‘I’ll drive you, Dr Novak,’ Triplett said. ‘We’ll meet you guys there.’ He shut the doors and Zimmerman started the engine.
‘I didn’t expect to see you, sir,’ Decker said.
Zimmerman glanced up into the rear-view mirror. ‘We’ve kept this operation small and need-to-know only. Besides, I wanted to see how you were doing myself, now that you’re awake.’
‘Not bad. I can breathe on my own and I got to eat real food this afternoon. On the other hand, I’m wearing rival school colors, but I can’t complain too much because I’m not dead.’
Zimmerman chuckled. ‘Let’s keep it that way, shall we?’
‘Amen,’ Troy said quietly, picking up the rifle that lay at his feet and checking that it was loaded. He did the same with a handgun he took from a case under his seat, then handed it to Decker. ‘Just in case.’
‘Thank you,’ Decker said soberly. ‘I felt a little naked before.’
‘You’ll feel less naked in a minute,’ Troy said. He opened a large plastic tub and pulled out a Kevlar vest, open at the sides. ‘This will go over your head without disturbing your IV. And you can wear this instead of the cap.’ He gave Decker a tactical helmet. ‘We have an unmarked following us and one waiting for us at the safe house to provide cover if necessary.’ He finished attaching the vest and Decker traded the helmet for the cap. ‘Any questions? Concerns?’
‘No.’ Just when he’d see Kate again, but he kept that one to himself. ‘I’m good.’
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Thursday 13 August, 4.25 P.M.
‘This is bad, guys,’ Carrie Washington said, coming through the door of her office.
Kate and Deacon looked up from their phones. They were sitting in the ME’s office, planning out their next steps and waiting for the results of the quick preliminary test Carrie had done on the body of Sidney Siler, the King’s College grad student.
‘Bad like you found something?’ Deacon asked. ‘Or bad that you didn’t?’
‘Door number one. There’s cyanide in her system. I might have missed it because she also has cocaine. And ketamine. Her skin tone hid some of the redness that would have alerted me to cyanide.’
‘So . . .’ Kate said, wishing she hadn’t left her yarn in the car, because she was very tense and her mind was whirling too fast to make much sense. She reached into the printer, took out a few sheets of paper, and began folding them into familiar origami patterns. ‘Same killer, different MO’s. Why?’
‘Or two different killers working together,’ Deacon said. ‘Although it seems like a big risk that we’d connect the two victims, seeing as how they were killed on the same day and would end up in the morgue at the same time. How was the cyanide delivered to the grad student, Carrie?’
‘I won’t know until I open her up and check the contents of her stomach. She snorted the cocaine-ketamine mix, though. There are remnants inside her nostrils. She’d been using coke for some time. Her nasal membranes show signs of long-term substance abuse.’
Kate set a paper boat aside and began folding a helicopter. ‘Maybe they thought we’d be so busy with Alice and Decker – because he was supposed to have been dead – that we wouldn’t pay attention to a grad student who’d OD’d. But why not just give her too much cocaine and ket? Why make himself conspicuous with the cyanide?’
‘He may have wanted a quick death, but one I might not check for,’ Carrie said. ‘Cyanide deaths have gone undetected in the past. Who knows how many have slipped through?’
‘What we do know,’ Kate said, ‘is that she spoke with Alice, posing as an attorney’s assistant. I called the firm and they have no one there named Keisha Findlay. She had a letter of intro on the firm’s letterhead and the font looks identical to that used on the firm’s website.’
‘Why did she pick that firm?’ Deacon asked.
‘Because they were assigned by the court to represent Alice,’ Kate said. ‘She went through three more firms before she ended up in the infirmary last night. She fired all of them because they wouldn’t try to get her total immunity. But the first attorney was still on record as being assigned by the court.’
‘We need to find out what Alice told those attorneys,’ Deacon said.
Kate scoffed. ‘Good luck with that. They’ll hide behind privilege.’ She set the helicopter aside and started folding a dog. ‘We also know that this killer – be he McCord’s partner or not – sends someone else in to do his dirty work. Eileen with Decker and now Sidney with Alice. Maybe he doesn’t want to be caught on camera meeting them.’
