Soundbyte (-byte series Book 5)

by Cat Connor

My phone was going nuts every few seconds. I rolled over on the bed and picked up the phone to silence it. Incoming tweets were causing the noise. Sightings of a car that could be the one. People who thought they’d seen a woman matching the description of Maria. I waded through them all. One caught my eye. Just one.

  I jumped up and went back to my laptop. I needed to find the person who’d tweeted it. It was the only sighting anywhere near Harper’s Ferry. So it could be Maria.

  The person behind the tweet was not one of my followers but one of mine re-tweeted my request and she’d answered. I found the origin.

  One tweet later I’d added the person and asked that she add me. Then I could send her a private message. She did. Always nice when people want to help. I direct messaged her with my phone number and asking for more information.

  “You got something?” Kurt said.

  “I hope so.”

  My phone announced an unknown caller.

  “Special Agent Conway speaking.”

  “It’s Carmel from Twitter.” She sounded nervous.

  “Thanks for calling,” I replied injecting bounce and happiness into my words. “I appreciate your help. What can you tell me about the woman you saw?”

  She hesitated then cleared her throat. Words spilled forth. “I was at work in Harper’s Ferry. First, I saw her getting out of a pickup truck with a man. I was outside having a cigarette, and the truck pulled up just down the street. I finished my smoke and I went back inside. They came in not long after me. He was wearing like, army clothes, or something.”

  I got a description of the clothes and of him, then of the woman. The woman on the phone served them in the store. He’d bought coffee and grilled cheese sandwiches for them both. They sat in a booth to eat.

  I grasped at straws when I asked my next question. “Any chance the table where they sat hasn’t been cleared?”

  “They came in right before closing. I was going to do it soon as I cashed up.”

  Maybe God does exist.

  “Can you do something very important for me?” I said, stressing the importance with careful enunciation.

  “I guess.”

  “Don’t touch the table or anything on it until I get there.”

  “I dunno. I need to go home …”

  “I’m half an hour away, three quarters tops.”

  I signaled to Kurt to grab our gear. Someone knocked on the door. I smelled pizza. Hunger rumbled.

  “Can I get someone else to wait for you, I need to go home.”

  Not really.

  “Gimme your number, lock up, go home. I’ll call when I arrive.”

  “Okay.” She read out her cell phone number which I added to my phone’s directory.

  “Thank you, Carmel,” I said. “Just remember not to touch anything they used at the table, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  The smell of meat lover’s pizza filled the room as I hung up. Kurt was eating. I took a slice. Sam and Lee walked into the room. Drawn by pizza.

  I chewed and swallowed then filled them all in.

  “So much for spending a quiet night here,” Sam replied, taking another slice of pizza. Cheese dripped from the cut edges.

  “We could, but that would mean the woman wouldn’t be able to open her store until we’ve dusted for prints in the morning.”

  Sam nodded. “It’s good of her to help.”

  “Goes some way to restoring my faith in human nature,” Lee said, opening the second pizza box and surveying the contents before choosing his piece. “How’d you come by this information?”

  “Twitter,” I said, taking a slice with lots of ham and little pineapple. Everyone stopped chewing and stared at me. “Swallow before the pizza falls out of your mouths.”

  “Twitter?” Lee said, shaking a limp piece of pizza at me. “Twitter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me you’re not using hash tags again.”

  “I’m not using hash tags.” For this anyway. “I sent out a request, saying we were looking for a woman and gave a description. I said she was traveling with a man and they may have been heading to Harper’s Ferry. That fitted with what Sandra told us about Campbell having a cabin there.”

  “Good use of social networking, O Genie of the Twitterverse,” Lee said right before he took a huge bite of his pizza slice.

  “I thought so.” I finished eating. Pizza almost made up for the sleep deprivation. “When we’re done here we’ll pack up our gear and head out to Harper’s Ferry.”

  “We’re moving on?” Lee said. “Already?”

  “I believe they have hotels and such in Harper’s Ferry.”

