Last Look Read online

  “Right. And I even waited a little, I waited till almost one this morning before I called. I know I’m probably being silly, but I just feel really uneasy. I hope you don’t mind that I called you. Your number was on Matt’s phone, so I thought I’d take a chance.”

  “I’m glad you did. You did exactly the right thing.” Dorsey’s mind was racing. “Did you speak with John?”

  “Yes. He thanked me for calling and told me not to worry. He said he’d take care of everything.”

  Dorsey had a feeling she knew how John had taken care of it.

  “Diane, thanks for letting me know. I’ll check into this, and as soon as I talk to Pop, I’ll have him give you a call. Are you going to stay there at the house?”

  “I hadn’t planned on it. Let me give you my cell, just in case.” Diane rattled off the number and Dorsey scribbled it on the back of a card she found in the bottom of her purse.

  “Got it,” Dorsey told her. “I’ll have him get back to you.”

  “Thanks, Dorsey.” She paused. “I hope we get a chance to meet sometime soon.”

  “I’d like that too. Soon, I hope,” Dorsey said sincerely. Any woman who would look out for her Pop was okay in Dorsey’s book. “Look, let me see if I can catch up with Pop.”

  “Right. Talk to you soon.”

  Dorsey hung up, her gratitude toward Diane instantly replaced with an anger so strong she could barely see straight.

  Bastard.

  Shields, you bastard.

  “It’s nothing,” he’d told her calmly when his phone rang just after one that morning. “Just something John wants me to check into.”

  He lied to her face and never blinked. Son of a bitch.

  He’d known her father had been at Tim Beale’s all this time.

  It was noon, almost twelve hours later. What the hell was going on? And why was Andrew called into it? And why did she have to hear about it from her father’s…

  What was Diane to Matt, anyway?

  Dorsey dialed her father’s cell phone but got no answer. In spite of her earlier resolve not to, she tried Andrew again, but wasn’t at all surprised when he didn’t pick up.

  “What the hell is going on, Andrew?” She all but spit her words out. “Did you really think I wasn’t going to find out my father is meeting with Tim Beale? You son of a bitch.”

  She hung up the phone and dropped it into her bag, wishing she hadn’t disconnected quite so quickly. She had a few more curses left for Andrew.

  She drummed impatient fingers on the steering wheel, then forced a few deep breaths to calm herself. She could scream and curse all she wanted later. Right now, she had to find her father and if she held on too tightly to her anger, she would be distracted from that task. Focus, she reminded herself. Find Tim Beale, and she’d find her pop.

  Chief Bowden had said Tim Beale was living someplace not too far from Hatton. Had she been smart enough to make a note of it? She rummaged in her bag for her small notebook, and went back through the last entries. Naylor’s M. was noted next to Tim’s name. What the hell did the M stand for? She didn’t want to call Bowden; he’d want to know why she was asking.

  She’d have to stop and ask someone, maybe at that convenience store on the way out of town, the one with the gas station attached. Surely there’d be somebody there who knew of a place called Naylor’s Something-that-began-with-M.

  She hoped to God someone did, and could tell her how to get there. She wasn’t really sure what she was going to do once she arrived, but she knew she wasn’t about to sit home waiting for film at eleven.

  “I’m not kidding, you assholes.” The voice from the trailer sounded shrill and short-tempered. “I told you to keep your distance. Ain’t no one coming in or going out until my momma gets here. Unfortunately for y’all, she’s driving from Kentucky so it’s going to be a while. I told you that when y’all got here. This ain’t no party, and you ain’t been invited anyway. This here’s between me and old Matt and my momma. The rest of you can all go to hell or you can hang out, but keep back from the door or I swear, I’ll put a bullet right between his eyes and be happy as shit to do it. Any questions?”

  “None,” Andrew called back.

  “Good. Now y’all just be quiet for a while, and no one’s going to be hurt. Just…be quiet.”

  “Gotcha’,” Andrew replied in a voice too low to be heard from the trailer. He turned to John Mancini and asked, “You okay with us waiting for Jeanette Beale to arrive?”

