The Silenced

By the time they reached it, Lara’s landlady, a silver-haired woman named Mrs. Shelley, was there to meet them. She extended a hand to them both, smiling at Meg since they’d met a few times, and introducing herself to Matt Bosworth.

“Lara didn’t say anything to me about breaking her lease or going away,” Mrs. Shelley said. “I do hope that she’s all right—she’s such a lovely young woman!”

“We’re certainly hoping she’s all right, too. But Meg can’t get in touch with her and we’re worried, so thank you for your help,” Matt said.

“Of course! Come on in.”

Mrs. Shelley led them through the main door to the house. Stairs stretched up to the second floor, with hallways leading to the downstairs apartments.

Taking out a ring of keys, Mrs. Shelley looked through them as they walked to Lara’s door.

For a moment, Meg felt as if she couldn’t breathe. She was overwhelmed by the same fear she’d felt when she’d come here yesterday evening, when terrible visions had rushed through her head and she’d been terrified that she’d open the door and find the apartment trashed and Lara in a pool of blood. Or that she’d go into her bedroom and find her with her throat slit.

Mrs. Shelley opened the door.

The living room was neat, as Meg had known it would be. Lara had once told Meg that she wasn’t home enough to really mess the place up.

“Be careful what you touch,” Matt said.

She tried not to glare at him. She knew that!

“We’ll go through the place later,” he said. If he knew how offensive he was being, he gave no sign.

With anxiety dogging her every step, Meg still managed to walk quickly through the living area to the bedroom and the small office beyond.

All the while, she knew that Agent Bosworth was a step behind her. Did he not trust her? Or was he afraid she hadn’t looked carefully—that they might stumble across Lara’s body?

“I guess she’s not here,” Mrs. Shelley called out. She hadn’t moved from the living room.

“Can you tell if she packed up anything at all?” Agent Bosworth asked Meg.

“I don’t think she did. At least, it didn’t seem that way to me last night. But I can’t be one hundred percent sure without looking through her drawers and her closet. I don’t have gloves, so...”

“I do,” he told her before she could finish, taking out two pairs. “We don’t have time for a complete search now, but maybe you can tell if she did pack.”

And find out if her friend’s body had been stuffed in the closet.

Meg pulled on a pair of the gloves and opened the closet door. Lara’s clothing hung there neatly. The black-and-red carry-on Lara took anytime she traveled—her lucky travel bag, as she called it—was on the floor, along with sneakers, sandals and shoes Lara would’ve taken on a trip.

“I don’t believe she packed and left,” Meg said.

“Okay,” he told her. “We’ll pay our visit to Ian Walker and come back for a more thorough search.”

They met Mrs. Shelley in the living room. She seemed relieved that they’d found nothing.

“She must’ve taken a little trip, then,” Mrs. Shelley said, smiling. “If she was really leaving, she would’ve told me.”

“Of course,” Meg assured her.

“We’ll be back this afternoon,” Matt Bosworth said. “We’re going to see if we can dig up any clues as to where she might be.”

Mrs. Shelley nodded and unfastened two keys. “Here you are. The first opens the main door. All the tenants have one. The second is to this door.”

Matt thanked her, not mentioning that Meg already had a key.

“Oh! You might want the security video,” Mrs. Shelley said.

“You have security tapes?”

“There’s a camera just over the entry,” Mrs. Shelley replied. “It’s a wonderful selling point when I need to rent out the units, although that isn’t often. This close to Capitol Hill, I don’t have much trouble landing good tenants. You know DC—once people get into a place they like, they tend to stay for the long haul.”

“I’m going to have an agent come out for the security footage covering the past few days, if you don’t mind.”

“Anything,” Mrs. Shelley said fervently.

They both thanked her and headed back to the car.

“Shouldn’t we be looking at the footage right now?” Meg asked.

“I’m going to have Will retrieve it and then check it out,” he said.

“But...”

“He’s an expert. He’ll know if anyone’s tampered with it.”

She fell silent. She knew she’d been letting her emotions take hold.

“Onward to Congressman Walker’s house,” Matt announced.

Meg realized she had no idea where the man lived; that was something Lara had never mentioned.

She quickly found out.

Ian Walker lived in the Sixteenth Street Heights in DC in a grand colonial-style mansion—when he was in the city.

The congressman had been blessed with family money. He’d also known how to play the stock market to improve on his inheritance. She knew that because Lara had talked about him so much. While she and Lara had been friends forever, Meg’s home was really Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Lara’s parents and family were from Richmond, although they also had a home in Harpers Ferry, where they’d spent summers. Meg had worked and lived in Richmond for a few years after she’d graduated from college there; she was still a West Virginia voter.

“Nice neighborhood,” she murmured as they approached the house. “It was his idea for us to come here rather than his office?” she asked.

She didn’t use Agent Bosworth’s name as she spoke to him. In the car, it was only the two of them. She’d noticed that while most law enforcement agents and the instructors she worked with called one another by their surnames, Krewe agents were on a first-name basis. They knew one another well. Or, at least, they seemed to. Matt. She couldn’t bring herself to call this man Matt. He obviously thought he’d been saddled with a neurotic beginner.

She wasn’t a beginner. She’d qualified as a Richmond police officer and now she was officially an FBI agent.

“Yes. Someone on his staff gave you a hard time, but Walker himself seemed concerned about the fact that we were worried. Adam told me that to the best of the congressman’s knowledge, Lara just wanted to move in another direction. That they’d parted on good terms,” Matt said, watching the road. “Be very careful. We’re going in there for help. No accusations, okay?”

“I did make it through the academy!” she told him.

He laughed. “Yes, as you’ve pointed out. And admittedly that’s an accomplishment. But I know plenty of agents with plenty of what you’d call the right stuff—and no social skills. Doesn’t mean they’re not good agents. It just means there are certain places, certain times, they shouldn’t be in the field.”