by Liana Brooks
“Not magically,” Mac hedged, “but you’re onto something. We should at least rule it out.”
Sam said something in French that he guessed wasn’t considered polite. “What else would it have been? You think one of his coworkers smuggled his head past me and kept it in the fridge for a few days? No one would do that.”
Mac turned the screen so he could see what the computer had found. “Maybe not. But . . .”
“What did you find?”
“A bullet hole at the back of the cranium. Henry was shot.”
“No one is going to be at the lab,” Mac protested, as Sam parked her rental car, a red Xian Congsun, with a squeal of tires. “Everyone’s going to the memorial service.”
“People don’t matter. I want the security tapes.”
Mac hopped out of the car and jogged to catch up. “I already looked at the tapes.”
“Then you missed something. Henry was shot at the lab before the explosion, and no one saw that? No one heard anything? How is that even possible?”
“A bullet in someone’s head doesn’t mean there was a gun, not during an explosion. This could have been shrapnel.”
“Because people keep random bullets in their desk?”
“Yes!”
Sam glared at him. “No.”
“Yes.”
“Normal people don’t keep bullets in their desk.”
“But Henry might have. His mentor was shot last summer. He almost died last summer. What if he went and bought a gun for protection?”
“That seems very unlikely.”
“Not under the circumstances.”
She pulled open the door.
The guard looked up at them in surprise. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, I’m Agent Rose, and this is Agent MacKenzie. We’re with the CBI, and we need to review the security footage of the day of the accident.” Sam flashed her badge like a shark showing its teeth.
“I can help you with that, ma’am. I’m Earl. Earl Mosely. I work graveyard shift most days and caught the weekend.” He wiped a hand across his forehead. “You want the conference room, ma’am? I can set it up for you.”
“That’d be fine,” Sam said.
Mac tapped her arm as Mosley hurried around the corner. “He’s nervous.”
“I noticed.”
Mosely came back and waved them through the foyer. “This way. Conference room two is quiet.” He led them into a room with the security footage already on display on the projection screen. “I’ve been going over this myself.”
“Oh?” Sam said, as the guard closed the door.
“Young Dr. Troom was a friend of mine. Always came in early and we’d talk. I used to work at NASA, back in the day. I had a stroke and took early retirement. Couldn’t quite do the math anymore, but Henry was nice to me. I was worried about him. Real worried.”
Sam sat down, datpad in front of her, and gave Mosely her full attention. “Why were you worried?”
Mosely pointed at the chair opposite her. “Can I sit?”
“Be my guest.”
Mac kept his place by the door.
“Henry signed on in late December. Fresh young graduate, usually they come in with stars in their eyes, but he burned. Burned something awful. It’s not a bad thing, wanting. That drive got man to the moon and back. To Mars and back! But it was burning him from the inside, and he didn’t have any balance. He was coming in earlier and earlier. Sometimes only a few hours after he checked out. Said he was having trouble sleeping.”
“Did Henry tell you anything about his dreams?” Sam asked.
“Lots. He told me about last summer, how some men tried to kill him. He told me about how his mentor died. And he told me he thought he was dying. Kept dreaming about it.”
Sam nodded. “Did you tell anyone about Henry’s behavior? Or ask him to see a therapist?”
Mosely shook his head. “He’d been seeing therapists, and I figured it was normal. You have a gun pointed at you, you start thinking about your soul. But Henry wasn’t doing it right. He fixated.” The guard took a little book and put it on the desk. “He gave this to me the morning of the incident. Asked me to lock it up in my locker. Said it was important.”
“And you’re just showing us now?” Mac asked, but Sam waved him off. She picked it up and flipped it open.
“Did Henry say what this was about?”
“His big project, I guess.” The guard shrugged. “He didn’t tell anyone about it. I’ve been trying to make sense of it. Reading through his notes during the quiet times at work, but the old brain box ain’t what it used to be,” he said, tapping the side of his head. “Not since the stroke.”
“What is it?” Sam asked.
Mosley scratched the white stubble on his chin. “Quantum physics mostly. I’ve heard of a couple of the theories, but not all of them. Some of it sounds made up, like a bad science-fiction novel. The thing that got me was the checklist in the back. He had a calendar with numbers, and each number lines up with a dream he had about dying.”
Sam quickly turned the pages. “Car crash. Car crash. Multicar pileup. Car hits him crossing the street. Car hits him in the parking lot. Gunshot. Gunshot. Multiple gunshots and bleeding out. Execution by firing squad. Explosion. Explosion.” She turned the page. “The last week was nothing but dreams about explosions and guns.”
Mosely nodded. “The boy was real worried. Didn’t know it was this bad. It ain’t good to focus on how you’re going to die. Sucks the life right out of you doing that.”
“What do you think it means?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know,” Mosely said. “I know there’s no such thing as precognition. People don’t see the future.”
Not like this they didn’t. Unless Henry had been bouncing around other iterations trying to catch a glimpse of his future, there was no way he could have predicted his own death. At least, there wasn’t one she knew of, but a year ago she hadn’t believed in time travel, either. Her fists clenched as she offered a silent prayer for protection from the fools of the world.
