Nightfall by Laura Griffin

entirely
possible you could have a concussion.”
    “ Thanks, but I’m fine.” And
a trip to the emergency room was the last thing she needed tonight.
She had an aversion to hospitals.
    “ Well.” The woman shrugged
and flipped shut the lid to her first aid kit. “Suit yourself. I
can’t make you take
common-sense precautions.”
    “ Madeline
Callahan?”
    She turned, startled. She’d
known he was coming, but she hadn’t expected such a deep voice from
someone so young. He stared down at her, hands resting at his hips,
suit jacket pushed back to reveal a semi-automatic pistol and—as
she’d suspected—an FBI shield. She lifted her gaze to his smooth,
clean-shaven face. If she was right about the military thing, he
must have graduated from the Academy about a week ago.
    “ I’m Special Agent Brian
Beckman with the FBI. This is Special Agent Sam Dulles.” He nodded
at the bald guy. “We’d like to ask you a few questions,
ma’am.”
    Dulles leaned back against
the patrol car parked perpendicular to the one where Maddie stood.
Clearly, he intended to hang back and observe. Maybe this was a
training exercise.
    “ Ma’am?”
    She looked back at the young
one. Beckman. He was watching her intently with those hazel
eyes.
    “ Could you take us through
what transpired here, please?”
    Transpired. Typical cop-speak. Maddie folded her arms over her
chest and leaned against the side of the car. “It was a
mugging.”
    His eyebrows tipped up.
“Could you be more specific?”
    “ Someone attacked me in the
parking garage. Stole my purse, along with my brand-new
camera.”
    “ Your camera?”
    “ I’m a photographer. I was
doing a photo shoot down at the park—a couple getting
married.”
    Both men were regarding her
with frank interest now, and she had the feeling she was missing
something.
    Beckman eased closer. “We’d
like you to walk us through the entire incident, ma’am. Step by
step.”
    Irritated by the ma’amming,
she shot a look at Dulles. “Since when does the FBI have
jurisdiction over a mugging?”
    No answer.
    “ Maddie?”
    She turned to see Jeff
walking toward her, hand outstretched. Her brown leather purse
dangled from his fingers.
    “ Oh, my God! Where was it?”
She beamed a smile at him and snatched up the bag.
    “ Scanlon found it under a
truck near your car. Phone’s in there, too. You just had a call
come in.”
    “ Thank you! You have no idea
how much trouble this saves me.” Maddie already had the phone out,
and her heart lurched when she saw the text from her boss. It was
just as she’d feared. She was needed at a crime scene, ASAP. He’d
sent her a message coded 911 and a street address.
    Maddie stashed the icepack
in her purse and shoved the phone in the pocket of her jeans. Now
she really needed
to leave.
    “ Ms. Callahan?”
    She glanced up. The young
agent was watching her expectantly. So was his partner.
    “ Listen, you see Officer
Scanlon over there? The one with the notepad? I guarantee he’ll be
turning in a full report before he clocks out tonight. You can get
the details from him.”
    “ We need them from you,”
Dulles said, speaking up for the first time. He was still leaning
against the side of the car, looking disapproving.
    “ Is there a specific reason the FBI is involved
here? I told you, it was a mugging.”
    “ Looks to me like an
assault, too,” Beckman said evenly.
    “ Okay, fine. But I really
need to be somewhere, like, an hour ago, so unless you can explain
how this is relevant—”
    “ We’re investigating a
federal case.”
    “ A federal case involving…?”
She waited as they exchanged looks.
    “ There was a theft across
the street from here about five-thirty.” Dulles nodded at the park.
“Given the timing, we think it could be connected to your
incident.”
    Maddie glanced across the
street, where a bank faced out onto the park. A bank robbery
certainly would explain the feds, but why weren’t there any police
cars?
    “ Take