Exacerbyte (Ellie Conway Book 3)

by Cat Connor

  “I’ve got your phone number.” He grinned. “That one didn’t work, huh?”

  “Not so much.”

  “Okay, what about this then … I’ve read your blog.”

  I leaned forward, napkin in hand and wiped his lip. “You have a little smudge … Oh … it’s a tiny bit of bullshit stuck to your lip.”

  He laughed.

  “I read it.” There was pure sincerity in his expression.

  “You’ve got better things to do than read my blog.”

  “Apparently not.” Rowan laughed and then quickly began to précis my last three blog entries.

  Instantly suspicious, I looked around the room and discovered my laptop open on the couch.

  “How much are you willing to bet that I’ll find a recent entry in my online history indicating someone accessed my blog this morning?”

  Rowan grinned. “I never said when I read it, just that I had.”

  Damn!

  “You should update that by the way. You have a lot of comments asking where you are.”

  “I’ll get right to it.”

  A generous knocking at the internal door halted the conversation.

  “Work beckons,” I said.

  He stood up. “I’ll see you later.”

  “Maybe. Good luck tonight.”

  He let himself out as I opened the adjoining doors and let in Sam, Lee and Sean.

  “There’s coffee,” I told them and disappeared to ditch the robe.

  Their voices followed me. “Coffee and breakfast for two,” Sean commented. “Where’s Doc?” I heard a cupboard open and close. “She didn’t stuff him in the cupboard.”

  Then Sam said, “Guess we know who the other person was – and it wasn’t Doc.”

  I joined them a few minutes later, swinging my handbag from my fingers. Lee’s expression indicated he had something on his mind and I figured we should get it out of the way before I shared the contents of my bag.

  “Come on, spit it out.” I gave his leg a shove.

  His tongue flicked nervously over his lips. Nerves? From Lee? Color me surprised.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Give him a chance Ellie,” Lee said, inclining his head back toward the hallway.

  “Him?” I couldn’t think of a ‘him’ except Rowan Grange. “You mean Grange?”

  He nodded. “He’s not like us; it’s not a bad thing.”

  “A chance?”

  Lee sighed loudly and whistled through his teeth.

  “He likes you. Play nice.”

  Moi?

  “Well, he hasn’t given me anything to play with yet.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt a pang of regret exponentially increase by the widening grin on Lee’s face.

  “Not even gonna touch that,” he replied.

  “Me either. It’s gonna haunt me though, ain’t it?”

  “Hell yeah.”

  “Good to know.”

  “It won’t hurt you to have some fun.”

  Fun? “He was there while I slurred, stumbled about half blind and fuc’n high. I doubt he thinks I am fun.” It embarrassed me just thinking about it.

  Lee’s posture changed. “He didn’t take advantage?”

  “No, he didn’t. No one in his right mind would’ve tried anything with me – Queen of the Porcelain Throne. Anyway Doc was here.”

  He relaxed again. I smelled a rat, not a rat exactly. More a conspiracy. I tested my theory.

  “You and Sam discuss me much?”

  Sam looked like he wanted to crawl under the chair he sat on.

  “You are the center of our universe,” he replied.

  “Uh huh. Is that close to being the Messiah?”

  “Yeah, Chicky Babe.”

  I could live with that. “Regarding Grange, the best I can promise at this stage, is … not to shoot him.”

  “Good enough,” Sam replied. Sean and Lee laughed. Doc came in the door a few seconds later.

  He grinned. “You look better.”

  “I feel better, thank you.” I actually meant it.

  “I’ll grab a shower,” Doc said. He shut the bedroom door behind him.

  “You two getting on okay?” Lee asked.

  “Yeah, he’s all right,” I replied. “Don’t get any freaky ideas. I’m not there yet with the whole dating thing. You don’t need to vet every man I come across as a potential suitor.”

  Lee never could pull off innocent. “I didn’t mean that at all.”

  I kicked his leg lightly. “Now, work …”

  From my bag, I withdrew four photographs and dropped them on the table.

