The Truant Officer v5 Read online

  Wendy continued to sift through the rubble until she found what she was looking for. It was a leather bound journal. She opened it, but it was like she didn’t want to know about the life Rachel lived in New York. Not wanting to risk forever losing the image of that rebellious but innocent girl from Laramie. She shut the journal and handed it to Dava.

  Dava knew the journal was the key. As she read Rachel’s words, it contained all the elements she’d expected. Dangerous associations, fears of a scared girl who was in over her head, and it fingered the most likely suspect in her brutal murder. It had the potential to blow the whole case wide open.

  “Why do you think she used the name Carrie Grant? Dava asked.

  “I’ve thought about that,” Wendy said. “Her father was a big fan of the actor. She was always a daddy’s girl, and when Paul gave her a puppy when she was about six or seven she named it Carrie Grant to impress her father. It was an innocent time. Maybe this is just the naïve mother in me talking, but I think it was a way for her to keep some of her innocence when she was up on that stage.”

  Dava nodded. “I sometimes use a different name, but it has nothing to do with innocence.”

  Wendy looked at her from across the room with a mystified look. But then her mind retreated to her own world where she was still tracking her daughter.

  “My name is Davnieska. At my summer job in college, I had a boss who would refer to me as ‘that stupid communist girl’. I stood up to him—told him that my name was Davnieska and that is what he should call me. I lived for a time in Lithuania as a child, but I was born in New York, and was just as much an American citizen as he was. He told me that he wouldn’t call me no ‘commi name,’ and from now on he’d refer to me as Kelli. With an ‘i’ on the end because he said it would always remind him that I was a ‘commi’.”

  Wendy looked back at her, probably wondering if this had any connection to finding Rachel. Her daughter consumed her mind. So much so that she almost missed that the gun was already pointing at her, with silencer attached. Dava then continued to help Wendy Grant find her daughter. In fact, with three soft tugs on the trigger, she sent her to be with her.

  Dava locked the dead woman in the storage area, and casually walked away, gripping the journal close to her. She crossed paths with the night manager on her way out. He asked if there was anything else he could do for her. She displayed her badge and ordered that he turn over the surveillance tapes to her for a highly sensitive case she was working on, including the ones that taped her entering the facility. The scared clerk obediently followed orders, and Dava rewarded him with a bullet to the head. She then took a few moments to make it look like a robbery.

  When she got outside, she walked down to the pier and stared out at the lights of Brooklyn in the distance. She waited ten minutes and then called the don’s son. “It’s Kelli. Just wanted you to know that Rachel Grant kept a journal.”

  He said nothing, but there was awe in his silence.

  “Don’t worry. It’s all taken care of. And tomorrow morning I’m being sent to Oklahoma to exhume Rachel’s body. I’ll take care of that too.”

  She could almost hear him smile through the phone.

  “Sounds like there might be a leak in the US Attorney’s Office,” he replied.

  Chapter 51

  With morning rapidly marching toward them, Lilly still clutched the gun she had shot Rob Bachynsky with. She hadn’t let it go since they departed Colorado.

  They beat great odds in getting out of Red Menace alive, but were faced with the reality of trying to find refuge. Lilly wanted to jump in the Thunderbird and head as fast as they could to nowhere.

  But Nick had a place in mind where they would be welcome to spend the night. Lilly knew it was the right decision, but that didn’t mean that jealousy wasn’t gnawing at her like termites.

  As soon as the bullet whistled through Bachynsky’s skull, the other men in the room treated Lilly with a different respect level. And she used it to her advantage. At gunpoint, she ordered Kovalenko to tie Zubov up. Even though Zubov didn’t show any signs of being able to walk on his wounded knees, she still wasn’t going near that venomous snake.

  Nick had picked up Bachynsky’s gun and used it to force Kovalenko to prepare his private jet for them. To be sure that there was no trickery, they brought him along as an insurance policy.

