Terrorbyte

by Cat Connor

  Afterwards I took dad aside. “I need to speak with you out of the limelight.”

  “My office?”

  “Perfect.”

  Dad linked his arm through mine and mid-smile announced to the media throng that he was having a quiet word with his daughter and would return soon for questions.

  He opened the door for me. “Do we need to sit?”

  I smiled. “No, Dad, I just want to give you something from the Bureau.”

  I handed him the check. “But you might need to sit down before you look at the signature,” I told him. “Owen wrote it.”

  He took it from my hand and read the print. “Owen the ballbuster wrote us a check?”

  “Stunning, isn’t it?” I said. “Best get that in the bank before she changes her mind.”

  He nodded. “I’ll show Bob then we’ll go to the bank.”

  “Good idea. By the way, I like your office.”

  I hadn’t been in his new office before. It was spacious, wood paneled and highly polished. My mother would’ve loved it. He had a large leather sofa and a small coffee table in one corner. Directly in front of the door stood his antique mahogany desk. He’d had it moved up from Richmond. On the wall behind his desk hung a family portrait, our combined family: dad, me, Aidan, Mac, Beatrice and Bob. We’d had the photograph taken at Christmas time. Notably absent were Mac’s brother, Eddie, and his family. Absent because Mac forgot to invite them to the sitting. Can’t say I blamed him. The other notable absence was my mother. I didn’t realize I was staring at the wall until dad spoke again.

  “You feel all right, Ellie?”

  “Of course, Dad.” I kissed his leathery cheek. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “What did the doc say today?”

  So everyone knew but me. Maybe I should pay more attention to my life.

  “He said I’m nuts, Dad,” I said, with much seriousness. “Nothing we didn’t already know.”

  “No surprise there, then,” he replied, raising an eyebrow.

  “None at all.” I perched on the edge of his desk.

  “I heard something on the news about a murder this morning; they said it was the second in two days.”

  “They were right. I’m heading to Richmond today. There’s a murder there that may tie in with these.”

  “You got this case?”

  “Yeah. I’m Supervising Special Agent on this one!”

  Dad gave me a hug. “Well done.”

  “Thanks. Now I’d better get moving. You walking me out?”

  “Sure I am,” dad replied.

  Chapter Eight

  The Fire Inside

  Monday in Richmond was drizzly and gray. I supposed untimely death should be greeted by gray drizzle. It seemed fitting and more respectful than brilliant sunshine.

  No matter how hard I tried to block out the sobs of the distraught husband, I couldn’t. He met me outside his home. Crime-scene tape was still stuck to the front door. While he waited with his son, I did a walk-through. Once back out in the fresh air, I witnessed the torment of a broken man. Somewhere inside my mind I heard Elvis singing, ‘Don’t Cry Daddy.’

  The little boy tugged on my jacket sleeve, his eyes pleading with me to help them. Elvis put on a fine performance in my head. His emotive lyrics filled my imaginary auditorium, bathing the mesmerized crowd with each sad and aching line. I stopped listening at the mention of finding a brand new mommy. Sometimes Elvis songs are real weepers.

  I knelt down on one knee, bringing myself more or less to eye level with the child who wanted my attention.

  “What’s your name?” Please, God, don’t let it be Tommy. He didn’t look like a Tommy. Tommy’s have sandy hair with pale, freckled skin and live only in Elvis songs.

  “Dakota.”

  Bottomless coffee-colored eyes, shiny, straight black hair and fine features on the pretty side of handsome. Most definitely a Dakota.

  “I’m sorry about your mom, Dakota.”

  His innocent eyes looked into mine. “Daddy won’t stop crying.”

  I wanted to scoop him up and fix his world but all I could do was dish out platitudes. I didn’t have one that covered a murdered mommy. I opted for ‘less is more’ and said nothing.

  His small fingers pointed to my gun. “Will you shoot the man who made my daddy cry?”

  “That depends, Dakota; it depends what happens when I find him.” I brushed tears off his cheeks and tried to steer him away from such thoughts. “I think you’re very brave. Your mommy would be very proud of you right now.”

