Sidney swallowed hard and choked out a cry when she saw the head lying on the fireplace grate. It was Dydeck.
She started shaking. This was inhuman. Uncanny. She dropped her weapon. Her knees sagged.
Smoke caught her. “Let’s get you to the car.”
“No.” She gasped, wiped the tears from her eyes, reached down to pick up her weapon, and took a deep breath. “I can handle this.”
“This is madness. Not a lot of people can handle madness.”
Sidney took another deep breath and straightened herself. “Not a lot of people can handle me mad either. Let’s get to the bottom of this.”
AV was gone. Sidney noticed the busted flex cuffs on the floor.
Smoke was squatted down, eyeballing them. “These weren’t cut, they were torn,” he said, covering his nose. “Whew … Death stinks.”
Sidney held her stomach.
Don’t puke. Don’t puke.
Blood coated the walls in the living room. It dripped from the ceiling. It looked like a Cuisinart had ripped through the agents in the room.
“What could have done this?” she asked herself.
“These are claw marks. A wild pack of canines perhaps.”
“Dogs wouldn’t do this.”
She studied Dydeck’s headless corpse. She’d lost a few friends in the field, but none that she knew well. Her heart ached. Dydeck had a wife and three children.
Lord, no. Lord, no. This can’t happen. Not like this. Not to Dydeck.
He was hard-nosed. Not always right. But she liked him. She liked him a lot.
Dydeck still had his weapon in hand. It had been discharged. She turned. The same with Tommy Tohms.
“Do you see any bullet holes?” She pulled some latex gloves from her inside pocket and checked the cartridge on Dydeck’s weapon. It was empty.
He couldn’t have missed. Not at this close a range.
“Two in the wall over here,” Smoke said, fingering the holes, “and one nick in the mantle.”
“There should be more,” Sidney said, brushing the hair from her eyes. “This magazine is empty.”
“I don’t see anything else,” Smoke said. “They must have filled something with lead.”
Sidney noticed a pair of holes on the blood-stained floor.
“Here’s another. Geez.” She took out her phone and dialed headquarters. It wasn’t her first instinct, but it was protocol. She wanted to call Ted, her old boss. A woman’s voice answered.
“This is Agent Sidney Shaw—”
She heard the squeal of brakes and pushed the blinds up.
“Hold on.”
An unmarked black van had pulled into the driveway. Four men in FBI jackets came out and slammed the doors shut.
One of them was Cyrus. “Agents down. More agents arriving on scene at 241 Benson Estates. Send forensic team and homicide.” Cyrus spilled in the doorway and stopped in his tracks. His eyes widened and his face turned ashen. “What the hell?” He jerked out his weapon and pointed it at Smoke. “Freeze!”
Smoke raised his arms over his head.
“Cyrus.” Sidney cut in between the two men. “They were dead when we got here. Lower your weapon.”
Three other agents poured into the room with their weapons drawn.
“Did you clear the house?” Cyrus said.
“Not yet, I just got—”
“Secure the house,” Cyrus ordered his men. “Now! You,” he said to Smoke. “Don’t move.” He grabbed one of the agents by the sleeve and said, “Cuff him.”
“That’s not necessary,” Sidney objected. “He’s done nothing wrong.”
Smoke’s arms were jerked behind his back and he was shackled. “Don’t forget to double-lock them,” he said.
“Stay with him,” Cyrus said to the other agents. He looked at Sidney. “You, come with me.” His eyes drifted toward the fireplace. He blinked and leaned in. “Is that … Dydeck?”
“Yes,” she said. “Cyrus, I just arrived a few minutes before you. How come the transport was late? It should have been here over an hour ago to take Adam Vaughn away.”
“Sir,” one of the agents said, coming from downstairs. “We have another agent down, but she’s breathing. The rest of the home is secure.”
“Call an ambulance,” Cyrus said, rushing down the hall and down the steps.
Sidney was right on his heels. At the bottom of the stairs a woman in an FBI vest lay still. Sidney swallowed. The agent—a short-haired black lady—was crumpled up in a heap.
