She nodded to the men and with unhurried steps made her way to the outer office door. She forced herself to move slowly and breathe evenly, not wanting them to realize she was dubious of them. If they suspected she might sound the alarm, they’d detain her and then she and Brian were both screwed.
“Do I know you from somewhere?” Mikhail asked.
Carey stopped, her hand closing around the doorknob. Ice ran through her veins and she turned to look at the big man. She made a point of appearing as though she was conscientiously trying to make a connection, not hurrying the process. She shook her head.
“Sorry, I don’t believe so,” she replied before exiting the office.
Once the door was closed, she didn’t hesitate and rushed down the hallway as fast as she could, balancing precariously in three-inch heels while holding onto the expensive vase. She almost tripped as her stiletto heel caught a ragged area of the carpet. She swore softly. The board of directors had promised to have the old carpet replaced months ago. They hadn’t, and it almost cost them a three hundred and eighty-thousand dollar vase.
Hamilton Museum was an old Georgian mansion built in the mid 1760s by a distant relative of Thomas Jefferson, and it had changed hands many times over the years. Situated near Colonial Village, overlooking Rock Creek Park, it had been converted into a museum in the early 1900s after the last heir, Gloria Hamilton-West, had passed on. The building was on the National Register of Historic Places. The mansion had originally been built as a modest five bedroom, two-storey brownstone but over the years had been expanded to sixteen rooms including formal and informal dining, a tea-room, pavilion, and foyer. Another level had to be added to accommodate the additions.
The museum itself boasted the most comprehensive collection of Russian antiquities outside of Russia. It also had a high level of eighteenth and nineteenth century French art and collectables along with several Ancient Greek and Egyptian artifacts. Recently they had showcased a collection of women’s fashion over the years, on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She’d worked there as assistant curator since she had returned to the United States.
Moving quickly past the marble busts of the museum’s previous curators—most likely pompous asses like Brian—she turned a corner and entered the closest office which belonged to their French art expert, Pierre D’Artimo. The office was almost identical to her own except his polished desk was devoid of clutter and a neatly printed to-do list lay atop of the in-tray. The heavy maroon curtains were closed, casting the clean office in darkness. She switched on the small light attached to the wall beside the desk, the one Pierre used to examine his finds.
She gently placed the vase down on the desk, glad to be rid of it for the moment. Her palms were beginning to sweat and she feared dropping the thing. Lifting up the handset on the telephone, she dialed the extension for the security office. She would have started dialing on her cell but it was locked away in the drawer of her desk since staff were not permitted to take it with them around the museum. The phone line rang, but no one was there.
Great time to take a bathroom break, Milo. He was Hamilton’s head of security. She dialed again. Come on, pick up…
The phone rang again. She could have dialed the museum’s information line to get Milo’s personal number but she couldn’t for the life of her remember his last name. It was something Italian, she knew that much.
She cursed herself for not taking much interest in the people around her. She’d been consumed by her work for too long. Milo had flirted with her from time to time but she had made it very clear she wasn’t interested in him. She wasn’t looking for a date and kept to herself. She had been doing that since Moscow. Milo probably assumed she was a snob, which suited her just fine.
She slammed down the phone in frustration, feeling slightly better by the angry action. It was short lived as she heard the raised voices coming through the wall. The Man in Charge, Mikhail, was screaming at Brian. She could just make out some words.
“Where…the ship…had better…now.”
She didn’t like the sound of that, and what ship? Opening the office door, she slammed into Milo’s chest since she’d stepped out without looking. He grabbed her arms to steady her. She bit off a scream when she recognized the baby faced features belonging to the head of security. He certainly didn’t seem the type you’d trust to guard over several million dollars’ worth of antiquities.
“Carey, what’s going on?” he asked, before looking past her towards the curator’s office at the end of the next corridor, where the screaming was still going on.
At this time of evening when the museum was closed and all had gone home, the place could be quite eerie. Any sounds made echoed through the rooms. There had been several instances where she had been scared to the bone and had practically ran to her car to escape the evil clutches of the innocent mansion.
There would only be a handful of guards on shift, the others having gone home after scanning all incoming visitors with metal detectors and watching them for any suspicious actions. In all her time at the museum, there had never been any incidents…until now.
“Milo, do you have a radio or your cell on you?” she asked as the yelling became louder, more insistent. She didn’t like to think what could happen to Brian if they left him unattended for much longer. The Russian was losing patience more quickly than the Titanic took on water. That was if he’d had any to begin with.
Milo nodded. “Sure. Have to. It’s procedure.”
“Good, call for help.” She stepped past him, continuing towards the curator’s office. Milo was already speaking on the phone to the other members of security. She heard a loud pop sound and her heart stopped and her blood ran cold, her steps faltering. Milo, a few steps behind, almost ran into the back of her, unprepared for her sudden halt. Salty tears burned her eyes. These were not the type of people to mess around. The pop sound could only mean one thing and deep down she knew what that thing was.
“You’d better call 911 while you’re at it,” she told Milo.
