What Lies Behind

by J. T. Ellison

  “Where was Cattafi found?” she asked.

  “There. Other side of the bed. Like he fell off.”

  She moved carefully to the other side of the room. There was a lot of blood on the floor here, too, similarly spaced, with a bloodless impression. “He was half on, half off?” she asked.

  “Yes. Three great big wounds to his torso, the knife in his hand.”

  “Photos?”

  “Plenty of them. But first, tell me, what do you see?”

  She shut her eyes briefly and let the scene coalesce before her. Heard the screams of Souleyret, tried to envision the step-by-step that led to the great gouts of blood spread throughout the apartment. A bottle fly bumbled drunkenly past her ear. She opened her eyes, swatted at it. Amazing how the food chain supplemented itself. Less than twelve hours in and new lives were already springing up.

  “Conventional wisdom says Cattafi stabbed her in the living room. She managed to get away and dragged herself into the bedroom. He followed her, administered one last cut, then stabbed himself in the chest three times. He did leave a note.”

  Sam was already shaking her head. “No. That’s not it. Look.”

  She pointed to the floor, showed Fletcher a scrape in the trail of blood. A fuzzy footprint, barely discernible, with the heel and toe in the wrong spot to support his theory. “He was backing in here. Blocking whoever had attacked them from getting to Souleyret again. He was protecting her. When the blood’s run, you’ll find his is in the living room, too. There was definitely a third party involved.”

  Fletcher was looking at her like she’d just conjured water out of thin air. He knelt down, looked closer at the footprint. Walked it off mentally, stood with a grunt.

  “You’re right. Damn it. How did you do that? You saw the whole scene.”

  “I...” She stopped. He was right. What the hell had just happened? Was she suddenly psychic? Able to discern from the scene what had happened just by its proximity?

  A feeling of dread ran through her. No. She wasn’t. And she wasn’t reimagining the crime scene, either. She’d seen it before. Or one that looked damn close to it.

  Chapter 10

  SAM WALKED THROUGH the crime scene once more, tracing the backward steps of Thomas Cattafi. Everything was muddled; the blood had dried in streaky brown swooshes, but now that she knew what she was looking for, she could clearly see his steps. It went that way sometimes; when the blood was fresh, it was hard to see exactly what had happened. That’s why it took so long to release crime scenes—good homicide detectives would come back two or three times to see how the scene changed as it aged.

  She thought about the files on her coffee table. The Hometown Killer stabbed several of his victims. Could he have struck again, so soon, this time in Georgetown? And was this the reason Baldwin wanted her on the case? He sensed yet another connection?

  No. She was reading into the crime scene, projecting all the horrors from the files she’d been reading the night before. It was all in her imagination.

  She dragged her attention back to Fletcher, who was visibly upset. “This is staged to look like a murder-suicide. The note, the blood being dispersed, everything. But it’s a setup. How did we miss this?”

  “Sometimes a zebra is a zebra,” Sam said. “And sometimes a zebra is an elephant in disguise.”

  He cocked his head. “Huh?”

  “Occam’s razor. Your team went to the most logical conclusion because that’s what the scene was meant to present. What exactly do we know about Amanda Souleyret?”

  Fletcher caught the tone in her voice. “Not much. We just took her body out of here an hour ago. Why?” he asked slowly.

  “Do you know where she’s from?”

  Fletcher’s dark eyes were troubled. “We don’t know much at all. Just the basics. It’s early days in the investigation. I figured her family can fill us in.”

  “I’d like to be there. To talk to them, I mean.”

  “Sam, what aren’t you telling me?”

  Sam ignored him. She bent, looked closer at the small breakfast bar. “Here,” she said quietly. “It started here.”

  Fletcher nodded, ran a hand across his chin. He hadn’t shaved and the hairs rasped against his palm. “That’s what my blood spatter analyst said, too. First strike left that lovely castoff.” He pointed at the ceiling. Spots of blackened blood speckled the white. “I’d say whoever killed her was in a rare temper.”

