Page 95 of Love Me to Death

“I have it under control. It’s not a solo operation—the FBI is in with both feet.”

“Be careful.”

Sean hung up and did his own search for Mick Mallory. It didn’t help that “Michael Mallory” was a common name. But Sean knew a few tricks and it didn’t take long to find him.

By searching newspaper archives, he found the article about the bombing that had killed Mallory’s family. Mallory’s name had been left out of it, and the victim—Janice Blair—and her son didn’t share Mallory’s last name, but this was the U.S. and car bombings were extremely rare.

Sean couldn’t find anything viable under Janice Blair or Michael Mallory or any combination of their names. He pulled up Janice Blair’s obituary and noted that Janice was the only child of Margaret-Ann Blair of Herndon. It didn’t take long from there to ascertain that the ninety-two-year-old woman was living in a rest home in Chevy Case, Maryland, but still owned property in Herndon. Sean had a hunch—if the mother-in-law was in a nursing home, who lived in her house?

It was noon. He had time to drive to Herndon and back before he had to pick up Lucy.

Sean went to his gun safe. He always had his nine-millimeter on him, but he liked the .45 best. He added a Taser and extra ammo and grabbed his keys. He was in his car when Dillon Kincaid drove up.

Sean almost sped off and pretended he didn’t see him, but Dillon caught his eye.

He rolled down the passenger window to talk but Dillon reached in, pulled up the lock, and slid into the seat.

“I’m going on an errand,” Sean told him.

“You’re going to see Mallory.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I’m good at my job.”

“What? Psychic?”

“Psychic, psychiatrist, they’re almost identical, aren’t they?”

“So you’ve analyzed me?”

“Am I wrong?”

Sean didn’t answer.

“I’m going with you.”

“No—”

“Why? Because it’s too dangerous and I’m not a cop?” Dillon shook his head. “Guess what? Neither are you.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“No,” Dillon said. “I gather you already found him.”

“Kate’s going to kill me,” Sean muttered as he drove off.

“Probably.”

“Call her and let her know.”

“That we’re going to confront Mallory? She’ll kill me.”

“At least send her the address. We don’t know for certain that Mallory is living there, but I don’t want Noah Armstrong breathing down my neck, talking about obstruction of justice or any crap like that. I’m just feeling the situation out, not looking for a confrontation.” Sean didn’t know if that was the truth or not, but it sounded good.

Back at his cubicle in the FBI office, Noah quickly typed up the facts for Rick Stockton to push for a warrant for Frances Buckley and WCF. Stockton thought they had enough, but Noah was skeptical.

He went through the case methodically, glancing at both his and Abigail’s notes. He sent it off just as Sandy, the analyst who was working the case with them, emailed him the list of property owners on Eucalyptus Street in Somerset, and the two cross streets. He glanced at the list, then did a double-take.