Midnight Fever

by Lisa Marie Rice

  She could just picture the two of them on Offutt’s superyacht, the 200-foot Bellariva, basking in the sun in the Caribbean, laughing at the poor suckers who weren’t as smart as they were.

  Think again, boys.

  Catherine had only been one of the members of the subcommittee, but she’d walked in with a briefcase full of documents, which she’d handed out and carefully explained. They’d listened to the first couple of witnesses she’d called. The chairman was unmovable, of course. A vote against Offutt was a vote against another six figures in his account.

  But the other members…they’d listened. Oh yes. They’d listened and taken notes and had undoubtedly had their staffs make inquiries. Monday they would come back, more aggressive and more quietly angry.

  Each day was supposed to end with Offutt entertaining them with whiskey and strippers. Instead, the first day had seen three veterans testifying to the damage caused by Offutt’s company, Blackvale. The corporal who’d sustained third-degree burns over forty percent of her body because the water heating system Blackvale installed didn’t have a regulator. The private who’d lost both legs to a faulty steering system in a truck. The very nervous accountant who gave a list of materials that had undergone a thousand percent markup.

  On and on. She had tons of this stuff.

  Catherine had spent years accumulating the evidence while Stanley Offutt grew rich. She’d bided her time and worked hard to get on to the committee.

  Offutt had smiled and nodded when he saw her yesterday morning. The fool.

  After all, it had been years since they’d last seen each other at Nathan’s funeral. He’d even—the bastard—offered her a loan because he knew she’d been left in “straitened circumstances”, as he’d so gently put it.

  She’d refused and thanked him for coming while vowing in her heart that however long it took, she’d get even.

  In the end, it took ten years, but it was worth every second of time she’d spent, every sleepless night, every tear she’d shed for Nathan.

  Watching the chairman’s jaw drop, watching Offutt sweat, watching the tide of opinion in the august wood-paneled room turn against him… it was as the ad said—priceless.

  The chairman was as wily and slimy as they came, and it was possible that he would adjourn “for further consideration” but as long as she was alive, Stanley Offutt would never get another penny from the US government. She had more information in her computer and her aides were following an anonymous tip that Blackvale had been involved in a sex trafficking operation in 2016.

  Catherine had plenty of ammo left.

  As a matter of fact, why stop with government contracts?

  Catherine sipped her tea, blinking. Why indeed? She put her cup down, staring at the photos on her desk. She and Nathan grinning into the camera on their first trip together as a couple, in Hawaii all those years ago. Their wedding day, madly smiling, crazy in love, so happy it had been a thing of weight and heft in their midst that day. Happiness so intense you could almost feel it.

  Aaron and Emma, blinking against the sun on a family hiking trip, grinning because Nathan had forgotten to take the lens cap off for the first pictures. Catherine had reached over and gently removed it and they had all laughed their heads off, Nathan more than anyone. It was the year Nathan died, and it would be two years before she and the kids could laugh again.

  Stanley had done that. He had taken Nathan out of their lives with his greed and corruption.

  She’d schemed and worked to cut off government contracts, but Stanley had connections everywhere.

  Why should he prosper? Why should he be allowed to live like the Sun King while Nathan’s bleached bones lay in the cold ground?

  Her heart cried for revenge.

  Oh God, yes. Catherine had ruined government for Offutt, but maybe she could do more than that. One dossier, the one where four Blackvale employees were accused of sex trafficking, was ready to go. The Washington Post had a section dedicated to anonymous whistleblowers. She could send the dossier to them. To The Intercept. To WikiLeaks. Send it wide. He would go to jail. She would sit front row center every single fucking day of his trial. And when he was sentenced to a long jail term, she would—

  What was that annoying sound? She frowned, cocking her head. A faint buzzing, like a faraway insect, only a big faraway insect. Coming from the window.

  Catherine got up and pushed away the curtains fluttering in the warm breeze. The old-fashioned window was open to the wind, something she loved in warm weather. So unlike the sealed-tight windows with constant recycled air she worked in all day.