  “We don’t have much choice.” John checked his watch. “She should be here soon. We waited this long, we might as well wait it out. Not much we can do anyway, with Matt in there.”

  “You think he’s armed?”

  “Matt? If he was, Beale’s got whatever Matt had with him by now.”

  Andrew’s phone rang and he checked the number. It was Dorsey again. He shoved the phone back into his pocket. He felt like a heel, not telling her what was going on, but John had been very specific in his instructions not to let on to Dorsey what was happening. He’d repeated it twice, as if he wasn’t sure that once had been sufficient. “You’re not to tell her anything, understand? I want as few people as possible out here. And I specifically do not want her here.”

  Yeah, right. That worked. Andrew eyed the gathering crowd.

  A deputy from the county sheriff’s department had been driving past and stopped to find out what was going on with all the cars out here by the trailer that sat alone on a wide vacant lot. The deputy, a hunting buddy of Tim Beale’s, was curious. Once he found out what the FBI was doing, he’d called back in to the sheriff-and anyone with a police-band radio, including the local press, heard about the FBI’s presence out at Naylor’s Marsh. From the looks of it, most of them had headed on out to take a look. John kept the locals busy by having them keep back everyone else who’d stopped by to see the show. Andrew had twice suggested to John that they let Dorsey know what was going on, and got rebuffed both times.

  “I think she ought to know,” Andrew had argued.

  “Not until we see what’s going down,” John said. “I don’t want Matt’s daughter here if Beale is going to put a gun to his head and pull the trigger. I promised Matt I’d keep Dorsey out of it. I’ll not go back on that.”

  Andrew has shoved his hands in his pockets and started to walk away.

  “You disagree,” John said. It wasn’t a question.

  “For the record, yeah, I disagree. I don’t think she should be treated like a child, and that’s what you and Matt are doing. She’s a pro, John. She’s as good as anyone we have on our team. She shouldn’t be cut out of this.”

  “That sounds more like an emotional reaction on your part than a professional one,” John had observed. “Not a good sign, in my opinion.”

  “I’ve been working with her for the past week. At your insistence, if you need a reminder. You’re the one who sold me on her, you’re the one who wanted her here in the first place. It’s not fair to cut her out now.”

  “Fair isn’t the issue,” John had reminded him stonily.

  “I’m just saying.” An angry Andrew bit his tongue before he was tempted to say something to his boss he might regret later.

  “Noted,” John had said as he’d watched Andrew walk away.

  They both turned to look when an old, pale blue Oldsmobile pulled up and was stopped by the sheriff’s deputy who’d stationed himself nearest the action. After a few words, he waved her through. As the agents watched, a woman who appeared to be in her mid-fifties got out from behind the wheel. She wore white Capri pants, a purple tank top, and huge round sunglasses. Strawberry blond hair was piled atop her head and held there by a large black clip. She surveyed the area around the trailer, her gaze stopping when it reached the small cluster of FBI agents standing halfway between the cars and the trailer.

  “That would be Mrs. Beale,” John told the two agents who’d accompanied him on the plane from Virginia. He started toward her as she started toward him
.

  “Mrs. Beale, I’m John Mancini, FBI.” He approached her with his hand out.

  She met his eyes and ignored the hand.

  “I figured the FBI would be here. You smell blood again, Mr. Mancini?” Her face was hard-lined and angry. “You here to take another son from me?”

  “Mrs. Beale, there is nothing I or anyone else can say that can make right what happened twenty-four years ago,” John said. “Sorry doesn’t even come close to what I wish I could say. What happened was a total travesty, the most tragic-”

  “Save it. Or better still, write it down for me. So that I can take it into court when I sue your sorry asses.” She started to push past him just as another car pulled over to the side of the road, twenty-five feet from where they stood.

  Dorsey got out of her car and started across what passed for lawn. She was stopped by the same sheriff’s deputy who minutes before had flagged down Tim Beale’s mother. The small group gathered around him parted to make way for the latest arrival.

  “Miss, I’m sorry, but I can’t permit you to-” the deputy began.

