The Smiling Man Conspiracy (Evils of this World Book 2)

by C. J. Sears

  “You used to flirt,” Kasey said, dejected.

  Three strikes in a row. Must’ve been a record for the quickest series of kicks in Finch’s behind.

  She stayed pouty for the rest of the ride. When they reached their stop, she said nothing but waited for him to take the lead. That was fine. No reason to prod old wounds. At least that’s what he told himself.

  The numerous framed citations and certificates that lined the hallway leading to Sinclair’s office repulsed Finch. Most of them had nothing to do with law enforcement or government work. It wasn’t jealousy, but a man in the assistant director’s position should’ve been above petty declarations of accomplishment.

  His materialism extended to the trophy case tucked between two bookshelves on the right side of the room. The one labeled “Marksman 1st Place: Jan. 05” was Sinclair’s most prized possession. He doted over it like a rich woman with a toy dog.

  Assistant Director Andrew Sinclair was built like a linebacker. His physical presence was at odds with the ease at which he operated behind a desk. Command was the last position Finch expected when he looked at the guy. He should’ve been in the field. Or a professional wrestler.

  “Ah, Agent Finch, it’s nice to see you’ve taken time off from your vacation to grace us with your presence.” Ever the charmer. “And you brought Agent Alexander with you. Excellent. Now maybe we can get some work done.”

  He sat down across from Sinclair. Kasey preferred to stand and hovered over Finch’s shoulder. Like old times.

  “What’s the score, boss?” she asked, never one for protocol and formalities.

  “This report just came in from the wire,” he said, handing Finch a manila folder containing a stapled document.

  The wire? It was like this man lived in a Cold War movie from the 1960s.

  “You know,” said Kasey, peering at the folder’s contents, “you can just say you got an email from the director.”

  Samson ignored her. “It’s right up your alley, Agent Finch. A dead woman. Possible cult involvement. Signs of paranormal activity.”

  “No,” Finch said, surprising Kasey and Sinclair.

  The assistant director looked incredulous. “No? What do you mean ‘no’? You’re saying it isn’t a cult? I’ve seen you work fast, Agent Finch, but not that fast.”

  “I mean ‘no’ as in I’m not taking the case. Find someone else.”

  “‘Find someone else’? This isn’t a democracy. You either take the case or you don’t get paid. I know which one I’d pick.”

  Finch wagered it was the choice that meant Sinclair could sit on his ass. “You know damn well what happened in Lone Oak. I’m going home.”

  Without waiting for Sinclair’s response, he stood up and walked away. He sensed the assistant director fuming behind him, his bulky black mass reddening with anger. For once, Finch didn’t much care what his boss thought of him.

  His fingers grasped the handle of the door. All he had to do was push, and he was free. No reason to get caught up in another tragedy.

  “We’ll take the case,” said Kasey, twirling the folder in her hand.

  What made her think she could speak for him? He was not that Llewyn any longer. “I don’t think I stuttered. I won’t—”

  Kasey cut him off. “We will take the case,” she said firmly. She turned and cast him a furtive glance. And was that a wink? What game was she playing?

  “At least someone here is wearing their big girl panties,” Sinclair said, cooling down. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the handkerchief he kept in his shirt pocket.

  “It’ll be no problem, Assistant Director.”

  Sinclair nodded. “You’re dismissed.”

  Kasey shoved Finch out of the room before he could protest. He was almost to the elevator when she pulled him into an unused room in a side corridor. She blocked the door with a chair.

  And started unbuttoning her shirt.

  “Kasey, I’m flattered, but I don’t think this is the right time or the right place.”

  She rolled her eyes for the second time. “Oh, shut up. That’s not what this is about.”

  She plunged her hand under her bra and withdrew an object no larger than her thumb. “Here, take a look at this,” she said, passing it to him.

  “Looks like an SD card,” Finch said, giving it the once-over. “So?”

  “Well, don’t you have a PDA or a smartphone? Or are you still a troglodyte?”

  Finch smiled. “I belong in a museum, I’m afraid. My phone closes. I don’t have apps or features.”

