Look Twice (Ingrid Skyberg Book 8)

by Eva Hudson

  “What’s the case?”

  She pictured Sol’s face and changed the subject. “Do you think the A/C has stopped working?”

  “It certainly feels a little hot in here.”

  Ingrid checked her bag. No bottle of water. Probably no bad thing, given the fullness of her bladder. “Four hours? Really?” She pressed the alarm button again. “Should we bang on the walls?”

  “I guess it wouldn’t hurt.”

  They both pummeled the stainless-steel walls with their fists, hoping to attract some attention. “People will have noticed the car isn’t moving, right?” Ingrid said.

  “I hope so. I mean, I guess so.”

  “Someone will call maintenance, right?”

  “Unless they just take the stairs and assume someone else will make the call.”

  Ingrid checked her phone again. Still no service. “Any word on how long before we move to the new building?”

  DeWalt untucked his shirt. “Last I heard, it wasn’t good news.”

  She gestured for him to continue.

  “Not before Christmas.”

  Ingrid’s eyes popped. “So, the State Department has two buildings in London that don’t work properly?”

  “And both are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.”

  Ingrid slumped against the wall. “Sometimes I swear it’s like we work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in…” She reached for a suitably impoverished country. “Malawi. Imagine having to tell a grieving relative that you didn’t arrest their son’s killer because you got stuck in an elevator?” She needed to calm down. There was nothing she could do about it. If help came soon, she might still catch Andy Scott. She could rush to the airport, speak to him in the departure lounge. On the runway if necessary. “At least the deputy ambassador will work out what happened to you.”

  “That’s what’s worrying me,” DeWalt said, a sheepish expression on his face. “I mean, it’s only one flight of stairs. It’s kind of embarrassing I took the easy route.”

  He had a point.

  “If this were a movie,” Ingrid said, “you’d give me a leg up, I’d push up the escape hatch and then shinny up the cable.”

  They both looked up at the access hatch in the ceiling.

  “If this was a movie,” DeWalt said, “the cable would be severed and we’d be about to plunge to our deaths.”

  Ingrid managed a smile. “So, what you’re saying is it could be worse?”

  “Way worse. We could be stuck in here with Mitch. You know, the maintenance guy?”

  “The really big guy?”

  “You mean the real stinky guy, right? Don’t say you haven’t noticed. His odor is so heavy you can see it trailing after him, like Pigpen.”

  Ingrid turned her head sharply. “You hear that?” A clanging sound echoed up from somewhere deep below. “You think that’s maintenance?”

  DeWalt slid down the wall and sat on the ground. “Or the cable fraying. I’m just glad neither of us are claustrophobic.”

  “You know, if this car had arrived five seconds later, I’d have been on the stairs. I’d be hailing a taxi right now.”

  “Not taking the bike?”

  Ingrid resisted making a comment along the lines of ‘can you see a helmet?’

  “I heard you ride a Ducati these days.”

  Ingrid’s brain flashed back to West Park and the man in the car. The man with her embassy ID photo on the passenger seat. The muscles at the base of her skull tightened. “You did, huh? Who told you that?”

  “Little Mo,” he had answered quickly. “You know, from the Agency? I think he’s been eyeing your ride in the parking lot.”

  “His feet wouldn’t touch the pedals.” Ingrid stared at DeWalt’s ID card, nestled in a fold of his untucked shirt and resting on his belly. Someone had accessed the embassy’s security system to get the photo of her. That meant someone in the building was surveilling her. She thought back to the file that disappeared from the system, the file someone had left as a warning signal to alert them when someone approached their territory. She needed to say something. “Do you remember an agent who used to work here called Dennis Mulroony?”

  “Oh Denny Boy? Sure.” He made very deliberate eye contact, unnerving Ingrid. “Why are you asking?”

  “I think I may have found something. Something that relates to his activities.” She’d used that word again. Activities. It was both bland and sinister.

  DeWalt’s expression didn’t change, but his breaths became more rapid. She looked at his security pass, then back up at his face. His mouth was now slightly open. Did he know? Ingrid felt the sweat pool inside her bra. Does he know?