  Lee swooped on them first. “Where did these come from? Has Doc seen them?”

  Separating them into groups of two, I explained, “These two were in the doorjamb before we went out last night; the other two were in the doorjamb when we got back. Doc hasn’t seen them. This is fairly significant – seems the freakozoid we’re after likes pictures. Makes a nice change from Post-it notes.”

  “Doc hasn’t seen what?” Doc asked, closing the door behind him. Sam was first to comment. “Jeans? Where’s the suit?”

  “I’m trying something new. What haven’t I seen?” He jumped over an arm of one chair and sat with a plop in the seat.

  Lee gave the pictures to Sam. He spent a few minutes staring at them then gave them to Doc who studied them with care, then placed them back on the table.

  Sean picked them up one by one. “The gym photograph looks like it came from a security camera, as do the arrival and leaving of the casino photographs. But the one at the market – of you and Lee – someone snapped that.”

  “Lee, can you find out who has access to hotel security cameras and where exactly the cameras are; also same deal with the casino.”

  “I’ll add it to the to-do list,” Lee replied. “What do you think this means?”

  “We’re definitely not alone.” I sat on the couch and lifted my laptop onto my knee.

  Sam weighed in, “That porter who delivered the photo of Carla – might pay to have a chat with him. If he didn’t deliver these pictures he may well know who did and who has access to the cameras.”

  I made a note then looked at Sean. “You wanna go dangle the porter over a balcony until he talks? Or maybe introduce him to some fun water sports?”

  I don’t like being watched.

  “With pleasure. Gimme his name.”

  Sam coughed. “Waterboarding isn’t a recognized sport.”

  I flipped a page in my notebook and concentrated on not smiling. “Raymond Huia, he’s a night porter.”

  Sean excused himself. “I’ll be downstairs with that ever-so-helpful concierge. I think he likes me.”

  Sam poured more coffee and sat down.

  “So, tell me how the night went?” I asked.

  “He’s not Hawk. At least we don’t think he’s Hawk. It’s rather hard for us to tell. This Hawk person is as elusive as the Jackal ever was,” Lee said.

  I didn’t need that inference. It gave my warped mind more fodder for more strangeness. It lead to Bruce Willis disguised as a fat greasy Canadian to appear in my head.

  “Do we have an ID on the man?”

  Sam piped up with, “Originally he tried to have us believe he was Jimmy Tudeski. He carried identification that said as much.”

  Lee interrupted, “Just so happens The Whole Nine Yards was a movie I’ve seen a few times. We snapped him and his Bruce Willis character/persona real quick.”

  If just one of them looked like Bruce Willis this would be more entertaining

  “Turns out he is Simon Zubrinich. A Russian national, who works for the Russian diplomatic corps on assignment in New Zealand. His last posting was DC,” Sam said.

  A diplomat. “Well that is fuc’n great,” I bellyached. “And the woman?”

  “He declares he’d only met her at the gaming table about an hour before we interrupted them,” Lee said. He was as unconvinced as I was.

  “We already know he�
�s a liar. They touched. You don’t touch someone you don’t know,” I said. “You don’t pass things to someone you don’t know either.”

  “He reckons he never met her before and that he didn’t give her anything.” Again Lee’s tone implied disbelief.

  “I saw them, they brushed arms and I’m sure he gave something to her.”

  Or the champagne may have made it look like that.

  “I’ll send Turner and Jay to pick her up,” Sam said. “They’re at our disposal.”

  I smiled. “Awesome. Did any of you ask to see her player’s card?”

  Sam nodded. “How’d you know she’d have one?”

  Not much escapes me, even when I’m under the influence. “I noticed they foist them on almost everyone who steps foot in the casino.”

  Sam called Turner and gave them the address for the woman. The nice thing about checking someone’s player card was all the information was right there and verified at the time of issue by photo ID. The casino had name, date of birth and current address on their computer system. All we needed was a name and date of birth to run an in-depth background scan. It could also tell us how often she visited the casino, if she swiped her card while playing slot machines.

