I was sure that I’d find “Civil Rights Violations” interesting, but a couple of missing women named Elizabeth Connolly and Audrey Meek were out there somewhere. Maybe one or both of them were still alive. Maybe I could help find them—if I was so goddamn gifted.

I was finishing breakfast with Nana and Rosie the cat at the kitchen table when I heard the morning paper plop on the front porch.

“Sit. You eat. I’ll get it,” I told Nana as I pushed my chair away from the table.

“No argument from this corner,” Nana said, and sipped her tea with great little-old-lady aplomb. “I have to conserve myself, you know.”

“Right.”

Nana was still cleaning every square inch of the house, inside and out, and cooking most of the meals. A couple of weeks ago I’d caught her hanging on to an extension ladder, cleaning out the gutters on the roof. “It’s not a problem,” she hollered down to me. “My balance is excellent and I’m light as a parachute.” Come again?

The Washington Post hadn’t actually reached the porch. It lay open halfway up the sidewalk. I didn’t even have to stoop to read the front page.

“Awhh, hell,” I said. “Damn it.”

This wasn’t good. It was awful, actually. I almost couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

The headline was a shocker: ABDUCTIONS OF TWO WOMEN MAY BE CONNECTED. Worst of all, the rest of the story contained very specific details that only a few people in the FBI knew. Unfortunately, I was one of them.

Key was the story told about a couple—a man and a woman—who had been seen at the most recent kidnapping in Pennsylvania. I felt sick in the pit of my stomach. The eyewitness account given by Audrey Meek’s children was information that we hadn’t wanted released to the press.

Somebody had leaked the story to the Post; somebody had also connected the dots for them. Other than maybe Bob Woodward, nobody at the newspaper could have done it by themselves. They weren’t that smart.

Who had leaked information to the Post?

Why?

It didn’t make sense. Was somebody trying to sabotage the investigation? Who?

Chapter 28

Chapter 28

I DIDN’T WALK Jannie and Damon to school Monday morning. I sat out on the sunporch with the cat and played the piano—Mozart, Brahms. I had the guilty thought that I should have gotten up earlier and helped out at St. Anthony’s soup kitchen. I usually pitch in a couple mornings a week, often on Sundays. My church.