  “Activities?” he asked.

  Sol’s warning was now ringing loudly in her ears. She needed to backtrack. “You worked with him, so you’ll know more than me.” Ingrid kept her face neutral. “I get the impression he left under a cloud.”

  His nostrils flared briefly. “He certainly left fast.”

  “Something to do with the ambassador’s daughter? At least that’s what I heard.”

  DeWalt paused before answering. “Yeah. Sounds about right.”

  “You got any way of contacting him?”

  “You tried HR?”

  “Not yet.”

  DeWalt shifted to make himself more comfortable. “Shall we use our time wisely? You want to update me on the Tilbury case?”

  Ingrid listened to the neighboring elevator clatter down its shaft. “Sure, makes sense.” She joined him on the floor and told him about the training drill at Gravesend and how it had gone wrong. “If it had been the real thing, four people would be dead, an officer shot in the chest and one of the smugglers would be on the run.” She didn’t say that she had played the part of the fence-jumping escapee. “The NCA is requesting aerial support and additional manpower.”

  “But the boat is still coming our way?”

  Ingrid rolled her eyes to the ceiling as she counted. “Three days. Currently approaching Irish waters. The important thing is I have the extradition paperwork, and as soon as the NCA concludes things here, the DEA can arrest the guys in Miami.”

  “You worried?”

  “A little. The danger with an operation like this is that something leaks. There are so many agencies involved.” She scrutinized him closely. “I mean, even you probably know enough to say something to someone.”

  He nodded. “There are cops all over the world taking bribes from OCGs,” he said, almost wistfully.

  “Thanks. That really helps.” A bead of sweat dribbled from her hairline. She really wished she’d visited the bathroom. “The DEA will get their scalp, and I’ll get a day out playing SWAT.”

  “You get to be Starling.”

  Her breath stalled. She pictured the photo of the bird. “What did you say?”

  “You get to be Clarice Starling.” He smiled. “Isn’t that why you joined? It’s usually either her or Dana Scully for most of the female agents I know.”

  Ingrid’s heart stuttered. Was he testing her? First, he mentions the Ducati, then he drops Starling into the conversation. She swallowed to moisten her throat.

  “Did you feel that?” DeWalt stiffened at the sound of banging. “I think they definitely know we’re stuck. I ever tell you I spent four months in the OPR?”

  “You did internal affairs? I wouldn’t have picked it. But guess that’s why you know about cops taking bribes.”

  “Exactly. You’ll never guess how we caught one agent,” he said, glee spreading across his face. “He was taking payments from one of the Mexican cartels and he only went and left a goddamn note!”

  Ingrid lifted her gaze from his name badge. She couldn’t stop looking at it. “For real?”

  “Yep.”

  “What kind of note?”

  “He figured he was being real clever. It was all in code. Cryptic, you know? But what he’d actually done was leave a nice trail for us saying which drops he’d let happen, how much he estimated the street
value was worth, and what percentage he thought he should get. It was like he was asking for a pay rise, diligently outlining his skills and accomplishments for his boss.”

  Ingrid let it sink in. Then her heart started beating a little harder. “What kind of code?”

  “We’re not talking 128-bit encryption. More schoolyard substitutions. He never could quite get over the fact that he had prepared all this data for one set of eyes, hidden it real careful, but it got seen by someone else entirely.”

  Ingrid didn’t hear much more of what her boss said for the next few minutes. Something about ice cream, as best she could tell. She was too intent on imagining Mulroony as he carefully photographed his treasure map, never knowing that it would be her who found his clues. But he had taken those photos for someone. Who?

  The fact he was in the Black Dolphin prison meant they couldn’t have been for the Kremlin. He certainly hadn’t had her in mind, but maybe, she thought as DeWalt droned on about the merits of Ben & Jerry’s over Häagen Dazs, they were for someone like her?

  “You’re really not listening, are you?” DeWalt said.

  “Sorry, no. What did you say?”

  “I think the noises have stopped.” He stretched his meaty legs and flexed his feet. “We might be here a while.” He waggled his iPad at her. “Suppose I better catch up on some reading. Got at least a dozen reports on here.”

