The NightShade Forensic Files: Echo and Ember (Book 4)

by A. J. Scudiere

  “People crack,” Eleri repeated. “Good people crack. People you would least expect it from, they crack. So we watch them carefully. But we can’t really watch her, can we?”

  Dana paused. To her credit, she thought it through. She was rigid, but not completely inflexible. Eleri was coming to appreciate that. “Not entirely. There’s a certain element with Christina, you just have to trust her.”

  “And you believe she’s trustworthy?”

  “Yes.” Dana was adamant.

  “And you believe that you actually believe that?” Eleri pressed, making her point.

  “I do.” There was no hesitation. “If you let her work you over—and I know, it sucks—you’ll start to find the loopholes. She’s good. Very good, but it’s not complete. Any time you get stuck, any time you wonder, stop and see if the smells are right, quickly check a texture, a taste, she’ll have missed something.”

  Or you’ll think she has. Eleri didn’t say it. She only nodded. There were loopholes in Dana’s loophole theory. But Eleri believed strongly that terrorists rarely happened on their own; they were made. It was hard to convince a reasonable person to actively turn against another unless that other had instigated something in the past. Eleri wasn’t going to do that. She only thanked Dana for her time and headed into the room, trying to figure out how to be friends with the reticent Christina. She had to figure out how to do it sincerely, too.

  In the room, Christina lifted her head and asked, “Did you get what you needed?”

  So, not that subtle after all. “No, not really,” Eleri answered truthfully. “I’m sorry, but I’m not tired, and it looks like Dana is. I can be awake out there with her, or send her in here so you can both sleep, but I don’t—”

  “She won’t do it. She’s standing guard.” Christina sounded fully awake.

  “That’s what I thought.” Eleri sat on the bed. “I’ll be quiet.”

  “No worries, I’m up anyway. Hard to sleep when you think you might be dying of a deadly disease.”

  “I honestly don’t think we are.” Eleri offered. “It doesn’t make sense. I think Dana’s just at the last thing and has to rule it out.”

  “Really?” Christina sat up, her fear seeming to overtake her no-talking-unless-spoken-to rule.

  “Sure. Whatever it was, it killed them pretty fast. Faster than eight hours—which is how long it has been since we stood over today’s body. Plus, we stood over previous bodies, even cut one open, and didn’t catch anything. None of us.” The relief that grew on Christina’s face kept Eleri talking. “Dana’s only real point in favor of disease is that if it was delivered in some form that killed them. Thus we may have gotten smaller, non-lethal doses and be carrying it. For example, maybe the victims had to inhale it and we only touched it. Or it’s possible that it’s highly transmissible, but their death killed it, too, or the fire did. The odds are pretty low on this one.”

  Christina was nodding, color coming back into her face and for the first time Eleri realized it had been missing. She offered some reassurance. “It’s going to be okay. All my money is on that. Donovan, too. Do you not know this?”

  Christina shook her heads. “Nope. All you science geeks out there confuse me.”

  “You’re not a science nerd?” Eleri was shocked. Well, shit. She should have paid more attention. The quiet Christina had been riding the assumptions Eleri and Donovan and Wade had been making about her.

  “Math and Business.” Christina volunteered, making Eleri wonder if it was the first thing she’d volunteered ever.

  “You should have a good time chatting equations with Wade, then.” Eleri paused. “Was that enough information to help you get to sleep?”

  “Nope. I’m awake now.” Christina shrugged.

  “I have video from the gate at Burt Riser’s subdivision. Do you want to watch hours of unimportant cars wait while a gate opens? A second set of eyes is always helpful.”

  “Sure. Sounds super exciting. Do you want chocolate? I have a stash.”

  “Well, well. Still waters,” Eleri commented. “And yes, I want chocolate.”

  Christina was doing better. Eleri continued to hold her tongue that Dana knew all the things Eleri did about infectious diseases. So why was she quarantining them despite Eleri’s clear argument against it? They were losing investigation time, just when things were rolling. Was Dana doing to her what she’d just done to Christina? Doling out facts but holding back the real opinion?