  Twenty-Three

  To The Fire

  Rain pelted the car. Visibility shrank to a few feet.

  It’d be a crying shame if we didn’t bring Maria out of this unscathed. I hoped she was safe. Rain poured from the sky rendering the window wipers damn near useless.

  It was a slower drive than I’d envisaged. Traffic was minimal. Not surprising. If we hadn’t needed to be on the road we wouldn’t be. Driving in this sort of rain was not my choice, but a warm trail made it a duty.

  Sam and Lee were behind us. Every now and then the headlights from their car broke through the rain to illuminate the interior of ours. I found the sudden light comforting. The good thing about the night was the lack of wind. At least we weren’t being blown all over Route 340.

  Lightning flashed. Thunder rumbled. Hail followed.

  Kurt and I looked at each other for a second.

  “This is not fun,” Kurt said.

  “This is …” The road almost disappeared under a curtain of hail. “… is ridiculous,” I said.

  Kurt swore. His hands moved on the steering wheel. The car swerved, skidded, and came to a halt over a mile marker.

  “I think it’s dead,” I muttered as both our phones rang.

  “There was something on the road,” Kurt said. Behind the hail pounding the car roof and the phones, I heard voices yelling.

  My door was wrenched open. Lee’s face peered in at me. Hail became rain.

  “Chicky?”

  “Uh huh,” I replied.

  “Okay?”

  “Uh huh.”

  Sam opened Kurt’s door. I looked over. Kurt gritted his teeth and smiled at me. Scary.

  Water ran off Sam’s bald head and onto Kurt.

  “What the hell happened?” Sam said.

  “There was something on the road. Didn’t you see it?” Kurt replied.

  “No,” Sam pulled back out the car, leaving a puddle on Kurt’s pants. He shone his flashlight onto the road behind us, sweeping the beam of light across the shiny road surface as he walked away. “Found it.”

  He ran, almost disappearing into the murky wet night.

  We jumped out of the car and followed.

  Sam was kneeling next to something dark on the side of the road. Rain ran in rivers around the shape. “Kurt!” Sam yelled.

  Kurt slid to a stop by Sam’s legs.

  “Crap,” Kurt said. “Conway, get paramedics out here. She’s hurt.”

  The shape lay face down on the gravel and moaned.

  “Did we hit her?” I was sure we didn’t.

  “Nope. She’s been shot.” Kurt was checking for other injuries. Sam held a flashlight steady on the woman. Kurt turned her with care and carried on with the examination. “Left shoulder and lower right abdomen.”

  I unzipped my jacket and used it to shelter my phone. I called 9-1-1 after checking on our GPS to find our location. We were about a third of a mile back from the Union Street intersection. Lee disappeared while I was talking. He arrived back carrying Kurt’s medical bag and a large umbrella. Lee held the umbrella over the woman and Kurt. Sam held the flashlight. I went for road flares and set up a perimeter to help guide emergency services and keep traffic away from us. The rain persisted but diminished in volume.

  I dropped to one knee next to Kurt.

  “Do you know who she is?”


  “No, nothing in her pockets. See if you can find anything on the road. She came from somewhere.”

  I used her position to track backwards. “Rain will have washed away any blood trail.”

  Lucky for whoever did this.

  I scoured the wet road. Rain ran down inside my collar. Pretty soon, I was as wet as if I hadn’t worn a jacket at all. Nothing on the saturated ground stood out.

  Kurt called me back. I hurried over and crouched down. “Check out her shirt, she’s wearing a work shirt, uniform.”

  “Where does she work?”

  Kurt pointed to a ripped piece of shirt and a partial name. I could make out the last two letters. E and L.

  “At a diner by the look of it.”

  My heart sank. Melting into the rain puddles on the side of the road. “Carmel?”

  The woman whimpered. Her eyes opened then closed.

  “You know her?” Kurt said. He ripped open a package with his teeth. I took out the contents for him. “Put that here.” He lifted his hand from the woman’s shoulder. I placed the wound pad and he put his hand back, pressing hard. “Can you hold this?”