  Following Nick’s orders, they flew from Denver to Dallas. During the two-hour flight, Nick interrogated Kovalenko with the same rage as he did Dantelli and Bachynsky, but this time his questions centered on what he knew about any potential leak in the US Attorney’s Office. Kovalenko didn’t budge.

  When they arrived in Dallas during the predawn hours, they left Kovalenko and his pilot securely fastened in the baggage area of the plane. By the time they were able to free themselves, Nick and Lilly would be long gone. Or at least that would be the perception. Lilly rented a car in her name with Darren’s credit card. On the surface, it didn’t sound like a smart move, but they wanted those after them to know their location. Dallas is the central hub of the US, which meant they could be anywhere—Mexico to the south, the Great Plains to the north, New Orleans to the east, or possibly westward.

  They drove to Devol, Oklahoma—a town of a hundred and fifty people, about a two-hour drive from Dallas. There were more tornadoes in Devol than people.

  As they drove across the deserted Oklahoma prairie, Lilly flipped on the radio. She picked up a station coming from Wichita Falls, Texas that was playing pop hits. Natalie Gold’s latest single “Vengeance” took them into Cotton County.

  Nick appeared to know exactly where he was going, as he turned down a dusty road. When they arrived at their destination, they were surprised that the lights were on in the brick ranch house.

  Lilly’s first thought was that the Russian army was waiting for them. She wasn’t going to argue if Nick wanted to drive right past and head back to I-36. And even if it was a safe haven, part of her didn’t want to step inside the home where Audrey Mays grew up.

  Reverend Carter Mays answered the door in his bathrobe. He was a tall, slender man with patches of gray mixed into his dark hair. His face was handsome, but the lines were deeply engraved—Lilly remembered similar lines appearing on her mother’s face after her brother was killed. What Lilly noticed most was that he didn’t look as surprised as he should have that his dead daughter’s boyfriend showed up at his door at three in the morning.

  One of the advantages that Nick saw in coming here was that the Mays’ didn’t own a television, computer, or radio. So it was doubtful they’d heard the news of Lilly and Nick’s plight.

  Lilly searched Reverend Mays’ eyes for trepidation or suspicion, but found none. In fact, he looked at Nick like his own son had returned home from battle. The two men embraced. Nick introduced Lilly as a “business associate” from the law firm that he worked for.

  After a pleasant greeting for Lilly, the reverend turned his attention back to Nick. “You must have heard the news about Audrey. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” he asked in a polished Oklahoma drawl.

  Lilly’s eyes met Nick’s. He had no idea what the reverend was talking about any more than she did. But Nick’s look said to play along.

  “Yes, I came as soon as I heard,” he replied.

  Reverend Mays nodded. “We got the call a couple hours ago. We haven’t been able to go back to sleep since we heard.”

  “Who called you?” Nick asked, still fishing for information.

  “The FBI. And imagine my reaction when they told me that Audrey might not have been the girl in the apartment that night. And it might not be Audrey buried in the cemetery here. They are coming in the morning to exhume the body. Cassie and I have to go to court to give our approval.”

  Chapter 52

  Nick played it cool. “That’s why I thought it was important that I come, being that I’m a lawyer. Was it a Fitzpatrick who called?”

  Reverend Mays thought for a moment, and t
hen replied, “No, his name was LaPoint. He and some gal from the US Attorney’s Office are coming out in the morning. She had a funny name.”

  “Dava Lazinski?”

  He nodded as if to say the name sounded familiar, and then invited them into his neat and orderly home. Just as Nick mentioned, no sign of any TV or radio.

  “Cassie is in the living room,” he said, lowering his voice. “On the surface this sounds like great news, but the likelihood is still that Audrey is gone and this is nothing but false hope. We haven’t heard from her in a year—something terrible has happened to our daughter, regardless of tomorrow’s outcome. So that call shredded all the work we’ve done to try to move on with our lives. Cassie has been up looking at old photographs all night.”

  He led them into the living room where Cassie Mays was huddled on a couch, cradling a photo album. Lilly had seen photos of Audrey, and she saw the same shoulder-length brunette hair and apple pie features in her mother. But like Reverend Mays, her brow was furrowed with the scars of loss.

