She started going through kitchen drawers and cupboards quickly, finding only kitchen implements. The noises from upstairs had subsided, and she presumed that Pete had gone up to the third floor. They weren't going to find it, she could just feel it. Maybe there was a basement, a garage...
She heard Lucy's footsteps, soft but fast down the hall and turned. Lucy was already at the kitchen door when the latch on the front door clicked.
"Cop!" whispered Lucy, already moving towards the back door.
For a moment, Sam froze. There was obviously no time to get Pete out, but she couldn't just run and leave him. Then she heard the creak of hinges.
"Sam!" hissed Lucy. She had the back door open
Sam jolted into life and started moving. Lucy closed the door silently behind her. They ran for the cover of the border hedge, down the garden and threw themselves under the big oak shade tree.
"What the fuck! That was no warning!" Sam whispered.
"It's not the cops out the front. He must have parked up the street and walked up the drive. I didn't see him until he came around that bush near the front door; a guy in a suit, detective, I guess," she muttered.
Sam was only half listening. She was typing a text, she had to risk that he had it on vibrate. There was every chance that Pete would have no idea that company had arrived. She sent, "Cop downstairs!!"
"Do you think he'll be ok?" Lucy said.
"If he stays quiet. I don't see why this guy would go upstairs if she was killed in the dining room."
"He doesn't know that though."
Sam started typing. "Stay put, don't think he will come upstairs." She pressed send. A moment later she saw the far left-hand window open on the second floor. A second after that the double beep of a text notification sounded crystal clear through the hot air.
"Oh shit," Sam said.
Paul Jobert had picked up a coffee on his way to the Ravert's house, and then realized that he could have done himself a favor with the local PD if he'd brought along a couple of extras for the guys on duty. Fortunately, it was the same two that had been there the first day and they had just nodded and waved him in with a sheepish look. He didn't owe them any favors.
The door was unlocked and he had shut it behind him, and then headed down the hall to the dining room. He went in, walking carefully around the blood stain, and put his coffee on the dining table. He didn't know what he was looking for. He thought it was possible that Ravert had left some evidence of his treason behind, and since they didn't need a warrant to search this crime scene there was no downside to having a look around.
The creak from the upstairs floorboards sent a tiny shiver up his spine. The long years in the field as an Operations Officer had given him senses that the following years of bureaucracy had not completely dulled. It wasn't just a random house creak, there was someone up there. He pulled his Sig Sauer P226 — a personal choice, and a person weapon — out of the shoulder holster and walked back to the dining room door.
Whoever was upstairs would know that he was here. He had made plenty of noise when he entered so there was no point creeping around. In fact, the opposite was true; he needed to make it sound as though he had no suspicions. He was about to walk to the kitchen and call Rice for back-up to lock down the property when he heard the double-beep of the text notification.
Instantly, there were running feet on the floorboards upstairs. Less than a heartbeat later Jobert was moving, ratcheting the slide on the Sig as he headed for the stairs. He ran up them three at a time, and was almost at the top when he heard the window slam open. He swore, but didn't turn back. If they went out the window they would have too big a lead by the time he reversed and got to the back door.
"Police!" he yelled. "Don't move or I'll shoot!"
The sound had come from his right and he turned that way, glancing in the first room — momentarily registering it as both empty and a boy's bedroom — before running onto the next. The second room had a wide open window.
"Police!" he yelled again as he went through the door. "Stop or I'll shoot!"
He got to the window to see a blond haired man running across the grass towards the back of the garden. Jobert didn't hesitate. The gap was opening fast. He was never going to catch him, and he had a pretty good idea who it was. He dropped to his knees at the open window, brought up the Sig and fired twice.
Sam saw Pete climb out onto the shingle roof that over hung the porch. He took two steps down them and jumped. It was about fifteen feet to the grass, a big jump, but the landing was soft and he took some of the energy out of the impact with a roll. He was back on his feet fast and already moving when Sam heard the cop shout and then saw him appear at the window.
"Let's go, we need to get the gate open and get the bags." Lucy was tugging Sam up as she spoke.
Sam couldn't move. She couldn't take her eyes off the scene. The two shots came very soon after the warning. Pete's legs went out from under him; he flung his arms out and hit the grass a moment later. She had a momentary glimpse of his face as he went down, an expression of pain, horror and surprise that burned itself into her brain.
"Nooo... “She started to scream as she started to move, to get up and go to him."...Ouff!" The air gasped out of Sam as Lucy flattened her back to the turf, pushing her face into the grass.
"No! We can't help him." Lucy's voice was right in her ear, insistent, urgent. "The cops will get an ambulance. Stay here and you're both going to jail for a very long time. We have to go, we have to run, we have to find this shit we're looking for!"
"He's hurt," Sam moaned, still trying to get back the breath that Lucy had knocked out of her. "He might be dying—"
"And you can't help him." Now Lucy was dragging Sam to her feet. "Please!" Lucy urged. "If we get caught there's nothing we can do for him, or us!"
