Midnight Fire

by Lisa Marie Rice

  Something appeared on the tablet propped on his knees. “So, here’s the dope. The building is owned by a company” —he swiped his way through several screens—”a holding company. A DAC, actually.”

  “A dack? Is that like a Dr. Who thing?”

  He smiled, not looking up and, oh God. A dimple appeared. An honest to God dimple that looked totally out of place on that harsh face. Enough looking at him. It distracted her.

  “No, darling,” he said lazily. “That would be a Dalek. This is a Distributed Autonomous Company. Essentially, a company without people.”

  “That’s a thing? A company without people?”

  He nodded, the dimple disappearing. “They are supposed to operate under strict regulation, but essentially they operate via software that makes them autonomous and fast. But that is only the first layer. Bless her, Felicity never stops at the obvious.” He tapped another screen. “I’ll spare you the links, but Felicity hunted down the ultimate owner, and it’s—”

  “Some corporation so he doesn’t have to pay taxes.” Summer started remembering some of the buildings along the street. There were two new ones she didn’t recognize, built after she’d been to the apartment with her aunt. “Which means he was dirty long before now.”

  “Bingo. So...my GPS says we should be parking right...about...now.”

  Summer swerved and parked.

  Jack was still studying the screen, pinching to expand the scope of what he was seeing, then opening the screen up with three fingers. She cocked her head, trying to understand what he was looking at. She saw cones and lines that looked like streets.

  Jack reached behind him to pull a small backpack out of his sports bag. He extracted what looked like a pencil-thin flashlight, the coating a dull matte black. “Let’s go.” He looked at her. “What?”

  Summer waved vaguely at his face. “You’re not going to—you know. Homeless up?”

  “Told you the damned things itch.” He rummaged in his backpack and came up with a beanie hat and a baseball cap. “Particularly when I wear this. Put yours on.” He handed her the beanie and slid the baseball cap on. “They have LED lights and will blind any cameras. I checked all the vidcams in the area, I know where they are, and this will take care of them.”

  “Is that what you used at my place?”

  Jack just smiled then climbed out of her car. It should have been awkward for him. It was a small car and he was a big man. But he seemed to have no problems at all. He simply unfurled himself, stood straight, shouldered his backpack, came around to the driver’s side. He held out a big hand to her and she got out. It had been a long time since a man had helped her out of a car.

  He kept her hand in his.

  The area was more trendy than the neighborhood of The Glades, not an area of stately homes but more luxury service apartments. She imagined diplomats and visiting businessmen stayed. She remembered the building—expensively appointed and absolutely bland and unmemorable, like a hotel. Better than a hotel if you had things to hide. No nosy neighbors and all the privacy you wanted.

  “You think someone might be watching us?” Summer looked around but didn’t see a living soul.

  “I doubt it, but we’re keeping our guard up.” He met her eyes. “I looked at sat photos. All of the buildings here seemed to be zoned for privacy. I mapped out a pathway to Hector’s building where there are the fewest security cams. If make a wrong turn, let me know.”

  Summer stared. “Felicity can hack into satellites?”

  A corner of his mouth lifted. “She can, easily. But as it happens, so can I.”

  “When this is over, can I hire you?” Summer blurted. “You probably won’t be going back to the CIA anyway, right?”

  He froze and waited so long she thought he wouldn’t answer. “No. Whatever happens, I won’t be going back to the CIA. If Nick and the Director and I can stop this—whatever it is—then cleaning house at the CIA will take a generation. I don’t want to be part of that.”

  Too painful. He didn’t have to say the words for her to understand. She understood that the agency he had dedicated his life to was broken beyond repair. In the space of six months he has lost most of his family and he’d lost his life’s mission.

  Jack lifted his hand, ran the back of his forefinger down her cheek. “If writing were part of my skillset, I’d come work for you in a heartbeat.” He dropped his hand. “But breaking and entering is part of my skillset, so let’s go. Do you mind if I take point?”

  “Take point?”

  “Lead the way.”

  “Oh, of course. So, yeah, take point. If I remember correctly, the building is in the center of the block. You can’t even see the street from it.”

  “So you can’t see it from the street, either. Neat.”

  It was neat. Her younger self hadn’t appreciated how hidden away this building was. She had been dragged there many times by her furious Aunt Vanessa, as a witness, she now realized, in the divorce proceedings. As it happened, Hector had settled a very generous sum on Vanessa and the divorce went smoothly.

  She also remembered wondering why Vanessa was angry and not sad when they uncovered clear evidence that Hector was cheating on her. And again, with hindsight, she realized it was all about the money and Vanessa’s upcoming loss of status as wife to Hector Blake that burned her.

  Not the end of her marriage.

  Summer hadn’t seen too many decent marriages in her life up to that point. The Delvaux’s marriage had been the first happy marriage she’d ever seen up close. Alex and Mary Delvaux had been devoted to each other, and it was clear in every word they spoke. They also liked each other. That, too had been clear.

  She hadn’t even thought to be jealous of Isabel and Jack. What she saw in the Delvaux family was so rare it was like being jealous of unicorns or fairies.

