by Diane Capri
“Way too hot for that house. And way, way, way too hot for that dude.”
Kim laughed for the first time since Officer Leach had pointed his shotgun at her. “Leave it to you to notice.”
He looked over, raised his right eyebrow, and adopted a fake Spanish accent. “The phrase ‘Latin Lover’ mean anything to you, Helga? Did I mention that I have four daughters, and a pregnant wife?”
“I got that, Casanova.”
“Damn straight.”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re irresistible, even to the murderously hot babes. What else?” The long list of entries for her search terms was organized by the LIFO method: last in, first out. The articles at the top were shorter pieces with very little useful content. She flipped through the pages as quickly as the intermittent connection allowed.
“Besides the obvious, you mean?”
“One man’s obvious is another woman’s obtuse.” She was on page ten of the list. Nothing helpful so far, but she kept reading, hoping for a glimmer of something.
Kim felt the Blazer’s speed slow. Flashing lights proclaimed road construction ahead. Outbound traffic from Atlanta was barely moving. Inbound traffic moved slightly faster.
Then it stopped altogether.
“Okay, including the obvious, then.” Gaspar slid the transmission into park and moved his right leg as if cramping had returned. Again, Kim would have asked about the leg, but she didn’t want to go down another contentious road.
Gaspar said, “Whoever shot Mr. Black knew where to put the bullets. The two shots to the head would have done the job. The other five were pure vengeance.”
She looked up from the screen. “For what?”
He considered the question for a while. Finally he said, “Now that’s the sixty four dollar question, isn’t it?”
“That, and why the Leach brothers ran us out of town.”
“You think the two are related?”
“The Leach brothers?”
He shot her the Oh please look he’d learned from his teenagers. “Black’s murder and our close encounter with the Leach brothers.”
“You think they’re not?”
“I see what you mean about being obtuse,” he said.
Traffic began to move again, but barely. Kim’s internet connection remained strong for five miles. Long enough to download four large articles before she lost the signal again. She scanned the pieces quickly, seeking new facts.
When the construction zone ended, the road widened to four lanes again, and Gaspar punched the Blazer back to eighty miles an hour. The cell signal cut out. Kim barely noticed, so engrossed was she in the Atlanta Constitution article she’d pulled up.
“Are you reading a novel over there or what?”
“Strictly non-fiction,” she said.
“Interesting?”
“Well, I think I know why Mary the waitress freaked out when you gave her that hundred dollar bill.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
They headed for Hartsfield Airport, south of the city. Gaspar chose a Renaissance Hotel and parked the Blazer within easy sprinting distance of a side entrance. He said, “Is this OK? They’ve got a bar and a restaurant, which most of these airport racks don’t have. We wouldn’t need to go out again tonight.”
The rain had stopped about fifteen miles earlier, but the air was still heavy with moisture and small lakes had collected in every low spot. The temperature had dropped after the storm, too. Kim was exhausted. Gaspar looked as bad as she felt.
“Sure,” she said. “Perfect.”
He got out of the Blazer and limped to the back and lifted the hatch. They pulled out their bags. She wheeled hers inside, but he carried his. Macho man. She sighed, too tired to deal with him.
They registered, and they requested and received second floor billets close to the emergency stairwell nearest the Blazer. Then they went up in the elevator to adjacent rooms.
“Let’s meet for dinner,” Kim said. She checked her watch. Six o’clock now. “Maybe eight-thirty?”
She wanted a nap, and a shower, and then some time to work. She’d acquired a lot of data.
“I’ll knock on your door at 8:30,” he said.
“Perfect.” But almost before she got the word out, she felt the boss’s cell phone vibrating in her front pocket. After three tries, she swiped her key correctly and released the lock. She pushed the door open with her hip, wheeled her bags inside, closed the door, and lifted the phone to her ear. By then it had vibrated seven times.
“Otto,” she said, breathless. Out of habit she walked through to the bathroom and pulled back the shower curtain. No crawly bugs. No surveillance. No ambush.
