by Rachel Grant
Ivy laughed. “God, I haven’t seen you eat like that since high school. But then you weren’t using a smartphone. You had your nose in a book.”
Hazel managed to swallow a bite of fish and rice and wiped her mouth as she said, with her focus still on her phone, “I still eat while reading, just not when people are around.”
“What’s so important on your phone it can’t wait?” Sean asked.
“I just remembered I was supposed to have a follow-up appointment with Dr. Parks today. Canceling, but I should reschedule. I want to talk about panic attacks that are triggered by stress other than work. That’s been…new. I think I have a grip on it, but still. And then there’s work stuff to talk about.”
“You can’t talk about Chase,” Alec said. “Even though she was his doctor, she’s not with the CIA anymore.”
Hazel nodded. “I know. I would never talk about the specifics of any homicide investigation I’m working on.”
Her phone pinged with a response from the doctor’s assistant. “I can reschedule for tomorrow afternoon, or Friday morning.” She looked up and met Sean’s gaze. “Is tomorrow good for you?”
Sean nodded. “My schedule is yours to command.”
“Hopefully, you won’t need a bodyguard much longer,” Alec said. “With the bones being turned over to the FBI, it negates the reason to go after you, but for now, we hope whoever was after you doesn’t know the bones survived the blast. You’re still in danger until the search warrants are served.”
“So Friday, then?” she asked.
“Next week would be even better,” Alec said.
She considered the request. “I can wait.”
“Good. I want you to stay here while the FBI gathers evidence for the search warrants. Will that be a problem?” Alec asked.
It wasn’t like the estate was her home anyway. Living in the compound was fine for her. “Will that be a problem for you, Sean? What about your mom and sister?”
“I’ll explain the situation as much as I can. We’ll reschedule dinner for next week. They’ll understand.”
“But I’ll be safe here. You can spend time with your mom.”
Sean gave her a look that was both confused and irritated. “Did you forget that Chase got inside my quarters?”
“But Lee is going to update all the lock codes this afternoon—”
“This is my job, Hazel.”
“But your m—”
Sean cut off her protest with a kiss that was probably deeper than it should be in a room full of people that included both his bosses. But if it didn’t concern him, she had no complaints. She liked the way he wasn’t shy about making it known they were really a couple now.
He raised his head. She opened her eyes to find him staring down at her with an intense look in his deep brown eyes. With yellow flecks.
“You done arguing now?” he asked.
She nodded, no longer sure why she’d objected to begin with.
Keith laughed. “Trust me, Sean, that doesn’t work once you’re past the honeymoon stage.”
“Right?” Matt said. “I haven’t won an argument since Grand Cayman.”
Ivy snickered. “You didn’t win even then, sweetheart.”
“Let me keep my illusions.”
Hazel returned to her meal and phone. She texted her reply to Dr. Parks’s office, scheduling an appointment for next Monday. She forwarded the exchange to Sean and Alec so they’d have the updated schedule.
“What about you?” Hazel asked between bites of food. “Are you and Isabel moving back to the estate?”
“Not for a few days. The FBI is handling the explosion investigation, and they’re coming here to interview us. Gandalf is going to be delivered this afternoon. This is home until we know who wrote that letter.”
“We, however, will be heading home shortly,” Ivy said. “It appears the note had nothing to do with Matt. We’re in the clear, and Julian is wondering why we didn’t pick him up from Mara’s last night, plus we’re supposed to go scuba diving with Luke and Undine while they’re in town. ”
At Hazel’s confused look, Matt said, “Luke and I are…old friends. Sort of.” His face broke into a warm smile that was somehow different.
She fixed her brother-in-law with a look. “You have so much explaining to do.”
He grinned. “I will. I promise.” He looked to Alec. “In the meantime, I can’t tell the FBI about the canceled hit on Chase. The agents involved in this investigation don’t know about me, and the more who know, the harder it will be to maintain my identity.”
“If a connection to Russia can’t be found through other channels,” Alec said, “I’ll ask my CIA contact to interview you and pass the information on to the FBI as unsourced intelligence.”
“Fair enough.”
Ivy stood and moved to the computer console. “Before we go, I have some information to share.” She opened a file, and a map of Virginia was projected onto the whiteboard. “A few years ago, MacLeod-Hill was contracted by the Commonwealth of Virginia to compile data for crime statistics, basically, an automated program that would scan various news sites in Virginia and pull locational data for violent crime: homicide, sexual assault, missing persons, robberies that included weapons or in which someone was injured. They wanted map layers that could be sorted in any number of different ways. Solved, unsolved. They were particularly interested in a database that could access historical data, which was one of my specialties. Rather than spending hours today searching news websites for reports of missing persons, I called my former client and asked if they could run some searches for me. It’s all public information, and she was happy to do it. It took less than ten minutes for her to find and email me the information we’re looking for.”
Ivy tapped the mouse, and a bulleted list giving the search parameters appeared. “I asked for missing persons within a fifty-mile radius of the reservoir for the last twenty-five years—the time Small has owned the reservoir property. I didn’t limit to males of a certain age. I didn’t want to bias the search results. There were plenty of results that could be easily disregarded—a seventy-two year old woman with Alzheimer’s was never found, children abducted by estranged parents. Runaway teenage girls.
