A Panicked Premonition

  “He knows something that someone else wants. There’s a secret he’s keeping. Something dangerous. Something that would cost him to give it up.”

  Candice tapped her index finger lightly on the desk. I could tell her own mental gears were spinning. “What would Dave know that could be dangerous and would cost him to give it up?”

  I shook my head. That was all I could tweeze out of the ether. I had all the pieces to form a sketchy outline of the picture, but I needed to put them in the right order to make that picture clearer, and it wasn’t an easy thing to do. “It has to do with the Roswells,” I said, upset I couldn’t provide more than that.

  But Candice’s eyes were gleaming, as if I’d just said the perfect thing. “If it has to do with the Roswells, then all we need to do is start digging into their lives and see what turns up.”

  I felt a small sense of relief wash over me. A lead. We had a damn lead to follow. At last. “I’m ready if you are.”

  “Let’s go.”

  • • •

  We started by heading to the bureau office. The FBI has access to lots of nifty computer programs that allow them to dig up dirt on people. It’d scare the hell out of me to know this if I didn’t work for them. Candice was able to locate lots of very pertinent info quickly. She did this while I made a coffee run. (We all bring our own individual talents to the job.)

  “Ahhh, that’s the stuff,” I said, after delivering hot beverages all around the office and taking my first delicious sip of a decaf green tea latte—a favorite of mine.

  “Come on,” Candice said, grabbing her cup of tea and her purse on her way out the door.

  I’d just sunk into the chair next to the desk she’d been using, and truth be told, I needed a moment or two to relax. “I just got comfortable!” I yelled after her.

  Without turning around, she waggled her index finger above her head. “You can relax in the car. Daylight’s wastin’. Let’s roll!”

  “Nobody relaxes with you at the wheel, Candice,” I grumbled.

  “What?” she said as she held open the door for me.

  “I’m always relaxed with you at the wheel, Candice,” I said with a winning smile.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Right. Get a move on, Sundance.”

  Candice drove us (at an alarmingly high speed) to a modest ranch, north of the city. “Who lives here?”

  “Robin Roswell’s sister,” she said.

  “Ugh,” I said, knowing how difficult it was to interview loved ones of murder victims so soon after the crime. They were typically in such a state of heartbreak and anguish that it was a terrible thing to try to talk to them. And it was an awful, torturous thing we had to do as investigators, pulling out information from these poor people, knowing that all they wanted to do was curl up into a ball and cry. Sometimes—and I hate to admit this—it’s almost better to get to them immediately after the crime, before the news really has a chance to sink in. They’re not as anguished or gutted, and it’s easier to bear witness to their shock rather than their devastation.

  We approached the house from the driveway, as the sidewalk was littered with G.I. Joe figurines. The sight of them was already pulling at my heartstrings. Some little boy would grow up without his auntie, and as the auntie of two amazing tweens, the reality caught me right in the chest like a punch.

  “You okay?” Candice said as she reached for the doorbell.

  I pulled my gaze from the toys. “Fine,” I said, but my voice hitched. I quickly cleared my throat and shook my head a little. It wouldn’t do Robin’s sister a bit of good if I was emotional.

  Our ring was answered by a woman in sweats with salt-and-pepper hair and thick glasses. “Yes?” she said when she opened the door to us.

  “Rachel?” Candice said.

  The woman seemed confused. “No,” she said, without offering any additional information.

  Candice looked at the address on the side of the house, then consulted her phone for a moment. “I’m so sorry, but this is the current address I have for Rachel Tibbons. Does she live here?”

  “She’s inside,” the woman said, her arms crossing over her chest defensively. “Are you reporters?”

  I held up my FBI consulting badge, and Candice flashed her own badge and her PI license. “No,” she said. “We’re consultants with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We’re assisting the bureau and the Austin police with an investigation.”

  The woman’s brow furrowed even further. “You’re consultants for the FBI and APD?” she repeated. Candice and I held up our badges again.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  “That sounds like a lot of bull to me,” she said.

