“Yet you were promoted and sent to New York. You weren’t on those cases anymore. Right?” Sam couldn’t help prodding the woman; she was holding back on them.
The sharp cheekbones got even more pronounced when Anne Carter pursed her lips. “It’s entirely possible Doug Matcliff was behind all of this, you know. We found all sorts of things on his computer when we searched his home.”
“Like what?”
“Child pornography, for starters.”
“Could the files have been planted?”
Carter sighed, clearly running out of patience. “Dr. Baldwin, you of all people know there are aspects to this case that defy logic. We were tipped off to Eric Wright and the trailer that held Kaylie’s things, but it was a setup. I wasn’t entirely convinced the photos were Doug’s, but when you look at the situation en totale, what else were we to think? He went down the rabbit hole and chose not to come out. I always thought he was the one who set up Wright. He knew exactly which buttons to press, and we fell for it.”
“That’s very possible. And yet, after everything, he chose to come out of the rabbit hole, and not come back to you. Maybe he was afraid you’d given up on him,” Baldwin said.
Or framed him, Sam thought, but bit her tongue. She wasn’t sure she liked Anne Carter. She had to remind herself the woman had been a star in the upper echelons of the FBI, and you don’t get there without being one hell of a good politician in addition to being a good cop. And pragmatic. Anne Carter was nothing if not pragmatic.
Carter waved a hand, dismissing the thought. “So long as he hadn’t killed anyone, I would have welcomed him back with open arms and made everything nasty go away. He was a good man, even if he did some stupid things. But if it’s true the other girls were in the cult, he wouldn’t have risked signal intelligence, which was why, after several months of nonactivity, the channel was closed.”
Baldwin couldn’t hide the shock in his voice. “You were the one who closed the SIGINT channel? Your only connection to a missing agent?”
“I didn’t close it. My successor did. When I found out about it, and looked into the SIGINT, I couldn’t disagree with the decision. The last several messages we received were out of sequence, didn’t use the appropriate language and codes. Then they stopped completely.”
She paused a moment. “I may not have made the same decision if it was mine to make, but I understand what happened. A new system was being put into place. Attempts were made to utilize the channel, but there were no responses. We were dealing with a compromised agent, and we all thought he was dead. After a year of silence, the channel was shut down to protect the Bureau from outside infiltration.”
She ran a long finger along the side of the lemonade glass. “Dr. Baldwin, you’re a lifer with us. You know that mistakes get made. Looking at the situation now, in hindsight, it’s easy to see that was a very bad choice. At the time, it seemed...logical.”
Logical. “And that protected quite a few people, didn’t it?” Sam blurted out.
Carter stood and stalked around the room. “You didn’t know Doug. He was smart, and dedicated to making me believe he wanted to be on my team. Enough that I fell for his lies, too. I always believed if he was alive and knew there were more girls at risk, he would have come to me directly and told me. He may have gotten his own signals crossed, so to speak, but I always thought his moral compass was sound. If he was aware of something terribly untoward going on at Eden, he would have told us. I believed he would come in if it meant saving lives. I was wrong about him. A mistake I’ll have to live with for the rest of my days.”
“But he did continue sending in information, instead of coming in to you. We’re going through his SIGINT now, looking for what he had to say,” Baldwin said.
She stiffened a bit, but gracefully covered the movement with a small back stretch. “I was told this morning the new SIGINT traces—with an unauthorized code name, at that—were misleading at best. They were misdirections, lies, and we would have wasted a great deal of time and energy chasing down false leads.”
She sat across from Baldwin. “Knowing he’s been alive all these years infuriates me. If he wasn’t dead, I’d see him prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But there is nothing more to be done here. Mistakes were made, and my part in this case is finished. Now, are we through? I have another horse that needs a bit of a frolic.”
Baldwin was angry. Sam could see the muscles in his shoulders were tensed. She didn’t blame him.
“A shame, isn’t it, that your pride and ambition took precedence over retrieving an asset,” he said.
Carter’s eyes flashed, and her lips thinned into a grim line. “You forget yourself, Dr. Baldwin. I still have friends at the FBI.”