“Back broken,” said one of the agents, a short wiry man with a mustache. He shook his head. “Probably from the fall. A bad spill.” He patted her leg. “Hang on, honey. Hang on.”
“Don’t touch her,” Cyrus said, kneeling by the woman’s side. “Wait for the ambulance to arrive.”
“She didn’t fall,” Sidney said, gazing at the stairwell. There was a large indentation in the drywall. “She was thrown.”
Cyrus stood up, glanced up the stairwell, and said, “That’s not possible.” He eyed the spot. “Maybe it was already there.”
“I don’t think so,” Sidney said.
“Well, I don’t care what you think, Agent Shaw.” Cyrus’s forehead started to bead with sweat. “Forensics will decide that. You need to decide how to explain all this.”
“Me?”
He got in her face. “Yes, you!”
“Hey, Cyrus,” the short agent said, “look at this.”
Cyrus took out a pair of glasses and put them on. “What is it?”
“She has something in her hand,” the agent said. “It looks like hair.”
Sidney leaned in. The hair was long, dark brown, and very coarse. Cyrus scooted over and blocked her view. She said, “Do you mind?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” He rose up, stood in front of her, and pointed up the stairs. “Go.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m the senior agent on the scene,” he said. “And you are going.”
“Going where?”
“Going home.”
CHAPTER 25
Whap! Whap! Whap!
Sidney laid into the heavy bag that hung in the gym.
Whap! Whap!
Sweat dripped from her brow.
Whap!
Chest heaving inside her Under-Armor hoodie, she walked over to a nearby bench and twisted the cap off her bottled water. It was Saturday, two days after the massacre at Benson Estates. She’d spent all day Friday doing paperwork, and she hadn’t heard a word about the case since. Cyrus didn’t return her texts. He’d iced her. She finished off her water, crushed the bottle, and tossed it in a can. Damn him.
The gym had a little bit of everything going on and was fairly busy for a Saturday. Men and women pushed weighted sleds. Cross trainers pushed their clients to the limits. Sweating bodies churned on treadmills and elliptical machines lined up row-by-row in front of the wall-mounted television. The entire gym smelled like sweat, and the music playing gave it energy.
She ripped a sidekick into the bag. Launched another and another.
A man walking by stopped and watched. He was a little shorter than her, red-faced, and all muscle in a little T-shirt. Tattoos of daggers and snakes decorated his shoulders. He nodded and smiled. “You really know how to work that bag. Impressive.”
Great. “Thanks.” She paused. “Are you waiting?”
“No,” he said, shaking his chin. “I’m enjoying watching.” He looked her up and down. “You really are something. How long have you been working out?”
“Listen—”
“Tommy. Tommy’s my name.” He extended his hand. “Weightlifting is my game.”
She laughed. “Tommy, you really need to go.”
“I can’t leave without your name.”
She walked over the padded floor to her gym bag, grabbed her badge, and held it in front of Tommy’s widened eyes. “Here are my initials. Now beat it.”
He eased back but kept smiling. “Well,
FBI, you are one fine agent. You can cuff me any time.”
“Can I shoot you too?”
He swallowed. “Er … No.” He blinked a couple of times, turned, and walked away.
Loser.
Sidney worked the bag again. Combos of kicks and punches. She loved kick boxing. It had been a passion of hers since she was nine. Her arms became heavy. Her black stretch pants were soaked in sweat. She unleashed some more roundhouse kicks.
Whap! Whap! WHAP!
She took the sparring gloves off, tossed them into her gym bag, and headed toward the treadmills. The ghastly images from the crime scene still burned in her mind. Dydeck was dead. Good agents were dead. One paralyzed. And somewhere, a killer was out there running free. Could it have been Adam Vaughn? It wasn’t possible. But that wasn’t what bothered her most.
Smoke was gone.
She climbed up on a step mill, punched in the time and intensity, and started walking.
