Exacerbyte (Ellie Conway Book 3)

by Cat Connor

  “Misha’s on voicemail too.”

  Caine’s voice grumbled from the coffee table, “Hello!”

  Sam threw the phone to me. “Lee and Misha could be walking into a trap. They’ve gone to retrieve evidence from New York. I have reason to believe a bomb may detonate when they pick up this evidence.”

  “Address?”

  I threw the phone to Rowan, he told Caine the address then handed it back. “I’ll close the building down and get the disposal guys in there, now.”

  Caine hung up. I dropped the phone into my lap. I took a breath. I needed more information from Rowan and he didn’t look happy.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “No,” he replied with a shake of his head and downcast eyes.

  “I’m sorry, my world sucks. I’m really sorry you fell into it.”

  “I didn’t fall in, Ellie,” he said, with surprising conviction. His head came up and eyes leveled at mine, he held my gaze. “I stepped in, under my own steam.”

  My life is no place for good people. I shut my thoughts off; they left me feeling upside down anyway.

  Things began to fall into place. “Rowan, did you get the pens before you toured Europe?”

  “Yes. It was the night of our last London show.”

  “I don’t suppose you still have the packaging?”

  “I do. I emptied my bag in my study when I got home. The packaging will still be in the waste paper bin by my desk.”

  Smart man. It’s not a good idea to leave identifiable rubbish in hotels or anywhere else where stalkers and the like can find it. Even if it means carrying packaging all the way around the world.

  I looked at Sam. He already had his phone in his hand. He called Lee’s phone and left a message, “If you don’t explode, call home. Immediately.”

  My eyes closed for a second. A series of horrendous events were slotting into order creating a possible scenario of total terror.

  “Conway, you okay?” Doc asked.

  “Doc, they need to move Carla.”

  He looked at his watch. “It’s just gone midnight, so it’s officially Tuesday. When is the world going to end?”

  “Twenty-twelve according to the Mayans,” Rowan commented quietly.

  “Thursday at 6 p.m.,” I said. “She needs to go to a new safe house tonight.”

  “Yes, she does.”

  Rowan leaned back, his face clouded with worry. “You don’t actually think the world will end do you?”

  I crossed my fingers out of his sight. “Nah, we’re just diffusing tension, having a bit of fun with the situation.”

  “Have I put you and Carla in danger?”

  Sam jumped in immediately. “Hell no, we can take care of ourselves and Carla, nothing new in us being the targets of a fucktard.” He jabbed his finger into the air. “Pity the fool that comes for us!” Mr. T would’ve been proud.

  Sam was good. I doubted he was good enough, even with Doc backing him up. Rowan was no fool.

  Sam was texting on his phone. Then my phone buzzed. Sure enough, it was a text from Sam. He wanted to know if Rowan knew about the break in on Friday. I texted a single word reply, ‘No.’ The next text asked if Rowan knew about the blast injury. I replied ‘Kinda.’ Sam raised an eyebrow at me after reading the message. I shrugged and attempted an innocent look.

  Why did they always fail?

  There was no sense in all of us sitting there drifting toward abject gloom but that’s what was happening. All we could do was wait. Wait for a phone to ring and tell us what went down in New York. It was late; we were tired and weird things were revolving in my mind.

  “Why don’t you try getting a few hours sleep?” Doc suggested.

  “I’ll be okay.”

  My reply drew conspiratorial smiles from everyone.

  Thirty-Five

  Last Cigarette

  Tuesday crept up fast as Monday disappeared in a flurry of phone activity. There was a plan for while Carla was at school. They would move her gear to a new safe house out of the area, then pick her up after school and take her to the new house. Seemed better than hauling her out of bed in the middle of the night. Extra agents were on surveillance outside the house for the rest of the night. It took a lot of work to stop thinking about Carla and concentrate on trying to make some headway in the case.

