Stalked - By Allison Brennan Page 0,72
nothing in her e-mails or notes, but I have an analyst going through them in greater detail. But Tony said something earlier about her killer knowing everything about her. Her schedule, what she would do. He felt that her killer was confident she’d expose herself to him and not be scared.”
“Did he say anything else to you when he left?”
“Nothing. I left him with an analyst to go over the notes we found here. She just sent me a message that he left headquarters at four thirty, plenty of time to get back here by five.”
“I’m going to pull the newspaper archives from that missing week and see what Weber wrote. Tony thought it was important enough to take her steno pad.”
“He should have called me.” Suzanne was justifiably upset.
“He didn’t know what he knew,” Sean mumbled. “It was a hunch. Suzanne, I need a favor.”
She rubbed her temples. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
He grinned. “It’ll be easy. Really. I need the accident report and autopsy for Dominic Theissen.”
“You think it wasn’t an accident.”
“What I think and what I can prove are completely different, but yeah, I think it’s highly suspicious.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Washington, D.C.
Lucy was surprised to find Noah waiting for her when she exited the gate at Reagan National. “I was going to take a taxi,” she said.
“I want to fill you in, and the best place is on the road.”
Lucy had first met Special Agent Noah Armstrong eight months ago during one of his investigations. Though she’d disliked him at the beginning—considering he had questioned her as a suspect in a murder investigation—they’d ended up becoming friends and he’d taken her under his wing during her ten weeks as an analyst in the D.C. regional office. Surviving a plane crash in May had solidified their friendship.
“How’s Hans? He’s going to be okay, right?”
Noah put his hand on her shoulder. “Lucy, it’s serious. He’s been unconscious since Security found him early this morning.”
Lucy nodded, but her chin trembled. She swallowed and asked, “What happened?”
“We don’t know exactly. Can we walk and talk?”
She nodded.
He squeezed her arm and then walked briskly toward short-term parking.
“Hans was working in Tony’s office late last night. He made arrangements to stay in one of the bungalows Quantico has for VIPs and temporary instructors. He signed out of the building just after midnight and crossed a construction area on his way to the house. A scaffold fell on him.”
“It really was an accident?”
“We’re supposed to believe it was an accident, and that’s what everyone will be told today. A scaffolding did collapse, but two things point to attempted murder. First, the structure of the scaffolding had been compromised. The lab is testing the metal, but it appears that an acid ate away at the base and all it would have taken was a light push to make the whole thing come down.”
“And that’s not a construction mistake?”
“It could have been, but the project manager has been working with Forensics all morning to account for the weakness, and he swears it wasn’t his team. We don’t know what the chemical is yet, but there are a lot of common products that could be mixed to eat through the metal. The second piece of evidence is that the security camera outside of the armory caught a shadow. No face, but there was definitely a person moving away from where Hans was attacked at approximately the same time. Where he was attacked is outside the camera’s range.”
They arrived at Noah’s sedan and he opened the passenger door for Lucy, then closed it and walked around to the driver’s side and started the car. Lucy blinked back tears and looked out the window as Noah drove out of airport parking.
“I’m sorry, Lucy. Hans is a good friend to both of us.”
Lucy wished she hadn’t gotten so angry with Hans yesterday. He’d been such a loyal friend and mentor—his betrayal in pulling strings to get her in the Academy was done out of his belief in her. He did it for the right reasons; she should have forgiven him yesterday.
“Lucy?”
“I’m okay,” she said quickly.
“I know this is hard on you.”
“He has to wake up, Noah.”
Noah glanced at her and Lucy thought he was going to say something, concern clouding his eyes. Then he didn’t and looked at the road. A minute later he said, “Hans talked to Assistant Director Stockton yesterday about looking into the death of Tony Presidio. The lab came in yesterday and collected potential evidence,