Barnes remained perfectly calm. “We actually have a number of options, Doctor.”
“Like what?”
Senator Corbin Davis approached the seventeenth tee with the confidence and swagger of a dragon slayer. Any lingering doubts he had held about his involvement with the American Heritage Foundation had been swept away. At the end of the day, no one succeeded in politics without getting into bed with at least one eight-hundred-pound gorilla. The trick was picking the right one.
The senator from Indiana had picked very well.
CHAPTER 51
Sixth Precinct, New York City, May 27, 4:23 p.m.
NYPD Detective Lieutenant Victoria Daniels struggled to digest what she had just heard, as Eddie stopped playing back the reconstructed conversation between Dr. Fenton and Michael Barnes at Harmony House. She couldn’t quite wrap her head around it. Daniels reached into her coat pocket and turned off Deputy Inspector Nataro’s microrecorder, gazing around the walls of Interrogation Room Five, which somehow now looked different. She realized the walls of every room she ever entered would never look the same. Because now she knew what was bouncing around every one of them: the history of each space. Every action. Every word. Every crime. Every lie. Every room was now its own historical document. Its own recording. All that had to be done was to have the record re-created, and the evidence was there for anyone to hear.
There would never again be any more “He said, she said.” There would only be “Here is what was said.”
That was, if the device ever saw the light of day.
Victoria was now a believer, which was what scared her. It was evident in her face.
“Now do you blame me for helping them?” asked Butler.
“I would have done the same thing.” There wasn’t a doubt in her mind. Not about her answer to the question. Nor how this was going to play out.
“Now what?”
She knew Butler wasn’t leading her. He really didn’t know the next move—that was why he had come in.
“Step out with me for a second.” She exited with Butler into the hallway, closing the door behind them. They spoke very quietly, just above a whisper.
Inside Interrogation Room Five, Skylar moved to Eddie, motioning toward the door. She also spoke quietly. “Can you tell me what they’re saying?”
Eddie nodded, turning his head toward the door. He closed his eyes, which helped him focus exclusively on what he could hear. He cupped his hands behind his ears to amplify whatever sound waves were audible. He repeated the conversation occurring in the hallway, doing rather decent imitations of Butler’s and Victoria’s voices: “You’ve got no choice. You know that, right? . . . I want to make sure nothing’s going to happen to them . . . you can’t. Accept it . . .”
Eddie was confused by the conversation, and turned to Skylar. “What are they talking about?”
“Us.” Skylar crossed her arms tightly across her chest and turned away from Eddie. All she could think was, What had she done? Detective McHenry was going to be forced to turn them over to Fenton’s security team, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it.
“Why doesn’t Detective McHenry have a choice?”
“Because the government isn’t going to give him one.”
Eddie resumed listening to Butler and Victoria’s conversation, repeating every word. “They killed her boyfriend . . . I appreciate that, Detective. But what exactly do you think you can do for them? This is way above either of our pay grades.”
Eddie turned to Skylar as she started to cry. “Is he talking about your boyfriend, Skylar?” She nodded. “I didn’t know you had a boyfriend. I’m sure he must have been nice. What was his name?”
Skylar was barely able to answer. “Jacob.”
“Who killed him?”
“Dr. Fenton and the mystery man.” She struggled to get the words out.
“It’s wrong to kill someone. It says so in the Bible. ‘Thou shalt not kill.’” Eddie paused, trying to process the information. “Skylar, why did Dr. Fenton and the mystery man kill your boyfriend?”
Skylar couldn’t respond. Her face was buried in her hands.
Eddie wanted to help her, but didn’t know how, so he did the one thing he could do. He continued repeating the conversation in the hallway: “The least I could do is help them get out of the city. What good would that do? . . . They want to go to Philadelphia. Why Philly? . . . The only reason Parks invented the thing was to hear his mother’s voice. She died giving birth to him.”
Eddie showed no emotion. He continued, sounding like Detective Lieutenant Daniels: “You know what I hate? I hate knowing that this thing exists, and what it could do for every case we’ve ever had, or ever will have.”
In the hallway, Butler didn’t follow. “Why do you hate it?”
“Because there is no way on God’s green earth that anyone at our level is ever going to get the chance to use it.”
Repeating their words, Eddie turned to Skylar. “Who is ‘anyone at our level’?”
“I think she means police officers.”
“Why won’t police officers ever get the chance to use the echo box?”
Skylar answered quickly. “I’ll have to tell you later.”
Eddie listened, then repeated the continuing dialogue between Daniels and McHenry. “He’s spent his entire life working on this. He deserves to hear his mother. You’re right. He does. If I don’t help him, who will?” There was a pause in the hallway. Eddie spoke like the detective lieutenant: “You were never here.”
Eddie made his BUZZER sound.
Skylar quickly turned to face him, listening intently. “Shh.” She watched Eddie, waiting for him to continue repeating their conversation. He said nothing. “Did they stop talking?”
“You told me to ‘shh.’”
Skylar spoke urgently. “Tell me what they’re saying.”
“I never saw you.” Eddie was about to make his BUZZER sound again, but he could see that Skylar was already gesturing for him not to. Eddie managed to stop himself, and continued repeating what Victoria was saying: “I’ll give you two minutes. Call and tell me the suspects fled right before you got to the station and that you are in pursuit.”
Victoria’s footsteps could be heard walking away as Butler returned to the interrogation room. “Time to go.”
Eddie looked confused. “Where are we going, Detective?”
“You want to hear your mother sing?”
“Yes, very much.”
“Then move your ass.”
CHAPTER 52
Deputy Inspector Nataro’s Office, Sixth Precinct, May 27, 4:31 p.m.
Deputy Inspector Nataro looked up as Victoria entered his office. “Detective Lieutenant Daniels, this is Homeland Security Agent Harold Raines. Agent Raines, Detective Lieutenant Daniels.” The agent stood up and shook hands with Victoria.
She clenched her teeth. This thing was getting bigger fast. Too big. Too fast.
Agent Raines kept his eyes on her. “Where are the suspects?”
“They’re on their way here.”
“They should have been here by now.”
“Yes, they should have.” Her face gave away nothing.
The veteran agent studied her. Somehow, he just knew he was being played. He spoke into his headset microphone as he moved toward the door. “Search the building top to bottom. I have reason to believe the suspects are in the building.” He joined the other agents as they fanned out through the building with experienced coordination.
The deputy inspector glanced at Daniels. “You better have one hell of a story to tell.”
She placed Nataro’s pocket recorder on his desk. “The doctor’s boyfriend was the victim thrown in front of the subway train.”
“The professor?”
She nodded. “Her boss apparently had him killed for snooping into Parks, who is her patient. The professor stuck his nose where he shouldn’t have.”
“What’s the big deal with this patient?”
“It’s something you need to hear.”
He looked down at the small recorder in his hand. “Whatever’s on this tape will back that up?”