  Sam could envision the knife, gliding silver through the air, an overhand arc. Landing with a thunk into the woman’s neck, the arterial spray shooting. Souleyret’s screams, if she had screamed, would have been cut off as quickly as they started. And then he’d stabbed her again and again, driving her back into the bedroom, where Cattafi had tried to defend her, had put himself in the killer’s path.

  She admired him for it. It would most likely cost him his life, but at least he’d die a hero. A waste, either way.

  “Tell me what you know, Sam.”

  “I don’t know anything, Fletch. For a moment, the scene seemed familiar. Just to satisfy my curiosity, when we finish up here, let’s stop back at my place. I’ll take a look at my files, see what’s niggling at me about this.”

  He took her word for it. She tucked the odd feeling of familiarity away. She’d look at it later. There were other questions that needed to be answered. Most importantly, what was an undercover FBI agent doing in the apartment of a Georgetown University medical student?

  She took a deep breath, trying to clear her head. Smelled something off, something close. Deeper than the tang of blood and the effluvia of dead bodies. Sweet, almost flowerlike, but not. She couldn’t place it, had never come across the scent before. It wasn’t pleasant, and it wasn’t a natural part of the crime scene, she was sure. It smelled a bit like overripe honeysuckle, but sharper, with some mint, perhaps, both scents overlaid with a sickly rot that made her gorge rise.

  Where was it coming from? She saw nothing unusual, or out of place, except for the copious streaks of blood.

  “Fletch, come here. Do you smell anything?”

  Fletcher breathed in deep. “Blood and gore and carpet cleaner. Maybe some old pot smoke. Bacon grease.”

  “Nothing flowerlike? Like old flowers left to mold in a vase of water?”

  “Like the way patchouli smells? I’ve never liked it, but I can’t say—”

  “No, that’s not it.”

  Fletcher came closer, sniffing. “Ugh. Yeah, I smell it now. What the hell? It wasn’t here earlier.”

  Sam edged to the breakfast bar, wrinkled her nose as the smell grew stronger. She looked closer at the bar. Runnels of blood had come off the counter, streamed down the paneling. There was a break in the blood, almost as if a ruler had been placed in the down flow and the blood had run over it in a perfect line.

  “Do you have a Maglite?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Fletcher replied, handing her the flashlight he’d stuffed in his jacket pocket.

  She shone the light on the edges of the counter, then down into the paneling. In one small area, about twelve inches across, the blood dribbled into nowhere, just plain disappeared. There was an edge here, a break in the wood. It was almost indistinguishable from the other panels—it looked like a normal seam where the pieces met. She reached out and pressed the edge, and a panel popped open. The scent gusted forth, and she stepped back, gagging.

  “Christ, what is that?”

  Sam pulled the waist of her T-shirt up to cover her nose. She flashed the light into the small space. Saw a silver handle. Using her gloved hand, she pulled it open.

  And immediately began backing away again.

  Son of a bitch.

  “Fletcher, alert HAZMAT. Now.”

  His head jerked toward her. “What is it? What’s in t
here?”

  “It’s a wine refrigerator, but the power’s been cut.”

  “Let me see.”

  “Don’t—”

  He stepped around her. “What is this stuff? Some sort of science experiment?”

  Sam grabbed his arm and pulled him backward, toward the front door. “Without examining it closely, I can’t say for sure. There’s a bottle labeled Vibrio cholerae.”

  At his blank look, she explained. “Cholera, Fletch. And there’s more than one vial in there. Cattafi has an unsecured refrigerator full of transmissible, possibly deadly bacteria and viruses. Ones that shouldn’t be anywhere but in a secure lab.”

  “What do you mean, deadly bacteria and viruses? What the hell?”

  She glanced back at the refrigerator. “It looks like Thomas Cattafi was being a bad, bad boy.”

