The Investigators (Badge of Honor 7)

“We don’t have any agents by those names in our office, Matt,” Matthews said when Matt had finished. “Are you sure they were FBI agents? Not Treasury, or Secret Ser—”

“They had FBI credentials,” Matt shut him off. “Which they shoved close enough under my nose for me to take a good look.”

“I don’t understand this at all,” Matthews said. “And your lady friend was not kidnapped at all?”

“How do you get ‘kidnapped at all’? Wouldn’t that be like being a little pregnant?”

Matthews chuckled.

“Have you told anyone else about this?” he asked. “Wohl, for example?”

“Not a soul. And especially not Wohl. That would have triggered his ‘we must be kind to the FBI’ speech.”

“I have no idea—”

“Let’s get a table and eat,” Matt said. “I’m starved. And when I’m finished, I have another couple of hours’ work at the Roundhouse, which means I better not have another drink, even if the FBI is paying for it.”

“What are you doing?”

“Is that you or the FBI asking?”

“Me.”

“Checking some personnel records. It doesn’t make me feel like Sherlock Holmes, but it’s a dirty job that someone has to do.”

Matthews chuckled.

“May I tell Mr. Davis that you have taken his kind offer of employment under consideration?”

“I don’t give a damn what you tell him,” Matt said. “Let’s eat.”

Cynthia Longwood took a long time to wake up, and when she did, she had no idea at all where she was. The room was dark.

She became aware first that she was wearing one of those awful hospital gowns that tie down the back and let your fanny hang out. And then, quickly, she realized that she was in a narrow hospital bed with chrome rails to keep you from falling out; and put that together to understand that she was in a hospital room.

She sat up—her muscles seemed stiff and she didn’t seem to have much strength—and saw the glow of a cigarette. Someone was in the room with her.

Who? A nurse?

Cynthia let herself fall back on the bed.

The last thing she remembered clearly was being in her own room in Bala Cynwyd. Dr. Seaburg had been there.

Mother called him when I couldn’t stop crying.

And he gave me something, a pill. A pill. A pill and then a shot. And told me it would let me sleep.

And then I was in a car, and going downtown. . . .

They must have brought me here.

Dr. Seaburg was here, too. He had some other doctor with him. A nice old man.

My God, what did he give me? I can’t seem to think, and I feel like I just swam across the Atlantic Ocean!

“Are you supposed to be doing that?” Cynthia challenged.

“Doing what?” a female voice near the cigarette glow asked.