Baby Carter (Baby Grand Trilogy, Book 3) Read online

  “One of the reporters from CNN asked where you were,” he said. “You’re very popular, you know.”

  “Not really,” Jamie said modestly. “They only like me because I’ve got something they want. Access.”

  “Yeah, well, they didn’t take too kindly to your replacement. They hammered him about Monday, and the guy looked like he was going to have a coronary.” Bailino should have known that Jamie’s absence from the briefing that morning meant something was up. Damn country living. “How did they find the bomb?” he asked.

  “I can’t believe you’ve been here all this time,” Jamie said. “Has anyone recognized you?”

  “No. You’d think a person who was once at the top of the FBI’s Most Wanted List would elicit some stares, but most people around here put their heads down and mind their own business. In that way—and maybe the only way—this place reminds me of New York.”

  She was looking into his eyes now, and Bailino was trying to discern how she felt about his being alive—threatened or relieved. She was as beautiful as he remembered, but not quite as innocent. There was a weariness in her eyes that he recognized every time he looked in the mirror.

  “Sweetheart,” Bailino said, “I asked how they found the bomb.”

  “I found it.”

  Faith was standing near the dining room table, watching them.

  Bailino looked at Jamie, who nodded.

  “I hit the button, because it was big, big trouble,” Faith said. “I was playing hide-and-seek with Charlie …”

  “Charlie?” Bailino asked.

  “Charlotte Grand,” Jamie clarified.

  The little girl explained what had happened. She didn’t appear troubled, and Bailino wasn’t sure if that concerned him or made him happy. Most of the children he grew up with had learned to live with fear; they wore it like a badge that they forgot they had on.

  “Can I watch TV now?” she asked.

  “Of course, you can, cupcake.” Bailino picked up the remote control from the table, pointed it toward the TV, which sprang to life, and handed it to the little girl. “Nickelodeon is channel twenty-three.”

  “Wow, it’s different where we live,” she said. “Can I take off my shoes?”

  “You can do whatever you want,” Bailino said. “This is your house.”

  “It is?” Faith looked at Jamie.

  “That’s just an expression, sweetie,” Jamie said.

  “But it does say Carter on the mailbox, Momma.”

  “She’s got a point,” Bailino said with a smirk. “When you’re right, you’re right.”

  Faith grabbed another blueberry and hurried over to the couch. Jamie’s weary eyes followed her.

  “You must be exhausted,” Bailino said.

  “No, I’m okay,” she said, which he knew was a lie.

  “She doesn’t sleep a lot,” Faith called. She was kneeling backward on the couch, looking at them, her chin pressing into the sofa back.

  “Faith, no feet on someone’s couch,” Jamie said. “You know that.”

  “It’s fine,” Bailino said. “In fact …” He got up, went to a closet, and took out some folded blankets and pillows. “Both of you should just relax. It was a long trip. I’ll make up the bedroom for you.”

  “You really don’t have to go to all this trouble,” Jamie said. “I’m really not tired.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Bailino said, placing the blankets and pillows next to Faith on the sofa. “I’ll just leave them here.” He unfolded the blanket, tucking the corners neatly between the pillows.

  “C’mere, Momma, by me,” Faith said. “It’s comfy!”

  Jamie walked over to Faith and sat beside her. She leaned back. “It is comfortable.”

  “The salesman talked me into a set that was double the price of the one I wanted.”

  Bailino took Jamie and Faith’s bags into his bedroom and wheeled them into the corner. Then he changed the bed linens, cinching them tight, and fluffed the pillows. When he got back to the living room, Faith was sitting on the floor again and rubbing Lucky’s belly.

  “I told you,” Bailino said. “You’ll be stuck doing that all night.”

  “Is it a girl or a boy?” Faith asked.

  “She’s a girl,” Bailino said.

  “Look, Momma, she likes it,” Faith said with a smile. “Momma?”

  Bailino circled to the front of the couch. Jamie was sitting primly, her feet tucked underneath her, her head leaning on her hand. She was fast asleep.

