Fatal Distraction Read online

  “We’ll give you something for the pain just as soon as we’re sure you don’t have anything more serious,” he said. “I know it hurts, but believe it or not, that’s a good sign. Really bad ones burn all the nerve endings off.”

  Eyes closed, she felt the stinging as he dabbed the open cuts on her face with pungent antiseptic. Some of the cuts were dangerously close to her eyes; she realized anew how lucky she’d been to have her arm covering her eyelids when the glass shards reached her face.

  Her burned arm throbbed. She didn’t mention that she would take no pain medication. Drugs would erase the pain, but they would also dull her mind.

  In short order the Medevac landed on the helipad at Tampa Southern and controlled chaos erupted. Frank Temple’s security team met them when they arrived. Emergency personnel on the ground removed Oliver first and then Helen. On the tarmac, the breeze blowing off the water of Tampa Bay chilled her skin. She shivered under the thin blanket.

  Both Helen and Oliver were wheeled into the intensive care unit and placed in separate rooms for treatment. Two agents stationed themselves outside each room.

  Her farewell ball seemed a hundred years ago, her designer dress tossed in the trash can and exchanged for a far less glamorous hospital gown.

  A young female doctor examined Helen and discovered no additional injuries. She treated Helen’s arm and the cuts on Helen’s face. The burn and a few of the cuts were serious enough, the doctor explained, that they had a plastic surgeon already on the way.

  Helen’s sense of time marching forward was suspended as she suffered these ministrations in silence, but when she was offered codeine for pain, she declined.

  “Where’s my husband?”

  “Let me check,” the doctor said, then turned at the door. “I was supposed to tell you that Agent Temple is in the waiting room.”

  So he’d come after all.

  “Please send him in.” Helen felt a rush of relief at Frank’s presence, the appearance of security he represented. False security, she realized. She’d been foolish to rely on others to handle what she should have done herself. But Frank was a friend, too, and a friendly face was welcome.

  Frank placed a small tote bag on the foot of the bed. “I asked one of the women on Mac Green’s staff to choose some clothes and personal things for you. I have no idea what she put in there.”

  She felt her eyes water at the kindness and blinked hard. There would be no more embarrassing crying. She offered him a weak smile of appreciation, then cleared her throat.

  “What’s happening with the fire?” Neither of them had forgotten the orders she’d expressed before leaving the ranch, but by silent assent they moved on.

  “They’ve got everything under control, almost out. They’ll go into the debris at first light.” He hesitated.

  Why? She already knew the horses were dead. What information could he be struggling with now?

  Frank gazed down at his shoes a moment. “We’ve replaced the security team. We’ll finish debriefing the prior team in about an hour.”

  Helen knew it cost him something to admit the failure of his team and his judgment. She didn’t wish to dwell on it.

  Frank still didn’t look at her.

  “What about Todd?”

  Frank stared at his clasped hands, as if considering what to say.

  She felt her impatience flare. “Don’t hold back, Frank. What aren’t you telling me?”

  He returned his gaze to hers and held it steadily, as if he was searching for something in her eyes before he delivered news both of them already knew she didn’t want to hear. Yet, their relationship was founded on uncompromising trust, which demanded his honesty.

  “We’re not totally sure, but Mac Green says it looks like the fire had three points of origin. Meaning—”

  “Arson,” she whispered.

  “That’s right.” He waited a beat before pressing on, delivering more hard news. “Todd is dead. We found him in his cabin.”

  Helen gasped. Her hands clenched into fists. Frank hesitated a moment to allow her to absorb the implications when he told her the rest. “It looks like he died right around the time the fire started.”

  Thoroughly shocked, she lowered her head as if to pray. She used Frank’s silence to consider what he’d told her, but her mind was sluggish. She couldn’t quite wrap her thoughts around what he was saying.

  Arson? Murder? What else?