  Stones were digging into my knee. I straightened up.

  Dakota’s dad joined us. “I’m sorry. I’m not much help.”

  “Understandable, given the circumstances. Just know we’re doing our best, Mr. Trevalli. If you think of anything, call me.” I handed him my card. When he took the card from my hand, I noticed something in his eyes and followed a hunch. Maybe a different tack would elicit some usable information. “Had your wife been ill at all?”

  “Ill?” He shook his head. “No, not really.”

  “Not really?”

  “Julie is …” He stopped himself and corrected his mistake. “Julie was bipolar.”

  “Was Julie taking her meds?”

  He nodded. “Yes, she hasn’t skipped meds in four years.” He ruffled the hair of his young son. “He was her world. She’d never skip or stop her meds or do anything that could potentially harm Dakota.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be in touch.” I shook his hand and offered condolences, “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you.”

  Dakota tugged on my jacket again. “What’s your name?”

  “Ellie. My name is Ellie Conway.”

  He took his dad’s hand; they began to walk away and then Dakota turned and said, “Goodbye, Ellie Conway.”

  As I hurried back to my car I realized I didn’t feel the eyes here; no one was watching me. You’d think Julie’s spirit would stay around her little boy. If I’d felt the watchful eyes at the Laura Amos’s murder scene and earlier at Christine Campbell’s home, why not this one? That puzzled me. Almost as much as the faint smell of chlorine in the kitchen. The body was gone but the smell lingered.

  Lee was waiting patiently, as he did. I liked working with Lee but couldn’t help wishing he was Mac. He was stuck in Fairfax with a family emergency. Eddie had struck again and sent the family into turmoil. I was sure it was more Eddie bullshit but as always, it had to be sorted out. By Mac.

  “And?” Lee questioned as the door slammed behind me.

  “This sucks. The husband is not much help, there is a child … and I don’t have any fuc’n answers for anyone. Something new came out, though: she was bipolar.”

  The engine rumbled to life and the indicator ticked on the dash. A few long silences and several bouts of irate curses later, we had crossed town.

  Why is it that buildings in cities all end up a dirty, smoky, nondescript color? Is it so hard to make them attractive? The world should be pretty. As we pulled into the parking lot of the FBI field office on Parham Road I decided the buildings here weren’t as ugly as others I’d seen, but then it’s not exactly inner city. There is quite a large wooded area and even a school very close by. On sunny days the sound of children cheering and laughing on the baseball diamond floats on the breeze.

  No one was playing today.

  Lee’s fingers tapped on the steering wheel as he formulated the question I guessed had been bugging him from the moment I got back in the car, “So is it the same?”

  “I think so. I want to check the file. The writing on the walls was certainly familiar. The bourbon, the blood; I want to know about the body and the ribbon. I could still detect chlorine.”

  I dropped the visor down and flicked the vanity mirror open. With a quick touch of my index finger, I wiped away smudged mascara from under my eyes and ran my hands through my hair. “Okay, we’re good.”

  Lee had already walked around the vehicle and
opened my door for me. A violent gust of wind almost knocked me on my ass as I climbed out of the car. Lee’s huge hand grabbed my arm. “You need an anchor.”

  “Thanks.”

  We made our way into the building and found the special agent who had attended the crime scene. He showed us photographs and produced a small note addressed to me, although he wouldn’t have known it was meant for a fellow agent. The note read ‘Gabrielle, cleanse the pool.’ After viewing the evidence, I wrote my report and emailed it to myself, with a copy for Caine. My case or not, a copy always goes to the boss.

  “Lee, did anything come of that old case?”

  “The gold ribbon rape …? No, they got the guy. He’d trussed the victim up like a freaking turkey with gold ribbon.”

  “Nice. At least that’s not a forerunner to this spree then.”

  Something bugged me: for some reason I couldn’t remember the rest of my own poem, so I didn’t know where the words at this scene fitted. If this was an earlier death then why did the other crime scenes bear the first few lines of the poem?