Things had gotten ugly between her and Cyrus when he’d told her to leave. She had objected. The mousy man with frosty eyes had responded by having Smoke carted off behind her back, with no goodbyes between them.
“Your boyfriend is headed back to prison. You’ll have to get your kiss goodbye some other place, some other time.”
It gnawed at her gut. After a forty-five-minute workout, it still stuck in her craw.
Maybe I should go for a run. Or go shooting.
She gathered her things and exited the gym into the biting wind, headed for her car. The Interceptor wasn’t alone. A man wearing a brown leather Donegal and a tweed trench stood there.
“Ted?” She looked around the parking lot. “What are you doing here?”
“I just came to see how you were doing.”
“Really.” She unlocked the car and tossed her gym bag inside. “Why?”
“Come on, Sid. Agents died. You were there. I saw the pictures.” He grimaced. “In all my years, I’ve never seen … well, never. Let’s just leave it at that. How about we go and get something to eat?”
She crossed her arms. “How about you tell me what’s going on? I should be in on this, you know.”
“Headquarters is in turmoil at the moment. It almost takes an act of God to keep these incidents out of the papers.” Hands stuffed in his pockets, he leaned his shoulder on the car. “When I heard the news, I thought it was you in that bloodbath. I’m glad you’re still alive.”
“Still?”
“Ah, don’t start that.” He rolled his eyes. “Quit picking sentences and expressions apart.”
“Didn’t you teach me that?”
“I don’t know.” Looking at her with his soft eyes, Ted reminded her of the old actor named Brian Keith from movies she watched with her father. Tough, yet soft in a very manly way. “Probably. Let’s get out of this cold and go eat. There’s a nice little greasy spoon around the corner.”
She pushed her back off the car. “Nice little greasy spoon? I don’t think so.”
He chuckled and offered his elbow. “Aw, come on. I’ve never seen anything in there that could bite you.”
They made their way out of the parking lot and down the sidewalk, brushing by many passersby.
“Sir, I have to have a part in this. I was there, I brought in AV, and now I’m cut out? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“The Black Slate doesn’t make any sense either. Those files are off the books. I’m trying to make sense of it myself.”
“And what have you learned?”
“Huh, well, from what I’ve gathered, the Slate precedes the FBI.” He cleared his throat. “It’s a mystery where it came from.”
“Wouldn’t that make the people on the list really old … like you?”
He laughed.
“And,” she continued, “Adam Vaughn didn’t seem very old. He seemed little older than me.”
“Over time, the list … it changes, I guess. I don’t know.”
“Well, who keeps the list updated?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“What do you know?”
He pointed at the sign on the door of a restaurant. The stenciled lettering on the glass door read: The Wayfarer. He opened the door and nodded. “We’re here.”
The smell of fried food and cooking oil wafted into her nostrils. Soft rock music and the clinking of dishes caught her ear. She stepped inside. “Great.” She shivered. “At least it’s warm.”
“Come on.” Ted led her toward the back of the quaint but deteriorating establishment that hadn’t changed since the fifties. He stopped at a booth and began speaking to someone.
She couldn’t see the person until Ted stepped aside. Her eyes grew. Her heart skipped. It was Smoke.
CHAPTER 26
“Hello, Agent Shaw.” Smoke hoisted a Coke. He wore jeans and a dark sweater under a black leather jacket. His face was clean shaven. “Did you miss me?”
Yes.
“No.”
Ted removed his coat, hung it on a hook on the booth, and took a seat opposite Smoke. Just he and Smoke practically filled the booth. “Uh … let me scooch over.”
“That’s all right.” Sid grabbed a chair and dragged it over to the table, closer to Ted’s side. She sat down, rested her clasped fingers on the table, and looked at Ted.
“Er, well, I guess we don’t need any introductions.” Ted took off his cap and placed it on the table. Scratched his head. “A little stuffy in here. Waitress!”
A young man came over in a dirty apron with quaffed brown hair dominating one side of his head. The pen in his hand looked heavy. “Yeah, man.”
