Stalked - By Allison Brennan Page 0,20
weekend, the four of us.”
Patrick shook his head. “It’s not going to last.”
“You know that?”
“Yeah, unfortunately I do. I’ll tell you later.” Patrick smiled and met Brandy halfway. He kissed her warmly; then they walked toward the racquetball courts.
Very strange. And it threw a wrench in Sean’s life—he’d been counting on Patrick disappearing this weekend so he and Lucy could have some much-needed alone time. But Sean couldn’t worry about his partner’s love life or this weekend.
Sean finished his basic workout, then ran three miles on the treadmill and considered what Patrick had said about why Laughlin might have an issue with Lucy. By the time he got home an hour later, he had an idea based on the fact that Lucy didn’t want to talk to Kate. There must be history between Laughlin and Kate, and it would have to go back to Kate’s rookie years in the FBI, long before she’d met the Kincaid family. It was a good place to start.
After his shower, Sean pulled Laughlin’s credit reports for the last fifteen years so he could piece together his life in the Bureau. The records provided enough of a skeleton of Rich Laughlin’s financial history to give Sean more paths to follow.
After graduating from Northwestern, Laughlin worked fifteen months at the Chicago accounting firm of Glade and Marsh. They specialized in corporate audits. No surprise that the FBI would recruit from there. How did Laughlin come across their radar? Work on a case that turned criminal? Testify in court? Sean made a note.
Laughlin did his time at the Academy but maintained a Chicago residence for several years, even though he never moved back to the Windy City. Why? Had he planned to return? Have a roommate? A lover? There was no record of any marriage in Illinois, Missouri, or Michigan. He finally sold the condo four years after he left.
After he graduated from the Academy, he’d been assigned to the L.A. field office and took up residence in the San Fernando Valley. Two years later his credit profile shifted east, first D.C. for a short time, then Alexandria, Virginia. Sean did a quick property search and learned Richard Douglas Laughlin had owned a town house in Alexandria and still owned it.
That’s when Sean’s instincts began to twitch.
Sean would bet the bank that Laughlin had worked out of the D.C. regional office before Detroit. There was a slight chance he may have been assigned to national headquarters, but since he only had a few years with the Bureau at the time, Sean gave odds to the field office. Which meant that Laughlin could have worked with Kate.
Sean quickly mapped out a time line. Kate had been in the Washington, D.C., field office twelve years ago—if they overlapped, it would have been only for a few months.
Laughlin had transferred to Detroit five years ago but still owned his town house. Sean did a reverse search and learned that Laughlin leased it to a married couple. A few clicks later, Sean found the current resident: Clark Mitchell, a doctor at GWU, and his wife, Lydia, an analyst for the FBI.
Maybe it wasn’t about Lucy but all about Kate.
Sean needed to dig a little deeper, but he couldn’t call Kate or Hans Vigo. Noah hadn’t been in the D.C. office five years ago. The only thing Sean could do was find out exactly when Laughlin moved to D.C. and determine if Kate was there at the same time. And if she was, Sean would give the information to Lucy and she could decide how to use it.
It was nearly noon when his computer e-mailed him a report. It wasn’t about Rich Laughlin but Peter McMahon. Sean almost forgot he’d started a deep background when Lucy woke him up at almost two in the morning.
Every McMahon it spat out at him wasn’t the Peter McMahon Lucy was looking for. Sean did find a Peter Gray who had attended college in New Jersey, but there was no record of graduation or transfer.
Dropout? The name was common enough that tracking the right one, with no address or Social Security number, would be difficult.
But Sean loved a challenge.
CHAPTER TEN
New York City
Suzanne hadn’t met SSA Tony Presidio before, but she certainly knew him by reputation. Though he was no longer with the Behavioral Science Unit, he was greatly respected within the Bureau and often consulted on cases outside of his field office. He wasn’t a large man, an inch shorter than her five foot nine and