Baby Carter (Baby Grand Trilogy, Book 3) Page 17

  As Jamie and Faith disappeared into the crowd of tourists, Bailino believed he was watching two of only three people in the world who knew who he really was. The third was living only a couple of miles away in one of those pretty white buildings.

  CHAPTER 23

  Phillip sat at his desk in the Oval Office, reading the tax bill for the third time—a bill that had received overwhelming support in Congress and that he knew had senators eagerly awaiting his signature—but his mind was elsewhere. He looked at his watch. Jamie would be arriving anytime.

  Phillip had been surprised and relieved to hear from her. All she said was that she and Faith were fine, that she needed Phillip to have both her apartment and Edward’s home cleared by security, which made sense, given they still didn’t know what was going on, and that she needed to speak with him—and she needed to do it in person.

  For a moment, Phillip considered not telling Katherine or Wilcox, but after he had finally come clean and confessed his involvement in the events of spring 2014, he didn’t want to start again on the wrong foot. He promptly reported the call to Katherine, Brandon, and Wilcox, asking them to give him some time with Jamie to sort through what had happened before any official inquiry. Katherine and Brandon were kind enough to comply. Wilcox wasn’t.

  “She’s late,” Wilcox said from one of the sofas. He clipped his cell phone back onto his belt when there was a knock at the door.

  *****

  Although it was Saturday evening, Jamie Carter had the unremarkable look of business, wearing a plaid skirt that ran just above the knee and a black V-neck sweater that was neither too tight nor too loose. Her long brown hair was tied into a neat ponytail, and she held a clipboard in her hands along with her cell phone, as if reporting for duty. If Wilcox hadn’t known better, he would have assumed she was in the middle of a routine day in the Oval Office rather than having just returned from a rendezvous with a wanted felon.

  Jamie smiled warmly at Phillip Grand and looked as if she were about to give him a hug before noticing Wilcox standing there. She nodded in Wilcox’s direction and stuck out her hand.

  “Agent Wilcox,” she said. “It’s been a long time. It’s good to see you.”

  “It has.” Her handshake was firmer than he remembered. “How was your trip?”

  The question was intentional, to catch her off guard, and he thought he would have caught the slightest facial tick or body gesture, but there was neither. Either Jamie Carter had nothing to hide, or she had learned a lot about the psychology of deception in the past few years.

  “Please, let’s sit down,” Phillip said, motioning to the sofas.

  Jamie sat on the sofa across from Wilcox, which put them face to face, while Phillip Grand positioned himself in a chair between them, forming the third point of the human triangle. They sat quietly for a few moments, a palpable tension hanging in the air, until Jamie broke the silence. “I think Collins is happy to see me.” She smiled.

  “I think that’s an understatement,” Phillip said, also smiling. “He’s been working round the clock.”

  Smiling, Wilcox thought. Everyone is smiling.

  “How’s Faith?” the president asked.

  “She’s good,” Jamie replied. “She just—”

  “If we can cut short the small talk,” Wilcox said. He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “Jamie, I would like to know where you’ve been for the past few days.” If Wilcox had had any delusions that Jamie would be startled by the interruption, he was wrong. Her penetrating calmness remained.

  “Faith and I took a drive out west,” she said.

  “To Wyoming?” Wilcox asked.

  Jamie glanced at Phillip Grand, who appeared like he wanted to protect her as much as question her. “Yes,” she said, “we stayed in Cody, Wyoming.”

  Wilcox hesitated. His professional instincts were to treat Jamie as a possible suspect in a crime, to grill her as if she were in an FBI interrogation room. However, he had grown fond of the Carters and had gotten to know both Jamie and Edward quite intimately in the years following her abduction. And, yet, the woman sitting in front of him seemed like a stranger. “Why Wyoming?” he asked.

  “I wanted to get Faith as far away from Washington as I could.”

  It wasn’t quite the answer Wilcox had been hoping for. “And you happened to end up in Cody, Wyoming, Ms. Carter?” he asked, realizing he hadn’t called her Ms. Carter in years.

