Keller watched everyone else go as she looked for Matt, hoping she could pull him aside. No, she decided, she’d ask him to meet her after the services. Wait until then to tell him about his brother. She checked her phone to see if Danny’s attack had made the news. Nothing yet.
Two emails, back-to-back, grabbed Keller’s attention. First, the liaison had sent the prison visitor log for Danny Pine. She could review that later. Second, the computer team had found who had sent the video of the party to the Free Danny Pine site—a local Adair woman whose name Keller didn’t recognize.
Keller glanced toward the stairwell. The line up the stairs had stalled. Killing time, she dispatched a text to the field office to get background on the woman who’d sent the anonymous tip. Next, she clicked on Danny’s visitor log. It was not extensive. Visits from his parents. Lawyers. But one name jumped out at her: Neal Flanagan. The name was so familiar, but Keller couldn’t place it. Where had she heard it? She decided to use every cunning FBI agent’s secret crime-fighting tool, and typed the name into Google.
Newspaper stories lit up her phone.
Flanagan was embroiled in the former governor’s sex scandal. A fixer who’d arranged parties for the governor and his wealthy benefactors. Underage girls. Drugs. A grand jury had indicted Flanagan, and everyone expected him to turn on the former governor and others in his circle.
Why would this creep visit Danny Pine? Just two weeks before his parents were killed by a professional. She thought of her meeting with the filmmakers. They said Charlotte had a secret life, older men. Several of the newspapers quoted the lead prosecutor, an AUSA out of the Lincoln US Attorney’s Office. Keller tapped out an email to Stan. She needed to talk to Flanagan pronto.
CHAPTER 56
MATT PINE
Matt walked along the road, the sky dark and green, a single raindrop splashing his face, the preamble of more to come. The sirens had stopped, at least, no funnel clouds forming, so the only thing Matt risked now was getting drenched. He should return to the church. He didn’t want to look back and regret skipping the ceremony. But would he, really?
He sauntered along with no destination. Papillion Road was a slice of asphalt that led to nowhere. He’d cut across the church’s playground for the Sunday school kids and through a side fence that bordered the grounds to avoid the reporters camped out front.
The shoulder was rocky. It reminded him of his death march in Tulum. Was that really only three days ago? Was that possible? His feet hurt in the tight dress shoes. He owned only one suit and one pair of nice shoes. Before leaving New York, Ganesh had plodded over to Matt’s dorm and packed them for the funeral. It was a thoughtful gesture, and Matt would never take his friends for granted again. He’d taken too much for granted in his life, so no more.
From behind him, a car tapped two fast beeps of the horn. Matt turned and looked at the vehicle, which was trailing him. The windshield was speckled with rain, and he couldn’t see who was driving. He was in no mood to talk to a reporter. The vehicle crawled up beside him, the window humming down.
“Um, you know there’s a tornado warning, right?” Jessica Wheeler looked at him from inside the car, a tiny smile on her lips. She was dressed in black, her hair pulled up, a strand of pearls around her neck. She must’ve seen Matt slip out of the church and followed after him. “Where’re you headed?”
“Nowhere.”
“You and me both,” she said. The car kept the slow pace of his walk.
Matt stopped and the car came to a halt as well. He looked inside.
Jessica pointed her chin at the passenger seat.
Matt really wanted to be alone—at least, he thought he did.
Jessica just sat quietly, waiting for him to decide.
His feet did hurt, he supposed. He climbed inside, and was met with the smell of Jessica’s perfume, a pleasing, spicy fragrance.
She shoved the stick shift into gear and they drove.
The rain was still coming down in tiny drops, not yet a downpour. The windshield wipers wisped back and forth, an arc of brown from dirt and drizzle.
“Wanna talk about it?” Jessica finally asked.
“Not particularly.”
“Okay. Wanna drink about it?”
“That sounds more enticing.”
She nodded, looked in her rearview, then made a sharp U-turn right in the middle of the road.
It wasn’t long before Jessica was unlocking the front door to Pipe Layers. The place didn’t open for a few hours and it was dark, quiet. Jessica slapped on the lights, threw her keys on the bar, and went to the jukebox.