  Chapter 11

  McLean, Virginia

  RILEY CALLED ROBIN just past ten. She was still at the house. She’d called in sick, which raised a few eyebrows, but to hell with them. She hadn’t had a sick day since she’d woken up in Ramstein, Germany, three years earlier, pumped full of shrapnel from the remnants of a roadside IED. A blindingly red day, it was all she could remember, a fog of puce, sucking at her, draining her dry. Later, when she was healed, she remembered the screams, and was happy the fog had taken away the memories.

  She rubbed her left side, where the scars were the worst. She couldn’t be upset about them. She was the only one who’d survived intact. Another five feet and that wouldn’t have been the case. She’d be missing legs and arms, like the rest of the team, not just her spleen and a kidney. Aside from the lingering headaches and occasional blackouts and swirls of colors when people talked or were emotional, she was just fine. Mostly fine.

  She answered the phone with trepidation, wondered where her nerve had gone.

  “What’s happening?”

  “A lot. The police just called HAZMAT to Cattafi’s apartment.”

  “HAZMAT? What in the hell?”

  “I don’t know. Was Amanda still on that vaccine scam?”

  “I think so. She was working it hard a few months ago, I know. But, Riley, seriously, we hadn’t talked in a few weeks. I don’t know if it has anything to do with her. Might be the boyfriend’s troubles.”

  “Speaking of, Alicia traced the call made to your cell phone this morning. It pinged off the tower closest to Amanda’s town house on Capitol Hill.”

  Robin pulled a cup down from the cabinet, the delicate china from her parents’ wedding set, went about making a cup of tea. “As far as I know, she has that place rented out to a couple of congressional aides. She wouldn’t go there if she came to town. She’d just grab a hotel room, or stay with me.” Or go stay with a boyfriend Robin knew nothing about. “Someone should do a welfare check, just in case.”

  “I’ll send Lola.”

  Lola Jergens was Riley’s particular pet. Petite, wheat blonde, small enough to fit in his pocket, attractive in a bland, generic, easy-to-forget-her-face way, he’d been grooming her to handle the more discreet needs of their workload around town. He took her on assignment sometimes, too. Robin had to admit, Lola was a good choice. They could count on her to be subtle. Then she thought about it, and changed her mind.

  “No. I’ll go. I have a key. It will save us some time. Where is the phone now?”

  “After the call, it drops off the grid.”

  “Destroyed?”

  “Most likely. Listen, Robbie, you have to operate under the assumption that whoever has, or had, that phone knows where you are. Knows who you are.”

  She patted the Glock under her arm, though he couldn’t see the action. “Worry not. I’m ready for anything. Just so you know, I put a call in to Atlantic. We’ll see if he knows anything about this.”

  “Good, that’s good. Do I want to know what HAZMAT is going to find?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest. But I’m going to go take a look in her files, see what I can dig up.”

  “Has Metro been in touch yet?”

  “I would assume they’re having a hard time finding me. I’ll go to them once we know what’s really happening.”

  A surge of red filled the air. Mop up your mess, little sister. Followed by a swirl of canary yellow. How dare you die on me!

  “Be careful, Robbie. Stay in touch.”

  “Always.”

  * * *

  Robin logged in to her secure home system and immediately went to her email account. Checked to see if there was anything from Amanda officially, saw nothing. She logged out, crossed platforms, went to Gmail and tried Amanda’s account. Prayed she hadn’t changed the password—not that it would matter; Robin could get in, it would simply take more time—but she was lucky. The password was the same, and moments later, her sister’s private correspondence was open.

  She ignored the inbox, went directly to the drafts folder. It was a common trick—give two people access to a single account, and communicate through the drafts without ever sending the email, thus ensuring absolute privacy.

  There was a single draft email in the file, dated three hours earlier. Addressed to Amanda, no subject. Five innocuous words.

  Did you get it in?

  There was nothing else in the folder.

  Robin quickly scanned the remaining emails, saw nothing outside the norm.

  Did she get what in? And to where?

