The Ingrid Skyberg Mystery Series: Books 1-4: The Ingrid Skyberg Series Boxset

by Eva Hudson

  Mulroony. Sol had been about to say something, hadn’t he?

  Energized, Ingrid leaped up and hurried to Sol’s office, her bruises rubbing painfully against her pullover. His door was locked. She tried his phone. Voicemail. She wondered how long it would take him to call her back.

  With a renewed sense of purpose, Ingrid called the embassy garage and requested a car. They only had limousines, which weren’t the incognito vehicle she was hoping for. So she found a local car-hire company and picked up a dinky Chevy Spark that she drove to one of the addresses Faber had given her, not far from the warehouse she’d visited two nights previously. Feeling decidedly conspicuous in a quiet residential street, she wriggled further down in the driver’s seat. She’d promised Madison Faber she’d do everything she could to find out what really happened, and now she had made the same pledge to Lauren’s family. She had a snowball’s chance of finding Brewster’s laptop, but was confident a little diligent police work could explain Lauren’s death. She might not be able to get the Shelbournes justice, but she could damn well get them answers.

  Memories from the past surged, thrusting painful images to the fore. Not here. Not now. If there was one thing the experience of losing Megan had taught her, it was that without answers, you remain lost. It had been eighteen years since Ingrid’s best friend had been abducted in front of her, never to be seen again. When the local police closed Megan’s case without a conviction and without finding her, Ingrid had vowed to uncover the truth about her friend’s disappearance. It was why she joined the sheriff’s department. It was the reason she had gone on to become an FBI agent. But she was no closer to finding Megan, and she was still living with the void that might have been healed had the original investigation turned over every stone.

  So far, every lead she’d followed had led her back to Loriners, the psychology department and Professor Younger. Maybe Timo Klaason had nothing to do with Lauren Shelbourne’s death, but if he was dealing drugs, and he was connected to the polo shirt wearers within the psychology faculty, she was going to pay him a visit.

  She focused her attention on the blue door of the two-story house. The drapes were drawn at all the windows, even though it was well after midday. She was hopeful Klaason was yet to crawl out of his bed. Assuming, of course, he was even inside. She shook another couple of painkillers from the bottle and swallowed them dry.

  Two hours later, as the effect of the pills was beginning to wear off, she considered getting out of the car to stretch her legs. She had just popped the lock when the drapes fluttered in the downstairs window. She sat very still and held her breath, but there was no further activity for another five minutes. Her patience was finally rewarded when the blue door opened and a tall, slim white man, early to mid-twenties, closed it behind him and stood for a moment on the low stoop. Ingrid slipped further down in her seat. The man placed a pair of headphones on his shaved head, fiddled with his iPhone, then set off at speed, striding out of the front yard and down the street, heading north toward a network of equally respectable residential streets.

  Ingrid quickly checked the passport-sized portrait of Klaason she had on her phone. It had to be him. It was also possible it was the man from the warehouse who’d played football with her ribs. She eased herself gently out of the car, and by the time she’d locked the door, Klaason was already nearing the end of the street. A good distance for a tail. She reached the corner and spotted him heading west. Then he stopped abruptly and started patting his pockets. He had forgotten something.

  Crap.

  Ingrid looked around for some place to hide, but short of launching herself over a wall into somebody’s front yard, she had few options. She tensed, waiting for Klaason to turn around and look straight at her. She jammed her cell phone to her ear and angled her body away from him, keeping her head half-turned. A moment later, he retrieved a small packet from the rear pocket of his pants. He lit up a cigarette and Ingrid exhaled. He was on the move again, stretching his long legs, forcing her to trot along behind in order to keep up.

  A half mile later, he turned into the cobbled street where she had been kicked the night before last. In daylight, she could see the businesses that plied their trade from the ramshackle collection of buildings and derelict warehouses: a health food wholesaler, a vehicle repair shop and a clothing recycling business. Only the clothing operation was in operation on a Saturday afternoon. A large truck pulled through a set of metal gates, which clanged shut behind it.

  Klaason stopped at a building immediately beyond the clothing business and reached into a pocket. He pulled out a key and unlocked the door. Ingrid crept closer, hiding behind a truck. The door opened and Klaason stepped inside. Ingrid raced across the street, toward the closing door, and just managed to shove a foot between it and the frame before it shut. Three painted zigzags told her she was in the right place. She got her breath back and tried to ignore the nagging pain in her side, then ventured inside.

  26

  At the end of a long corridor, Klaason turned right. Ingrid traced his steps, reaching the corner just as the doors of an old-fashioned industrial elevator cage clanged shut. The elevator ascended, and she watched the numbers above the door light up one after the other, finally stopping when it reached number 7.

  Not wanting to alert anyone to her presence, Ingrid made her way up a narrow staircase as quickly as she could, stopping on each landing to draw painful breaths. At the top, she pulled open the heavy spring-loaded door that led to the corridor. She counted a half dozen doorways, three on each side, though she couldn’t see the doors themselves, as they lay in shadowy recesses set back from the hallway. She listened for a moment, heard nothing beyond the low hum of the fluorescent strip lights, and moved out into the corridor. The first door she came to was padlocked with three solid steel locks. She checked the opposite door, and again it was padlocked. More businesses that didn’t open on the weekend. She ventured slowly down the corridor.

