Cold Spite (Cold Justice: Most Wanted #5)

Chapter 56

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

D elilah had gone to a mall she’d hung out at as a teenager and wandered around in a bit of a daze before she’d picked up a few more supplies, including a decent winter coat. She’d turned her cell off because that way she didn’t have to talk to anyone. Demarco was busy and, regardless, she refused to waste her life waiting for him to call her, especially if his job could take him away for months.

Months .

And, yet there was suddenly the possibility that they might have a chance of a future together. And being apart for a few months wasn’t as daunting as losing him from her life forever. Not that he’d talked about a future together…

He kept saying he loved her. Perhaps, soon, she could get over her bone-deep fear and truly believe it.

She stood shivering on the doorstep of her parents’ house in Alexandria. She wore her new beige wool coat, the long blonde wig, and dark glasses. She’d parked the truck on the next block over in case she needed to leave discreetly. Considering she’d sent an anonymous tip to newspapers in both San Diego and Lafayette suggesting Scanlon was linked to all the recent attacks across the country, it was prudent to give herself a little wiggle room. If a news van turned up to interview her parents, she could leave via the neighbor gate at the back of the garden and cut around. But they weren’t likely to arrive anytime soon. The newspapers she’d contacted would need to verify facts first and talk to secondary victims like her parents only after they’d chased their primary sources for more details. She hoped they camped out on Scanlon’s doorstep and made each move he took uncomfortable enough to not kill anyone else. Of course, there were still his co-conspirators to worry about. Someone else had definitely shot Nicole and killed the admiral and his wife.

She heard the latch, but the door opened to unexpectedly reveal a woman she’d never seen before. Her expression wasn’t very pleased.

“Who is it, Gennita?” Her mother’s familiar voice from the back of the house.

“Tell her it’s Valerie.” Her friend’s name scratched in her throat, the loss hitting her afresh.

“Someone called Valerie,” Gennita shouted back to her mom.

Delilah hadn’t thought about the fact there would be strangers in the house. She knew the caregivers had been an enormous help to her mom, but the reality of having them in their home hadn’t fully registered until now.

This was their reality now.

Her mother peeked through the door of the sitting room with wide eyes. “Oh. Oh . Valerie . Come in. Come in.”

Delilah stepped into her parents’ home feeling like a stranger.

“How lovely to see you again. Apologies. We’ve been getting a lot of reporters turning up on the doorstep, intruding on our grief. Gennita was guarding us. Come into the kitchen. Gennita, you head on home early. Stephen is sleeping. Get out while the getting’s good.”

“If you’re sure, Esme?”

“Absolutely, Valerie and I will catch up over a cup of tea while I put on dinner. She was a dear friend of our daughter’s, and we’ll want some peace and quiet to reminisce.” Her mother wiped a tear from beneath each eye.

They both watched Gennita head out the front door and down the driveway. Her mother closed the door, then Delilah found herself engulfed in a hug so tight it hurt.

“I’m so sorry, Mom.” She hung on. “I didn’t mean to make it difficult for you and Dad.”

“You haven’t.” She sniffed without letting go. “The fact you’re alive means you haven’t at all. Only you being dead would make things difficult.” Her mom laugh-sobbed. “Well, aside from Alzheimer’s having no cure.”

“I wish I had a cure.” She rested her chin on her mother’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I haven’t been here for you.”

“You were back at Christmas.”

It seemed like a long time ago now.

“Can I poke my head in to see Dad?”

Her mother drew back, took her hand, and led her into the kitchen. “Wait until after we’ve had the chance to talk. If he gets upset or agitated, we might not get that opportunity, and I honestly never know how he’s going to react.”

“That bad?”

Her mother nodded. “That bad.”

“That happened fast.”

Her mom looked down and rubbed her hands together. “I guess we ignored a lot of the early symptoms. I feel now as if it’s my fault. I should have made him go to the doctor sooner. There are meds…”

“Dad has never done anything he doesn’t want to do. You know that better than anyone.”

Her mother laughed a little. “Well, even now that hasn’t changed. He’s a terrible patient but, thankfully, he doesn’t know it most of the time.”

Her mother buried her stark reality under the guise of humor. Delilah tried not to crumble under the same weight. Her mom had always been the strongest person she knew. She didn’t need a badge or a weapon when she had steel for a spine.

They went into the kitchen that they’d remodeled a few years ago. Even though it was light out, her mother drew all the blinds. “I’m assuming you still want the rest of the world to think you’re not alive.”

Delilah nodded. “For now. I feel wretched about Valerie’s mother not knowing the truth, and my colleagues in San Diego.” Acid ate at her sternum. Hopefully this would be over soon, and she could present the truth along with the person responsible.

“I do not believe you would have hidden this way unless you genuinely believed you were in danger and there was no reasonable alternative.”

