“I can’t, Kate. There’s a WITSEC person here. They’re telling me I have to hang up now.”
“Mom … something else has happened you should know about. Something bad. Tina O’Hearn’s been shot.”
“Oh, Lord,” her mother gasped. “Shot?”
“On the street, just outside the lab. The police think it’s some kind of gang-related thing, but listen, Mom, I don’t believe that. She was closing up for me that night. I think they thought it was me.”
“Kate, you have to stay out of sight. You have to let these people protect you.”
“They are, Mom, they’re here. It’s just that—”
“How is she, honey?” Sharon asked. “Is she dead?”
“No, but it’s bad. She’s hanging on, but they’ve had to do a couple of surgeries. They just don’t know. Mom, I really need to see you guys.”
“I wish we could do that, Kate. I really do. There are some things I’ve been holding back for a long time now that you need to know. But, Kate—”
A male voice cut in on the line, instructing them that they had to hang up now.
“Mom!”
“Kate, stay safe. Do what they tell you. They’re making me go now. I love you, sweetie.”
Kate jumped up, cradling the phone with both hands. “Mom!” Tears filled her eyes. “Tell Justin and Em I love them. Tell them I miss them. That I want to see you soon.”
“We miss you, too, Kate.”
The line clicked off. Kate just sat there, letting the receiver fall in her lap. At least they were safe. That was the best news she could possibly have.
Then something occurred to her. Something important. Something Sharon had said that now, rolling it around in her brain, didn’t seem right.
Margaret Seymour. Cavetti had said that she’d been killed outside Chicago. Last Thursday. To gain information.
Thursday …
So how could her killer have used what he learned to find Kate’s father? He had disappeared the night before.
“Is my father dead, Agent Cavetti?”
Kate pushed through the doors of his office in the Javits Building at Federal Plaza and looked the WITSEC agent solidly in the eyes.
There were two other people there: Nardozzi, the angular Justice lawyer, and a tall, balding man with light red hair who remained in the corner. He was introduced as Special Agent Booth from the FBI.
“We just don’t know, Kate.” Cavetti met her eyes in turn.
“I think you do. My apartment was broken into last week. A bolt on the door that we never use was closed. At first I was worried someone might be after me. But then it occurred to me when all this started happening …”
Kate gazed at him accusingly. “Are my phones bugged, Agent Cavetti?”
“Kate.” The WITSEC man stood up and came around the desk. “You know that our agency has been compromised. One of our agents has been brutally murdered. Someone was trying to gain information from her. We know it was related to your father’s case.”
“But it turns out my father disappeared on Wednesday—isn’t that right, Agent Cavetti?” Kate demanded. “Margaret Seymour wasn’t killed until the following day. So I’m asking you again: Is my father dead?”
“Ms. Raab …” Nardozzi cleared his throat.
“Herrera.” Kate glared sharply. “You’re the ones who wanted me to change my name. It’s Herrera.”
“Ms. Herrera.” The lawyer stood up. “You should know that there are over forty-five hundred people currently protected in the Witness Protection Program. Many are ordinary people who simply wanted to do the right thing in the face of reprisal. Whistle-blowers, witnesses. Others are some of the best-known figures in organized crime. People who have brought down crime families. Helped create numerous convictions. Names that would be highly recognizable if they were divulged.”
“You’re still not answering my question,” Kate insisted.
“There are others”—the Justice Department prosecutor didn’t respond—“with whom the government has, at times, struck deals privately, who have helped us on a number of investigative fronts. The reliability of this protection”—he nodded for her to take a seat—“to offer a secure life to those who put themselves at risk for their testimony has become the backbone of the federal justice system as we know it today. It is why organized crime has been dealt a major blow in the past two decades. It is why major drug commerce has been significantly reduced. It may also very well be the reason this country has not been attacked again since 9/11.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” Kate sank into a chair across from them.
“Because, Ms. Herrera”—the FBI agent in the corner stepped forward—“your father purchased a cell phone a couple of weeks ago, under your brother’s name. That’s Justin, isn’t it?”
Surprised, Kate nodded, almost reflexively.
“There was no activity on it at first. That changed last Thursday. That was the day after your father disappeared. A call was placed to Chicago.”
Kate felt the slightest spark of hopefulness catch fire.
“The number that was called, Ms. Herrera,” the FBI man said, tossing a file on the table in front of her, “was Margaret Seymour’s secure line.”
Kate blinked. “I’m not understanding.” What were they trying to say, that her father was alive?
“Kate, a man matching your father’s description boarded a plane Wednesday night from a city that will remain nameless, heading for Minneapolis,” Phil Cavetti said, laying out some pages for her to see. “The ticket was made out to a Kenneth John Skinner, an insurance broker in Cranbury, New Jersey, who had reported his driver’s license stolen over two years ago. We ran your father’s likeness by various carrental agencies at the Minneapolis airport. A car was rented at the Budget office there, to the same Kenneth John Skinner, and returned there two days later by the same man. According to their records, the reading on the odometer was eight hundred and twenty miles.”
“Okay …” Kate nodded, unsure what to feel.
“Eight hundred and twenty miles, I’m pretty sure you’ll find, is the approximate driving distance from Minneapolis to Chicago and back.”
Kate stared. For a second there was a flicker of joy in her blood. They were saying that her father was alive!
Then it was crushed by their stony silence.
“There was a directional request input into the car’s GPS system, Kate. It was programmed for the Barrow Industrial Park, in Schaumburg, Illinois, a few miles outside of town.”
“Okay …” Kate’s heart was beating faster now.
Cavetti pushed a photo across to her. One of Margaret Seymour’s death-scene photos. “A vacant warehouse in the Barrow Industrial Park is where Margaret Seymour was murdered, Kate.”
Kate’s heart stopped. All of a sudden it came clear to her what they were thinking.
“No!”
“You already know your father went missing the day before Agent Seymour was killed. We believe