  “No, I didn’t just end up there,” Jamie said. “I went to a place that Bailino had told me about three years ago when we were on the run from Paolo Cataldi.”

  “We?” Wilcox asked. “When we were on the run?”

  “Yes,” she said. “At the time, he said it was a safe place, a place that no one knew about. I took a chance that it was still there and still available to us.”

  “You’re telling me that, in this entire country, you believed that was the only safe place? Thirty-three Cooper Court?” Wilcox blurted the address with authority. He wanted her to know that he knew exactly where she had been. Again, she was unrattled.

  “To be honest, Agent Wilcox, I wasn’t thinking straight. I just knew I needed to get away—to get Faith away—from the White House, from D.C.” She looked at the president. “Please forgive me for abandoning you, sir, when you might have needed me most.”

  “Please,” Phillip said with a wave of his hand. “It’s nothing. You did what you thought was right.” He got up, put his hand on Jamie’s arm, and sat beside her on the sofa—a clear indication, in Wilcox’s mind, of what side he was on.

  “So I drove there, and when I got there, well …” She looked directly at the president now. “He was there.”

  “Who was there?” Wilcox asked, wanting her to say the name.

  “Bailino,” she said plainly.

  Phillip sat back on the couch, appearing astonished, as if Wilcox’s earlier pronouncements weren’t enough to have him believe Bailino was alive and that he was finally coming to terms with the truth.

  “He had been hiding. He had,” Jamie lifted her left arm, “no hand on his arm. He cut it off back in 2014, at the Barbara farmhouse, to escape and to throw off law enforcement.”

  Wilcox’s blood was pumping so hard it pulsed in his ears. “Where is he?” he asked, standing up.

  “I don’t know,” she said, maintaining eye contact with Wilcox.

  “Think very carefully about how you answer, Ms. Carter,” Wilcox said, leaning toward her and placing his hands on his hips. If Jamie Carter was playing the body language game, so would he.

  “I don’t know,” she said again.

  “Ms. Carter, why didn’t you contact law enforcement the moment you realized that Don Bailino was alive?” Wilcox had begun pacing in front of the sofa like a tiger in a cage.

  “Because I was afraid.”

  “Of Don?” Phillip asked.

  Jamie shook her head. “No, of whatever was happening here. I didn’t know what was going on. Neither did he.”

  “Really?” Wilcox unsuccessfully tried to hide the sarcasm from his voice. “Why do I find that convenient?”

  “Agent Wilcox,” Phillip Grand said, standing up so that they were eye to eye. “This isn’t an inquisition.”

  “Nor is it a reunion,” Wilcox said. “Mr. President, do you really think it’s a coincidence that in the same week we find an explosive device in the White House we also find out that one of the world’s deadliest criminals is still alive?” He peered down at Jamie. “Where is he?” he asked again, trying to keep his voice calm.

  “I don’t know.” She placed her clipboard on the sofa and stood up, the three of them in a tight circle. “And if you know Bailino in the way you say you do, you’ll know that he wouldn’t tell me where he was going.”

  “How did you get back to the East Coast?” Wilcox asked.

  “I’m assuming you know my rental car is back in Wyoming.”

  “Don’t worry about what I know. Please just answer the question.�
��

  “Bailino drove us and dropped us off,” she said.

  “He was here? In D.C.?” Wilcox asked. “Where?”

  “Around 800 F Street Northwest.”

  “Near the International Spy Museum …” Wilcox said, unclipping his cell phone from his belt. “How poetic.” Presumably, it had been hours since Jamie and Faith had allegedly been dropped off, so any lead on Bailino would have already fizzled. Jamie Carter had managed to dutifully report to the president as soon as she was back in town, but she had also dutifully given Don Bailino enough time to escape. “What kind of car was Bailino driving?”

  “It was a black truck with a flatbed,” Jamie said. “Something nondescript. I’m not sure of the make or model.”

