The NightShade Forensic Files: Fracture Five (Book 2)

by A. J. Scudiere

  Eleri nodded and asked him for dates, which he readily supplied. She quickly realized she was going to have to call bullshit if she was going to get anything. It was a gamble, but she took it.

  "You continued seeing Dr. Gardiner after he supposedly discharged you, didn't you?" She tipped her head, asked it as though it was just another question. She was up against a trained interrogator and Green Beret. She had nothing on his skills and she knew it.

  "I don't understand." No expression.

  "You continued to see Dr. Gardiner. I don't know if he charged you or not, but you had regular appointments with him . . . under another name."

  For a moment his expression stilled and she could tell he was deciding what to tell her. "Yes."

  She let it go, didn't act as though he had conceded anything. "You have a diagnosis of PTSD?"

  "No." He didn't move.

  "You don't have an official diagnosis?" Eleri waited while he shook his head. "You do have it, though."

  It wasn't really a question. He didn't answer.

  "It's severe, if intermittent," she commented. He couldn't really deny it. She'd seen it. Either he had PTSD so bad that he was pulling a loaded Army regulation handgun on his friends, or he was an Oscar-quality actor and a grade-A asshole.

  This time he nodded.

  Why wouldn't he be officially diagnosed? Why wasn't he getting real treatment? Giving in to her desire to understand, she just flat out asked.

  Folding his hands in front of him, Cooper Rollins returned fire with a question of his own. "What do you know of my military history?"

  Eleri threw that one to Marina, who could probably recite it from memory. And she did, right through to the end. "Though, as you know, a good portion of your raids, or assignments, are redacted in your paperwork, we do know that you returned from an assignment that went sideways and were medically discharged with no diagnosis within ten hours."

  Right as Marina rolled it smoothly off her tongue, Eleri regretted it. She'd just tipped her hand that Cooper Rollins wasn't as casual of an interview as she'd wanted him to seem. She was going to have to play it off, but he spoke up.

  For the first time his face offered some level of expression. His mouth twisted down at one side, up at the other. "That's the military for you. Years of service to get in, just a few papers in as many hours to push you out."

  "I'm sorry." It rolled off her tongue sincerely. He'd loved what he did. He'd clearly felt he was part of something bigger than himself and that the work was important. Then he'd been betrayed by his colleagues and screwed over by his government. Now he was becoming the prime suspect in a disturbing set of murders. Eleri didn't envy him at all.

  "I know you served under Colonel Ratz, and that he wrote your recommendation letter into the Green Berets. And I know he did it right when you had the minimum number of years of service to qualify and that he gave you highest marks." She paused, "So this wasn't just your commanding officer. You had a solid relationship with the man." Another pause. "Did you keep in touch with him? Or get back in touch with him once you returned home?"

  "No."

  Marina's foot tapped the side of hers under the table. And Eleri agreed: he was lying. But she let it go.

  This time Cooper Rollins volunteered something. "I didn't kill Ratz. And I didn't kill Dr. Gardiner either."

  Marina's foot didn't tap hers. Eleri spoke quickly. "I know that."

  "How do you know it? You don't know who did kill them, or you wouldn't have me here." He looked hard at her, his eyes narrowing as he tried to figure out what she was about. He was no longer hiding it.

  "I don't know who did it. But I do know it wasn't you."

  Marina Vasquez didn't comment. Probably thought Eleri was playing him. It seemed Cooper did, too.

  "How?"

  "I can't disclose how I know." Not if she wanted Vasquez—or anyone really—to think she was sane.

  He was clearly unsatisfied with her answer, but before he could say so, she threw him another question.

  "Did you know that your alias was on the appointment list the day Dr. Gardiner was killed?"

  He nodded. "I got a call cancelling my appointment. They said the doctor was sick. But that's happened before. Usually Katie stays and answers the phones, handles the records, even if he's out." He paused, maybe wondering what he should tell, or maybe feeling something at the loss of the man who had helped him. "I went over later to check in with Katie. Get out of the house. Katie wasn't there and his office door was closed. So I opened it and checked."

