“Yes.We have a deal.”
“Great!By the way, now that we’re on the same side, Craig Daniels was in bed with his boss’s wife when the murders happened.He was lying about being home watching tv, but she called the network in tears begging us not to ruin her life by telling the world that they were together.Guess he’s not a loser ineveryarea of his life.As long as he agrees to drop the defamation suits against the FBI and Channel Six News, the world will never know about that.So don’t worry about him.He’s not going to do shit.”
Faith stared ahead in shock.Who the hell was this woman?
“I assume you’re shocked by my brilliance,” Bridgette teased.
“Just shocked,” Faith said.“And you knew this?You knew he wasn’t going to be a threat the whole time?”
“Let it serve as a lesson: I get what I want.ButI also give other people what they want.They just have to play nice.I'll talk to you later, Faith."
She hung up.Faith stared ahead, too stunned to think.It was possible that Bridgette was lying about Craig and his boss's wife, but Faith doubted that.She had Faith caught, so there was no need to placate her.What probably happened was Bridgette found out where Craig had been, contacted the lady in question, and pressed her for information in exchange for keeping this little tryst secret.Then she'd held that in her back pocket until Faith agreed to give her what she wanted.
Spider was an excellent way to describe her.And Faith wished wholeheartedly that she’d never seen the woman.
“So you tell her your life story, and she gets us off the hook for the Craig Daniels snafu?”Jessica asked.
Faith nodded.“Yes.She also found proof that Craig isn’t our killer.”
Jessica laughed.“Shit.Well, she’s a grade-A bitch, but she’s not a bad detective.Might as well just let her have this if it gets her off our back.”
“Yeah.Might as well.”
“As for your biography, no one ever said you had to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.You can always just feed her whatever you feel like and make up the rest.”
“Yeah,” Faith agreed.“I guess I can.”
She sent a text to Michael.He replied a minute later, not confirming that he could help but promising he would do what he could.
Now Faith had done allshecould.She could only wait and see how the chips fell.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“I’m still pretty sure the bombing incident at Thurgood Marshall is the key,” Jessica said.“It’s the most impactful thing to occur in either of our victim’s careers.”
Faith nodded.She was still reeling slightly from her conversation with Bridget, but there was nothing she could do about the situation now, so there was nothing to do but move on with the case and hope that fate would show her some escape at a later time.
“Who else was involved?”
“Well, Entwhistle and Hayes were the supervisors on duty at the time.Entwhistle was the EOD supervisor, and Hayes was the K9 supervisor.Chief Rosenberg was the boss back then, too, but she’s already being watched by Baltimore PD, so there’s not much more we can do except hope that maybe our killer is going to be stupid enough to go after her and get caught like Jimmy Sullivan almost was when he attacked Sarah Brennan.”
Faith frowned, but not at the mention of their previous killer.The sun was descending toward the western horizon.The persistent cloud cover, combined with the odd brownish tint of the window in their motel room, made it look like a blood moon.
It would be dark soon.People would be returning home from work.Their killer could be laying low, or he could be going after Rosenberg.Or he could be going after someone entirely different, and they’d find out about it when he called in another bomb threat.
“I’m looking into Sandra Yeun’s death,” Jessica informed her.“I’m reviewing news coverage from the time of the incident.Kylie Wilton might be innocent, but I’d be willing to bet other people held a grudge.”
Faith sighed and headed to the coffeemaker.Turk pricked an ear up when he heard Faith move, but when she didn’t call him to go catch a bad guy, he lowered the ear and resumed his nap.
“You don’t think I’ll find anything?”Jessica asked, “or are you just bummed about the Bridgette thing?”
“I’m bummed about the Bridgette thing,” Faith said, “but there’s nothing I can do about it right now.I’m just worried that we’re still missing the forest for the trees when it comes to the case.”
“How so?”
Faith poured grounds into the basket and started to fill the carafe with water.“I really think the bombs are the key.We have explosive potential but no spark when it comes to Entwhistle, and all spark no bite when it comes to Hayes.That means something.”
Jessica frowned while continuing to skim news articles.“The thing is that doesn’t fit with their personalities.According to Entwhistle’s coworkers, he was dangerous.Not in a bad way, but he was the kind of person you didn’t mess with.As far as no spark, he must have had enough of a spark to gain that reputation, or we wouldn’t have heard that story about an unruly passenger.And Hayes enjoyed a pretty nice career with ATF after leaving TSA.She supervised the entire K9 program at the Port of Baltimore.It’s a far more extensive program than the TSA’s Thurgood Marshall detachment.”