  “We’ve had special agents from cyber in the chat rooms and they’ve been tracing the ISPs.” I smiled at Rowan’s confused expression. “They were watching when ‘Rowan’ was trying to pull a fourteen-year-old in the unofficial room.” I didn’t want to tell him he was under surveillance by us. “We know it wasn’t you.” I secretly hoped the fourteen-year-old girl was a fifty-year-old inmate in a federal prison.

  “As far as I can tell there is no untoward activity in the fan-club-controlled chat room.”

  He nodded. I guessed the look that crossed his face was relief, probably mixed with some ideas on damage control. Sooner or later, the existence of the other chat room and Hawk’s involvement would touch the Grange Empire. It’s a multi-million dollar corporation. He’d be stupid if he didn’t think about damage control.

  I couldn’t decide if I’d scored a black mark against him because he appeared relieved the fan club room wasn’t involved. Just for a second it amused me that I felt worthy to judge another human being.

  What a fuc’n cheek. Who did I think I was, the Queen of England? I expected to hear the words “If it please your highness.” I adjusted my imaginary tiara, and found Doc studying me intently. What to do? Feign embarrassment, shrug and smile, ignore my interlude and move on?

  A light flickered behind Doc’s eyes. Without so much as a smirk he said, “The tiara suits you.”

  My jaw sagged.

  Doc’s fingers reached out and gently closed my mouth.

  “That was a tiara you repositioned on your head?”

  Come on voice, work. “Yes.”

  He smiled. “It suits you.”

  “Get out of my head.”

  “But there are deep dark recesses in there that have never been explored,” he replied, humming the theme music to Star Trek. “Conway’s Mind – The Final Frontier.”

  “ ‘It’s life, Jim – but not as we know it’,” chimed in Sam.

  The zany and ridiculous humor threatened to tip me on my ass.

  “Out!” I exclaimed, as Kirk broke into my thoughts with a well placed ‘Beam me up Scotty’ and Spock declared the entire episode illogical.

  Doc jumped to The Next Generation and launched into a fine impersonation of Picard. Eventually silliness gave way to stillness. My breathing returned to normal. I hadn’t laughed like that in a long time. It felt exhilarating. There was something life affirming about crazy, hyena laughing. For a few minutes there, my accompanying giant cloud of despair dissipated. Life was dynamic again. I liked it. Even the lack of control felt good.

  “How’d you know about the tiara, then Star Trek?” I choked a giggle until it stopped struggling.

  “I’m good at charades and I thought I heard the Star Trek intro.”

  Interesting and spooky all at once.

  “No one has ever climbed into my head unprompted before.”

  “I found it dark, mysterious and hard to navigate.”

  “Keeps intruders out,” I replied.

  He laughed then pointed surreptitiously to Rowan.

  Rowan sat in a cloud of serious gloom.

  “Come on, Rowan. It’ll be fine. Hey, this is what we do,” I said. With a flap of my hand, I hoped to send the cloud packing.

  “It’s not that, not entirely anyway. It’s you. It’s being around you.”

  That was bound to happen.

  “I’m not good for people. You should run …”

  “That’s not what I mean … You’re so amazingly resilient and strong. It’s easy to give up but to hold it together, when everyone would understand if you fell apart, that’s true strength.”

  Speechless. He rendered me speechless.
<
br />   Sam interceded, “He’s right, Chicky Babe.”

  “Carla’s a lucky girl,” Rowan added.

  “Stop now,” I said. “It’s all an illusion that rests precariously on my ability to remain sane.”

  Rowan stood up and took the cups to the kitchen. He said he wanted coffee, I knew he wanted a cigarette.

  “You can smoke in the kitchen but do it by an open window … and don’t talk because the bugs are in there!” I called after him.

  His reply wafted down the hall on a plume of smoke, “Okay.”

  I inhaled deeply sucking the weak smoke into my lungs.

  “Still want one?” Sam asked.

  “Yep.”

  “That’s what’s different,” Doc said with a grin. “You’re not surrounded by a fog of smoke anymore.”

  I flipped him off.

  My phone rang. I didn’t want to look at the display but I did as I lifted it and flipped the screen open.

  “Caine.”