  Cassie was surrounded by used tissues and her eyes were worn from crying, but she rose up and hugged Nick.

  When they broke the embrace, Nick again introduced Lilly as a lawyer in his firm. The story had expanded. He and Lilly had been in Houston working on a case for a large energy company and drove to Devol immediately after hearing the news. But unlike her husband, Cassie Mays looked suspiciously at Lilly. Her intent was obvious—she wouldn’t accept that her daughter had been replaced.

  Lilly just wanted to find a warm bed. She hadn’t slept since Sunday morning. But Cassie Mays insisted on making them a meal. She brought out some leftover ham and cornbread, which Lilly washed down with a glass of pulpy lemonade. It hit the spot. She had eaten as little as she’d slept in the last forty-eight hours.

  They returned to the living room to eulogize Audrey some more. It was a shrine—her photos practically wallpapered the room, including merry group shots taken during Nick’s last visit to Oklahoma, two Christmases ago. The Audrey photos outnumbered ten to one those of her brother Scott, a marine stationed in Afghanistan. Lilly didn’t want to despise a dead woman, but she was growing tired of Saint Audrey, and the more Nick lit up at each nostalgic memory, the more pain she felt.

  There was even a photo album of her funeral, where according to Cassie Mays, people came from all over Cotton County and as far as Tulsa to attend. A recording of Audrey singing “Amazing Grace” was played at the funeral. Lilly thought singing at your own funeral was a little on the macabre side, to say the least.

  While Lilly’s snippy thoughts couldn’t even dent Audrey’s angelic aura, the more Cassie Mays went on, the more Lilly understood what a good choice it was by Nick to come here. There would be no questions asked. They didn’t even seem to have knowledge that he was in witness protection, or of his potential testimony. The only time they even looked remotely puzzled was when Nick mentioned that it was important not to tell the FBI that they were here, and that they wouldn’t be able to be present for the exhumation, due to a key deposition tomorrow in the energy case. The Mays’ soon returned to drinking their Nick Zellen Kool Aid, and any suspicions fluttered away.

  After the tribute to Audrey mercifully ended, Lilly finally got that warm bed she craved. She was given Scott’s room. Lilly slept with her gun, while Nick was in Audrey’s old room, sharing the bed with her ghost.

  Chapter 53

  Nick couldn’t sleep. He felt Audrey’s presence everywhere.

  The news that the girl in Audrey’s grave might be someone else should have been shocking. But since Karl’s arrest, and the events that followed, he’d lost all ability to be shocked. Up until that moment when he was removed from his torts class at NYU Law School and told of the arrest, his life had been idyllic. But there was no point in looking back—he was a new person now.

  He took out the photos he always carried with him, even when his witness protection guardians like Fitzpatrick disallowed it. The first was of the man who raised him. He stood with his arm around a cap-and-gowned Nick at his college graduation, Karl looking as he always had with his neatly trimmed goatee and horn-rimmed glasses.

  Like most moments between them, it wasn’t devoid of love, but was businesslike in nature. That’s how Karl always was with Nick and Sasha. He wouldn’t even let them call him Dad. He was always Karl. But no matter how laborious his business schedule was he found time for Nick and his sister, whether it was sharing a passion for skating and hockey, or passing on his love of art.

  The next picture was of his mother, Paula. Her blonde-haired, blue-eyed features were the direct opposite of Karl’s, as was her personality, which was all fire and brimstone. The photo was from her fiftieth birthday party with her arms wrapped around her two most precious jewels—Nick and Sasha—whom she gave up her music career to raise. He could still hear her voice at his hockey games, C’mon Zellen, skate, don’t give up, skate Zellen! Even her yelling was melodic.

  Sasha was alone in the picture he had of her, just as the little diva would want it. She was never one to share the spotlight, but she never had trouble sharing how she felt. And since their mother died, her emotions turned into a Category-5 hurricane. And that’s why it was so hard for Nick to leave her.

