by Cynthia Eden
“You know.” She flapped her hands in the air. “Skullduggery and protecting unsuspecting witnesses and…investigating stuff.”
“This is my first and most likely last time.”
“Really?”
“Sophia, I’m in the US Navy. I’m supposed to be operating overseas on missions approved by the Department of Defense. I am absolutely not supposed to be conducting any type of surveillance or covert actions on home soil.”
“So, why are you?”
“I was asked…ordered by higher-ranking personnel than my commanding officers. I thought I had made that clear. I report to some faceless woman—or at least I think she’s a woman—named Ariel. I’m here because I’d been instrumental in spiriting Dr. Fazal out of Pakistan.”
“If you got caught by the police, would these high-ranking personnel stand by you? Bail you out? Or would they hang you out to dry?”
“I’m not going to get caught by the police—or anyone else.”
He’d just answered her question. He was on his own, and the same authority figures who’d ordered him stateside to protect Dr. Fazal would disown him in a second to protect their own backsides. He knew it…and didn’t care.
She tapped her computer screen. “It’s almost twelve o’clock. Are you ready?”
“Shoes.” He swept up a pair of running shoes from the floor and sat on the edge of the bed to put them on.
“No lucky cowboy boots today?”
“Lucky?” He grinned in a kind of aw-shucks way, and an answering smile tugged at her lips.
“I don’t know. We’ve been having pretty good luck with you wearing those boots.”
“These might be lucky, too.” He tied one shoe and stomped it on the carpet. “Might have to do some walking this afternoon.”
“There’s a coffee place about a half a block down from the office building.”
“I noticed it before. That’s where I’ll be when you finish cleaning up the office.”
It didn’t take them long to get from the hotel to the medical office building, and Sophia used her parking card to get into the lot. She directed Austin to a different level from where she usually parked just in case her stalkers were looking out for her car.
When they stopped at the elevator, Austin held out his hand. “Let me have your phone. I’ll put my number in your contacts, but I’ll be waiting for you at the coffee place, so just come on over when you’re done.”
He tapped his number into her phone and held it out to her when he finished.
She glanced at the new contact. “Supreme Dry Cleaners?”
“That’s me.” He raised his right hand. “Just in case someone ever gets hold of your phone.”
A little shiver zipped across the back of her neck. This espionage stuff was getting too real for comfort. “Got it. See you in about an hour.”
He pushed through the metal door to take the steps to the street level, and she stabbed the elevator button to call the car. As she watched the door slam behind Austin, her stomach flip-flopped just like it had last night when he’d left her before the cops arrived.
In less than twenty-four hours, Austin Foley had become a crutch for her, a security blanket, a required accessory…like a cell phone or a purse. She didn’t like it.
When the elevator doors opened on the floor of the office, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath before stepping out. If the other residents on the floor had been rubbernecking into Dr. Fazal’s office, they must’ve gotten their fill already because all the doors on the hallway were firmly closed. Of course, not many of the doctors worked on Saturday.
A crumpled ribbon of crime scene tape pooled on the floor in front of the office, and she stepped over it as she entered the waiting room. She released a noisy breath as Ginny, in jeans and tennis shoes, jumped up from the floor.
“Oh, my God, Sophia. I can’t believe this happened.” Ginny wrapped her in a hug, rocking her back and forth. “I know how close you were to Dr. Fazal, and you had to find him. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for all of us.”
Sophia patted Ginny’s back. “I-it’s terrible. Have you called all the patients?”
Ginny gave her a final squeeze before releasing her. “Don’t worry about that. I called everyone who had appointments this week. I referred them all to Dr. Bishop, and I talked to him, as well. I’ll take care of the rest of the patients later.”
“Morgan and Anna?”
“Morgan’s in the back and Anna’s not in yet.” She swept her arm across the waiting room. “I’ve been cleaning up the reception area. There wasn’t much out of place in the waiting room, but then all we have are magazines and pamphlets up here. Still, they rifled through those, too. What in the world were they looking for among our magazine racks?”
“Obviously not drugs.” Sophia pressed her lips together. She didn’t want to give anything away about the motive for the killing, but some things were obvious.
“Maybe his killer was already drug-addled and just went crazy.”
At least Ginny wasn’t spouting the ridiculous suicide theory. “Have you seen the cops yet?”
“I was here when they finished gathering their evidence. You know Dr. Fazal’s computer was stolen?”
“I told the police that last night.”
“And all the drugs.” Morgan poked her head out of the supply room. “So, maybe Ginny’s theory is correct. Some junkies broke in here, grabbed the meds, maybe demanded more and when Dr. Fazal didn’t give them up, they shot him.”
“There was nothing to give up.” Sophia squeezed the back of her neck. “What else could Dr. Fazal give them?”
Morgan shook her head. “I don’t know. It looks like they searched through everything. I suppose you’ve seen your office since you were here last night. That must’ve been horrible.”