  “Fine, we’ll use mine.”

  Kasey plugged the card into her device. She scrolled through the data and enlarged an image with the touch of her fingers. A wall of text—names, dates, and places—occupied the screen.

  It may as well have been gibberish to his eyes.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “Missing persons,” she said. “People taken from all around the country for the past two years.”

  Finch couldn’t make the connection. “I don’t get it. Why bring this to me? This isn’t our department. And it has nothing to do with our case—which I never agreed to do, thank you—so what’s the point.”

  “That case is a false lead. This is why I’m really here. Why I sought you out.”

  He looked at her like she’d sprouted an extra arm. “What do you mean? How do you know?”

  She buttoned her shirt and said, “The director hired me personally for this job. He wants me to track down the person responsible for these kidnappings. He thinks they’re related. All of them disappeared in similar circumstances. Witnesses report seeing armed men wearing masks capturing the victims.”

  His head spun from these strange revelations. “Why do you need me? There’s no paranormal agenda here. And why give Sinclair the wrong report?”

  Kasey mulled how to best get her point across. “Well, I don’t trust anyone here except you. I figure if bullshitting is going on, Llewyn Finch is the man I want at my side. I can’t see the angle here, I admit, but the director was adamant that the case be mine. As for that last bit…”

  “Yeah?”

  She exhaled. Tight as that suit fit, it must’ve been difficult.

  “The director thinks there’s a mole inside our organization. Sinclair is his prime suspect.”

  WE WERE PARTNERS

  Speechless, Finch stared at Kasey. When he woke up that morning, he didn’t think he’d be weighing the possibility that his own boss was involved in criminal activity. What was the sense in kidnapping people? Sinclair was an asshole, but not that kind.

  “There’s no way that Sinclair’s a mole. Or that he’s involved in a kidnapping. The director’s brain must be fried.”

  Kasey shrugged. “He’s the same control freak he’s always been. I didn’t think Sinclair could be involved, but the director insisted. He wouldn’t lie to us.”

  How would she know? Just how chummy had she gotten with their esteemed leader?

  “I’m not buying it. I don’t like the guy, but he’s not the type. No chance.”

  “We should at least investigate the claims, right? Maybe he’s innocent, but if the director thinks it’s a possibility, we have to check it out.”

  Finch massaged his forehead. A headache throbbed inside his skull. It took the shape of Kasey Alexander. But she was right. He owed it to the organization to at least humor the director’s outrageous idea.

  “Fine. We’ll follow up a few leads. But you’re in charge, Kasey. Where do you want to start?”

  She smiled. He missed that smile, the delicate upturned lips, and her smooth, perfect face. And the button nose, how had he forgotten…

  “We’ll get coffee,” she said, “and maybe a bite to eat.”

  “Kasey.”

  She rolled her eyes, an annoying habit that for her proved endearing. “Oh, relax. This isn’t a date. The air’s too stuffy here. I need room to breathe.”

  Seeing her ample proportions struggle a
gainst the fabric of her suit, Finch had to agree.

  *

  He was never a Starbucks junkie, so Finch took Kasey to a low-key joint sandwiched between a rundown department store and an antique shop. The Meister’s Brew, run by an elderly hippy couple for over thirty years, had that old-fashioned beatnik feel. Dim lighting, poetry readings, and whispered words greeted them as they entered the establishment.

  She insisted he pay for drinks. Had to be a gentleman, didn’t he? He never minded, but it was another example of how she always got her way. Until he ended the relationship.

  The price was steep. He’d rather support this place than a conglomerate, but twenty bucks for two vanilla lattes and a cinnamon bun pushed his charity to its limits. He forked over the dough, trying to reconcile how he’d lost one hundred twenty dollars on his first day back to work.

  Kasey picked out a table adjacent to the “Lover’s Corner” section of the room. He was starting to wonder if she’d purposefully gone deaf in addition to taking secret missions from the director.

  Finch seated her first, careful to avoid lingering eye contact. He didn’t need her getting any untoward ideas. This was strictly professional, just two operatives planning out a strategy. He hoped that was enough for both their sakes.