  Ingrid shook her head, desperate to retrieve her train of thought. Someone like her. Why would Mulroony need someone like her? She wrestled her unwieldy thoughts and attempted to order them into a semblance of logic. She tried to picture each of the photos. The house in the suburbs, the arrows scrawled on a notebook, Stephen Hawking, the article about Mojito Joe’s, Steiner’s book, the birds, the fake birthday cake, the map of Scotland, the Post-its. Why did Mulroony need someone like her, someone who worked in the embassy, someone who was most likely an FBI agent, to see those images?

  Ingrid’s innards hollowed out as one piece of the puzzle slotted into place: there was someone in the building he couldn’t trust, someone who probably worked for the bureau. That’s why he couldn’t leave a digital trace.

  “What was that?” DeWalt said.

  “Pardon?”

  “You said something.”

  “Did I?”

  “Kind of a gasp.”

  Ingrid’s cheeks were flaming hot. She probably had gasped: Mulroony knew he couldn’t leave a trace because he was being framed. He wasn’t the spy, but he was being framed by whoever was.

  And if Mulroony wasn’t Skylark, then Skylark was still active.

  21

  It was just after eight at night when Ingrid and DeWalt were finally freed. The first thing both of them did after six hours of captivity was rush to the bathroom. They then bumped into each other on the way to the watercooler where they both filled paper cups.

  “So, you want to grab that Rocky Road?” DeWalt wiped his wet hands on his pants. His face glistened from a splash of cold water.

  “Hey, no. No thanks,” Ingrid said, hooking a piece of dampened hair behind her ear. She drained her cup and bent down to refill it. “I better get on with a few things here.”

  “Don’t forget to go home,” he said, and headed for the stairs. Most of their co-workers had already left. A few voices on urgent phone calls drifted out of the CT and CI rooms, and at the far end of the bullpen, two assistants attacked their keyboards like they were manual typewriters. The warm, sunny evening had tempted everyone else away from their work.

  The prospect of another night of room service and cable TV made Ingrid even keener to slip into her office. Before entering, she glanced up at the muted TV screens above the empty bullpen desks. Only one was covering the Jones trial, and it was showing an anatomical sketch of the hyoid bone, which looked like a cross between a seahorse and a horseshoe. McKittrick wasn’t the only person speculating about the forensics bombshell from the eccentric Dr. Mikkelson. Ingrid pulled her phone out of her pocket. Six missed calls. Four from Svetlana.

  The air conditioning in her office turned her sweat-drenched shirt to ice. She shivered as she sat down at her desk. Instinctively, she moved her mouse and her computer flickered into life. Without thinking, she logged on. Seventy-one emails. Not so bad. She scanned the list for priorities, but her eyes couldn’t focus. Her brain knew there was something else she should be doing. She listened to her messages. The first two were from Andy Scott’s PA, then she steeled herself for the onslaught from Minnesota. “Kroshka, you must call me.” “Kroshka, I mean it. Kathleen needs to speak with you.” “Ingrid Anna Skyberg you call me right back, you hear?” “I email. I message. I am your mother. You don’t ignore me. It’s important, Kroshka. Call me.”

  Ingrid let out a deep, mournful sigh. “Mom, you’re going to have to wait.” The emails. The calls. Everything. They would all have to wait. Skylark was still active, and the best clues she had to his real identity were Mulroony’s photographs. Ingrid leaned forward for her penholder and tipped out the contents to retrieve the key to her drawers. Her fingers pushed aside the fluff-encrusted paperclips, sticky cough drops and tangle of rubber bands. She rolled the leaking pens and broken pencils back and forth. Where the hell was the key?

  Her mouth suddenly dry, Ingrid glanced over at Libby’s desk. Had her new assistant taken it? Ingrid’s heart thudded hard against her ribs. The pens slipped under her sweaty fingertips as she rolled them one way, then the other. She tipped the container upside down again and checked it was empty. She closed her eyes and swallowed. Ingrid tried the drawer where she kept the photos. She yanked hard, but it was locked. Heat coiled around her neck and crept up into her jaw. Desperate, she scanned her desk, looking for anything she could pry the drawer with. She checked her motorcycle gear for something that could act as a lever. She spied a pair of scissors on Libby’s desk and grabbed them. When she returned to her own desk, she saw it.

