Trigger Effect

by Maggie Price

  “Do you have time to answer a couple of questions?”

  Taking care not to slosh her coffee, Paige turned. Tia Alvarado, the Vice detective who’d sat in the first row in yesterday’s workshop, was tall and slim with a dusky complexion. Her black hair was pulled back in a heavy braid. She wore a white cable-knit sweater and jeans that fit her slender legs like spandex.

  Paige glanced at her watch. “We only have a few minutes before the workshop starts. Why don’t you walk back with me? I have to stop by the office first.”

  “Okay.”

  As the two women exited the break room, Tia said, “I can’t stop thinking about that demonstration you gave us yesterday.”

  “Demonstration?”

  “The way you nailed what Houdini and his female-of-the-moment did.” She wiggled her dark brows. “Or didn’t do.”

  “Houdini?”

  “Nate McCall.” Alvarado dipped her head. “I don’t have firsthand knowledge, but the rumor is that in bed, the man performs magical feats.”

  “Oh.” Paige sipped her coffee. Well, hell, the instant she’d seen McCall’s grin-that-could-corrupt-a-saint she’d known he was the kind of guy mothers warned their little girls about. But magical feats? She tried not to speculate what exactly had earned him that moniker among the females of the OCPD.

  She took another sip of coffee. “I was a little rough on Sergeant McCall yesterday.”

  “Nate’ll get over it,” Alvarado said, flicking a wrist. “He’s a damn good cop, but when it comes to romancing a woman, he’s slicker than black ice. That’s another reason for the Houdini aka. He’s a pro at making a clean escape before a relationship turns serious. You have to figure a nick to his ego now and then is good for him.”

  They rounded a corner; just as Paige reached the office door she caught a glimpse of a man in a dark gray suit at the far end of the hallway. A second later, he disappeared into a connecting corridor. Too tall to be Isaac, she automatically calculated before she stepped into the office.

  “What precisely did you want to ask me, Sergeant Alvarado?” Paige asked as she set her coffee cup on the desk. Her hand froze as she reached for the drawer where she’d stashed her purse. It was open a few inches. She was positive she’d locked the drawer.

  Jerking it open, she stuck her hand inside her purse and felt her heart stop. “Dammit!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My billfold is gone.”

  Tia took a step forward. “Are you sure you had it in your purse this morning?”

  “Positive, I bought a latte before leaving my hotel. This lock was either jimmied, or someone had a key.” Her eyes narrowed. “That man.”

  “What man?”

  “About six foot four, dark hair, gray suit. He disappeared around the corner just as we walked in here.”

  Tia glanced toward the door. “I missed him.”

  “I didn’t.” Too tall to be Isaac, but maybe his accomplice? Fueled by that possibility, Paige yanked her purse out of the drawer, slung its strap over her shoulder and skirted around the desk.

  The hallway was crowded with cops and civilians headed to the various classrooms. Paige threaded through the milling bodies, sweeping her gaze right to left. Her chin came up when she spotted the man at the entrance to a classroom at the far end of the hallway.

  “Excuse me?” The curtness of her words had several people turning her way. Including her quarry.

  “Are you talking to me?” He was distinguished-looking, in his sixties, with a peppering of gray at the temples. Up close, she saw that his suit was silk and had the look of expensive tailoring. The man was a somebody. Definitely had that air of power rolling around him.

  No matter who he was, that wasn’t going to stop her from questioning him. She did, however, soften her tone. “Did you just leave the guest instructor’s office?”

  He raised a brow. “You would be?”

  “Morning, Chief Quaid,” Tia said, easing in beside Paige.

  His gaze shifted. “Sergeant Alvarado.”

  “Sir, this is Paige Carmichael, she’s teaching a workshop. Someone stole her billfold out of her purse while it was in the guest instructor’s office.”

  “You suspect I’m your thief?” he asked, watching Paige closely.

  Great, she thought. She’d accosted the freaking chief of police. “I saw you in the hallway near the office. I’m simply following up on that.”