  The sound was louder and it took her a couple of seconds to trace it to a big insect floating in front of the window about two feet above her head. She was about to pull back when something strange about the insect caught her notice. It didn’t move, was stock still in the air, and it had a funny shape. Like a wasp, only not a wasp. Bigger. A central body with eight…legs. Not legs, really.

  What was it?

  With a shocking suddenness, the…thing dropped until it was right in front of her face. She recoiled, stepped back, but the thing followed her, so close to her face she had trouble focusing her eyes.

  Suddenly, her face was wet. Something wet had come out of nowhere.

  Had the thing spat at her? How could that even be possible? Ewww.

  Disgusted, Catherine walked to her desk for a handkerchief. She sniffed. Whatever was on her face didn’t have an odor. She touched it. Drops. Drops of something on her face.

  Ack.

  She went to grab a Kleenex to wipe herself with but grabbed the edge of her desk instead. Her knees couldn’t hold her up. She fell into her chair more than sat in it, opening her mouth to call her assistant.

  No breath. No breath to call, no breath to pull into her lungs. No breath at all. She brought a hand to her throat, not understanding what was happening to her. It wasn’t a heart attack. Nothing hurt in her chest, it wasn’t a stroke, she didn’t feel anything in her brain.

  But she couldn’t breathe. Her chest expanded but no air came in, it was like being choked but there was no one there to choke her.

  Every muscle in her body trembled, spasmed. She fell out of her chair, sprawling on the carpet, putting a palm on the floor to push herself back up, but nothing happened. Her chest was burning as she tried to draw in air and failed. Heat and pain seared her chest up to her throat as she gasped for air that wouldn’t come.

  Spots appeared before her eyes, growing larger and larger, the chair, the desk disappearing from view into the blackness.

  One last futile kick of her legs, and she was gone.

  The insect-like thing buzzed into her study, dropped down and hovered in front of her bright red frozen face, waiting for further instructions.

  Portland, Oregon

  Back in the warehouse serving as HQ, Baker froze the video on the senator’s old face, mottled hand clutching her throat. Her brown eyes were still, her body limp in the unmistakable stillness of death.

  “I want her deader’n shit,” is how Offutt had described the service.

  Baker picked up his encrypted satphone and called.

  “Yes.” How glad Baker was that this was the last time he would have to hear Offutt’s nasal voice.

  “It’s done,” Baker said.

  “How do I know it’s done?” Offutt whined. “I haven’t heard anything in the media.”

  Because she died minutes ago, you dipshit, Baker wanted to say but didn’t. The hit had been an absolute scramble to get some DNA, get it down to Atlanta and have it spliced to the engineered virus. It had been so fast there had been the risk of violating opsec. Baker had made Offutt pay through the nose.

  Instead of answering, he sent four stills to Offutt’s secure phone. From the spray to when she fell to the floor.

  “For all I know this could be staged. How do I know she’s dead?”

  Again Baker didn’t answer, but switched on the video feed and patched it through to
Offutt. Minute after minute went by in silence, the time elapse scrolling by on the bottom of the screen. In case Offutt might think the time elapse was fake, De Haven had been kind enough to keep a big desk clock in the line of sight of the video camera. The clock showed five full minutes elapsing while her chest didn’t move and her open eyes didn’t blink.

  Most people blinked 20 times a minute. Five minutes without blinking was almost beyond human capability.

  “She’s dead,” Offutt finally said. “Good.”

  “Yes.” Baker always said as little as possible over the phone. In his head, this conversation was already over.

  “In a way that will not raise suspicion.”

  “A natural death. Yes.” The red would fade soon. She would look like any heart attack victim or stroke victim when a member of her staff found her. The longer she lay undetected, the better.

  “Check your account,” Offutt said.

  Seven and a half million had already been deposited in an account Baker had in Panama. He checked now. Another seven and a half million had just been deposited. It had been made very clear to Offutt that De Haven would die an untraceable death that would come for Offutt without fail if he didn’t make that second deposit.

