by Jana DeLeon
“Maybe.” She blew out a breath. “I know it sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud, but I can’t help how I feel.”
“No, but I’m still going to tell you that you’re wrong.”
She gave him a small smile, knowing he was trying to make her feel better. “So what now?”
Carter stared out the window and frowned. She turned and saw a woman walk in front of them on the sidewalk carrying a briefcase.
“Why did she carry a briefcase?” Carter asked. “Wouldn’t a backpack be more normal fare for a college student, even one in law?”
Alaina nodded. “I had a pink one with bright yellow flowers.”
Carter smiled. “I can see that.”
“Emily had the briefcase for her work at the firm. I don’t think she used it for school. She usually left it at the office unless she was taking something home with her.”
“Like last night?”
“If the receptionist saw her with it, then I guess so.”
“Is there any way to tell what she was working on?”
Alaina frowned. “I suppose I could ask Everett, but why?”
“Just thinking. With a random robbery, the perp usually removes anything of value and ditches the containers, but the police didn’t find either in the vicinity.”
“Maybe he jumped in a car and left. Anyway, I don’t see how it would help to find them unless he left a print.”
“No, but I was thinking about the message Emily left for you. She said she’d found something that didn’t look good. Given that she called you right after she left the office, we can assume it’s something she saw at work.”
Alaina straightened in her chair. “And you think she brought whatever it was with her?”
“It would make sense. If her attack is related to information contained in those documents, it would help to know what documents she’d taken with her.”
A wave of frustration coursed through her. “But Everett wouldn’t know what she had, especially if she was bringing it for me to see.”
She looked across the street and her pulse quickened. “I have an idea.”
“Why does that look on your face make me think I’m not going to like it?”
“If you don’t, you can sit here and pretend I never told you.” She nodded her head toward the window. “Across the street is an internet café. They have a couple of computers available for anyone to use. I could log in to the law firm’s server remotely and see what Emily copied before she left for the day. She would never have risked removing originals from the firm.”
“How can you see the copies?”
“As a safety feature, the copier automatically creates a scanned backup of anything processed, either by copying or documents sent to print from a PC.”
Carter’s expression cleared in understanding. “So you could see everything she copied that day.”
“Exactly.”
He frowned. “But surely they deleted your network passwords after you resigned.”
“I’m sure they did, but one of the attorneys there has coffee at that internet café all the time because he’s chasing a doctor who works at this hospital. He just left that café.”
“So? I still don’t get how that helps.”
“He’s an idiot. I can probably guess his password and if anyone checks the server logs, they’ll think it was him. Everyone at the firm knows about the doctor and the café.”
“So you want to hack into your old employer’s server—the most prestigious law firm in Baton Rouge—using a coworker’s credentials.”
She bit her lower lip. “Yes.”
He smiled. “I like it. And I promise I didn’t see a thing.”
She grabbed her purse and they hurried across the street to the café. Although they were already coffee-logged, Carter bought two cups so that nothing appeared out of place. Alaina snagged a computer in a remote corner of the café and went to work. It took only a minute for her to figure out Kurt’s password and gain access to the system.
Carter’s eyes widened when the law firm logo appeared at the top of the page. “Wow, you weren’t lying. What’s his password—123456?”
She rolled her eyes. “Hotguy.”
Carter stared. “You’re kidding me.”
“If only I were. This is the idiot who got the promotion that should have been mine.”
“That’s just wrong, but his incompetence may come in handy now.”
She clicked through the printer queue, scanning for Emily’s passcode. “Here’s Emily’s code.” She pointed to a numbered link, then clicked on it.
As she scanned the documents, her spirit began to flag. They were all blank forms for packets they gave to new clients. Maybe her theory was wrong.
When she got to the last entry in the log, she sucked in a breath.
“What is it?” Carter asked.
“The Warren case. She copied all the interviews with the defendant, his parents and the parents of the victim.”
He shook his head. “And we come full circle—right back to the Warren case. Maybe the attack on Emily was related to the vandalism of Everett’s car. If one of those victims’ fathers is mentally off—and it’s a good possibility in either case—they wouldn’t necessarily make rational decisions.”
“And Emily is the easiest target because she’s the only one who doesn’t live somewhere with security and guards.” She blew out a breath. “Damn it! I thought we were onto something.”
He placed on hand on her shoulder. “We are onto something. Every little bit helps and this answers at least one question in your mind. Now you know what Emily wanted to speak to you about.”
“No...I mean, I still don’t. I have no idea what Emily saw in those files that bothered her and I’ve been over them a hundred times.”
“Maybe it was something she didn’t understand because she hasn’t been at it long enough. Likely, it was something you could have easily explained.”
“So the attack on her had nothing to do with me?”
“We have no way of knowing for certain, but taking this into account, it doesn’t look that way.”
“So what do we do now?”
“You check on Emily one last time and then we figure out what to do about that security risk you’re living in.”
“What about Detective Breaux? Should we tell him what we found?”
