Gripping his head now, trying to squeeze the memories back into some dark box in his mind, Davis knew that this dear, sweet teacher was right in everything she said in her letter. He needed help, and that was the problem.

  No one can help me. No one can absolve me of the guilt for what I have done.

  Not even Fiona Plum.

  Chapter

  65

  Sampson followed the English teacher’s Kia to a small blue Cape in the Groveton neighborhood of Alexandria. Before she could get out, he was at her door, showing her his badge.

  Fiona Plum looked dreadfully hung over. When she saw him, he thought that she might be sick.

  She lowered her window, said, “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “You have to talk to me. It’s a murder investigation. Where’s Captain Davis?”

  “I left him passed out naked in my niece’s bunk bed. He’s got more issues than I can handle at the moment.”

  “Such as?”

  “He drinks too much. I drink, but he drinks way too much.”

  “Did he say anything while he was drinking?”

  Plum stared through the windshield. “He said a lot of things. I have no idea if any of it is true.”

  “Let me figure that out.”

  “You really have it in for him, don’t you?”

  He sighed. “Honestly, Ms. Plum, I don’t have it in for anyone. I just want justice. If he’s guilty, I want to nail him. If he’s innocent, I want to see him stay free.”

  The English teacher drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, still gazing off into the distance. Finally she said, “He evidently had to kill a lot of people in Iraq and Syria. As a pilot, I mean. Whole villages, I guess.”

  “That would affect a man.”

  She nodded.

  “Maybe make him angry.”

  Plum glanced at Sampson. “He’s angry about a lot.”

  “His ex-girlfriend?”

  “Ex-girlfriend and her daughter. You know why he says she did it?”

  “Because he lost his chance at a job with American Airlines?”

  The English teacher shook her head bitterly. “Because he’d killed so many people and the psycho girlfriend found out and it drove her even more insane. Enough to kill her own daughter and herself.”

  “That doesn’t make much sense.”

  “I’m just telling you what he said. She was seriously mentally ill. Finding out snapped her.”

  Sampson watched her cheek twitch. She put her hand to her mouth. “That man is suffering,” Plum said.

  “Violent?”

  “No…I mean, no,” she said. “I think he’s just consumed by sorrow and anger.”

  “At who?”

  “Himself. His commanders. The government. You. The police. The FBI. The headmaster at the Charles School. Me.”

  “You?”

  Tears dripped down her cheeks. “He’s angry at me for loving him. Says I have no idea who he is. And you know what? I guess I don’t, which is why I left to come to my sister’s.”

  “You letting Davis stay at your place?”

  “I left a letter telling him to leave. He was still passed out.”

  “Did he mention anyone named Ibrahim?”

  “No.”

  “How about Leslie Parks?”

  She shook her head. “Why? Who are they?”

  “People of interest.”

  “If he knows them, he never mentioned them to me.”

  Sampson felt his phone buzz. He ignored it a moment. “Are you going to be all right?”

  Plum barely nodded. “Funny how one night can shatter a dream.”

  “Knowing what you know now, is he capable of it? Of shooting down a plane like that?”

  She dropped her chin a little. “Before last night, I would have said no. Emphatically no. Now? I…I guess I can’t tell you how deep that black hole in his heart is.”

  Sampson patted the roof of the car. “I’m sorry, Ms. Plum. And thank you for the talk. I think your sister and nieces are up there waiting for you.”

  The English teacher looked toward the house. The drapes were open, and her sister and her sister’s daughters were looking out in concern.

  Sampson returned to his car. As he did, he pulled out his phone and saw an alert from the software tracking the GPS signal from Davis’s rental car.

  He swore, jumped in his car, and spun it around.

  Chapter

  66

  Captain Davis was on the move, already a mile and a half from Fiona Plum’s house, getting on the George Washington Parkway, heading north.

  Sampson threw a bubble on the roof of his car and lit up his sirens. He raced east until he reached the parkway and accelerated north, hoping to close the five miles that separated them—

  He looked at his phone, saw Davis was getting off at Reagan National Airport. What was he doing there, of all places?

  Sampson stomped on the gas and was trying to figure out how best to handle the situation when the signal from Davis’s car slowed to a crawl. He was going to catch up.

  But two minutes before he reached the west entrance to the airport, the signal stopped. He shut down his sirens and the bubble, looked at the screen. Davis was at 2500 National Avenue, parking garage A.

  The Avis car-rental return.

  Son of a bitch, he’s ditching the car, Sampson thought. He grabbed his radio, called dispatch, and asked them to send airport police to the Avis return and get eyes on Davis. Then he texted Rebecca Cantrell, asking the U.S. attorney to alert him if Davis tried to rent another car at Avis or another agency.

  Traffic began to move. And then it stopped.

  Sirens suddenly began to wail. Dispatch called Sampson to tell him someone had just called in a bomb threat to the airport and all police were responding.

  Did Davis do that?

  He could see parking garage A ahead of him, no more than two hundred yards away. He put the bubble up again and turned on his sirens.