“I didn’t expect you to be back in Atlanta so soon.”
The implied question stopped her room inspection cold. And at first it confused her. Then she realized the cell phone must have an active GPS monitoring chip in it. She wasn’t surprised, exactly. She was used to being monitored while on duty. Knowing someone was watching her had always made her feel safer. Serious things could happen to agents out of electronic range. Unfixable things.
But she didn’t feel reassured right then. She felt unsettled. Mostly because she hadn’t worked out what she would tell him and what she wouldn’t yet. She looked at herself in the bathroom’s vanity mirror. Did she sound as bedraggled as she appeared?
She stood up straight, squared her shoulders, looked her reflection in the eye. She imagined that he was on the other side of the mirror, watching her; that he saw what she saw as they talked. She tried to create a positive impression.
He asked, “You’re making good progress, then?”
“Just the opposite, I’m afraid.” She’d stick to the fiction he’d given her about this assignment until he tasked her otherwise. Or until she figured out his real agenda. And the truth was that she’d learned almost nothing about Reacher that she hadn’t known before she arrived in Margrave.
“How so?” he asked.
“Chief Roscoe was called to a homicide, so our interview was cut short. We’re going back tomorrow.”
“Was she cooperative?”
Translation: he’d known Roscoe wouldn’t be cooperative.
“She didn’t have time to tell us much. She said Reacher had been arrested and charged with murder back then. She was the intake officer. That’s how she met him. She said he wasn’t guilty. She said he saved her life.”
“Does she know where he is?”
“She said not.”
“You believe her?”
Kim thought about Roscoe’s reaction to Reacher’s photograph, to learning he was alive. Roscoe wasn’t faking then, Kim was certain. “I do believe her. Yes.”
She listened to a few moments of silence; waited for him to state his pleasure.
“Who died?”
“Sorry?”
“Roscoe’s homicide.”
Had she been wrong? Did he truly not know? She tamed her puzzled mind, now persuaded he was testing her. But immediately wondered: testing her for what?
“Margrave Police Sergeant Harry Black.”
“Who killed him?”
Kim thought about the question on its merits and his motivation for asking. She decided she was too tired to think along two tracks at once. “I’m not sure.”
“Why?”
She took a deep breath. She hadn’t meant to reveal her assumptions until she’d been over everything and settled it in her own mind. But there was no possibility of evading him, even if she’d wanted to.
He knew where she’d been. The cell had been in her pocket from the time she left her apartment. He monitored her movements, and Gaspar’s too. And, if she was right, he’d sent her to Margrave to be his eyes on the ground at that homicide scene. This was really what he wanted to know. Failure was not an option. She had to deliver. But deliver what?
“I haven’t been able to go over the evidence yet.”
“What evidence?”
“We took photos while we were there. We made observations.”
>
“Why?”
What should she say? Because she believed he’d sent her there to do exactly that? Because she was ambitious and wanted to impress him, to get promoted, to have his job and go beyond it one day? Scratch that. What was she thinking? She shook the cobwebs out of her mind.
“Roscoe asked us to help, and we were trying to gain her trust, so she would answer our questions about Reacher. She was short-handed. She needed the help.” Not precisely true, but not much of a lie, either.
As if he was actually watching her through a one-way mirror, could see her expressions, gauge her veracity, he offered only silence for too long. Was her fanciful idea true? Could he see her right now? If he knew she was there, had he arranged her room assignment in order to watch her? Anxiety crept up from somewhere, raising her internal security alert level to red again. No. That was not even possible. Was it? And what was he thinking?
She said, “Black’s wife claims she killed him. Shot him with his service weapon. Seven times. While he slept.”
“You think otherwise?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s bothering you about her confession?”
So he didn’t know everything. A better question: what wasn’t bothering her about Sylvia Black’s confession?