  CHAPTER 8

  Wilcox rang the broken doorbell of the split-level home in Albany, New York. The mechanism was hanging by a wire against the storm door, and he had to stick his thumb inside the device in order to press it down. It had been more than three years since his last visit to this house, and he tried to remember if the home had made any kind of impression on him then, but he couldn’t recall. It certainly made an impression on him now, and not a good one.

  The lawn was mostly yellowed and dry despite a sprinkler that had been on so long there were puddles all along the grass. Sections had been dug up by some kind of animal, and a stack of ceramic tiles, which stood in the center of the cracked driveway, had toppled over, leaving several of the blue-and-white-patterned squares scattered along the lawn.

  No one answered, and Wilcox rang the doorbell again, wondering if the thing even worked at all. He thought about knocking, but, above him, a few shingles hung precariously over the doorframe, and the vibration might shake them loose. He was about to give it a try anyway when he heard a commotion inside: two people yelling back and forth, a man and a woman. He took out his badge from his jacket pocket. It had taken less time for Wilcox to become reinstated as an FBI agent than he spent at the Virginia DMV last month getting his driver’s license renewed.

  A woman brushed aside the browned curtains of a window next to the front door, and Wilcox held up the badge. The woman opened the door slightly.

  “Ma’am, my name is Paul Wilcox. I’m a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. You may remember me from the spring of 2014. I visited your home regarding a video recording your son had uploaded to the Internet, containing images of President Phillip Grand, then New York governor Phillip Grand.”

  The woman blinked in either surprise or disbelief, or perhaps general weariness, which would match the mood of the home. Her eyes looked at Wilcox’s badge and then back at him. “We already told law enforcement everything,” she finally said.

  “May I speak with your son, Samuel?”

  “Is this about the money?”

  “Money?” Wilcox asked.

  The woman shifted her feet. “I told him it weren’t right for him to be making money on it.”

  “You mean the video?”

  “I knew when that Phillip Grand became the president and all he’d finally come after us.”

  “Ma’am, monetization of a music video is perfectly legal. I’m not here for that. I just need to ask him a few questions. There has been further development since the last time we spoke.”

  The woman huffed and closed the door. Wilcox heard the chain guard slide, and she opened it wider this time and folded her arms. Her hair was a darker shade of brown than he remembered and her midsection appeared plumper, hanging over the waistband of her jeans, but he recognized her.

  “Samuel doesn’t live here anymore,” the woman said.

  “His registered address is here, ma’am.”

  “Yeah, he says my husband plays the TV too loud, and he can’t think.”

  “May I ask where he lives now?”

  “He’s been staying with a friend near the college. I think he was in France or something—the friend, I mean—but now he’s back. I don’t know for sure ’cause Samuel don’t tell me nuthin’.”

  “May I have that address, ma’am?”

  The woman shrugged. “I don’t know it, but I can tell you how to get there.”

  Wilcox took out his cell phone, and she detailed the direction
s, not by route numbers but by landmarks. Wilcox entered the information into his phone—a Hooters here, a Sunoco gas station there—and then asked, “Do you know the name of the person he’s living with, ma’am?”

  “Of course. Alex Campos. A Greek fella. Why, is he in trouble too?”

  “No, ma’am, no one’s in trouble. Thank you.”

  Wilcox stepped back down the path and worked his way across the lawn, careful not to step in any puddles.

  “If you see him, can you please tell him to call me?” the woman said. “He’s terrible with his phone. Teenagers … You know how they are.”

  Wilcox gave a short wave and got back into his car. It took only a few minutes for the Bureau to track down Alex Campos’s address, and he plugged it into his GPS and got back on the road.

  He drove for about fifteen minutes and found himself on the route alongside the property that once belonged to Upackk, Don Bailino’s award-winning factory. The land still looked untouched, the burnt-out factory remaining as it was last time he drove by, and Wilcox imagined it would remain so indefinitely until Faith Carter was of legal age. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an animal run into a patch of trees and imagined Bailino hiding out somewhere on this property in some kind of cave or forest area like an Al-Qaeda operative. However, Wilcox knew that wasn’t Bailino’s style. If Wilcox was right, wherever Bailino was, he was living it up.