  Like a movie played in slow motion, bit by bit, her fatigued brain accepted the truth. With Todd out of the way first, the killer was free to deliberately set three fires in the barn and meant to kill Jake. That’s what Frank was suggesting. But the idea made no sense at all. No one would want to hurt Jake. He was a pet. He had no monetary value to anyone. Eric loved Jake, but Eric was already dead. No one would murder Todd so that he could incinerate Jake’s barn. Kill Oliver, yes. But a horse? That was insane.

  Frank cleared his throat, causing her to look at him again. “Helen. I’m sorry. I guess I just have to say all of this. I don’t know what else to do.” One slow sentence at a time, he revealed the rest of the story, “Todd was shot in the head . . . with his own gun. It looks like suicide.”

  Helen stared at Frank, uncomprehending. She blinked her eyes and tilted her head to one side, as if she didn’t trust her ears.

  “You’re saying Todd set the fire and then killed himself?” Her tone implied that Frank was the one who was crazy to suggest such a thing.

  Frank stood straighter, taller, more imposing. He thrust the words forward. “I’m saying that’s how it looks.”

  The implications settled over Helen like a shroud. Todd intended to kill Jake and maybe Oliver, too, if the fire had spread to the ranch house? But instead of waiting for the fire to do its job and making sure he’d been successful, Todd killed himself? No. That couldn’t be right. Had he killed himself when he saw that he had failed and Oliver had been rescued?

  Regardless of the sequence, the knowledge that she and Oliver had so misjudged Todd Dale shook her to her core. She’d trusted Todd and Oliver did, too. She couldn’t accept that they both had been so wrong.

  “If that’s true—” A short rap on the door interrupted her, followed by a white-coated doctor’s entry into the room.

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Sullivan?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Ed Stackler, the attending physician here tonight. I’ve been with your husband for the past hour and I wanted to give you a report on his condition.” He glanced over toward Frank, as if asking her permission to speak in front of him.

  “Yes, please,” she said, wanting to know but also still confused and wary of more bad news.

  The doctor’s tone was kind, but firm. “Your husband remains unconscious. His vital signs are stable, but not strong. He’s got a pretty good sized subdural hematoma, a pool of blood, inside the skull around his left temple.” He tapped his own left temple with two fingers to demonstrate. “The neurologist and the surgeon are on their way. After the experts examine him, they’ll make a decision about whether surgery to drain the blood will be necessary.”

  “What’s the prognosis?” she managed to ask.

  He pressed his lips together and gave his head a brief shake. “It’s too early to say. We’ll know more in a few hours. Try not to worry. These things usually resolve themselves.”

  She realized he was only trying to console her, but she chose to believe him while she sorted Frank out.

  As the doctor left, Frank moved closer to her bedside and lowered his voice. “What all of this means, Helen, is that I was wrong.”

  “About what?”

  “I let my guard down. I should have seen that Todd Dale was dangerous. I should have done more to protect Oliver and the ranch. I’m sorry. I’m prepared to ask for reassignment, if that’s what you want.” Frank stood stiffly at the foot of the bed awaiting her judgment.

  In the three years that Frank Temple had spent as the lead FDLE special agent assigned to the go
vernor’s detail, she’d never known him to be wrong about anything. He’d warned her against trying to lure Eric’s killer to his funeral, and he’d stood by her after she’d ignored his best advice.

  Frank’s steady sureness was a constant she’d come to rely upon. But if Todd was an arsonist and maybe a killer, then Frank had been just as wrong about Todd as she and Oliver had been. Her second term was almost over. Soon, she’d no longer be entitled to FDLE protection at all. She resisted breaking in another agent, accepting someone she didn’t already know.

  She had to trust someone and Frank was a much better choice than anyone else available. Until Oliver woke up.

  “No, Frank. That’s the last thing I want right now.”

  Frank inclined his head, seeming to accept her decision.

  A few moments of shared complicity filled the silence.

  Frank put them back to work. “Right now we can’t connect all of these crimes in the way I’d like to see them tied up. And I don’t want to make the wrong assumption again.”

  He stopped, as he often did, to think things through before speaking them aloud. “There are a lot of crazy people in the world who inevitably will hate you out of misplaced envy and a hundred other reasons simply because you’re doing your job. But now—well, I don’t believe we can afford to overlook an ongoing effort here.”

