Page 46 of A More Perfect Union

Zoey filed thatinformation away as she made her way back to her office. The reference to theUS Army Ranger’s motto in Mitchell’s letter—Rangers lead the way—had beenscratching at the edge of her mind since she’d read the words. It was such anodd way to sign off any kind of letter, let alone a final missive, and shewondered if Mitchell had been trying to send her some sort of message withthose last words.

She did plan to talkto Donny Bloomfield again, but she didn’t want to ask him questions aboutMitchell’s suicide with Dixon sitting next to her. Sharp had said Dixon wasassigned to help her find her way around, but that she was in charge. After herwhirlwind start, she knew her way around well enough. It might be time to ditchDixon and do the interviews with just Rook.

No, not a good idea.She needed to figure out the meaning of Mitchell’s message on her own. Sherummaged in her desk for a pen and paper to make some notes and she uncovered abusiness card. Major John “Jack” Riley, Intelligence. She remembered his wordsfrom her first day, which seemed so long ago.This place can be a littlecrazy to get used to when you’ve been out in the world. Understatement ofthe universe.

Zoey stared at thephone and considered her options. Her first instinct was to call Rook and talkto her about what they should do next, but she couldn’t decide if she was lettingdesire eclipse duty. Rook didn’t trust the military, and Sharp had made itabundantly clear he didn’t trust Rook. Zoey glanced again at Jack’s card and,before she could change her mind, picked up the phone and dialed.

* * *

Rook started at thesound of a door opening, and it took her a moment to figure out she was in heroffice and she’d been fast asleep with her head on her desk.

“You look like hell,”Lacy said as she shut the door behind her.

“What time is it? Andplease tell me that’s coffee in your hand.”

“It’s eight a.m. andthis is indeed coffee. I’ll give it to you if you tell me why you worked hereall night.”

“I didn’t work allnight,” Rook said, reaching for the mug. “I just got here very early.”

“Are you doing solowork on the side?”

Rook had the goodsense to look sheepish. She’d worked hard to foster a team approach on thecases that came into the firm, but aside from calling them out to Mitchell’shouse last night, she hadn’t shared much on this one. “I guess it’s time tohave a meeting.”

“Already on it. Drinkyour coffee and take a shower. They’ll be in the conference room in thirtyminutes.” Lacy shut the door behind her when she left, and Rook reached for thecoffee. It would have to do double duty today because she was exhausted. She’dspent the balance of the night after Zoey left sorting through everything sheknew about the McNair case, including the preliminary findings from Mitchell’shouse, but so far she hadn’t been able to make sense of Mitchell’s death. Itwas time to brainstorm, and there was no better group to do it with than herteam.

When she walked intothe conference room she found Harry, Blake, and Eric already assembled,reviewing the information gathered at Mitchell’s house, she briefly consideredcalling Zoey and inviting her to join them. Another brain could only help,right?

She dismissed thethought as fast as it came. The White House had hired her to make sure thisscandal was contained. Zoey had failed to tell her about her encounter withMitchell, and if she’d gotten wind of Mitchell’s death first, she probablywould’ve alerted the local police and her superiors, no doubt letting theambiguous letter Mitchell had left behind leak into the public domain beforethey’d had a chance to decipher its meaning. Zoey wasn’t part of her team; shewas the arm of a bureaucracy Rook had been hired to work around. The searingkiss they’d shared last night was proof she had become a distraction.

Pushing all thoughtsof Zoey aside, Rook took her seat at the head of the table and pointed atBlake. “Tell me everything you have.”

Blake consulted oneof the tiny Moleskine notebooks she always carried. Rook used to give her crapfor using pen and paper to keep case notes when she’d come from the high-tech CIA,but Blake insisted she’d be the only one with any good intel in the event of aterrorist attack on the power grid or a simple power outage. “Not much to tell.Gun was registered to him. We found an aging box of the same caliber ammo inhis desk missing only one bullet. His were the only prints on the gun and theangle of the shot was consistent with a self-inflicted wound.”

“And the note?”

“I’ll take this one,”Harry said. “I showed it, along with some confirmed samples of his handwriting,to an analyst I know. Best in her field. She says he wrote the note. There area few letters and words that are shaky, but that’s to be expected consideringthe circumstances.”

“Okay, we know twothings for sure,” Rook said. “He shot himself and he left a note. Here are thethings I want to know: what does the note mean and what was his involvementwith the Lorraine Darcy Agency?”

Eric raised his hand.“My turn. I examined the computers at the house. The one in the main studyappears to be for family use and it was clean, but the one in his study was atreasure trove of inappropriate material.”

“Let me guess. Heused that computer to hook up with ‘escorts’ from the Darcy Agency?”

“More than that.”

“Really? You’retelling me he had even deeper secrets?”

“The deepest, for ahigh ranking military officer.” Eric punched a button and the images from hislaptop were projected onto the built-in screen at the front of the room. Thedisplay showed a cascading series of emails, but many of the sentencescontained in the messages had words redacted. Rook squinted at the strings ofincomplete sentences and tried to make sense of them.

“What are we lookingat?” Blake asked.

Eric set his cursoron the first sentence and pointed at the blacked-out spaces. “I haven’t had alot of time to analyze this, but at first glance it looked familiar so Istarted working on a theory.” He divided the information on the screen into twosections. “Over here,” he said, pointing to the left side of the screen. “Thereare three emails Mitchell exchanged with the Darcy Agency. Notice the dates.”

“Two years ago.”

“Yes. Just FYI, Ifound some chatter online saying that was the same time the Darcy Agencystarted renting space at the address you and Major Granger visited yesterday.”

Had it only beenyesterday? “Okay,” Rook said. “So, he’s like a charter member of Escorts-R-Us.I’m not getting where you’re going with this.”

---