“That’s good. Keep them wondering for now. I’ll be by later, okay? Be nice to the nurses.”
“Be careful out there,” he warned.
I hung up, grabbed the cocktail shaker, and stuck my phone down in the stainless steel Faraday cage. “Can I borrow your phone?”
“Do I have a choice?” He handed it over, then glanced at the cocktail shaker. “You’re quite the Girl Scout, aren’t you?”
“Do they teach Girl Scouts how to keep national security from tracking your cell phones? If not, they should. That would be a cool little patch for their sashes.”
“Do you know where we’re going? Why have I been driving in circles?”
“Slow down.”
He did as I asked. When we were passing a street that we had driven past twice already, I said, “See down this street? The ERT is removing evidence from Anya Bhatia’s apartment.”
“If they’re removing evidence, what do you hope to find?”
“Whatever they miss.”
“What makes you think they’ll miss anything?”
“Because they don’t know what they’re looking for. I do.”
Two hours later, Dimitri and I climbed up a fire escape on the rear of a four-story apartment building in Arlington, Virginia, just across the Key Bridge from Georgetown. I hoped and prayed that no one was watching Anya’s apartment.
The ERT had been thorough; the place had been ransacked.
“Try to hack into Anya’s calendar on her work PC,” I said.
“I’ll see what I can do.” Dimitri cleared a spot at Anya’s dining room table and fired up his laptop. “What exactly am I looking for?”
“Anya called me two weeks ago. She was nervous. Someone had been acting strange around her, so she hacked into his computer.”
“NSA can do that?” Dimitri feigned putting a hand over his heart. “I’m shocked.”
“Of course they can,” I said in all seriousness. “I feel quite comfortable knowing there are people out there who are making sure I’m safe. If they have to skirt a few rules and infringe on some asshole’s basic rights to ensure my safety, so be it.”
“Seriously?” Dimitri asked. “That actually—”
“No, not seriously,” I interrupted him. “She had no right to break the law for her own personal reasons.”
“Whew,” Dimitri said. “You had me going there for a minute.”
“However,” I started again, “she did hack into this guy’s computer, and was shocked when she discovered thousands of sensitive and classified documents. And when she dug deeper, she found my name scattered across hundreds of them.”
“What happened after that?”
“She got scared. A lot of his files were encrypted and classified. Some were even outside her clearance. He had software on his computer that only someone with ties to national security or some other high-tech company would have. So she got out of there and called me.”
“Did she tell you who this person was?”
“No. She told me everything I just told you, then she kind of freaked out. Just told me that I needed to come to DC.”
“And as luck would have it, your friends needed a house-sitter.”
“Yes, that was rather convenient.” I paced around Anya’s apartment while Dimitri continued working on the computer.
The ERT had taken all of Anya’s computer equipment and personal electronic devices. They’d gone through her bedside table and her dresser drawers, and they hadn’t been neat about it. Shoeboxes and purses had been pulled down off shelves inside her walk-in closet. Her bathroom was destroyed.
Anya had been a clotheshorse ever since I’d known her. She wasn’t as much of a shoe person as I was, but she did love designer dresses and handbags. I smiled thinking of how we used to borrow each other’s clothes. She would wear my shoes, and I would borrow her dresses. We attended a lot of parties together during college, double-dating on occasion. I hated that she and I had grown apart the last couple of years.
“I’ve got it!” Dimitri yelled from the other room.
I went to him.
“I don’t know how long I’ll be able to access this calendar, but I’ve taken screen shots of the last few months. If you want to drill down deeper, you better hurry.”
“Are you on the NSA mainframe?”
Dimitri nodded, then glanced around the apartment. “Look, I’m starting to get nervous. And when I start to get nervous…”
I understood. Dimitri was not the squeamish type. “I’ll be fast,” I said.
I examined the calendar, but nothing in particular stood out. Not at first, anyway.
Dimitri looked over my shoulder. “When did you say she called you?”
“I talked to her two weeks ago, on a Friday.” I scrolled until I found the day we were talking about. Her calendar was empty on that day. “However, she originally called me a week before that.” I had put off calling her back for a week.
Dimitri took over the mouse pad and drilled down on an entry back in September. “Have the MM clutch fixed,” he read aloud. Beside it was a ten-digit phone number. He lifted his head. “MM,” he said. “A car of some sort?”
I thought about it a minute. “No. A purse.” I pushed away from the table and ran to her bedroom, where I darted into the closet again. Shoeboxes, belts, and clothes were scattered all over the floor. I carefully moved items aside and looked in shoeboxes and under clothes. Then, I saw it. Tucked under a Carolina Herrera dress was a small silver purse with a jeweled clasp. “The Miu Miu,” I said to myself. It had been my gift to her the day she turned twenty-one.
I retrieved the purse and looked inside. A single tube of lipstick was in the bottom. I pulled it out, tucked the clutch under my armpit, and pulled the cap off the lipstick.
It wasn’t lipstick at all. Inside was a rolled-up piece of paper. Written on it was a list of names, each with two numbers after it.