  “This is nice,” Kasey said, loosening her ponytail and letting her golden strands rest on her shoulders.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s so you.”

  “I suppose,” said Finch. He was the king of conversation today.

  “You don’t have to be a stiff,” she said, twirling a lock of hair. “We’re still friends, aren’t we? We can talk like normal without dredging up any…memories.”

  He wanted to believe her. But the last things he’d said to her, after that night’s tussle, hadn’t been pretty. How could she forgive him so easily? He hadn’t even forgiven himself. Never could.

  The latte was icy, the polar opposite of how he liked his usual black coffee. Kasey’s frothed as she swirled a plastic spoon around the rim like it was the carousel at an amusement park. Her cinnamon bun looked delicious, dripping with sweet, buttery goodness. She bit into the roll with elegance befitting a debutante at a ball.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, uncertain if he was apologizing for his current behavior or for what happened years ago. Maybe both.

  “It’s fine, Llewyn. I mean, I wish things were different, but that’s the past. I get it. You’ve moved on. No crying over spilled breast milk, you know?”

  Kasey had a way of being crass that somehow wasn’t offensive.

  “If you’re sure.”

  “I am,” she said, firm and succinct, so unlike her. “We were partners and friends first.” Lovers second went unsaid.

  The air between them remained muddled, but he could breathe again. “What’s the plan?”

  “The list of names can wait,” she said.

  “So you want to stake out Sinclair, then? Get this mole business out of the way so we can focus on the missing persons?”

  Kasey nodded. “Exactly. No reason to start mucking around in the database if there’s someone looking over our shoulder.”

  “You realize that we’re talking about stalking one of the key figureheads of our organization? A man whose paranoia is well known? He might even have guards.”

  “I know,” she said, smiling wide, “it’ll be a challenge. Like getting you to admit you were wrong about that woman on 5th Avenue.”

  “Hey, in my defense, she said she needed a fag and a light. How was I supposed to know what she meant?”

  “I thought you were prophetic,” she teased, “or was that beyond the scope of your abilities?”

  He laughed. “I don’t think my gift covers British idioms.” Former gift, he corrected himself.

  “I guess not. Look, you’re right. This won’t be easy. But this is important, Llewyn. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have asked.”

  He downed the rest of his latte. “Okay. Let’s say we follow through and tail Sinclair. Assuming we dig up any skeletons, if he is a mole, what’s the plan? We can’t call the police. No one is supposed to know about us.”

  Sure, he’d broken the rule before, but this was different.

  She waved her hand dismissively. “We’ll figure it out. I’ve got the director’s number. He’ll send in a cleanup crew or something. I mean, I doubt it’ll need an endgame solution. It’s not a Code Omega.”

  Inwardly, images of Lone Oak consumed by fire surfaced, but he drowned them with sarcasm.

  “Well, yeah, I don’t think the director could get away with bombing his employee’s house.”

  An ominous drum pattered as an amateur poet took the stage. People filed out of the coffee shop en masse. The guy must be awful. Finch took that as a sign. So did Kasey.

  “C’mon,” she said, glancing at her watch, “the assistant director will be leaving headquarters any second. We have to move.”

  The poet’s ear-splitting voice penetrated the room. He had no apparent control over the volume of his voice. Or he didn’t care. For once, Finch was glad to have Kasey bossing him around.

  *

  1940s jazz would’ve been more appropriate, but Kasey insisted the radio stay tuned to the classic rock station as they followed Sinclair’s blue Camaro. He wanted to argue that they were drawing attention to their selves, but they would’ve stuck out more in downtown D. C. if they weren’t blasting music for the world to hear. Besides, Finch’s sedan was unassuming and unremarkable—the perfect vehicle for the task at hand.

  Sleet slicked the ground. In less than an hour, ice would cover the roads. If Sinclair suspected something was amiss, his driving didn’t show it. A stickler for safety, the assistant director stopped at every red light, every sign, and never chanced rushing through on yellow. This was the man supposedly involved with a criminal enterprise?

