only good memories.

“Sentimental value,” she told her father.

“Nice that you can afford to kiss off that much money for sentiment.”

She shrugged and rocked the chair slowly, knowing he was working up to what he really had to say.

His cell began to ring and he took it from his pocket and checked the number.

“Owen Berger,” he told her. “And Justice For All.”

“Don’t, Dad.” She shook her head.

“Owen’s a good guy. I’ve been on that show a dozen times.”

“That was then, this is now.”

“I’m not afraid of the media, Dorse. I’ve always gotten along well with those folks.”

“Yeah, when you had a good story to tell. Now, you are the story. Whole ’nother ball game.”

“Look, I’ve been thinking about this. There has to be a mistake.” He shut off the ringer, set the phone to vibrate, and stuck it in his shirt pocket.

She sighed and opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off.

“I’m not worried. It’s only a matter of time before they realize…” He cleared his throat. “Dorse, it has to be a mistake. I figure I’ll call the director, tell him I’m going to come back on active and work this thing out.”

She stared at him in disbelief.

“Do you really think for one second they’d let you anywhere near this case?”

“I worked it the first time.”

“Which is precisely why you can’t work it now. Come on, Pop, you know better than that.” She stopped rocking. “And I’ve already spoken with John Mancini. I asked him to take me on, give me a place in his unit. I’d heard there was an opening, and I thought maybe…well, I thought maybe he’d hire me.”

“And?”

“And, he said he’d consider me for the unit but he couldn’t put me on this case. It would look really bad all around. If the press got wind I’d been assigned, well, it would not look good for the Bureau. Or for you, for that matter. Bottom line, if they’re not willing to put me on board, they sure as hell aren’t going to let you anywhere near it.”

Matt sat forward in his chair, his arms resting on his thighs, and stared at the floor. Finally, he said, “What are they doing to prove that it isn’t Shannon Randall?”

“Pop, there are fingerprints, dental records-they’re checking DNA right now. It’s her.”

“You think they couldn’t have made a mistake? Happens all the time, you should know that,” he said angrily. “Could we just consider they made a mistake? I’d think at the very least, you of all people, my daughter, would want to take a look at the evidence before accepting this as true just because they said so. Could you at least do that?”

She nodded but did not speak. Instead, she raised herself from the chair and patted the pockets of her jeans, looking for her car keys.

“Damn it, I’ll call Mancini myself. Son of a bitch, after all I did for him, he can’t help me out here?” Matt stood, his hands on his hips, his anger exploding.

“Let me tell you something about John Mancini.” Her father’s jaw tightened. “Seven, eight years back, John caught a case, Sheldon Woods. Homicidal pedophile. Murdered-tortured, mutilated-fourteen young kids before he was caught. Bastard used to call John, every day, taunt him. Would never talk to anyone but John. Finally got to the point where Woods called him while he was torturing a kid. John had to sit there, helpless, listening to this little boy being murdered.”