  Candice’s warm and friendly smile never wavered. “If you’d like to call the Austin FBI field office to confirm, we can wait, ma’am.”

  “I don’t have the number,” she said, even as she lifted the cell phone she’d brought with her to the door.

  “I can tell you, or you can Google it,” I offered.

  She made a stern face at me and said, “I’ll Google it.”

  Candice and I waited without a word as she looked up the number, then called it. I’m not sure who answered, maybe Katherine, the office manager, but within a few moments she’d confirmed our story and hung up to address us again. “Okay, so you’re with the FBI. Rachel has already talked to the police and told them she don’t know anything, so maybe you should go talk to them.”

  Candice’s smile never wavered from being easy and relaxed, but intuitively, I could sense she was losing patience with this woman. “Yes,” she said. “I know she’s already been interviewed. All the same, we’d like a few minutes of her time as well.”

  “She’s real upset.”

  “I can only imagine,” Candice said, and it was obviously heartfelt.

  That note of sincere sympathy might’ve made the difference, because the salt-and-pepper guard dog to Rachel’s home finally let us in. “You can have a seat in the kitchen,” she said. “I’ll get Rachel.”

  We entered the home and sidestepped a few more toys on the floor, making our way to the kitchen, off to the side of the living room at the front of the house. I looked around for any sign of the kiddo, or maybe some siblings, but the house was quiet of children at play, or the sound of a TV.

  A few moments later a woman in her early thirties came into view. She was a tall girl, with long spindly limbs and sharp features. Her hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail behind her head, exposing her ears, which were a little big for her face, but otherwise she was a lovely. She looked like a ballet dancer to me, mostly for the long graceful limbs and too-thin frame. Her bodyguard walked with her, supporting her gently, and when Robin’s sister saw us, her bloodshot eyes watered a little, as if she expected us to be the bearers of more terrible news.

  “Thanks, Nina,” she said to the woman, as she let go of the supportive arm and came into the kitchen. She stood in front of us awkwardly, maybe getting the measure of us. “My mother-in-law said you’re with the FBI?”

  Candice stood up and extended her hand to Rachel, introducing herself. I followed suit and she shook both our hands before sinking down in the chair opposite us. “Thank you for seeing us,” Candice began. “I know this is a terrible time for you.”

  “Is there any news on the guy who killed my sister?” she asked, her voice hoarse with emotion.

  “Not yet,” Candice said.

  “The police brought me a picture of him and asked if I recognized him. I didn’t, but I guess he was a contractor who did some work for them.”

  I felt a jolt of alarm go through me. “The police told you about him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’d they say?” I asked carefully.

  “They said that he worked for some construction company that installed a panic room in their closet. He was probably just
waiting for his chance to break in and kill them. From his photo you could tell the guy probably did drugs.”

  I felt myself bristle and I had to work at tamping down any irritation her words had sparked. It wouldn’t do at all to defend Dave to her, and it could shut her down altogether if I attempted it. So I willfully kept my expression neutral, because right now what we needed was not to convince her that Dave was innocent—what we needed was information.

  I also reminded myself that poor Rachel was still reeling from the blow of losing her sister and her brother-in-law, so her judgments were totally forgivable.

  Candice nudged me gently under the table. A show of hidden support for Dave, I thought. “We’d like to hear about what your brother-in-law might’ve had of value in the panic room,” she said.

  Rachel sighed, rubbing her temples as if it was hard to think. “I don’t know what the hell they had in there. I mean, money? Jewelry? Computers and other valuables? Probably. They loved stuff. Especially Robin. I was always telling her when she said things like ‘I love these shoes!’ or ‘That purse!’ or ‘This tennis bracelet!’ that material things couldn’t love her back, but she still collected all kinds of useless stuff anyway.

