Baltimore 03 - Did You Miss Me?

But right now, truthfully . . . I just want this to be over.’
    ‘It will be soon.’ I hope . ‘ He’s turning into the wildlife management area now.’ Joseph followed O’Hurley’s car as it left the main road. ‘I don’t know what we’ll find at this cabin but I do know that Doug wants you here. When I try to analyze all the reasons why he could have orchestrated all this, something Scott said yesterday keeps nagging at me.’
    ‘Scott Cooper?’ she said, surprised.
    ‘Yes. We were talking about the message on your barn. Scott said it was just graffiti and that he bet that Doug was out there somewhere, watching your reaction. Turns out he was right. They found evidence that someone was watching you.’
    ‘Oh my God, Joseph.’
    ‘I’m betting that Doug will be somewhere near this cabin, too, watching. I’m worried that I’m taking you into an ambush. Doug wants you to suffer and we don’t know why.’
    ‘But Doug isn’t leading me here now. He couldn’t have known about the gas man.’
    ‘True. But I think he thought Ford would lead us.’
    ‘Which is why he dumped him on that lady’s front lawn. So he’d be found.’
    ‘I need to understand why Doug hates you so much. I know you don’t want to believe anyone you care about could be involved, but will you at least entertain the notion? Because the only way Doug knew about Beckett is if Beckett told him or if that fake FBI agent told him. Because you and Beckett are the only ones who know.’
    ‘Unless another girl Beckett terrorized escaped too.’
    ‘But Doug’s not fixated on another girl. He’s fixated on you. I’m beginning to believe that Beckett is no more than a tool. Doug’s vendetta is personal. He might want you dead, but he wants you to suffer first. I talked to my sister Zoe this morning while you were visiting Ford.’ He’d brought her up to speed on everything they’d learned about Doug the day before. Once again his sister had helped. A lot.
    ‘The psychologist. What did she think?’
    ‘That this kind of intensity, this focus on Doug’s part, says that he blames you for something that hurt him on the deepest level. Usually family – mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters – are all wrapped up in that. That he used Ford makes her think that it has something to do with a parent-child bond, or the breaking of it.’
    ‘I guess that makes sense,’ she said, her tone guarded.
    ‘That he knows about Beckett means he intersects with whoever manipulated you into talking to a fake FBI agent. Whoever did that knows everything about you that he needed to know. We need that intersection. I don’t even have a photo of Doug yet, so I have to start with Claudia Baker and work my way forward. Who hired her?’
    ‘Are you asking me?’
    ‘You should be doing the asking. Somebody betrayed you, made you think Beckett was dead. Set you up for danger and allowed a murderer to go free. The only people who had access to you then were Nadine, Travis, Scott, and Hal. Doug intersects with one of them. And he blames you for something you did to him, real or imagined.’
    ‘Who are you liking for this intersection?’ she asked coolly.
    Joseph didn’t let himself be deterred. ‘Jury’s still out. Scott lost his business and his marriage because of his relationship with you. One of his three sons is the right age to be Doug and might see you as the cause of their family’s troubles.’
    ‘The background check Grayson mentioned during the morning meeting.’
    ‘Yes. I don’t apologize for doing it, but I do wish for your sake that I hadn’t needed to. Scott’s wife divorced him after your husband accused the two of you of having an affair. She got the kids. Could have poisoned them against you.’
    ‘It’s possible. But I trust Scott.’
    ‘Did you know his wife is dead?’
    ‘Of course. She died soon after she divorced him and took what little he had left. She’d started drinking heavily during the time of their declaring bankruptcy. She had a car accident.’
    ‘One of his sons could blame you for all of that, even though none of it was your fault. Your alleged affair caused the string of events that left their mother dead.’ He paused a moment to let her think on that. ‘And speaking of the bankruptcy, how did Scott manage to buy the farm next to Maggie’s if he’d lost all of his assets? That farm appraises at close to five million dollars.’
    ‘Scott came from old money, but his father walked out when