Don't Look Away (Veronica Sloan)
Page 8
“Don’t remind me. Let’s just hope Leanne’s head turns up…otherwise you and I are going to be putting in for a whole lot of overtime.”
Chapter 6
Returning to Patriot Square, Ronnie and Daniels picked right back up with interviews of witnesses and site workers, one after another. While Daniels was focused on specifics, facts and figures, Ronnie was already beginning to segue from D.C.P.D. detective into O.E.P.I.S. investigator. So it wasn’t just the facts she was interested in.
She wanted to get to know Leanne as a person. Not just the details—the history—but how she interacted with people, her mannerisms, her personality. Strange as it sounded, part of being an O.E.P.I.S. investigator was about getting into the shoes, and the eyes, of the victim. She needed to understand what made Leanne tick. Only that way could she effectively sort through the massive data dump on the woman’s hard drive, finding the details that were important and discarding those that weren’t. She needed to know why Leanne’s gaze might linger on a daisy but skim right over a rose, why she might pay particular attention to a newspaper but barely spare a passing glance at a magazine.
By ten p.m., she had a pretty good feel for Leanne, at least the professional side of the young woman’s life. Soon she’d go into her head—right into her memories—but for now, she wanted to walk in her footsteps.
“You’re sure you want to split up?” Daniels asked as they stood inside the empty room they’d been using as an interview office all evening. There was one more worker to talk to, but considering it was heading well into the night, she needed to leave him to her partner.
“I’m sure. I need to explore the crime scene—alone—before I tackle her downloads.”
Daniels frowned, displeased at the plan. Not because of the rules and regs—technically speaking, they both should have gotten off-duty several hours ago and were pulling overtime right now, so the argument could be made that they weren’t breaking rules by splitting up. Nor would he be worried about her physically; he knew as well as anyone that she could take care of herself. She’d saved his ass on more than one occasion and certainly knew how to take care of her own. Truth was, she suspected he had an idea of what, exactly, she was planning to do.
“You do know you’re not some kind of FBI profiler, right?” he muttered, obviously not wanting to be overheard by the few witnesses and agents still milling around on this floor.
“I know.”
“Don’t go getting your mind all torn up.”
“Considering what happened to our vic, I thought you’d be more concerned about my internal organs getting all torn up.”
He snickered. “Any psycho who comes after you with a stun gun is gonna be feeling it jammed up his ass and get one hell of a shock to his prostate.”
“Damn straight.”
“Just...be careful,” he warned her.
“I’ll be fine. Back in a half-hour.”
“Thirty minutes. Then I come after you.”
“Okay, Dad.”
Daniels smiled as she turned away, but she knew if she looked over her shoulder, that smile would have faded. He was worried about her, worried about this case. One reason she’d made it into O.E.P.I.S. was because of her educational background. The O.E.P. investigators had to be part cop, part shrink. They needed to be able to think like the people they were studying. Ronnie had double-majored at Georgetown, with degrees in criminal justice and in psychology. So Daniels knew she’d be utilizing those skills and techniques while working this investigation, and he was worried about how it might affect her.
Ronnie wasn’t worried. Yet. After she’d cleared one real investigation, she’d think about whether this method of truly trying to get into the victim’s head was worth the psychological toll, but for right now, it seemed the wisest course of action.
Although the construction elevators were working, Ronnie headed for the nearest enclosed stairwell instead. Like a deep sea diver, she wanted time to mentally adjust to the descent, to pull her mind out of the interviews and the paperwork and put it strictly with Leanne, to almost become the other woman.
The place had been buzzing with people earlier; mostly investigators and witnesses, but there had also been some construction workers milling around, waiting for the go ahead to get back to work. They’d been cleared to do so in one part of the building a few hours ago, and even now, though it was fully dark outside, she heard the buzz of heavy equipment and machinery. They’d be working 24/7 to make up for the lost time this week.
That buzz began to fade as she slowly walked down the stairs toward the first basement level. The main floor had been brightly lit and populated. Her descent into the belly of the beast marked a definite change.
The heels of her boots clicked on the hard cement beneath her feet, the clicks growing louder with every step. By the time she hit bottom, she realized the clang and whirr of construction work had completely faded away. The new White House was being built to extreme specifications and would someday be about as bomb-proof as a structure could get these days. Which also made it fairly impervious to drifting noise. Of course, yesterday, it would have been louder, even down here. No matter how soundproof the building, with fifty-five-thousand people, marching bands, heavy vehicles and fireworks, noise would have sifted through the layers of concrete and insulation.
Had Leanne heard? Had she been listening to the celebration going on far above her and wondered how the world could continue going on its merry way while she was being tortured and mutilated? Ronnie paused, considering the question, thinking like the victim.
It didn’t require much effort or imagination.
Yes. Of course Leanne had thought those things. Anyone would.
Ronnie blinked and tried to mentally move past what she was certain had been a real moment for the victim, and took a look around her. Not only was the basement deserted, it was a little eerie. Curling her lips, she drew in a slow, steady breath, hearing the faint brush of the air through her teeth. It was that silent.