  She froze at the sound of distant voices. Ahead, the elevator door slid noisily across its rail. Ingrid was in no-man’s-land between doorways. She retreated, running backward, keeping her eyes on the elevator. A man stepped out, his head turned away from her. He laughed, throwing back his head. He was wearing combat pants tucked into black boots and a purple and green polo shirt.

  Ingrid’s heart thumped hard against her ribs.

  Another man pushed past the first one, knocking a hand against his shoulder.

  “Later. There’s plenty of time for that,” the second man said.

  She pressed herself into a recess just as they turned her way.

  “Did you see the look on his face?” one voice said.

  “He’s all right. He knows what he’s doing.”

  There was a loud bang, fist against wood. A door creaked open. Another voice, deeper than the first two, mumbled something indistinct. Ingrid risked a glance into the corridor in time to see the two men disappearing inside the door furthest on the left, nearest the elevator. It had to be where Klaason was. She waited for a minute before making her way stealthily down the hallway. There was no name plate or number on the door, just the three symbols she’d seen before scratched into the paintwork. She could hear voices on the other side of the door, but wasn’t able to pick out specific words. A light flickered in the corridor, a warmer glow than the fluorescent glare. She looked up to see narrow windows set high into the wall, just below the ceiling. Klaason or his new visitors had switched on more lights inside the room. She stared at the high windows, knowing the only way to get a glimpse inside the room would be through one of them. She stepped back to inspect the wall. It was rendered in smooth concrete. A few feet from where she was standing, she spotted a pipe running from floor to ceiling. It was three inches in diameter and attached to the wall with metal brackets large enough to use as climbing toeholds. The big question was whether it was strong enough to take her weight.

  There was only one way to find out.

  Ingrid stood with
a foot on either side of the pipe. She reached up and clamped her left hand around it, braced herself for the inevitable surge of pain in her ribs, and lifted her right leg. She rested the toe of her boot on the first bracket, grabbed the pipe with her right hand and heaved herself up.

  The pipe was solid.

  She repeated the process the other way, right hand grab, left foot against the next bracket. Again she hauled herself up. Took a breath. Listened. If anyone chose that moment to open the door, she would be completely exposed with nowhere to go and no possible explanation. She stretched up with her left hand and saw the next bracket had only one loose screw attaching it to the wall. It was doing nothing to secure the pipe to the wall, and the smallest amount of force would wrench it from its moorings and send the metal ring and screws, and quite possibly her, clattering to the ground. She reached as far as she could, her fingertips finding the edge of the nearest window ledge. She tried to pull herself up, her hand grabbing tightly on the ledge, but the throbbing in her ribs was too great. She blew out an agonizing breath.

  She needed to get a look inside the room. Maybe she could wait for Klaason and his two visitors to exit the premises. But she had no idea how many other people might be inside. She risked walking into a situation she would be unable to extricate herself from. She reached for her pocket for her phone. If she stretched enough, she might be able to get a photograph of the interior of the room. She disabled the flash function and, holding the phone by its bottom edge, reached up again. The pain in her side made her head buzz. She bit into her bottom lip. With effort, she positioned the phone higher than the window ledge. She squeezed the button on the side of the phone, but heard no reassuring shutter click.

  Damn.

  She reached up higher and squeezed again. This time a bright white flash reflected off the windowpane.

  27

  Ingrid dropped from her perch like a stone, landing hard, both ankles taking the full force of her weight, her knees bending a fraction too late to distribute the shock wave. Despite the pain, she gathered herself quickly and ran for the stairway, the shouting voices inside the room getting louder as the occupants approached the door.

  Shit.

  She flung open the door to the stairwell and started to head downward. No. Mistake. They’ll head down too. She turned quickly and bounded upwards, her head spinning from the pain in her ribs. She reached the next landing and heard the door below being yanked open. She waited till she heard their footsteps going down, then dragged herself up another two flights until she was out of steps. She had two options. The first was waiting for them to leave the building.

  “Where are you, bitch?”

  “She must have gone up!”

  The second option was a fire exit that she guessed led onto the roof. She tried the handle. It turned, but when she leaned her weight against it, the door wouldn’t budge. The door frame was swollen with damp.

  Footsteps thundered up from below.

  Ingrid leaned harder against the door, stifling a scream as her ribs slammed into the wood. The door burst open, sending her flying out onto the roof. It was empty apart from another door on the opposite side, identical to the one she’d just come through, about forty yards away. There was nowhere else to go, so she headed for it as quickly as she could. She pumped her arms and drove her feet into the ground, pushing herself forward.

  “There she is!”

  She threw a glance over her shoulder. Klaason stormed out of the doorway and ran toward her. She gasped for every breath as she ran for the other door. She was ten feet away when it flew open.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Two men, both wearing the signature polo shirts, bundled through the doorway and ran toward her. She couldn’t go forward. She couldn’t go back. She checked left and right. The rooftops of the neighboring buildings were a good fifteen feet away. Too far to jump with her injuries. But she had no choice. She swung left and drove herself forward, picking up momentum. She gripped the cell phone, which was still in her fist.

