Baltimore 03 - Did You Miss Me?

That the Fed hadn’t claimed it was routine satisfied him. ‘Number two?’
    ‘You probably have complete confidence in your people, but they can betray us. I need to know who knows about your business.’
    Clay thought of his last partner, the one before Paige. Nicki had fucked up, big time, paying the ultimate price. Unfortunately she dragged good people into the crossfire.
    ‘I have a few full-time employees. Paige, of course. My office assistant, Alyssa, who I’ve known since she was a kid. On the security side I have Alec Vaughn, a network geek I hired about six months ago. I’ve known Alec since he was twelve years old and his godfather is my best friend. Alec’s solid.’
    ‘Who else?’
    ‘That’s it. I bring in contract help as needed. Old pals, usually. Some I served with on the force in DC.’ Like Tuzak . ‘Some I served with in the Corps.’
    ‘Marines?’
    ‘Sure as hell wasn’t the Peace Corps. I’ll have Alyssa print you out a list.’
    ‘That would be great. I need to take this,’ Carter said when his cell rang. ‘What do you have, Bo?’ A minute later his expression changed. ‘Oh my God. Fatalities?’
    Clay straightened in his seat. ‘What?’ he demanded.
    Carter ignored him, abruptly swinging across traffic to the left lane. He flipped a switch and the blue lights on his dash began to strobe and flash. ‘Tell them we’ll be there in less than five.’ He hung up and, barely slowing down, did a hard U-turn at the next light. ‘Hold on,’ he told Clay grimly.
    ‘Where are we going? What’s happened?’
    ‘My CO’s sending another agent to notify Mrs Zacharias. We’re going to the courthouse. The jury returned a guilty verdict and all hell broke loose. Defendant’s mother slipped him a knife and he stabbed a deputy. Not fatally, thank goodness.’
    ‘Daphne?’ Clay asked, his heart in his throat.
    ‘Defendant’s mother attacked her. She’s not injured. The mother’s attack was a diversion. Millhouse was trying to break free.’
    ‘Does Daphne know about Ford?’
    ‘Not yet. The priority was subduing Millhouse and his mother, then transporting the injured. My CO says he’s contacted BPD about Ford. They’re sending word to the cops on duty at the justice center. Daphne and Grayson are about to talk to the press.’
    ‘Standing in front of a crowd that hasn’t gone through security.’ Clay was imagining all the ways this could go wrong and from the look on Carter’s face, so was he. ‘But why would the Millhouses take Ford now? The jury’s reached their decision. Daphne couldn’t meet their demands if she wanted to.’
    ‘I don’t know. But they’ll have to go through me to get to her. Hang on.’
    Tuesday, December 3, 11.00 A.M.
    Mitch turned onto the drive that led to his home. My home . It had always been home . But it hadn’t been his until last year. It was the first time anything had been his .
    It was a great old house, built by his mother’s grandfather in 1915 on what had at the time been a fifty-acre dairy farm. Douglases had always lived here. Although his last name was Roberts on paper, Mitch was a Douglas. And now this belongs to me .
    Betty Douglas, Mitch’s mother’s aunt, had been the last to bear the Douglas name. Great-aunt Betty had been born here. His mother, orphaned as an infant, had grown up here, too. Aunt Betty had given her a home until she was old enough to live on her own. When his mother found herself widowed with an infant son, Betty welcomed them back.
    It had been a hell of a place for Mitch to grow up. They’d still had a few cows then. They were geriatric cows, true, but he’d liked them. But by the time his mother had remarried, moved them to Virginia, and birthed two more sons, the herd was all gone.
    When her second husband cheated on her, his mother brought Mitch’s youngest brother Cole back to this place. She’d come home to lick her wounds, find herself again.
    Mitch, at eighteen, had just joined the US Army when his mother came home. Mitch’s middle brother Mutt stayed with his father, too wrapped up in his high school friends and the learning of his father’s trade to take care of their mother.
    Cole had been only three, too young to give their mother any solace.
    Aunt Betty had been her support once again and Mitch knew his old aunt had done the best that she could. But in the end, there had been no solace for his mother. Two years after she’d come home here, to this place, she had left