  Sasha predictably refused to go into protective custody. She had inherited their mother’s stubbornness. Nick did risk his cover to meet her when she was at a skating competition in Phoenix—the only danger turned out to be when Lilly thought she was a girl he was seeing behind her back—but now he needed to get back to New York to protect her.

  The last photo was of Audrey—not that he needed one in this room. Although, the woman he fell in love with in New York was different from the Devol version. She could meld into the city and be herself. She was able to live, instead of having people living vicariously through her. The Audrey he knew had a sarcastic wit and was quite a spectacle when she got a few drinks in her. She was also tough, as the guy who tried to steal her purse on the subway found out the hard way. She wasn’t a sinner, but she wasn’t the saint they made her out to be here in Devol. When he came back here that Christmas, it was like she was putting on a Broadway play for the people, reprising a role she thought they wanted her to play. He thought it was too bad they never got to see the real Audrey.

  Their last conversation was so rushed that he didn’t get to tell her everything he wanted. He instructed her to get out of the country, and made it clear that it would be too dangerous to return to her apartment, or here to Oklahoma. The next thing he knew he was at her funeral. His lasting memory was of the disguised federal agents whisking him away, back into protection, before her body was even in the ground.

  Unable to sleep, he wandered into the hallway. The door to the Mays’ room was ajar, and he slipped inside. He stared at them like a parent might at a newborn. They were sleeping, but not soundly. He spent an hour their room. Before he left, he whispered how sorry he was that he failed to protect their daughter. They didn’t wake, but he felt like they had heard him.

  When he returned to Audrey’s room, he skimmed through some old yearbooks, getting a particular kick out of some of her historical hairstyles. He found prom photos that she attended with a boy named Luke, whom she posed with next to his pickup truck. She couldn’t have looked more beautiful.

  There were no posters of pop stars, or teenybopper magazines. And with her father being the reverend, she had no shortage of bibles and crucifixes. But most of the room was dedicated to the great love of Audrey’s life—her music.

  He browsed through a pile of demo tapes that she had compiled over the years. Many featured Audrey singing at her father’s church, while others were auditions for Juilliard, but some were pop songs that she probably hid away from her parents.

  Nick took one of the “pop” tapes and slid it into an old Walkman that he found on her nightstand. He put the headphones on and let Audrey’s powerful voice overtake his senses. He could listen to that voice all night.

 
One song sounded familiar to him. He rewound the tape and played it again. At first he thought Audrey had her music stolen from her, but then he realized it was her. He had heard the song numerous times on the radio, but hadn’t really listened to it before.

  He picked up the Rolling Stone magazine that he had borrowed from Lilly. He studied the picture of Natalie Gold that graced the cover. He mentally dissected the image, removing the top layer. First the hair, then the enhanced breasts, and finally the trashy clothes. What was left took his breath away.

  Nick played the demo song again. The lyrics had been altered, but it was the same song. It was “Vengeance,” the smash hit by Israeli pop star Natalie Gold

  Who was being managed by Viktor Sarvydas!

  Nick was wrong—he could be shocked again.

  “What are you up to, Audrey?” he said to himself.

  Chapter 54

  Darren couldn’t stop the banging in his head. It was like two lead pipes rhythmically clanging together.

  He woke up in fear, finding himself on the couch in the same clothes as last night and smelling like a fraternity party. As yesterday came back into focus, he remembered it was actually a high school party.

  He realized the banging sound was coming from the front door. He struggled off the couch and found his way to the door, shielding his eyes from the Tuesday morning sun that was flooding through the windows. Despite the bright light, Darren felt like he was trapped in a dark room. He looked through the peephole and groaned. The nightmare just wouldn’t stop.

  Agent LaPoint burst in without even a hello. “We need to talk.”

  “Do you have new information on my wife?”

  “We tracked them from Las Vegas to Colorado, and now Dallas. But they continue to be one step ahead of us.”

  “Why would they be going to all these places?”