The two blondes giggled and the tall one said, “Actually, her name is Alesha, but she hates that, so we shortened it to Lisa.”
“Well, my name is really Virginia,” the dark-eyed girl told them, only it came out as though it was a competition, and she needed to outdo her new friends.
“No way,” the blondes said in practiced unison.
“My dad thought it would be cute since we’re from Virginia. Which, by the way, my dad would kill me if he knew I was attending this sort of thing tonight. He hates this kind of stuff.” This she said to Alice, and like the name thing, she made it sound like a challenge instead of a simple statement.
Justin watched for Alice’s reaction. This girl wasn’t exactly a prize recruit, and Justin wondered why Alice had even invited her to stay for the prayer rally. Already Ms. Ginny-my-name-is-really-Virginia was showing signs of doubt. That was supposed to be a big red flag. Next there would be questions. Father hated questions.
“We can’t always rely on our parents to guide us in the correct direction,” Alice told her with a smile, sounding like a mother herself, and the girl nodded, pretending to know exactly what Alice meant, because Alice was too cool to disagree with or contradict.
Justin crossed his arms over his chest. It was all he could do to keep from rolling his eyes.
A scuffle at the bottom of the steps made them all jerk around, the girls rocking on ridiculous platform shoes while trying not to fall down the steps. Justin got to his feet, climbing a few more steps to get a better look. Down below, a James Dean look-alike was shoving at an older guy while he tried to yank the man’s camera out of his hands.
“Wow! He’s really cute,” the one called Ginny managed to say without a squeal.
Justin sat back down with a sigh of frustration that no one noticed. Leave it to fuckin’ Brandon to steal all the attention.
CHAPTER 8
Ben Garrison knew a thing or two about causing pain. The kid was younger and taller, but Ben knew he was stronger and definitely wiser. This hothead would last about five seconds if Ben shot a hand to his throat and squeezed in just the right place.
“No fucking reporters, Garrison. How many times do we have to tell you that?” the kid screamed at him.
He grabbed at Ben’s Leica, managing to yank the strap wrapped around Ben’s neck. The 35 mm camera was almost as old as Ben and probably tougher. Hell, it had survived a stampede of caribou in Manitoba and getting dropped in an Egyptian sand dune. It could certainly survive some pissed off religious freak.
“Why no reporters? What is your precious leader afraid of? Huh?” Ben egged him on. He knew this kid from the short visit he had paid to their camp at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains. Hell, he even kind of liked the kid. From what he had seen in the past, this kid, this Brandon, had a lot of passion, a lot of fire in his belly, but he didn’t have a clue as to what to do with it.
Brandon swiped at the camera again, and this time Ben gave him a shove that sent him onto his backside. Now the kid’s red face almost matched his red, goop-backed hair. He looked up at Ben like a bull, revving up and getting ready to charge. Ben could see his nostrils flaring and his hands balling into fists.
“Give it up, kid.” Ben laughed at him and snapped a couple of shots to prove the kid couldn’t rattle him. “Reverend Everett may have tossed me out of his hideout, but he isn’t gonna get rid of me that easy. Why doesn’t he send a real man to do a real man’s job?”
Brandon was back on his feet, his jaw and teeth clenched, his hands ready at his sides. Ben imagined little clouds of steam coming out of his ears like in the comic strips. The kid would need more than those accompanying bubbles of “Pow” and “Wham” to scare off Ben Garrison. Hell, he had survived an Aborigine’s blow dart and a Tutsi’s swipe of a machete. Like the Leica, he had seen a few death battles before, and this wasn’t one of them. Not even close. Poor kid. And with all his precious little friends watching. But there was no Reverend Everett to swoop in and save the souls of his little lost fools.
A crowd had gathered, hiking up the Jefferson Memorial steps to get a better look, but they kept their distance. Even the gang of young men, the redhead’s gang, circled like dogs in heat, but yellow-bellied dogs that stayed out of the way. Ben scratched his bristled jaw, bored with the whole thing. He had spent the afternoon getting some lame shots of tight-assed, hipless nymphettes. A few he had recognized. One he had even followed for a while, hoping for a risqué Enquirer shot, to embarrass her big-shot daddy. He’d stay and get a few of the prayer rally, with the precious, fucking Reverend Joseph Everett in action. This poor excuse of a rebel without a cause wouldn’t stop him. They couldn’t stop him, especially if they insisted on using public property.
He walked up several steps, leaving the hothead to snort and stomp and pretend to be choosing the godly thing of turning the other cheek. In the distance, Ben could see people starting to flock to the FDR Memorial.
It surprised him that Everett had chosen this spot for his rally in the District, especially over the Jefferson Memorial. Jefferson seemed more in tune with Everett’s philosophy of individual freedoms and limited government. Hell, hadn’t FDR put into place some of the very government programs Everett abhorred? The good reverend was a complicated piece of shit. But Ben was determined to expose the bastard for what he really was. And it would take more than this hotheaded punk to stop him.
CHAPTER 9
FBI Headquarters Washington, D.C.
Maggie waited for Keith Ganza to finish the work she had interrupted. He was used to her barging into his lab at FBI headquarters, whether invited or not—usually not. And although he grumbled about it, she knew he didn’t mind, even late on a Saturday afternoon when everyone else had already called it a day and left.
As the head of the FBI crime lab, Ganza had seen more in his thirty-plus years than any one person should ever see. Yet he seemed to take it all in stride, unruffled—unlike his outward appearance—by any of it. As Maggie waited and watched his tall, thin frame hunched over a microscope, she wondered if she had ever seen him in anything other than a white lab coat, or rather a yellowed-at-the-collar, wrinkled lab coat with sleeves too short for his long arms.
Maggie knew she shouldn’t be here—she should wait for the official report. But four-year-old Abby’s tenacity had only strengthened Maggie’s resolve to find out who was responsible for Delaney’s murder. Which reminded her—she pulled out a string of red licorice Abby had given her and began unwrapping it. Ganza stopped at the sound of crinkling plastic and glanced up at her over the microscope and over his half glasses that sat at the end of his nose. He looked at her with a familiar frown, one that remained in place, whether he was delivering a joke, talking about evidence or, in this case, staring at her impatiently.
“I haven’t eaten today,” she offered as an explanation.
“There’s half a tuna salad sandwich in the frig.”
She knew his offer to be generous and sincere, however, she had never gotten used to eating anything that had spent time on a shelf next to blood and tissue samples.
“No, thanks,” she told him. “I’m meeting Gwen in a little while for dinner.”
“So you buy licorice to tide you over?” Another frown.
“No. I got this at Agent Delaney’s funeral.”
“They were handing out red licorice?”
“His daughter was. Are you ready for me to interrupt you yet?”
“You mean you haven’t already?”
Her turn to frown. “Very funny.”
“I’m getting the file to