“Why?”
“Are your parents at home?”
“My mom’s here.”
“Good. Can we come in and talk?”
Mitchell pulled the door open wider. Rainy and Carter stepped into the high-ceilinged foyer of the Boyds’ grand residence, with the majestic corkscrew staircase at its center. Rainy looked up to see Adriana descending the stairs.
“Who’s the daytime soap star?” Carter whispered into Rainy’s ear.
“That’s Mama,” said Rainy.
“Mamma mia!” Carter whispered back.
“Hello. Can I help you?” Adriana asked the agents as soon as she reached the landing.
Rainy and Carter inadvertently synchronized the flashing of their badges.
“We met at Cathleen Wells’s house a few weeks ago,” Rainy said. “My name is Special Agent Loraine Miles, and this is Special Agent Carter Dumas. We’re with the FBI’s Innocent Images National Initiative. We’d like to have a few words with your son, if that’s all right with you.”
“What’s this all about?” Adriana asked, her face long with worry.
“We’d like him to explain something we’ve discovered as part of an ongoing investigation.”
From within a manila envelope, Carter extracted a color printout of the once hidden digital watermark. He handed the glossy paper, ink still fresh, over to Adriana. The three huddled close.
“What is this?” Adriana asked.
“It’s a watermark,” Rainy said. “We believe the creator of this watermark is also a distributor of illegal images. We also think the same distributor automatically applied Internet addresses to these watermarked images to keep track of who was downloading the content and from where.”
“And you think Mitchell had something to do with this, because the watermark matches his tattoo?”
“We’d sure like to ask him a few questions.”
“Mitchell, do you have anything to say about this?” Adriana asked in a harsh tone, turning around to address her son.
To Rainy’s surprise, Mitchell didn’t answer her back. Alarmed, she realized why.
Mitchell Boyd wasn’t with them in the foyer anymore.
Chapter 79
Tom told Roland where he’d hidden the drugs. Roland, in response, communicated his threat to Tom quite clearly. Jill would be shot if they didn’t arrive at that destination by a certain time. Tom didn’t know who was holding Jill. So he let Roland drive and he kept silent.
He held Jill’s cell phone, praying that she’d call him. Each second the phone didn’t ring was agony to him. He decided to keep pressing Roland for more information.
“How did you know where Jill would be?” Tom asked.
“I didn’t,” said Roland. “But I knew I could follow her. And I knew she wasn’t going to be with you.”
“How’d you know that?”
“I’m the one who told Tanner to call you,” said Roland. “I scripted him on exactly what to say. I knew you’d believe it and try and run. I knew Jill would slow you down when you did. You SEALs are consistent with your training, if anything. Your only option was to separate.”
“Did you kill Lindsey!” Tom shouted.
“Easy, Tom,” Roland said. “I told you, I don’t hurt people.”
“No. You have people do that for you. I forgot.”
Roland turned his head, with a smile on his face that made Tom’s insides shiver.
“Is Frank Dee one of your cronies?”
“Maybe.”
“How do you do it?” Tom asked. “Gilly. Dee. How do you get these guys to work for you?”
“For Gilly, let’s just say the return on investments with Boyd Investments is well above the industry average. I pride myself on building customer loyalty. Dee I took care of as a favor to his cousin. I think you know who I mean. You’re a smart man.”
“No, Marvin was a smart man, and you killed him.”
“Don’t jump to any conclusions,” Roland said.
“How’d you know about the drugs?”
“Considering I’m the one who told Lange about Greeley trading military secrets for heroin, I’d say I was in the know from the start.”
“Kelly never told me you were involved.”
“That’s because Kelly didn’t know,” Roland said. “It was just me and Lange. I was the one who told Lange to bring Kelly into the deal. I knew she’d play the perfect little vixen. She was so sexy, hard for any man to resist.”
“You planned to be off the base. Didn’t you?”
“As smart as you are, Tom, I was a bit surprised you never checked my records. I transferred out from Greeley’s command three months before the heist.”
“Guess I didn’t think of everything,” Tom said.
“Lange could keep his mouth shut. But you and I both know that Kelly was a talker, so we kept her in the dark. We didn’t have any idea what happened to the drugs. Lange told Kelly to ditch ’em, and that was the last he knew. I kept close watch over Kelly when I got back to Shilo. She didn’t change her spending habits any. She married you. She divorced you. She kept her job at the bar. This wasn’t a woman with millions of dollars at her disposal.”
“You didn’t know Kelly gave me the drugs,” Tom said, more to himself than to Roland.
“I figured she tossed them,” Roland said. “I had to let it go. Imagine that. Meanwhile, I kept my word to Lange that I’d help get him out of prison. Got his cousin a new life. As my business started to take off, I had the funds to keep my promise.”
Roland made several turns without having to ask Tom for directions. He knew how to get where they were going.
“I don’t get it. Why did Lange break into the house if he knew the drugs were gone?”
“Because Lange couldn’t let it go,” Roland said. “He was convinced you had something to do with it. I told him he was wrong. He didn’t know Tom the way I knew Tom. I figured even a Boy Scout like yourself couldn’t pass up on that kind of money. But Lange, he didn’t listen to me.
“First thing he did when he got out of prison was go see Kelly. He broke into the house, hit her, spooked her, and she ran out the back door. She died the way the police say she did, falling down that ravine. But even after all that, Lange couldn’t let it go. He started spying on you. He thought you were going to try and move the stuff. Guess he didn’t know who he was messing with.”
“Guess he didn’t,” Tom said.
“But then, out of the freakin’ blue, you came over to my house, asking about Kip Lange. Well, that’s when I knew. I knew Lange had been right all along. You did know about the drugs. But I didn’t know if you had them, hid them, or destroyed them. So I bugged your house.”
“You what?”
“The alarm company,” Roland said. “The owner also is a major investor in my funds, if you know what I mean.”
“So you listened in on my conversation with Jill. That’s how you knew I hid the drugs.”
“Not every word. I had keywords programmed. Got snippets with any mention of heroin. And that’s when I told Lange to come out of hiding and make a strike. Dee arranged to have your coffee drugged. As you know, that plan didn’t go very well, either. But good news, I’m the project manager for this one. And I promise you, it’s going to go just as planned.”
Tom had more questions for Roland, specifically about why he framed him for child pornography, his connection to Cortland, but those would have to wait.
They’d arrived at their destination.
Roland parked his car in the lot used to access the most popular trail into Willards Woods. The lot was empty. Weeknights the place should be deserted.
Tom and Roland got out of the car at the same time. Roland kept a few paces behind Tom as they marched ahead. Night had fallen and moonlight made the trail easy to walk without flashlights, but Roland used his nonetheless. Even in the darkness, Tom couldn’t see any way of disarming Roland. Not without risk. He’d never gamble with Jill’s life.