  Baker hadn’t thought Offutt would try to cheat him out of the second payment. First, he’d be looking over his shoulder the rest of his life, as well he should. Baker’s drones could reach him anywhere, anytime. And second, seven and a half million dollars was, after all, a drop in the ocean for Offutt. The running costs for his yacht for a year.

  “Got it,” Baker said and disconnected.

  He switched back to the video feed of the police swarming over the site here in Portland, having already forgotten Offutt.

  The CSU was wrapping it up. The handle was gone—they’d recovered the suitcase. They could study that crime scene site until the galaxy died and they would never be able to pin it on him.

  Time to find the woman.

  Mount Hood

  A gentle hand shook her shoulder. “Honey, wake up.”

  Startled, Kay bolted up, heart pounding. Danger! Danger all around her! Someone had died, Mike had died…

  “Whoa.” That big hand curled around the back of her head, cupped her neck, shook it lightly. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. We’re here.”

  Kay looked over at Nick, ashamed of her reaction. Her heart had nearly burst out of her chest but now it was slowing down. “Sorry,” she whispered.

  Nick released his seat belt and hers and bent over to kiss her cheek. His beard already had a little bite to it. It felt good, grounding. She remembered how smooth his cheeks had been against the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. There hadn’t been any whisker bite then, oh no. Just smooth skin and smooth tongue…she’d been laid out on the bed like a human sacrifice, only lashed by pleasure not pain. Writhing, holding tightly to his head between her thighs as the one solid point of stability in a hot, restless sea.

  Heat filled her down to her fingertips and toes and it felt so good. It washed away the cramped chill of fear and anguish.

  “Nothing to be sorry about,” he answered, moving away from her, big hands hanging over the top of the wheel. He was giving her time to come back into herself. “You needed the rest. I’m glad you had some.”

  Spears of lambent light shot through a thick copse of pine trees, the kind of light only late afternoon could provide. “Where are we? Have we been driving all day?”

  If it was late afternoon, they’d been driving for at least five or six hours. One could cover a lot of ground in that time. They could arguably be in Idaho or California or Washington. She’d thought they were going to Mount Hood, but clearly, she’d been wrong.

  “On Mount Hood,” Nick said, and exited the vehicle.

  Mount Hood? They’d driven hours to get to Mount Hood?

  He was at her door, big hands up to help her down. Ordinarily Kay didn’t like or need help getting in and out of vehicles, but her muscles were stiff and unwieldly, as if she’d been hurt. Looking down, the ground seemed a long way away, like through the wrong end of the telescope. She leaned forward and Nick lifted her down with no effort at all.

  It was embarrassing to feel so weak. She was a strong and healthy woman. She practiced yoga, ran over lunch hours and hiked on weekends. She barely recognized her own body. Her skin felt like a stiff hazmat suit she’d had to don. “How’d it take us hours to get here? Mount Hood is about an hour from Portland, isn’t it?”

  Nick gave a half smile. “We took, um, the scenic route. One guaranteed to ensure that no one was following us. So, welcome to the Grange. Where we’ll be spending the next while until we figure out what’s going on.” He swept his arm as if presenting the castle of a fairy tale kingdom.

  Hmmm. Pretty shabby as castles went. A tiny, dilapidated shack with moldy wooden siding that had turned gray with age, fronted by a rickety porch that sat forlornly on a concrete foundation that had cracks in it. There wasn’t a lawn or a garden, just this gravel apron where Nick had parked.

  The idea of spending “the next while” here was daunting. Still, she was grateful for the shelter and for the thought. And for Nick standing by her side, not so tall but so very broad and so very reassuring.

  They’d get through this. They’d camp out here and as soon as Felicity decrypted the flash drive, she’d go to work and figure the whole thing out. Nick had gotten her to safety and she’d take it from here. In that rundown shack. She shivered and hoped there was heat in the shack. Maybe a wood-fired stove? God knew there were enough trees around for kindling.

