by Cat Connor
With my legs tucked up under me in my chair, I gazed out the window. Nothing looked back at me. My mind drifted along with the weak sunbeams and wintery woods. Before long, I found I was thinking more about painting Carla’s room than the case.
“Is Doc coming over?” Sam asked, breaking the spell cast by the dormant trees. He looked up from his laptop.
“Yeah, should be here any minute.”
“Did you hear from Rowan?”
“Was I supposed to?”
“He called, looking for you this morning.”
“Can’t be that important. He could’ve got me on my cell.”
Sam shrugged. “Saying he called, is all.”
I grinned at him and listened to footsteps outside on the driveway. “Doc’s here.”
“I got it,” Sam said, hoisting himself to his feet and putting his laptop on the coffee table.
Doc followed him back into the room.
“Conway,” he said before he sat down.
“Doc. How are the kids?”
“Being reunited with parents or family right about now.”
“They from here?”
“No, mostly from New York and New Jersey.”
I mulled that over for a few minutes. Cyber were investigating the chat room activity and had agents in the chat room posing as young girls while looking for anomalies. I wouldn’t have any news for Rowan until they gave me their preliminary report, which I didn’t expect until much later in the day. I had a feeling the new room activity was unrelated to Hawk but still hideous and malicious.
“Sam, any word on my laptops?”
“Not good news. Your original laptop picked up a keylogger. Your personal one seems to be hosting a ghost.”
“No such thing.”
“Tell cyber that. There was nothing to ping, Ellie. The whole conversation originated from your machine. No one can explain how … all we know is it happened.”
“Great.” I hadn’t expected them to find anything.
I reached for the phone on the table and called Rowan. It wasn’t quite as easy as that; I had to use my cell phone contact list to find his number. I don’t commit numbers to memory from one or two uses. Sometimes I wished my life was like a movie then maybe I could just pick up a phone and dial.
“Hey, got a minute?”
“Yep,” he replied.
“You called me today?”
“I did. Thought maybe we could grab a coffee?”
“Is this like dinner yesterday?”
Hard to do from different states.
There were footsteps outside the window, coming up the path. I heard the same thing over the phone.
He wasn’t in New York anymore.
“I take it you are about to knock on my door?”
He laughed.
“Thought I might.”
There was a knock. Sam looked at me. “You okay to get that?” He was half out of his chair already with Doc close behind.
“I’m okay, guys,” I told them. “I’ll get it.”
Rowan strolled in, carrying a leather jacket in one hand and greeted Sam and Doc. I stood by the door trying to figure out what had turned my blood cold.
“Have a seat Rowan,” Sam said. “I’m making coffee, you in?”
“That’d be great.” He dropped his jacket over the arm of the sofa and sat down.
The doorway felt vulnerable. The eyes of the room were upon me.
I sighed.
“What’s wrong?” Doc made a move toward me. By the look on his face, I knew he was thinking I’d had a transient ischemic attack, or worse, a cerebral embolism. Hey, I would’ve too, faced with me freezing in a doorway, with what I suspected was my lip curled in a disgusted sneer.
“It’s just …” I started to explain and it sounded insane even in my head. “Fuck! Rowan, are you wearing new cologne?”
There I’d said it. Yet another comment that made me seem like a lunatic.
“Yes, I am. You like?”
“Yeah … no … not so much.”
Way to go Ellie! What’s he supposed to say now? How is a person supposed to react to that?
“Sorry,” he replied, with much sincerity.
“What’s it called?”
Sam was back at his computer poised to Google the name. Doc still scrutinized me.
“Late September.”
Sam typed. I watched from the doorway.
“Is that as close as you’re going to get?” Rowan asked.
“I’m sorry,” I said, because I was and that was all I had.
“Point me to your bathroom … mind if I take a shower?”
Forty million women screamed ‘he’s going to get naked in your bathroom’ and I nodded like a dullard.
Sam hauled to his feet. “I’ll show you,” he said. “I’m on my way to make coffee anyway.”
“Get some of Mac’s clothes, they should fit,” I said and slipped into Sam’s seat as Rowan passed me. I found myself holding my breath.
“Should do,” Sam replied. “You’re about six foot, aren’t you Rowan?”
“Close enough,” Rowan replied.
Their voices continued but all meaning was lost as the walls of my home buffered their speech.
My phone rang. I grabbed it and flipped it open. “Speak to me,” I said.
Lee said, “We’ve been kicked off the base. Someone pulled our authorization.” ‘Curmudgeonly’ didn’t capture his demeanor.
“Do you know who?” I wasn’t surprised. We’d received several warnings to leave the military aspects out of our investigation but I knew Lee.
“Nope. We were escorted off five minutes ago under armed guard.”
“Head back to the office.”
I closed my phone then, almost as an afterthought, rang the Director. I waited while her assistant transferred my call.
“Director, do you know why my men were escorted off Fort Belvoir?”
“I do. You’re going to have to let the military connection go, Ellie. Work any other angle but not military.”
“You can’t be serious!”
“I’m very serious,” she replied.
