She looked at her watch again. Baldwin should be calling soon; he’d promised her an explanation. She walked down the stairs and went through the kitchen into the tiny backyard. Sent Daniels a text: Anything yet?

He responded immediately: Yes, I’ll have a full report shortly. Call you at this number?

Hurry. We have two more down.

She stowed the phone in her front pocket. She was good at waiting, but her agitation wouldn’t allow her to sit still. She wondered about the long blond hair on the banister—both of the men had short, dark hair, and there was only one bedroom that seemed to be in use. There were three bedrooms upstairs, and the other two were set up as offices, with couches that looked like they could pull out into guest beds. She didn’t like to make assumptions, but the setup screamed couple, not roommates. So probably no girlfriends staying the night. Which made exactly zero difference to the investigation. The hair could belong to anyone, friend or foe. But her first instinct when she saw it was to think it belonged to whomever had been here last. An automatic turn to the nefarious.

She started prowling the backyard, walked out into the alley and bumped into a small, portly woman with tightly marcelled white hair, wearing fluorescent yellow gardening clogs and holding a pair of dirty gloves. Her face was red, with both exertion and shock, Sam thought.

When Sam disentangled herself from the woman’s grasp, she patted her down slightly under the guise of making sure she hadn’t hurt her, but also looking for any surprises that might be coming. But the woman was clean, the gloves the only thing in her possession. She began asking questions immediately, voice high and breathless.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Oh my. Whatever is happening? I saw all the police cars. I was coming over to make sure everything is okay. Do you know what’s going on?”

“You’re a neighbor?”

“I am. I live next door. Please tell me nothing’s happened to Mike or Jared.”

She seemed a kindly old soul, but Sam was well-marshaled in the ways of crime scene investigation. “What’s your name?”

“Eloise Poe. I’m over there.” She waved a hand absently toward her fence. The dog they’d heard earlier uttered a short, sharp bark. “Hush, Tervis.” She turned to Sam, eyes full of concern. “Are the boys okay?”

Sam shook her head. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

“Oh my. Oh my.” She had a hand on her chest, the red face going a duskier pink. Sam eyed her, making sure she didn’t fall or faint, but the woman kept her feet, uttering small exclamations of distress until Sam touched her arm, which seemed to bring her back to the present moment.

“When I didn’t see Jared on his run this morning I wondered if he was ill. I never imagined, oh my!”

“So they have a routine, a regular schedule?”

“They do...they did. Jared ran every morning at six. They both left for work at eight, together.” She gave Sam an assessing look. “They were together, you should know that. It didn’t matter to me. They were beautiful young men, very much in love. Jared said they might get married one day. And I thought that would be just grand. Well-suited to each other, did a nice job with the house, splitting the chores. And who am I to tell someone who they can love? I’m eighty-one and I’ve loved quite a few in my day who upset the people around me.”

Sam smiled. God bless nosy neighbors.

“When was the last time you saw them, ma’am?”

“Eloise, please. Jared ran yesterday morning, but I don’t remember seeing them last night. They usually sit out on the porch at night, have a beer, talk about their day. Oh, how could this have happened? How did they die?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I can’t discuss any details with you. I need you to come with me, though. You’re going to have to talk to the detectives.”

Eloise Poe stopped short. “You aren’t a detective? Who are you?”

“My name is Dr. Owens, and I’m with the FBI.”

“The FBI is here? Oh my.”

Yes, Sam thought, oh my indeed.

Chapter 32

Capitol Hill

SAM PASSED OFF Eloise Poe to the uniforms at the front door, and went back inside to find Fletcher. Before she got very far, her cell phone rang.

Baldwin. Finally. She ducked off into the white-and-black kitchen, answered with, “I hope you have a whole lot of answers for me, because my list of questions is growing. I’ve got more dead.”

“More dead? Where?”

She filled him in. He cursed once, very gently.

“Baldwin, I can’t keep operating in the dark. We need to know what we’re dealing with, because this case is getting weirder by the second.”

“I know. I’m all yours.”

“Then would you like to tell me why Souleyret was killed, and why someone seems to be knocking off people who have connections to her, too?”

“I’ve had some back-channel conversations since we talked last. You already know Souleyret was tasked with working on incidences of pharmaceutical espionage.”

“That’s what the file says. Girabaldi seems to feel otherwise. She thinks Amanda was working on a bioterror threat.”

“Right. Well, Amanda had a specialized skill set. For lack of a better term, she was a honeypot. She’d get friendly with the people we needed to look at, get into their systems, load up the software that allowed us to take a look at these company’s practices.”

“I can imagine that would piss some people off. It sounds like she found the source of this threat, and someone realized they’d been taken. And now they’re killing everyone around her.”

“They’re looking for something.”

“I know what they’re looking for.” She told him about the SD card Souleyret had smuggled in and the vaccines they’d found. “We have the vaccination schedules for the whole region. Girabaldi thought the illness outbreak was an isolated incident. The files Amanda has here prove otherwise. They’ve been testing for a while now. It’s scary stuff.”

“Is that all you saw on the SD card?”

“All that we’d found as of an hour ago. We have an eager beaver from Quantico at Fletcher’s place, looking for Robin Souleyret.”

“Daniels, yes, Charlaine told me. He’s very good.”

“Yes, he is. The SD card was built on a sophisticated cipher, layers of encryptions. He cracked the initial code, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t more.”

Baldwin was quiet.

“Come on, spill. We have no more time for secrets. We’ve got to find the sister, see if she knows anything and protect her.”

“You won’t have to protect her,” he said.

“So you know where she is?”

“Where? No. Who? Yes. She’s a CIA asset. Or was.”

“Was CIA? Is she dead?”

“In a way. Listen, Robin works for a guy I know. She’s unstable at best.”

“Unstable, how?” Sam asked slowly.

“Robin got blown up a couple of years ago. Literally. She never recovered all the way. She was tough as nails, but the PTSD got her. CIA kept her on the payroll, but she hasn’t been given real assignments in months. She works for my friend from time to time, on specialty jobs, but she’s lost her edge.”

“What did she do for them? What was her position? An analyst, a handler?”

“Um, her work was very specific. You know what Xander was used for often in his position with the Rangers? She was, too. That’s all I’m willing to say. But she’s messed up in the head. She’s better left alone.”

She knew exactly what Baldwin meant. Xander was an Army Ranger. He could do most anything well, without conscience or remorse, if he was given the order to do so. He’d been through every specialized school the Army had to offer, but he’d especially excelled at sniper school. Long-range hits.

Assassinations.

A cold finger paraded down her spine. Snipers scared her. Face-to-face assaults she could handle, but the idea of someone hundreds of yards away controlling your life genuinely freaked her out. Anytime, anywhere, Xander had told her. Pow.