“I don’t think computer hacking is something we should admit to a detective, even one who’s on our side. But I will tell him what you told me about the scanned backup. He can check with the firm and legally acquire the information.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
They rose from their chairs and walked back across the street to the hospital, where they made their way to the third floor. Alaina waved at the trauma nurse who was on duty at the desk and they turned down the hallway to the right to go to Emily’s room.
Carter froze for a moment, then hurried down the hall, pointing at the empty guard’s chair in front of Emily’s door. Alaina’s pulse quickened and she stepped up her pace to a jog to keep up with his long strides.
Just as they reached Emily’s room, the monitors attached to Emily set off their alarms. Alaina burst into the hospital room right in front of Carter and drew up short at the sight of Kurt McGraw standing right next to Emily’s bed.
Chapter Sixteen
“What the hell are you doing?” Alaina yelled as she raced over to the hospital bed.
Kurt’s eyes widened and he took a step back from the bed. “Nothing, I swear. I hadn’t even said a word and then everything went off.”
The trauma nurse rushed into the room and ordered them all out. A harried doctor pushed past them as they exited the room and gathered in the hallway.
“Where is the guard?” Carter demanded.
Kurt put his hands up in a defensive manner, clearly cluing in on Carter’s anger. “There was no one here when I came up. I swear.”
A groan sounded in the room behind them and they looked over
as the guard stumbled against the doorway, clutching his head with his hands.
“What happened?” Carter asked.
The guard slumped back down in his chair. “There was a doctor. He asked me to help him move something in this room, but when I got in here, he clocked me with something heavy.”
“A doctor?” Alaina stared at the guard. “Why in the world would a doctor do something like that?”
Carter’s expression was grim. “They wouldn’t, but if someone wanted an opportunity to get at Emily, all they had to do was snag a set of scrubs from the lockers and say they were a doctor.” He looked up at Kurt.
“I swear, it wasn’t me!” Kurt said. “I don’t even know that man.”
“But you knew he was guarding Emily. With him out of the way, you had a clear shot at her.”
Kurt paled, his mind finally wrapping around the enormity of Carter’s implication. “You’ve got it all wrong. I came to the hospital to see someone I’m dating. I thought I’d check on Emily before I left. There was no guard in that chair.”
“Uh-huh.” Carter tapped the guard on the shoulder. “Does this man look like the doctor who clocked you?”
The guard looked up at Kurt and squinted, then sighed. “I don’t remember. My memory’s all hazy. Maybe?”
Alaina shook her head. “That won’t do us any good.”
“Jeez, Alaina!” Kurt stared at her. “You can’t possibly think I did this. I like Emily. Why would I want to hurt her?”
“Someone did. They hurt her last night and came back today to finish the job.”
Before Kurt could reply, the trauma nurse came out of Emily’s room.
“How is she?” Alaina asked.
“We’ve gotten her stabilized, but she was injected with something that affected her heart. We won’t know more until we finish running tests.” Her expression hardened. “In the meantime, I need all of you to exit this floor. We’re restricting access to medical personnel only.”
“There may be a problem with that,” Carter said and explained what had happened to the guard.
The nurse’s eyes widened. “I’ll call hospital security and have them check the video and lock all the stairwells on the inside. If anyone wants to get down these halls, they’ll have to get past me.”
Carter nodded. “I’m going to call Detective Breaux. He’s in charge of Emily’s case and he’ll need to get another guard out here—two, if I can talk him into it.”
“I appreciate that,” she said, “but I’m still going to need you all to leave. The more people milling around, the more chance someone can slip through.”
They all trailed down the hall to the elevator and went down to the first floor. As they stepped into the lobby, Detective Breaux rushed through the door.
“What happened?”
Carter gave him a rundown of the events. Detective Breaux listened intently and gave Kurt a long once-over when the story turned to his part. When Carter finished, Detective Breaux looked at Kurt.
“I’ll start with you,” the detective said. “We can talk in the cafeteria.” He looked at Carter. “And I’ll call for another guard. The captain can’t argue the necessity after this.”
“Do you need anything else from us?” Carter asked.
“Not at the moment. Will you be in town much longer?”
“We weren’t planning on it,” Carter replied.
Detective Breaux nodded. “If you need to get back home, that’s fine. I can take your statements over the phone and have you sign them later.”
Kurt, who’d grown more frustrated under the scrutiny, finally blurted out, “Why do they get to leave? You’re making me stay. Why aren’t they suspects?”
Detective Breaux narrowed his eyes. “They aren’t suspects because Carter is a sheriff and is aiding me in this investigation.”
Kurt’s eyes widened and he glanced at Carter. “You’re a sheriff?”
“Yes,” Carter replied.
Kurt glanced at Alaina, then back at Carter, and Alaina knew he wanted to ask what she’d done to rank a sheriff as an escort. But for once, he was wisely holding his tongue.