  Dorsey waved her badge in his face. “FBI.”

  He stopped her long enough to look over her credentials, then said, “Go on over, Agent Collins. The others are straight ahead there.”

  “I see them, thank you.” She tucked her badge back into her bag.

  “Agent Collins?” someone called her from behind. “Are you Dorsey Collins?”

  She turned to face a short, slender man wearing glasses and a Carolina Panthers cap turned brim backward. “Who are you?”

  “Robert Kerlin. I’m with Channel Seventeen out of Charleston. I was at the press conference last night.” He stepped closer. “I was wondering why Agent Shields said he was the only agent assigned to the Shannon Randall case, since Chief Bowden was pretty adamant that you were working the case as well.”

  Dorsey stared at him for a moment before muttering “I don’t have time for this” as she pushed past him.

  Robert Kerlin took a digital camera from his pocket and took a few shots of her back as she walked away.

  “Dorsey.” Andrew was standing a few feet away from John Mancini and Jeanette Beale when he saw her.

  She ignored him and continued on toward the trailer.

  “Dorsey, don’t,” he called to her. When she refused to acknowledge him, he started after her. “Dorsey, you can’t go there. Beale has a gun. He’s threatened to shoot your father if anyone gets too close.”

  She spun around to face him. “You knew about this. You knew he was here. You looked me straight in the face and lied through your teeth.”

  “I understand how you must feel,” he said, hoping to reason with her.

  “Oh, do you? You think you do?” Her anger was palpable in the thick summer air. “Is that your father in there?”

  “I know what you must think…” Andrew pushed a hand through his hair. He’d been hoping to have this conversation later, away from everyone.

  “Then you know I hope to God I never have to see you again after today.” Her hands were shaking with anger and she crossed her arms over her chest in the hopes of steadying them. “This is the ‘nothing’ John called you about, right?”

  “I wanted to tell you.”

  “Then why didn’t you?”

  “Because I would not permit it,” John responded before Andrew could open his mouth. “If you’re going to blame anyone, blame me. I ordered him not to tell you, as I promised your father I would. He was afraid you’d do exactly what you’re doing now, which is putting yourself in harm’s way. I agreed with him, by the way. And since I’m Andrew’s boss, his job depends on following my orders.”

  “You’re John Mancini?” Dorsey hesitated.

  “Yes.” John walked toward her, Jeanette Beale momentarily forgotten. “And you’re Dorsey Collins. I’m glad to finally meet you. Andrew has had nothing but good things to say about you.”

  She refused to look at Andrew, and could think of nothing to say except, “Shit.”

  “Sorry?” John came closer.

  “So am I. Glad to finally meet you.” Swell time and place to meet the man she’d hoped to work for. She suppressed a grimace. Not much she could do about that now.

  “I was hoping you’d come in for an interview next week. Maybe we could save you a trip, take some time to talk now.”

  “Please don’t treat me like I’m an idiot. Don’t try to distract me with a job interview, hang it out in front of me like a carrot. I need to talk to my father. I need to know he’s all right.”

  “You’re Matt Ranieri’s kid?” A woman Dorsey had not noticed approached from somewhere behind John.

  “Yes.” Dorsey nodded.

  “Your father is fine,” the unsmiling woman told her. “At least he was about ten minutes ago.”

  Dorsey frowned. “How do you know?”

  “I’m Tim Beale’s mother. You want to go in, that’s fine with me.”

  She took Dorsey by the arm. “More than fine. I’d say this just about balances things out, wouldn’t you, Mr. Mancini?”

  Jeanette Beale looked straight ahead and called out, “Timothy, you open that door now, hear? Me and my new friend are coming on in-”

  “No. Uh-uh. No way.” Andrew shook his head and raised his hand to pull his gun. “She’s not going in there.”

  “I don’t think that’s a decision for you to make.” Jeanette Beale stared at the gun, then started toward the trailer, still holding Dorsey by the arm. She called out to her son, “Timmy, you keep that gun pointed right at Matt’s head. If there ain’t two of us coming through that door in about thirty seconds, you blow his brains out, hear?”