  The GPS directions led Wilcox to a two-story home on a block of row houses just outside the SUNY Albany campus. The street was filled with parked cars and students playing catch and Frisbee, and Wilcox parked in front of a fire hydrant, which elicited some comments from a group of students sitting on a nearby porch. He walked a few houses down and up the short flight of steps matching the address he had on his phone. He couldn’t find a doorbell, so he knocked and pulled out his badge once again.

  “Can I help you?”

  A young man, whom Wilcox recognized as one of the students sitting across the street, approached him.

  “Yes, I’m looking for Samuel O’Connell. I was told he’s staying here.”

  “Yes, he’s staying with me. I’m Alex Campos.” The young man was tall and wiry with thick, bushy eyebrows and a square jaw. He stuck out his hand, but instead Wilcox held up his badge, and the young man dropped his arm to his side.

  “Do you know where Samuel is?” Wilcox asked. “I’d like to speak with him.”

  “Is he in trouble?”

  “Do you know where Mr. O’Connell is, young man?”

  “He’s in class, I think,” Alex said, suddenly appearing nervous. “I heard him in his room when I got back this morning, but didn’t see him leave. I had to get to class.”

  “When’s the last time you saw him?”

  “I was away for the weekend. Before I left, I guess. It must have been on Wednesday.”

  “May I?” Wilcox asked, motioning to the front door.

  Alex nodded and walked past Wilcox, opening the door. Wilcox imagined all the students’ doors were unlocked—all of them living in some kind of safe, youthful cocoon. Alex held the door open for Wilcox.

  “How long have you known Mr. O’Connell?” Wilcox asked, stepping inside the tiled entryway. A corkboard with advertisements and notices hung near two mailbox slots, and a basket of fake flowers was arranged on a radiator. Alex picked up a newspaper from the floor and started walking up a flight of stairs.

  “A couple of years, I guess. We’re both majoring in biology.” His answers were measured and thoughtful. “I used to hold video-game challenges when I was a freshman.” He turned back to look at Wilcox. “They’re these—”

  “I know what video-game challenges are, Mr. Campos.”

  Alex smiled the way a child does when he’s humoring a parent. “Well, Sam was a pro. He won so many of them that I had to ban him from participating, but he liked to watch, so he came anyway and used to crash here.” They walked toward the apartment door at the top of the stairway. “He said he had to get away from his mother. I don’t think they get along. I let him stay in the apartment while I studied abroad, since he was always over anyway, and he just kind of never left.”

  “Where did you study overseas?”

  “Germany.”

  Alex opened the door to his apartment. It was a mess, as Wilcox had expected a place inhabited by two male college students to be. The sink contained so many dishes that another pile had been started on the stovetop to handle the overflow.

  “I refuse to do them,” Alex said, motioning to the pile. “The rule is: You use it, you clean it. I was gone all weekend.” He pointed to a room in the front of the apartment. “That’s Sam’s room there.”

  The door was closed, but the sounds of the television show The Price Is Right could be heard through the door.

  Wilcox crossed the room and knocked on the door. He waited, but no one answered.

  “Yo, Samuel,” Alex called, standing beside Wilcox. He banged on the door so loudly that the woodwork peeled away from the wall. “Man, you need to open the door.”

  Wilcox put his ear to the door and listened. He tried the doorknob, which was locked. “You have insurance for this place?” he asked, taking a step back from the bedroom door.

  “Yeah, why?”

  Wilcox pulled out his gun, and Alex put his hands in the air as Wilcox kicked the doorknob, and the door flew open, the sound of Drew Carey’s voice filling the apartment.

  “Stay here, Mr. Campos,” Wilcox said and slowly peeked into the room.

  “No problem,” Alex said, backing away from the bedroom.

  A redheaded man was sitting at a computer station at the far end of the room near the window, his hand on a mouse. He didn’t move.

  “Mr. Campos?” Wilcox said.