  “Andy was just like her too. They spent money like water on crap that didn’t matter.” Rachel looked down at her lap and let out another sad sigh. “I guess it made them happy and it was their money, so maybe I shouldn’t judge them now that they’re gone, huh?”

  “It’s understandable,” I offered.

  Rachel lifted her chin to eye us sheepishly, and I gave her a sympathetic smile. I could only imagine that her brain was full of all sorts of angry thoughts and misgivings, which was natural for someone who’d just lost two loved ones.

  “What else can you tell us about them?” Candice said.

  Rachel’s chin lifted a little more to look toward the ceiling. Her eyes watered when she answered Candice. “They were a crazy pair. Big dreamers. Andy was a visionary and really, really smart, but sometimes he was a little too blunt, a little too honest. Robin was impetuous, and fun, and stubborn, and strong-willed, and sometimes difficult, but she loved Andy with her whole heart. They were each other’s worlds. The sun rose and set on the other, so maybe it’s a good thing they were with each other in the end. I don’t know how Robin would’ve lived without Andy, or how he would’ve lived without her.” Rachel’s voice went completely hoarse then, and she covered her eyes and wept, her shoulders shaking.

  I felt terrible for her, so I got up and went to the counter to retrieve a box of tissues and brought it back, setting it down next to her.

  “You really loved them,” I said as I took my seat again.

  She took a tissue from the box with an anguished smile. “She was my baby sister, and he was like my little brother. It’s still sinking in. I can’t quite wrap my head around what it means to be here without them. Robin was my only blood relative still around. Well, other than my mom, but she’s been in a nursing home for the past five years.”

  My eyes widened. Rachel seemed far too young to have a mother in a nursing home.

  “Early-onset Alzheimer’s,” she said, noticing my expression. “She’s in the final stages. She can’t even recognize her own reflection in the mirror. It’s the only blessing out of this mess. At least she doesn’t know that her baby girl’s gone.”

  Rachel began weeping again, and my own eyes misted. God, it was heart wrenching to watch someone in the throes of such grief. “I’m so sorry,” I said, reaching out to squeeze her wrist.

  She nodded, sniffling loudly. “If it weren’t for my husband’s family, I don’t know how I’d get through the day.”

  Candice and I were silent for a bit. I thought that neither of us wanted to ask Rachel any more questions, because this was so dreadfully hard, but we needed information, so I knew that Candice would eventually work up the courage to continue with the interview.

  At last when Rachel seemed to be able to draw breath without it ending in a sob, Candice said, “Did either your sister or brother-in-law have any enemies?”

  Rachel barked out a laugh, as if she couldn’t believe Candice had asked such a ridiculous question. “Of course they had enemies. I mean, Andy had plenty of enemies in the tech world. He was a freaking genius, and he made a lot of money at an early age. Plus, he married the hottest girl on the block. I know I’m not a lot to look at, but my sister could stop traffic—she was so gorgeous. And she was full of herself. Women didn’t like her because she spoke her mind, tooted her own horn, and didn’t give a shit if she was nice or not. If you were having a bad hair day, she’d call you out for it. Andy loved that about her, and encouraged her to keep it up, which made people dislike him all the more.”

  It shocked me that Rachel was being so honest about her sister’s and brother-in-law’s shortcomings. Usually the living tended to gloss over the more human aspects of their recently deceased loved ones in an effort to immortalize them. I honestly found Rachel’s straightforwardness about Robin and Andy to be refreshing. At least we had a good understanding about who the couple really was.

  “Do you think any of Andy’s or Robin’s enemies were capable of murdering them?” Candice asked.

  Rachel blinked. She looked like she didn’t understand the question. “I thought you guys already knew who did it.”

  Candice and I exchanged a look. We needed to be careful here. We couldn’t very well tell Rachel that we were looking into some international espionage angle. That lie was already landing our husbands in some internally political hot water. “Some new evidence has come to light that might suggest there was more than one person involved,” I said. “And since all the known associates for the current suspect don’t lead to anyone we’d consider suspicious, we’re thinking that maybe the trail leads in the other direction. With someone linked to Andy and/or Robin.”

