But there was little to no proof of these crimes.
The two white supremacists who had been charged in the deaths of Brienne Cross and the Soul Mate reality show contestants were released due to lack of evidence. Donny Lee Odell claimed he was at the Evergreen Tavern in Salida, Colorado, almost four hours away by car from Aspen, at the time of the murders. Two people had recently come forward to confirm his alibi. Jolie thought it was interesting that they had come forward now.
The tests of the blood found on the knife at Odell’s home proved inconclusive.
Mike Cardamone’s body was never found. The dead men on Indigo and the dead men in the house on Sea Oats Lane remained unidentified except for the FBI agent, Eric Salter, and a private investigator named Ted Bakus. The three other men in the house might have never existed at all. Their fingerprints were not on record. A raid on Cardamone’s office provided nothing. Everything about the business was legitimate. There were no assassination teams. No names in the databases, no payment records.
Every byte of computer data they could find had been analyzed by an outside consultant.
There was nothing. The computers had been wiped clean, magnetized, and destroyed. Sanitized.
Whitbread Associates owned two jets. The manifests did show that they had been to Panama City and Tallahassee on the day of the firefight on Indigo. Their serial numbers had been recorded.
The FBI would look into it.
Meanwhile, the images of the dead men had been released to the media. But no one came forward.
Media requests to law enforcement on every level were met with disinterest.
Pretty soon a picture emerged. A rival Congolese megachurch used rioters to burn Reverend Wembi’s church, which had been under investigation for money laundering. Experts posited that the megachurch also ordered a hit on Grace’s family on Indigo.
No one came forward to refute this story. Not the FBI, not the state police, not any of the jurisdictions in between. Certainly not the Palm County Sheriff’s Office, which forwarded all inquiries to the FDLE.
The narrative became a juggernaut. It was ridiculous on its face, a pack of lies and half-truths, but if there was an investigative reporter out there who saw the cover-up of the cover-up, Jolie didn’t know about it. She knew there was no point in fighting it. At least she had managed to get justice of sorts for Nathan Dial. It was easier to pin a single crime on a dead man.
The announcement came on the loudspeaker. “Continental flight Five-forty-two, with service to Chicago and Albuquerque, will begin boarding in ten minutes.”
Albuquerque was Jolie’s final destination. She would go back to New Mexico, where she had spent the first ten years of her life. There was still family there on her father’s side. She would go back home.
As she bent to grab the handle of her roll-on suitcase, something made her look up. Jolie only saw the man from the back, but she could swear it was the rogue operative she’d known as “Cyril.” He moved efficiently through the crowd—mid to late forties, khaki trousers, knit shirt, expensive-looking carry-on bag. The same light brown hair, military cut. Big. She recognized the way he carried himself—a soldier. Not just any soldier, but one of the elite.
But Cyril was dead. She’d seen him go under the propellers.
Jolie checked her watch—there was time. She threaded her way through the crowd, not sure what she would do. Didn’t know why she wanted to make sure. There was no point. Why not just forget about the whole thing?
Maybe it was because his body hadn’t been found. There were plenty of solid reasons for that. A night hammered by a subtropical storm, plenty of sharks and fish to feed on his body. But it was one of the few questions that remained. Her life had been turned upside down, one phase ending and another beginning, and it would be good to know for sure.
“Cyril!” she called, just as a crowd of high school kids in matching shirts funneled onto the concourse from another direction. She kept pace with the group of passengers she was with, but she began to lose track of him.
And then, way up, there he was. Moving effortlessly through the crowd ahead.
“Cyril!” she called again.
He kept moving, but turned his head briefly.
Their eyes met.
He smiled.
And then he was gone.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photograph by Ian Galley, 2011
J. Carson Black is the bestselling and critically-acclaimed author of eight books, including the Laura Cardinal crime fiction series. Born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, Black has found inspiration for her writing in everything from real life horrors to the headlines screaming today’s news. She is currently working on her next thriller, to be published by Thomas & Mercer in 2012.