Dimitri appeared in the doorway. “We should get going. If police are looking for you, I wouldn’t want them to find you inside the sealed apartment of the deceased.”
I held out the piece of paper for Dimitri to look at. “These names mean anything to you?”
He shook his head. “You?”
“No.”
“Well, we’ll brainstorm away from here.”
I followed Dimitri down the hallway. In the living room, I paused and did a three-sixty. On the bookshelf beside a writing desk, I spotted four years of college yearbooks. By the lines in the dust, one of them had been pulled down recently.
I looked at the list of names again. “They’re years,” I said. “Graduating years.”
Dimitri was peering out the front window. “We’ve got company,” he said. “We have to move.”
I grabbed the yearbook from the shelf and followed Dimitri out onto the fire escape. He had his computer tucked in a backpack, slung over one shoulder.
“Hold on a second.” I quickly unzipped the backpack and slid the yearbook inside. Just as I zipped it again, I heard voices in the apartment. “Okay. Let’s go.”
We climbed down the fire escape. But as we reached the bottom, we heard voices approaching from around the corner of the building. We had nowhere to go. There was no way we would look anything but suspicious if we took off running.
Dimitri suddenly pushed me against the brick of the apartment building and started kissing me. Every instinct in me told me to knee him in the groin. Instead I slapped a hand against his back—a little harder than I should have, probably—and returned the kiss.
“What are you doing there?” a male voice asked.
Dimitri broke the kiss. “Dude,” he said, turning his head to look over his shoulder, shielding me in the process. “What’s it look like? I’m kissing my girl.”
“Well… dude…” the male voice said, mocking Dimitri, “we’re FBI agents. Where do the two of you live?”
Dimitri turned, keeping me behind him. “Oh, man. I’m sorry.” He had the California surfer dude t
hing down. Why he pulled that accent out, I had no idea. “I live two doors down. We’re on our way home from class.”
“Well, get on home.”
“Okay, sure,” Dimitri said. He reached down and grabbed my hand, then pulled me past the agents. I kept my head down, letting my long bangs cover my face.
When we were back in the car, Dimitri made no attempt to apologize for the kiss. I decided it was probably best never to mention it again.
“Can I borrow your phone again?”
He handed it over, and I called Ty as Dimitri drove.
“Please stop disappearing,” Ty said when he answered on the first ring. “Are you watching the news?”
“No, why?” My heart picked up pace. “Something else happen?”
“They arrested someone in connection with the shooting. They’re claiming it’s the second shooter.”
“What? As in Romeo?” I looked out the window. “Pull over,” I said to Dimitri. I pointed at a little chain sports bar called Wild Wild Wings in front of a strip mall.
“I’ll call you back,” I said to Ty.
It was nearly noon, but the crowd was sparse inside Wild Wild Wings. Dimitri and I slid onto stools at a high-top table.
Sure enough, the news was reporting a break in the case. “Sources inside the FBI tell us that they discovered a sniper rifle in an abandoned part of a building near the Full Court Press that was most likely the weapon used to kill the first shooter. That weapon led them to a man they’ve identified as Jeremy Lanister, twenty-seven, of Bethesda, Maryland.” A picture of Jeremy appeared on the television.
I was staring at the screen, repeating the name over and over in my head, when a waitress approached in a white, scoop-neck T-shirt and short black shorts. Her bright red hair was pulled up into a bun high up on her head, and her black eyeliner gave her cat eyes.
She set some cardboard coasters on the table. “What can I get ya?” she asked.
“I’m sorry. We can’t stay.” I slid off the stool and headed for the door. I didn’t even check to see if Dimitri was behind me.
Outside, I called Ty back. “That’s not Romeo.”
“How do you know?”
“Because although it was dark when I saw Romeo outside the burning cottage and I can’t tell you specifically what Romeo looks like, I’ve seen Romeo. And that wasn’t him.” From the picture on the news report, Jeremy Lanister was tall and wide. Like a lineman for a pro football team.
Dimitri nodded. “I agree. That wasn’t your Romeo.”
“So, maybe the shooter wasn’t Romeo,” Ty said.
“Maybe.” But I didn’t think so.
I hung up with Ty and called Mike. When he answered, I asked, “Do they have the right guy?”
“Of course,” Mike said. “I’ve seen the evidence. It’s overwhelming. Fingerprints, footprints on the dirty tile, video of him in the area as well as entering the building thirty minutes before the first shots were fired, and not exiting until after the first shooter was killed.”
“Do they know why he shot Archer?”
“They’re operating under the assumption that the first shooter had been identified and was out in the open, and that they were in it together. He’d made the shooting messy, and profilers think this Jeremy person doesn’t like messes. Jeremy also didn’t like the idea that Bradley Archer could have ratted him out if caught.”
Who was I to question some killer’s motives? “Are the local cops still wanting to speak with me?”
“They are not actively looking for you at this time; your father stepped in and threw his weight around. But they would like to talk to you.” Mike paused a beat. “So, what were you keeping from me when I saw you early this morning?”
“I’ll talk to you soon, Mike.” I hung up without answering his question.