  “We need to know more about her. Run her details and see what comes up.” I looked over at the boys. “What is her name?”

  “Stephanie Harris.”

  Sam replied, “Doing it now.”

  I yawned.

  Lee caught it. “Late night?”

  “Yeah,” I replied and said nothing more about it. They knew enough. Doc caught my eye and smiled. I knew then he’d say nothing. “What do we have on the diplomat?”

  “We know he was in the DC region during the Butterfly Murders and he told us he was at one of the crime scenes. Apparently the crime scene on Vale Road was near his home.”

  Sam, Lee and I exchanged pained looks at the mention of the Vale Road crime scene. That was where Sam was stabbed. That was a day we wanted to forget but none of us could. In an instant, I was transported back a year and a half to a stormy night in Virginia.

  Time stood still as the memory enveloped my hotel room and me.

  The first thing I noticed as we re-entered Marie Kline’s home was that the smell hadn’t improved in the absence of her body. The rotting garbage brought stinging tears to my eyes as it assaulted my senses.

  Lee and Sam looked around the rest of the house while Mac and I checked out the kitchen.

  “What do you see?” I watched Mac’s face. I saw concentration and brow furrowing.

  We were standing next to each other in the middle of the filthy, creepy-crawly infested room. Things scuttled out of sight. Shadows made noises. Dark recesses filled with garbage moved inexplicably. Our shoulders touched and without warning, Tammy Wynette slipped into my head and belted out ‘Stand By Your Man’. It was impossible to hold back a smile.

  “I’m drawing a blank here, Babe,” Mac said and turned his face to mine. “You’re smiling.”

  “I’m standing by my man.”

  He laughed. “Tammy’s joined the party, huh?”

  The song stopped. Without warning, heavy footsteps ran from the house.

  Lee hollered, “Sam’s down!”

  Everything faded to gray as I ran toward Lee’s voice with my phone open in my hand, stopping abruptly in front of them both near the back door. It was as filthy as the rest of the house. Sam was sitting on the ground clutching his side, Lee was kneeling beside him.

  “You get a description?” I asked Sam and Lee.

  “Neither of us saw anything,” Lee replied.

  I had Comms on the line and told them to advise all police to be on the lookout for someone running away from the scene. Without a description there wasn’t a lot anyone could do, except hope that someone saw the Unsub leave the premises, or noticed a stranger in the area.

  I hung up and turned my attention to Sam.

  “Sam?”

  “It’s nothing – a flesh wound.” He winced as Lee opened the jacket Sam was wearing. “He hit me from behind, all I saw was a flash of steel in my peripheral vision.”

  Gray became red, deep velvet red, as it spilled through Sam’s cream shirt.

  “Your nothing is bleeding all over,” I replied and made a decision to get him the hell out of there. We could make better time than an ambulance. Especially since emergency services were stretched to capacity by the storm. “Can you move?”

  The dirt around us was a great motivator; the less time our wounded friend spent in the disgusting house the better.

  “With help,” Sam replied.

  Lee applied pressure to the wound. I saw dark, almost black, blood ooze through Lee’s fingers.

  I looked into Sam’s dark brown eyes. “You still with us, Chicky Babe?”

  Doc looked at me, his brow furrowed.

  “Yep, and so are you,” I replied.

  “Vale?”

  “Vale.”

  I wiped my face with my hands and quietly thanked God for sparing Sam’s life that day.

  “You’re okay, I’m okay and we’re okay.” I took a breath. “How’d you go pulling crowd photos and running a facial comparison?”

  Doc relaxed again. “Lee was right about being at the Vale scene. He was there and it was definitely him we photographed watching as the house burned down. Found him at the Colts Neck scene in Reston too.”

  “Reston was the scene where we found the first bugs and wireless cameras. It was pouring with rain that night. I remember being horrified that so many people stood in the rain rubbernecking,” I thought aloud. The personal impact from Reston was a lot less than the toll taken by the Vale Road scene.