  It felt like someone had thrown jigsaw pieces up in the air and they were landing in random order. Now I was building the puzzle without the corners to stabilize it. It was also possible that it wasn’t the same poem. I left Lee at the office and went back to our motel. I needed to clear my head and going for a run was about the only thing I knew would work.

  I changed into my old academy sweats and running shoes then headed out to pound the rain-puddled pavement. The street was mostly empty of people. In the distance I saw a woman pushing a stroller. A courier pulled up near me and leapt from his van; within seconds he was gone again. The woman disappeared through a doorway, leaving me alone on the wet street.

  My mind switched to autopilot, lulled by the rhythm of my feet. Every footfall took my mind farther away from the images of the child and his grief-ridden father.

  A foot came from nowhere; I stumbled and missed my footing as I tried to step over the obstacle. The dark blue cap fell from my head, releasing a waft of lavender shampoo as my hair tumbled free over my face. In that instant I vowed to never use old-lady-smelling shampoo again.

  As the forward momentum continued, my hair obscured the sidewalk and everything around me. I did a fair impression of Cousin Itt from the Addams family.

  I thrust out my right foot, corrected my balance with several small steps and giggled to myself. “That was a near miss.” I regained my composure and looked at the person who had tripped me. I must’ve been in my own little world to completely miss seeing someone else on the sidewalk.

  He squinted. It gave him a porky, somewhat bloated, appearance. His cheeks rose almost to his bushy dark eyebrows, and his eyes resembled small puffy slits. He spoke with a thick Eastern European accent. “You’re all right?”

  “Yeah.”

  His dark eyebrows seemed out of place with the shock of auburn hair on top of his head, then I realized then he was wearing a toupee. I looked away, hoping I hadn’t stared. I hate it when I notice things I shouldn’t, they somehow become my total focus.

  He handed me my fallen cap and showed disconcerting interest in the yellow initials across the front and back that read FBI. The name on my sweatshirt, along with the FBI academy insignia, was revealed as I shook my hair over my shoulder. His interest in me made my skin crawl.

  It took application to remind myself of the Sig-Sauer on my hip safely hidden under my sweatshirt. Extra effort was required to force myself to be polite and upbeat.

  “Pleased to run into you, I am Ellie Conway.” I proffered my hand and a small smile. With immense effort I stopped my eyes straying to his hair. The last thing I wanted was someone complaining that a person wearing FBI sweats was rude to them, especially when my name was plastered across my chest.

  He frowned. The movement pulled his skin taut. He was a sausage about to burst. Someone stick a fork in him, he’s done.

  “Pleased to meet you, Ellie, I am Markov,” he replied. His accent was his only interesting feature, which I picked out as Russian.

  A large, fleshy hand came at me and swallowed mine almost completely.

  I shook his hand. “Did I hurt you?” I scrutinized his face while extracting my hand from his greasy grip and sausage-like fingers. A memorable accent, a forgettable face.

  He shook his head. I noticed tremors. Slight tremors in his fleshy hands.

  He pointed at my chest. “Why the G?”

  I looked down at my top which read ‘Conway G.’ “G for Gabrielle. I go by Ellie.”

  He stared longer than he needed to at the letters. “Ah,” he said, still not looking away.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” I asked. Something felt wrong. He appeared unduly shaken by the brief collision. Or was it that he appeared way too interested in me? He finally hauled his eyes up from my chest. I wondered if medication had caused him to swell up. I felt the need for a long hot shower.

  “Yes, yes, I am fine,” he replied.

  “Good.” I gathered my hair into a twist and jammed the cap back on my head, trapping the twisted hair inside. “I’ll be on my way.”

  Markov nodded, making his chins wobble. The skin tightened even more as the wobble continued internally.

  He’s gonna blow.

  I felt his piggy eyes on me as I set off running down the street dodging puddles, each step taking me farther from his unnerving gaze and dreadful toupee. A smile edged across my face. I staggered into the motel car park laughing so hard I could hardly remain upright.

