Don't Look Away (Veronica Sloan)

by Leslie A. Kelly

  “So, Bailey, now that we know you were a lot friendlier with Ms. Carr than you’ve let on, why don’t we start from the beginning. You tell us every single thing you know about her…and then we’ll decide whether or not we believe you.”

  -#-

  Although Ronnie very much wanted to confront Special Agent in Charge Kilgore with her suspicion that he’d been the one spying on the sexual encounter between Bailey and Leanne Carr, she knew she needed more evidence. She and Daniels had gotten through a few days of Leanne’s backups at her apartment last night, mostly by fast-forwarding through anything that looked unimportant and only watching physical interactions with other people. So far, she hadn’t found anything else involving Kilgore, but she wasn’t finished looking yet.

  Sykes had some looking of his own to do. Dr. Cavanaugh had finished working on Brian Underwood’s chip. Plus, he’d barely made a dent in that man’s backups from his home computer. So after they’d finished with the Bailey interrogation—all of them agreeing it was doubtful he was their man—Ronnie agreed to ride with Sykes up to Bethesda, to Phineas Tate’s research facility. Daniels had planned to go back to talk to the lead architect, Frank, as well as Williams and Kilgore, to try to find out more about that tunnel and who could have known about it. He also promised to try to find out what he could about the six dead O.E.P. test subjects.

  Upon arriving at Dr. Tate’s building, they were greeted by Dr. Cavanaugh, who showed them to the same lab they’d used yesterday. Ronnie hadn’t been able to help holding her breath, wondering if the woman would comment about some unusual activity on these work stations yesterday—when somebody had been poking around the Tate network—but she said nothing of the sort. Apparently, she and Sykes were better hackers than Daniels gave them credit for.

  Or maybe the pretty scientist was just distracted. As she had yesterday, Cavanaugh paid more attention to Sykes than she did to Ronnie, which was fine by her. Let him be the charming FBI agent who everybody liked, she was content being the hard-ass bitch who didn’t make friends but sure got results.

  “So, we going to start with Underwood’s death?” Sykes asked as soon as they were alone.

  She hated the prospect of it, after what they’d witnessed in this room yesterday, but knew it had to be done. “Okay.”

  He hesitated. “You’re sure?”

  “We made a deal. You watched mine, I’ll watch yours.”

  “I really wish we were talking about something else here,” he said, mild and rueful.

  She managed a very faint smile, then put away all light thoughts and prepared herself for what was to come.

  He set up the slideshow. “Ten minutes again? Witnesses claim he left his friend’s apartment only ten minutes before his implanted chip says he died.”

  “That’s a relief.” Just ten minutes. She could stand ten minutes.

  Ten awful minutes.

  Because it was, of course, awful. The only positive was that it didn’t come anywhere close to the level of horrific violence of Leanne Carr’s death. Probably because the killer had known he had an entire building and hours of time to spend with Leanne, while Underwood’s murder had taken place in a back alley in the middle of downtown Philadelphia before midnight. The suspect could have been interrupted at any time, so he had acted quickly.

  The imaging of the projection equipment was so incredibly powerful, Ronnie could almost swear she heard the crunch of her own footsteps on the gravel as she walked through that alley. She could practically smell the reek of the garbage can, almost reach out and grab the cat that had leapt into Underwood’s path, startling him into a sudden stop.

  She could almost feel the exact moment when the attack had occurred.

  After having stunned the young father, the black-cloaked assailant had pulled out a large knife and slit Underwood’s throat. Ronnie and had watched the blade descend, watched the brutally sharp tip draw close to Brian’s face before moving down beneath his chin. Then the knife had flicked sharply. The images had begun to fade, gradually winking out. Brian Underwood had been dead—his O.E.P. device going inactive and shutting down—within a few minutes of the initial attack, once the electric impulses in his brain had ceased.

