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“I believe it’s worth our best shot. I keep thinking of Metcalf and Cynthia and all those other agents. You should be, too.”
“You know I am, and I always will. But I need proof, Kendra.” He cut the connection.
Kendra turned to Lynch. “You heard him; we’ve got three days.”
“And you managed Griffin very well. I could even detect a certain softening. Amazing.”
“I only got three days. He’ll be tougher if I have to go back and plead my case again.”
“I have faith in you. But just in case, we’d better get busy. Drop me off at your condo. I have to pick up my car so that I can chase down a few prison contacts that might help with info.”
“You show up in that car and your prison contacts might take it away from you,” she said dryly.
“Attempt to,” he corrected. “But that would only make it more interesting. They’d be much more likely to furnish me with anything I wanted afterward.”
“You’re not inviting me to come along?”
“You might be a distraction. After all, I let you question Tricia.”
She shrugged. “Then I’ll go my own way. I do have my own informants.”
“Really? Who?”
“Jackie Gabert. A perfectly charming woman who might be a wealth of information about Barrett. She’s one of the persons of interest the FBI told me about when Griffin had them fill me in on Barrett’s background.”
“If you thought she’d be a wealth of information, you would have told me about her sooner. You didn’t even bother to tell me about her.”
She made a face. “Because the FBI has eliminated her as either a Barrett accomplice or someone of interest in the suicide/murders in Pine Valley. She had cast-iron alibis and wasn’t around at the time Barrett was having his killing sprees. At first, I thought I might be able to squeeze her for information, but I didn’t even want to talk to her after they told me her background.”
“Indeed? What is her background?”
“She was Barrett’s fiancée. Evidently, she is one of those women who become fascinated by criminals in prison. She wrote him and then she visited him constantly during the first few months after he was arrested and still being allowed visitors. Later when the charges started piling up, they stopped all visitations, but by that time they were engaged.”
“Maybe shecantell you something,” Lynch said. “He might have spilled his guts when true love struck.”
“That’s why I’ll go see her this afternoon. But I can’t imagine Barrett telling her anything that might hurt his chances in court. Maybe he was just trying to set her up to help break him out.” She grimaced. “She must be either a criminal herself or a complete nutcase. The idea of her wanting to get close to a homicidal maniac like Barrett makes me shudder.”
“Maybe you’ll get lucky, and she’ll turn you down for an interview,” Lynch said. “Or maybe she’ll convince you that everyone was wrong about him, and she’s going to write a million-dollar tell-all book that will prove it to the entire world.”
“I’ll take option number one,” Kendra said gloomily. She’d drawn up in front of the condo and watched him get out of the car. “I’ll call you later and tell you how it went.”
“I can hardly wait.” He waved and disappeared down the ramp leading to the garage.
Stop hesitating.Tricia only had three days. Kendra sighed and reached for her phone.
***
“Adam Lynch, get your ass in here.”
Lynch smiled. He was on the sidewalk outside the closed Sapphire Dance Club when a familiar woman’s voice boomed from a pair of speakers over the glass front doors. He’d know that Filipina accent anywhere.
He looked up at the overhead security camera. “The door’s locked, Ula. Exactly how am I supposed to get my ass in?”
The door buzzed, and he heard the lock disengage. Lynch pulled on the door and entered the empty nightclub.
It was dark except for a few spotlights over the long bar. Oddly, the club appeared smaller than it did when packed with hundreds of drinking and dancing revelers, as it was almost every night of the week.
“Welcome, Adam Lynch!” Ula appeared in a stairwell doorway at the back of the club. She was a well-coiffed Filipina in her seventies who on this afternoon wore a formfitting purple dress. Thirty years before, Ula had run one of Manila’s most ruthless criminal organizations, but she’d left that life behind to pursue her dream of owning a club in America. Her stateside activities still weren’t completely legal, but law-enforcement agencies largely left Ula alone due to her willingness to share information when needed.