  “Yes,” Alex called. Wilcox imagined the young man’s hands were still in the air.

  “You better call the police.”

  The computer screen facing him showed a game of solitaire—Samuel O’Connell appeared to be two moves away from winning his game. Wilcox kept the pistol in front of him as he circled the room until he was looking directly at the young man, whose hair had grown longer since the last time Wilcox had interviewed him. Long, scraggly bangs were now flanking the small bullet hole lodged in the center of his right eye socket.

  CHAPTER 9

  ToniAnne Cataldi sat on the couch painting her toenails and watching the end of Judge Judy as a teaser aired for the upcoming local news.

  “’Zo, I think they’re gonna show it.” She blew on her big toe, the hot air grazing her bent knee, and ran her finger along the top curve of the nail, wiping the excess deep red nail polish onto a dinner napkin that was crumpled on a paper plate next to her. “’Zo, did you hear me? Renzo!”

  “What?” Lorenzo emerged from the bedroom in a pair of tight gym shorts. “I’m working out.”

  “Do you have to do that shit in the bedroom? It’s gonna stink in there for hours now.”

  “I thought you loved my smell,” he said, sitting next to her, his sweaty arms grazing her leg.

  “Watch the toes, idiot,” she said, scooching toward the armrest. “I love your cologne. That’s different. Right now, you smell like a pig—and so will my sheets … Great. And what the fuck did you do to your chest?”

  “What?” He ran both his palms down his torso, the sweat smearing onto the top of his shorts. “It’s the new thing. It’s called manscaping.”

  “Well, I think you scaped too much off. You should let some hair grow back. I don’t want to feel like I’m committing statutory rape every time we fuck.”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever. What do you want? I have to do a few more reps.”

  ToniAnne pointed to the television as the staccato theme music of the news sounded and two anchors appeared on screen. “It’s the top story, I think.” She twisted the cap closed on the nail polish and put the paper plate and small bottle on the coffee table. She wiggled her feet in front of her, airing out her toes, as the words Breaking News floated
in front of them.

  “They really need new graphics,” Lorenzo said.

  “Shhh …”

  “We have breaking news …” said the Hispanic woman sitting behind the news desk.

  “Yeah, no kidding,” Lorenzo said.

  “Jesus, are you gonna watch or what?” ToniAnne said.

  “Our top story tonight …” the anchor said, putting on a serious face. “Samuel O’Connell, a college student from upstate New York, was found dead in off-campus housing outside of SUNY Albany. Our investigative reporter Seth Campbell has been following this story all day. Let’s go to him now. Seth?”

  “I can seriously do this job,” Lorenzo said.

  ToniAnne threw the crumpled up napkin at Lorenzo as Seth Campbell appeared on screen. The reporter nodded to the camera before he too put on a somber face.

  “Thank you, Susan.” Seth cleared his voice. “Samuel O’Connell’s mother said her son came to SUNY Albany to study biochemistry and molecular biology with dreams of becoming a forensic scientist …”

  ToniAnne paused the broadcast with the remote control. “Oh, brother …” she said, rolling her eyes. “That kid could barely string together a coherent sentence, and now he’s a brainiac?” Before Lorenzo could respond, she unpaused the television, and Seth continued.

  “Those who knew him referred to him as a gentle giant, a young man who kept to himself but had close friends. O’Connell gained international fame when he uploaded a video to YouTube a little more than three years ago of President Phillip Grand, then governor of New York, racing into a burning building to save Jamie Carter and her daughter, Faith—the same burning building that killed mobster Paolo Cataldi as well as Don Bailino, who had been at the top of the FBI’s Most Wanted List.”

  ToniAnne paused it again, reached for the napkin on Lorenzo’s lap, and dotted the corners of her eyes with it. “Yes, we know all this. How can we forget? You keep reminding us,” she said.

  “I thought we weren’t talking,” Lorenzo said.

  “Shut up.” She unpaused the television.

  “Although law enforcement has not yet released information on how Mr. O’Connell died, sources tell us that foul play is suspected.”