Playing Dead_ A Novel of Suspense - Allison Brennan [132]
And Bruce Langstrom had been the perfect person to bring in to kill Taverton and Lowe. He’d been living in L.A., could come in, take care of a couple people, then slip away.
Hamilton had never expected him to change his name and stick around.
“Please,” Hamilton begged.
“No one touches Claire but me.”
Hamilton tried to run, but there was nowhere to go. He tried to fight, but the effort was laughable. As soon as he raised his arm, he was in a headlock and bent over the railing of the balcony.
And then the judge was falling. Falling, arms flailing, trying to reach for something, anything to stop himself from hitting the pavement, terror of his imminent death filling his every cell.
Nine seconds later, Judge Hamilton Drake hit the street.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Mitch was waiting outside the hangar for the military cargo plane to land with his prisoner, Professor Donald Eugene Collier. Grant was with him, and while Mitch had a lot of respect for the young agent, he wished Steve were here.
Meg phoned. “Collier land yet?”
“The control tower says fifteen minutes.”
“Judge Hamilton Drake fell from his balcony this morning. He’s dead.”
“Drake? He’s the judge Oliver Maddox had all those articles on.”
“Right. I turned a copy over to Matt, and that’s why he called me when the judge hit the pavement. Twenty-four stories in downtown Sacramento.”
“Suicide?”
“They don’t know. Sacramento PD is working the case. I’ve asked to be kept in the loop, but the PD isn’t as cooperative as the sheriff’s department. Matt’s trying to smooth things over. If nothing else, he’ll let me know if there’s something we need to look at. However, I ran a background check on Drake and something interesting popped up. He was at Stanford when Jessica White disappeared.”
“Shit. How did Oliver Maddox stumble on that connection?” The kid should have been training to be a cop, not a lawyer.
“We don’t know that Judge Drake had anything to do with White’s disappearance,” Meg warned, “so keep a lid on it until I get those files from Palo Alto. I sent Lexie down this morning to retrieve them in person.”
“Why not call the San Francisco field office?”
“First, I’d have to get them up to speed on this, which would take time, and then there’s the issue that I didn’t bring them in when we agreed to O’Brien’s terms of surrender. They technically have jurisdiction over the San Quentin fugitives and should have been consulted. Second, Lexie’s beating herself up over Claire skipping out yesterday, blaming herself that Claire nearly got killed.”
“It’s not her fault,” Mitch said. He shouldn’t have ridden her so hard last night about watching Claire.
“We know that, but you know Lexie.”
“You mean ‘failure is not an option’ Lexie?”
“Right. Now I have Matt and the U.S. attorney on board with the plan, and Matt will sit in on Collier’s interview. The information Claire gave you about his background is accurate—he not only worked for the same law firm as O’Brien’s attorney, but he was involved in the case.”
“Then why wasn’t his name on any of the files? Wait—Claire said many were missing.”
“Matt is pulling together as much as he can from the courthouse and O’Brien’s law firm. We’ll be able to recreate the case files, it’ll just take some time.”
“Claire said the director of the Western Innocence Project had a complete set in his storage. Sizemore, I think his name is.”
“We’ll get in contact with him.” Mitch heard her typing on her computer. “I also have an analyst working on comparing Collier’s background with all the names that have popped up in this investigation, see if there’s anything else that connects him to Drake or O’Brien or anyone else.”
“Good thinking.”
“I’ve been known to think on occasion.”
“Meg—”
“I have to go.”
“Thanks. For everything.”
She sighed, but it wasn’t her exasperated sound. “Be careful.”
Mitch hung up, watched as the plane with Collier on board descended.
Grant said, “I have the list of S550s in the greater Sacramento area. There are 210, half of which are black or dark blue or green.”
In a regular investigation, narrowing