There was no mistaking the tone in her voice. If I pushed this, I could well find myself drowning in an ocean of trouble.
“Can you tell me why?”
“No. I cannot.”
“Thank you, Director.”
I tossed my phone onto the coffee table where it bounced and landed on the rug.
Damn!
“Problem?” Doc asked.
“Yes. We’ve been ordered off all military aspects of the case by O’Hare.”
In keeping with the new instructions I went back to my search and followed the first link on the computer. It was to a perfumery house I’d never heard of, KS. As I read the company information, I discovered they were an American jewelry and clothing company with an exclusive perfumery house in Paris, France. I found the cologne listed as unavailable for purchase outside of France.
Odd.
Guessed that meant people would want it more. Smart marketing: nothing creates sales like exclusivity. Sam set a cup next to me, passed one to Doc and took a seat.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Lee and Misha were ordered off the base. Director O’Hare ordered us to keep away from any military connections to this case.”
“Not good, Chicky.”
Wished I knew what was so damn important about the Fort and why they didn’t want us investigating possible leads. I was starting to wonder if Hawk was an asset, inspiring a sick feeling in my gut.
“Not at all.” I changed the subject and inclined my head toward the door. “Rowan?”
“He’s almost done,” Sam replied, staring at the screen I was reading. “What did you find?”
I told him about the exclusive cologne. “Is it what Hawk wore?”
“Yeah. It has a different undertone on Rowan, but it’s the same cologne.”
“Interesting.”
“We
ird,” I replied. “What are the odds, Sam? Same rare cologne as our man?”
Rowan knocked on the door, as he came in. He’d towel dried his hair and he wore a grey button-down shirt of Mac’s. A good fit.
“Nice,” I said.
“Smell gone?” he asked, leaning down toward me. His face brushed my hair.
It took two attempts to say, “Yes.”
Rowan grinned.
“There’s a coffee for you,” Sam said.
I smiled at Sam as Rowan moved toward the sofa. He grinned back and nodded.
“Have you done any concerts since you returned?”
“We played at Starland Ballroom in Trenton Saturday night.”
“That wasn’t on your tour schedule.”
“It was a spur of the moment thing. We played with a couple of other bands.”
New Jersey.
I excused myself and left the room. A sudden onslaught of dizziness made me feel sick as I headed to the kitchen for water. With a tall glass of cold water in my hand, I sat at the kitchen table. The water slipped easily down my throat.
Out the window, the woods called to me. The dogwood trees stood straggly, barren, desolate, yet holding their own in the wait for spring. I finished half the glass of water then tipped the rest away. I lingered for a moment at the window above the sink, looking for the first glimpse of daffodils poking through the cold earth under the trees. As much as I wanted to see the small green shoots, I saw nothing but slushy grey snow. Movement caught my eye; fascinated, I watched a chicken peck its way across the yard. Unbelievable. I couldn’t think where it’d come from. I didn’t know anyone around us kept chickens. I’d certainly never heard any. It disappeared into the woods leaving nothing but dull slushy snow and bare branches to look at. The bird reminded me of the pet chicken I’d had once. Poor Abigail met with a shocking end. A tear escaped my eye. I wiped it away. Everything dies.
I threatened the sky beyond my reflection, “Don’t fuck with me.”
Doc’s face appeared next to mine. “I wasn’t intending to.”
“Good to know because I’m over people fucking with me.”
“Turn around.”
He peered into my eyes as though if he tried hard enough he could see my thoughts. “What’s going on in there?” Doc tapped an index finger on my head.
“Just trying to make sense of this mess.”
“You feeling okay?”
“You gonna stop asking me anytime soon? It’s starting to piss me off.”
I went back into the living room. Doc didn’t follow me right away.
“The cologne, Rowan, where’d you get it?”
“Are you all right?” he asked, pointing to his own face and suggesting with the action that I had something by my eye.
I wiped a finger under my eye and removed smudged mascara.
“I am,” I said. “About the cologne?” I hoped I didn’t sound too formal.
“We get gifts, products, from various companies. It was a gift.”
“How did it arrive?”
“It was a gift basket from KS. I don’t know exactly. Things like this go through our management company.”
“Did you choose the cologne?”
“No, there were four and they were already named, supposedly matched to our personalities.” Rowan grinned. “Guess someone didn’t do their job right.”
Fuc’n bingo. Someone did his or her job very well indeed. They knew he’d wear it to see me.
“You don’t know who actually sent the basket do you?”
“No, management told me it came from KS. I don’t get the details.”
“Okay.”
Sam called Lee and Misha to fill them in, then called the KS head office and asked for the publicity department.
After spending some time rolling his eyes, sipping coffee and being bounced from person to person, he learned the basket originated in France, from the Paris office, as well as the exact contents. Four different colognes, four handcrafted pendants on white gold chains, four different sets of male skincare products. Everything named and gift tagged for a particular band member.
I had a horrible feeling about the pendants.
“Rowan, you don’t have a pendant on you?”
He smiled sheepishly. “No, I didn’t like them. I’m not into big flashy pieces of jewelry.”