  Because Dana Brantley could touch a body and feel what was in there. What did she know that she wasn’t saying?

  15

  The next morning, Donovan sat through the most uncomfortable round-table he thought he’d ever been at. And he’d sat at tables where medical examiners had been raked over the coals for missing a murder, or accusing parents of abuse that hadn’t happened. This was simply more awkward.

  Five adults, two bathrooms, one tiny living area with a table not big enough for all of them, a mini-fridge, a microwave, and a coffee pot. Plus, they were all squirrely about whatever Drs. Brookwood and Abellard might find.

  Dana, of course, would not just let the morning roll by. No. They had to have regimented time. Donovan reminded himself he was not in charge. In fact, he hadn’t been in charge since the day he left the M.E.’s office. While that job hadn’t been any carte blanche situation, it wasn’t Dana’s preschool time schedule either. He spent only a brief moment appreciating Eleri’s leadership style before he was told it was his rotation for the shower and that he should eat breakfast thereafter. He was give three options for food.

  Fighting the urge to put his fingers in the air in the “I’m listening, teacher” signal, he tamped down the accompanying sigh and took his shower. He was grateful that, at least there, he got to be alone.

  After he’d milked that time as much as he could, he emerged to find that the overpowering smell of Chinese food wasn’t just from not being able to throw out any trash last night. Eleri was microwaving wanton soup for breakfast. Christina was right behind her, looking skeptical as Eleri seemed to walk her through it, but almost smiling. Donovan blinked. Had Eleri made a friend? Out of can’t-tell-if-reality-is-real Christina?

  He’d opted for breakfast sandwiches. Three of them. And a large orange juice. It wasn’t his favorite—fruits and vegetables generally weren’t—and he told himself his differing physiology made his bad diet acceptable. He wasn’t up for milk, though. Didn’t want coffee. Wanton soup was not his liquid of choice, probably ever.

  Dana accepted two deliveries at the door the same as last night—a knock and leave them by the door. Tip was delivered over the credit card, nothing they touched would leave the room. In fact, none of them even stepped foot outside. They broke quarantine only long enough to reach an arm into the hallway and grab the food bag. That happened only after Donovan or Wade listened at the door and made sure the hall was clear. It wasn’t a true quarantine, which actually reassured him, but didn’t do anything to get him out of this room.

  He sighed as he opened the bag of biscuits filled with bacon, ham, cheese, and eggs. The smells co-mingled with the Chinese in an odd way. He was grateful that smells weren’t “bad” to him, it was probably a pretty off-putting mix otherwise.

  Wade reached into the bag even before Donovan could and stole two of the biscuits. With a coffee in hand, he returned to his spot, never having spoken a word. Donovan went back to his seat, too. He ate first, knowing that biscuit crumbs and computers didn’t mix. It was a realization Wade came to too late if the mild swearing and brushing at the keyboard was any indication.

  Donovan would have wanted to sit back, eat, enjoy the flavors—even though they ran a little to the plasticky side—and smell the air. He would have liked to go out onto the balcony. He would have liked to be anywhere but in this stuffy room, where Dana had to be talked into using the thermostat. Wade had to explain the closed air system, how each room could control its own temperature and so on, before she would agree. None of
it mattered in the end; he was still uncomfortable. So Donovan ate quickly, the tightness in his chest not easing as he opened his files and tried to find connections. Taking a note from Eleri’s playbook, he pulled up a pad of paper and started making spider maps of any connections he could find.

  An hour later, he had lots of circles, but no more than a few lines connecting them.

  Eleri and Christina had tapped out for a mid-morning nap, claiming they’d been up late watching video. They watched it all again this morning and—bleary-eyed—declared it no more helpful than before.

  Neither Leroy nor LeighAnn Arvad connected to anything in the other cases. Nothing. Not a relative, not a former job, nothing. The only thing Donovan could find that came close was that Leroy ran a delivery line that went from a city that was about two hours from the general area of the country that the first four deaths had occurred in back to Louisiana. That was it. It was nothing.

