McNeal saw where this was headed. “You think because I would benefit financially that I’m somehow responsible for her disappearance?”
“Just laying out the facts. You know as well as I do, Jack, that’s a solid motive. You have a lot to gain.”
“She’s my wife! I loved her.”
“Your estranged wife. You said it yourself. She left you.”
“You’re building a case against me.”
“You want an attorney?”
“First things first. I want to know that my wife has been found, safe and well. Christ, I’m worried sick.”
“Like I said, we’re keeping it as low-key as we can. From our side as well as yours. It’d be like a feeding frenzy in the press if any of this got out.”
“Has the FBI been informed of this investigation?”
“We’re leading on this. That’s all I know.”
“What about DC police? Surely they need to be informed.”
“They will be.”
Alarm bells went off in McNeal’s head. “Wait a minute. Are you saying the DC police and the FBI don’t know my wife is missing?”
“I’m saying we’re leading on this.”
“Surely it’s standard protocol for the local cops and the Feds to be involved.”
“There are national security concerns. We don’t want every cop telling Fox News and CNN that a prominent DC journalist has gone missing. We’ll be talking with the FBI. Eventually.”
“Why the hell aren’t you talking with them now?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Bullshit.”
Finks’s cell phone began to vibrate on the desk, stopping the exchange in its tracks. “I thought I said I wasn’t to be disturbed?” He went quiet for a few moments. “When?” A pause. “Are we sure?” Finks ended the call and sighed, fixing his gaze on McNeal. “We’re headed to DC, Jack.”
“Why?”
“There’s been a development.”
“What kind of development?”
“I can’t say any more.”
As the Gulfstream took off for DC, McNeal sat alone at a table. He knew in his bones his wife was gone. He just knew. But no one would tell him anything.
An SUV picked them up at Reagan. McNeal sat in the back with one of the Secret Service guys. “You’ve found her, haven’t you?”
Finks sat up front, leafing through papers, clearing his throat.
“I need to know. Have you found her? Is that why we flew down here?”
Finks turned around. “We’re on our way to the hospital, Jack.”
McNeal knew what that meant. He swallowed back bile as they headed into the city. He began to steel himself. As a cop he’d seen more dead bodies than most. But being up close to a corpse, the smell of death in one’s nostrils, erodes something within a person: The compassion. The humanity.
He withdrew, more adrift. Alone. A reminder of his own mortality. Maybe a reminder of the past.
He closed his eyes. Mile after mile, getting closer to seeing his wife. The only woman he had ever loved. He wished he had been there for her. How had it come to this? Maybe he should have worked harder on their relationship. Maybe he should have taken her up on her offer to visit DC. He didn’t know why he hadn’t. Maybe he was just like his father—a stubborn, grouchy old man. A man who nursed regrets and grievances, real or imagined. A working-class cop who returned each night to the warmth of a family home. His mother had sacrificed her career as a nurse to look after her husband, her family, and the house. Money was always tight. But they had each other. The family unit always came first.
McNeal’s mind raced through all these irrational, pointless factors as he passed a sign for the hospital. He had made similar trips as a detective with other people’s wives and husbands to the morgue. He always remembered the deathly silence of the journey.
The SUV pulled up at the hospital’s underground parking garage.
“This is us, Jack.” Finks snapped McNeal out of his morbid thoughts.
McNeal got out of the vehicle and followed Finks and two Secret Service agents, taking the elevator down to the basement, through a door marked Medical Examiner.
McNeal had been in dozens of such facilities over the years. It was always the same. A mixture of dread and sadness. His stomach clenched as he was ushered down a corridor that smelled of bleach. He was shown to a viewing area. Through the glass, a gurney with a sheet over it, a body underneath. No! Tell me no.