The 7th Victim - Alan Jacobson [92]
“So what’s so important that it’s worth committing professional suicide?” he asked.
“Eleanor Linwood is my mother. Was my mother.”
“What?” Robby’s eyes locked with hers.
“Watch the road, please,” she said evenly.
“When’d you find this out?”
“I confirmed it two or three hours ago. That photo we took from Mom’s—from Emma’s? I had it age-enhanced at the lab. It was her, it was Linwood.”
“That software isn’t always accurate—”
“I went to Linwood’s. I met with her, showed her the photo, told her what I’d found out from digging through records.”
“She ’fessed up?”
“Pretty much. Filled in some of the blanks, how she had the muscle to change identity. Refused to tell me who my father was, though. Afraid it’d ruin her career.”
“And now she’s dead.”
Vail glanced out the side window, watching the dark residences fly by beneath the occasional streetlight. “Now she’s dead.”
“Coincidence?” Robby asked.
She turned to him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know. Just seems funny. You find out she’s your mother and three hours later she’s a Dead Eyes vic.”
Vail sighed. “Don’t know. What would the connection be?” She flashed on the chase through Sandra Franks’s backyard, the feeling the offender was there . . . that he had been waiting there for them. For her?
“We’ve got to tell the task force,” Robby said.
“Hancock probably knows. I think he was eavesdropping.”
“Prick.” Robby drove on for a moment, then asked, “Any news on Jonathan?”
She shrugged. “Some improvement. Small steps, you know?”
“Some improvement is better than no improvement.”
Vail frowned. It was the same thing Gifford had said . . . but somehow, it sounded more genuine coming from Robby.
He accelerated and entered the interstate.
POLICE CRUISERS, their light bars swirling in a rhythmic pulse, were blocking the entrance to the senator’s street. Robby badged the patrol officer and drove around the barricade. They pulled off to the side and approached Bledsoe, who was talking to a uniform near the rim of the circular driveway.
In the harsh halogen security lighting bearing down on them, Bledsoe’s face looked weary and defeated. He nodded at Vail and Robby, then turned to Sinclair and Manette, who were approaching from his left. “Anything?”
“We got some shoe prints in the dirt over by the south end of the house,” Sinclair said, motioning with his Mag-Lite. “Looks like they come from the woods. I sent a tech out to track them, get a plaster casting.”
Manette said, “Means this guy came in on foot. Tells me he knew what he was doing, who lived here. That she’d have some kind of security.”
Sinclair shook his head. “Not who so much as what. Look at the neighborhood. The person who lived here had money.”
“Either way,” Bledsoe said, “he didn’t know about the security lights. Or he took a big chance no one would see him as he got close. Our guy’s a planner, he’d know about the lights.”
Vail looked toward the side of the house. “I was him, I’d approach along that line of bushes. Motion sensors would be blocked. Lights would never come on.”
“That’s exactly where the footprints are,” Sinclair said, “right along the bushes.”
“They have cameras?” Bledsoe asked.
Manette shook her head. “Hancock said the senator didn’t want to live like Big Brother was watching her. Didn’t think anything like this’d ever happen. Especially in this neighborhood.”
“Get anything back on that email?” Sinclair asked.
Vail’s gaze was still off in the general area of the house. “Nothing yet.”
“We really could use some help on that—”
“I know, Sin,” Vail said. “I know. I can’t make them work faster. I tried.”
Bledsoe held up a hand. “Keep it down. Let’s at least look like we all get along, okay?” He nodded toward the house. “Sin, why don’t you go check on Hancock.”
Sinclair frowned, then mumbled something under his breath as he headed off down the gravel path.
“Hancock’s pretty shaken up,” Manette said, “so I wouldn’t expect too much from him.”
Vail chuckled. “I never expect anything from him, so it’s not like this’ll be any different.