  He told Dana exactly that.

  What he didn’t tell her was the feeling that Leroy Arvad was incidental. He was starting to think that the long-haul trucker had been used for transport and that the other victim in the area, Gennida Orlov, was the real intended victim.

  He had nothing to tie this together, nothing he could put a finger on anyway. Also his theory had a lot of holes. He played it out.

  “Hey, Wade.” He waited until the other man looked up. “How big would this flamethrower be?”

  “I was actually just calculating that . . .” He tipped his head side to side as he looked back down at the page. Donovan had no doubt it was covered in equations and conversions he’d looked up online. Probably how much hydrogen was necessary to convert to a certain quantity of heat. Wade had probably calculated a per BTU number.

  “I’ve got another question. Could it be a person? A skill, like we have?” Donovan felt the room go cold. Had no one else considered that?

  Everyone stopped, only Wade stayed in motion, tipping his head back and forth a little as though that helped the thoughts roll around. “I mean it could be.”

  Dana was on her feet, as if that was necessary in the tiny space. She asked contradictory questions all at once. “It could? But why not?”

  Wade sighed. “Well, I’ve met a lot of NightShade agents and I’ve never heard of it.” He paused, more thoughts rolling through his head. “I could be a skill, but it could be a real flamethrower. I think I can build one. And while someone with this skill could exist, . . . I’ve never run into them. I don’t see people with Eleri’s skill out there committing crimes. I don’t see people like Christina robbing banks. We’re weird, so work really hard to stay under the radar and blend in. This is the opposite of blending in. And I think it’s like Occam’s Razer, too. The simplest explanation is a flame thrower.”

  Dana seemed to accept that and sat back down.

  Donovan nodded, as did Eleri and Christina.

  Wade went back to his calculations. “I’m guessing it’s about the size of a leaf blower.”

  He kept going. “If the fuel was hydrogen, it would probably need some delivery system. An air mix, something. And a propulsion system. Carrying enough of it—compressed—would mean a tank of some kind.”

  “Like a scuba tank?”

  “Exactly.” Wade was nodding. “So this is no handheld device. Given the size of the fires we saw, I would guess it’s pretty big.”

  Dana jumped into the conversation again. “Couldn’t you just use a small one to start the fire? After that, the house itself is the fuel.”

  “That’s true.” Wade leaned forward, in his element. “But we saw the burn patterns. This wasn’t an issue of starting a fire, it was about leading the fire and controlling it all the way through. Hell, it seemed to chase Burt Riser up the stairs. It was controlled enough that a few of the others had a relatively clean circle around them. So it was burning the provided fuel, not just starting, then burning up the house.”

  Dana nodded. “So how big, really?”

  “Big leaf blower,” Wade told her.

  “Then how does he—she—” Donovan corrected himself, “—get it into Leroy Arvad’s truck?”

  Dana blinked at him. “You think the woman was in the truck? You’re sure it’s the woman?”

  “I’m as close to sure as I can be. She ran away. She had the smell. She wasn’t afraid—she was excited. That says ‘killer’ to me,” Donovan argued.

  “Alright then. She.” Dana motioned with her hand. “So you think she rode with Leroy Arvad?”

  Another shrug. “It’s the best I’ve got. The only connection from Leroy to any of the other bodies is that he drove a truck between the general areas they were in. That’s it.”

  “What about Gennida Orlov?” Dana was asking if he was connected to the newest victim. She was the one physically closest to Leroy Arvad.

  “I’ve got nothing between them, and I’m running into a blank connecting Gennida Orlov to anyone else, either.” Donovan worried his hands together. “She was an old woman who knew all her neighbors’ names and not much else. She didn’t get out much. Didn’t even go to church. So her connections are scarce. Now this is where it gets interesting.”