That might prove to be really good news.
“I’m sending someone to pick up the basket and the contents. Has it been divided up yet?”
He shook his head. “I’ve seen it, but the others are taking breaks in various places.”
“The cologne?”
“It’s still with the basket; I stopped into the office and looked at the loot, tried it and came straight here.”
It didn’t matter how many times I rolled that around my head, it didn’t work. New York to Virginia, he tried it on the way here?
“Clarify … you didn’t drive all this way to see me, did you?”
“I did.”
Now that’s interesting. I left it alone. I could feel Sam’s thoughts on the subject building to a crescendo and didn’t want to go there.
“Sam, tell me about KS.”
“They’re an American company founded by Kendra Masters, as in the K. She married Sasha Petrovovich and made him a full partner in the business. They changed the trading name to KS. What started as a predominantly jewelry manufacturing company grew into a multi-million dollar clothing, skin care and jewelry empire.”
“Sasha isn’t your run-of-the-mill American name, where’s he from?” Doc asked.
“Russia, so it says in his bio, but he calls himself a child of the universe. He apparently went to boarding school in Germany, college in America then spent time in England, Switzerland and back in Russia.”
“Oh good, because what we need another is Russian connection,” I muttered. “Rowan, can I have the phone number for your management … agent … whoever handles this type of thing.”
He handed me his cell phone with the contacts page open and a name and number highlighted.
I called the number from my phone and asked for the basket, any notes, or cards and all the contents for forensic testing. The management camp was defensive, immediately, with talk of warrants and lawyers.
Rowan slid the phone from my fingers as I pulled it away from my ear for a second to vent my irritation in the form of a disgruntled glare at Sam.
“Hand it over,” he stated. “There is no way we want the sort of publicity that comes attached to this case.” He paused and listened then countered with, “A warrant will generate publicity.”
He gave the phone back.
“They’ll do it.”
Abracadabra: the woman was suddenly much friendlier and much more accommodating. I informed her someone from my team would pick up the basket within three hours.
A sudden and awful thought occurred to me.
The pendants. A woman’s head exploded because of a barrette, which wasn’t so very different from a pendant. A pendant bomb would make a nice-sized hole in someone’s chest instead of head.
I grabbed my phone and called Lee. He answered on the twelfth ring. I counted each and every one.
“The pendants in the basket you’re sequestering may be explosive devices.”
“How would they get through customs?” he countered sensibly.
“Good point,” I replied. “Okay, go ahead and pick ’em up.”
“Hang on,” he said. “Did someone bring the basket into the country or was it couriered or sent via the postal service?”
“No idea.”
“On second thoughts, I’ll ask for a bomb disposal team to meet us.”
“Good thinking.”
The cool blue of the leather armchair was comforting. My eyes closed. The room moved in gentle undulating circles within my head. Part of me felt soothed by the movement, the rest of me felt sick.
I opened my eyes and checked the time on my watch. A nagging feeling came over me.
I logged into the fake Grange chat room and settled back to watch some stupid conversations.
Didn’t take long before my mind wandered and I looked over at Rowan. Another man dragged into a mess by means of my job.
“What brought you to Virginia? Shouldn’t you be home before the next leg of the tour?”
“I was home,” he replied, drinking his coffee.
“And now you’re here.”
“And now I’m here.”
“Why?”
He smiled. “I wanted to see how the case was going.”
“Phones are handy for that sort of enquiry.”
“I rang and you weren’t available.”
“And common sense dictated you drive from New York to find out why?”
His smile never faded. “No, to be interrogated, of course.”
Sam chuckled but didn’t look up from his laptop.
“You’re quite the smart ass, Mr. Grange.”
“And you have a very nice ass, Agent Conway.”
Sam and Doc roared with laughter.
“Thank you very much.” I pulled my legs up under me, curling into the protective cocoon that was Mac’s chair. The cold, pale-blue leather reminded me of graves and widows weeds.
I could see a light shining in the dark.
I had a smile on my face, I know I did. I liked Rowan. He made me laugh and let’s face it he was easy on the eye, which sure didn’t hurt.
“You don’t make it easy …”
“Make what easy?” I said, reading the screen in front of me.
“Getting to know who you are,” Rowan replied. “You know so much about me and I feel like I know nothing about you.”
I held a finger up to stop him for a moment. “Hawk is up to something and it’s not going to be good. He pulled out of New Zealand too fast …”
Sam came over and crouched beside me. “Tell me, Chicky.”
“Look at this chat room conversation.”
The entire room was supposedly full of Grange fans but the tone felt wrong.
I started pulling words from the lines of text, letting my intuition guide me. Sam watched for a moment, then called Cyber Division and asked that they try to identify locations for all participants.
Words were stringing together almost without intervention. I didn’t feel like I was typing them in a document – line by line – I copied parts of conversations I was drawn to. The screen names gave us the raw material; I just had to put it together to understand it. “Remember the eighties show Moonlighting?” I asked. Everyone nodded. “Let me introduce you to Dave Addison and Maddie Hayes.”