She studied Kurt for a moment—his stiff posture, the slight flush at the base of his neck, the way his fingers pulled at the bottom of his suit jacket. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe Kurt wasn’t being wise at all.
Maybe he was scared.
* * *
ALAINA WAS SILENT as they crossed the parking lot to Carter’s truck, and he wondered what was going through her mind. If it was anything like his own, so much was whirling through there that she couldn’t gain focus on any one thing. Given Alaina’s friendship with Emily and her own personal risk, she should be on the verge of cracking, but that was the last thing he needed. What he needed was for her to stay strong and alert.
They hopped in the truck and he started the engine and turned on the air-conditioning. “Are you all right?” he asked her.
She didn’t respond immediately and he could see it took a second for her to process his question. Wherever she was in her head, it was miles away from here.
“No,” she finally said. “I don’t think I’m all right at all. What is going on, Carter? None of this makes sense.”
She threw up her hands in frustration. “Every hour that passes, we add another layer to the puzzle, but all of them are foggy and none of them fit together. I’m beginning to think they’re not related at all—that we have several different things happening and we’re trying to force them to fit because then one answer would fix it all. Maybe it’s just not that simple.”
“Maybe it’s not, but our process would be the same whether everything is related or not.”
“I guess,” she said, sounding totally defeated.
Carter struggled to find something to say to make things better, but for the first time in his life, he was at a complete loss. He didn’t have the words to comfort her and he cared too much to walk away.
“Would you like to go by your place while we’re in Baton Rouge?” he asked. “I noticed you didn’t bring a lot of stuff with you. Maybe you want to pick up a few things?”
She perked up a little. “It would be nice to have more work clothes and some books. I always bought them thinking I’d get around to reading but never had the time.”
“Well, you do now. Point me in the right direction and we’ll make a stop before heading back to Calais.”
She gave him a small smile. “Thanks. I know you’re trying to make me feel better. It’s working. Maybe that will make you feel better.”
He smiled. “Maybe.”
She directed him downtown to a high-rise condominium complex. Carter studied the complex as she entered her security code and they walked through the foyer to the elevators. The construction was fairly new and high-end. Marble floors, antique tables with crystal displayed and a giant painting hung in the entry.
It didn’t surprise him. Alaina was an up-and-coming attorney with the best firm in the city. Her home would reflect her status and, likely, a nice salary. For some reason, this bothered him.
Maybe it was because her home was one more indicator that Alaina LeBeau was not a good fit for him or his life. He’d be the first to admit that he grew bored sometimes with the slower pace of Calais, but he loved the town and had no desire to return to the city. The politics, lack of personnel and lack of funding were constant struggles for any large police department, and those things had grown to frustrate him so much that he could no longer effectively do his job.
He needed to be where he felt he could make a difference. In Calais, he spent more time chasing poachers and drunks than murderers, but that was okay, and it served the citizens of the town he’d sworn to protect. In Calais, everything he did mattered. In New Orleans, it seemed nothing he did mattered.
They exited the elevator on the tenth floor and walked down a wide hallway all the way to the end, where Alaina unlocked the door of a corner unit. But as soon as she pushed the door open, Carter knew things were very wron
g.
A small cry escaped her before she stumbled back into him. Over her shoulder he could clearly see what caused her reaction. He put his hands on her shoulders and eased by her and into the condo.
Pictures had been torn off the walls. Her furniture slashed, the contents spilling out onto the floor. From his vantage point, he could see into the kitchen and the story was the same—the drawers had been pulled from their slots, every cabinet open and the contents of both strewn across the floor.
Alaina stepped next to him and stared at the damage. Her face was pale and she brought one shaky hand up to her mouth. She shuffled one foot forward and it connected with a broken lamp. She reached over, but before she could lift the lamp, he stopped her.
“Don’t touch anything. He probably didn’t leave prints, but the forensics team needs to try anyway.”
She straightened back up. “One more useless puzzle piece.”
She backed away and walked out of the condo. He stared after her, unable to think of a single word of comfort. He was simply all out.
* * *
AFTER SPENDING an exhausting two hours with the police and building security, then another trying to put her condo back to any semblance of normal, Alaina was more than ready to return to Calais. Wire on stairs and creepy specters were starting to seem tame in comparison to the things happening in Baton Rouge.
The forensics team had lifted prints, but Alaina would bet anything that when the results were in, the prints would belong only to her and those invited into her home. Despite an extensive review of all the contents, she’d been unable to find a single item missing even though jewelry of reasonable value was in clear boxes in the top drawer of her dresser. Nor had any of the electronics been touched.
It seemed as if whoever had broken in only wanted to create a mess, perhaps hoping to make her stressed or anxious—no one was sure. Unlike the vandalism on Everett’s car, the perpetrator left no note behind this time, so they were left to only speculation. The day had exhausted Alaina to the point that even conjecture was beyond her maxed-out mind.
They’d just climbed into Carter’s truck when his cell phone rang. He answered the call, then frowned. Alaina felt her heart drop, unsure she could take more bad news.