“It was.” Sophia brushed a hand across her eyes. “I’m going to see what’s what in my office. If Anna doesn’t show up, I’ll help you with the rest when I’m done.”
“I’m here.” Anna stumbled into the waiting room with tears streaming down her face. “I can’t believe this.”
Ginny gave Anna a bear hug and the two women clung together for a few minutes, their tears mingling. Their unbridled emotion socked her in the gut. Sophia didn’t even know how to break down like that, wouldn’t even know how, and witnessing their pain and grief only made her shell grow harder.
She slipped away from the cryfest and stepped into her office. She maneuvered around the two chairs facing her desk and sank into the chair behind it. She powered on the computer and rested her fingers on the keyboard while she waited for it to come to life.
Why had Dr. Fazal’s killers taken only his computer? They probably figured they’d be too conspicuous lugging a host of computers out of the office, although apparently nobody had seen them leave.
She went through her email and opened a few files, but she didn’t know what she was looking for. Sighing, she dropped to her knees and gathered up the papers and file folders littering the floor.
They’d probably stolen the drugs to make it look like a typical crime, although they had to know the FBI would be keeping tabs on Dr. Fazal, or at least would be alerted in the event of his murder.
What did they want? What secrets had Hamid been keeping? What secrets had he been keeping from her?
She plopped back in the chair and spun it around to face her bookshelf. The books had been rifled through, too. So, had they been searching for something on paper? A computer file? From the looks of the office, they didn’t know.
She ran her hands down the spines of the books to straighten them on the shelf. Then she leaned forward to retrieve a couple that had been left on the floor.
A bright pink sticky note beneath the desk caught her eye. She slid from the chair to the floor and reach
ed for it. Still beneath the desk, she peered at the note, wrinkling her nose as she recognized Dr. Fazal’s scratchy handwriting. She clambered back into the chair and held the note under the desk lamp.
As she deciphered the words, her heart slammed against her rib cage. Dr. Fazal had left her a clue.
CHAPTER SIX
Austin flexed his fingers before attacking the keyboard. Entering Peter Patel in the search engine returned multiple pages and too many entries to count.
He tried narrowing it down by entering the data from the patient file but didn’t get any hits.
Slumping in his chair, he stretched his legs out to the side and took a careful sip of coffee. It beat the stuff Sophia had brewed in that old coffeemaker of hers, but that concoction suited her—strong, bracing and no frills.
Would she keep up that strong front back at the office where she’d discovered Dr. Fazal’s body? None of this could be easy for her, and yet she’d responded like a soldier.
How far would Fazal’s killers go to contact Sophia, and what exactly did they want from her?
Someone like Sophia wouldn’t go for any type of witness protection, but how could they keep her safe in Boston if these guys were determined to interrogate her…or worse? How could he keep her safe?
The key could be this guy, Patel. He sat up and grabbed his phone, and then hunched over the laptop to scroll to Patel’s phone number from the file.
He tapped the number into his cell and listened to the phone on the other end of the line ring and ring. Patel didn’t even have voice mail? If this were a cell phone number, a recording would come on indicating the person hadn’t set up voice mail.
He jotted down Patel’s address on a napkin, and then entered it into the computer. The location in Brookline wasn’t too far. If Patel wouldn’t answer his phone, Austin would pay him a surprise visit.
He accessed his email and pored over the new pictures of his nephew his sister had sent. This baby made him an uncle six times, and he had fun with the role even though he knew his turn would have to wait. His family didn’t even know he was stateside, and he couldn’t tell them. There was a lot he couldn’t tell his family.
The door to the coffeehouse flew open and he glanced up, his heart doing a flip-flop when he saw Sophia’s pale face framed by her disheveled black hair.
He kicked out the chair across from him and she dropped into it, waving a pink square of paper in his face. “I found something.”
“What is it?”
She smacked the sticky note on the table next to his laptop. “It is Patel, and Dr. Fazal was trying to warn me.”
He peeled the note from the table and held it close to his face, his eyebrows colliding over his nose. “What the hell does this say?”
“Shh.” She put her finger to her lips and looked to her right and then to her left. She leaned forward pointing at each word upside down as she read it out to him in a whisper.
“Leave. New. Patient. Files.”
“Is that what that says?” He flicked the edge of the note. “I’m underwhelmed. What does it mean and how is it a warning?”
She ripped the note from the table and pressed it to her heart. “He’s telling me to leave the new patient files alone, and the new patient is?”
“Peter Patel.”
“That’s right. He’s the only new patient who hasn’t been entered in the database, so it would only apply to him. Also, this is not something I’d normally handle. It’s Ginny’s responsibility to enter patient files into the database.”
“Where did you find this note? You hadn’t seen it before…before his murder?”
“No. It wasn’t there when I left my office that night. I found it beneath my desk, where it must’ve floated when my office was trashed.”
“Is this—” his eyes dropped to the note still pressed against her breast “—a typical way for him to communicate with you? Sticky notes?”