  There was a low wall at the edge of the roof. She aimed for it, adjusting her stride so she could launch herself from it and clear the sixty-foot drop. Anything other than a clean jump down onto the next rooftop and she was finished.

  She lengthened her stride. The edge was coming up fast. She kept her head up, her gaze focused on the perimeter wall. She gritted her teeth. Her right foot hit the top of the wall perfectly; she threw out her arms and thrust both legs in front. There was nothing beneath her but air. She swung her arms backward, propelling her hips forward.

  Her feet hit the roof, but her weight fell backward, away from safety, toward the drop. She curled her torso, and her buttocks hit the asphalt, followed quickly by her upper back and shoulders. Her cell phone flew right out of her hand. She watched as it somersaulted through the air.

  “Get over there!” Klaason yelled.

  Ingrid scrambled onto her side and looked at him. He couldn’t believe what she had done, and his face was a picture.

  “Five years of parkour,” she shouted, her chest heaving with deep, heavy breaths.

  His companions peered over the rooftop edge at the sheer drop. Ingrid tried to get to her feet, but the soreness in her ribs forced her back down. One of the polo-shirted men jogged back across the roof to the far side then turned. He started to run toward the edge, his speed nowhere near fast enough to carry him over.

  “Go on!”

  “Get her!”

  Ingrid tried to get up again and made it onto her hands and knees. She watched in horror as the man on the opposite building hurtled toward the edge.

  “No!” she shouted, her voice getting lost on the wind.

  He pulled up. Just a few yards from the drop, his arms swinging wildly to stop his momentum. In slow motion, Ingrid saw him slide toward the low wall hemming the roof, his feet slamming into the bricks. He dropped backward.

  Klaason shouted something in Dutch. He grabbed the prostrate man by the collar and hauled him to his feet. Then he shoved him at the rooftop door.

  “Get over there!” he yelled.

  Ingrid had to get moving. Little by little, she pulled herself vertical, her head spinning as soon as she was upright. She blinked, then staggered. She scanned the roof for her phone, praying it hadn’t gone over the edge. She spotted its cover first. A moment later she located the phone. She bent down, letting out a yelp, and scooped it up. There was no door on this roof, no obvious way down. She limped to the edge of the building and peered down at the street. A rusting metal fire escape zigzagged down as far as the second floor. Klaason’s henchmen burst out of the warehouse next door and ran toward her only obvious means of escape. One of them jumped up, grasping for the bottom rung. Ingrid crossed to the other side of the roof. The rear of the building looked out onto a goods yard, a tall metal fence protecting it from the street beyond. There was no way down. No access hatch. No roof ladder.

  Directly beneath her, a truck belonging to the recycled clothing business was parked in a loading bay. It was piled high with rags and old clothes. Not a bad option. She stood on the edge, pressed her elbows into her sides, laid her forearms across her chest and stepped off.

  She hit the clothes, rolled sideways and tucked her knees into her chest. Then she lay completely still, assessing the damage. Nothing seemed to hurt more than it had before.

  She pulled her cell from her pocket and found the picture she’d taken of Klaason’s premises. The image was blurry and dark. She stared at it until she could make sense of the strange shapes. She’d seen those shapes before. But not for years. Not since she was a rookie agent working out of a field office in Cleveland. It had been her first big bust: a methamphetamine factory.

  28

  The crime scene investigators removed the last of the meth-making equipment from Klaason’s makeshift laboratory: a large set of kitchen scales wrapped in a huge plastic evidence bag. Ingrid had been interviewed by the senior investigating officer from the London Crime Squad at le
ngth and had arranged to make a formal statement in the station on Monday morning. From what the SIO had told her, the squad was responsible for most of the drug busts across the whole of London.

  “You look like you just crawled here from a war zone.”

  Ingrid turned slowly to see Natasha McKittrick, burger in one hand, can of soda in the other, hurrying toward her.

  “Jeez, what is that?” The aroma of the beef fat and burned onions had Ingrid’s stomach roiling. “It smells like yesterday’s garbage.”

  McKittrick tipped her head to one side. “If I’d known you were going to nag me about my eating habits, I wouldn’t have come.” She took another bite. “I can’t walk past a burger van without buying something. It’s the onions.” She waved the offending meat sandwich under Ingrid’s nose. “Want a bite?”

  “I’ll pass.”

  McKittrick shrugged, took another mouthful and tossed what was left in a nearby trash can. She took a swig of soda. “Takes me back to my childhood.”

  It did the same for Ingrid, which was why she never drank the stuff.

  McKittrick wiped her hands on a paper napkin. “So… what was so important you couldn’t tell me about it over the phone?” She dabbed some ketchup from the corner of her mouth. Ingrid took a moment to study the off-duty detective. In the four months she’d known her, she’d only ever seen her this upbeat on tequila.

  “Are you OK?” Ingrid inquired.

  “You’re asking me that?” She stepped back and looked Ingrid up and down. “You need to get yourself down to the nearest A&E department.”