Vanish: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

get away with selling this.”
    “No, this was too explosive. The house mother definitely knew it was. She hid it in the tote bag. Mila says they carried around that bag for months without knowing what was on the video. Then Joe finally played it on a motel room VCR.” Jane looked at the TV. “Now we know why those women in Ashburn were killed. Why Charles Desmond was killed. Because they knew this client; they could ID him. They all had to die.”
    “So this is all about covering up a rape and murder.”
    She nodded. “Suddenly Joe realizes he’s holding dynamite. What to do with the evidence? He didn’t know who to trust. And who would listen to a guy who’s already been labeled a paranoid kook? That must be what he sent you. A copy of this tape.”
    “Only I never received it.”
    “And by then they’d split up, to avoid capture. But each of them took a copy. Olena was caught before she could bring hers to the
Tribune.
Joe’s was probably swept up after the hospital takedown.” She pointed to the TV. “This is the last copy.”
    Lukas turned to Mila, who’d been hanging back in a far corner of the room, like a skittish animal afraid to come any closer. “Have you yourself seen this man in the video, Mila? He came to the house?”
    “The boat,” she said, and gave a visible shudder. “I saw him at a party, on the boat.”
    Lukas looked at Jane. “You think she means Charles Desmond’s yacht?”
    “I think this is how Ballentree did business,” said Jane. “Desmond’s world was a boys’ club. Defense contracts, Pentagon players. Whenever there are big boys playing with a lot of money, you can bet sex comes into it. A way to close the deal.” She ejected the videocassette and turned to face Lukas. “Do you know who this man is? The one on the video?”
    Lukas swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. I’m just having a hard time believing that tape is real.”
    “The man’s got to be a major player. Look at everything he’s managed to do, the resources he’s been able to call up, to track down this videotape.” She stood before Lukas. “Who is he?”
    “You don’t recognize him?”
    “Should I?”
    “Not unless you were watching last month’s confirmation hearings. He’s Carleton Wynne. Our new director of National Intelligence.”
    She released a sharp breath and sank into a chair facing him. “Jesus. You’re talking about the guy in charge of every intelligence agency in the country.”
    Lukas nodded. “The FBI. CIA. Military Intelligence. Fifteen agencies in all, including branches of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice. This is someone who can pull strings from the inside. The reason you don’t recognize Wynne is that he’s not a very public man. He’s one of those guys in the gray suits. He left the CIA two years ago, to head up the Pentagon’s new Strategic Support Branch. After the last intelligence director was forced to resign, the White House nominated Wynne to replace him. He’s just been confirmed.”
    “Please,” interjected Mila. “I need to use the bathroom.”
    “It’s down the hall,” murmured Lukas, not even glancing up as Mila slipped out of the living room. His gaze stayed on Jane. “This is not an easy man to bring down,” he said.
    “With this videotape, you could bring down King Kong.”
    “Director Wynne has a whole network of contacts in the Pentagon and the Company. This is the
President’s
hand-picked man.”
    “Now he’s mine. And I’m taking him down.”
    The doorbell rang. Jane looked up, startled.
    “Relax,” said Lukas, rising to his feet. “It’s probably just my neighbor. I promised I’d feed his cat for the weekend.”
    Despite that reassurance, Jane sat on the edge of her chair, listening, as Lukas answered the front door. His greeting was a casual: “Hey, come on in.”
    “Everything under control?” the other man said.
    “Yeah, we were just watching a video.”
    That’s the moment she should have understood that something was not right, but Lukas’s relaxed tone of voice had disarmed her, had lulled her into feeling safe in this house, in his company. The visitor walked into the room. He had cropped blond hair and powerfully muscled arms. Even when Jane saw the gun he was holding, she did not fully accept what had just happened. Slowly she rose to her feet, her heart pounding in her throat. She turned to Lukas, and her shattered look of betrayal evoked in him merely a shrug. A look of
sorry, but that’s