‘Sidney was a coke user,’ Deacon said thoughtfully. ‘Carrie, will you be able to test the residue in her nose? I’m wondering if we can trace it to her dealer.’
‘I’ll do the best I can.’
Kate finished the dog and stared at the next sheet of paper, her brain finally starting to cooperate. ‘Both Eileen Wilkins and Sidney Siler were cocaine users. The nurse’s assistant who was in Decker’s room when I got there . . .’ She turned to Carrie. ‘You heard that one of our agents was given an intentional overdose of an opioid this morning while he was in the hospital, right?’
Carrie’s eyes widened. ‘No. Is he okay?’
Kate nodded. ‘Yes, but only because you were so quick to identify Alice’s cause of death as poison. She died a few hours after Agent Davenport woke up and started talking about a huge loose end in the case he’d been working last week. The one that filled all your drawers. I ran to his room just as the drug was kicking in. The attending doctor gave him an antidote quickly.’
‘Narcan,’ she murmured. ‘It’s substantially cut the number of heroin ODs I see.’
‘It was a nurse who’d drugged him,’ Kate said, starting to fold a new sheet of paper, but with less urgency than she’d had before. She’d blown off the worst of the pressure in her mind and she could think again. ‘Somewhere, at some point, Eileen Wilkins crossed paths with whoever killed Sidney Siler. Eileen got coke from her boyfriend – a much younger guy named Roy, according to the assistant I spoke to. Roy hangs out at King’s College, takes a class a semester, but mainly he dabbles and goes to the gym. Sidney Siler went to King’s College too. It’s possible they share a dealer.’
‘If you can find any of that nurse’s stash,’ Carrie said, ‘I might be able to match it to the residue in Sidney’s nasal cavities.’
‘That’s really good, Kate,’ Deacon said, giving her an oddly assessing look. ‘I’m gonna have to start folding paper if it lets me make those quick connections.’
Kate knew what the look meant and knew he’d ask her about it later. She hadn’t needed to fold paper or knit or anything when she’d worked with him in Baltimore. She’d managed the stress in other ways and on her own time. Now it seemed like she couldn’t escape the noise in her head.
‘It was a hurricane in there,’ she admitted quietly, tapping her temple. ‘Cat 5. Now it’s a Cat 2. I can think through a Cat 2. Agent Troy may have tracked Roy down already,’ she went on, needing to turn the attention away from herself, ‘because he was looking for Eileen. Troy found out that Eileen has a son who’s fifteen. The son should just be getting out of school – it’s a special needs program he goes to during the summer. Troy’s got plain-clothes agents waiting to follow whoever picks him up. Or to follow him home if he takes himself. Troy’s also got Wilkins’s house under surveillance. He should have a search warrant by now. I’ll let him know he should set aside whatever drugs they find for testing.’ She started to text on her phone, but Deacon stopped her.
‘I’ll text Zimmerman and Troy. You keep folding paper and thinking.’
Kate did as he asked, a more complex figure taking form as she folded. ‘The ricin. Like you said, Carrie, recipes all over the damn Internet. A nineteen-year-old at Georgetown University recently made some in his dorm bedroom with materials he got at
Home Depot – enough to kill a lot of people. All someone needs is access to the materials, a basic knowledge of high school chemistry and some low-tech lab equipment.’
Deacon blew out a breath. ‘McCord was a high school teacher. Maybe his partner is too. McCord, at least, would have access to a lab. Gimme some of that paper, Coppola.’
She flashed him a grin. ‘You got the witchy eyes that scare people into confessing. Leave me a superpower of my own.’ She made the last fold and examined the origami figure with a critical eye. ‘Not bad.’
Carrie leaned in curiously. ‘What is it? An eagle or a hawk?’
‘Something like that,’ she evaded, then glanced at Deacon, who was rolling his eyes.
‘It’s a gryphon,’ Deacon said flatly, sucking in one cheek. ‘Mythical creature. Half eagle, half lion. Not real,’ he added meaningfully.
‘Still very cool,’ Carrie said, missing the undercurrent.
