Page 106 of I’ll Be Watching You

“I understand. I do. I will. I promise.”

“And don’t tell anyone what you’re doing,” I added. “Liz Swanson was killed because she knew something had happened to Novak’s file. You know what happened, Peter Stockman and the people he’s working with aren’t going to want you alive to talk about it.”

Tim nodded, his face white and pasty. Jack held out his hand. Tim hesitated, took it, and Jack helped him up off the ground. With shaking hands, Tim opened the door to his truck and climbed in. We watched him drive off; he almost hit two cars.

I turned off the tape recorder that was in my pocket. “Well, do you think he’ll turn himself in?” I asked my brother.

“No,” he said.

“Damn.”

“Right now, he thinks he will. He’s terrified. But when he gets home and thinks about it, he won’t. He might run, he might go to his uncle, or he might call Peter Stockman and tell him what we said.”

“Do you believe that his uncle knows nothing about this?”

“I do,” Jack said. “I could be wrong.”

“No, I think you’re right. Ames is the head of the VA with an exemplary record. Tess said he has a good six-figure salary and his wife is a surgeon with Honor Health. They’re lifelong Phoenix residents who have kids, family. They donate to charity. Outstanding reputation.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s not guilty.”

“I know, but why? He has nothing to do with the research end of the VA.”

“You want to talk to him?”

I hedged. “Yes, but we could be wrong. Tim might not know who else is involved, other than Stockman. If I was organizing this kind of huge conspiracy, I would compartmentalize the information as best I could. Even if Zachary Ames knows nothing about this, he could mention it to someone who does. The assistant director. Another staff member. Stockman could have people all over the VA who have small pieces of the puzzle. People who might tip him off.”

“The more people who know, the safer we all are,” Jack continued. “We take the tape to Quincy and let him open an investigation.”

“That will take forever,” I groaned. “They’ll have time to destroy evidence, especially if Tim blabs.”

“It might not take forever,” Jack said. “All Quincy needs to do is reach out to the inspector general of the agency and ask for the records. With this tape and our research, I think they have plenty to open a major investigation right now, not months from now.”

I hoped Jack was right. Because in my experience, government was as slow as molasses.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Tim Miller

Tim knew he’d screwed up. Big-time. Why did he listen to Peter? Why did he take money from him?

Consulting. Right. Sure, Peter had him set up his home computer network and update his system every few months, but that wasn’t worth three thousand, let alone three thousand a month. Tim didn’t want to admit to himself it was basically a retainer to be on call for Peter.

His uncle . . . his dad . . . oh, God, his mom! They were all going to be so disappointed in him. Why hadn’t he listened to his doubts? If something seemed too good to be true, it was.

But . . . well . . . those PIs couldn’t actually prove anything, right? And there was no way to unmerge the records. Yeah, Tim knew which record was merged and someone might be able to re-create part of Novak’s file, but it wouldn’t be complete and it didn’t actually say anything, because he’d deleted the encounters ages ago. All it showed was that something was removed, not specifically what.

But a nurse was murdered.

Peter wouldn’t kill anyone.

Would he?

Tim felt hot and turned on his AC. Maybe. Maybe he would. And if he could kill a nurse, maybe he could kill him. Because Tim knew too much.

He’d partly lied to the PIs as soon as he realized who they were. They were the kids of Dr. Cooper Angelhart, the man Peter convinced to kill Dr. Klein.

According to Peter, Angelhart and Klein were both corrupt and taking money from a pharmaceutical company without reporting it. Peter was just trying to protect the agency.