“I’m familiar with the network,” Sean said. “It was one of the first to successfully integrate television with the Internet in an interactive way.”
“The Crossmans are visionaries,” Max said. No one ever commented to her about the network she worked for.
Sean and Lucy sat down. The bartender immediately came over. Lucy asked for coffee; Sean asked for a beer. Definitely not someone who followed conventions.
“I want to make something clear from the beginning,” Sean said. He glared at Max. Was he trying to intimidate her?
“By all means, Mr. Rogan.”
“If you write one word about Lucy or me without our express permission, I will destroy you.”
“My investigation isn’t about you or your wife. But I don’t like threats.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Max was a lot of things, but a liar wasn’t one of them. “You’ll have to take my word for it.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“I don’t care.”
Lucy cleared her throat. “Sean and I are very private people, Ms. Revere. It came to our attention that your staff has been making inquiries about us.”
“I need a more discreet staff.” If she was going to get anywhere with these people, she was going to have to adjust her strategy. “When I come into any investigation, I research everyone involved. It’s standard. I need to know every possible angle, who’s important, who isn’t, their background, the whole nine yards. But I can assure you that my focus is not on either of you. My focus is on solving the deaths of four little boys.”
Though she was intensely curious about what these two people were hiding. People with nothing to hide didn’t generally lead with threats.
“My statement stands,” Rogan said.
She didn’t want to give an inch, especially since Rogan was making her angry—and calling her a liar—but if Andrew needed Lucy Kincaid’s blessing before he would get her the information and files she needed, she would relent. Reluctantly. Very, very reluctantly.
“Fair enough,” she said as calmly as she could. “I won’t mention either of you without your express permission.”
“Thank you, Ms. Revere,” Lucy said. Her hand was on her husband’s arm. Was there something else going on here that she wasn’t privy to?
Just because she promised not to write about them, didn’t mean she couldn’t learn more. And she would.
She always did.
Max said to Lucy, “You’re an FBI agent. A rookie?”
She nodded. Didn’t offer anything else. Open-ended questions usually resulted in information—either by what they said or how they said it. How people answered such questions gave Max extensive insight into them—primarily to help her figure out how to gain the most information from them.
Lucy Kincaid Rogan wasn’t going to be easy. It didn’t help that Max had already had a tense exchange with her husband.
“My ex-boyfriend was a federal agent,” Max said, attempting to develop a rapport. “It can be a demanding job.”
“Marco Lopez?”
Surprise, surprise, she’d read her book. “Yes.” Maybe not a surprise. If Andrew had talked to Lucy last night, she would have done research on Max. It’s exactly what Max had done, as Rogan pointed out. “He’s currently the SSA of Violent Crimes in Miami, though I heard he was up for a promotion. Considering he works his ass off and plays the game well, he’ll probably get something juicy.”
Again, silence. This was not going to be a fun conversation for Max if she couldn’t learn anything about Lucy.
Except—perhaps—she already had. The girl was cautious, she prepared for the meeting by reading Max’s most popular true crime book—her first—and suspicious. The cool suspicion oozed from her pores; Max could almost see it.
After the bartender brought coffee for Lucy and refilled the other cups, then placed the beer in front of Sean, who waved away the glass, Andrew said, “I have to get back to the office by five, so let’s get to it. I spoke to your producer and he explained your theory about Justin’s murder being connected to three other murders over a nearly twenty-year period. State your case.”
Right to it. Max wanted more from Lucy first, but maybe if she sparked her curiosity, she’d get the interaction she needed to understand her.
“I’m a visual person, and I have a full timeline in my suite upstairs,” Max said, “but I think the correlation is clear. I’m missing some pieces that I’m in the process of getting, but so far, everything has fallen into a pattern.
“Four victims—your son, Justin, Tommy Porter, Chris Donovan, and nine months ago, Peter Caldwell. All between the ages of seven and nine. All kidnapped from their bedrooms in the middle of the night while their parents were out and left them with a babysitter. All were buried in a shallow grave, wrapped in a blanket from their bed, five miles or less from their homes. All were killed relatively quickly in the same manner—suffocation. None had any signs of sexual assault.
“On the surface, connecting these cases seems a stretch because they are roughly five years apart—Justin nearly twenty years ago, Tommy fifteen years ago, Chris six years ago, and Peter last April. My staff is looking hard at missing boys kidnapped from their bedrooms between nine and twelve years ago to see if there is a fifth victim who fits the pattern. We’re focusing in Southern California, Nevada, and Arizona, and will expand as necessary. If in fact this is a serial killer, there could be more victims. Or there’s a specific trigger that set this person off that is unique to these victims.” Max was expecting questions, but no one spoke.
So she continued. “We know from the Porter and Donovan homicides that the victims were drugged and likely unconscious when they were suffocated—no signs of defensive wounds, no restraints other than being wrapped in the blanket. I don’t have the autopsy report on Justin because for some reason the ME wouldn’t send it to my office upon request—it wasn’t until I talked to Andrew that I realized there were family members with the clout to prevent the media from obtaining any information on this case.”
Andrew spoke. “I told you it would be an uphill battle.”
“Do you know if your son was drugged?”
Andrew nodded. “He was.”
“The Porter case didn’t have a tox screen report attached to the autopsy report, though there was a note that a narcotic was found in the boy’s system. I’m working on finding that report—it’s still an open case. The Donovan case is closed—his father went to prison for second degree murder.”
“So the cases aren’t identical,” Lucy said.