  “What?” Again, his explanation had taken a sharp turn that she hadn’t anticipated. “I thought you said Todd Dale started the fire tonight before he killed himself. Isn’t this all over now? Don’t you think that Todd was also Eric’s killer?”

  Frank stared at her. He blinked, furrowed his brow, and squinted as if making a supreme effort to decode her cryptic logic. He looked exactly like she’d felt since he’d entered the room and began disclosing information that she’d never seen coming.

  “I said it looked like that.”

  “But you don’t think so?”

  “I’ve never been a believer in coincidental crimes. Let me be perfectly clear. I’m worried that someone or some group has targeted you, Governor. I’m concerned that they killed your son and your ranch manager, and attempted to murder your husband. The odd thing is, they haven’t tried to kill you so far. And that worries me even more.” He stopped for a moment. “Because they probably will.”

  Frank’s words jarred her feigned composure. All at once she saw the events differently. She felt a total fool.

  Helen reached out and touched his hand. “This is why I value you, Frank. Why I need you, working with me, doing your best to fight this . . . situation. No more self-recriminations, for either of us. Agreed?”

  Frank nodded.

  “Good.” Helen felt the veteran prosecutor inside her stir, rising to meet the challenge. “Now that we know we may be dealing with determined killers, we need to plan accordingly.”

  Frank had bosses, a chain of command to report to and take orders from. But he nodded again. “I’m with you entirely.”

  Helen sat back, somewhat comforted, as always, by his steely determination, by the promise that her enemies would be Frank’s enemies.

  But that guaranteed nothing, as she’d learned so painfully tonight.

  Helen understood determined killers. She’d dealt with them all of her professional life. She’d tried hundreds of them in court and signed their death warrants as governor. Determined killers would never give up. Not until they were dead themselves.

  Special Agent Frank Temple hadn’t made the next logical leap yet, but Helen was already there: Some sick bastard had killed Eric because he knew there are many things more devastating than one’s own death. For Helen, for any mother, losing her child was one of them. Worse yet was knowing her child had killed another child. Losing her husband would be a third.

  If someone had tried to kill Oliver tonight, he would try again. She allowed reality to soak into her mind and into her heart, felt it hum in her veins like high-voltage lightning. Every nerve ending seemed to vibrate with the unwelcome truth.

  Interpreting her silence as a dismissal, Frank walked to the door and reached for the knob.

  “Frank?”

  He stopped and turned. “Don’t worry. I’ve learned my lesson. Until we neutralize the threat, we’ll keep the security detail on Oliver twenty-four seven.”

  She nodded. Exactly what she’d been thinking. “I also want you to get with Mac Green and figure out how you can provide total security at the ranch. I don’t want Oliver to be in this hospital a minute longer than necessary. I’d be out of here now if the doctors would allow it.”

  “Agreed. Anything else?”

  “Yes.” Helen felt the long-dormant skills she’d wielded as a superior prosecuting attorney within her return and infuse her with steel-hardened resolve. “Bring me a preliminary report on the arson investigation tomorrow morning. And I want to see photographs and every scrap of evidence from the Todd Dale crime scene sooner, if possible.”

  If the bastard wanted a fight, he had it. And he’d badly underestimated his opponent.

  Chapter Twelve

  Tampa, Florida

  Thursday 11:30 p.m.

  DARKNESS ENVELOPED THE SPEEDING SUV, the instrument panel seeming unnaturally bright with its illuminated dials and gauges. Jess had the radio tuned to a classical music station and piano nocturnes reinforced the stillness. Under different circumstances, Jess might have fallen asleep in the quiet. Tonight, her nerves were strung like steel guitar strings and equally likely to snap without warning. She rolled her shoulders in a futile attempt to relieve her stress.

  Jess kept the speedometer at ninety except when she had to slow for another vehicle or the radar detector. The Interstate between Ocala and Tampa was dry and straight. Like many Florida roads, it was in good repair and dead flat. The only significant hazard she’d noticed thus far was a pair of deer that ran across the southbound lanes a few miles back. She could see rare oncoming headlights for quite a distance.

