Red flags, p.1
Red Flags, page 1
Books by Lisa Black
Every Kind of Wicked
Let Justice Descend
Suffer the Children
Perish
Unpunished
That Darkness
Close to the Bone
The Price of Innocence
Blunt Impact
Defensive Wounds
Trail of Blood
Evidence of Murder
Takeover
As Elizabeth Becka:
Trace Evidence
Unknown Means
LISA BLACK
RED FLAGS
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2022 by Lisa Black
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2022934638
The K with book logo Reg. US Pat & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-1-4967-3690-1
First Kensington Hardcover Edition: August 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4967-3692-5 (ebook)
For Mom and Dad
wish you were here
“Any action of an individual, and obviously, the violent action constituting a crime, cannot occur without leaving a trace.”
—Edmond Locard, 1934
Chapter 1
Thursday, 2:10 p.m.
Few things mobilize people more quickly than a missing child. Usually, that meant scores of volunteers sweeping through the woods, or friends and relatives combing the city streets while the parents made frantic phone calls to every schoolmate the kid had.
Things progressed a little differently when the child in question was only four months old and had not even mastered crawling, much less walking, and hadn’t disappeared from a city street but a palatial mansion large enough to house the parliament of a small country.
Ellie Carr parked in the sweeping, curving driveway behind five unmarked but official-looking cars she pegged as fellow FBI. They were too clean for any other agency. A side drive had been turned into a parking lot by the small army of agents now grid-searching the lawn and surrounding woods. Their uniformed bodies walked in straight rows, two outstretched arms apart.
Her white van had been painted with an understated banner reading FBI EVIDENCE RESPONSE TEAM. It wasn’t nearly stylish enough for the premises but she didn’t care about that. She did care about the size of the place—white stone walls and a black slate roof, a center section connecting symmetrical wings, huge windows made up of small panes, second-floor balconies and small dormer windows at the top that must be attic spaces complete with skeletons and ghosts. She estimated thirty rooms, not counting any basement space, and at least fifty windows, and today, thanks to multiple shots fired at a 6th District mall, the “team” consisted of her.
The single available ERT coworker would have been Adam, busying himself with the paperwork that would accompany his promotion to supervisor. Their divorce had been finalized only a few months before, and though they got along quite civilly in the workplace, she had no desire to go elbow-to-elbow dusting windowsills with fingerprint powder or casting shoeprints.
Besides, she had been expecting a regular place, maybe three or four bedrooms and two baths, the kind of house normal people lived in. Even in DC.
She snapped a few photos, pivoting to get all of the house exterior, juggling her basic crime scene supplies in a canvas workman’s toolbox, her camera, and a clipboard with a scene worksheet attached. The sun beat down through the late summer humidity and she didn’t envy the searchers. One good thing about large, wealthy homes—the air conditioners usually worked.
And clearly no one cared about the bill, as the door stood open on this hot day. The foyer she entered could have been featured in House Beautiful and smelled of citrus. It had a curved marble staircase she could swear she had seen in a movie. She saw checked tile under a chandelier that appeared too heavy for its chain and a direct view to, after a few more rooms, French doors leading out the back to another green lawn and the Potomac River. Ellie heard emotional voices elsewhere in the house, upstairs—no doubt the parents.
“Dr. Carr.”
The man at the foot of the steps introduced himself as special agent in charge Michael Tyler—tall, with somewhat-thinning black hair and a bad scar on his temple, as if someone had once caught him there with a broken bottle. “The parents believe the baby’s been kidnapped, but there’s no note and nobody on video. CARD is searching—thoroughly—but nothing so far.” That did not bode particularly well for the missing child. This very private home wasn’t a crowded marketplace where a kid could be snatched in less time it took for their parents to decide on a cheese; and with no obvious outside culprit . . . when bad things happen to small children, it was usually because their parents did bad things to them. Ellie never let herself leap to conclusions, but after nearly eight years in forensics, the thoughts crept in unbidden.
“Though,” he added, “ransom would not be a crazy idea—obviously they can afford it. The dad’s a big lobbyist and the mom’s in Congress.”
Ellie felt her eyebrows rise. “Senator? Representative?”
“No, works for a committee.”
The FBI’s CARD—Child Abduction Rapid Deployment team—could step into any missing-child case, even without a ransom demand or waiting twenty-four hours, and given the proximity to DC, the myriad implications of the political world would always be considered.