  “Govno!”

  She exhaled so hard she bent forward. The key had been there all along, stuck to the underside of a fluorescent highlighter pen by the residue from an out-of-date cough drop. Feeling stupid, she slumped down hard into her chair and picked up the key. She stared at it and breathed heavily. She thought about keeping it on a chain around her neck.

  She fumbled the key into the lock and slid open the drawer. She closed her eyes in gratitude when she saw the bright green and yellow packet of photographs. Ingrid checked the open office door, then got up to close it. She did not want to be disturbed. She spread out the images on Libby’s immaculate desk. The photos were no longer in the order they had been taken, so she started to group them in a way that made sense.

  The fake birthday photos were laid out together. Then she placed the map of Scotland, the Post-it note photograph, and the Street View image together on the basis that they shared a geographical theme. She didn’t know if they really were connected. The Amazon listing for National Affront was slotted in next to the photo of Stephen Hawking. She then placed the photos of the notepad—the arrows, the word ‘sois’—in a row with the Post-its. She couldn’t link the article on Mojito Joe’s, the appointments diary, the case file number, the starling or the Google image search for a yard, so she placed them randomly around the other images. She held the photo of the bird she now knew was a skylark, and tucked it in next to the image of National Affront.

  She ran both hands through her hair and stared at the images. Her jaw twitched.

  “Okay,” she said out loud. She moved the photo of David Steiner’s book, Stephen Hawking and the skylark to one side, as she was confident she knew why Mulroony had included them. Steiner knew Skylark’s identity and had been about to testify at the Hawking Review. As the Review had been into the mishandling of the Met’s investigation of the murder of the Russian dissident Dimitri Andropov, Ingrid scanned the rest of the photos for another link to Andropov. Or to anything relating to Russia.

  She puffed out her cheeks and emptied her lungs in a deliberate attempt to slow he
r breathing. She was too tense to think straight. What she wanted was a beer, something to loosen her up and calm her down. She wasn’t even going to open the door until she’d made progress, so getting a drink was out of the question.

  Ingrid paced the office, circling Libby’s desk to look at the images from every angle. Her eyes rested on the word sois. Her French was a little rusty—she had been fluent once—but she knew it was a conjugation of être, the verb to be. “Que je sois,” she said out loud. That I am. Why the hell would Dennis Mulroony write out a random French verb? She kept walking, and on one circuit of the room she spotted the thick, heavy copy of the Hawking Review that Sherbourne had given her. Zeke’s summary was tucked inside the cover. She scanned it quickly, reminding herself that Skylark was a Russian asset with ties to an organization called England for the English.

  Ingrid held Zeke’s summation in her hand and looked again at the photos. Was there anything else that indicated the Far Right? Her eyes focused on the map of Scotland. She’d lived in the UK long enough never to conflate or confuse the Scottish and English identities. Was there a Scottish far right group she needed to know about? She shook her head, attempting to forge a connection between the images.

  Her restless hands flipped through the meaty Hawking report while her brain lasered in on the photos. It took her a while to make the connection between what her hands had found and what her eyes had seen. She looked down at the report, and then at the array of photographs.

  “Oh, wow.”

  Her fingers were so sweaty it took several attempts to pick up the photo of the suburban house, but when she placed it on top of the open page of the Hawking Review she saw it was a perfect match. The Street View screenshot was of the house where Andropov had lived. He had been the spy next door, an unassuming man in an unassuming house. When she’d read that he’d been killed in a sauna, she had pictured an exclusive country club with a member list of the rich and powerful. She’d somehow forgotten that he was a former KGB agent and that not every Russian in London was a billionaire. She pushed the photo of the house next to Stephen Hawking, then promptly let out a sigh. Nice as it was to make a connection to another photo, finding out the suburban house was Andropov’s home didn’t appear to move the needle on Skylark’s identity. Maybe her theory about the photos was wrong?