Sam knew it was true. She tried to get her legs to move. They staggered towards the gate. She had no fight left in her. All she could see was the expression on his face as he went down. She stumbled and half fell.
"Go! Go!"
Sam started to run. She didn't look back. She couldn't, she knew she would turn around. They grabbed the bags out from behind the hedge and were out through the gate a moment later. Behind her, she could hear shouting and doors crashing open. Sam looked around wildly, the park was still empty. They ran across it and onto the street beyond. It was silent, tree-lined, and narrow and pretty, all the properties set well back from the road. There was no one else around.
"This place is going to be swarming with cops in minutes," Lucy gasped as they ran.
They maintained their pace down the silent street until they were just short of the main road. They slowed to a walk as they approached.
"Go right, not far down that way there's a cemetery. We passed it on the way out here. We can probably find somewhere to hole up there while we figure out what to do next," Lucy said.
Sam could already hear sirens. "Do you think he's all right?" Her voice and breath were both ragged and broken.
"Good chance, that guy was firing a hand gun. It was a pretty good shot from that distance, and Pete'd have to be real unlucky for it to be fatal. Chances are he's gonna be all right."
Sam said nothing. It had been her fault; she had sent that stupid text and given him away. Now he was lying in the dirt, all alone and maybe bleeding to death. And she had left him there. A wave of nausea washed up through her, and she thought she was going to be sick.
"You ok?" asked Lucy.
"I think I'm going to throw up."
"Hang on in there, it's not far."
Chapter 9
Jobert was propped against the kitchen counter finishing his coffee when Rice came through the back door. He glanced up; the detective looked strained and anxious.
"How is he?" he asked.
Rice walked to the sink and poured water into a glass that had been standing on the drainer. He turned and leaned against the edge of the sink. Then he steadily drank the glass before he replie
d. "He's lost a lot of blood. They're moving him to the ambulance now; they'll operate as soon as they get him there."
"I need him alive. I need him to talk."
"Even if he lives, I don't think he's going to be talking to anyone for a while. I don't mind telling you that this makes things pretty awkward. I have no damn idea what the rules are now. No CIA agent ever shot someone on my watch before."
"The man's a suspect in a CIA operation against the illegal intelligence gathering activities of a foreign power, right here on US soil. I can't tell you any more than that at this time, but I need him under guard once you get him to hospital. No one sees him. No one. These people won't want him taken alive. Do you understand me?"
Rice looked up from staring into his glass. "He had a British driver's license in his wallet. Says his name is Peter Halland."
"So?"
"Last time I checked, the Brits weren't the enemy."
"You really think that's his actual ID, his actual nationality? There're always either posing as Brits or Canadians. It makes them different enough that we don't question the slip ups, but similar enough for no one to take a second look."
Rice didn't acknowledge the answer, just asked another question. "How is he connected to the girl?"
"We know they are connected, that's all I can say, it's one of the reasons that I need to talk to him."
"And he was on his own in the house?"
"I didn't see anyone else, but that doesn't mean they weren't here and got out earlier."
"Any idea what they were looking for?"
Jobert pushed himself off the counter. He didn't like the way this was going. "Not that I'm about to share with you. Call me when they've finished operating on him. I need to know when he can talk." And he stalked out of the door. He walked back to the rental, got in and drove. He didn't know where right now, but he needed to get some space and figure out what the hell he was going to do next.
Sam got all the way into the cemetery before she threw up by a tree.
"Shit..." she moaned, and then threw up again.
"Hang in there, kid," Lucy said.
Sam looked down at her hands. The knuckles were white with the force she was holding onto the tree roots. It was the only way she could stop them shaking. She threw up again. Lucy handed her a water bottle. She recognized it as Pete's. The last time she had seen it had been in Nepal, on the way out of the Himalayas.
"We shouldn't have left him," she moaned.
"We had no choice; you gave us all the reasons for not going to the cops. That hasn't changed, more so because now they got him on a breaking and entering charge and you're both going to jail."
"What if he's dying alone in a hospital bed, thousands of miles from his family?"
"They will call his family."
"What if they don't make it in time, I should be there with him."
"And what makes you think they will let you two criminals, murderer and burglarizer, sit all cozy together in the hospital until he gets better?"
Sam looked up.
"It ain't gonna happen by you handing yourself in, the only way it's going to happen is if you figure this shit out and take them the right answer."
Sam nodded. She wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve and took another sip of water. She sat up and looked around her for the first time. Lucy had found a good spot, just inside a stand of trees. She could see the headstones ripple out in waves all around them. The traffic noise was distant; they were a long way from the road. It seemed unlikely that they would be disturbed or found here. She drank from the water bottle again. She was still shaking, but she could feel the adrenalin slowly subsiding. It was leaving a growing feeling of exhaustion and helplessness.
"What the hell can we do?" she said.
"We can't go back to the house."
"There's nothing there anyway, I'm pretty sure of it. I was done with the first floor, and Pete hadn't found anything or he would have come down and told me. He can't have had much more to search up there."