“But there were several matches that could paint a very different picture.” She tapped the mouse again, and a PDF of a newspaper article appeared on the screen. The headline read: “Cameroonian Immigrant Reported Missing.” A photo of a young Black man accompanied the article.
“This is Samuel Baima,” Ivy said. “He’d been in the US for five years, working as a grocery bagger in a town twenty miles from the reservoir. When he didn’t show up for work for several days, a concerned coworker called the police. That’s when Baima’s immigrant status was discovered—he’d overstayed his visa and was living in Virginia illegally. Apparently, he’d purchased a social security number from a hacker so he could work. He had no driver’s license, and he’d purchased a car without transferring the title. The registration was expired. He disappeared seven years ago. He hasn’t been found.”
Hazel stared at the smiling face in the photo. Was his skull down in the basement lab?
Ivy pulled up another news story. Another illegal immigrant reported missing. This one hadn’t been reported for eight weeks because of fear over his illegal status.
The next slide surprised Hazel. The article was about a woman. “This is Selena Ramirez. Six years ago, she reported three men missing. All illegal immigrants from Central American countries. She faced a backlash from her community because she dared to go to the police and report the missing men, bringing attention to other illegal immigrants. Selena herself had naturalized citizen status, and she believed the illegal community was being targeted, that either these were hate crimes or modern slavery.
“Sheriff Taylor wrote the missing men off as victims of a drug war. Six weeks after Selena went public with the story of the missing men, she herself disappeared. Sheriff Taylor’s investigation turn
ed up evidence that a Central American drug cartel had removed her because she was drawing too much attention to their operation, and closed the book on the investigation without any arrests—or any body.”
Hazel rose from her seat and approached the screen, staring at the woman’s face. Big brown eyes, full lips. Thick dark hair. High cheekbones. Selena Ramirez had been gorgeous in life. Excellent bone structure. Was this the sole woman in the basement?
“I can do a photo overlay, see if her bone structure matches the skull we have. It’s not definitive, but if nothing else, we can rule her out.”
“So Taylor was rounding up illegal immigrants that fit certain criteria for human testing?” Isabel said.
“I think so,” Ivy said. “Imagine how many he could pull over, arrest for driving without a license, but then…not file the paperwork. Instead of taking them to the county jail, he took them to Beck and Small’s operation. And family and friends couldn’t report them missing. How could they when they were in the country illegally? Or they’d overstayed their visa?”
“He’s a monster,” Hazel said softly, still staring at Selena. “Ivy, I want this picture. Please email it to me.”
“Already done, along with pictures of the other cases that fit the criteria.”
The FBI would do their own analysis, but Hazel would do this photo overlay herself. She had to know if the brave young woman had been found. Justice for Selena.
Sean stepped up beside her and slipped an arm around her waist. She leaned into him, her gaze on the projected image. “We’ll get these assholes,” he said.
“I know. I just wonder how many more there are. And why they were dumped in the lake.”
“I know a man who can probably explain that.”
Everyone looked up to see Curt in the doorway. He stepped into the room and took a seat at the opposite end of the table from Alec. “I was given the Cliff Notes version of what’s going on from Alec, and then I received a call from DC US Attorney Aurora Ames, asking for specifics beyond what the FBI shared with her. She is very interested in the evidence so far because she thinks we can use it as leverage to get Robert Beck to talk.” Curt glanced around the conference room. “If Beck was doing human testing in the basement lab or on the reservoir property, he might turn on his accomplices for a reduced sentence.”
“Beck might be ready to deal?” Alec asked.
Curt shrugged. “Maybe. He’s been in prison for four years now. It’s…not going well for him. If turning on Small reduces his sentence, he might take it.”
“What do you think he can tell us?” Alec asked. “The testing on Chase happened after he’d been in prison for a year.”
“He might not know about that, but he knows what they were doing in the basement here five years ago, and from what you’ve said so far, it sounds like someone resumed that testing. If nothing else, Beck will know who was working with infrasound besides Westover in Alaska.”
“Is it worth letting him out of prison to get Small? We might be able to get Small without giving up Beck,” Alec said.
“It’ll be up to the Justice Department to decide how much Small is worth. Beck could just be the nail in his coffin, and all he’ll get in the exchange is a move to a minimum-security facility followed by house arrest. He won’t turn on his Russian compatriots because they’ll kill him in prison or out. If he gives up the Russians who own him, he’s a dead man. But we can get Small.”
35
It was evening by the time the last bones left the basement lab and were loaded into an FBI van. Hazel looked utterly beat after hours of explanations and documentation. Before the FBI took possession of the bones, she’d photographed every single one using the camera and light box installed in the lab. She’d also made three-dimensional scans of several bones, including the female skull and the cranium with the partially embedded chip.
Now she and Sean were alone in the empty lab as she backed up the massive files to a server Lee had created just for her. “Okay. This lab might be creepy and have bad smallpox juju, but it’s also pretty damn awesome. The lighting is great and the equipment top of the line, even if it is over five years old.”