  “I hear you, Mamma,” Tim Beale called back. “I got him right here.”

  The door swung open, held there by Tim’s foot. Through the doorway, everyone could clearly see Matt Ranieri seated in a chair at a small square table, his hands tied behind his back. Tim Beale stood over him, pressing a gun against the former agent’s forehead.

  No one outside the trailer moved, except Dorsey and Jeanette Beale, who climbed the three steps into the trailer. The door was pulled closed and slammed from inside.

  Andrew’s hand was still on his holster. Dorsey and her father were captives of the family Matt had unwittingly helped destroy, and there wasn’t a damned thing anyone could do about it.

  20

  “Well, now, isn’t this nice?” Jeanette Beale stood in front of the closed door facing the table that stood in the middle of the tiny living space her son called home. “Mother and son, father and daughter. I’d call this cozy. Timmy, I think it’s time to put on the tea.”

  “Dorsey, what in the name of God are you doing here?” a weary Matt said loudly. “I specifically told John I didn’t want you here. For this very reason.”

  “I should be here.” She forced a calm, steady tone into her voice. No need for anyone-her father or the Beales-to know how hard her heart was pounding at that moment. This wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind when she arrived at the trailer. She had no idea her father was being held at gunpoint by Eric Beale’s brother.

  “And I’m here because Mrs. Beale thought it was a good idea.”

  “Very funny.” Jeanette pointed to Dorsey’s shoulder bag. “I want to see what’s in that bag. Hand it to me.”

  The urge to swing the bag at the woman’s head was almost overwhelming, but Tim still was holding a gun on her father, though he’d moved to the other side of the table. How quick would he be to fire off a round? How accurate was his aim? Dorsey didn’t think she wanted to find out. She passed the bag to Jeanette and watched as the woman rifled through it.

  “Now, this isn’t a very ladylike thing to be carrying around.” Jeanette held up Dorsey’s Sig Sauer and tsk-tsked.

  “Maybe we should search her.” The woman’s son stared at Dorsey. “She might have another gun hidden someplace.”

  “She’s wearing a tank top and a short skirt. Where do you suppose she�
��s hiding a gun?” Jeanette asked with a touch of sarcasm. “You watch too much TV, Timmy. I’ve been saying that from the time you were three years old.”

  Tim shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He was tall and slim with thinning, light brown hair and pale, vacant eyes. He seemed to have inherited the same air of poverty and desperation worn by his mother.

  Jeanette leaned on the counter in the miniscule galley kitchen, the gun held loosely in her hand. She pointed it in Dorsey’s general direction and looked Matt in the eyes and said calmly, “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t take your daughter’s life, same as you took my son’s.”

  “We could start with the fact that there are several of her fellow agents outside along with some local law enforcement officers. That might be something for you to consider. You’ve dealt with the legal system before, both of you.” He looked from son to mother. “You know there’s no chance you’ll walk away. You’ll either die here or you’ll be arrested and face murder charges.” He addressed Jeanette directly. “You want your daughters to have to deal with that?”

  “My daughters would understand,” Jeanette told him. “That the best you got?”

  She was in control and liking it, but Dorsey noticed she’d shifted the gun slightly so that it pointed downward.

  “No pleading for the life of your child, Agent Ranieri?” Jeanette asked.

  “I don’t suppose that would be very effective, Mrs. Beale. And for the record, I’m no longer with the Bureau, so I’m not Agent Anyone anymore.”

  “Ahh, that’s right. So I’ll just call you Matt. And you can call me Jeanette, since we’re all so cozied-up here.” She narrowed her eyes. “I seen you on TV. You’re the big expert they call in to talk about all them tough criminal cases, aren’t you? The guy they always bring in when they want a professional, expert opinion on those big cases no one can solve? The man they go to when they want to figure it all out, right?” She snorted. “Well, I’m bettin’ that’s one job you wished you never signed on for.”

  “You have no idea,” Matt told her solemnly.

  Jeanette slammed her fist on the table hard enough to make Dorsey flinch.