Last to Die: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

Frost. “Where was the press conference, the big White House announcement?”
    “You can’t just come out and announce this stuff without being absolutely certain, or you’ll look like an idiot. You
know
you’ll be attacked. You
know
there’ll be wacko deniers of every stripe coming after you. We’d need contingency plans to deal with all the nuts who’d try to drive truck bombs into our buildings here.” He stopped to take a calming breath. “So, no. We do not make announcements, not until we can prove anything beyond a shadow of a doubt. Hell, ET himself would need to land on the White House lawn before some people would be convinced. But Neil and Brian, they felt they had enough evidence. In fact, that was one of the last things Neil told me, before he died.”
    Jane stared at him. “That he had proof?”
    Bartusek nodded. “Of extraterrestrial life.”

TWENTY-FOUR
 
    J ANE AND FROST WERE SILENT AS THEY DROVE TOWARD COLUMBIA , both of them stunned and trying to process what they had just heard. After their visit to NASA, this was an anticlimactic journey down a mundane highway toward the unexciting office where Olivia Yablonski worked as a medical equipment sales rep.
    “I’m wondering if we had it wrong,” said Frost. “I don’t think the boy was the target in New Hampshire.”
    Jane glanced at her partner, who was squinting ahead, as though trying to peer through fog. “You’re thinking it was the boy’s uncle. Brian Temple.”
    “Both men are about to reveal something earth shattering. Neil gets taken out. Brian panics, flees with his wife and nephew to New Hampshire. The bad guys come after him.”
    “Trouble is, we don’t know who the bad guys are.”
    “You heard Bartusek. Finding ET would shake up the world. It would make people question everything they learned in Sunday school.”
    “So, what, we’ve got some albino assassin monk killing NASA scientists?” She laughed. “I think that was a movie.”
    “Consider what religious zealots already do to defend their beliefs. Those climate scientists at MIT, they’re always getting threats. This is gonna
really
bring out the crazies. If it ever gets announced.” He frowned. “Interesting that NASA hasn’t.”
    “Sounds like the proof isn’t there yet.”
    “Is that really true, or is this too hot for them—for anyone—to handle?”
    Extraterrestrial life
. She spun that possibility in her head, trying to see it from every angle, imagine every repercussion. A motive for assassination? The murders of the Yablonskis and the Temples were definitely the work of professionals who knew their way around Semtex. “There’s a problem with this theory,” she said. “It doesn’t explain Claire Ward’s family. He was a diplomat, working for the State Department. What’s his connection with NASA?”
    “Maybe they’re unrelated cases. We’re just linking them because both kids ended up at Evensong.”
    She gave a sigh. “Now you sound like Crowe. Different kids, different cases. Just a coincidence they ended up in the same school.”
    “Although it is interesting …”
    “What?”
    He pointed to a road sign for the turnoff to Washington. “Didn’t Erskine Ward also work in DC for a while?”
    “And Rome. And London.”
    “At least we’ve got a geographic connection between the Wards and the Yablonskis. They lived within the same fifty-mile radius.”
    “But not Teddy Clock’s family. Nicholas Clock’s job was in Rhode Island.”
    “Yeah.” Frost shrugged. “So maybe we’re trying to connect things that have no connection, and we’re just making it all too complicated.”
    She spotted the address they were searching for and turned intothe parking lot. It was yet another strip mall, indistinguishable from thousands of others across the country. Was there some universal strip mall design they taught you in architecture school, photocopied blueprints passed around to every builder in America? She pulled into a parking spot and eyed the usual mix of businesses. A drugstore, a dress shop for big sizes, a dollar store, and a Chinese buffet. That was the one constant you could always count on, the Chinese buffet. “I don’t see it,” said Frost.
    “Must be at the far end.” She pushed open her door. “Let’s stretch our legs and walk.”
    “You sure this is the right address?”
    “I confirmed it with the manager this morning. She’s expecting us.” Her cell phone rang, and she recognized the Maryland number