Tour Stop & Exclusive Excerpt: A Dangerous Game by Heather Graham

Craig headed into his own office, determined that he’d call his director, Richard Egan, the minute it hit nine o’clock—even though he doubted that Egan ever slept that late, Satur­day or no. But nine seemed a respectable hour.

He didn’t have to wait, however. Marty Kim—Craig’s fa­vorite “kid” in the technical assistance division, stopped by his office, looking in. “Hey!”

“Hey, yourself. Working Saturday?”

“I am. Running some facial recognition programs and the like. I’m not surprised to see you.”

“You’re not?”

“Nope. Egan just said you’d be in.”

“He did, did he?”

Marty grinned. He was tall and thin with a great boyish face. Marty had no desire to be a field agent, but he loved analysis and could coax amazing information from any database.

“He’s waiting for you.”

“Thanks.”

 

The supervising field director was in his desk chair, swiv­eled around to study the flat-screen television set up on the wall of his office.

It was tuned to the news. And they were rehashing the story over and over again, as they tended to do. A reporter was standing on the street in front of Kieran’s office build­ing in Midtown, telling her audience that as of yet, the po­lice had no identification on either the woman or the infant.

Egan looked at Craig. “It’s not a major election year. This poor woman’s murder and the abandoned baby have become a media obsession.”

“Yes, sir. That’s what I’ve come to talk to you about.”

Egan nodded, then shook his head.

“Kieran is involved. Then again, Craig, she’s not. The baby was handed to her, but that’s where it ends. Child Services has the baby. She’s out of it now.”

“But she’s not. The press doesn’t have this, and I hope that they don’t wind up with it, but when the murdered woman gave Kieran the baby, she asked for Kieran by name. This woman went up to the offices of Fuller and Miro at a time when she knew they were closing down. And she knew Kieran by name, and possibly knew she was usually the last one out.”

Egan turned his attention back to the television. The an­chor was showing pictures of the baby, and a sketch that had been done of the dead woman by the NYPD composite art­ists, showing her as she might have looked in life. Craig fig­ured it was a good idea—getting the picture out there might be their best way and only hope for an identification.

“What do you think? Late forties?” Egan asked. “I don’t think she was old—I think she looked older than her years. Poor woman. I’d be willing to bet she lived a hard life be­fore she was murdered. And she was trying to do the right thing by that baby.”

“I believe she was. Sir, there’s still the baby. The logical assumption is—even if for a good reason, such as saving the child’s life—that the child was abducted. And since—”

“Give it up, Craig. Yes, abduction. We can muscle our way in.”

“Sir, you know that I don’t like to let anything in my personal life—”

“Craig, Kieran Finnegan is your personal life. The woman attracts trouble of the most unusual variety. We work with her employers on a regular basis, though this is hardly the same as most instances. I’ve already made the calls to set up a joint task force. I’ve called Mike Dalton. He’s glad he had some vacation time lately—he’ll be in within the next hour. And what the hell did you think I was doing here today?” Egan shook his head. “It’s Saturday. Feel free to say ‘thank you’ anytime.” Egan pushed a folder across his desk toward Craig. “There’s what I’ve got. Joint investigation. Autopsy today—be there by two this afternoon. Obviously, the usual is happening—fingerprints, dental work, and so on. If any­thing has been discovered about the woman, I don’t know it as of yet. We will know more once there’s an autopsy, but even that…” Egan ended with a shrug. “Ethnicity, maybe. You’d think that in a city of millions of people there would be someone out there who did know something.”

“There must be—but they aren’t coming forward.”

“They don’t want knives in their backs,” Egan said flatly. “Anyway…there’s your case. The FBI and the NYPD are pulling information from every source we have—someone has to be missing a baby. And the woman…well, we might be looking at someone in the country illegally. That would explain the lack of any ID, driver’s license, bank card, any­thing. Anyway, you’re on it.”

“Thank you,” Craig said, picking up the folder.

“So, in truth, I’m a liar. You don’t have to thank me. Word came down today from on high that they want us on this one. US Marshals will be in with us. Fellow from that de­partment will be Hank LeBlanc. He’ll meet you at autopsy with a guy from Major Case. They’ve given it over to a higher division, so that means they’re worried about it. I think it’s your friend—he got that promotion after the diamond busi­ness two years back.”

“McBride? That’s great,” Craig said. “And, hey—thank you, anyway.”

Egan waved a hand in the air. “You’d be working it no matter what.” He looked down at more papers on his desk, as if he’d already moved on. Craig headed to the door.

“Frasier,” Egan said.

“Yeah.”

“Watch out for Kieran. I don’t like it that the dead woman was going for her—not just for someone in the offices of Fuller and Miro. For her specifically.”

“Yes, sir. I do watch out for her.”

“Three brothers—that should help,” Egan said.

“It should,” Craig agreed.

In a way, it did. Any of the Finnegan brothers would happily block a bullet for their sister. Then again, it had been Danny trying to help a friend that had gotten Kieran messed up with the diamond heists—when Craig had met her—and her brother Kevin had been dating the most famous victim of the recent “perfect” killings that had plagued the city. Her brothers were wonderful, but they’d grown up rough-and-tumble after their mother had died, and Craig knew that Kieran often worried about what they might do—even in the name of justice and righteousness.

But it was true that they would jump in front of a speed­ing bullet, train—or anything else—to save her from harm.

“You were there last night. I heard you stuck with Kieran while the cops dealt with the situation. So you already know most of what’s in the folder. But there you are. Mike should be in soon—you can read up on what they did get and then…”

“Yeah?”

“Nothing like an autopsy on a Saturday afternoon, right? McBride made the call on that one, getting the autopsy a priority on Saturday. Since there’s an unidentified baby in­volved.” He was quiet for a minute. “Thank God the baby wasn’t killed, too.”

“The baby could be our best lead.”

Egan shook his head. “We don’t know anything about her yet. Thing is…you just never know. Historically, children have indeed died for the sins of the parents. When the Rus­sian revolutionaries held the royal family, they determined that they had to do them all in—including the children. Be­cause children grow up. But the baby is safe. Cared for, and guarded, as well. You’re talking a beautiful little child—already an American princess in the media. Like I said, Mc­Bride is calling the shots on this one. Anyway, there you go. Just what you wanted.”

Craig forced a smile. Ah, yeah, sure. Just what he wanted. Not really at all.

He dreaded what was to come. He knew Kieran. There was just no way he was going to keep her out of it.

Which meant it was really only self-preservation to dive into the whole thing just as deeply as he could.