Rather than proceeding down to the next level—her intended destination—she stayed on the landing, her hand on the rough-hewn handrail. The door between this stairwell and the main corridor hadn’t even been installed yet, and she could see out into the vast, expansive hallway that would one day lead to dozens of offices.
Leaving the stairs, she walked into that empty cavern, peering into the long tunnel of black that stretched out on either side of her. The only soldiers battling the darkness were emergency Exit signs with arrows that appeared every twenty feet or so. The green letters cast only the tiniest pools of light, each a small oasis on the empty concrete. She counted two of them to her right, and six to her left, the furthest one out only a small dot from here. She suspected she was seeing all the way to the emergency exit at the far end, with absolutely nothing to break the monotony of nothingness, other than those tiny green pools.
Strange to imagine all the things she might not be seeing in those twenty-foot wide expanses of darkness between each one.
Hearing the faintest shuffle, she cocked her head and called, “Hello?”
Nothing.
“I’m Detective Veronica Sloan, DCPD. Is anyone down here?”
More silence.
Wondering if the sound she’d heard had been merely the settlement of a newly constructed wall or beam, she let her eyes continue to adjust to the absence of light, searching for a shadow or a shape that didn’t belong. Though her senses weren’t telling her why, her whole body was reacting to something. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, her fingers tingled. She’d risen onto her toes, as if in anticipation of a sudden, unexpected dash. From something? Toward something?
Toward. Without a doubt. Ronnie had never run away from anything in her entire life. Except, perhaps, personal relationships that threatened to get past the emotional barrier she’d set up between herself and other people.
She spotted nothing, heard nothing, not the faintest whisper of movement on the air. Apparentl
y the creepiness of the place was playing tricks with her hearing. Finally, after a solid minute of nothingness, she went back to the stairwell and resumed her long descent to the bowels of the White House.
If the first basement level had felt terribly empty, the sub-basement would be utterly desolate. This whole area would eventually be used for storage, mailrooms, security stations and overflow office space, so it didn’t rank high on the completion-list. After today’s discovery, she doubted any workers were going to want to come down here for a good long time.
They certainly weren’t here now.
She reached the bottom and stepped out, turning toward the left, thankful for the presence of more of those emergency exit signs. She could have flipped on some overheads—bare bulbs strung out along the ceiling—but didn’t want to just yet. She wanted the atmosphere, wanted the darkness, the lack of all other sensory input, the better in which to think. She wanted the empty space and the quiet air, wanted to move through it with her senses wide open so she could pull in any impressions that might have occurred to Leanne Carr.
Knowing she couldn’t go far before she’d run into the crime scene tape, she pulled a flashlight out of her belt and flipped it on. The mag cast a powerful blast of light that banished shadow. The beam landed with unrelenting harshness on the bright yellow tape, revealing the tiny evidence markers and faint spots of red on the floor where the spider-webby lines of blood had been found. The remains had been removed, of course, as had as much of the other evidence as could be gathered. But she could still see the scene in her mind, remembering with utter clarity the position of each mass of tissue, bone or sinew.
“Why did you come here, Leanne?” she whispered as she ducked under the tape. “You’d been working on this event for months, it was your baby. So why were you here, rather than outside enjoying the fruits of all your labor?”
During their interview with Jack Williams this afternoon, Leanne’s boss had said he had no idea why she would have come to the White House, and that the last words he’d exchanged with her had been that morning, when he’d told her he’d see her at the ceremony. He’d left the Phoenix Group’s office shortly after 11 a.m., fully expecting to see his assistant at the Washington Monument later in the afternoon.
The witnesses and logs said she’d arrived on the site at 1:45 p.m. yesterday, able to move through a special pre-authorized-staff-only security checkpoint fairly quickly since there was not supposed to be any work going on. She’d noted her destination as the White House, and the soldier who’d checked her in said she’d appeared preoccupied and perhaps a little annoyed.
“Of course you were,” she murmured. “Because you didn’t want to have to come over here, yesterday of all days.”
So why had she?
Per the guard, Leanne had commented on the day’s activities, quipped that there was no rest for the weary, and waved as she’d driven past the checkpoint toward State Street. From that point on, nobody else had seen her. Her electronic key-card had been used to gain entry to the building at 1:57. Not another soul was supposed to be inside at the time…so had her killer entered with her, meaning it would have to be someone she knew very well, and trusted? Or had he somehow gotten around the security and managed to keep his presence hidden from everyone? Was he some kind of damn super-spy who could have evaded detection during intense security sweeps? If she hadn’t already confirmed that the old tunnel system that had been a key part of the 10/20 attacks had been demolished and closed over, she’d wonder if the killer had been utilizing them.
Leanne’s internal chip said she’d been zapped with a stun-gun at about 2:10. What had happened in those intervening thirteen minutes? Had her destination been the sub-basement all along—was that why her heart had spend up? Was she afraid?
