I pause and zoom in on his face. My phone rings instantly.
“Firstly, there’s a donkey in the circus room—do not watch that video. Secondly, we have a problem with the facial recognition.”
I wonder if he knows the person I am looking at.
“I have six senators, three princes, five bishops, a cardinal, twelve actors, several Supreme Court judges, and the list is just growing. This is insane. We can’t even take this to anyone.”
“Is the vice president on here?”
“No. Not that I’ve seen.” Antoine sounds weird.
“What?” I ask, scared of the answer.
He sighs. “The president is.”
“No wonder the security is so high.” I shake my head. “There’s no way the vice president sent us there with FBI agents and knew about the footage or about the place.”
“Unless he wants us to think that.”
I nod. “Which is why I asked if his name was on there.”
“I feel like we have bitten off more than we can chew.”
A chuckle escapes my lips, but it’s almost a sob. “I know we have. You know what I’m staring at right now?”
“Yeah.”
I narrow my gaze, running my hands through my hair. “You know who that is?”
“I do. Took me a minute to realize who it wasn’t, though. That scared me.”
“Then you know what that means?”
“I do.”
I purse my lips. “I hate this fucking case.” I hang up the phone and sigh, not even sure what to do but thankfully unable to do anything because I have to go to Tanner and find the kid of the deceased and creepy Dick Russell.
My phone rings. “Hey!” I answer Dash and close the screen on my laptop.
“When are we heading back to DC?”
I look down at the closed computer screen. “We are not heading back. I am fully assigned to this case until it is solved. I’m working with the FBI, and I won’t be done till it’s done.”
“Ang and I are headed back now, then. She’s a mess. And even worse, we have been reassigned. They’ve closed us down. This has hit international shit lists.”
I wince. “Of course she is, and of course it has.” I haven’t been there for her at all, and the week doesn’t look like it’s going to improve much.
“No, you don’t understand. The bed in the damned apartment she has been staying in is the black metal bed. She never even noticed it before. But the pieces are falling into place. They are all coming together for her. He painted it, but the paint wasn’t made for metal beds and has started chipping away. Forensics came, and of course the handprints are still there. Rory and Ashley’s handprints are on the bed, like a filthy souvenir. He never wiped it down. The mattress is the same one. He let the FBI use it as a safe-house bed, knowing full well girls had been raped and tormented on it.”
My stomach clenches. “Oh God.”
“Yeah, so I’m taking her home. She’s being reassigned to a section with lab work only, no patients to supervise. She’ll get to spend some quiet time on her own. I am being sent to DC, reassigned also.”
“Okay, well, wow. I’m headed to Tanner to speak to the daughter, the adopted one. Then I will be doing some analysis of my own.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “I don’t know how you do this, how you’ve spent your life doing this. Seeing this type of hell every day. Going to war and being an agent, I just—I have so much more respect for you, Jane Spears. More than ever.” He sounds affected or emotional. “I love you so much.” It’s not that every other I love you hasn’t been sincere, but this one is the most sincere.
I glance down at the huge rock on my hand and smile. He’s my forever. “I love you too.” I hang up and sigh, completely unsure of what to do about who I saw on the computer and how I will tell him about it. I turn the movie back on and watch the scene from the circus, not because I want to but because I need to. I need to be as disgusted as I can for what I have to do.
The trip to Tanner takes an hour and a half longer than I expect because of traffic. It’s bananas. Henrico comes, but Stanley stays behind to keep an eye on the son and daughter of Old Dick.
We finally pull into the driveway of a small home and sit there for a second. “So, your dad has a billion dollars, and yet you live in a middle-of-the-road home?” Henrico gives me a look.
“Yeah, weird.” We get out and walk up to the house. I knock loudly. A small woman with fuzzy blonde hair and a wide smile answers the door. “Hi, can I help you?”
“We are looking for Amanda Russell.” I pull my badge so she doesn’t slam the door in my face.