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CHAPTER 20
Washington, D.C. Friday, February 3, 2023 11:48 p.m.
IN THE TEN YEARS SINCE THE FATEFUL NIGHT THAT FOREVER CHANGED her life, the media’s breathless pursuit of Alexandra Quinlan had ebbed and flowed. At times it quieted down entirely as the lens of the mainstream media refocused on other misfortunes and tragedies. But interest never seemed to die completely, and ever since the ten-year anniversary had come and gone activity on the true-crime sites had been on the uptick. Tracy Carr was at it again, and Alexandra Quinlan sightings had started to pop up anew. So far, though, the precautions put in place years earlier after Alex returned from the debacle in Cambridge—when two crazed true-crime fanatics had followed her across Europe and attempted to extort half a million dollars from her—had been effective at protecting her anonymity.
The strongest safeguard was the name change. With the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the DC secretary of state’s office, and everywhere else formal documentation was required, she was legally Alex Armstrong. It had a nice ring to it and over the years Alex had even grown comfortable with her new name, but it was just one of many firewalls erected since her return from Cambridge. The physical makeover had been just as important. Only a couple of years from her thirtieth birthday now, Alex was a long way from the baby-faced teenager most people knew as Alexandra Quinlan. Today, she was unrecognizable from the infamous image of the wide-eyed kid who had walked from her home and into the hot lights of the news camera the night her family was killed. That image had circulated so widely around the country, and most of the world, that it had burned itself into the public’s psyche. Mention Alexandra Quinlan and most people conjured that very image in their minds.
The natural evolution from adolescence—the thinning of her face as baby fat melted from her cheeks, the maturing of her body, and the youthful aging in the eyes and lips—prevented the casual observer from recognizing her today. But so too did the self-induced alterations to her body. Her once long and wavy hair was now cut into a short, spikey crop. The auburn highlights were gone, replaced by yellow blond. Her eyes were never without a dark ring of eyeliner, and the piercings were dramatic and everywhere—her nose, her eyebrow, her lip, and in arcing rivets along the cartilage of her left ear. The glasses she’d worn throughout her teens, and for the entirety of the highly watched trial that defined her persona, had been replaced by contact lenses that changed the color of her irises from dark brown to vibrant blue. She wore black lipstick one day and bright orange the next, the wild spectrum of colors chosen each morning based on her mood. The oxymoronic plan of standing out was what helped her blend in. Together, it had all been enough for Alex to live a quiet existence in the DC area without being recognized or harassed.
Of course, taking a job as a legal investigator for Lancaster & Jordan was another important move. Working for Garrett Lancaster’s law firm allowed gainful employment without having to go through a formal background check. The job came when Alex was at the end of her rope, had nowhere to go, and was on the brink of twisting her life into an unrecoverable tailspin. Garrett’s offer of employment was her last shot at finding normalcy and balance in a life that had been teetering on the edge two years after her family was killed. Had Alex not found purpose at Lancaster & Jordan, she would likely never have found it at all.
During her introductory years at the firm, just after her return from Cambridge, Alex had worked under the tutelage of Buck Jordan, the firm’s lead investigator and the brother of Lancaster & Jordan’s cofounder and senior partner. Hired at the firm’s incorporation, Buck possessed the longest tenure of any employee. He’d been chasing leads for Lancaster & Jordan for over two decades. A third of his life had been spent following suspects, taking recon pictures, logging hours on stakeouts, and completing his fair share of opposition research. Buck Jordan had forgotten more about the law than the snot-nosed rookies who joined the firm straight out of law school would ever learn. And everything Buck knew, he taught Alex. She had become his protégée. Years earlier, Buck Jordan had been instrumental in providing opposition research when Garrett Lancaster went after the McIntosh Police Department and the Alleghany County DA’s office during Alex’s defamation case. Alex was happy to be under his tutelage. The education was hands-on and still ongoing today, which was why Buck had accompanied her on that night’s stakeout.