Or had someone attacked her upstairs—chased her down into the sub-basement?
Or had he incapacitated her and then dragged her down into this dark hole so he could take his time with her?
Damn, she wished the building had been wired for its internal security system. Someday there would be cameras covering every square inch of floor space, but for now, they had nothing other than those high-security locks, agents and guards who’d been assigned to other tasks yesterday.
One thing Ronnie felt certain of: Leanne Carr hadn’t randomly come here and stumbled across a psychopath. The crime had felt too deliberate and personal, the set-up was too methodical and well-timed. Someone had lured her here, like a spider catching a juicy fly, and he’d covered his tracks.
“But who?” she asked, as if some of Leanne’s memories might be lingering in this stale, dank air that still smelled of blood and chemicals.
Ronnie spent the next twenty minutes circling the crime scene, moving from spot to spot, relying on her excellent memory to recall the forensic report. She considered what must have happened, minute by minute. She made a few mental notes, including pausing to wonder why the killer had stayed here, fairly close to the stairwell, rather than taking Leanne to the far end of the corridor, where it was less likely anyone would hear her screams.
“Were you that sure of yourself, that positive nobody would be around to hear?” she whispered, trying to imagine the killer’s motivations.
Eventually, realizing she’d been gone nearly the half-hour she’d said she would be, and not wanting a worried Daniels to come down here looking for her, she cast one final look around the scene then headed for the stairwell. She continued tucking away details in her brain, each fall of her foot on a step underscoring something she wanted to consider a little more. Tonight, when she was home, lying in her bed, all these impressions would mingle and take new shape in her mind and she would see if she could come up with any new, previously unconsidered ideas. She hadn’t jotted them down, not wanting even the scratch of pen on paper to interfere with the mental connection she was trying to make with Leanne. Besides, Ronnie was a visual person, she saw scenes and mentally photographed them, and would see them again and again, able to recall them with clarity long afterward. It was probably her greatest strength as an investigator.
Arriving at the main basement level, and remembering that soft, furtive sound from before, she hesitated before continuing. Something—a cop’s intuition maybe?—made her step back out into the corridor. All was quiet, as before. All dark, all deserted. She cast her flashlight toward the right and saw nothing but those two eerie green pools of light on the cement. Turning to glance to her left, the same. Just those Exit lights, like before.
Or...not.
Something was different.
Her heart picked up its pace in her chest, her body reacting to the change that had occurred on this floor in the twenty minutes she’d been downstairs.
She focused and counted the Exit lights again.
“Four,” she whispered.
Four lights. There were four pools of green between her and that far-away emergency exit.
A short time ago, there had been six.
Her blood surged in her veins as the implication hit her. Someone had disabled two of the lights, leaving a vast, sixty-foot swath of corridor bathed in utter blackness, as dark as the back side of the moon.
Ronnie reached for her belt, unfastened her holster and retrieved her weapon. Someone had been down here a short time ago, hiding in the shadows, remaining silent while she’d called out, waiting for her to move on. They could be here still. She shone her flashlight in that direction, craning to see. Her mag, though powerful, didn’t pierce the emptiness, and mainly served to spotlight her for anyone who might be watching from down there.
She considered flipping it off right away, then thought about the layout of the sub-basement level, wondering if this floor would be laid out the same way. Her attention focused on that long corridor, she backed toward the stairwell, hoping to see a breaker box, like the one she’d noted downstairs earlier. Finding it in the beam of her flashlight, she reached for the main breaker and flipped it.
Nothing. Shit.
No signal.
Damn it. The building was probably designed that way. Future employees would likely have access to a dedicated cellular network, but right now, here in the basement, she was completely jammed.
Up another tall flight of stairs and down another corridor, her partner sat waiting for her in an interview room. But this was no typical building, it was the White House and it was huge. It would take at least several minutes to get him and bring him back here to have him help her search this floor. But if the person who’d disabled the lights was still here, those several minutes would give him time to get away. There was another, smaller set of stairs at the other end of the building, plus the construction elevators, plus the main elevator shaft, plus the emergency exit. And those were just the egresses she knew about.
There was no good, reasonable excuse for anyone to be down here, messing with the lights. So she had to consider that the person sharing this darkness with her could have something to do with Leanne’s murder. She couldn’t just leave and give him the chance to escape. Besides, Daniels had said he was coming after her in thirty minutes. It had been at least that, so he’d probably be showing up any time now, anyway.
Thinking of one last option, she grabbed her hand-held microcomputer, wondering if she could get online. A few taps of the screen and… Yes! She dashed off an email to her partner, telling him to get his ass down here ASAP. Daniels was obsessive about checking the thing and she knew he’d be here within minutes, if he wasn’t already on his way. In the meantime, she’d wait, and watch, and listen, not proceeding further unless it became necessary.
She switched off her mag, then paused to let her eyes re-adjust. Stepping close to the corridor, but not into it, her Glock still at her side, she remained very still. A long moment of silence stretched before her.