Split Second (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 1)

“You’re not the first person to notice that,” she said coolly. He waited expectantly, without replying. “I want to know how the investigation is going.”

“The FBI is handling all of that.”

“I know, but they must be keeping the Service informed.”

“They are, and that information is for Service personnel only.”

“Meaning I’m not?”

“You know, Michelle, I had my doubts when the Service started actively recruiting women. I mean you spend money to train an agent, and

then, poof, she gets married, has babies and retires. All that training, money, time, down the drain.”

Michelle couldn’t believe she was listening to this, but she remained silent.

“But when you came on board, I thought, now this gal has what it takes. You were the poster woman for the Service. The best and the brightest.”

“And with it came high expectations.”

“Every agent here has high expectations thrust upon them, nothing less than perfection.” He paused and added, “I know that your record was spotless before this. I know that you were moving up rapidly. I know that you’re a good agent, but you messed up, we lost a protectee and an agent lost his life. It’s not necessarily fair but there you are. It wasn’t really fair for them either.” He paused again, and his eyes took on a faraway look. “You may stay with the Service in some capacity. But you’ll never, ever forget what happened. It’ll be with you every minute of every day for the rest of your life. And that will hurt you far worse than anything the Service could do to you. Trust me.”

“You sound pretty sure about that.”

“I was with Bobby Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel. I was a rookie cop in L.A. when RFK came through. I just stood there and watched a man who should have gone on to be president bleed to death on the floor. Every day since then I’ve wondered what I could have done differently that would have prevented it from happening. It was one of the major reasons I joined the Service years later. I guess I wanted to make up for it somehow.” His gaze caught hers. “I never did make up for it. And, no, you never forget.”

CHAPTER

9

WITH THE PRESS staking out her townhouse in suburban Virginia, Michelle checked into a hotel in D.C. She used the breathing space to snatch a quick, informative lunch with a girlfriend who happened to be an FBI agent. The Secret Service and the Bureau didn’t always see eye-to-eye. Indeed, in federal law enforcement circles the Bureau was the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in relation to all the other agencies. However, Michelle liked to remind her FBI buddies that their agency had been founded with seven former Secret Service agents.

Both women were also members of WIFLE, or Women in Federal Law Enforcement. It was a support network with conventions and annual meetings, and though her male colleagues loved to rib her about it, WIFLE had been a great tool for Michelle as she confronted issues at work related to her gender. Her friend was clearly nervous about meeting with Michelle, but Michelle had helped her earn an Olympic silver medal, thereby securing a bond that almost nothing could break.

Over Caesar salads and iced tea Michelle was given the results of the investigation thus far. Simmons was a member of the security service that had guarded the funeral home, although he wasn’t supposed to be on duty that day. In fact, the funeral home was only patrolled at night. Simmons—of course, that wasn’t his real name—had disappeared. The paper trail at the company was useless. None of Simmons’s information checked out: stolen Social Security number, fake driver’s license and references, the works, all expertly done. He’d been employed there less than a month. Thus far, Simmons was a major dead end.

“When he came running up, I thought he was just some green rent-a-cop, so I commandeered him and put him into action. We didn’t even search his van. Bruno was obviously hidden in the back somewhere. I played right into his hands. Gave him a perfect opportunity to kill one of my men.” In her misery Michelle put her face in her hands. With an effort she recovered, pushed a forkful of lettuce in her mouth and chewed so hard her teeth hurt.

“Before they pulled the plug on me, I found out that they got the slug out of Neal Richards. It was a dumdum. Probably never get a ballistic match, even if we lay our hands on the probable weapon that fired it.”

Her friend agreed and then told Michelle that the van had been discovered in an abandoned barn. It was being run for prints and other microscopic indicators, but nothing had turned up thus far.

Mildred Martin, wife of the deceased, had been found at her home, working quietly in her garden. She had been planning to go and see her husband later that night with friends and family. She hadn’t called John Bruno and asked him to come to the funeral home. Her husband had been Bruno’s law supervisor, and they’d been close. If the candidate wanted to come and see her dead husband, he could have; it was simple as that, she told investigators.

“Yet why did Bruno scramble his schedule and go to see Martin at the funeral home at the last minute?” asked Michelle. “It was just dropped on us out of the blue.”

“According to his staff, he received a call from Mildred Martin that morning asking him to come and see her husband at the funeral home. And according to Dickers, Bruno’s chief of staff, Bruno was agitated after getting the call.”

“Well, a close friend of his had died.”

“But Dickers also says Bruno already knew that Martin was dead.”

“So you think there’s more to it?”

“Well, she picked a time when there weren’t that many people at the funeral home. And a few things Bruno said after the call led Dickers to believe there was more to the meeting than simply paying last respects.”

“So that may be why he pushed me so hard to leave them alone in there?”

Her friend nodded. “Well, depending on what the widow had to say, I suppose Bruno would want it to be private.”