“Er, double cheeseburger with everything, fries—no, onion rings, and a sweet tea.” He eyed Sidney. “And you’ll be having?”
“Nothing.”
“Mister Smoke?”
“I already ordered.”
It better not be pancakes.
The waiter nodded. “Coming up, man.”
“All right, man.” Ted glared at the waiter’s back. “Man. Man. Man. Man. Doesn’t anyone say sir anymore?” He looked at Sid. “All right, I’ll quit. But if he screws my order up, no tip.”
“Sir, can we get down to business?”
“That’s my girl. Okay, they still want you on this case. You got AV before, they think you can get him again.”
“It again,” Smoke said.
“Wait a second,” Sidney interrupted. “Who wants us on this?”
“One at a time.” Ted held up his palm. “First, Sid, I can’t tell you that. I’m not really sure myself, but for the interim, I’m your new supervisor.”
Unusual, but good.
“Second,” Ted said to Smoke, “Adam Vaughn is not an it. Some person or persons took him out of there. The evidence confirmed that.”
I don’t think so.
Smoke sat up. “Did the evidence lead to the discovery of Bigfoot, too? An animal or something like an animal tore through those people like the Tasmanian devil. It wasn’t a person.”
“Just settle down a moment. Your mission”—he pointed at Sidney and Smoke—“is to find Adam Vaughn. Bring him in. Alive. Find him, and we’ll find the fiend that did this to our agents.”
“Just us?” she said.
“Yes.”
“What about resources? Cars? Weapons? Tactical support? Is Mister Smoke going to be armed or not? And what about his ankle tracker?”
Smoke stuck out his boot. No tracker. With a smile, he said, “All gone.”
“Ted, how am I supposed to keep track of him then?”
“You’ll just have to work together.” He leaned forward. “Ah, food is coming.”
The waiter had a tray full of food. Three hamburgers and two chili dogs and plenty of fries. He set a burger and fries down in front of Ted.
Ted’s face reddened. His voice darkened as he said, “I said onion rings.”
“No man, no, you didn’t,” the waiter said, setting the other baskets in front of Smoke. “I can get some, man, but it will be ext
ra.”
The veins in Ted’s neck started to bulge. He glared at the young man.
“No, it won’t.”
“Take it easy, man. I’ll get your rings. Stat.” He sauntered off.
Smoke squirted ketchup on his fries and Sidney fought against her giggles.
“What?” Ted said, checking the contents of his burger.
“Nothing,” she replied. A giggle erupted.
“All right, now what’s so funny?”
“You sounded like Batman,” Smoke interjected. Then he imitated. “I said onion rings.”
Sidney’s face flushed and her giggles continued. She stopped herself. “But it was way better than ‘Do you feel lucky, punk?’ I thought that was coming.”
Ted snatched up his burger and stuffed it into his mouth. “Screw both of you.” Ketchup dripped onto his shirt. “Aw, dammit.”
Sidney caught a playful look in Smoke’s eyes. She felt a spark inside.
Sense of humor a plus. Stuff your face with unknown parts of a swine, minus.
“So, Ted, it’s just us then? Again, who is my backup?”
“It’s you and him.” He swallowed his food. “And me. He reports to you. You report to me. The clock is still ticking on your two weeks. Remember, this is off the books. The less everyone else knows, the better.”
Smoke dipped one of his fries in the ketchup. “So there’s a mole in the FBI then?”
That’s what I was thinking.
“No, there isn’t any mole. Just loose lips and big-eared busybodies.” Ted tucked a napkin under his chin. “I have enough on my plate without any more probing questions. And so far as I’m concerned, until it’s over, the less I know, the better.” He bit into his burger.
“Wherever you go, we’re going together,” she said to Smoke.
“Fine, but that might be a bit awkward when we’re sleeping.” He leaned closer. “Does that mean I’m staying at your place?”
Sidney’s eyes got big. “No, you know what I meant!”
“Ha,” Ted laughed. “He turned the tables on you, Sid. I like that.”
Smoke Rising Page 10