  Dana leaned forward and so did Wade. For a moment, Donovan felt like he had something, only when he tugged on that string, it just yanked loose and seemed to lead to nothing. “She has only one living relative, a daughter. The daughter is Wilemina Orlov. Both of them immigrated together about twenty years ago. The daughter—Mina—was in her mid teens at the time. They came as asylum seekers from Russia, but the reason for seeking asylum is redacted.”

  “Chew on that.” Dana marveled. “That must be something important.”

  “And,” Donovan added, “Mina Orlov later married one Peter Aroya and settled down in Casper, Wyoming. No one can find them. I set some analysts to finding the couple. At the very least, Mina Orlov needs to be notified about her mother. But Casper is close to Rosedeer.”

  “Where Leona Hiller was found,” Dana mused. “What are the connections between them?”

  “Nothing easy to find. The—”

  “—analyst is on it,” she finished for him, nodding.

  It made sense. But Donovan thought it wasn’t much more than a hunch without some evidence.

  “GENNIDA ORLOV WAS THE INTENDED VICTIM.” Eleri propped herself in the doorway to make her declaration. She probably looked rumpled there at the border of her bedroom and the main room. Surely she looked as though she’d napped, which she had. However, it seemed her nap had helped the case more than it helped her. “All I know is that when Gennida Orlov died, it was purposeful. Leroy Arvad was a side gig. The last words he heard was a woman saying, ‘I’m sorry.’ So, yes, Donovan, I think the killer is a woman, too.”

  “Let’s work with that . . .” Dana then led them through trying to figure out how to get that damn flamethrower into Leroy Arvad’s truck cab. Could it be done without him noticing? Could it be dismantled and reassembled?

  “Can she just build a new one?” Eleri asked. All eyes turned to her.

  But it was Donovan who picked up the thread. “You’re suggesting she throws the old one out each time. And because she knows how to build one, she gathers the materials and does it again?”

  This time, all eyes focused on Wade.

  “I’d have to try it to see.”

  “Well, you have a fun assignment when we get out. You get to build a flamethrower. Donovan here gets to smell the truck to see if the woman was in it. Then he gets to check the path behind the Arvad house and see if we can follow it all the way to a discarded flamethrower.” She turned to Eleri, “What did you and Christina get?”

  “Well, first we watched the footage from Burt Riser’s community around the nights he died. We looked at all the cars going through the gate. Watching paint dry would have been far more exciting. Nothing was out of the ordinary. So we checked all the license plates on the cars and mapped them to houses in the neighborhood—to see who should be closest to Burt Riser’s
house.”

  “That’s a good idea.” Dana smiled and Eleri was disturbed to feel the faint praise in her heart.

  “Well, only three of them went close to his house in that time frame. Despite him being there for a while, you may have noticed that not all the lots are sold yet. He apparently got in early. So not too many neighbors out in his neck of the suburban jungle. Again, nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “Can you see who is in the cars?” Dana asked her and Eleri nodded yes. “Then follow up and match the people to the houses.”

  Sure, why not? She thought it sarcastically, as if she hadn’t had a boring enough assignment. She didn’t get a chance to respond because a knock came at the door. In an effort to keep her tongue in her head, she went to answer it, speaking to the door rather than opening it.

  “Who is it?”

  “Jordan.” The familiar voice came, filling her with warmth and relief. She had once admitted having a bit of crush on the guy, though she would never have acted against Jillian and it had passed. But, damn, she liked that guy.

  “And Jillian!” the crisp southern accent chimed in beyond the lock. This time Eleri smiled. That accent hid a razor-sharp mind that had little time for the social frivolities her voice called to mind. This pair would have them out in no time.

  “It’s so good to hear your voices.” She didn’t open the door. “What do we have to do so we can prove we’re clean and get out?”

  16

  Eleri wound up doing Donovan’s blood draw. She hadn’t wanted to do it, as her medical training was minimal. He wasn’t comfortable sticking the needle into his own arm, to which she told him, “Why not? You’re used to sticking dead people.”

  It wasn’t funny.

  Her smile had felt tight since she’d woken up. She was a grown woman, a professional, an agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and she was sharing a bed.