The Silenced. Heather Graham

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СКАЧАТЬ her. “We’ll pay our visit to Ian Walker and come back for a more thorough search.”

      They met Mrs. Shelley in the living room. She seemed relieved that they’d found nothing.

      “She must’ve taken a little trip, then,” Mrs. Shelley said, smiling. “If she was really leaving, she would’ve told me.”

      “Of course,” Meg assured her.

      “We’ll be back this afternoon,” Matt Bosworth said. “We’re going to see if we can dig up any clues as to where she might be.”

      Mrs. Shelley nodded and unfastened two keys. “Here you are. The first opens the main door. All the tenants have one. The second is to this door.”

      Matt thanked her, not mentioning that Meg already had a key.

      “Oh! You might want the security video,” Mrs. Shelley said.

      “You have security tapes?”

      “There’s a camera just over the entry,” Mrs. Shelley replied. “It’s a wonderful selling point when I need to rent out the units, although that isn’t often. This close to Capitol Hill, I don’t have much trouble landing good tenants. You know DC—once people get into a place they like, they tend to stay for the long haul.”

      “I’m going to have an agent come out for the security footage covering the past few days, if you don’t mind.”

      “Anything,” Mrs. Shelley said fervently.

      They both thanked her and headed back to the car.

      “Shouldn’t we be looking at the footage right now?” Meg asked.

      “I’m going to have Will retrieve it and then check it out,” he said.

      “But...”

      “He’s an expert. He’ll know if anyone’s tampered with it.”

      She fell silent. She knew she’d been letting her emotions take hold.

      “Onward to Congressman Walker’s house,” Matt announced.

      Meg realized she had no idea where the man lived; that was something Lara had never mentioned.

      She quickly found out.

      Ian Walker lived in the Sixteenth Street Heights in DC in a grand colonial-style mansion—when he was in the city.

      The congressman had been blessed with family money. He’d also known how to play the stock market to improve on his inheritance. She knew that because Lara had talked about him so much. While she and Lara had been friends forever, Meg’s home was really Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Lara’s parents and family were from Richmond, although they also had a home in Harpers Ferry, where they’d spent summers. Meg had worked and lived in Richmond for a few years after she’d graduated from college there; she was still a West Virginia voter.

      “Nice neighborhood,” she murmured as they approached the house. “It was his idea for us to come here rather than his office?” she asked.

      She didn’t use Agent Bosworth’s name as she spoke to him. In the car, it was only the two of them. She’d noticed that while most law enforcement agents and the instructors she worked with called one another by their surnames, Krewe agents were on a first-name basis. They knew one another well. Or, at least, they seemed to. Matt. She couldn’t bring herself to call this man Matt. He obviously thought he’d been saddled with a neurotic beginner.

      She wasn’t a beginner. She’d qualified as a Richmond police officer and now she was officially an FBI agent.

      “Yes. Someone on his staff gave you a hard time, but Walker himself seemed concerned about the fact that we were worried. Adam told me that to the best of the congressman’s knowledge, Lara just wanted to move in another direction. That they’d parted on good terms,” Matt said, watching the road. “Be very careful. We’re going in there for help. No accusations, okay?”

      “I did make it through the academy!” she told him.

      He laughed. “Yes, as you’ve pointed out. And admittedly that’s an accomplishment. But I know plenty of agents with plenty of what you’d call the right stuff—and no social skills. Doesn’t mean they’re not good agents. It just means there are certain places, certain times, they shouldn’t be in the field.”

      “My social skills are just fine,” she insisted. She decided not to suggest that he might want to work on his own.

      There was a gate, artfully designed, a break in a high wall around the house. Ivy and vines grew along the wall, making it appear that the home was well established and a pleasant addition to the area.

      “Capitol police,” Matt murmured.

      “Pardon?”

      He pointed down the street, and she saw a car with the markings of the Capitol police department. She knew that the department was responsible for a two-hundred-block area around the Capitol, but in reality their reach extended all the way around the globe, if need be. They were responsible for Congress when it was in session, but their responsibility to senators and congressmen, their families and staff, went far beyond that. If a congressman from Utah, for example, was speaking back in his home state, Capitol police might be there to look after his safety. In 1801, when Congress moved from Philadelphia to DC, only one man was assigned by Congress to protect the Capitol building. But in 1828, when a son of John Quincy Adams was attacked in the rotunda, the United States Capitol Police Department was established.

      “Maybe the congressman thinks he’s in danger,” Meg suggested.

      “Or maybe the patrol car is just doing a drive-by,” Matt said thoughtfully.

      “It might have something to do with the death of Garth Hubbard,” Meg said.

      “That’s an interesting possibility,” Matt said.

      They paused at the gate. When he stated who they were and it rolled open, they drove through to the circular drive.

      Three men in suits were standing on the porch.

      None of them was Ian Walker.

      As they both got out of the car, Matt Bosworth took his ID wallet from his suit pocket; she did the same.

      The men seemed to recognize Matt.

      And they’d been expecting them.

      The three on the porch were a varied trio. One was tall, maybe an inch taller than Matt. He was bald and looked like he might have been a biker in an earlier life. Another one was lean, about a foot shorter, with thick wavy hair and a ready smile. The third was somewhere in between, well built, about six-even and with close-cropped brown hair.

      “Welcome,” the shorter man said. “Congressman Walker is waiting for you. I’m Ellery Manheim, his personal assistant. Nathan Oliver here, to my right—” he indicated the large man “—is also with my office, and Joe Brighton—” he gestured at the man to his left “—is Congressman Walker’s campaign and media manager.”

      Meg СКАЧАТЬ