She didn’t want to screw up. This case was the biggest test of her career so far. She wanted, needed, to handle it perfectly. She didn’t want to jump to conclusions based on her gut. FBI Special Agents don’t operate based on vibes. And they don’t get promoted for shooting their mouths off, either. Especially if they’re wrong.
“I’d feel better if you let me look at my photos before I answer that. I can call you back with more solid intel.”
“It feels wrong. The confession. Is that what you’re saying, Agent Otto?” As if feels wrong was objective forensics they could use in court. Was he mocking her? Had she already blown it?
“Not only that,” Kim told him.
“But partly that? What else? Any support for those assumptions?”
She gave up her efforts to stall him until she felt more secure. Take a risk, Otto. If she was wrong, she’d just have to deal with that later. That’s why they put erasers on pencils. So she told him the obvious things Gaspar hadn’t noticed. Or hadn’t mentioned. She wasn’t sure which.
“The crime scene was unlike any domestic homicide I’ve ever covered. No signs of violence. No injuries to the widow. Husband shot in his sleep. Seven times. Deliberate placement of the bullets. The first two shots to the head killed him. Blew his face off along with most of his head. The other five were placed specifically and only after he died.”
“How long after?”
“I’m guessing at least thirty minutes.”
“Could be less?”
“Not much less.”
Silence again for a longer while. Kim waited.
“Examine your evidence. Talk things over with Gaspar. Send me your report before ten tonight. Include the photos. I want to see them.”
Ten tonight? He wanted a full encrypted report in four hours? “Yes, sir.”
“You’re booked on a 10:30 Delta flight to Kennedy. Same security set up as this morning. Your second subject is only available tonight. Someone will meet you at the gate and take you to him. Sorry for the short notice.”
“Yes, sir.”
Six minutes later Gaspar knocked on the door.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
New York, NY
JFK Airport Hudson Hotel
November 2, 2:00 a.m.
Kim rolled her shoulders and stretched her neck, seeking to relieve the unremitting tension. For twenty-four hours, she’d been running on her standard triple A’s: ambition, adrenaline, and anxiety. Add two gut-wrenching plane rides on less than two hours sleep and her nerves, like her muscles, were screaming. None of this, she knew, was visible even to the keenest observer. And she meant to keep it that way.
Sixty-five minutes ago, she’d arrived in the luxury suite of the JFK Hudson Hotel excited and fully armed with her well-crafted approach. Allotted ninety minutes, she’d planned to complete the Reacher file through this single interview. She would make a powerful ally, learn everything she needed to know, write a perfect report, and wrap. From start to finish in less than twenty-four hours. Record success in record time, even for her. The boss would be pleased. She’d go home in triumph, sleep for a week, and never go back to Margrave again.
That was then.
Her optimism had dimmed as her time expired. She was forced to revise, cut, refocus, and revise her plan again and again. Now she had only twenty-five minutes to complete the mission. Not enough time. Not even close.
“You’re looking a little silly up there on the ceiling,” Gaspar said, without opening his eyes. He rested on the edge of his seat, legs stretched out, ankles crossed, head supported by the narrow wood across the chair back, hands folded like a corpse.
“Whatever do you mean, Gumby?” she said, haughty, as if he’d missed the mark completely.
“This is total bullshit. You didn’t cause it and you certainly can’t fix it. You might as well relax until he shows up.” He grinned. “I’ll let you know when it’s time to panic.”
“You’re too kind.”
“It’s a gift.”
“A curse, you mean.”
“Suit yourself. Wake me up when his royal highness appears.”
He wasn’t fooling her. She saw the white knuckles on his clasped hands. He’d been slouching like that since they arrived, but he hadn’t actually slept a second.
“Don’t worry, Quixote. You’ll hear the trumpets.”
She’d run the revised plan through her head a hundred times, but it never got any better. All available accounts proclaimed Finlay an honorable man whose integrity equaled his superior competence. Which had to mean the negatives had been removed from his records and the complainants silenced. Nobody got as high up the ladder as this guy without making enemies.