  The greenery had grown out, matured. A groundskeeper kept everything in shape and clean but now you walked through a maze of head-high shrubbery. Anyone living on this block, particularly in the internal buildings, really liked their privacy.

  The night wasn’t warm but there was a slight breath of coming spring in the air. Faint, unmistakable. And like all springs it brought with it ancient emotions—the tribe has survived another winter! Let’s celebrate.

  The shrubbery was dense with leaves, a few fruit trees had tightly furled blossoms that would soon burst. It was chilly but somehow the scent of the coming spring was in the air. Spring was her favorite season.

  She brushed by a thick magnolia bush and a sweet scent exploded and filled her head.

  Up ahead Jack came to a halt and she stopped immediately behind him. He held up a big hand, palm up like a traffic cop.

  “Shouldn’t you hold up your fist?” she whispered.

  Jack turned his head and looked at her, eyebrows raised.

  “That’s what military guys on patrol in the jungle do, at least in the movies. Raise their fists, and everyone stops.”

  “Not quite the jungle here,” Jack murmured, voice low. She’d read somewhere that whispers carried farther than low voices. “And you’re not a soldier. So if I read the map correctly, Blake’s place is around this corner to the right. That feel right?”

  She consulted her inner map and nodded. “There’s a main entrance but there is also a side entrance that isn’t used much. If they haven’t changed it, I remember that code, too.”

  Jack nodded, flipped up his jacket collar so it disguised his jawline. He took off his scarf, wrapped it around her neck, covering her mouth. Basically only her eyes were visible.

  Jack took her hand. He tugged and she stumbled forward. Oh, man. Her hand actually tingled where he touched it, which was insane. Jack was not connected to a source of electricity, the tingling was entirely in her own head and if he had any idea what effect holding hands with
him had on her, she would die of embarrassment.

  His hand was huge, warm, hard as wood. And it made her feel safe.

  She wasn’t even aware of fear until Jack’s hand touched hers. It was just a touch creepy out here in the dark, in this maze of shrubbery, intent on breaking into the house of a dead man. A dead man who might have been behind the greatest terrorist attack of the last fifteen years and who might have been connected to who knew what else.

  Those feelings of dread that she wasn’t even aware of vanished completely the instant Jack took her hand. Poof! Gone. In its place warmth and an immense feeling of safety. Which was crazy, of course. Safe didn’t exist in the world. Her entire childhood had been all about never lulling herself into feeling safe, because she wasn’t. And her work as a political journalist taught her that we all live on a knife’s edge. So any sense of safety was illusory.

  But nice.

  Walking beside Jack made her feel completely safe. Like taking a stroll through a park on a sunny day. Because no matter what else he was, he was visibly strong and he was incredibly vigilant, eyes darting everywhere, from the sky to the ground and everywhere in between. He walked like he was expecting an attack at any moment, muscles tense and ready. Jack glanced quickly behind him and she saw a vague outline of something under his jacket. A gun, maybe. Was he armed? When did that happen? But she’d seen quite enough military attachés in civilian clothes to recognize a shoulder holster.

  It was probably no coincidence that he was holding her right hand with his left, leaving his gun hand free.

  Though she’d taken self-defense courses and didn’t consider herself a shrinking flower in any way, if they were attacked Jack would have to fight them off. She wasn’t going to fight anyone off. She could take notes.

  The walkway was made of aged brick, which every once in a while became loose gravel. She sounded like an elephant walking across the gravel. Jack wasn’t making a sound. Summer glanced at their feet and noticed that Jack was walking toe to heel. She did the same and made much less noise. Still more than he was, though.

  “There!” Summer kept her voice low, pointed straight ahead. “That’s the main entrance. The side entrance is to the right.”

  Ahead of them was the building she remembered—ten stories tall, still sleek and modern though it was over twenty years old. If it was designed for rich men who cheated on their wives, it was very well done, discreet, tasteful, secluded right in the center of the nation’s capital. Maybe there was an architecture studio somewhere out there that specialized in that sort of thing. Chic and glamorous second homes for the unfaithful.

  They walked around to the side and again, Summer marveled at how hidden it was. All the shrubbery was designed to provide privacy. Maybe in the summer everyone had trysts on the hidden lawns?

  The door was large, smoked glass which barely gave a glimpse inside. The doorbells had no names, only numbers.

  Summer reached out to see if the code she remembered still worked, but Jack caught her hand, engulfing it in his and again, that amazingly annoying flush of heat hit her. “Use a knuckle. Don’t leave prints.”

  She nodded. Yes, she’d seen that in the movies and hadn’t even thought of it.

  Summer punched the numbers with the second knuckle of her index finger. 4151947.

  “You remember that after all those years?” Jack shook his head. “Sometimes I don’t remember yesterday.”

  “My aunt said it was set by the supervisor and it was Jackie Robinson’s first day of playing baseball. April 15, 1947.” Her aunt had said it with poison, as if she couldn’t fathom celebrating a positive event like breaking the color barrier.

  They both stood waiting while nothing happened.