  Lee nodded and added, “And we have him at Tulley Gate from the security footage, showing a military pass to gain access to the Fort. Coincidentally the same day you were jacked.”

  Tulley Gate wasn’t good. I’d chosen to meet an informant there and it ended badly. The Fort became the location of a siege after I was the victim of a carjacking. I had a knife fight with a Marine and a bullet nicked Mac’s head. It was like some kind of old style war movie as we escaped through a tunnel to waiting medics. The only thing missing was William Holden or maybe Bruce Willis.

  “What you’re saying Lee, is that Zubrinich is definitely involved with the cell, but we don’t know his exact role?”

  He nodded. “And we can’t touch him for anything that happens while he is a diplomat,” Lee added.

  “We’ll see who can touch him,” I said. “Given that he was on a military base at the time of the kidnapping and assault of a Special Agent – that will give us something we can use.”

  “Or not,” Sean added joining the conversation.

  “We’ll see,” I replied. If I had to, I could put pressure on the Russian diplomatic corps, through the FSB. I was sure Misha could dig up something to help us. He could probably have Zubrinich recalled and delivered to FSB. After all Misha started this hunt for the terror cell.

  Sam tapped my shoulder. “Chicky Babe … the woman Harris. She’s in debt for nearly five hundred grand, mostly in personal loans. She’s missed the last four payments on her mortgage and hasn’t made any credit card payments in four months.”

  “Not good.”

  “She’s an account manager for a big medical company. Good wage, works hard, makes bonuses every month due to exceeding her targets. But she’s broke, her four credit cards are maxed out, she has twenty-five dollars in her checking account and no savings at all.”

  “And she was at the casino. Not the place you’d expect someone in huge financial crisis. Or is it? Be interesting to see how often she swipes that card of hers at the casino. Lee can you get the casino to print us all her activity?”

  “On it.”

  Sam continued, “Her history suggests she’s got a gambling problem. She also has two kids. A female child aged twelve and a male child aged six. No husband. There are no custody orders for the kids.”

  “Could
have a private arrangement with the dad,” I said. “Try to find the father, if indeed he’s still in the picture; also let’s find out what she was given.”

  Her daughter was within the age range: nine to twelve years.

  In the pause amidst discussions and coordinated efforts to locate the woman and child, there was a knock at the door.

  I nodded to Sam, who flung it open with more gusto than possibly needed, sending a piece of white paper flying into the room. Sam stepped back, covering it with his size fourteens. Rowan stood in the doorway grinning. I watched the exchange between the pair.

  “You always open doors like that?” he said to Sam.

  “Some days I don’t know my own strength,” Sam replied with a wide smile.

  “Come on in,” I called over and beckoned to Rowan.

  Lee dropped a file folder over the photographs on the coffee table. Sam bent down and retrieved the latest offering from the floor. He looked over at me and grinned.

  It had to be bad.

  Our work, our laptops and our guns lay about the table and other surfaces, with some floor spillage. I glanced over the mess quickly as Rowan picked his way around files and general business to reach me.

  “Ready for a break?” he asked.

  “We’re really busy,” I said.

  “Lunch?” he offered.

  “Any other day, I’d be delighted but now is just not good.”

  “Half an hour, everyone needs a break,” he replied smiling. “Half an hour, Ellie, and then you can get back to catching bad guys.”

  “We’re right in the middle of something …” I was floundering. I couldn’t fathom why he’d want to take me to lunch and work was pressing. Sam and Lee beamed at me like complete morons. Doc spoke, “We can carry on with this. Go to lunch.”

  “We’re in the middle …”

  “Conway, take a break.”

  It took all my concentration to stop my middle finger flying.

  “Half an hour, no more.”

  One flash from my eyes warned them to keep their collective smart mouths shut.

  I picked my jacket off the back of a chair. It was a cotton blazer, not for warmth – it was warm enough – but to conceal what would be on my hip.

  Rowan took it from me and held it up for me to put on.

  There was a sense of merriment rising in my team. With another killer flash from my eyes, they turned their attention back to the screens in front of them.