She needed leverage and she simply didn’t have any.
His title was Special Assistant to the President for Strategy. What did that mean? The precise nature of his job was nowhere described. Which was more than enough to shove her internal threat-level against the top of the red zone and hold it there.
He’d been selected by the highest-ranking civilian responsible for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and placed one heartbeat away from the U.S. Commander in Chief. No watchdog kept tabs on him. He reported seldom and only through verbal briefing. No paper trail so much as named the missions he’d undertaken. Process, performance, results, also absent from the record.
Casualties, of course, never acknowledged. She’d heard rumors. Unconfirmed.
Everything she’d learned about Finlay marked him as dangerous. He deployed unspecified unique skills in service to her country on unidentified missions. Like nuclear power, when properly harnessed he might be useful. But she’d found nothing restraining him; not even his own word.
Was he friend or foe? Wiser to assume the worst.
She heard a door swish over carpet in the suite’s anteroom. The noise charged her nervous system like a cartoon character’s finger plugged into a light socket, an image she’d never found remotely funny. She’d been tasered. She knew how it felt.
“He’s here,” she said. Her voice sounded calm. No tremors, good cadence, low octave. So far, so good.
“Finally.” Gaspar’s scowl had become a permanent groove in his forehead. “Who does the guy think he is? Jennifer Lopez? Now there’s someone worth waiting for.”
She knew what he meant. Worthy leaders never disrespected subordinates. Loyalty was a two-way street in her book, too.
Gaspar had decided Finlay’s tardiness was deliberately dismissive. Kim wanted to believe he’d been unavoidably detained, even as her stomach acid said Gaspar was right.
She warned Gaspar again, “Our time is his time.”
“Yeah. I got that. Remember me? I’m the one with four kids
to put through college.” He stood up, stretched. Kim pretended not to watch him stroll awkwardly around the room. She saw the pain on his face, too. At some point, she’d ask him about the leg. But not now. She had more immediate things to worry about.
Maybe the interview wouldn’t be a disaster. A glimmer of her initial excitement remained. She’d been given this rare chance to impress a powerful man who could and did advance women on the job. Finlay had a proven track record on that score: Roscoe.
Would Roscoe have become Margrave Police Chief without Finlay’s support? Hardly.
“He could have a good reason for being late, you know,” she said.
Twenty-two minutes left. She strained to hear the voices in the anteroom. But the suite was near soundproof; she couldn’t quite capture the words being exchanged, which might be OK. Or not. Depended on what the words actually were, didn’t it?
Three or four men were talking. One was the aide who had escorted them from their arrival gate. She hoped one was their subject. If so, the other two could be his protection detail. A lot of firepower for a friendly conversation with two FBI agents.
She heard footsteps. She stood up. Lamont Finlay, Ph.D., pushed the door open and crossed the threshold as if he owned the room and everything in it.
Even at two o’clock in the morning, he looked like a spokesman for financial services. Tall, straight, solid; close cropped hair slightly grey at the temples. Clean shaven. Well dressed. Everything polished to high gloss. Distinguished. Experienced.
Intimidating.
A black man, but his ethnicity was not African-American. The file said his grandparents had emigrated from Trinidad to New York before settling in Boston, where he’d been educated at Harvard. The Boston accent had faded but Kim could hear it.
“Mr. Gaspar, Ms. Otto,” he said, shaking hands with both of them in turn. His paw felt as big as a catcher’s mitt. She could have made a fist with both hands inside his grip. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting. Please, sit, sit. Have your needs been adequately attended to?”
“Yes, thank you, sir,” Kim said. A tray delivered more than an hour ago still rested on the table top. The silver coffee carafe with sides of sweeteners and cream, bone china cups and saucers, silver spoons, crystal glasses, linen napkins and four green eight-ounce bottles of bubbly French water consumed the flat surface. Sparkled lamplight danced from a cut crystal pitcher as if fairies filled the room.