  Sam stopped what he was doing, his attention focused on the phone and me.

  Caine sounded relieved as he said, “They’re okay. They cleared the office themselves before the Bomb Squad made it in. You were right, the pendants were explosive devices.”

  When I breathed out, I realized I’d been holding my breath since picking up the phone. I smiled at Sam. He slumped back into the chair. Relief washed over his face.

  “Send them to complete the pick up at Grange’s home and have the bomb squad go too. Then tell them to come home.”

  “Will do.”

  I hung up and called out to Rowan, “You done? I need to talk to you.”

  “Coming,” he called back.

  When he was in the room, I kicked the door shut and told everyone about the necklaces. Rowan sat down. The expression on his face spoke volumes. He was one unhappy camper.

  “Why?” he asked.

  I sat down and took a few seconds to put together everything I’d learned about Hawk since our first dance seventeen months ago.

  “Hawk has identified your band as a way of getting a great supply of pre-teen girls. He’s a psychopath and needs high stakes to enjoy the game – so he engages law enforcement. Seems he had so much fun murdering my husband that he wanted to play with me again.” I watched Rowan’s face as I poured out truths as I saw them. “This guy, he’s a financier … he is very good at what he does. He buys, sells and trades, like a stock trader, except he’s dealing in kids not pork bellies. His only purpose is to make as much money as he can as quickly as he can. Not for anyone investing their kid’s college fund – he’s doing it for a terrorist organization.”

  “What will they do with it?”

  I crossed my fingers in my lap so he couldn’t see them and adopted an uninformed tone, “We don’t know; it seems likely they’ll use the money for weapons.”

  “What does he get out of messing with you and me?”

  I was glad he didn’t say us.

  He reached for his cigarette packet. I didn’t stop him. My hand reached for his pack without my knowledge. Before I knew what I was doing, I had a cigarette in my mouth.

  Rowan leaned forward and took the cigarette gently. He raised an eyebrow, put it in his own mouth and lit it, then handed it back.

  I held it for a split second; the struggle to quit flew out the window and I took a long drag. The smoke filled my lungs and soothing nicotine slipped treacherously into my blood stream. I had a head rush of major proportions. Talk about a dizzy.

  God it felt good.

  Doc shook his head but kept his mouth shut.

  Could I answer Rowan’s question without scaring the hell out of him I wondered, as he lit another cigarette. Sam coughed and fanned his face as smoke headed right for him.

  “Yeah right,” I said, smoke rushed from my mouth.

  Sam grinned and tugged his own pack from his pocket. “If we’re smoking inside, we’re smoking inside.” He lit up. “Sorry Doc, you’re outnumbered.”

  “I think I can handle it.”

  Every drag on my cigarette invoked waves of nausea but I knew I could push through it – it’d only last a few minutes.

  “Let me try to explain how this sick son of a bitch works,” I said and hoped I actually could. “He doesn’t care about anything or anyone. This isn’t because he’s some religious zealot ready to blow himself up. He doesn’t care about religion either. Doing what he does isn’t very exciting for him. Kids are easy to manipulate, mostly; he can get as many as he wants, whenever he wants. No thrill.”

  Rowan nodded.

  “Last time we encountered him, he hired a couple of killers to work with him. It upped the ante sufficiently to give him a buzz. He even toyed with us. He did his homework: he knew who would get landed with the case and tailored it to suit.”

  “You?”

  “Yes.” I stabbed the cigarette into the ashtray Sam pushed in my direction. “This time, he dragged us halfway across the world. He knew I’d go. He made sure of that by killing Mac … did a few other things I’m not going into right now … and has roped you into his game.” I still wasn’t one hundred percent sure the band weren’t involved, so I held off mentioning Europe and the litter of bodies left in New Zealand.

  “How does it end?”

  “Badly probably.” I could feel the smile on my face as I thought how I wanted it to end, with Hawk’s death.

  “I’d hate to go up against you,” Rowan said. He stubbed out his cigarette butt.