  “I did pass by there, Ms. Carmichael,” he confirmed. “I had just left the main offices where I conferred with my training staff.”

  “Did you spot anyone in or near the guest instructor’s office?”

  “Not a soul.” He looked at a uniformed officer standing to his left. “Isom, inform your major about the theft. Tell him I want the building and grounds swept immediately for the suspect and billfold. If we at least recover the billfold we may get the suspect’s prints.”

  “Yes, sir,” the cop said, then quick-footed it down the hallway.

  Quaid looked back at Paige. “I regret this happening to you while at my training center.”

  “You’re not the only one.” Paige’s hands balled into fists of frustration. She’d been on the receiving end of a mugging. She had doubts that last night’s allergic reaction was due to a sudden chemical response to a banana. Then there was the mug shot left under her door. Now, her billfold had been stolen. Was everything related? Was it Isaac’s way of playing cat and mouse, just to demonstrate how close he could get to her? She was standing in a building filled with cops, and still the sensation of Isaac’s presence closed like a hand on her throat.

  “I take it your driver’s license, credit cards and cash were inside your billfold?” Quaid asked.

  “Cash.” Putting a choke hold on her emotions, she dug into her purse, pulled out a small leather case. “I keep my license and credit cards separate.” She did a quick inventory. “They’re all here.”

  “Sergeant Alvarado.”

  “Sir?”

  “Take Ms. Carmichael’s larceny report. If her billfold isn’t found during the sweep, call my secretary to get a requisition number for a cash voucher to replace her money.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He looked back at Paige. “You’re instructing forensic statement analysis.” It wasn’t a question.

  “That’s right.”

  “I was at a conference about six months ago. Several other police chiefs there talked about the workshop you’d presented for their departments. They had such high praise I had my training staff arrange for you to come here. In fact, I have it on my schedule to stop by your workshop before I leave here today. I want to see for myself what all the praise is about.”

  “We’ll be glad to have you, Chief Quaid.” She held out her hand. “No hard feelings, I hope?”

  “None. I admire your style, Ms. Carmichael.” His handshake was firm and all business.

  Paige waited until he stepped into the classroom to slide Tia a look. “Thanks for smoothing that over. I owe you.”

  Tia grinned. “I’m a soft touch for female cops who aren’t afraid to shoot from the hip.” Her expression went serious. “Let’s go to the major’s office and get the report on your billfold written.”

  “You probably should combine the larceny with an ongoing investigation under my name,” Paige said as they retraced their steps. “I don’t know if they’re connected, but they might be.”

  “An ongoing investigation of what?”

  “I was mugged in the parking lot here yesterday. The bastard got my briefcase. And last night I wound up in the E.R. after taking a bite of fruit that had been delivered to my hotel suite.”

  “The fruit was tampered with?”

  “That, or I’m suddenly allergic to bananas. The fruit’s at the lab now.”

  “Sounds like you had an eventful evening.”

  “There’s more. Remember the escaped killer I mentioned?”

  “The shrink who killed five prostitutes. Who could forget
?”

  “Someone slid his mug shot with a typed note supposedly from him under my door. The photo had been in my briefcase.”

  “Holy crap.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I need to call dispatch and get the case number assigned to the mugging. Do you remember the name of the cop who took the report?”

  “Vawter. Then McCall did a supplemental report on the fruit and the mug shot. He submitted the fruit to the lab.”

  Tia’s forehead furrowed. “McCall’s Homicide. How’d he get involved?”

  “He ran into Vawter somewhere, and heard about the mugging. McCall called me because he didn’t like the fact I got roughed up on his turf. I was on the phone with him when I had the reaction to the banana. He got me help, then dropped by my hotel room after I got back from the E.R. I’d just found Isaac’s mug shot when McCall showed up.”

  “Well, it sounds like Houdini’s not holding a grudge over your nailing him in the workshop yesterday.”

  “No, he’s not.” Paige thought about McCall, a cop who’d cared enough to check on her after she’d wound up at the E.R. About the man who loved his three sisters. She wasn’t surprised to discover that the disdain she’d first felt for him had now turned to respect.