“I’m pretty sure the smallpox juju is gone,” he said.
“We hope.”
He glanced toward the back wall. “I’m more freaked out about the incinerators. All the shit Beck was doing, it makes me wonder what was burned down here.”
She turned to look at the iron door mounted to the brick wall. “Great. Now I’m afraid of the incinerator.”
“Let’s get out of here, then.” He was more than ready to get out of the basement and retreat to his quarters.
“Upload’s almost done.”
He moved to stand behind her and watch the progress bar. He could stand for hours and watch a person work while he was on guard duty, but waiting for a computer that was lagging? That drove him nuts.
The moment the progress indicator reached a hundred percent, he scooped her up and tossed her over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”
She laughed. “What are you doing? I can walk.”
He was reminded of the times he carried her from the lake. “I know you can. But I like carrying you.”
Outside the lab, he paused to lock the door, then carried her to the elevator. Inside, he pinned her in the corner and kissed her. He kept his hands on her shoulder and face for the guys monitoring the security cameras. No reason to give them a show. He raised his head and smiled at her. “This girlfriend thing is kinda cool.”
She stroked his cheek, staring up at him. “I’m rusty at relationships. I’ll try to do it right.”
“We’ll figure it out together. I told Keith today I’m not going back to Dubai.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re not?”
He shook his head. The elevator doors opened on his floor, and he set her on her feet and took her hand as he led her down the corridor. “Nope. I’ll take short-term overseas assignments if they need me, but the longer gigs are out. It’s time I stop putting off life and start living my dream.”
They reached his quarters, and he punched in the new code and used the newly installed thumbprint reader. His door was now biometrically coded to both him and Hazel. They entered, and he locked the door.
He’d been waiting for this moment all day. When it would be just the two of them. No responsibilities for hours. Meals weren’t usually delivered to quarters, but Keith had authorized it for Sean as long as Hazel was under Raptor’s protection. Even though she should be safe inside the compound, it wasn’t lost on anyone that Chase had been living here for nearly three years. No matter how doubtful, they had to remain open to the idea that there were others like Chase. Or that Chase had sabotaged the facility.
Hazel wasn’t to wander the building alone. The only time she could be alone was in Sean’s quarters. So it made sense for them to be allowed to have food delivered.
He pulled her into his arms again. He really couldn’t get enough of holding her. “You are my dream, Hazel. You have been for a long time. To really give us a chance, I need to stop taking off for extended assignments. Unless, of course, you go back to ICMP. Then maybe I can get jobs in the places you’re sent. We can make this work.”
She shook her head. “My days with ICMP are over. I should have stopped after being detained in Ukraine, but I didn’t…want to let them win. To scare me away. But now, I want to start living for me. And that means being with you.” She let out a soft laugh. “I actually had an interesting conversation with both the Virginia ME and FBI today. If I decide to set up my own shop, both would be interested in contracting me for either initial analysis or second opinion. It wouldn’t be full-time, but I could probably get Maryland, DC, and West Virginia as clients, and JT has already promised me work with Talon & Drake. If Keith would be willing to cut a deal on the lab space here, my overhead would be low enough that I wouldn’t need to work full-time.”
“I love that idea. I split my time between the DC office and here. The
re’s always plenty of protection work for politicians and celebrities in the city, and here they need help with the trainings. If we looked at houses near here, I can deal with the commute for the city jobs. My hours aren’t normal anyway, so the commute shouldn’t be a big deal.”
With another woman, it might seem crazy to be discussing living together on day two of their official relationship, but this was Hazel, and everything about this felt right. Overdue, actually. And Hazel didn’t currently have a home, so this wasn’t a conversation to put off.
She smiled and closed her eyes. “A house. Together. I like it. It feels…grounding. But then, you ground me.” Her fingers tightened, gripping his shirt. “I know my head isn’t going to be fixed overnight. More likely than not, I’ll be up pacing half the night tonight. I’ve got a lot of mental work to do to sort out my anxieties, but this feels like the right path. I feel hope, where before, the anxiety was leading to depression.”
“I’m in it for the long haul, no matter what path your anxiety takes you.” He cupped her cheeks. “I’m going to make mistakes. I’m going to misunderstand when you are reacting out of anxiety and we’ll get in fights. I’m going to say stupid things that will make you angry. But I will do my best to recognize when I’m arguing with you and when we’re both fighting your anxiety.”
“Thank you. I’m going to make mistakes too. A whole lot of them. But I will try to recognize when I’m upset at you or when I’ve been triggered by something outside of either of our control, because I’m going to keep working with bones. I want to help find justice for people like Samuel Baima and Selena Ramirez. I want Small and Taylor and whoever is working for him to pay. To suffer. To have a taste of the nightmare they inflicted on others. I don’t want them to be able to hurt anyone else. To create more Chases.”
“I will be by your side every step of the way. Now, we’ve got sixteen hours before we need to meet the FBI at the reservoir. We can fill those hours however you want.”