  He moved his hand and I took over.

  “Sure. I think she is the woman who called me.”

  While I kept pressure on the shoulder wound, he turned his attention and free hands to her abdomen, and I tested out my theory. “Carmel, I am Special Agent Conway.”

  She blinked and said, “I called you.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was robbed, on my way home from work.”

  “You were walking?” In this rain, that didn’t seem right.

  “I live over there,” she said trying to point then became confused. “I don’t know where I am.”

  “Just down the road from Union Street.”

  “By home,” she replied. Her face contorted with pain.

  “Sorry,” Kurt replied. “I need to press hard.”

  “Carmel, where do you live?”

  “Across the road from the hotel.”

  Sirens sounded.

  “Where did this happen?”

  “I was almost home. Two men took my bag.”

  “And shot you,” I added.

  “They said no one would get hurt.” Her breathing was ragged. Tears rolled from her eyes and trickled into her wet hair. “If I didn’t give them the bag they’d shoot me.”

  You can’t trust criminals.

  The sirens screamed closer. The wail drifting as they approached.

  “Do you recognize them?” I said, flipping through photos on my phone for ones of Iain Campbell and the Unsub from the jewelers. I was beginning to think our Unsub was John Brown. No one had been able to provide us with a clear photograph of the man who was supposed to be Maria’s boyfriend. I showed her the first of the pictures on my phone, the Unsub from the jeweler store.

  “He was the one with the woman this evening,” she replied.

  “You’re sure?” My heart thumped. Now we just needed to identify the man.

  “Yes. Him.”

  I swiped my finger over the screen revealing the next photo. “Seen him before?”

  “No.”

  “Did either of them attack you?”

  “No.”

  Everyone knows how I feel about coincidence and yet here we were face to face with one. The attack on Carmel seemed unrelated to the appearance of Maria in the diner, and not related to Carmel calling me. I was surprised that Carmel didn’t identify Iain Campbell as the man with Maria. She identified our Unsub, the mysterious John Brown.

  So where was Campbell?

  An ambulance cruised to a stop close by. Doors opened. I was running out of time.

  “Carmel, did Maria say anything to you?”

  “She said …” She turned her head to look at me. “She said something to the man. She said he’d saved her.”

  “Do you think they knew each other well?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you.”

  Paramedics crowded in under the umbrella. I hurried away to our car, grateful to be warm and out of the rain.

  Maria thinks the Unsub saved her? The developing intrigue was full of brain scrambling potential.

  An odd thought crossed my mind. Sometimes your knight in shining armor is just an idiot wrapped in tinfoil. In this case, a killer wrapped in tinfoil. She wasn’t safe. Where was Campbell?

  Kurt opened the driver’s door.

  “Let’s check into the Holiday Inn over there and get dry,” he said, pulling the seat belt across his body. “We can’t do much to find Maria in this weather.”

  He was right. We had no idea where she was. Knowing where she’d been was helpful in determining we were on the right track.

  “Let’s give the local park ranger a call once we’ve checked in.” He may know something useful. It was certainly better than twiddling our thumbs.

  We opted for one double room. All we needed was a base. Somewhere dry to make calls and plans. I pushed Doc toward the bathroom. “Shower.”

  He looked at his clothes.

  “I won’t be long.”

  “Good because there’s a queue for that shower.”

  I shrugged out of my wet jacket and hung it over a chair. Doc was right, he wasn’t long. I jumped into the shower right after him. The bathroom felt like a sauna. My eyes glanced at the large mirrors; I didn’t want to look too long in case Mac appeared. Tonight I just wanted to get clean, warm, and dry, and get to the diner where Carmel worked before the evidence disappeared and find that cabin.

  Hold that thought.

  I showered fast, dressed faster and hurried out into the main room while towel drying my hair.

  “We need to get to the diner,” I said.

  Lee headed into the bathroom.

  “She identified our Unsub and Maria,” Doc replied, suggesting there was no rush.

  “I know, but it was the Unsub not Campbell. I want his prints. We know squat about that guy.”