  They’d been on the road about twenty minutes when Mike’s cell phone rang again. Jess glanced over and saw his face illuminated by the phone’s screen which was flashing a picture of an attractive young woman at the beach.

  “Your girlfriend?”

  “Yeah. Lydia.”

  “Pretty helpful for a local reporter,” she said. “Having a girlfriend working a number-one trauma center in the area.”

  Mike grinned and picked up the call. “Hey, what’s up? None of my pals around? . . . What about her husband? . . . Okay, thanks. We should be there in about an hour.” He ended the call. “Lydia says Governor Sullivan is in ICU, but she’s only suffered some superficial injuries. A few cuts to her face and a burn on her right arm.”

  Jess glanced briefly toward Mike, but couldn’t see him in the darkness. “And her husband?”

  “Not so lucky. He’s unconscious. They’ve called in a neurosurgeon.”

  “Does she know why?”

  “Not sure. She’d be in trouble if they knew she’d told me anything at all, so she’s got to be careful.”

  Mike sounded a little bit worried for Lydia, but more interested in being a part of a big story. Jess wondered how serious they were about each other.

  “Is the hospital a mob scene already?”

  “That big security guy’s at the governor’s bedside, but so far, no reporters or anything. Since Sullivan’s ranch is out in the middle of nowhere and it’s already pretty late, and with the holidays and all . . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “So you’re thinking we’ll get there before any other reporters do and we’ll be able to walk right in the front door? Don’t count on it.”

  “It could happen,” he said. “We could get lucky.”

  He sounded so young. Jess remembered exactly when she’d stopped believing she might have any kind of good luck. It was a long time ago. “Well, I’m not a lucky person, Mike, so let’s start figuring out how I’m going to get up to Helen Sullivan’s room, okay?”

  “Okay,” he said sulkily, “but
we could get lucky.”

  She tried to brighten her tone a bit. “It never hurts to be prepared. Do you think Lydia knows if there’s a back entrance or a restricted stairway or a private elevator? Anything like that?”

  Mike didn’t answer right away. She stole another quick glance at his face, which she couldn’t really see in the dark interior of the SUV. She sat back and decided to let him answer in his own time.

  While driving around Florida chasing this story, she’d been impressed with the vast open land that still existed here. Sometimes miles of tarmac passed without a glimpse of another human being. In daylight, she’d seen acres of cattle and horse farms, orange groves, tomato farms and strawberry fields. Between the coasts and in the panhandle, Florida was still wild with alligators and mosquitoes, and she had the bug bites to prove it.

  The land between Ocala and Tampa was some of the emptiest space in Central Florida. There were no street lights along the Interstate, few homes and fewer lighted buildings. As in any rural area after dark, the brightest light was the moon. Tonight, the cloudy sky blacked out everything that wasn’t centered in the beam of her headlights.

  At last Mike broke the silence. “I usually park in the regular parking deck, but there might be private parking for the docs. Lydia told me sometimes nurses go out on the landing to smoke. Maybe there’s a side door or something.” He pulled out his cell phone again and pushed a button. Jess heard the ringing on the other end, and Lydia’s voice mail pick up. Her voice sounded sweet and southern.

  When Lydia’s greeting ended, Mike said, “Call me,” then paused a moment and added, “please,” and hung up. “She’ll call back if she can. Or maybe when we get there I’ll be able to find it.”

  Jess nodded her approval. “Okay. That’s good.”

  A few minutes later, in a quiet voice, Mike said, “I’m sorry about your son.”

  The comment was so unexpected, and hit so close to her own thoughts in the darkness, that Jess’s hands reflexively gripped the steering wheel tighter.

  After all these years, people had stopped asking her about Peter, but Jess spent so much time thinking about him, searching for him, that he was never far from her mind. When someone did ask, Jess had schooled herself to judge the inquirer’s motives. To the morbidly curious, she’d learned to simply say thank you in a tone that discouraged further conversation, which she was about to do.