  Chapter Nine

  Bitter Wine

  I signed into the Butterfly Foundation website and then into the chat room as invisible. I didn’t want everyone knowing I was checking up on them. All seemed fine: a bunch of kids were chatting about school stuff, and the moderators were watching. Something flickered on my screen, then I saw Mac’s screen name pop up. We were invisible to everyone except each other and I wasn’t surprised to see him.

  Galileo: What’s up?

  I stared at his question in the purple chat box on my screen. While I was staring he typed again.

  Galileo: Ellie?

  Me: Did you sort out the problem with Eddie?

  I waited as Mac typed for what seemed like ages. Finally the words appeared in the chat window.

  Galileo: He’s left his wife; she and their kids have been over at mom and dad’s bleating on about Eddie and what a loser he is. Dad wanted me to talk with Eddie. Mom is frantically stringing Christmas lights. I think she has smoked her way through an entire pack of cigarettes in the last two hours and, apparently, Eddie has a girlfriend.

  Me: Can you come down?

  I could see my words on the screen: they screamed, ‘There’s a problem here!’ And I wanted to erase them, wishing I hadn’t been so quick to press enter. He had enough to worry about back at home. Hadn’t I said he could take the rest of the day and try to sort it out? Yes, I had.

  I needed him to focus on the case without all the drama going on back home and the millions of phone calls from his mom and brother. I also needed my right arm back. Something wasn’t right with the case.

  My phone rang. I snatched it off the table and answered it with a calm I did not feel, “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself. Everything okay?”

  I wanted to say, ‘Everything sucks big time and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.’ The words caught in my throat and somehow, when they broke free, they were different. Remarkably different. “Everything’s okay.”

  There was silence for a beat or two, “Everything’s okay but you want me to come down?”

  “Yes.” I was really struggling to tell him what was going on but the words were frozen on my tongue and refused to slip through my teeth. Yet again Mac needed to be a mind reader.

  I heard him laugh.

  “It’s not funny,” I grumbled.

  “Yeah, it’s funny. I’m on my way, babe,” he said. “Everything’s always okay. You could have a partially severed
foot and you’d still be okay.”

  I needed a new word. I wouldn’t be okay with a partially severed foot.

  “Soon?” I sounded more hopeful than I’d intended, I missed him.

  “Very soon.” I could hear him moving about the house. “Want me to bring you anything?”

  A suture kit to reattach my foot? I wriggled my feet. Neither of them seemed loose. Nope, didn’t need a suture kit.

  “A copy of our book?”

  “I’ll bring it.”

  I paced the room moving ever closer to the motel bed with each pass. “Would you bring my charm bracelet?” Would that protect me from whatever evil was running about killing and leaving parts of my poems? I had no clue but it sure couldn’t hurt.

  “Anything else?”

  “I think that’ll do it.”

  “And everything’s okay?”

  I bit back a smile. “Yeah, everything’s okay.”

  “Luv ya, babe. Will be with you in a few hours.”

  “Love you, too.”

  I hung up and flopped back on the bed still holding the phone in my hand. Countless thoughts fought for priority inside my tired mind. I drifted off to sleep while watching them all struggle. In my dreams, I held a crazy hope that answers would materialize as if by magic and be waiting for me upon waking.

  A loud banging at my door startled me from sleep. I stumbled getting up off the bed, tripping over a pair of shoes.

  I kicked them out of my way. The banging continued.

  I stood a few feet from the shoes, staring at them. Kicking them should’ve hurt. Why didn’t it? My eyes flicked to my feet; I was still wearing running shoes. I must’ve been tired to fall asleep with shoes on. Another loud bang made me hurry to the door.

  Images of the bloated Russian with his bouffant hairpiece caused a shiver to run down my spine. Peering through the peephole, an eyeball peered back at me. The handle turned in my hand and the door swung open, letting Lee in.

  “Took your time,” he said, pushing the door shut behind him. He carried a brown paper bag in one hand; his jacket bore wet patches on the shoulders and his hair was damp.