  Sampson drove up on a lawn, got around a knot of vehicles, went back onto the road, and made it to the entrance to parking garage A. He drove straight to the Avis rental return, spotted the Chevy Davis had been driving, and jumped out of his car, holding up his ID to a guy checking returns. “Where did the man driving this car go?”

  The guy shrugged. “Terminal? He left his phone.”

  As Sampson ran toward the exit, he said, “Do not touch it.”

  “What about your car?”

  “I’ll be back!” he yelled.

  A minute later, he was running down the aerial walkway, scanning the people in the terminal. The scene had become angry and chaotic now that airport police were pushing the crowds back until the bomb threat could be cleared.

  Captain Davis was a big guy. He would stand out. And Sampson was tall enough to look over the top of a lot of people. But he wasn’t seeing Davis in the crowd, and he didn’t see him when he got past the first line of airport police and scanned the passengers exiting the planes.

  He looked everywhere for the former NFL long snapper. But after thirty minutes, Sampson had to admit defeat.

  Davis had shaken the tail. He was in the wind.

  Chapter

  67

  Bree checked the clock in the kitchen. Alex was supposed to land at Joint Base Andrews in less than an hour.

  Though he hadn’t been gone that long, she felt like they hadn’t connected beyond quick conversations for the past week, and between the Leigh Anne Asher case and the death of Iliana Meadows, she had a lot to talk over with him.

  Jannie hurried into the kitchen and whispered, “She’s about to go on!”

  Bree hurried after her stepdaughter into the dining room and stopped where they could both see into the front room. Nana Mama stood in the center of the room facing Ali’s laptop, which he’d set on the mantel above the fireplace. Someone had removed the shade on one of the table lamps, so it threw a nice warm light on Nana’s face and the simple dark blue dress and pumps she wore.

  “Ready?” Ali said.

  Nana Mama nodded.

  Ali said, “Remember to look at the camera. That way they’ll all think you’re looking right at them.”

  “Got it,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  Ali hit a key, and the Zoom room began to fill with the faces of teenagers, some looking at Nana Mama curiously and others completely bored or studying their phones.

  “Hello,” Nana said. “My name is Regina Cross, but you can call me Miss Reggie. Pay attention, now. I am older than you think, so I can’t promise I won’t keel over and go toes-up in the few minutes they’ve given me to talk to you.”

  Several of the students laughed. Others sat up in their chairs.

  “How many of you are seniors?” Nana Mama asked.

  Half the students raised their hands.

  She held up the novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker. “Who has done the assigned reading?”

  Many young women held up their hands. Only a handful of the young men did.

  “Matthew Gundry,” Nana Mama said, picking one boy who was slouched down, staring dumbly at the screen. “Have you even started it?”

  Gundry sat up, shrugged. “Didn’t see the point.”

  “Really? I see the point of this book in every one of you—you’re all tired of your situation; you feel like you have no say in your life, that you’re helpless, that your life is unfair somehow. Isn’t that about right, Matthew?”

  Gundry’s brow furrowed. “I mean, yeah, I guess. Who doesn’t want their life to be better somehow?”

  Many of the other kids on the screen were nodding.

  Nana Mama said, “Those of you who have read Alice Walker’s masterpiece: Celie’s life is a lot worse than yours, correct?”

  All the readers in the class agreed.

  Nana Mama picked one, said, “Tell us, Cheryl Walsh.”

  Walsh pushed her glasses farther up the bridge of her nose and said, “Way worse, Miss Reggie. People treat her horribly. I mean, what Celie goes through is, like, not to be believed. One terrible thing after another.”

  “And how is the book written?”

  “Like, it’s Celie writing these letters to God because no one else listens to her?”

  “That’s right—Celie has no voice except in those letters. But despite everything she goes through, she manages to retain her humanity, her inherent goodness, doesn’t she?”

  The ones who’d read the book nodded.

  Walsh said, “In the end, it’s like she outlasts every bad person and every bad situation, and gradually, she’s the one who comes out of it better. Comes out on top, I mean.”

  “And she stays true to herself, and she’s at peace because of it,” Nana Mama said.

  The students who’d read the book all nodded again. All the students were listening intently.

  “There are many lessons in this book,” Nana Mama went on, holding the novel up again. “Too many to talk about in the short time they’ve given me to speak with you today. But the one I hope you learn well is that no matter your circumstance—even if you’re trapped in a life of real violence and misery, as Celie was—you can endure, and you can come out of it a better person.”

  She paused, then took a step toward the camera. “Is that the kind of story you might be able to relate to, Mr. Gundry?”

  The kid who’d been slouched down tried not to smile. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Then do me a favor—read the story before we meet again. If I don’t keel over and go toes-up in the meantime, I’d love to hear what you have to say about it. Especially the knife-fight scene.”

  “There’s a knife-fight scene?” Gundry asked.

  “A good one,” Nana Mama said. “Lots of blood. You’ll tell us all about it. And now it’s time for Miss Reggie to say goodbye. Until next time—keep reading. I promise it will change your life.”

  She nodded to Ali, who signed her out of Zoom.

  Bree and Jannie began to clap.

