“But?”
Faith took a deep breath and shook her head.“No but.It could be a revenge story.We’ll see what the others have to say, then talk to Rosenberg.If they all bring Craig up, then we’ll know we’re on the right track.”
“And if not?”
“Then we’ll get a better understanding of exactly who Jackson Entwhistle was and why our killer chose him to deliver his message.”
And maybe they’d find out what that message was and whether any more messages were intended.
CHAPTER FOUR
David Friedman was generally an easygoing guy.That was part of what made him and Faith such excellent partners.She was strong-willed, assertive, and self-assured.David was self-assured, but he was mild-mannered and willing to go along to get along.He could calm Faith down, and she could bring decisiveness to the relationship that he sometimes lacked.
It bothered him how much this case was changing him.He was being more decisive, but he was losing his calm, and in hindsight, many of his decisions had turned out to be very poor ones.He wasn’t breaking his promise to Faith at the moment.All he was doing was looking into the names on the list.
But he knew he wouldn’t stay away.Just like Faith couldn’t stay away from the field, David couldn’t stay away from this investigation.Seeing Sierra had touched something dormant inside of him.He could no more stop acting on it than he could stop breathing.
He rubbed his chin and scanned the obituary of Dr.Richard Fenniman, the second name of the list of researchers given to him by an as-yet unidentified informant.Faith and Michael had made it clear that they needed to identify this informant before they continued to investigate.David had agreed to this, but when faced with the reality that his investigation was going to stagnate until they had that answer, he couldn’t bring himself to stop.
And that morning, it occurred to him that the informant could be a name on this list.
Most of the names on the list belonged to people who had died between four and five years ago.There were only two exceptions: Dr.Martin Ramsey, who had died a few months ago shortly after he had come up in one of Faith’s investigations, and Dr.Richard Fenniman, who had allegedly died in a fiery car crash on I-95 six months ago.
David knew Martin Ramsey wasn’t the whistleblower because he had been found with a bullet hole in his head.Fenniman’s body, on the other hand, had never been recovered.
Perhaps because he was still alive, maybe he had faked his own death to protect himself from the 93rdTesting Brigade and had now resurfaced to help David put a stop to their experiments.
“Hitting it hard and early, huh, big man?”
David smiled wryly and turned to the hulking FBI agent looking over his shoulder.Jeff Hammerton was an enormous man who looked like an NFL linebacker.He and his partner, Greg Rogers, were assigned to the Washington Field Office, and, thanks to the fact that Faith was probably the most famous agent since Elliot Ness, were currently assigned to protect him.They didn’t know everything about the case David was investigating, but they knew he was supposed to stay home and behave.
That would make his efforts today difficult.
“Trying to get a head start, yeah,” he said.
Hammerton chuckled.Then he looked over David’s shoulder and frowned.“Expecting to see someone in there?”he said, thrusting his chin at the screen.
David sighed and tried to hide his irritation.“Just trying to see if this guy might be connected to what I’m looking into.”
“Hmm.”Hammerton gave David a knowing look that made David feel about thirty years younger than his thirty-eight years of age.“We gonna be good, right?”
David didn’t bother trying to hide his irritation anymore.“Yes, I’m going to be good.Would you mind not looking over my shoulder when I’m working?”
Hammerton opened massive hands that could probably crush David’s skull like a grape were they so inclined.“Sure thing, boss.Just don’t want to end up in trouble with your lady.She loves you, but she ain’t love me, you know?IfIpiss her off, that’s my ass gone, you feel me?”
David doubted Faith would ruin Hammerton’s career if David managed to slip him and Rogers, but he understood Hammerton’s point.“I won’t get you in trouble.”
“Good man.Greg’s making omelets, by the way.I’m not married to him or anything, but I can admit the man makes a mean breakfast.”
“I’ll take an omelet,” David replied.
“Good deal.”
He stood in the doorway, an elephant-sized man who, in David’s experience, was gentle as a lamb.It was easy to imagine Hammerton ascapableof violence but very difficult to imagine him perpetrating it, even if he was justified in doing so.
“I had a dog once,” he told David.“Little bichon frisé.Named her Princess.”
David smiled, trying to imagine the enormous Jeff Hammerton cuddling a tiny lapdog.“That’s cute.”