“There’s a pattern, though,” Mac said, drumming his fingers on the table. “His dreams came in sets. Maybe he was influenced by something he saw.”
“Like what?” Sam looked up at him, eyes dark and focused.
“Television show? Movie? Internet video? When we get to the office, I can run a scan of available media and see what was available for viewing.”
“Showtimes mean nothing. He could have watched something from six months ago, or ten years ago.”
“Then we’ll get a warrant for his house and check the television and his cloud network. If he was storing schedules and movie listings, we can find them.”
Mosely turned to look at both of them. “How long have you two been together?”
Sam frowned at Mac in confusion. He shrugged, not sure why the guard was asking. “We’ve worked a case together before,” he said
“One case?” Mosely asked.
“Yes, we just . . .” Sam floundered.
“Think alike,” Mac finished for her with a wink. “Great minds and all that.”
“Right.” Mosely crossed his arms. “You two think you can find out what happened to Henry?”
“Yes,” Sam said, as Mac said, “Probably.” They both shrugged.
“We’ll find Henry’s killer,” Sam said.
“Killer?” It was Mosely’s turn to frown. “What killer? I thought there was an accidental gas leak in the lab. No one said anything about its being intentional.”
“That could have gone better,” Sam said as she strode to her car.
“It’s nice that Dr. Morr is keeping everything low-key. A natural-gas explosion seems innocent. Accidental.”
“A bullet to the head is murder.” The car lock unclicked, and the p
lug retracted from the charging station. Water in the engine gurgled as the rental car turned on. “There wasn’t anything on the security footage, though.”
“I know.”
Her heart sank. “I think I know what happened.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s a lousy guess, though.”
“Does it involve a time dilation or time travel?” Mac asked.
“It does.” Her worst nightmare come back to haunt her.
“That’s a lousy guess.”
“It’s a lousy situation. No one’s going to believe me. The regional director isn’t even cleared to know what happened in Alabama.” Ninety percent of her current bureau files were sealed. It didn’t make her popular at district mixers.
“So we sort it out ourselves and don’t tell anyone,” Mac said. “You broke the stupid machine once, all we need to do is find it and break it again.”
“And I know where to look. Let’s go pay Henry’s roommate another visit.”
“Basilwood Apartments?” Mac peered out the rental-car window at the faux-wood buildings. “Mechatrees and biogen grass. I wonder if they included a mechanical alligator in the retention pond, too.”
“It doesn’t look that bad,” Sam said, as they pulled to a stop in front of building twelve.
“It’s so fake, it makes my teeth hurt.”
“But it’s hurricaneproof.”
Of course it was. The trapezoidal brown buildings squatted under engineered southern pines like squashed mushrooms. Crabgrass had been replaced by a pollution-absorbing lab-created monstrosity with leaves like razor blades. Not that crabgrass was very soft, but at least it didn’t throw shrapnel when it was time to trim the lawn.
“Apartment B on the second floor,” Sam said.
Mac looked around at the mostly vacant parking lot. All the cars were over five years old, most of the apartments had the blinds closed, and there was a notable lack of kids’ toys or barbecues. “This isn’t a family apartment complex, is it?”
“It’s unofficial student housing for the local colleges. One- or two-bedroom apartments only. No pool. No playground. No pets allowed. I looked into it when I moved down here ’cause the rent’s right, but even if Hoss could have come, I didn’t like it.”
“There’s a sort of Pacific Northwest vibe,” Mac said, as they walked up concrete steps and a faux-wood shingle caught at his pant leg. “Pine trees and alpine shacks.”
“I think it’s meant to be European.”
“Circa 1970?”
Sam shrugged and knocked on the door. It swung open.
Mac raised an eyebrow and reached for the gun at his hip. “That’s not a good sign.”
“Time to put gloves on and get the recorder out.”
“You get the gloves, I’ll have the gun.” He frowned at the recorder. “When did you start using that?”
“Standard policy down here. All law enforcement officers or agents entering a crime scene must use a visual and audio recording device.” She held up a Commonwealth flag pin he’d mistaken for decoration. “Yay for button cams?” With a click, the little device turned on, and Sam pinned it back on her blouse. “This is the home of Devon Bradet. We are here to speak to Mr. Bradet about his deceased roommate, Dr. Henry Troom, and have found the door open.”
“The doorjamb is cracked,” Mac said for the camera’s benefit as much as Sam’s. He knocked on the splintered doorframe. “Hello? Anyone home? This is CBI agents MacKenzie and Rose. We need a verbal declaration of your presence, or we will enter the premises.” A soft breeze blew a napkin across the floor. “No answer.”
“Then we have permission to enter.” Sam stepped in first, panning the camera around the room.
Mac followed her and looked for evidence of some personality. “Interesting layout. Two chairs, but no couch.” Most homes had pictures on the wall. Art or posters or photographs of the occupants. “Even student housing usually doesn’t look this bad.”
“It’s a bachelor pad. A place a guy crashes without expectation of ever getting laid. You should feel right at home,” she teased with a smile.