  He looked away, and Eleri got the distinct impression he was telling the truth and that the truth hurt him.

  "It was stupid. I smelled it. I shouldn't have opened the door." He brought his eyes up to meet hers. "I did exactly what Dr. Gardiner taught me to do. I closed my eyes, breathed in through my mouth and reminded myself that I was in CONUS." When Marina frowned, he added, "Continental US—Stateside. I told myself it was all in my head. Then I turned the knob to his office and saw it. So I told myself that it was nothing and that I was just seeing things. But nothing made it go away."

  Eleri nodded at him.

  PTSD was a disease of time loops. A trigger could take a person back to a traumatic situation. Apparently Cooper Rollins had a buttload of them to draw on. Once in the grip of the trigger, the loop would continue until it played out or was dislodged. A man who'd seen colleagues blow up before his eyes, a man who had lost a third of his command never to be seen again, and the living third helped drag the remaining third, dead, back to base, could easily have thought what was in Dr. Gardiner’s office was really in his head.

  "Knowing no one would believe me," he offered that first line with a challenge, but Eleri didn't rise to the bait and Marina stayed silent. "I wiped down the door knob and left. I know I destroyed evidence, but I destroyed it when I touched it in the first place."

  He was obviously ashamed of his lack of forethought and at the same time defending what were actually perfectly reasonable actions.

  "Whoever it was," Eleri didn't say 'Aziza' though she knew, "wiped down all the knobs and desk surfaces before they left. It wasn't you."

  Then she asked another question. "Did you know that all your files are missing from Dr. Gardiner's office?"

  13

  Donovan was having no real luck with Walter Reed.

  What she hadn't volunteered was that she'd been given a medal for the incidence that cost her hand and leg—a Bronze Star—for bravery in combat. Though, as she'd pointed out, technically she wasn't listed as having been in combat because she was female.

  She'd showed off her prosthesis, or really just held up her lower leg. The leg of the camo pants was tightly tied around the metal of the flexible scoop. It wasn't designed for show, it was for speed and balance, like what the paralympic runners used. That completely meshed with what he knew of Walter.

  She wasn’t used to being called Lucy, and hadn't answered to it in almost a decade. She'd been "Fisher" in the service and "Walter Reed" since she'd finished rehab.

  Yes, she understood there were programs for vets, to help place her in a job and a home. And, no, she didn't really give a shit.

  She'd held up her left arm, the shirt sleeve pinned up in place of the missing hand. "They wanted me in a desk job, which I'm obviously not suited for. It would be a pity position anyway, it's not like I'm a fast typist. And I refuse to answer phones. I'm good where I am, for now."

  When he'd followed the thread of her "for now," Donovan learned that she was pursuing a PI license, and he tried to use that as an 'in' to get her to talk about Cooper.

  She only knew him through Ozzy and the 'square'—as she called it. She'd been in the Middle East, but as there were tens of thousands of US troops there, it wasn't surprising that they had been at some of the same bases, maybe even at the same times, but never met.

  Then things finally got interesting. Walter started volunteering information. But Donovan had to pretend he hadn't heard it before
and he spent most of his time not really listening but dissecting. He needed the things he didn't already know. And he needed to pluck it out of her speech so he could ask the right questions without seeming psychic or like he'd planted a bug—or a dog—in their compound.

  "Ozzy asked me to follow Cooper, and I decided I should. Something is up with him, but I can't figure out exactly what." She leaned back in the chair, looking lazy, irritated, and a little jumpy. Donovan was confident she wasn't actually any of those things.

  With this case, the people who might help them out were vaporized or had Special Forces training. Donovan was smart enough to know that he couldn't play games with Walter. His six months in the FBI Academy had left him as no match for her MARSOC training. So he did the only thing he could. He quit writing, leaned across the table and started a real conversation.

  "Why did Ozzy want you to follow him?"

  "Honestly, he suggested I seduce Rollins or something like that." She waved her good hand and erased all possibility of that thought. "I'm not a nineteen-sixties spy girl a-la Bond. I'm recon trained." She shook her head. "Normally, Ozzy doesn't come across as sexist, but sometimes his age shows."

