THE LAST OF THE GOOD GUYS

Chapter 157

I COULDN'T LET it end like that-it just wasn't in me. One night a couple of weeks later, I arrived at the house in Great Falls, Virginia, at a little past three in the morning. Interesting to me, and more than a little creepy, I had received a call from the psychopath Kyle Craig earlier in the week. Cool as ever, Kyle said he was glad I had gotten my family back, and then he hung up before I could say a word to him.

I focused and walked to the front door of a redbrick colonial that was obsessively well kept. I rang the bell a couple of times and waited. I looked at my watch. 3:11. After a few minutes, the overhead porch light flicked on. Then the door slowly opened.

The CIA's Steven Millard stood there wearing a dark blue terrycloth robe, his legs and feet bare. He didn't look so impressive without a suit and tie. I heard a woman's voice call from upstairs, “Steve, is everything all right down there?”

“Go back to sleep, Emma. It's just work,” he called back.

Then Millard's eyes came back to mine. “What do you want at my house at three in the morning, Detective Cross? This better be worth it.”

“Why don't you invite me in and I'll tell you all about it. I could use some coffee. So could you.”

Chapter 158

WE WENT INSIDE and sat in the kitchen, which looked as though it had been refurbished recently. Millard didn't offer coffee or anything else to drink, so I started to tell him why I'd come out to Virginia in the middle of the night.

“I spent some time at Ellie Cox's before I went to Africa. Your people did a good job in there. I found her partial manuscript, of course. Even some notes she made while she was in Nigeria. Everything looked just fine, though. Nothing incriminating.”

Millard listened patiently, nodded, waiting for the punch line.

I stared at him for a while, and I was thinking about the idea of “good guys.” Were there any left? I thought so. I sure hoped so.

“So that's why you're here? To let me know that everything is fine?” Millard spoke again.

“Looked fine. Just like it was supposed to. But last week I went back to the Cox house. At that point I had enough time to be a real detective again. I talked to Elbe's editor at Georgetown University Press. He hadn't gotten the last section of Elbe's manuscript, which surprised him. That was the part that detailed her trip to Nigeria.”

“Maybe she never got to write it,” Millard suggested. “That would make sense, wouldn't it, Detective? It could be why she was targeted and murdered.”

“I guess so. But if that was true, why would I be here at three in the morning, when I could be home sleeping?”