  My gut told me the Unsub was Brown. But I had no proof. Brown, the guy who gave his address as the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Top marks for creativity. Brown, the man who wasn’t in any photographs, not even cozy ones with his girlfriend.

  “How are we going to get in?”

  “Pretty sure I can pick a lock,” I replied.

  Doc smiled. “I’m sure you can too. And how are we going to get in?”

  “Thought I’d try enlisting local police help.”

  He nodded his approval. “I bet they’ll be thrilled to know we think there is a killer in their quaint little town.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time.” Harper’s Ferry was no stranger to killers or police chases.

  Once we were all showered, dry and clean we found the local cop with the help of the hotel front desk and explained our situation. He was obliging and took us to the diner where Carmel worked. Nice thing about a small town is everyone knows everyone else, and where they work. We gave him the run down on Carmel’s injuries and suggested he get himself to the hospital as soon as he could to interview her regarding the shooting. To be shot twice after handing over the cash was way over the top.

  One table hadn’t been cleared. There was a note sitting on top of the salt and pepper shakers, asking that no one touch anything. We gathered evidence from the table, bagging, tagging, hoping for some clear prints. Intel and the need for answers, sooner rather than later, kicked in. Back at the hotel, I watched as Lee uncovered latent prints on both coffee cups. He photographed them with his phone then added the photos to the FBI fingerprint database application. Yes, there is an app for that. Technology is our friend. He also emailed the photos to Sandra. She’d run them against all the databases when she arrived at work in the morning. Meanwhile Lee’s phone application did what it does.

  I put a call into the local park ranger and ended up leaving a message on his answer machine to call me back.

  We ate a late dinner in the hotel dining roo
m, despite the pizza we’d all consumed earlier. This time we weren’t in a hurry. Dinner was pleasant, yet unremarkable. It was food. The coffee was good.

  Back in the room, Lee had zero hits from the fingerprints.

  “How is that possible?”

  “He’s not on any of the databases attached to the application,” Lee stated.

  “Sandra should be able to get a hit though?”

  “Yeah, she has the full power of our system at her disposal.”

  I flopped onto my bed. “You know how we considered Brown was a spook?”

  Lee’s head shook. “Don’t go there yet. It makes no sense for him to be a spook and be killing a jeweler’s family.”

  “It makes screw all sense him being an independent contractor and killing the family,” I replied.

  Doc sat on the edge of the bed. “There is not much sense to be made here at all. Misha might be able to shed some light when he brings the remaining Bleich boy back.”

  Zachary. Yeah.

  “Did we ever look into that Heathcote Diamond?” Sam said, fishing his laptop from his satchel.

  “Don’t think so. We have no confirmation of anything missing, so no reason to.”

  “Maybe I’ll just do some poking around.”

  “Good thinking.”

  Better to do something productive than sit there twiddling his thumbs.

  There was a knock at the door. Kurt opened it.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” said the server who waited on our table downstairs. “I thought you might need the tea and coffee replenished.”

  “Sure, come in,” Kurt said.

  Our conversation paused as the woman did whatever she did by the coffee pot and electric kettle.

  “I left some hot chocolate sachets, they’re quite good ones,” she said then left the room. The door shut behind her.

  Hot chocolate sounded good. Kurt must’ve picked up on my thoughts, because he decided to make drinks for everyone. He opted for tea; Lee and Sam wanted coffee and I chose chocolate. This met with approval from Kurt; he’d been trying for weeks to wean me off coffee at night.

  While Kurt delivered our drinks, I carried on with my thoughts about the current situation. “When was Misha due to arrive?”

  Everyone knew it was rhetoric. I knew when he was arriving. Women all over the world heralded his arrival by turning the next page in their current Mills and Boon novel and swooning as he stormed across the field to rescue them from a life of drudgery. I was in bad shape. First Kurt and the Kevin Costner thing and now Misha was back to being someone from a trashy romance novel. I was seconds away from seeing him as Doctor Luka Kovač from ER and it wouldn’t be the first time Misha became Luka to me.