  She pulled in a deep, pine-scented breath. The air was cool and super clean and smelled of trees for miles and miles, with no pollutants at all. It was pleasant and bracing, clearing her head. It wouldn’t be so bad. The shack looked desolate and uncomfortable, but they’d manage.

  She smiled at Nick, who was watching her closely.

  “Well, what do you think?” he asked. “This was Midnight’s place that he bought when he first arrived in Portland. A little hideaway.”

  “Midnight”, she knew, was John Huntington, one of the owners of ASI, and Nick’s new boss. She knew Nick really liked both his bosses, John, and Douglas Kowalski.

  But…John had had a couple of years to fix the shack up. Why hadn’t he? Their headquarters, which she’d visited once on a quick trip to Portland, were spectacular. Cool and elegant and very high tech. The exact opposite of this ramshackle hut. Maybe he’d been too busy building one of the biggest security companies in the country to restructure here.

  “It looks, um, cozy,” she said. About the only thing she could say that wouldn’t sound whiny.

  There was something wrong, and she couldn’t figure it out. Something about changing beds. Hopefully, there’d be sheets and blankets. Why was she thinking this? Because she’d had a flash where two thoughts bounced together. Nick. And bed. And…

  Her eyes rounded and she brought her hand to her mouth. “Oh my gosh, Nick!”

  He lifted a black eyebrow.

  “My wheelie! I took it with me when I left the hotel!”

  He rolled his eyes and looked pained. “Tell me about it. When I saw you’d packed your bag and took it with you, I nearly had a heart attack.”

  “I left it there! Where Mike died!” She closed her eyes a second, spinning the movie in her head backward. She’d had it in the alleyway. The wheels had made a little grinding noise. But she hadn’t had it in the department store, certainly not when she’d made her way down the stairs to the garage level. Absolutely certain of that. “They’ll find my suitcase with a dead body! I mean I don’t think I have a document in it, but I definitely have a conference folder and—”

  “Stop right there.” Nick shook his head. “You did, honey. You did leave your suitcase. The police have it, and they know it’s yours.”

  She staggered. The blood left her head suddenly, plummeting downward. Her suitcase in the hands of the police! Was she running now from the law?
Her knees trembled.

  Nick flashed out a hand, steadied her.

  “Easy now. Yes, they have your suitcase, yes they know it’s yours, no it’s not a problem. I talked to a good friend, Captain Bud Morrison of the Portland PD. They know everything.”

  Kay couldn’t move, could barely breathe. She was shaken to her core. “They know it’s mine. Then they know I was there. They must be looking for me.”

  A cold expression crossed Nick’s tough face. “They’d like to talk to you, that’s true. But I am not letting you go where you are expected. I told them you were targeted and that you’ll be in for interrogation when the danger is over. Bud said that if Felicity can establish a secure link, he’d like to talk via Skype. Felicity refrained from mentioning that there’s a secure link already. She can hold him off for a while.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Exactly. We don’t know anything and we don’t know who was after Mike. It will take as long as we want for a secure link to be established. Let’s not think about that now.”

  Kay nodded slowly. Nick had bought her time, time to process what had happened and what she’d seen. Time to study Priyanka’s files. “I’m going to want to see the autopsy results.”

  “That can happen.” He nodded. “Either legally or illegally, if you need those results, you’ll get them.”

  “Okay. I’ll do my part. When I do go in to talk to the police, I hope to have some data other than me watching him being sprayed and then watching him die.” She shuddered.

  “Come on, then. Let’s get settled in.” He slanted a look at her, put one hand around her arm, walked forward up the porch. The front porch steps creaked, Kay noted with alarm. Nick was a heavy guy. It was all lean muscle but he was dense. Each step made the porch shiver.

  Kay glanced down, hoping to catch the wood cracking in time so they could hop out of the way before they plunged through the porch to the ground. Watching her feet, she missed what Nick did. It wasn’t as easy as putting a key in the lock—though why anyone would lock the door to this place was beyond her. He’d used something she hadn’t quite seen, like maybe a remote control? At any rate, he was slipping something long and slender in his pocket when the door clicked and opened. Very smoothly.