his assistant with so much at stake? Knowing firsthand of Lucas’s devious and manipulative ways, he would likely be planning his own damage control strategy to keep Maggie under his spell, keeping her from believing that Josh was right in what he saw and heard, maybe even devising some way to get Josh out of the picture altogether.
Sully shuddered. Did he really even have any idea what Lucas was capable of?
~*~
Emily sat at her desk, in front of the computer in her office across the main hall from Lucas’s office. She had been searching the internet all morning, trying to find something on Lucas Wakefield. She had attempted to call Isabel several times in the last few hours, but it always went to voicemail. Though it was frustrating, Emily knew that if Isabel was working hard on a case at the FBI, sometimes she could not be reached for non-FBI purposes.
Isabel had worked for months doing the financial analyses on the George Semanski murder and kidnapping case and it would be going to court soon. She’d had to go out of town a few weeks ago and lately had been putting in some fourteen to sixteen hour days. She had managed to get the evening off last night for Maggie and Lucas’s engagement party, but Emily assumed she was back at her office working again.
All the intense work on the Semanski case, leading up to the trial, meant Isabel hadn’t had the spare time to look into Lucas’s background yet. Emily didn’t have the federal contacts Isabel did, so she had to rely on her own investigative methods.
If Detective Colin Andrews had still been in town, she could have asked him for a few favors and he would have gladly complied. But his replacement, Detective Ernie Kaufman—good ol’ Ernie—wasn’t as cooperative. He was old school, by the book, and Emily wasn’t romantically involved with him.
Boy, I miss Colin .
Emily had found several different Lucas Wakefield’s on the internet, none of which seemed to match the description of her subject—a high school football player in the south, an insurance adjuster in the Midwest, a pharmacy owner in Texas, and a professor in England.
Something wasn’t adding up. Maybe if she could get something with Lucas’s fingerprints on it, she would have more success. She was hoping she could convince Isabel to squeeze the request for that analysis into the middle of her hectic schedule. DNA would be better, but that could take weeks to get the results. By then it would be too late.
Lucas and Maggie would be married.
Her cell phone began to ring and she dug it out of her pocket. “Hello.”
“Hey, Em, this is Isabel. I see you tried me quite a few times this morning. What’s up?”
“I wondered if you’d had a chance to do that background check on Lucas yet.”
“Not yet. I’ve been buried with this case. But as soon as I get a breather, I’m on it.”
“After what I saw at the party last night, I think we need to move quickly.” Emily had discussed her observations briefly with Isabel after the party was over, but they hadn’t had the chance to discuss it in depth and formulate a plan. “What if I can get you something with Lucas’s fingerprints on it? Can you ask for a test to be run?”
“When would you have it?” Isabel asked.
“Tonight. I’m having dinner with Maggie to go over some of the wedding plans, so I’ll have it after that, and I’ll drop it at your house later.”
“Sounds good. I’ll take it in tomorrow.”
“But tomorrow is Sunday.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me—I have to work—trying to tie up loose ends before trial. Tomorrow being Sunday, though, there won’t be anyone to run the prints ’til Monday. But if I get it submitted, we can be first in line and I can push it on Monday.”
“Thanks, Isabel. I’ll let you get back to work.”
CHAPTER 11
Emily showed up at Maggie’s little house around five, anxious to find something she could be sure had Lucas’s fingerprints on it. Maggie lived in a
Sarah J. Maas
Lynn Ray Lewis
Devon Monk
Bonnie Bryant
K.B. Kofoed
Margaret Frazer
Robert J. Begiebing
Justus R. Stone
Alexis Noelle
Ann Shorey