  “That’s because you’re not a psychopath,” Doc replied. “No normal person wants Conway on their ass.”

  I smiled. That was an unexpectedly nice thing to say.

  “What a vote of confidence,” I said, unable to shake the smile. “At this point, Rowan, we don’t know how it ends. I sincerely hope we can get him before he disappears again.”

  “Is there much danger he will?”

  “There’s nothing to say he won’t.”

  “… and this doesn’t drive you crazy?”

  “It’s what we do. We’re a specialist unit – Psychopaths R Us.”

  Doc nodded in agreement.

  Rowan finally smiled. It was weak but it was there.

  Sam piped up, “And more often than not the Unsub attempts to make it personal. Seems they like or maybe need to taunt. Maybe it ensures the ever-present suggestion that they may eventually be caught.”

  “… and do you? Catch them I mean?”

  “Not always,” Sam replied.

  “Often enough that our budget doesn’t suffer and our SAC comes off looking good,” I said.

  “No wonder you write the poetry you do,” Rowan said.

  I feigned a wounded expression. “What? You don’t like my love poems?”

  He chuckled. “Man, they’re few and far between.”

  His shoulders relaxed. I knew it would be okay. I knew he’d be okay. I wanted to believe Mac was right about Rowan and wrong about Carla.

  The strains of a country song drifted through my mind. I heard Tim McGraw singing ‘Don’t take the girl.’ Mac loved that song but it always made me cry. Now I needed God to listen: Please, don’t take the girl.

  Rowan’s voice penetrated the song. “Typically, how long do these cases take?”

  Tim McGraw faded away.

  “As long as it takes,” I replied as half my mind wandered off with the song.

  “Ball park?” With that, he broke my thoughts wide open.

  “That was the ball park …”

  Sam interrupted, “We’ll work it as long as we have leads.”

  “Where’s it going now?”

  I heard the question as the final installment of a horrible poem leapt into my head. I grabbed a pen and a piece of paper and wrote it down while Sam answered Rowan’s questions regarding the case direction and explained forensic testing. Unlike television, forensic testing isn’t instantaneous; we’re not the only agents using the lab and waiting for results from priority cases.

  Doc was watching
me write but from where he was, he couldn’t see what I was writing.

  The poem was now complete. I even had a title. As I read it, I felt bile rising in my throat. Was that really what was on my mind? The words sliced into my psyche like a hot knife into butter.

  Gone.

  It culminated in the end

  Dripping off the edge of life

  The ooze that was primordial slime

  Is all that’s left at the end of time.

  Full circle?

  Does it matter?

  Rain pounding

  Mud squelching

  One by one, they leave

  Surrounded by flowers

  Alone in the earth

  The moments before, did they count?

  What was special about the day?

  Did you measure up in a universal way?

  Cold seeping through the lid

  No matter how a life is lived

  Biodegradable flesh is how it will end

  How long before it all caves in?

  Sinking quietly into the murk

  Was it worth it?

  Did you live?

  I folded the piece of paper and slipped it into my jeans’ pocket. No one should ever see that. Doc should never see that.

  Rowan watched me with one raised eyebrow. “Sam said you found six kids; did the Hawk guy expect that?”

  “I don’t think so. The pen was here on the kitchen counter. So he wouldn’t have had our signal closing in on the address or been able to listen in on the conversations.”

  And no one in the office knew about it.

  “You sure?”

  “Well no, but it wasn’t easy to get the information and took a lot of our Russian counterparts working damn hard to get us that lead. It didn’t drop from the sky. Misha was so worried about conveying the information that he brought it himself. We didn’t discuss our movements that night, not downstairs anyway.”

  He nodded and seemed satisfied with the answer.

  “How about bugging me?”

  I sighed inwardly. He had a lot of questions but answering was keeping me awake, which I appreciated.

  “You were definitely part of the game. Judging by the two pens, he was hoping you’d hand one on to someone. Could be that it was me was fortuitous for him, rather than orchestrated. He’d have to have one hell of a crystal ball to know we’d meet at any point.”