Michael Tyler didn’t have to emphasize a thorough search for her to catch his drift, the same current on which her own thoughts already sailed. Vanished child, no real proof of kidnapping—likely that one of the parents had shook the tiny body too hard, left it unattended in a bath, panicked, and came up with a kidnapping story to protect their reputations in the cutthroat world of Washington, DC. In their turmoil they wouldn’t have gone far with the miniature corpse, so the baby might turn up in the back of a closet, the trunk of a car, or somewhere among the trees outside. It was a horrible thought, but not a unique one.
A less malevolent explanation might involve a custody battle, or a disturbed acquaintance who wanted a child and couldn’t have their own. Or ransom would be demanded—obviously, anyone who lived here could afford it. Much nicer theories, with the baby (boy? girl?) remaining safe and healthy.
She said, “Well, I’m it today. So this might take a while.”
“Not a problem. I don’t think there will be much to do, forensically speaking—the whole place is in real estate open house order, all apparent openings secure.” He meant doors and windows showed no signs of forced entry. “No footprints or tire tracks, and no one larger than a rabbit on the video. Throw some powder in the baby’s room, download the video and that should be it.”
She just loved it when non-forensic people told her where she’d find forensic evidence, but chose to believe he was trying to be helpful . . . or he had already decided that no outside party had taken the baby at all.
Which did seem the most logical conclusion—but then a woman’s voice from above said, “Ellie?”
Ellie tilted her head to see the speaker, though light from the chandelier and the white stone dazzled her eyes.
Rebecca Carlisle had not changed much in the five or six years since they’d last seen each other. Jet-black hair past her shoulder blades and high cheekbones, slender, slightly athletic—very much like Ellie, except for Ellie’s auburn hair and blue eyes.
Ellie coul dn’t think of a single reason why she’d be there. “Becca?”
The woman swept down the steps with unladylike haste, followed by three more men in suits.
“What are—” Ellie’s words were cut off as Becca clutched Ellie to her chest with arms packed full of muscle and desperation. “I’m so glad to see you! What are you doing here? Oh—your job. You didn’t know this was my house?”
“No! Last time I saw you, you had that pretty row house.”
“It has been a while—we, um, moved.”
Up, Ellie thought. Very definitely up.
“You two know each other?” Tyler asked. “How long have you been acquainted?”
“Since birth,” Ellie said, thinking that if he hadn’t been about to ask her to leave, he would now.
Becca said, “We’re cousins. Our mothers are sisters. Ellie used to live with us.”
“Cousins,” Tyler said, as if hearing other words instead. Family member. Investigational bias. Conflict of interest. Ellie would have to recuse herself from the case.
She looked at her cousin, with whom she’d celebrated teenage birthdays and gone roller-skating at the tiny, run-down rink in Haven, West Virginia. She would be staying in an official capacity or an unofficial one, but she would be staying. To know which it would be, she said to Tyler: “If you want me to recuse myself—”
He exchanged a quick look with one of the other agents, a wiry guy with dark hair, communicating without words.
Then Michael Tyler surprised her by saying: “No. We want you to stay.”
Chapter 2
She used a trip to the van to get supplies as cover to call the ERT supervisor—who was, as so often happened in this lame-duck stage of his career, out celebrating his impending retirement while leaving his handpicked successor in charge: her ex-husband, Adam. “Moved into the office already?” she asked him.
“I heard the phone ringing. Thought I’d take a message.”
Too discombobulated to apologize, she summarized the situation.
“And CARD wants you to stay?”
“Yes.”
“Huh,” Adam said. “That’s kinda cool.”
“Not really. I would have been okay to stay here as a family member only, but by leaving me in my official capacity, they’re setting me up as either spy or scapegoat. Becca and Hunter are automatically suspects, so I can be their inside man. They solve it, then it’s ‘Yay, FBI!’ If they don’t, they can let everyone assume it’s because I helped Becca cover it up, or simply didn’t give it my all. If Tyler and his partner— guy named Alvarez—want to, they can ruin my reputation just to get their own supervisors off their backs.”
“Want me to tell them they can’t have you? I could switch you over to the mall shooting. They could use some extra hands out there.” He spoke kindly. Adam might have more interest in ambition than effort, but he wasn’t a bad guy.
“Not a chance.” She rubbed one eye, feeling the pinch of a “rock” on one side of her and a “hard place” on the other. “I’m not leaving Becca.”