  “You drove cross-country in the damn thing, and you don’t know the make or model?”

  “Agent Wilcox …” the president warned.

  “Mr. President, look, if what Ms. Carter is telling us is true, it means she had every opportunity to contact the authorities and turn Bailino in. She didn’t. That makes her guilty of … let’s see,” he ticked each off on his fingers, “aiding and abetting a fugitive, obstructing justice, and we can throw in accessory to the attempted assassination of the president of the United States.”

  “Agent Wilcox …” Phillip Grand was getting more and more agitated. “Why on earth would—”

  “He told me he knew who did it,” Jamie said, “who placed the explosive device in the White House and also in Bethesda, near Walter Reed.”

  The words sent Wilcox’s brain into high gear. “Who?” he asked. “Who is it, Ms. Carter?”

  This was the first question for which Wilcox detected a slight pause before Jamie’s answer. “I don’t know,” she said.

  Wilcox threw up his hands. “This is ridiculous. Ms. Carter, you realize the amount of resources that were spent on you by the federal government to keep you and your daughter safe from the man you are apparently trying to protect?”

  “Agent Wilcox,” Jamie said, her tone and her expression even but sincere. “Please try to understand. We are on the same side.”

  “And what side is that?” Wilcox said.

  “He told me to tell you—to tell both of you—that he will take care of it.”

  It was as if a jolt of electricity shot through Wilcox. “He told you to say that to me?”

  “You, specifically,” she said. “He knew that you had been reinstated and that you would be working the case.”

  Wilcox imagined an underground room in Bailino’s log cabin with FBI investigators adorning his walls in the way that organized crime members dotted Wilcox’s. “And just what are we supposed to do? All go on vacation while Bailino takes care of everything?” Wilcox asked.

  “He said he would get word to me when things were safe,” she said.

  “How?” Wilcox asked, quickly adding. “Don’t answer that. Let me guess … You don’t know.” Wilcox swiped his phone.

  “What are you doing?” the president asked.

  “I’m going to tell my men to check out the surveillance video outside the Spy Museum. Maybe we can get a plate number, and we’ll take it from there.” He glared at Jamie. “Do me a favor and stick around,” he said. “No more road trips.”

  Without another word, he left the Oval Office and strode through the White House, past the staff members and agents, and out the front door toward FBI HQ at the J. Edgar Hoover Building. The streets were empty, the nighttime air cool and calm and in stark contrast to the heat being generated in Wilcox’s body. Why is everyone protecting this man, he thought to himself, this cold-blooded killer with an apparent heart of gold. Despite the revelation that Bailino was alive and possibly in the D.C. area, he felt like he was no closer to catching the damn guy. Yet, he was sure of one thing: if this man who had charmed a president, and perhaps even a nation, was ever going to be apprehended, Wilcox was going to have to do it himself.

  *****

  “You all right?” Phillip asked Jamie once Wilcox had left.

  Jamie sat back down on the sofa to pick up her clipboard and cell phone. She had done everything Bailino had asked, but was having second thoughts. On the road, on the run, with survival instincts kicking in, it had all made sense, but now that she was back at the White House, beside the president, and on the side of law and order, she wondered if she was making a mistake.

  “I’m fine,” she shrugged. “It was to be expected.”

  Phillip sat down on the sofa next to her. “It’s going to be all right, you know,” he said, in that fatherly way, the same words Bailino had said to her only hours ago. “Although,” he motioned to her cell phone, “I’d be careful when making or receiving calls with that thing, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do.” She gave a small smile.

  “How’s Faith?” he asked.

  His kind eyes were so different from Bailino’s and yet filled her with a similar sense of comfort. “She’s fine. We’re going to be staying at Edward’s for the time being.” Jamie pressed the clipboard against her chest. “I really meant what I said. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here.” The swelling on the president’s forehead filled her with guilt.

