“Fascinating,” Avery said. “And the family of the victim who was identified? How is the discovery presented to them?”
“There’s a protocol in place for every family that has provided us with DNA samples. First a phone call is made, and then an in-person visit is scheduled.”
“Do you make the visits?”
“No. That’s left for Dr. Trudeau.”
“The most recent identification. It was of a woman named Victoria Ford,” Avery said. “Can you tell me anything about her or her family?”
“I only know as much as Dr. Trudeau told me. The victim’s parents are no longer living. She was married but had no children. Her husband has remarried, so her sister was the next of kin. That was who Dr. Trudeau met with.”
“Do you have a name? Of the victim’s sister?”
Livia nodded. “Her name has been released, so I’m able to provide it. Emma Kind. She lives here in New York. Out a ways, I believe. Near the Catskill Mountains.”
“Okay,” Avery said. “So you’d be willing to welcome my production team into your crime lab later this summer?”
“I’d be happy to give you a grand tour of the world’s largest crime lab, as well as the bone-processing lab where this recent identification was made.”
“Excellent. I’ll get some dates scheduled and be in touch.”
“Great seeing you, Avery.”
“You too, Livia. Thanks again.”
“I saw your minivan episode, by the way. That was wild.”
“Thanks. It was a little ostentatious, but ratings rule my world. This story, though, the 9/11 victim being identified, I think it has the power to draw a huge audience but in a more personal way. We’re all connected in different ways to 9/11. We all remember where we were when we watched the scene unfold on television. I want to do this story the right way.”
“I know you will. What’s next?”
Avery shrugged. “I’m off to the Catskills to find Emma Kind and see if she’s willing to talk about her sister.”
Avery spent the following day making phone calls and rattling cages, utilizing every contact she had to track down people who knew Victoria Ford. She had no idea her presence in New York, or her interest in Victoria Ford, would draw so much attention.
CHAPTER 13
Negril, Jamaica Wednesday, June 23, 2021
RICK’S CAFé WAS A POPULAR BAR BUILT INTO THE CLIFFS ON JAMAICA’S West End. This afternoon, like every other day of the year, it was populated by throngs of bathing-suit-clad tourists slurping fruity cocktails and staring off into the Caribbean Sea. The tiered outdoor seating area was located at the cliff’s edge where patrons sat forty feet above the turquoise water, separated from the cliff’s sheer drop-off by a waist-high stone wall. Stairs etched in the rocks provided access to lower levels, where circular umbrellas dotted the patios and provided shade to sunburned vacationers lunching at the café. A cove carved its way into the rocks and provided access to catamarans that sailed up to the trendy destination and allowed their occupants to jump ship—which was usually done via a drunken trip down the stern-side waterslide that spat tourists into the ocean. Ladders draped the sides of the cliffs and led thirsty patrons to the café’s outdoor bar.
Walt Jenkins sat at the corner of the bar, shaded by fronds of a palm tree, and stared out at the ocean. A Hampden Estates rum rested on the bar in front of him, the slow-melting ice mellowing the 120-proof spirit. Still reeling from his trip to New York, where he came face to face with the woman he loved, Walt hadn’t been shy over the last few days about his admiration for single-batch Jamaican rum. He didn’t smoke pot, as so many of his friends here on the island did, and he had never ingested a pill stronger than ibuprofen. Rum was his cure-all antidote to anything life threw at him. He drank it in good times and bad, and it affected him differently in each circumstance. This time around, however, despite his best efforts, the rum was not providing its usual soothing balm.
Meghan Cobb remained on his mind. Despite the fact that he still loved her, Walt knew he couldn’t be around her for the simple fact that some part of him hated her, too. He took a sip of the Hampden Estate, stared out at the ocean, and cursed the universe like he always did in the days following his return from New York. Then he allowed his mind to drift back to the day he met her.
In his forties, twice divorced and with no kids, Walt Jenkins had stopped looking for the perfect life to suddenly appear before him. He was more than a decade into his FBI career, content with his status in the world, and approaching the middle of his life and carrying the normal regrets of a man who had never had children and now found himself mostly alone. These were his thoughts as he drove through the Adirondack Mountains. He had tacked a couple of vacation days onto either side of the long Fourth of July weekend, rented a cabin in the hills, and had been enjoying a few days of quiet isolation. He was headed into town to pick up a steak and replenish his beer when he saw the SUV on the shoulder. An obvious tilt to the passenger side suggested a flat tire. Although Walt had been an FBI agent far longer than he was ever a patrolman, his inner psyche would forever carry a sense of obligation when he saw a disabled vehicle.
The SUV had pulled onto the shoulder but was perilously parked just beyond a bend in the road where reckless drivers might not see it as they screamed around the corner. Walt pulled over and kept a good distance between the two cars so that his was visible to passing traffic. He turned on his hazards, climbed from behind the wheel, and walked toward the SUV, making sure to offer a wide berth. The last thing he wanted was to frighten the woman behind the wheel, who was stranded and alone on an isolated mountain road.
He waved from several feet away. The window came down and Walt saw an attractive woman smile nervously.
“Flat tire?” he asked.
The woman nodded. “I’m trying to get a hold of Triple A.”
“It’ll take me fifteen minutes to get your spare on. Twenty at most.”
“Thank you,” the woman said, still with her phone to her ear.
“I’m already in the queue.”
Walt sensed her trepidation.
“Years ago I used to be a police officer, so I’ve changed a lot of tires in my day. If you’d rather wait for Triple A, I’m happy to head back to my car and wait there to make sure they arrive. But way out here in the mountains on a holiday weekend, you’re likely looking at an hour or two wait until they dispatch someone.”
Walt pulled his wallet from his pocket and showed the woman his identification.
“FBI?”
He smiled. “I’m a field agent in New York. Walt Jenkins.” He extended his hand.
The woman reached through the open window. “Meghan Cobb.”
She smiled nervously. “Fifteen minutes?”
“Maybe twenty, but it won’t be a problem.”
A few minutes later, the jack tilted the car at an oblique angle. Walt was on his knees changing the tire. They talked the entire time, and then for thirty minutes more after the spare was in place. A getaway meant to be spent alone was instead spent with Meghan Cobb. She was untangling herself from a nasty relationship. He was three months post-divorce. By any stretch of the imagination, their relationship should have been a rebound for both of them. Instead, over the next year they fell in love. And then, on a hot summer night, just after his forty-fifth birthday, Walt was shot when he and his partner were on a routine surveillance operation. The bullets that found him had taken fortuitous paths through his body. The first entered through his sternum, exited through his scapula, and pierced his heart in between, miraculously missing his aorta. The second passed through his neck and had just as miraculously missed his spinal cord. No miracles, however, had been bestowed on his partner, who was sitting next to Walt in the unmarked car. The bullets that ravaged Jason Snyder’s body had found major organs and vessels. He was dead before the ambulance arrived.