“The family thing again.”
“Yup. If it weren’t for them, I’d lack a decent education, soul mates, and a really great cheesecake recipe.” The whole Beck clan—the maternal tribe of Ellie and Becca’s mothers—had kept her warm and dry and incredibly loved. They were a structure unto themselves, a network of intelligent resources from tying her shoes to where to go for fun, to a couch to flop on to basic auto mechanics.
She heard the soft clink of a coffeepot pulled from its burner. “You don’t owe them anything, Ellie. It’s just cheesecake.”
Just cheesecake? No wonder they’d divorced.
“Besides, you don’t even like Becca.”
“Of course I do! That—that was just normal girl stuff.”
“Glad I was a boy, then. Okay, keep me posted. I could send out someone from swing shift later if you need help, but you should look at this as an opportunity to get CARD in your debt. They’re high profile. Can’t hurt to have them owe you a favor.”
A master class in ambition. She thanked him, picked up an extra roll of fingerprint tape, and went in to find out what had happened to her cousin’s child.
* * *
The baby’s room echoed with a purposeful and malignant emptiness, a beautiful trap. But it was her job to enter such places, and Becca had already pushed past her with customary impatience.
Lush white carpeting spread across the floor like a field of unbroken snow to a credenza full of toys waiting for their owner to get big enough to play with them. Blackout curtains for naptime were hidden behind ruffled baby blue drapes; two dressers painted in whimsical pastels held the tiny wardrobe. The room could have enveloped half the entire footprint of her temporary, post-divorce apartment.
The crib rested in the center of the room like a display case in a museum. Ellie tiptoed over to look inside, as if the four-month-old might have magically reappeared and she didn’t want to wake him.
But she knew better than to hope for magic.
She did not touch the railings. The white wood had been rounded and topped with a glossy protective covering, which should hold prints well.
Becca hovered halfway between the door and the crib, glancing at it and then away, as if it were a shameful light that hurt her eyes. Then she turned and crossed to a window.
“This is gorgeous,” Ellie told Becca. “Your whole house is . . . amazing. You and Hunter are both lobbyists, I remember that—”
“He’s still got the firm, but I’m now policy advisor to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Look at our lawns—there’s five hundred feet of grass in every direction, so how would anyone even get to one of our doors without a camera picking them up?”
“Do you have any cameras in here?”
“In the bedrooms?” Becca looked disgusted.
“In the house.”
“Of course not. Outside only, over the exterior doors. Why do you think no one has called for a ransom? I keep checking for missed calls.”
“Has the FBI set up—”
“No. We don’t have a landline, and Hunter won’t let them tap our cells.”
Ellie didn’t hide her surprise. “But . . . surely . . .”
“I’m not letting people tap my phone! Once they get in there . . . we’ll let them know if someone makes contact.”
“But—”
Becca rushed on. “I checked my email, and there’s no weird notes shoved under the door. Hunter’s office has been alerted and so has mine. With the recess about to end there’s hardly anyone there, anyway, but my assistant will keep an eye out. And why not just leave a note here when they took him?”
Luis Alvarez, handsome and friendly and obviously destined to play Good Cop to his partner’s Bad during interrogations, appeared in the doorway. “Dr. Carr? Are you going to be processing the exterior doors? We didn’t want to touch any until you had—”
“Yes, thank you. I would appreciate you holding off until I can get that done.”
“No problem.”
He disappeared, his dress shoes clacking down the polished hardwood floors.
“Since when are you a doctor?” Becca asked.
She couldn’t blame her cousin for her surprise. Few people held a doctorate in forensic science at all—still a relatively new degree for the planet, despite the field having grown by leaps and bounds since the TV show CSI first aired and ushered in a national craze. “It’s a PhD. Not strictly necessary to stay in ERT, but it gave me something to focus on during the divorce.”
“You’re divorced?”
“And that gave me something to focus on while getting through my thesis.” Ellie didn’t bother with her personal backstory. Plenty of time for that later. “I know you’ve probably been through this five times by now, but can you tell me what happened today? Start from the beginning.”
Becca obediently began. “I got up with the baby—Mason, did I tell you that? His name is Mason—about six, fed him, he’s on formula. Got Taylor up, gave her the usual toast and hot chocolate, with marshmallows, let her linger over the Post. She reads it every day. She’s precocious. She loves being precocious, and I love that she loves being precocious.”