  Kasey drove, remaining two car lengths behind him at all times. Finch’s old fears of being a passenger had long since dissipated. Nearly dying in far more gruesome ways erased such petty phobias. These days, it didn’t take a car crash and a dead sister to leave him with nightmares of broken, bent, and bruised bodies.

  Neither of them knew exactly where their boss lived. He had enough money for a fancy home out in the woods, but he didn’t seem the country living type. The man had no family, had been divorced for a decade. Finch bet Sinclair hoarded his wealth, stowing his possessions in a moderate uptown apartment.

  “I swear, if he lingers at the next four-way for more than fifteen seconds, I’m just going to ram him.”

  Her mood had darkened since leaving the coffee shop. Business Kasey had replaced Casual Kasey. But he knew she was joshing him. She wasn’t the type to let impatience get the better of her, not when she had a job to do.

  “But this is fun! We’re having a grand old time. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  That brought back her delightful smile. “Yeah, okay, I deserved that. I guess the Joint Terrorism Task Force got me used to action.”

  Sinclair turned right, slowing to a crawl at an empty crosswalk. Their radio blared tunes from the Vietnam War era: Creedence Clearwater Revival songs. “Fortunate Son” lost its luster in the midst of a traffic jam on wet streets.

  “What was JTTF like, anyhow?”

  Her eyes remained fixed on the Camaro. “A lot of planning. No screw ups permitted. No patience for theories. You would’ve hated it. Hell, I hated it and I still preferred it to working BOPAC.”

  The organization had no official name, but he and Kasey had taken to calling their division BOPAC: Biological, Occult, Paranormal, and Anomalous Crime. If it had teeth and claws, practiced insane rituals, or moved furniture in the night, it fell under their jurisdiction.

  Most of the time, BOPAC’s cases were a load of nothing. Someone thought a ghost was haunting their home, but it turned out to be a squatter hiding in the attic. On rare occasions, a violent crime with mysterious trappings would land on BOPAC’s doorstep. Finch’s unusual gift
of dream theories led them to the twisted culprits every time. But a man with a taste for blood and sick fetishes was still a man, albeit demented.

  When Kasey left BOPAC, the job became a steady rhythm of abject cruelty, disgust, and disappointment. Lone Oak changed the tempo. Now he knew monsters were real—and not always human.

  “Yeah, I know the feeling,” said Finch.

  At a red light, Sinclair picked up his phone. At least, Finch thought it was a phone. It was difficult to tell through three sets of windshields and souring weather.

  Sinclair’s Camaro surged forward. The cars in front of them were immobile. The light hadn’t turned green.

  “Shit,” Kasey said, “I think he spotted us.”

  Stacked bumper to bumper, they wouldn’t be able to open a door in rush hour much less attempt to peel out and chase Sinclair. The Camaro raced down the street, fading from their view.

  “I don’t see how he would know. Maybe whoever he was on the phone with got him spooked? His ex. Hearing him talk about her, you’d think she was a fire-breathing dragon.”

  Kasey’s foot nudged the gas pedal. The first dusting of snow caked their windshield. She turned on the wipers and groaned as the Camaro became a blue dot on the horizon.

  The light finally changed. Kasey clamped her foot down on the accelerator. It didn’t matter. Sinclair was gone.

  “With the way this stuff is pouring, he can’t have gone far,” Finch said, pointing to the flaky crystals blowing in the wind.

  “Maybe,” Kasey said, wary of the snowfall herself, “but I don’t like the way he took off. If he made us, then he’s not going to park at his house. He’ll circle the block a few times.”

  “And if he didn’t know we were following him?”

  “Then that’s a whole other kind of suspicious.”

  Four blocks later, Kasey spotted the blue Camaro parked outside of a massive apartment complex. It was a brick building, square-shaped, with a courtyard in the center. Rough and plain, with a hole in the middle—Finch had to admit it suited Sinclair.

  “So,” he said, drumming his fingers on the dash, “what’s the next step in our brilliant plan? I’d like to leave before we’re buried in snow.”