“I have pictures up!” Oversized black-and-white prints of the skyscrapers of Chicago he’d found cheap at the art walk during a date. He couldn’t even remember the woman’s name anymore, only that they’d had a bland conversation at a disappointing café, and he’d spent the entire time wishing he were there with Sam.
“At the new apartment, not your old one in Alabama.”
That place had been a trash heap. His addiction to sleeping pills had left him too despondent to care about anything, much less cleaning or decorating the dump he lived in. “Yeah, well. I’m better now.” He walked over to the chairs. “One new gaming throne with plugins.”
“Is that relevant?” Sam asked.
“Gaming thrones cost over nine hundred dollars when they first came out, and that was on the cheap end.”
“And it’s still here . . .” she said, nodding. “So not a robbery.”
“Probably not.” Mac pulled his gloves on and opened the entertainment center. “TV is still here. There’s a miniholo set, a prototype for the one Lingen Industries is releasing this fall.”
“Bradet said he got it because of his radio job. He told me I couldn’t come check Henry’s room when he was away because of the confidentiality agreement. I thought he was just being difficult.”
Mac shrugged. “Might have been, but some of those confidentiality clauses for new tech are evil. Either way, the door definitely wasn’t broken by thieves. They wouldn’t leave something like that behind.”
“Okay,” Sam said from the kitchen. “Come here real quick and tell me if you see what I see.”
The kitchen was a narrow rectangle with an island that doubled as a breakfast bar. Two mismatched stools were placed at opposite ends. “No blood,” Mac said, only half joking. “That’s always good news.”
Sam opened the fridge. A strip of black electrical tape ran down the middle. One side had reusable water bottles, tofu, and almond milk mixed with assorted vegetables and a whole-grain loaf with packaging that promised organic nutrition in large, friendly letters. The other half had discount beer, a half-eaten sub sandwich, and a pile of grab-’n’-go diet meals. Sam carefully turned the pile of diet lunches to show an expiration date of January–2070. “Someone wasn’t into healthy eating.”
“Or sharing with his roommate,” Mac said. “I’m getting a very strong this-is-mine-this-is-yours vibe from this place.”
“Let’s check the bedrooms.” Sam stepped into the tiny living area and frowned at the two halls that went in opposite directions. “Okay, the two-bed, two-bath floor plan has a shared kitchen, with suites on either side. Henry’s room was to the left. Let’s check Bradet’s room, make sure he isn’t just sleeping through our intrusion.”
Sam took the right hall and knocked on Bradet’s door. There was no answer.
“There’s some light down here,” Mac said, looking down the left hall. “What’s down there?”
“There should be a laundry cupboard and a fire window with a rope ladder. It’s part of the fire code out here.”
He walked down the hall, and something rough crunched under his shoes with a familiar cracking sound. “Found some broken glass. It’s the fire window.” Someone had smashed the window open. Down on the ground, he could see the imprint of a fallen body in the neighbor’s overgrown flower bed.
Sam stepped up beside him, recording the images. “The intruder breaks through the front door, Bradet runs for the fire window, breaks it with—what?—and then falls? That’s not good. I’ll have Edwin start calling the hospitals.”
She dialed and waited for her junior agent to pick up. “Edwin? I need you to start calling the hospitals. We’re looking for a man named Devon Bradet. Yes, the radio DJ. Ca
ll Officer Clemens and see if he’s called the police to report a home invasion, then call his office to see if he’s at work. Okay. Good. Call me back as soon as you hear anything.”
Mac wandered back to Bradet’s room. A radio station’s banner hung over a twin-sized mattress that smelled like it had seen better days. T-shirts and cargo shorts littered the floor. Socks and boxers were bunched in pile in the corner, but the games were organized in neat columns around a dual-screen gaming computer.
Sam stepped up beside him and regarded the room with a wrinkled nose. “Ugh. I’m guessing it’s untouched.”
Mac looked at the chaos. “Unless they came to pillage the man’s underwear, yeah. The computer and the games are the valuable things.”
“I want to see the Henry’s room,” Sam said, marching down the hall. “Oh.” She stopped.
Mac followed her gaze to the padlock, still locked and shining but no longer attached to the shattered door. “We find Troom’s head with a bullet in it, and now his home’s been invaded.” Mac kicked the shards of door away. He looked on the inside of the door to see an automatic locking mechanism used in offices of the rich and influential. It was set on a timer, or it had been. “Looks like they used a fire ax.”
“There’s probably one missing from the stairwell emergency kit.” She shook her head. “I should have made Bradet let me into Henry’s room when I came over the first time. This is a stupid, rookie mistake.”
He walked into the room. “A desk, but no computer,” he reported for the sake of the audio pickup. “Mattress has been torn open, books are all on a heap on the floor.”
“What’s this?” Sam picked up a sculpted piece of glass from the wreckage. “The Misakat Award for Excellence in Research Science.” Her voice quavered with an edge of fear. “Find me the plaque. There should be a stone base for this with the winner’s name engraved on it.”
He knelt and dug through the mattress fluff and books until he found the rock. “Here you go,” he said, holding it up for her inspection.
“Abdul Emir.” She sunk enough venom into the name to make it a profanity.
Mac caught the award before Sam could throw it through the wall. “Henry kept it?”