"So we can do what he wanted to do; check out Facebook for their history, and see if we can find some places to look for this thing."
"If we'd done that first he'd still be here. If I hadn't sent that stupid text to him he'd still be here—" Sam could feel the tears pushing up through her.
"Hey." Lucy's voice was sharp. "Don't beat yourself up about it, there's no good road that way. This shit happens in combat all the time and you just have to learn that what happened has happened. He will be all right. A hand gun shot from that distance isn't going to kill a fit guy like him."
"You don't know that, it could have got his head, an artery—"
"And neither do you, chances are good that he will pull through this. Let's go with that story until we know otherwise, and focus on getting him out of this situation. He's going to jail if we don't find this shit that your man Roger left behind."
Sam sat back. She put her head in her hands. She just wanted to sit here and cry. She didn't want to do it in front of Lucy. There was a light wind rustling the leaves in the trees above her and she listened to that for a while. It was calming. She knew that Lucy was right and she knew that if Pete was here he would be agreeing with her. She also knew that she had got him into this, that it was all her fault, and that she was the only one that could put it right for him. If it came to it, she could find a lawyer, phone the cops and trade her freedom for an amnesty for him.
"If he can talk, what do you think he will tell them?"
Sam looked up. "The truth."
"So that can't hurt. Maybe they believe him, and they already started looking for this thing."
"Maybe. Maybe not."
"Here. We can start our search." Lucy handed her the tablet. "I'm not too good on these things."
Sam looked at her for a few moments, and then took it. She tapped through to Facebook, and then entered Roger Ravert in the search box. There were just a handful of results, and only one in Ann Arbor. She tapped on it. The page opened. The profile picture was a family of four, with two cute kids who looked about four or five.
"She was pretty," Lucy said, sitting beside her.
Sam looked at Madeline Ravert. She looked a fair bit younger than Roger, somewhere around 30; dark hair, brown eyes... Sam could see a lot of herself in Madeline's looks. She wondered if Roger had too. "He wasn't much of a Facebook user, only joined a couple of years ago. He's posted a few pictures from family outings..." she clicked back a few pages... "and not much else." There was a heavy resignation in her voice.
"Try her," Lucy said.
She typed Madeline Ravert into the search bar and came up with a single result. She clicked on it. This was more promising. "Huh, she joined really early, in 2006, and it's wide open. It doesn't look like she's changed a single privacy setting from Day 1... from the west coast originally," she pointed out where Home Town was designated as Santa Cruz, CA. "But she was at college in Ann Arbor, that must be how they met. Oh, look this at this — he asks her out the first time by leaving a letter in the pigeon holes at her sorority house."
"What?" Lucy peered at the tablet to read.
Can't believe this but guess what — sweet man I met at the party on Saturday night asked me out by leaving an invite to dinner in my pigeon hole!
The post had an accompanying picture of the invite, for dinner at 7pm at the Black Pearl in Ann Arbor. All printed in formal italic script on a thick square card.
"That has to be a possibility, right?" Sam said a faint stirring of hope now in the bleakness.
"Yeah, perfect place to leave a message that you didn't want anyone else to find. And it would probably stay there for months or even years."
"Pete keeps a notebook and pen in his pack, it's usually in the top flap pocket," Sam said.
Lucy reached into the pack beside her and came out with the notebook and pen. She handed it over. Sam clicked through on the link to the sorority house and made a note of the address.
"Maybe this will work,
let's see what else there is," she said as she finished.
Sam clicked on through a series of posts about dates at restaurants, movies, and walks. "I can't see him leaving it at any of these places. Where would he leave it at the cinema?"
"In an envelope at the ticket office, like tickets to be picked up that were booked by phone or something?"
"I guess that could work," Sam noted the address.
"And maybe if they got to know the staff really well in a particular restaurant?"
"If someone left a message or something with you for another customer, and then you later saw that that person had been murdered, what would you do?"
"Take it to the police," Lucy replied, after a few moments thought.
"Exactly, I don't see the restaurants working." Sam clicked down another page as she spoke. The next post was just a long string of exclamation marks and then in capital letters the single word 'YES'. Sam looked at the picture. It was another square invitation card, with the same formal italicized text.
Madeline Anne Benson is invited to take the hand of Roger Andrew Ravert in marriage.
For Better or for Worse.
For Richer or Poorer.
Till Death do us Part.
RSVP; Facebook
"Holy crap..." Sam breathed. "He asked her to marry him with another message in the pigeon holes at the sorority house."
"That's just weird," Lucy said.
"It must have been some kind of thing with them, starting with the original date invite."
"It's the way they sent all important messages. Are there any more?"
They clicked on through pages and pages of updates. A year later there were pictures of their wedding at a church in Ann Arbor.
"Lots of ways to leave a message at a church, notice boards and stuff," Lucy said.
Sam nodded, wrote down the address, and then clicked on through holidays and weekend trips, and more restaurants and movies.
"I can't see any of this other stuff working," she said.
"I agree."
Chinese Burn Page 11