“Not unheard of, but not something he’d do frequently. It would definitely get my attention, and don’t you see? It’s cryptic enough that nobody else would consider it important or out of the ordinary.”
“Cryptic for you as well, but gets the job done. The only reason I can think of that he’d warn you off Patel is if he believed Patel would reach out to you.”
She covered her mouth with the pink square. “Do you think that was Patel last night in Cambridge with the gun?”
“I don’t know.” He swirled the coffee in his cup. “If Patel came to see Dr. Fazal, maybe to warn him about something, and Fazal was protecting him by pretending he was a patient, I just can’t see someone like that harming you. Dr. Fazal would never do that to you.”
“But Patel might try to reach out to me, anyway?”
“If Dr. Fazal knew he was a dead man, he might want to warn you away from Patel just to keep you out of the loop. Patel could be a desperate man. Once he hears about Fazal’s murder, he might turn to you instead. Maybe Fazal is warning you against that inevitability.”
“He was thinking of me even at the end.” She cupped the note between her two hands, almost as if in prayer.
“He was warning you away from Patel.” He tapped the napkin with Patel’s address. “Not me.”
“Are you going to track him down?”
“Yes.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“That’s exactly what Dr. Fazal didn’t want.”
“Well, he misjudged his enemies if he thought they’d leave me alone. I’m in this, whether or not that’s what Dr. Fazal wanted.”
“Not what he wanted.”
“Do you think I’ll be safer in that hotel room on my own or safer with you?”
He opened his mouth and then snapped it shut. Of course she’d be safer with him. He leveled a finger at her. “If you come along with me, you need to do exactly what I say. I know you think you’re street smart and savvy, but this is a different world.”
“You’re lucky I am street smart and savvy because I recognized you as one of the good guys right away.” She pushed his finger out of the way. “When do we go?”
“Let me wrap up a few things first. Were the police at the office when you were there cleaning up?”
“No, but Ginny, the receptionist, saw them when she got there. I gather they didn’t have any news.”
“What about the…uh, arrangements for Dr. Fazal?”
“The funeral?” She dropped the pink note in her purse. “Morgan told me some of his colleagues are organizing a memorial service, and they actually want me to say something. According to his religion, he needs to be buried as soon as the coroner releases his body—whenever that is. The memorial service can take place sooner.”
He jerked his thumb at the counter. “Go get yourself a coffee while I finish.”
“I prefer the stuff at the donut shop across the street.”
His lips quirked as he suppressed a smile.
“What?”
“Nothing. If you want to run across the street, I’ll probably be done by the time you get back.”
“I’ll wait here.” With one finger, she dragged the napkin with Patel’s address to her side of the table. “Brookline, huh?”
“Looks about five miles away on the directions.”
“It’s close.” She held up her cell phone. “Do you want me to put it in my GPS?”
“Go ahead. Do you want to drive or navigate?”
“Since it’s my car, I’ll drive.”
“I’ll wear my seat belt.”
She nudged his shoe with her foot. “Are you implying that I’m a lousy driver?”
“Not at all. I’m just all about safety.”
The nudge turned into a kick. “Liar.”
“There.” He clicked Send on his request. “I just submitted
Peter Patel’s name to our database to see if we have anything on him.”
“You don’t think Peter Patel’s a fake name?”
“I do, but it’s worth a try. Maybe it’s a fake name he’s used before, so it might come up as an alias for the real person.”
She tilted her head. “Is this what you do as a navy SEAL? Intelligence? Espionage?”
“Me?” He raised his eyebrows. “No, although I’ve had some training.”
“Then, what do you do?”
“I’m a sniper.”
Her dark eyes glittered as she narrowed them to slits. “You kill people from a safe distance?”
He pressed his lips into a thin line, and a muscle ticked in his jaw. “I save and protect people.”
“I-is that how you protected Dr. Fazal?”
He nodded once and snapped his laptop closed. “You ready?”
“Just need to enter the address in my phone’s GPS.”
While she tapped her phone, he put away his laptop and tossed his cup. He didn’t need to explain what he did to civilians like Sophia. He didn’t imagine that she’d understand, and she shouldn’t have to.
“All done.” She squinted at her phone. “We should be there in seventeen minutes.”
“With you driving, we could cut that down to ten.”
“I’ll be careful, but your concern seems pretty funny coming from a guy who takes bigger risks than traveling in a fast-moving car.”
As he opened the door for her, he shook his finger. “A lot of soldiers come back from their tours and die in car accidents.”
“You’re right.”
They walked back to the medical building parking structure and jogged up one flight of stairs to their level.
Austin pressed the car keys into her hand. “Here you go.”
Clutching the key ring, she stepped back from the car. “Sh-should you check it out again?”
He pulled the bug detector from his jacket pocket and held it up. “I have something better, so I don’t have to crawl beneath the car.”
Pressing the button on the device, he waved it across the car’s bumper, along the sides and over the hood. “All clear.”