  “What new evidence?” she asked me.

  Again, Candice and I glanced briefly at each other before Candice said, “Dave McKenzie’s wife has been kidnapped.”

  “Who?”

  “APD’s prime suspect,” I said. “The hippie-looking dude.”

  “His wife was kidnapped?” she said.

  “Yes. And we have reason to believe that Mr. McKenzie had nothing to do with her abduction. We think she was taken to keep control over McKenzie, which is why we suspect this is much bigger than simply a robbery gone bad. We think that this all connects back to Andy and Robin, either personally or professionally.”

  Rachel seemed to take that in, and I could tell that what I’d said had rattled her. She’d probably never even considered that someone close to her sister and brother-in-law would be capable of such a violent act against them. “Fuck,” she whispered, continuing to blink at the table.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. Because, well, seriously . . . this whole deal was effed up.

  At last Rachel looked at us again. “Lots of people didn’t like them, but I can’t imagine any of Robin’s friends murdering them. I didn’t know a lot of Andy’s friends. I don’t think he had a ton of close personal relationships. He was raised in foster care, and both his parents are dead. I think that experience made it hard for him to hold lasting relationships. I’m sure it was why he loved to collect stuff too. It probably made him feel safe to have lots of material things around him. And he kept Robin constantly interested by giving her his Black Card.”

  “Black Card?” I asked.

  “American Express’s Centurion Card,” Candice said. “It’s their no-limit, invitation-only credit card. Very exclusive. Very hard to get.”

  “Robin took selfies with it,” Rachel said with a sad smile. “Can you imagine? My phone is full of pictures of my husband and kids. Robin’s was full of pictures of her with a credit card.”

  I frowned. Obviously, I hadn’t known Robin, but her life seemed so sad to me. And she wasn’t even aware that it was sa
d. Nor would she ever have the opportunity to see it that way now that her short life had been snuffed out. It was incredibly tragic—karmically speaking.

  “What about Andy’s friends or business associates? Would any of them have a reason to want to murder him?”

  Rachel shrugged and shook her head, looking down at her lap again. “Other than his buddies at work, I wouldn’t know.”

  “Where did he work?” Candice asked casually.

  “Downtown,” she said. “In the One Congress Plaza building.” Mentally I called up the redbrick, pyramid-shaped building. I knew it well because it wasn’t far from where Candice and I worked. “Andy ran his headquarters there on the twenty-sixth floor.”

  “We heard he’d sold off the company,” Candice said.

  Rachel nodded. “Almost. I was supposed to keep this a secret, but now I don’t know why it matters. The press got it wrong; the deal between Market Vision and InvoTech hadn’t quite gone all the way through yet.”

  “Really?” Candice and I said in unison. This was news to us.

  “Yeah, it was one of those details that was supposed to be hush-hush because of InvoTech’s stock being at risk. All the paperwork got signed, but literally right after the deal closed, InvoTech found a small glitch in the code, and they wanted Andy to fix it before they’d wire the funds over. Robin told me that Andy was going to fix it over the weekend, and once he could prove that the code was working properly, then some addendum guaranteeing the code would work was supposed to get signed and that’s when the money would get wired.”

  “So, there’s been no exchange of funds?” Candice pressed. “Not even a little?”

  “Nope. I talked to Robin Friday afternoon and she was pissed both at the fact that InvoTech hadn’t wired over the money and that her husband had to cancel plans to take her to San Francisco in a private jet for dinner. She said he’d locked himself in his home office to work on the code and probably wouldn’t be out until Saturday or Sunday. She had a new dress she wanted to wear, and I remember the conversation because she mentioned the price to me and I was floored, because her new dress cost more than six months of mortgage payments for us.” Rachel shook her head ruefully. “Sometimes it’s like she and I didn’t grow up in the same house.”