  She itched to get her hands on Amanda’s laptop and her phone. There wasn’t much Robin could do accessing remotely on her own computer, but with Mandy’s, if she’d not erased the history each night as she should, Robin might be able to re-create the drafts folder, see what other messages might be in there. Better yet, her phone might have a cached version of the drafts inbox, which would hold the earlier messages.

  What could she have been trying to bring in? The vaccines, yes, Robin knew about that project. Was there something in them? Something deadly, or earth-shattering?

  Something worth dying for?

  Drumming her fingers on the table, little puffs of slate rising from the taps, she decided.

  She’d go to Mandy’s house, look around a bit, then it was time to see what Metro had discovered.

  Chapter 12

  Teterboro Airport

  New Jersey

  BELOW XANDER, AS the tarmac exploded into action—a cacophony of shouts and screams and the background roar of a plane’s engines reversing as it landed—Xander slid down to the roof, rolled to his back and stared at the sky. He hadn’t thought this through, had only reacted. From the moment the SIG was in his hand, his forefinger caressing the trigger, the end was clear. He’d gone into a trance of perfect focus and eliminated the threat. What he was trained to do.

  Clouds scudded past, lacing the blue sky with billows of white. Calming, comforting. Skies were all different. Some forbidding, some beautiful. He’d lain on roofs and grounds across the world, waiting, planning, watching—frightened and cold and overwhelmed at times—and the sky had always been with him.

  He thought back to the moment Chalk approached him about starting the firm, realized that he’d never fully conceptualized what might happen. He’d known intellectually he might be forced to kill again, but he was supposed to be in protection now, damn it all. Saving lives, not taking them.

  For a life he’d just taken, no question about it. He rolled over onto his stomach again, looked over the edge to the target. The man he’d shot was slumped over the parapet, arms dangling. A rusty smear was giving in to gravity, spreading slowly down the concrete.

  He came back to himself, realized Chalk was going mad in his ear.

  “Mutant, talk to me. What’s wrong? I can’t hear you, repeat, I can’t hear you!”

  “Chalk,” he said quietly, and his friend calmed imm
ediately.

  “You okay, buddy? That was one hell of a shot. You want to come on down?”

  Come down, face the world, the scrutiny. He didn’t know what upset him more, that he’d so calmly negated the threat, or that he’d never questioned the only course of action was to take the threat down. Could he have done something different? He’d reacted, unthinking, and the fallout was going to be insane.

  Face it, Whitfield. You’re a stone-cold killer. Always have been, always will.

  Killing is my business, and business has been good.

  “Coming.”

  He shoved down the dark thoughts, forced himself to his feet. Climbed down the ladder to the scene below.

  * * *

  Their principal was out of sight, but the Teterboro Airport security was not. Chalk had clearly been trying to explain what was happening, but the Teterboro cops were more inclined to arrest the two men with concealed weapons, especially the one who’d done the shooting, and ask questions later.

  Xander handed over his SIG, suffered being slammed against a yellow cinder-block wall, legs and arms spread-eagled and roughly frisked. He let them put cuffs on him without a fight.

  Chalk wasn’t being nearly as calm. He’d managed to get James Denon isolated before they started the Gestapo act with Xander, and was dancing around the cops trying to explain their role in the situation. Denon was finally tapped to confirm who they were, and with his testimony, the cops relaxed a bit. They took off Chalk’s cuffs, but kept Xander chained, seated at a chipped table that looked like it had been recycled from a prison.

  Xander heard sirens coming closer. They’d called the New Jersey state police, probably the FBI, too. An ambulance, though it wouldn’t be necessary. A meat wagon was more appropriate. News trucks would follow. Xander knew they needed to get Denon out of there immediately.

  After a few more minutes of chaos, their bona fides were established, and Xander was uncuffed for the time being. He stood, rubbing his chafed wrists. The last time he’d been in cuffs was during counterinsurgency training. They made him feel caged, something he fought against. Once, the comforts of the military, its regimented days, worked for him. Now, he simply wanted to be free.