  That had been a blessing. Whatever mutilation had been visited upon the corpse, the beheading, for instance, had all taken place post mortem. As ridiculous as it was to think any murder victim could be considered lucky, when they compared the Philadelphia murder to the one in Washington, they had to think Underwood had definitely had the better end.

  “Not much help, was it?” Sykes asked, rubbing a weary hand over his rugged jaw as the lights came back up and the machine shut back down.

  “The cloak is new,” she pointed out. Leanne’s killer had worn a long black shirt and black pants. By the time he got to Underwood, he’d added a long, totally concealing cloak that covered him from shoulder to foot. Perhaps it was because he knew there was a greater risk of exposure. Who knew what he’d had on beneath it? If he’d had to make a quick getaway, he could have whipped the cloak off and been wearing a brightly-colored uniform underneath it.

  “Yeah. Interesting fabric, too. Shiny. It caught the light.”

  She’d noticed that, too. When she’d first seen the cloak, she’d had a quick flash of intuition. “It almost reminded me of a Halloween costume.”

  “Me too. I also got one glimpse of his shoes. I never saw them against anything else to try to gauge their size, but I did notice they were black and shiny, not scuffed up like the other night.”

  “A killer who shines his shoes between attacks?”

  “Maybe he had to clean off the blood.”

  They looked at each other, obviously both thinking about that, all the tiny pieces of the puzzle swirling around, trying to fit themselves against those they’d collected from Leanne’s murder scene. They didn’t quite line up. Not yet. But they would someday, of that she had no doubt.

  She glanced at the notes she’d jotted down during the slideshow. “And of course, there’s the knife.”

  “Right.”

  They had managed to still a frame in which they could make out the tiny etching on the murder weapon. Blowing it up to a hundred times its size, they’d been able to get the brand name, and would check it later.

  That was all. A cape, a shined shoe, and a knife with a name even Ronnie had heard of that was sold on probably a thousand different websites.

  Brian Underwood’s O.E.P. chip hadn’t helped identify his killer any more than Leanne Carr’s had hers.

  “So, I guess we go back to the data dumps,” he said.

  “Guess so.”

  He ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up, giving him a boyish look. “I’m already exhausted thinking of how many times that man looked at his kids.”

  She heard the emotion in his voice and understood it. She’d barely glanced at Brian Underwood’s backups yesterday and had been greatly affected by the depth of his emotion for his children. Before she could think better of it, she reached out and put a hand on Sykes’s arm. “Just take it slow and if you ever want to switch, I can take over for a while.”

  He nodded, not cracking any kind of joke, not saying anything about the fact that the downloads she would be examining would at least have some hot sex in them. There was nothing funny about this, nothing to ease the ugliness of it, which was far greater, she believed, than either of them had anticipated when they’d been in training.

  She didn’t regret having agreed to be part of this program. She loved the concept of it. It was the actual execution that sometimes gave her pause. Because while she’d always had a great deal of sympathy for victims of violent crime, she had never even imagined what it would be like to walk in their footsteps while those crimes were being committed.

  “Thanks,” he replied.

  They turned their chairs away from one another and got busy on their individual work stations. Whenever either of them needed to examine something in more detail, they utilized t
he 3-D projector. Each stopped what they were doing to help the other when necessary.

  She just wished it hadn’t been totally necessary for Sykes to turn around and watch with her while Leanne and Bailey went at it again on the Saturday before the young woman’s death. Apparently Special Agent Bailey’s wife thought he worked on the weekend, but this interlude had taken place at a seedy hotel. Once again, the sex had been raunchy and a little rough, which both of them seemed to like. God, I don’t want to be thinking about what kind of sex someone I saw chopped into tiny pieces liked!

  Fortunately, unlike her partner had the night before, Sykes didn’t make a single inappropriate comment. He merely watched, took some notes, and had her rewind at one point when a car cut Leanne off as she drove out of the hotel parking lot. When the scene had transferred into something more normal—Leanne grocery shopping, then going home, feeding her fish, making dinner—he’d mumbled something about how awkward their job could be—uh, yeah—then had turned around and calmly gone back to work.

