“Wingate?” Griffin repeated.

“Yes. The ‘g’ is hardest to pick up, but you can see it bouncing on his throat.”

“You can see it,” Lynch said. “I can only trust you. But what does it mean?”

“I hope it’s someone’s name,” Kendra said. “How the hell do I know? But whatever it is, it was important enough to Stokes to get it out to me even though he was in agony.”

“It might be a name,” Griffin said. “Though it could be a street, a building, or a development of some kind. Or it could be the raving of a man out of his head with pain.”

Lynch shook his head. “Kendra is right, Stokes tried to get it across three times while he was being slowly murdered. And did it in a way that he knew that Kendra could pick up on it yet Colby wouldn’t.”

Griffin shrugged. “I’ve learned my lesson. I’m not about to overrule Kendra on anything to do with this case.” He picked the phone on the desk next to Nate’s workstation. “I’ll have my team start a search for it.”

“I want to help,” Kendra said. “Get me a desk and a computer.”

“Right away.”

Kendra couldn’t take her eyes off Stokes on the monitor screen, still locked in that loop. He was sweating and bleeding, mere minutes away from death. But there he was, still heroically giving his all.

Wingate.

Lynch House

10:25 A . M .

“OKAY, LET ME INTO that inner sanctum, Sam,” Beth called through the door. “I’ve got a tray, and I’m not going away.”

“I’m busy.”

“I’m not going away,” she repeated. “You very rudely refused to come to breakfast with Lynch and Kendra. Even though I took the trouble to cook. So now you have to eat alone. But you will eat, Sam.”

“It’s not rude to sacrifice myself to finding that son of a bitch. You have a wrong set of values.”

“Open the door.”

She heard him mumbling, but he was coming toward the door. The next moment, he’d thrown it open and stood scowling at her. “I’m not hungry.”

“Your stomach has probably shrunk in the last few days.” She sailed into the office, deposited the tray on the coffee table and settled in a corner of the couch. “I haven’t been able to get you to eat. Stupid, Sam. Very stupid. I let you get away with it because the pressure was over the top, but now you’re back to a steady pace.” She poured herself a cup of coffee. “Omelet, bacon, and toast. Eat.”

“Why don’t you go bother Kendra and Lynch?”

“They went to the FBI office. I just got a text from Kendra. They want me to come in for some kind of forensic computer meeting and bring the research and sources I’ve pulled together on Colby’s possible computer consultants.” She grinned mischievously. “Think maybe Griffin wants me to teach his people a thing or two?” She changed the subject. “But before I go anywhere, I want to see you eat.”

“So you’re going to stay and watch me?”

“Yes, because you’ll forget it’s there. Then it will get cold and unappetizing, and you won’t eat it even when you do remember.”

Sam sat down on the couch. “Nag.”

“Just doing my job.” She smiled. “I told Kendra that it was a competition thing between you and Griffin’s fair-haired computer guy.”

“Not true. I’m better than he is.”

“Without doubt.”

He nibbled at his bacon. “But Sims is smart, and I wouldn’t want him to think that he can get ahead of me. Just because he’s been up there in Quantico with those FBI directors kowtowing to him all those years is no sign that his thinking is any more innovative than mine. That would be embarrassing.”

“You’d live through it.” She tilted her head. “And you can’t tell me that you couldn’t get a job there with all that kowtowing if you wanted it.”

“Yeah, Sims has already mentioned it. I told him when I got as old as him, I’d think about it.”

“Ouch. How old is he?”

“Oh, fifty or so.” His smile was brimming with malicious mischief. “I couldn’t resist. He was being patronizing. Can you believe it? Patronizing to me.”

“Criminal. All I can say is that you’d better come out on top of this horse race.”

“I will. In the meantime, Sims is being helpful. We’re going at it from two different directions. He’s able to request logs from the Internet service providers for Kendra’s place, my house, and here, and he has a lot of resources at his disposal to analyze the data and try to figure out where Colby’s streams are coming from. I’m actually hacking a lot of those ISPs to find out the same thing. There’s some duplication of effort, but we each come up with stuff that the other can’t easily find.”

“I can see that. He has the full weight of the FBI behind him, and you have the freedom to skirt the law. That makes you a good team.”

He scowled at her. “But it’s not as if I’m with him night and day. For your information, we haven’t been online since yesterday afternoon. We just check in when one of us has had a breakthrough. Then it’s natural that we have to work together.”

“Perfectly natural,” she said solemnly.

“Do I detect sarcasm?” He glanced at his watch. “I don’t have time for this.”

“You do if I say you do. Eat. It’s the quickest way to get rid of me.”

He took his fork and began cutting his omelet. “I didn’t really say I wanted to get rid of you. I just don’t want you to interfere. I kind of like having you around.”

“Sam.”

“Okay, I told you that I have privacy issues when I’m working. It’s true. But lately, you’ve been like Old Dog Tray.”

“I beg your pardon.”

He chuckled. “You know, the dog that lies in front of the fireplace, and you don’t notice he’s there. But the song says he’s the best friend around.”

“How flattering … I think.”

“Look, you’re gorgeous and smart, but you don’t want me to flatter you. I save that for other women. You want the real thing.”

“Old Dog Tray.”

“Yeah, because it means something, like the way I feel about Kendra.”

“Are you saying that she’s Old Dog Tray, too?”

“In a way. We’ve been together for years, and we know we can count on each other.” He looked at her. “We’re like that now, aren’t we?”

She nodded, smiling faintly. “I believe we’ve fought our way through to that status.”

“Except I don’t know how you think sometimes. You know pretty much everything about me, but I don’t know—” He grimaced. “I didn’t ask Kendra much about how you got into that mental hospital. All I know is that you were imprisoned without cause.”

“But you’re asking now.” She was silent for a moment. “I saw something I shouldn’t have seen, and my grandmother wanted to get rid of me.”

“Something you shouldn’t have seen?”

“Murder,” she said baldly. “I was only a teenager, and I was easy to get rid of. I had a supposed skiing accident, a blow to the head, and she shipped me off to Seahaven, the posh mental hospital that she funded, to be ‘cared for’ by her tame crew of doctors.” She took a sip of her coffee. “And I stayed there for years and years. Until Eve and Kendra came to find me.”

“My God.” He shook his head. “Your grandmother?”

“She wasn’t your usual grandmother. She was beautiful, clever, and ambitious. And our relationship was … not warm and fuzzy.”

“I’d say that must be an understatement. What a nightmare.”

She nodded. “But it’s a nightmare I don’t allow myself to dwell on. It’s over, and I won’t let one moment of my present or future be held hostage by it.” She said fiercely, “I was a zombie in that place. They were planning on finally killing me when Eve found out she had a sister in that hospital. You can see why I’m grateful to you for helping to spring me.” She held up her hand. “So don’t you dare downplay what you did for any reason. I’m free, I live my life to the hilt, I learn something new every day.” She smiled. “Including bits and pieces of some of that computer know-how you dazzle everyone with. If I stay around long enough, I may even give you a run for your money.”