This case was far from over. They would spend months building a case against the man they now had in custody, which meant I was sure they would question me again. I would have to answer why I wasn’t inside the restaurant and why I had been meeting with Anya in the first place. It was easy enough to answer, but whether they would believe me was a separate issue.
This was not a random case, and I didn’t think the fact that I’d survived while Archer’s head was nearly blown off was a coincidence. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe my mind was playing games with me, and it wasn’t Romeo who shot Bradley Archer or had Anya killed. And maybe—just maybe—it was time to admit that not every case was mine to solve.
Maybe.
Chapter 12
Brooke
On the plane ride back to Kentucky in Declan’s company Gulfstream 5, I sat in one of the seats facing him. His seat was fully reclined and made into a makeshift bed. He slept soundly while I mulled over everything that had happened.
An uneasy feeling churned in my gut as I fingered the piece of paper from Anya’s Miu Miu clutch: a list of eight men who had attended the University of Virginia. I recognized none of the names—except for one. Jeremy Lanister, the second shooter according to law enforcement in DC, was the third name on the list.
Reaching down into the bag beside me, I pulled out Anya’s yearbook and set it on my lap. It was the yearbook from our senior year at UVA.
I had found seven of the names on Anya’s list, including Jeremy Lanister’s, inside the yearbook, beneath their photos. But one name wasn’t in there: Woodford Clay Harrison. According to Anya’s list, he’d graduated the same year as Anya and me, yet he wasn’t listed.
“What do these people have in common?” I wondered aloud. “And who is this Woodford Clay Harrison? What were you trying to tell me, Anya?”
I flipped through the yearbook, looking at photos of various events. I had been moderately involved with university activities, but I had also been somewhat of a loner. When I flipped to a page of random photographs from parties and charity events run by the many Greek sororities and fraternities, I stopped. One picture jumped out at me.
It included Anya, looking happy and young, along with six additional women and eight men. Oh, Anya. I touched a finger to her smiling face. She had always been the more social one, comfortable around guys, often trying to set me up with blind dates.
The photo was obviously from a social event. As I stared at the people in the photo, I recognized each man in the photo as men from the list—men whose individual photos I had just studied. Except for one.
Eight names on the list. Eight men in the photo. One of the men I had yet to identify. Could the eighth man be Woodford Clay Harrison?
Did the fact that there were only seven girls to the eight men hold any significance?
Deciding I was tired of thinking so hard, I put the yearbook away and unbuckled, then stepped across the aisle that separated me from Declan. I lifted his blanket and slid in next to him, careful not to jostle him too much. Though he’d never complained, I knew he was in pain, and the pain meds the doctor had prescribed were barely taking the edge off.
He shifted slightly without waking, and let me snuggle in beside him. I laid my head on his chest and closed my eyes. His arm held me close as I drifted to sleep.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
I flinched with each sound. The tight grip on my hand loosened, then dropped away. I looked down. My hand was drenched in blood, the warm, sticky liquid going from warm to cold.
Beside me, Declan lay on the concrete floor; his head was angled awkwardly against the corner of a table. His eyes were wide and vacant.
“Declan,” I said softly.
I fell to my knees and touched a hand to his face. When I touched his ice-cold skin, smearing blood across his cheek, I jerked my hand back.
“Declan.” I whimpered this time. My throat was tight. My eyes burned. “Declan.”
My body began to shake. I felt pressure to my shoulders as if someone was attempting to pull me away from him. I fought whoever it was.
Then I heard my name. “Brooke. Wake up, Brooke.”
My eyes sprang open, and I immediately saw a
different version of Declan. He was sitting beside me, peering down into my eyes. We were still on the plane.
I sat up and threw my arms around his neck.
Declan stiffened, and I immediately drew back. “I’m sorry.” I looked down at his stomach. He was wearing a button-down shirt, starched to perfection and untucked, to hide the bandaging.
He drew me in again. “It’s okay. You were having a nightmare.”
I hugged him more gently this time, swallowing against the sob that had threatened to surface when I’d been dreaming.
“Want to tell me about it?” he said.
I pulled back and shook my head. “Just a bad dream.”
He ran his fingers threw my hair, tucking the strands behind my ears, then framed my face. “You haven’t gotten much sleep the last couple of nights. And I haven’t been able to ask you how you were doing since the shooting.”
“It’s fine. I’m okay. Just glad to be getting you back home.” I looked around the cabin and realized we were on the ground. “We’ve landed. No one woke me to buckle up for landing.”
“A perk that comes with paying everyone’s salary.” Declan smiled. “Let’s go home. David tells me you ordered him to find all the old foreign films he could.”
“I thought they would put you to sleep, which is what the doctor ordered.”
“I actually like foreign films,” he said.
I eyed him curiously. “Of course you do.” I moved to get up, and looked around for the yearbook.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I had a UVA yearbook.”
“It’s already in the car.”
“Oh,” I said. “Okay.” I would never get used to having people do things for me. But anytime Declan was around, that was the way of it.
We made our way to the door of the plane. Declan stepped carefully down the steps, holding his side as he did.
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