  “That was awesome,” Ali said. “I want to read that book.”

  “Next year,” Nana Mama said, and she smiled at Bree and Jannie. “Okay?”

  “More than okay,” Jannie said. “You were fun, Miss Reggie. They liked the keeling-over-and-toes-up line.”

  Nana Mama laughed.

  Bree said, “You were relatable because you related to them.”

  “That’s right,” Nana Mama said. “And I let them teach each other. It was always my secret weapon and that has not changed a bit. No one wants some old person lecturing them about what to think.”

  “That’s true,” Jannie said.

  Bree’s phone rang. She looked at the caller ID. “I have to take this,” she said, turning toward the kitchen. “That was great, Nana. I think you’re a YouTube star in the making!”

  Chapter

  68

  When Bree answered her phone, Elena Martin said, “I haven’t heard from you.”

  “Because there hasn’t been a lot to tell,” Bree said, walking into the kitchen.

  “And you’ve been looking for things to tell me?”

  Bree thought that was an odd thing to say. “Well, I mean, we have a positive ID, Elena. We know it was Leigh Anne in that seat no matter what country issued her passport or how disfigured her body was.”

  Her boss was quiet a beat, then said, “But there’s more.”

  “Okay…”

  Martin cleared her throat. “A member of the Amalgam board—anonymous for the moment—contacted me because of my relationship with Leigh Anne. Turns out the FBI has been investigating Amalgam.”

  “What?”

  “I swear to God, I just found out. Leigh Anne said nothing.”

  “Did she know?”

  “Evidently. And she decided not to file a notice of the investigation with the SEC until something definitive turned up.”

  “So that the IPO could go forward.”

  After a pause, Martin said, “The more I learn, the more I realize that my best friend not only had a secret life—she liked to play right at the edge of the law.”

  “What was the thrust of the investigation?”

  “That’s fuzzy, but my understanding is that some of the funding sources during the early financing rounds were, uh, sketchy.”

  “Sketchy?”

  “That’s how the board member described them,” Martin said. “Seems Leigh Anne’s chief financial officer had connections through offshore companies based in the Bahamas with some very shady characters. Russians.”

  “And Leigh Anne looked the other way?”

  “That’s what they want us to find out. The board is going to stall the IPO until we can do a thorough investigation into all aspects of the company’s early funding and Leigh Anne’s death.”

  “A terrorist shot her out of the sky, Elena,” Bree said, getting irritated. “I do not believe your friend was the specific target.”

  Martin’s voice was cold when she said, “The board still wants to know why she was on that plane and why she disappeared under such strange circumstances.”

  “That I can work on,” Bree said.

  “Thank you. Call me if you need me.” She hung up.

  Bree rubbed her brow, knowing she’d been a little curt with her boss. But Elena had a tendency to spout theories based on little or no evidence.

  Jannie came into the room. “I’m going back to the dorms. Have you talked to Detective Creighton?”

  “Not today,” Bree said. “I’ll try to give her a call later.”

  Alex’s daughter crossed her arms. “I just hate the idea that Iliana’s death is going to fall through the cracks, you know?”

  “It won’t. I promise.”

  Jannie nodded and left.

  After Bree finished a report on everything she’d found about the late tech entrepreneur, including Elena Martin’s disclosure of the federal investigation into her financing sources, she called Creighton.

  “Chief,” Creighton said. “I’m driving, but I was about to call you.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I just left Iliana’s high school,” she said. “Nice place. Nice people. I did the interview with Hawley in front of the principal. He denied the affair with Iliana at first. But when I told him we knew about the blackmail, he broke down. Not that it matters, but he said the affair was consensual.”

  “It’s what Iliana told my stepdaughter as well.”

  “The principal is furious. He wants the guy locked up. Hawley is toast.”

  “What about the blackmail?”

  “Hawley was contacted anonymously in an e-mail by people who said they had the video he’d taken and they’d ruin his life if he didn’t give them fifty thousand in Bitcoin.”

  “Did he?”

  “After they proved they had the video. Took a second mortgage on his house. Bought Bitcoin and sent it.”

  “Is he married?”

  “Yep, and Hawley’s wife doesn’t know any of this yet.”

  “Bad night coming.”

  “He brought it on himself. This is what happens.”

  “Where next?”

  “Going to Paxson State to talk to her teachers and coaches.”

  “Try her roommate as well.”

  “She’s high on my list.”

  Chapter

  69

  Ned and I arrived back in DC around one and went straight to a conference room in Rebecca Cantrell’s offices in Arlington to meet with her, Sampson, and top agents assigned to investigate the downing of AA 839.

  I’d thought Cantrell would be very pissed off when Sampson told her that Captain Davis was in the wind, but she was only mildly irritated.

  “He’ll pop up,” she said. “We’re watching his credit cards and bank accounts.”

  John said, “Fiona Plum told me that when Davis was drunk, he talked about having to blow up entire villages in Iraq and Syria. He was thrown out of the American Airlines pilot program for drinking. But he evidently believes his ex-girlfriend killed herself and her daughter because of what he had to do over there.”