Paul had been her home and history and heart for so long, maybe he’d never left. Maybe he’d always been there.
“Nothing ever happened back then,” Abby stressed. “I’d never do that to Cass. And neither would he. But he’s my childhood. He’s the boy next door. I was seventeen, and then my entire world blew up and I lost one of the most important people to me. And all I could think, after, was that maybe she died hating me. So whatever there was there, if there was anything between him and me, I just denied it.”
But now . . .
Oh, but now.
She couldn’t let herself go there. Not after the line she’d drawn in the sand two years ago, her on one side, him on the other, never, ever to cross.
“I’m sorry,” Abby said suddenly, jerking up, realizing she was spilling her entire heart out to one of Paul’s co-workers. She turned positively scarlet at the thought. “I shouldn’t have . . . you don’t need me dumping all this on you.”
“It’s fine,” Zooey said. “I have one of those faces. People tend to tell me stuff. It’s what made me such a good criminal.”
Abby blinked, momentarily distracted from her own problems by this revelation. “You were a criminal?”
Zooey nodded. “Remember how I said Paul saved me? I wasn’t kidding. He just kind of saved me from myself.
“I was in foster care from an early age,” Zooey explained. “No one really cared about me. I ran away, when I was fourteen. I started out stealing cars. The new ones are basically rolling computers, so if you’ve got a hacker’s skill . . .” She shrugged. “I made enough money for college that way. Dodged the system—or really, hacked it—until I aged out. Went to MIT. Dropped out. I thought I’d go back to boosting cars, but I ended up on someone’s radar. Someone really bad.”
“Who?”
“A bombmaker,” Zooey said. “I have a bit of a knack with chemistry. And this guy? He was all about chemical weapons. Sold them on the black market all over the world. Didn’t matter what fascist government wanted them—as long as the price was right, he’d make the sale. He decided that I was going to be his newest apprentice. Whether I wanted to be or not.”
“Holy crap,” Abby said.
“Yeah,” Zooey said. “I was lucky. I had a window of time to ‘make the right choice,’ as he put it. Twenty-four hours. So I got on a train to DC and I stood outside FBI headquarters and I hacked into their servers, right outside their doors.”
“What?” Abby was agog. Why in the world would she do that? How was she standing here right now, if she could do that?
“I didn’t do any damage,” Zooey assured her. “I just sent one message: ‘I’m outside.’ And they came running. Armed to the teeth, of course, and that was kind of freaky, but they brought me inside pretty fast. Cuffed, of course.”
“Zooey, you . . . that’s the most reckless plan I’ve ever heard in my life,” Abby said, a little awed at her gumption. “You did it to prove how valuable you could be to the FBI, right?”
Zooey grinned. “I knew you were smart,” she said. “Exactly. If I had just walked in, seeking sanctuary, babbling about an international dealer in chemical weapons with no real concrete proof, they’d probably throw me out. And then he’d get me. I had to prove my worth. Right away. The boss—and Agent Sinclair—were the ones to do my initial interview.”
Abby frowned. “How old were you?”
“Nineteen,” Zooey said. “Paul fought for me. The director at the time thought I’d be a security risk. But Paul got me to Quantico for the training I needed. I even teach a course there on poisons now.”
“Wow,” Abby said. “You’ve come totally full circle. That’s amazing.”
“I don’t tell you this to brag,” Zooey said. “I’m telling you this because I want you to know I understand, what it’s like to be on the outside looking in. For a lot of my life, that’s how I felt. Until I walked into FBI headquarters. Which is pretty ironic considering how I spent most of my teenage years.”
“Thank you,” Abby said. “I appreciate it, especially after I dumped all my emotions on you.”
“Like I said, I have one of those faces,” Zooey said as the waitress dropped off the check.
“So, what happened?” Abby asked. “With the bombmaker?”
Zooey’s lips tightened, her normal cheerful countenance seeming to flicker for a moment. “He’s still out there,” she said quietly. “They’ve never been able to track him down. But someday . . . I’m going to. He and I have business to settle.”
Abby understood this. She recognized the steely glint in Zooey’s eyes.
It’s how she felt about Cass’s killer. About the specter of death that had been haunting Northern California, no one the wiser, because he was a little more clever than most.
She had business to settle with him. The kind of business that involved him looking down the barrel of her Winchester.
And she’d be damned if anyone stopped her.
Chapter 20
By the time Paul had eaten breakfast with his family and helped his mother fix a beam in the barn, it was nearly noon. He sped a little down the highway on his way to the courthouse, where the evidence boxes from Cass’s case—the ones the FBI had deemed nonessential—would be.
He wasn’t feeling very hopeful that he’d find the missing pages of the medical report there, but he’d try for Zooey. If she thought there might be missing forensic evidence, finding the missing pages was a lot better than the alternative.
Because the alternative involved things like exhuming bodies. His stomach clenched at the thought.
He wasn’t going to do that. Or let Zooey do that. He knew she wouldn’t even bring it up unless it was her only, last resort, but he prayed he’d find the damn missing pages so he didn’t even have to think about it.
The courthouse was an old Art Deco building from the 1930s that was the only place in town that had a basement. He checked himself in at the front, walking through the metal detector that looked like it was from the seventies. The security guard raised an eyebrow at his badge.
“This real?” he asked.
“It is indeed,” Paul said. “Do you mind?”
He took the badge back from the man, tucking it in his back pocket. It felt awkward there. He spent most of his days in a suit, his badge tucked in the inside jacket pocket. But he was in jeans and flannel and cowboy boots today, and he felt oddly off balance, suddenly.
Did he even belong here anymore? Had he ever?
He took the elevator down to the basement, smiling at the dark-haired older woman sitting behind the desk in front of the evidence locker. A long line of chain-link fence was strung behind her, and Paul couldn’t blame the sheriff for beefing up security—there were a lot more drug confiscations around these parts with the rise of heroin and meth. Sometimes, an addict could get so reckless that even the idea of robbing the law seemed like a good idea.
“Hi there,” Paul said, glancing at the little name placard that said Annie Wheeler. “Annie, I’m Special Agent Paul Harrison, FBI. I believe Sheriff Alan called and said I’d be coming by?”
The woman’s face broke into a wide smile. She was round and soft and cute, her curly dark hair springing up around her head like a middle-aged Betty Boop. “You’re Tandy’s boy!”
“I am,” he said.
“Your mother is so proud of you,” she said. “All she does is talk about you. We ran the Christmas Fair at the church last year together, and it was the best year ever. We raised over five thousand dollars for the homeless shelter.”
“That’s great,” Paul said.