  Donovan nodded. "I find that to be true in an older population. How do you respect them without telling them off?"

  She laughed. "It's a fine line with Ozzy some days. He just didn’t like that Rollins disappeared sometimes, thought it was suspicious that he wouldn’t talk about it. So I did some covert follows on Rollins. Let me tell you, that was fun. Except for the part where he might kill me or whatnot if he found me. And the fact that the dude has some bad-ass PTSD."

  Donovan knew that already, but he wondered what Walter had seen of it. He was getting ready to ask when she started talking again. "I saw him have two full blown episodes, not including the one your partner came in on tonight. Was she following him?"

  Donovan nodded but went after the PTSD, hopefully brushing off Eleri's amazingly timely arrival. "We've been trying to find him for about a week. When we find him, we lose him—or probably, he loses us. We weren't sure about the PTSD though. What did you see?"

  "Once, a slamming door set him off. I watched him deal—or not deal—for twenty minutes. He hightailed it down the street, blending in, but ducked into a doorway on the first empty shop he found. He picked the lock and hid behind the counter in what was left of the old store. Tactically, it was a good move. But no one was after him. After about half an hour, he crept out and went on his way."

  Thirty minutes? Donovan thought. That was a long episode. Then again, no one was helping like they had tonight when just about everyone had tried to talk him down. "Did he pull a weapon?"

  Quickly, Donovan backtracked, trying to figure out how he legitimately knew that fact, but Walter passed it off. It probably made sense he'd gotten a rundown from Eleri while Walter and Rollins waited.

  "Maybe?" She shrugged. "He was hidden—and well—a lot of the time. He was carrying though. So it's entirely possible."

  Shit. The man was dangerous enough when he was stone-cold sober. In a full-blown PTSD episode like Donovan saw tonight, he was insanely deadly. From Walter’s comments, it wasn't as rare a happening as Donovan wanted to believe. They would have to get Cooper Rollins off the street before he killed someone. But they needed him on the street to see where he led.

  "Here's the thing." Walter interrupted his thoughts. "The reason I'm in here talking is that Rollins has a problem, and I don't know if he's working a black ops case and we shouldn't get in his way, or if he's turned and we need to shoot on sight."

  Clearly, she was conflicted. "Tell me what you know."

  It was a broad statement, and she didn't have to do it, but she did. "Tonight . . ." She looked out the window briefly at the sun coming in through faint rays, "last night he said Ozzy was Jaysh al-Islam and he called me 'Aziza'."

  Donovan waited and Walter didn't disappoint.

  "Jaysh al-Islam is one of the many rebel factions over there. It roughly translates to 'Army of Islam' but they’re in Syria. Cooper seemed to think they had infiltrated Iraq." She paused. "I have an idea what he did over there, though only an idea. The problem is he could be hallucinating a bunch of mixed up shit or he could have some real intel the rest of us just don't know yet. I can’t tell the difference."

  "I'm having the same problem with him." Donovan sympathized, though not because it was an interrogation tactic. He really felt for her trying to figure out just what the hell Cooper Rollins was up to, and she'd been doing it with far fewer resources than they had.

  "Also, Aziza is someone he met. She looks like an American college kid, and I followed Rollins to her and her to a . . . group."

  "Describe the group?" Walter didn't look comfortable with this, and that just made Donovan more interested.

  "It's a variety of people. But two are Aziza and her sister Alya. They’re from Fallujah and they've got an axe to grind with the US. The others were harder to trace."

  Holy shit. Walter was a fucking gold mine.

  "Rollins was in talks with them, on several different occasions. But they seem to want him to join. They're trying to get him to be the blond-and-blue."

  Eleri stuck her head into the room where Donovan was supposed to be interviewing Walter Reed, a.k.a. Lucy Fisher. But it looked like they were just having a casual conversation.

  She wanted to ask about it, but couldn't. Right now she couldn't help it, she had to interrupt and derail him. At least she wouldn't question him.