  By the time Ronnie got through the all the visuals from Leanne’s weekend—leaving just one day of the final week of the woman’s life to view—her eyes were blurry and dry. She glanced at the clock, saw it was nearly seven, and pushed her chair back from the work station.

  “You ready to wrap it up?” Sykes asked, turning around to eye her from the other side of the small room.

  “Yes. You?”

  “I think so. When Underwood wasn’t sleeping, he was either working, or looking at his wife and kids. I got through most of the week already.”

  Her heart twisted as she thought of those fatherless children. She had to wonder if Tate or the government would give the man’s widow back any of his downloads. When those babies grew up, it might be very special for them to see themselves through their father’s eyes. They could experience the tender emotions that had flowed off him, shining and vibrant. Those messages of love from a now-dead man, a father they probably wouldn’t even remember, would be very special. She made a mental note to talk to Tate about it, and to offer to pick out some lovely moments she’d seen whenever she’d looked over Sykes’s shoulder or up on the wall screen.

  “I don’t think I can look at another minute of mine right now,” she muttered, trying to smother a yawn but not succeeding. “I only have one day left. If I don’t find anything on that, I’m going to have to go further back in her data dump. Damn, I was hoping to find something in those last seven days.”

  There were many more weeks on the woman’s hard drive. She only hoped they could solve this case before she had to go through all those images that stretched back months, to when Leanne was first implanted with the O.E.P. chip.

  “Hoping to find something? What are you talking about? You found a lot more than I did.”

  She cocked a brow. “Was that a crack about the size of Bailey’s johnson?”

  He let out a loud laugh and the tension in the room, which had built hour after hour throughout the day, eased up. They both needed the mental time-out, and she didn’t regret making the joke.

  “Wow, you’re easily impressed,” he told her, his eyes twinkling with wicked merriment.

  “Yeah, in your dreams,” she grunted. Because if Sykes had more in his pants than Bailey did, the man would be in L.A. making porn movies.

  Ugh. Porn movies. She so wasn’t in the mood to see any more of the Leanne and Bailey show.

  “I think I’ll take the data home and watch the last day at my place.”

  He lifted a micro disc. “Need this?”

  Grinning, she replied, “Nah, I’ve got it covered.”

  He grinned back, obviously thinking about her machinations of the previous evening, when she’d stolen data he’d been fully prepared to hand over to her.

  “I’ll do the same thing. Not like there’s much else to do in my hotel room.”

  Ronnie swallowed, licked her lips and turned away from him, not wanting to think about what Sykes might do to keep himself busy in his hotel room. As she turned and began to shut down her computer, she thought she heard him chuckle, as though he knew exactly why she’d so quickly ended the conversation and turned her back on him.

  “Oh, you’re both still here,” a voice said.

  Ronnie looked toward the doorway as Philip Tate entered. The executive was dressed in a pristine, charcoal-grey suit that showed off his tall form and gave his dark green eyes a smoky look. Apparently Friday’s weren’t a regular golf day.

  “We were just about to call it quits for the night,” said Sykes.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” the other man replied, sounding a little distracted.

  He crossed his arms, leaned against the doorjamb, then straightened again. “Have you had a productive day?”

  “Oh, definitely,” Sykes replied with an easy smile. But he didn’t go into any detail. Tate and his son might be giving them the use of the lab space, and might have provided the O.E.P. chip, but this was still a murder investigation. And Philip Tate knew about as much about that as he did about his father’s experiments. IE: Nada.

  “Good for you,” Tate said, smiling. “Glad to hear you’ve gotten some use out of one of the old man’s brainchildren.”

  Tate’s smile looked forced. He wasn’t as smooth and self-assured as usual, and obviously had something on his mind. She wondered if he just didn’t want to say it in front of Sykes.

  A possibility popped into her head: the six “natural causes” victims. Perhaps Tate had some information on them and didn’t want to get into it with anyone but Ronnie.

