Saving Faith By: David Baldacci

time. She was certain there would be a stream of messages from the

ADIC on down when she returned to her office, and none of them

complimentary, she imagined.

Reynolds and Connie were in a private area at Reagan National. They

had thoroughly questioned the airline employee who had sold Faith

Lockhart her tickets. They had reviewed all the surveillance tapes and

the agent had readily picked out Lockhart. Reynolds assumed the woman

was Faith Lockhart. The ticket agent had been shown a picture of

Lockhart and was reasonably sure she was the same woman.

If it was Lockhart, she had changed her appearance considerably: a

haircut and dye job, from what Reynolds had seen on the airport

surveillance tape. And now Lockhart had help. For also captured on

the video was a tall, well-built man leaving with Lockhart. Reynolds

had initiated the obvious inquiries including checking taxi pickups at

the airport during that time. They also had colleagues checking in

Norfolk in case the pair had made additional travel arrangements there.

So far nothing had turned up. They did, however, have one very

promising lead.

Reynolds opened the metal gun case and looked at the SIG-Sauer 9mm

while Connie leaned against the wall and scowled at nothing. The gun

had already been checked for prints, and they were running the results

through the Bureau’s databases, but they had something even better: The

gun was registered. They had quickly gotten the name and address of

the owner from the Virginia State Police.

Reynolds said, “Okay, so the gun’s registered to this Lee Adams. We’re

getting a photo of the guy from DMV. I’m assuming he’s the one with

Lockhart. What do we know about him so far?”

Connie took a mouthful of Coke from the cup he was holding and popped

two Advil. “PI. Been around awhile. Seems very legit. Some of the

guys at the Bureau know him in fact. Say he’s a good guy. We’ll get

his picture to the ticket agent. See if she can positive-ID him.

That’s all for right now. We’ll have more soon.” He glanced at the

gun. “We found shell casings in the woods behind the cottage. They’d

been fired from a pistol. Nine-millimeter. From the number we found,

the person emptied half his mag at something.”

“Think this is the pistol?”

“We haven’t found any slugs to match it to, but ballistics will tell us

if the pinprick on the shell casings we found match ones fired from

that gun,” Connie said, referring to the indentation a gun’s firing pin

makes on the bottom of the shell casing, a mark about as unique as a

fingerprint. “And since we’ve got his ammo, we can test-fire from the

source, which is ideal, you know. And were running a print check on

the casings. That won’t definitely confirm if Adams was there, since

he could’ve loaded the pistol earlier and someone else could have fired

it at the cottage, but it’s still something.”

They both knew that shell casings were much better surfaces for getting

usable prints than a pistol grip.

“It’d be nice if we could get his prints inside the cottage.”

“VCU found nothing. Adams obviously knows how to do this stuff. Had

to be wearing gloves.”

“If ballistics does match, then Adams looks to be the one who wounded

the shooter.”

“He didn’t fire all those times at Ken, that’s for sure, and a SIG is

for shit long-distance. If Adams was able to hit Ken with a pistol

shot from that distance in the dark, then we’ve got to get him a job at

Quantico on the firing range.”

Reynolds looked unconvinced.

Connie went on. “And the lab confirmed that the blood in the woods is

definitely human. We also found a slug near the spot where all the

pistol shell casings were. Struck a tree and stayed there. We also

turned up a number of shell casings near the blood. Rifle ordnance.

Full metal jacket, heavy-caliber stuff. And customized, no

manufacturer’s code or caliber stamp on the casings. But the lab did

say the ammo used a Berdan primer instead of an American Boxer.”

Reynolds looked at him sharply. “Berdan? So European manufacture?”

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