Viking Bay Read Free Page B

the physical and the psych eval.”
    The check was for ten thousand dollars. Wow. Like Mercer had said: What did she have to lose?
    She later found out that the answer to that question was: her life.
    â€”
    THE NEXT TWO WEEKS passed quickly as Kay was cracked open like a clamshell and rudely poked at both mentally and physically.
    She had no problems with the physical. She was, in fact, surprised that she didn’t have high cholesterol or high blood sugar or some other biological indicator that she should change her eating habits. She really paid no attention to her diet and when her daughter wasn’t around,tended to feed primarily off junk foods. The only reason she still wore a size 6 dress was that she exercised fanatically.
    Her relationship with her daughter turned out to be the thing that most interested the psychiatrist—and Kay hadn’t expected that. She thought the shrink would be more concerned about affairs she’d had with a couple of married men and with Marco Alvarez, the drug lord she’d killed in Miami. She’d slept with Marco for almost a year to build a case against him, and she’d expected the doctor to explore the moral issues associated with her using sex to put a man behind bars. But he didn’t, and actually passed over that phase of her life rather quickly.
    What the psychiatrist was most curious about was how she and her daughter got along, if she felt guilty about her, if she resented her, if she understood her own feelings for the girl. Why the shrink cared about all this shit, Kay didn’t have a clue; she didn’t see how her feelings toward her daughter had anything to do with her job. In the end, the doc must have concluded that she wasn’t a total psycho—or a completely unfit mother—and gave her a clean bill of health.
    Anna Mercer called Kay two days later and asked how soon she could move to D.C.
    â€œI don’t know,” Kay said. “I have to sell my house in San Diego and . . .”
    â€œWe’ll take care of selling your house and moving your furniture.”
    â€œAnd I’ll need to find a place in D.C.”
    â€œWe have a real estate agent here that will do that for you. Just give her a price range and she’ll find something that will make you happy.”
    â€œBut the big thing,” Kay said, “is I have to find a good school for my daughter, and I know that’s going to be a hassle.”
    Kay had had a hard time getting Jessica into a decent private school in San Diego until she strong-armed a snooty Catholic school principal. She told the principal that if she didn’t enroll Jessica, DEA Agent Kay Hamilton was going to make her overpriced parochial school the new front line in the war on drugs. Kay said this knowing that half the bratswho went there snorted, swallowed, or smoked some banned substance. After that, the principal had a change of heart.
    â€œPick any school you want in the D.C. area,” Mercer said. “We’ll make sure your daughter is accepted.”
    â€œYou can actually do that?” Kay said.
    â€œYes.”
    Now,
that
impressed Kay.
    â€œBe at this address next Wednesday at one p.m.,” Mercer said, and rattled off a number on K Street. “You’ll sign the nondisclosure agreement at that time, and then I’ll introduce you to Callahan.”
    â€œWho’s Callahan?” Kay had asked.
    Mercer hung up.

4 | The following Wednesday, Kay entered a twelve-story office building on K Street and proceeded to room 711. On the wall outside the door was a small brass plaque that read
The Callahan Group
. Higher up on the wall was a security camera looking down at her. She tried to open the door, but it was locked. Then she heard a click, and the door opened the next time she turned the knob.
    She found herself standing inside a small reception area, and sitting behind the only desk in the room was a large black man—extremely