IRENE - BLACKBIRD book 6

22. served

Another thick silence filled the room as all eyes converged on Graff. He looked down at the swab and then up at Hank, as if wishing him a slow painful death.

"There's no certainty on this kind of test. You cannot tell for sure my DNA from my brother's."

"You don't trust the Bureau's lab, Senator?" asked Wright.

Smirks spread like fire along Gillian's side of the table. Well, with the expectable exceptions of Brock and Cooper. And Gillian was positive this time the Deputy Director did move his chair away from Graff's—only a couple of inches, else he'd end up sitting on the ADD's lap.

As to state he had nothing to do with him, the ADD said, "So you've shown what you have on the abuse and the illegal adoption—"

"It's child abduction," Gillian corrected, sharp. "Liam was removed from his mother's care against the mother's express will. We've arrested Mrs. Graff on that charge, and that's the charge we're pressing against Senator Graff as well."

The ADD needed a heartbeat to overcome the shock of being cut off like that. Wright came to the rescue of the man's defiled suit dignity and gifted Gillian with a little smirk that told her where Cassidy had learnt it.

"Okay, child abduction. But you also brought the girl's death to the table. How can it be related to the Senator?"

She couldn't help a tight smile back at him. A white shark was no match for that man, but she liked him anyway. He'd never lower himself trying to look nice or kind. He'd eat alive anyone around with that confident smirk on his thousand teeth.

"Irene's killer worked at a gas station on the I-75—the Interstate Irene was bound to take to get from Richmond to Tampa. And he was paid to watch the road for Irene's car and Irene herself," she said.

Brock opened a folder to take the picture Barnes had sent them and handed it to the ADD.

"The handwriting and the phone number belong to an aid from Harold Jones' staff," said Brock. "Jones is a Tampa's State Senator."

"Just like Senator Amuso from Virginia, Jones was contacted by Senator Graff," said Russell. "Graff allegedly told Jones that his troubled niece had run away from home and his family was sick worried looking for her. They had word Irene might be heading to Tampa, so he asked Jones if he could give somebody the heads-up in case they saw her. But he expressly asked not to alert the police, to save face. So Jones had one of his aids take care of it under the grid. And this aid—unaware of Bennett's record—gave Irene's information to a serial killer who hunted women on the Interstate to torture them to death."

Aldana showed a caption of Irene at the gas station. "See the man in a dark coverall behind Irene? That's Bennett, her killer, watching her car. We have the footage that shows him checking a paper, then the plate. After that, he approached Irene and talked her into checking her oil and engine. He tampered with her car and abducted her, torturing her for ten hours straight. Until she couldn't stand the pain any longer and her heart suffered a fatal arrest."

Gillian gave them a moment to grasp the idea of dying out of pain after half a day of constant torture.

"Note that she'd dyed her hair," she said. "According to her posts on social networks, she expected to be followed, because her abuser and her mother didn't want her to retrieve her son."

"This is ridiculous!" Graff sounded properly outraged. "I only tried to help finding her! And now I'm responsible for her death!?"

The suits avoided eye contact with him and among themselves. They waited for Gillian's reply. She let Brock do it.

"So far, we've linked Bennett to fourteen unsolved murders in different jurisdictions of the Tampa area. All of them women. All of them in their thirties. Irene wasn't her type—she was too young for his taste. The only reason why Bennett paid attention to her was because he'd been warned she'd come his way, and he knew she was alone and away from home and friends. Which he wouldn't have known, had you filled a missing person report with the police, instead of trying to do it all behind the authorities' back."

The ADD was about to ask something when the Deputy Director said, "This is enough for now. Leave us the evidence. We'll check it and call you in again. Our security staff will take you to a place where you can wait."

Gillian checked the time and grimaced. "I'm sorry, but that's not possible. We're expected somewhere else."

Wright scoffed, shaking his head slightly.

From the other end of the table, the Director spoke for the first time. "You have something more important to do than this?"

Gillian fought back her smile at the irony underlying his words.

Brock faced him with his blankest scowl to reply, "The Attorney General is waiting for us to discuss the case, sir, and she's on a tight schedule today."

Everybody turned to the Director, waiting for his ruling. He took a moment, as if considering the alternatives. Then he raised his eyebrows and nodded.

"We don't want to keep her waiting, of course," he said.

He stood up and everybody on Gillian's side of the table did the same. As they walked out, Gillian paused to face the Deputy Director one last time.

"I'm sorry you got involved in this," she said. "I'm sorry for all of us who respected you and trusted you for guidance and support." She turned to Graff, and words fell so short for all the anger and impotence squeezing her guts. "You're not allowed to leave town without written authorization from the AG's office. Your whereabouts, appointments and communications are being monitored as of now."

Cooper produced several pages with the Department Of Justice's emblem from her bag and dropped them on the table before Graff.

"You've been served," she said.

the BLACKBIRD series
book 6

THE END

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