  “Oh,” he said, touching his bruise, “this old thing? I’m all right. Katherine has me on bed rest. She made me promise I’d go straight upstairs and to bed after meeting with you.” He motioned to her clipboard. “Are you planning on working tonight?”

  Jamie nodded. “If it’s all right. I need to focus on something else for a while. I won’t be long.”

  “Understood,” he said, and they both stood up and made their way toward the Oval Office door. Phillip opened it. “How is … he?” he asked.

  “Okay, considering.” She stepped over the threshold. “Seeing him was like seeing a ghost.”

  “Does he really think he can stop this thing?” he asked, closing the door behind them. The outer offices were dark and muted; the president’s soft-spoken voice echoed across the corridor.

  “That’s what he says.”

  “And you believe him?”

  Jamie shrugged. “Wouldn’t you?”

  CHAPTER 24

  Bailino sat down in the empty train car, slipping the train ticket and fraudulent credit card into his pocket, and pulled the lid of his baseball cap down. He didn’t expect the authorities to find his truck in the Amtrak station parking lot for another few hours, and his plan was to try to get some sleep. He pushed his duffel bag under his legs as the train pulled out from the station and checked his phone for any news updates as a woman wearing a tight skirt slid into the seat across from him and pulled out a tablet. She smiled.

  “The train’s empty tonight,” she said as she placed her things on the seat next to her. “I guess everyone’s already gotten where they needed to go.”

  He nodded politely and shifted in his seat away from the camera lens of her tablet, which was adorned with various cartoon stickers. She caught him looking.

  “These are my son’s. He’s two. Do you have any children?”

  Bailino nodded. “A daughter,” he said.

  She smiled. “There’s nothing like it, right? Being a parent.”

  She glanced at the end of his left arm, presumably looking for a wedding ring, but he had his arm tucked into his pocket. He had a feeling that she would be surprised to know that not only didn’t he have a wedding ring, but he didn’t have any finger to put one on. Her left ring finger, on the other hand, was intact—and unadorned.

  “Are you from New York?” she asked, and Bailino knew that for the next two hours he wasn’t going to get to sleep at all.

  *****

  By the time the train reached Manhattan’s Penn Station, Bailino knew just about everything there was to know about Deidre, the girl on the train—the area of Manhattan she lived in, how her brother was in rehab for a prescription drug addiction, how she feared her son had autism because he wasn’t talking yet. It always fascinated him how much information people divulged to a perfect stranger. Ba
ilino, of course, had said very little, but Deidre didn’t seem to notice. He found that most people didn’t nowadays—they seemed to want to talk more than listen.

  “Well, it was nice talking to you,” Deidre said when the train stopped.

  “You too,” Bailino said, wrapping his duffel bag over his head with his right hand and keeping his left arm artfully out of sight. “Which way are you heading?”

  She perked up when he showed interest. “Thirty-Fourth Street.”

  “So am I,” Bailino lied. “We can walk together.”

  As they passed the police officers and National Guardsmen patrolling Penn Station, he kept close to Deidre and put a smile on his face as she told him about her sister’s colonoscopy for some digestion problems she was having. Smiling couples didn’t attract the attention of law enforcement the way single people—particular men walking alone with duffel bags—tended to. They crossed into the Long Island Railroad station, where a saxophonist had attracted a sizable crowd, and then up an escalator to the street level where the Saturday evening noises and smells of New York City greeted them with the excitement of a frat party.

  “Are you going cross town?” she asked.

  “No,” he pointed the other way, “I’m going west, but it was nice traveling with you.” She lingered a moment, waiting, he knew, for him to ask for her telephone number. After quickly weighing the pros and cons, he decided it would be best to leave on a positive note. “Do you mind if I take your number?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she said excitedly. “Should I text it to your phone?”

  “Nah, I’ll remember it,” he said, and she dictated it to him. “Until we meet again.”

  “I look forward to it,” she said as he turned west on Thirty-Fourth Street, slipping into the pedestrian traffic and expecting never to see Deirdre or hear about her medically challenged family again.