She turned the corner into the main corridor that led to the staircase descending to the lower levels and hurried over to the curator’s office and opened the door, knowing full well what she would find in there. The room was empty, a harsh smell assaulted her nose, and her gaze immediately fell upon the lifeless body of Brian Nichols. Her brain shut down as she tried to deal with the situation. Her body working on autopilot, she took in the redecorating, Russian style. Brian’s brains were splattered against the wall and blood pooled around his head. His fingers were bent at difficult angles and the smell of cordite was overpowering. Death hung in the air and she almost gagged. She forced herself to move across the room, assessing the havoc. The filing cabinets and desk drawers sat open, papers haphazardly strewn about.
Someone was looking for something.
A loud intake of breath told her Milo had joined her in the doorway. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “What the fuck happened here?”
Carey had the sick feeling she knew exactly what happened. She had seen this kind of depravity before, years ago, back in Russia.
Chapter 2
Dmitry Ivanov stared at the computer screen as his nimble fingers input the special characters into the file. He knew the HTML file looked like a bunch of nonsense but the code he was writing made perfect sense and would guard sensitive materials from men like him.
Hire a hacker to keep out a hacker.
Years ago he would’ve laughed had someone told him he would end up working for the CIA in their Cyber Tech Division along with countless other exceptionally brilliant men and women. He had vehemently opposed the government and their Big Brother antics but he’d readily agreed when Special Agent in Charge James Fitzgibbon had made the offer.
Not only did he feel he owed the man who’d put his career on the line by vouching for him, but he liked the idea of being legally able to hack into anything. Or at least under direction by the CIA Director or the President of t
he United States. He loved to use his skills as a hacker for good, not that he ever voluntarily used them for evil. He liked to see himself as a grey hat, a hacker who skated the line between legal and illegal. But he was proud to say he’d never caused mischief by shutting down sites, nor did he use his abilities to gain money or cause terror. He just wanted to know if he could and set about achieving it and while his skills were legendary in the field, he never bragged or advertised his successes. He understood all too well that others would use it to their advantage and personal gain.
His new career had also allowed him to be near his sister who had also moved to the States to be with her husband and fellow agent Lucas Gates, and to take up a liaison position within the Agency. The offer had been perfectly timed after she’d been fired from the SVR for opposing the Director’s orders. He still felt guilty over that. If it hadn’t been for him she would probably still be working there. Not that Elena blamed him, and she’d used the opportunity it presented to take the plunge she’d been fearful of for so long and throw her lot in with Lucas.
He took a sip from his coffee mug, barely flinching when he found it cold. He was used to drinking it that way, often getting caught up in whatever code he was writing so he’d forget to drink it. It was one of the many reasons why his sister was worried about him. He spent far too much time in Langley’s basement for her liking and before that he’d often been holed up in his apartment with his electronics. She just didn’t—or simply couldn’t—understand his need for technology. It was like a drug in his system. One he could never be weaned from.
“Bye, Dmitry. See you in the morning,” a tech said.
Dmitry grunted his response, not wanting to break the zone. He was often non-responsive when working. He would find his pace and not come up for air until he’d completed whatever it was he’d been working on. He could be extremely single-minded but his attention to detail always showed in the quality of his work.
God forbid he was ever interrupted. Few had made that mistake but only ever once. That was all it took. He knew what the other techs whispered behind his back. They called him the Cold Russian. They were right. He could be extremely cold when the situation called for it. Interruption was one. A man intent on doing his sister harm another. He still didn’t feel any guilt or sorrow over the life he took to protect Elena. He simply felt nothing. Elena had told him later she’d never seen him so deadly and the look on his face had scared her. Not of him but for him. She thought she’d lost him but he’d bounced back to his normal self, much to her relief.
He hated knowing she’d been worried for him. Which was why he’d never told her about his feelings—or rather, lack of them—concerning the man’s death. He’d never once looked back. He would do it again in the blink of an eye to protect someone he loved.
The overhead light flicked off, casting him into semi-darkness, the glow of the countless computer screens in the otherwise sterile room his only source of light. He liked the cloud of darkness. It was when he did his best work. For as long as he could remember, he’d always worked through the night.
His mind drifted even as his fingers continued to write the code in his head. Everything in his life revolved around code. He lived and breathed codes and for the few hours he did sleep a night, he dreamt of codes. His sister often accused him of needing a girlfriend and maybe she was right. He missed the feel of soft feminine skin beneath his fingertips, the sweet scent of a woman and the intimacy of being a couple. But one thing was holding him back. He wanted a relationship like his sister and brother-in-law had. It wasn’t so long ago he’d been disgusted by their googly eyes across the kitchen table but he’d been mellowing these past few years and he felt an itch—a itch that told him he was ready to settle down.
Unfortunately, the women he met didn’t interest him. He knew what he wanted and had yet to find a woman who embodied all the qualities he sought. He was picky, he admitted. He didn’t want to settle for just anyone. He wanted a woman who was as intelligent as she was beautiful, had a wry sense of humor and witty repertoire. A woman with a fiery attitude who could match his stubbornness. A woman who would be his equal in every way.
