Page 62 of Operation: Reckless Angel

BT’s gaze focused hard on her. “Is there a question in that statement?”

“You have access,” she said, still not asking a question. “Without a warrant.”

“Yes,” BT confirmed. “I’m going to predict that every dime Amanda Elsworth’s husband allowed her to spend was on a credit card where he could track and control it. He wouldn’t have given her cash that she could squirrel away and flee on.”

“No, most controlling and abusive husbands severely limit their wife’s access to cash.”

“That makes it easier for us. I’m pushing through two programs for you to access. Your first name, first letter capitalized, is your temporary password. Let’s get started.”

***

“What did Shepherd want?” Roth asked Jackson after they were inside the car, pulling out of the hotel’s parking lot.

“He wanted my take on Briana Woods. He’s authorized her to have a great deal of access to our systems and several of our team members. And she hasn’t been asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement, yet.”

“Yet,” Roth repeated. “Is there one forthcoming?”

Jackson nodded. “Do you think she’ll sign it?”

“That should have happened before she was given access,” Roth pointed out.

“I’ll tell Shepherd you think he fucked up by not requiring it first,” Jackson said with a laugh.

Roth laughed too. “No, don’t tell him that. And yeah, I think she’ll sign it, even after the fact. She’s one of the good guys.”

“I think so too,” Jackson agreed. “Shepherd also determined that from the report on her in November, from you and the team that was onsite. That’s why she was given the access before she signed the NDA. She had a high security clearance when she was an MP and Shepherd, of course, reviewed her entire service file.”

Of course he had. Roth knew Shepherd was thoughtful in all he did. He overlooked nothing. He fucked nothing up. Briana Woods was a good bet, or he wouldn’t have sanctioned this mission, let alone allowing her anywhere near their systems or their personnel.

“I thought you’d have more to say,” Jackson spoke after several quiet minutes.

“Just thinking,” Roth said. “If Shepherd is agreeable, it might not be a bad idea to bring Evie into the discussion about Amanda Elsworth. She could have valuable insights into who Amanda Elsworth may have trusted if BT and Briana can’t identify the possible friend who was supposed to help Amanda slip away.”

“Even if Evie can’t help us identify the who, maybe she could tell us what characteristics would have made a person trusted by her, not that Evie was in the same situation. Evie’s friend, Rose Hale, would be a better surrogate for Amanda Elsworth, as she was in a situation closer to the one Amanda was in than Evie,” Jackson said.

“True, but I’m sure Evie has better insight into it than any of us,” Roth said.

“Let’s see what BT and Briana come up with and we’ll loop in Evie if we need to. I’m sure neither Shepherd nor BT would object.”

The two men drove in relative silence, heading north on I-95 the remainder of the way until they reached Exit 109, Augusta and Winthrop. They knew the County Sheriff’s Office was in Augusta, but they headed west to check out the home and boat house, northwest of Winthrop, where Briana saw her client’s body dumped.

The GPS led them down remote, narrow country roads with very few homes on them. The landscape was predominantly wooded acres that stretched as far as the eye could see, occasionally broken by streams and lakes, which were barely identifiable under all the snow cover.

When they turned onto a dead-end road, the GPS no longer showed a road existed. They knew they were close. Five minutes later, after multiple twists and turns, the boathouse, just as Briana described, came into view, the house several hundred yards beyond it. They parked beside the boathouse as Briana had, and then gazed at the edge of the lake, calculating the view she’d had through a curtain of snow.

“There’s no way she mistook what she saw from here,” Jackson said. “Even if it was snowing as heavy as fuck, she had a front-row view.”

“Yeah, not that I doubted her for a second. You heard her voice when she called me, right?”

“Yes. She was desperate to have an open line in case she was seen and approached. I don’t know the lady like you do, but she could not have faked that voice,” Jackson said.

“She told me that she knew she couldn’t do anything to save Amanda Elsworth if she’d been alive when she was dumped into the water and that was the worst part of it. Briana Woods doesn’t like being helpless. That came through loud and clear to me.”

Jackson backed out of the partially plowed drive beside the boathouse and took a drive up towards the house. “The nearest neighbor back the way we came is two miles away.” He paused the vehicle in front of the two-story gray home. All the curtains and blinds were closed.

“It looks well maintained,” Roth said. “Not overly inviting, though.”

Jackson chuckled. “You writing a real estate listing for it?”

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