‘We’ll just leave you to start your autopsies.’ Kate swept her little paper figures into her hand. ‘Where’s the garbage can?’
Carrie held out her own hand. ‘Leave them. I’ve got a five-year-old godson who will take these apart to figure out how you folded them. He’s a budding engineer.’
Kate and Deacon gathered their things and left the morgue, their silence awkward until Deacon got a text while they waited for the elevator.
‘It’s from Scarlett,’ he said. ‘From fifteen minutes ago, dammit. It really is a dead zone in there. She and Marcus have been waiting at the Ledger building for one of us to come down and review their investigation into Woody McCord.’
‘Shit, I forgot.’ Kate checked her own phone, which was buzzing as several new texts downloaded. ‘I have a bunch of messages from Troy. Decker’s been moved to the safe house with no issues. Your sister is with them. Troy and Zimmerman are debriefing Decker now. Scarlett contacted Zimmerman first, apparently. He told her to come to the safe house since he and Troy would be there a while. Zimmerman wants us all to sit down together and listen to what Marcus O’Bannion has to say about McCord.’
‘Davenport too?’ Deacon asked with a frown.
‘Yes,’ Kate said, not hiding her impatience. ‘Decker might have heard something at the traffickers’ compound that he didn’t know was important. I think he needs to hear what Marcus has to say. Plus, he did risk his life to make sure we knew that McCord had a partner. You’d want to know in his place.’
‘Yeah, I would,’ Deacon admitted. ‘I’ll tell Scarlett we’re on our way.’ He sent the text, then sighed. ‘Be careful about Davenport. I don’t like the way that man looks at you.’
That man looks at me like I’m his salvation, she thought, but would never utter those words aloud. Nor would she share any of what Decker had confided that morning. Those secrets were his to share, not hers.
‘Why?’ she asked instead. ‘Why don’t you like him?’
‘Because he looks at you like he’s been on a desert island with no women for way too long,’ Deacon said bluntly. ‘And because he managed to stay undercover for three years. Who knows what he had to do during those years, or what kind of man he is? I’ve known undercover guys in the past. They’re good at undercover because they don’t form attachments. And they don’t make commitments. Not ones they keep, anyway.’
Ah. Kate understood his concern now, even though she didn’t believe it applied to Decker. At least she didn’t want it to.
‘I’m a big girl, Deacon. I can take care of myself.’ She smiled at him so that he would know her words were sincere. ‘But thank you for caring.’
The elevator doors opened and Kate was grateful for the distraction. And the fresher air when they stepped out upstairs. ‘I really hate the smell of the morgue,’ she said, sniffing her suit jacket. ‘Now I smell bad. This is why I don’t take my yarn bag in there. My projects suck in the stink.’
Deacon slid on his wraparound shades. ‘There are three showers in the safe house,’ he said. ‘Feel free to use any of them.’
‘I’ve got a change of clothes in my car. I may take you up on it.’
They’d parked next to each other, so they walked out of the building together, cringing simultaneously when the heat of the day smacked them hard. Still, it was better than the morgue.
Kate was about to get into her car when Deacon stopped her.
‘Kate, wait.’ He hesitated. ‘The hurricanes in your head . . . they seem worse than they did before I left DC. You didn’t need to knit then. This morning, you kind of reminded me of an addict jonesing for a fix. Just now, with the paper, it was the same way. Are you okay?’
‘Yeah. Mostly.’
‘What changed?’
‘Some of it’s hormones. I’m getting older.’ She wished she could see his eyes, to know if he’d bought her excuse. But he had been her rock and he deserved more than a half-truth. ‘Mostly it was Jack.’
‘Oh.’ His face twisted. ‘I should have known that. I’m sorry, Kate.’
‘Why?’ She patted his cheek sweetly. ‘You’ve got your life, Deacon, and I am thrilled for you. I’m finding my way. I’m just glad I’m here. Knowing you have my back is enough.’
‘I do. You know that.’
‘Yeah. That’s why I let you rag on Decker. But cut him a little slack, at least until you get to know him. If you still distrust him, I promise you that I’ll listen.’
