The FBI Thrillers Collection Books 1-5 - Catherine Coulter [613]
“All right. Let’s cut to the chase. If you’re not a cop, then who are you and who hired you to help me?”
He shook his head. “For the time being I’m not at liberty to tell you that. But someone wants me to clean up this mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”
“I didn’t do anything at all. It was that demented man stalking me who’s responsible. Oh, maybe like the cops in New York and Albany, you don’t believe me, either?”
“I believe you. Would you like to know why the cops in New York and Albany didn’t believe you? Thought you were a screwed-up fruitcake?”
She nearly fell out of her chair. “I don’t believe this. You know something the cops don’t? They thought I was crazy or malicious or infatuated with the governor. Come on, what do you know?”
“They believed you were a fake because someone close to the governor told them that it was all a sick sexual fantasy. When the cops called from New York, that’s what the Albany police told them. However, the threat to the governor was quite real, no question about that, since someone shot him. They had to refocus, think things over again.”
“Who in the governor’s office said that about me? Don’t you dare just sit there staring at me. Damn you, I deserve to know who betrayed me.”
“Of course you do. I’m sorry, Becca. It was Dick McCallum, the governor’s senior aide.”
She nearly fell over in shock. “Oh, no, not Dick McCallum. Oh, no, it doesn’t make any sense. Not Dick.” She looked stricken and he was sorry for it.
She was shaking her head at him, not wanting to believe him but afraid not to. “But why? Dick has never said anything mean to me or acted like he had it in for me. He never asked me out, so there wouldn’t be any sort of rejection involved. I didn’t threaten him in any way. I was sure he liked me. I wrote most of the governor’s speeches, for God’s sake. I didn’t head up strategy sessions or conduct policy meetings or have anything to do with spin or scheduling or anything that would be in his bailiwick. Why would he do it?”
“That I don’t know yet. But to be realistic about it, it will probably come down to money. Someone paid him a lot of money to do it. Now, one of the cops in Albany told me he’d come to them, supposedly feeling all sorts of guilty, but swearing he had no choice because he was afraid you’d go after the governor. I promise you I will find out why he did it. He’s got to be the key to this.” Actually, he thought, Thomas Matlock was going over everything in McCallum’s background, including where he got the small knife tattoo on the back of his right shoulder blade.
She said slowly, thinking aloud really, “If Dick McCallum said those things about me, then he must know about the stalker, maybe even who he is and why he picked me to terrorize. Maybe Dick even knows who is trying to kill the governor.”
“Yes, all of that is possible. We’ll see.”
“Do you mean ‘we’ as in you and me?”
“No.”
“Let me call the cops again. I’ll tell them I know about what Dick McCallum told them. I can tell them he’s lying. Won’t they have to question him more thoroughly?”
“No, Becca, it’s too late. I’m really sorry about this.”
“What do you mean, it’s too late? I know I can get ahold of Detective Morales.”
“We’ll have to go another route to find out why Dick McCallum did what he did, and who probably paid him a whole lot of money to do it.”
She became very still. She shook her head. He said very gently, “I’m sorry, Becca, but someone ran Dick McCallum down in front of his apartment building in Albany. He’s dead.”
There wasn’t a single thought in her mind, just numbing horror.
“They think you could be involved. Everyone’s gone nuts. Actually, they were nuts the moment the governor was shot. No one could believe the distance on that shot. Now they’re very serious about finding you and finding out what you know, if you’re involved in any way. I planted