Alex sat behind the wheel of her SUV, which was parked in front of a meter she had fed for hours, and focused the lens of her Nikon COOLPIX P1000 on the front entrance of the high-rise building across the street. Her right leg was starting to go numb as midnight approached. But the waiting didn’t bother her, the aggravation of her sciatic nerve was ignored, and Alex considered the formal transition from today to tomorrow as simply the beginning of the night. Twenty-eight years old and powered by rebellion, regret, and Red Bull, it took more than a boringly long stakeout to discourage her.
Her subject came into view through the lens of the Nikon as the man exited the building. Buck sat in the passenger seat and looked up from his phone when Alex began snapping photos.
“We found our man,” Buck said. “Are you getting clear shots of his face?”
“No,” Alex said. “Just his shoes.”
“Always the smart-ass.”
Once her subject was out of range, Alex handed the camera to Buck. Her stakeout had officially ended. Now it was time to get to work.
Garrett had put her on the Byron Zell case to get information, and she had no intention of letting him down.
CHAPTER 21
Washington, D.C. Friday, February 3, 2023 11:56 p.m.
ONE OF THE MANY RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE FIRM’S INVESTIGATORS was to look into potential clients to determine whether they were innocent of the crimes they were accused of or as guilty as sin. It was common practice in criminal defense to never ask clients about their guilt or innocence. If an attorney had to ask, it meant they had doubts. And if they had doubts, they could not mount a viable defense. But at Lancaster & Jordan, the question was unnecessary. Every client was innocent until proven guilty, and the firm had a score of investigators to verify it.
Byron Zell’s former employer had accused him of embezzling company funds, and Mr. Zell had approached Lancaster & Jordan seeking legal representation after he was terminated and brought up on charges. An executive vice president with nearly two decades of loyalty to his company, Zell vehemently denied the allegations during his initial consultation with Garrett Lancaster. Alex had been tasked with looking into Mr. Zell. The case was technically hers, and hers alone, but as was common with mentor and protégée she and Buck routinely worked cases together. Eight years in, Alex no longer needed the supervision, she just preferred the company.
Her goal was to dig deep enough into Byron Zell’s life to determine—not unequivocally, but damn close—whether he was an innocent man fighting for his livelihood or as guilty as sin. The process by which Alex went about this task fell into the hazy moral area of legal investigation, the specifics of which were left up to the imagination of each investigator. Alex Armstrong had an active imagination.
Alex believed that Zell’s finances were the best place to start her dive into the man’s life. Zell had already turned over financial documents to Lancaster & Jordan, and Alex had spent the past week picking through the man’s bank accounts, investments, and assets. So far, everything Byron Zell presented to Lancaster & Jordan had been on the up-and-up. But Alex hadn’t expected to find anything nefarious in the documents Zell had willingly provided to the firm. If the man was hiding something, it would be on his personal computer, and Alex was about to have a look.
As soon as Zell disappeared around the corner of the building, Alex pulled her ball cap low over her eyes.
“Did you practice on the lock?” Buck asked.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“All of last night.”
“No, how long to pick it?”
“Under two minutes.”
Buck nodded. “You’d best hurry.”
Alex opened the door and hustled across the street. Vetting clients was instrumental to winning cases, and no laws could be broken in the process. Garrett had been explicit about this with Alex during her formal interview with the firm. The firm needed to know the truth about potential clients, but that truth had to be obtained legally. Garrett had lectured her about this once. He explained the firm’s rules and the ramifications of obtaining information illegally during her intake interview, a meeting that included both Jacqueline Jordan—Garrett’s partner and the other founding member of the firm—and Buck Jordan. Garrett told her this to get it on the record, and then never mentioned it again. Instead, he unleashed Alex at the ripe age of twenty-one to learn the tricks of the trade from the legendary Buck Jordan, a man who had broken more laws in the pursuit of justice than any of the clients Lancaster & Jordan represented.
Over the years, Garrett had never asked about the methods Alex used to gather the information she provided. In the early days of her employment, Alex had assumed Garrett’s silence was a sign of his trust. Years later, after witnessing firsthand the behind-the-scene shenanigans of her fellow investigators, she knew better. Garrett didn’t ask because he didn’t want to know.