He snorted. He was fooling himself. Where was he going to find a woman like that?
Chapter 3
Carey sat at her desk. She had been given permission to take the vase to the vault provided she was accompanied by an officer. She had conceded, although she hadn’t understood why the officer would have believed her stupid enough to make a break for it after the police had arrived. She and Milo had waited outside the curator’s office guarding the crime scene while the responding officers had stormed the museum setting off the metal detectors at every entrance.
The whole museum shook with the sound of the siren belting out its shrilling alarm, the sound waves bouncing off the hard wood floors and echoing through the large fifteen-foot high ceiling rooms. It was giving her a headache. She reached up and yanked the clip from her hair. Her tightly wound chignon fell free of its bound. The GHD straightener achieved straight hair hung past her shoulders as she ran her fingers through the red silky mass, combing out any tangles she found.
That was another thing that bothered her. While she had sat in her chair, her every shift in position watched and scrutinized, she’d been thinking. Thoughts bombarded her mind as she tried not to picture Brian’s body being examined only a few feet away. The metal detectors had not gone off when the Russians had arrived. Which raised more questions, none to which she had any answers.
She’d already been on the phone with the chairman of the board and explained to him the situation. It was agreed, as she was Brian’s assistant, she was the best person to fill in for him until another candidate could be found. She was also told to take the next day off. After having been through what she had tonight, it was the least they could do. The board would contact Brian’s family and give them the museum’s collective condolences and would also pay for the service. In other words, the board’s secretary was about to get a rude wakeup call and would be working her ass off for the next few days.
Taking a sip of water from the bottle she kept in her desk drawer, she gazed at the officers around her. While her day had ended, theirs had only just begun. She counted at least ten people crammed in her small outer office. More were most likely searching through Brian’s office, through the connecting door, for clues. Five were collecting evidence, taking photographs, dusting for fingerprints and placing down yellow evidence markers. Another five were standing around talking. She had no idea what the topic of conversation could be, but whatever it was she highly doubted it was about the crime scene or Brian’s murder. Every so often she heard the word nationals float across the room to her. She shook her head. How anyone could discuss baseball at a time like this was beyond her, although she had known men who could discuss the subject in depth in a variety of circumstances. Surely the police would be more professional. There was, after all, a murder to solve.
The room went blissfully quiet. Someone had finally switched off the alarm. However, her ears were still ringing and a slight vibration remained. She leaned heavily against the back of her chair and clutched her purse tight, as if she might drop it in a second’s notice. She had rounded up the contents of her purse, under the watchful eye of an officer, which had been scattered throughout her desk drawer. Nothing was missing but it still made her uneasy that the Russians had seen her license and knew her home address.
She waited nervously for the detective assigned to Brian’s murder so that she could go home. It wasn’t as if she had anything to hide but almost every innocent person didn’t like to be questioned by police. Carey had seen more cops in her life than she cared to.
She shivered. The warm day had become very cold, unusual for this time of year. She was unsure whether it was the temperature outside or just her internal one that was the problem. The forensics team finally finished with their evidence collecting and photo taking of Brian and thankfully covered his body with a
plastic sheet. Being inside a room with a dead body was giving her the creeps and slowly driving her insane. If she was a nail bitter, she would have chewed down to the quick by now. She wanted nothing more than to go home, run a boiling hot bath and scrub herself down while drinking a bottle of chilled red wine. The day certainly called for it.
The first responding officer on scene had asked her if she had touched the body and she had looked over at Brian, then back at the officer, giving him an ‘Are you serious?’ look. Did he really believe her to be turned on by the blood and gore that she would want to get closer and touch him? Did she really look like one of those people who had morbid curiosity? No, thank you, she had seen more than enough blood to last her several life times.
“No,” she had said to the officer. “You can verify that with the museum head of security, Milo Venucci, he was here with me when we found the body and stayed with me until you arrived.”
A new man entered the room. Her gaze followed him as he spoke with several of the officers before examining the crime scene. This had to be the detective in charge of Brian’s case. He squatted down beside the body and lifted the sheet. He was very thorough, she noted, as the detective’s assessing gaze went over the room again. He finally straightened and locked his gaze with her and began to stride towards her, his long legs eating up the length of room. He sat down beside her and introduced himself as Detective Robert Harrington from the Fourth District Metropolitan Police Department.
She summed him up quickly, a habit of hers that had served her well over the years. Overworked, underpaid, harried, but hadn’t started hitting the bottle yet. His eyes were brown, matching his mussed hair, and spoke volumes of the many horrid sights he had seen in his career. He appeared to be a man in his mid to late fifties but she doubted he’d even hit forty yet. She didn’t begrudge him his job and the man obviously cared about the cases that hit his desk, his tired and haggard appearance due to sleepless nights and countless dead ends.
No Law (Law #3) Page 2