‘Okay.’ He checked his phone. ‘Text from Scar. They have Stone with them too. That’s Marcus’s brother. He insisted on being a part of this.’ He glanced up, his expression tense. ‘Stone’s not supposed to be moving around. We should take this to him.’
‘Decker’s not supposed to be moving around either,’ she said quietly. ‘This is as important to him as it is to Stone. Besides, they’re on their way already. At least this way Stone will have your sister nearby if he needs medical attention.’
‘True.’
‘What about Kimble?’ Kate asked. ‘Should he hear this too?’
‘Yes. I’ll text him and meet you there.’
Nine
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Thursday 13 August, 4.45 P.M.
Dani Novak was worse than his very worst drill sergeant, Decker thought as he looked down at the tray of food on his lap. It was chicken – boiled and bland – and unseasoned green beans from a can. At least the carrots were fresh. He bit into one, harder than he needed to.
‘Kate brought me wings,’ he said. ‘And a cheeseburger. And M&Ms.’
‘Kate is not your doctor,’ Dani said sharply. ‘I am. And don’t whine. It’s not becoming.’
‘I don’t care,’ he snapped. ‘I’m hungry.’
She sat in the chair next to his bed with her own tray. ‘Then eat what I gave you and stop behaving like a three-year-old who missed his nap.’
From his post beside the door, Agent Triplett made a strangled noise, like he was trying not to laugh. Decker glared at him. ‘You shut up.’
Triplett held his hands up, palms out. ‘Hey, man, I didn’t say a word.’
Decker sighed grumpily. ‘Whatever.’ He turned away from both of them and looked out through the wall of windows at the city and the river below. They’d set up his hospital bed in the living room of what was the most luxurious apartment he’d ever seen, much less stayed in, and the view was breathtaking. ‘How did you guys get access to this place?’
‘Through Adam,’ Dani said. ‘Adam Kimble,’ she added when he looked at her blankly.
‘Oh, right. Kate told me about him. He’s the team member working with ICAC right now.’ The one looking at the photos taken from McCord’s computer.
Shadows flickered in Dani’s mismatched eyes. ‘Yes. I hope that works out.’
She was angry, Decker realized. Furious, actually. ‘What do you mean?’
She bi
t her lip, then shrugged. ‘It’s not like everyone doesn’t know. Adam got transferred to Personal Crimes about a year ago.’
‘Oh.’ Personal Crimes was a CPD euphemism for sex crimes. ‘That’s a hard gig.’
She nodded. ‘He lasted about three months, but during that time he changed. Drastically. He used to be happy and optimistic and patient, but he turned all dark and scary, even.’
‘He’s a personal friend of yours, then?’
‘He’s my cousin. Well, our cousin – mine and Deacon’s. We grew up together.’
‘Oh. Wow. I had no idea all the relationships were so . . . intricate.’ Decker glanced over at Triplett, who also looked intrigued, then back to Dani. ‘You said that Adam lasted three months. So what happened?’
‘I don’t know. He hasn’t told me. Or Deacon, for that matter. It had to have been something pretty bad, though, because he ended up taking a leave of absence. When he came back, he went back to reporting to the boss he’d had before Personal Crimes. That’s Lieutenant Isenberg, who now heads up the joint task force between CPD and the FBI. She’s Deacon and Scarlett’s boss.’
‘Why would they send him to look at . . . well, to look at material that would drive most decent people crazy?’ Decker asked.
‘Good question,’ she said grimly. ‘I helped pick up the pieces the first time. I don’t want to think about having to do that again.’ She looked down at her plate with a sigh. ‘Anyway, this place belongs to a man whose child was kidnapped several years ago. Adam was instrumental in the child’s safe return and the man was beyond grateful. He had this place built to be intruder-proof afterward. He’s a local marketing guru and took a four-year assignment in Asia, and he gave Adam permission to use this place as a safe house. It’s got excellent security and is easily defendable.’
‘I’m grateful,’ Decker said quietly. ‘I’m sorry I snapped. I’m just really hungry and this did not fill me up.’
‘Me either,’ Dani admitted, ‘but this was what Agent Troy had in his own fridge. He knew the food was safe. It’ll feed you until one of us can stock the pantry.’