  “Too good to be true,” Summer said. “Probably they have a new administrator who likes tennis. So now what do we do—”

  She stopped. Jack had attached some kind of electronic lead to the keypad and was holding a small display. Numbers were rolling on the display, stopping one by one. When the last number stopped, the door clicked open.

  “Well, that was impressive,” she said.

  Jack held the door open above her head, using the back of his hand, and looked around carefully. “They switched from a seven digit code to an eleven digit code. A million times harder to crack.”

  “Took you about three seconds,” Summer observed.

  He flashed her a brief smile, the Jack of old. The charmer and the seducer. “It’s what I do, darling. Crack things open.”

  Like you cracked my heart.

  She shook herself and followed him into the building.

  The lobby was elegant and deserted. No porter. Not if it was a place for shady people to tryst. Clean, gleaming, elegant and impersonal. Jack called the elevator and it was already on the ground floor. Inside it was just as she remembered—wood and polished brass. Jack looked at her, knuckle poised over the elevator button panel.

  “Third floor.”

  On the third floor Jack held her back with an arm as he exited the elevator then gestured for her to come out. She turned right, then right again and stopped outside the door she remembered. Apartment 317.

  There was a keypad and she punched in the number her aunt had impressed on her. 72735, using her knuckle. To her surprise, it worked. Hector had been so sure of the privacy of the apartment he hadn’t changed the entrance code.

  The door clicked and Jack reached behind him and pulled out a gun. Summer looked up in surprise at his face, that he’d feel it necessary to go in armed, but he wasn’t looking at her, he was staring grimly ahead.

  They walked in, Jack in front, leading with his weapon. Summer followed. There was no light other than that coming from the corridor through the still-open door. “Stay here,” Jack murmured and she stopped. This was his area of expertise.

  He disappeared around a corridor and she heard nothing. Absolutely nothing. If he was checking the apartment, he was doing it in complete silence. No sounds at all until he suddenly appeared in front of her. The gun had disappeared from his hand. “Here.” He pulled two sets of latex gloves from that magical backpack. “Put these on while I pull the curtains.”

  Summer put on the gloves and though she didn’t hear Jack moving, she did hear the whirr as the curtains in the living room and bedroom pulled shut. There were blinds in the kitchen. She was about to call out to Jack when she heard the light clatter of plastic as they were shut, too.

  Jack returned, shut the door and turned on the lights.

  “Okay. We’re going to search this place and we can leave nothing behind. That includes hairs and any kind of DNA, is that clear?”

  Summer nodded. Absolutely. Hector was dead and as far as she knew, he had no relatives other than ex-wives who would have been written out of his will. But just in case the bad guys he’d been working with knew about this place and came to check...she gave an involuntary shudder. No way did she want to get into the crosshairs of the people who’d planned and executed the Washington Massacre. They were merciless.

  “Very clear.”

  Jack put his hand on her shoulder. “So, first thing, walk around and see if it’s the way you remember it. Maybe he redecorated or something. Then we’ll do a systematic search, okay?”

  Summer nodded again and stepped from the corridor into the living room. Memories rushed at her, blasting at her like a cold winter wind. Her Aunt Vanessa had had bitterness and rage coming off her in waves as she found clear evidence of a mistress, maybe even two. Then, too, they’d been careful not to leave any evidence behind of their passing but her aunt had been taking snapshots of everything, which she handed over to her lawyers.

  “Talk to me, Summer,” Jack said.

  Focus, she told herself. He wouldn’t be interested in her emotional reactions. He needed info. What he called “intel”. Not the memories of a twe
lve year old girl. She looked around carefully.

  “The furniture has changed. Originally the sofa and armchairs were off-white and had curved backs. He’s replaced them but the look is basically the same. The coffee table had been glass, now it’s bamboo and wood. But it’s almost exactly the same size and it’s in exactly the same position as the old one was.”

  Summer walked around carefully. She sniffed the air. It was cold and smelled stale. When she’d come with Vanessa those couple of times, it had been lived in and there had been a definite feminine touch. Potpourri, scented candles.

  “From what I can tell, a decorator has been in but hasn’t changed the look much, just updated it and kept the same kind of furniture more or less in the same position.”

  “Pictures on the walls?” Jack asked.

  “The same,” Summer answered promptly. She didn’t even need to think about it. The view in her head was the view she was looking at. “Except for this.” She touched a watercolor of a seascape.

  “Looks like a Winslow Homer,” Jack said.

  “It does. Maybe Hector had been investing.” Though she didn’t remember Hector showing any interest in art whatsoever. He had enjoyed money, though. She remembered that.

  Jack looked around. “There’s plenty of undisturbed dust here and in the bedroom. I don’t think anyone’s been here, either to stay or to clean, in weeks. So we should be okay.”

  He was right. A thick patina of dust covered everything, strange to see in such an expensively appointed place. Maybe Hector had a cleaning service come only when he’d been here, not on a regular basis.

  A thump at her back and Summer turned to see Jack overturning an armchair. He examined it thoroughly, running his latex-covered fingers over the seams carefully. Then he studied the next armchair.

  “Will you need help with the sofa?” she asked. The new sofa had a wooden structure and looked bulky and heavy.