That was true. But she’d also hoped that Scanlon would have been arrested by now. Unfortunately, when her subterfuge was revealed, it would probably mean even more press on her parents’ doorstep, but there was nothing to be done until the truth came out and the story died a natural death.

The landline rang.

“Ignore it.” Her mom insisted and closed the door into the hall. “Your father won’t hear it anyway. He never does.”

“Still forgetting to put in his hearing aids?” Delilah winced at the way she’d phrased the question.

“He’s been better at wearing them lately, but I think that’s more a case of forgetting to take them out. I read some very interesting stats about hearing loss and dementia. Want a scone? I have cream and jam. I’ll put the kettle on and throw a few things into the crockpot for dinner. I have another helper who comes in around seven p.m. and helps me get your father bathed and into his pajamas.”

How he would hate the indignity of that.

“Can you stay for dinner?”

As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t. “I’ll take that tea and scone, but I need to get back.” See if Yael had dug up any new data—assuming the analyst would still be willing to share information with her. Presumably that depended on Alex Parker and not ASAC Greg Trainer. “Why don’t you put your feet up for a few minutes while I chop things for the crockpot,” she offered.

She couldn’t stay long but she desperately needed her mother’s company for a little time.

Scanlon’s burner cell rang, and he figured it must be urgent so he slipped into the backyard where the flowers his mother had planted years ago were starting to bud. The Spanish moss draped the old live oak and created shade from the sun that was hot today, even at this hour.

He answered. “Yeah?”

“She’s alive.”

Bullshit . “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Check the photo I sent.”

Joseph opened the image despite his usual reservations when dealing with downloads from the internet. He’d ditch this cell ASAP.

“I flew to Virginia.”

What the fuck?

“I wanted to see if I could figure out who was on the task force and maybe follow them home.”

Bug them. Like Joseph had done with Agent Gonzales last weekend. Virgil had arranged for several listening/tracking devices to be sent to a mailbox using a stolen identity he’d bought off the dark web. It was virtually untraceable.

The photo showed a blonde knocking on a door in the rain.

It was grainy and indistinct and proved nothing.

“So I’m walking past the front entrance of the J. Edgar Hoover Building first thing this morning, and there she is. Plain as day. FBI Agent Delilah Quinn.”

Bull. Shit.

“I figured out where she likely parked from the direction she’d come from and parked up near there a while. I didn’t think I was going to get lucky before security got suspicious, but the Lady was with me. Quinn came out less than an hour later.”

They’d have his partner’s face on a camera somewhere now. He was a liability.

“This photo doesn’t show me anything,” Joseph said impatiently.

“Are you questioning my words or my eyesight?” The tone reminded Joseph this person wasn’t some grunt in the prison system, and he needed to tread carefully. “She put on a wig in the vehicle. Then she went to a mall and bought some clothes and shit. While she was inside, I stuck the tracking device onto the truck she was driving.”

He sent a photo of the license plate.

Government issue.

Interesting. But DC was full of government plates.

“And that house she’s standing outside in the shitty photo I sent? That’s Special Agent Delilah Quinn’s parents’ home.”

Joseph stared at the photo of the woman harder. Could it really be her?

How?

How could it be true?

He pictured that night. The woman sitting on the recliner not even turning around when he came inside. It had been dark except for the TV.

He hadn’t wasted time with gotcha speeches or given her the chance to pull a weapon. He’d brought that hammer down hard, and her skull had crumpled.

A blitz attack. He’d just wanted her dead.

She’d been wearing the FBI cap. She was the right size and shape as the Fed. She’d been in Quinn’s apartment.

Was it possible she hadn’t been Delilah Quinn after all?

And suddenly he knew it was true. He’d made a mistake. Made an assumption. He slumped onto a bench. His heart racing. His hands shaking. His veins felt as if his blood were on fire .

“You there?”

He pushed down the knot of rage. “Yeah.”

“Shall I run her off the road? Shoot her?”

Joseph stared at the pitted, moss-stained statue of the Virgin Mary his mother had placed in the yard years ago.

The truck wouldn’t be easy to run off the road, and Quinn had advanced training in evasive driving tactics. Plus, she’d be armed.

“Well?” The voice was impatient.

“I’m thinking,” he snapped. “Is she staying at her parents’ house?”

“I don’t know. Way she knocked on the door was like she wasn’t expected and wasn’t sure of her welcome.”

“Whatever you do, don’t let her see you.” Shit, this idiot was going to blow everything. “You have the tracker on the truck. Get the hell out of there. Use the tracker, and text me when she leaves. Use a new cell.”

Scanlon heard a car engine start.

“I could knock on the door and shoot her right now.”

“Watch what you say on the phone.” Idiot . Unless he’d been caught and flipped in which case Joseph was already fucked, but he wouldn’t go down easy. “There’s a better way.” And it would bring both the Quinn bitch and this moron close enough to deal with personally. Here. On his home turf. “Drive around the corner out of sight, and do exactly what I say.”