  “The established norm is that the true victim of a violent crime will not use the pronoun ‘we’ when describing interaction with his or her assailant,” Paige told the workshop attendees late that afternoon. “Suppose you have two women who claim they’ve been raped. One says, ‘He forced me into the shed.’ The second tells you, ‘We went into the shed.’ The second victim’s use of ‘we’ denotes a sense of togetherness with the suspect. This is an automatic red flag. The investigator should question the victim further. Ask if she knew the assailant. Ascertain if they were together before the incident occurred. If, in fact, the alleged incident truly did occur.”

  Slowly pacing the length of the classroom, Paige studied the twenty-four men and women seated at the tables before her. She could now see the glimmer of understanding…and beginnings of acceptance in most of the faces. She had made her case; the majority no longer viewed her craft as voodoo science. She had shown there was a legitimacy to using statement analysis that made sense to a cop’s logical, methodical thinking.

  “For tomorrow, analyze the separate statement I assigned to each of you in the back of the training manual. Be prepared to tell me if its author is being truthful or deceptive.” She smiled. “Or both.”

  While the room emptied, Paige settled her purse and coat beside the laptop case on the table beside the speaker’s podium. The fatigue that had hung over her all day now weighed on her shoulders like lead.

  And, because her trip to The Epicurean, and then a pharmacy, had taken her entire lunch hour, she was hungry enough to order an entire cow from room service when she got to her hotel room.

  She should have just called the catering company that specialized in gift baskets and saved herself the trip there. It would have taken her only minutes to learn that The Epicurean had never received an order to deliver a fruit bowl to her suite at the Waterford.

  Even without the results of the lab’s analysis of the fruit, Paige was now ninety-nine percent positive she had not developed a sudden allergy to bananas. That whoever delivered the fruit bowl to the hotel had known she was deathly allergic to peanuts and had loaded the fruit with peanut oil. She felt it, like someone walking on her grave. Digging it.

  Her brain did a connect-the-dots to Isaac. The mugging. The fruit bowl. The mug shot. His personal note, promising they’d be together soon. Was the psychiatrist nearby, soaking up the satisfaction of having almost killed her last night? Or was he a world away, issuing instructions to an accomplice on the most effective ways to screw with her?

  Then there was her billfold, she thought while slipping on her coat. The search of the grounds and building had come up empty. Was it possible she’d been the victim of a random theft? For some petty thief to tempt swiping property in a building filled with cops and civilian security specialists was more than risky. Still, it could happen.

  Had maybe happened. Though she doubted it.

  “You ready to head out, Teach?”

  She looked up. Hugh Henderson lounged in the classroom’s doorway, his mouth cocked up on both sides. He carried a wool coat folded over one arm; his black suit, white shirt and dove-gray tie brought to mind a gangster. Henderson and Steve Kidd had approached her during the afternoon break, saying McCall had arranged with them to follow her to her hotel to make sure she didn’t pick up a tail.

  “Almost.” Paige snagged her workbook off the podium. “I appreciate you and your partner doing escort duty, Sergeant Henderson.”

  “Always happy to help a damsel in distress.” Strolling into the classroom, his gaze slicked down her, then up. “Why don’t you call me Hugh?”

  Oh, brother. She was in no mood to deal with some cheesy come-on. “Thank you, but I keep my association with my students professional.”

  “Me, I lean more to the casual way of doing things. It’s friendlier. Speaking of friendly, since me ’n Kidd are escorting you to your hotel, how about us having a drink there?”

  She gave him a look that was all innocence. “The three of us?”

  “Nope, Kidd has to get home to his wife. It’d just be me and you.”

  That the man continually referred to himself first in conversation told Paige he was suffering from a case of egomania. She dropped her gaze to his left hand, noted the gold band. “Don’t you also need to get home to your wife?”

  He smiled. “She’s real understanding.”