  "Agent Heath?" She used the formal with him in an attempt to maintain any authority he needed in the situation.

  Donovan brushed it right off. "Eleri, are you finished? Come in." He gestured for her to sit at the table with them. So she joined, not knowing where this was headed but figuring she'd find out soon enough.

  He tapped his hand on the table then looked up at Walter, who had been talking when Eleri opened the door, but had stayed silent since. "Walter, you have to be hungry. What can we get you?"

  The woman almost snorted. "Breakfast. But I'd love a diet Coke."

  Donovan turned to Eleri, "Can we make that happen?"

  She knew that by 'we' he meant her. He was into something, that was for certain. "Of course." She looked at the soldier sitting across from her, more stoic now than when she'd first walked in. "We can't take you out anywhere, but I can get the diet Coke. Later, when we're done here, we can definitely feed you."

  Shit. That came out wrong.

  Walter, like the rest of them, was proud of her self-sufficient status. It wouldn't be a problem except that she spent a good part of her day with people telling her to get off their sidewalk. The "we'll feed you" comment may have come across as demeaning, though Eleri hadn't meant it that way.

  Donovan shocked her by catching the gaffe and saving it. "That would be great. I'm starving." Then he suggested a place he'd seen nearby, and asked Walter if she knew if it was any good. She relaxed again, but didn't resume her chatty nature.

  "Donovan," Eleri touched his arm. "Can I talk to you in the hallway for a minute?"

  He looked to her, then to Walter, then back to Eleri, though she couldn't read what he was trying to convey. She was going to have to ride this out in front of Walter.

  "Eleri, Walter was telling me that Jaysh al-Islam is a rebel group out of Syria, but that Cooper seems to think they are—or at least were—in Iraq."

  Eleri raised her eyebrows, looking between the two. She'd heard that earlier, when Cooper Rollins had his gun on Walter. She turned to the woman and asked directly now. "And Aziza? Do you know her?"

  Donovan nodded to Walter in a small gesture and the gates opened. Her face grew more animated and it became clear she was repeating what she'd said to Donovan earlier. Eleri listened to how Walter had followed Cooper on more than one occasion, that she'd seen Aziza, Alya, and a few others.

  Donovan added in, "She was just telling me that they want Rollins to join them."

  "Shit. That's not good." She no
rmally didn't swear in interviews. Just like when she was a kid and she had friend-language and parent-language, but it had slipped out. Rollins' past could have him on either side of the game, and after a few minutes she had Walter saying the same thing. Despite having followed the man several times, and thinking she'd managed to stay off his radar, Walter couldn't say for sure one way or the other.

  Donovan had been right. Walter was the resource, not Rollins. So Eleri took a chance. "Rollins just left. We can't hold him for anything. He's just a person of interest."

  She didn't say more. Didn't know what Donovan had told Walter about the bombings, about the suspicions of terrorism.

  Donovan picked up on what Eleri hadn't said, and he laid it out there for Walter. "We need to follow him." Then he turned to Eleri, "Tell me you bugged him."

  She let out a bark. "Yeah, I successfully placed a device on a Green Beret! . . . I didn't even begin to try."

  The bugs she had access to, he would find. Cooper Rollins had probably stopped within the block and checked himself. Or he was good enough to know she hadn't tagged him.

  Donovan leaned across the table, clearly having made friends with Walter. "If we give you the information, can you get his phone? Download an app to follow him?"

  "Won't he find that?" Walter said it but Eleri had the same question.

  Donovan answered them both. "It doesn't matter. If we get even a day or two of info out of it, it will be beyond useful."

  "He can't know it was us." Eleri cautioned.

  "Walter here is studying to become a PI. I'll bet she can find us something."

  Walter nodded, then added. "Maybe I can tack a listening program into it. See if he really is becoming the group's blond-and-blue."

  Eleri jerked back and both Walter and Donovan leaned forward to her, speaking over each other.

  "You know what that means?"

  They said the words almost in unison, but Donovan's revealed that he didn't, while Walter's tone showed that she was pleased that Eleri did know.