  “You know,” she said to the man, wanting to get him alone so he’d drop his guard and reveal what he knew, “I really could use a steak and a glass of wine after a long day’s work.”

  Tate’s eyes widened in surprise. “I’d be happy to feed you,” he insisted with a genuine-looking smile.

  Sykes, however, wasn’t smiling. His mouth pulled down into a deep frown and his brow furrowed as he stared at her. Hard. He obviously knew her well enough to know she wasn’t going to encourage or flirt with somebody involved in a murder case. It probably took him less than ten seconds to recognize her motives. And he wasn’t happy about them.

  “We can stop and get you something on the way back to your place,” he insisted as he rose from his chair. He grabbed his suit coat and slung it over his arm. Sykes had unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves, revealing the flexing, muscular forearms, which flexed even more as he fisted both his hands. He was obviously tense and worried.

  “Don’t be silly, I can see Detective Sloan home.” Philip said. “I wanted to talk to her anyway. We can get to know each other a little better over a quiet dinner.”

  “Detective Sloan had a concussion a few days ago. She shouldn’t be drinking any wine.”

  He sounded like her father. But the look on his face was much more like angry, slightly jealous lover.

  He’s not your lover. He’s not jealous. He doesn’t give a damn about you beyond wanting your help to solve this case and possibly wanting to get into your pants.

  “I’ll be sure she drinks nothing stronger than juice and I’ll get her to her door safe and sound,” Philip said, reaching out and offering Ronnie his arm.

  She wasn’t used to that kind of chivalry, but figured she’d play along for now. Besides, she had been dealing with a head injury. Having sat in that chair for hours while she looked at Leanne’s downloads, she was feeling a little bit less than steady on her feet.

  “Fine,” Sykes said. His eyes piercing hers with a silent warning, he added, “I’ll call you later tonight. Or you call me. After you get your…steak. If I don’t answer, don’t hang up. It sometimes takes six rings for me to get to the phone.”

  She nodded once. Sykes had made it clear that he knew she was after information, not a steak dinner. That emphasis on six was a direct reference to the six dead O.E.P. test subjects. He knew she wasn’t really going out with Tate because she had any interest in him but because of the case
and wanted her to know he knew.

  He said nothing else. The silence told her he was supporting her, though the stiffness of his jaw and tight set of his lips meant it was only reluctantly. She knew he’d be waiting for that phone call. If he didn’t get it, he’d probably show up at Tate’s house. God, with her luck, he’d bring Daniels. Her own private belligerent, competitive asshole cavalry.

  “Goodnight, Sykes,” she said. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Yes. You definitely will.”

  She turned to leave the room with the man in whom she had absolutely no interest, leaving behind the one she couldn’t get out of her mind.

  “Veronica?”

  She glanced back over her shoulder.

  “Make sure you chew your steak thoroughly,” Sykes said. “You don’t want to choke on it.”

  Chuckling inwardly, she snapped off a cocky salute, and walked out on Philip Tate’s arm.

  -#-

  Of all the changes in his life over the past fifteen months, the one Eddie Girardo just couldn’t get used to was eating by himself.

  He’d been married for eighteen years. Eighteen years of waking up to breakfasts Allie would make for him and the kids before they all left for school or work. Eighteen years of dinners he’d help prepare, either chopping up vegetables for a salad or grilling hot dogs in the back yard of their Richmond home in the summer. Growing up in a big Italian household, he’d learned to help in the kitchen at a young age and often challenged his ex-wife to cook-offs, which the kids would have to judge. Eddie Junior usually voted for his dad’s cooking, since they were the only members of the penis club—a joke they’d shared, given the fact that it was two of them against Allie and three girls.

  It had been a perfect eighteen years of family meals.

  But now his wife was eating another man’s hot dog.

  His daughters had been bribed out of their father’s affections by their stepdaddy’s credit cards.

  His own son had allowed the lure of vacations in the islands and tickets to the Super Bowl to replace any thoughts of his old man.