  “How fortunate for you,” Paige murmured, lifting the lid of her leather case. “Understand this, Sergeant Henderson. I don’t—” As she settled the workbook on top of the file folder that held the workshop assignments, something blipped in her brain.

  “You don’t what?” he prodded.

  She unearthed the folder from beneath the manual. “I don’t believe this,” she said, holding up the empty folder. “The assignments I had the workshop attendees write yesterday were in here this morning.”

  “So, what did you do with them?”

  “I didn’t do anything with them. They’re gone.”

  “You sure they were in there?”

  “Positive. I analyzed some of them this morning after I got here.”

  “Has your case been out of sight anytime today?”

  She looked down at the empty folder. “This morning when I went to the break room for coffee.”

  “The same time your billfold got boosted?”

  “Yes.” She dropped the folder back into the case. “Why would someone take the assignments?”

  Henderson hunched his shoulders. “You got me.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “You’re right about that. Look, McCall said you had a rough night, having that allergic reaction, then finding the mug shot with the note from that maniac shrink. That’d throw off anyone’s thinking.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Are you suggesting I’m delusional, Sergeant? That I just imagined spending an hour this morning in the guest instructor’s office working on the assignments?”

  “Judging from the bruise on your cheek, that mugger slammed you hard enough to rattle your brain. You maybe got a concussion.”

  “I don’t have a concussion.”

  “Why would anyone steal those assignments?”

  “I have no—”

  “What’s the holdup?”

  Paige looked toward the door. Steve Kidd’s heavy coat made his build seem even burlier. His sandy hair looked windblown and his face was flushed from the cold. Clearly he’d been waiting for them outside.

  Henderson gave his partner a look across his shoulder. “Teach thinks the assignments we wrote yesterday got boosted.”

  “They did get boosted,” she reiterated.

  Kidd moved in, stopping at Henderson’s side. “Why would someone steal them?” Kidd’s voice and
expression held a trace of curiosity, not the open disbelief of his partner’s. “Even your most moronic thief would know he couldn’t pawn a stack of paper or use them to score dope.”

  “No kidding,” Henderson said, shrugging into his coat.

  Kidd angled his chin. “Do you think Isaac had something to do with this? I mean, he’s a damn escapee, would he risk coming into a building full of cops? If so, how would he know what office you were using? It’s not like you work here day-to-day.”

  “I know.” Paige looked away, her mind picking apart the mosaic of that morning. “The desk in the guest instructor’s office sits in front of a window,” she said finally. “I worked there for an hour. Anyone walking through the parking lot could have spotted me. Seen which drawer I put my purse in. And a building filled with cops wouldn’t be a risk for Isaac because he’s an ace at disguise. He could walk by me and I wouldn’t even know him. There’s also the possibility he’s got an accomplice. Someone who’s worked with him all along.”

  “A master at disguise,” Henderson said. “An unknown accomplice. Jesus, Isaac can come at you from any direction.”

  Henderson’s voicing what Paige already knew intensified the dread that had hung over her since she’d heard about Isaac’s escape. No one had to tell her what it felt like to straddle a fault line, waiting for the earthquake.

  “I’m aware of that, Sergeant Henderson,” she said levelly.

  “It was a smart move to change hotels,” Kidd said. “And check in under an alias. We’ll make sure you get back to the Ambassador Arms without picking up a tail.” He glanced at his watch. “Traffic’s hell this time of day, so we’d better get going. I have to drive my wife to an appointment this evening.”

  “I apologize for holding you up.” Paige secured the zipper on her case, slung its strap over her shoulder, then grabbed her purse. “I appreciate you and Sergeant Henderson helping me out.”

  “It’s not a problem,” Kidd said as they moved out of the classroom into the hallway. “I’m just dealing with a time crunch this evening. By the way, McCall called my cell a few minutes ago. He’s closer to your hotel than he is to here, so he’s going to hook up with you there. Henderson and I will tail you to the entrance of the parking garage. McCall will meet you in the garage and make sure you get inside the hotel okay. He said he’s got something he needs to talk to you about.”