I picked up the receiver and began to dial when something caught my eye. In the box on Ronda’s desk sat a familiar bobblehead. A cowboy in an oversized Stetson who held one hand up, merrily flipping the bird. I’d given that bobblehead to Brad Hardwicke when he’d gotten through his probationary training period as a detective. Once, I’d been friends with Hardwicke. Not best buddies, but friendly enough to grab a beer every once in a while after a particularly hard day without any accompanying awkwardness. But that was the old Hardwicke. The new one still looked daggers at me every time we passed in the hallways. He’d put a framed photograph of Ronda on his desk after she’d died even though they’d broken up. I could see the edge of the gilt frame poking out of the box.
Brad Hardwicke was my new partner, and I had no idea what to think of that.
CHAPTER 4
I couldn’t decide which bothered me more, that Scorsone had gone over my head to give me a new partner after specifically agreeing not to, or the person he’d picked as said partner. Everyone knew Hardwicke and I fought like alpha dogs over a particularly meaty bone. He’d practically gotten me fired after Ronda’s death, and while I understood that he’d needed someone to blame, said understanding hadn’t made dealing with the constant vitriol any easier. I’d watched her die, for god’s sake. Sometimes I still had flashbacks like the one in the stairwell. They’d grown more and more infrequent, but I worried that partnering with Hardwicke would bring them back in force. He’d push at me, and I’d crumble. It wasn’t safe for either of us, especially not out in the field.
With that in mind, I logged into my email. Now I had even more to talk about with Scorsone, and a voice mail wouldn’t cut it. I needed to register an official written complaint about the partner assignment. Doing it this way would carry more weight than if I waited until his door opened and stuck my head in to bitch. He needed to know I meant business. Perhaps after he read it, we could talk the whole partnership situation over. After that, I’d ask about the closed doors and the call to Bug’s office. But it felt good to shunt those worries aside in favor of one without all the uncomfortable baggage. Office politics were like death and taxes—inevitable and delightfully normal.
Before I could draft what was sure to be a scathing yet eloquent WTF email, a familiar name in my inbox caught my eye. I hadn’t heard from Erich Bieber in about a month. Things had been awkward between us after the UFO had gone missing right underneath my nose last winter. He’d gotten really overbearing, alternately sending me long emails full of links to alien conspiracy websites and pressuring me to go on dates with him. But then his mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and he’d had to go to Illinois to take care of her. I’d felt relieved and then guilty over it, because of course I didn’t wish cancer on anybody, but it felt so good to have him off my back. I’d needed the time to formulate my own opinions about what had happened, and Erich didn’t brainstorm with people, he brainstormed at them. Toward the end there, it had felt like an assault more than a conversation. I’d stopped answering his messages, hoping that a little time would help to cool things off.
With that in mind, I opened the email with trepidation. It read:
Audrey,
There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just do it. I’m the king of the assholes. My mother reamed me a good one when I told her about how I’d acted toward you. Don’t worry; I didn’t mention our little green men. I chalked my idiocy up to stress over VJ’s death, which is close enough to the truth. The things we saw really freaked me out, and I’ve never been the best with people to begin with. Putting those two things together was a recipe for disaster. Mom’s doing much better now, and I’ve been back in town for about a week. My laundry is clean, and my house no longer smells like a tomb. Could I talk you into coming over for a dinner between friends? I promise to be a good boy and eat all my lima beans, unless you don’t like lima beans, in which case I’ll cook something else.
Best regards,
Erich
I read the email over twice, trying to decide what I thought about it, but the morning had already been so chock full of drama that I couldn’t unravel my feelings. Regardless, I knew I’d feel guilty if I didn’t give the guy a chance. We’d gotten to know each other under stressful circumstances for sure, and it would be hypocritical of me to expect him to handle all that craziness with grace when I sure as hell hadn’t managed it myself. Having said all that, if he pushed too far this time, I was done. I didn’t see the sense in putting a bunch of effort into resuscitating this relationship if things went south again.
After dashing off a short reply agreeing to dinner and suggesting some potential times, I tried to open a blank email to write to Scorsone, but my laptop didn’t cooperate. My wrist brushed the touch pad at just the wrong moment, and I ended up opening a piece of anonymous spam instead. Frankly, I didn’t understand how it had gotten past my spam filter between the [No Sender] in the from column and the “ATTENTION AUDREY VORKINK” in the subject, I fully expected to find an offer for a bazillion dollars from a small African bank, or maybe a new and improved design for a “free” penis pump.
The email contained neither of those. It simply said:
audrey vorkink alien killer there is more work for you
be alert
The words remained stubbornly on the screen no matter how hard I stared at them. I vacillated wildly between so many emotions that it was nearly impossible to untangle them. Shock, anger, fear, and disbelief all warred for my attention. Underneath them all ran a fierce current of hope, but I couldn’t give in to it.
As much as I wanted to say that this was the proof I’d been hoping for so long, I couldn’t get there. Anyone could have written this email. Last winter, after I’d taken on the Sankaran case, the guys in the department had stomped crop circles in my yard and replaced my desktop nameplate with a Dana Scully one. Little did they know how accurate their X-Files jokes had been. While I couldn’t think of any occurrence that could have resurrected the joke, I couldn’t rule it out, either.
But this felt real. Someone thought I’d killed an alien, or someone knew that I thought it and was trying to capitalize on my paranoia. That would be easy. I felt plenty paranoid.
Regardless, I needed to talk to whoever had sent that email. Badly. I needed answers. I gave the message a closer look, trying to avoid the emotions it brought up in me and focus on the facts. The address was a generic Gmail jobbie that could have been accessible from anywhere. I could send it to the tech department and ask them to trace it, but I really didn’t want to show it to anybody else. I waffled over that message for a couple of minutes before deciding that I needed some time to decide how to handle it. Then, I filed the email in a folder I kept specifically for weird spam that didn’t completely cross the line into threatening territory. If I received anything overtly dangerous, that shit went straight to Scorsone, but I’d only ever had to do that twice in my long years on the force. But my folder of borderline messages overflowed. Over 150 messages and counting. If some higher up in the department decided to look through my email—which was accessible to them if they really felt like looking—they’d write it off as a crank message. I’d maintain plausible deniability, which I badly needed.
I sat there and agonized over it for a minute or two, but it wasn’t getting me anywhere. I found that my greatest logical breakthroughs came when I was doing anything but concentrate on a case. Besides, if someone knew that I was cracking up, they’d be watching. If I wanted to keep my job, I had to maintain business as usual. With those justifications, I threw myself into drafting that email to Scorsone. Striking the right balance of righteous indignation and logical argument proved difficult. I’d only managed a half a paragraph when Scorsone’s door opened, and he came barreling out into the hallway with a familiar set expression on his face, the kind he wore when he’d gotten news he didn’t like.
I’d been right after all. Something was up. Once, I would have met his charge with ready helpfulness and
eager determination to prove myself worthy of his trust. But now, I felt nothing but dread. After all this time spent wishing for answers, it felt like they were around the corner, but I worried I wouldn’t like them when they finally came.
CHAPTER 5
Based on Sergeant Scorsone’s expression, this was not the time to bring up my concerns about my sanity or complaints about my new and “improved” work situation. Plus, I knew I’d craft a better argument if I had the time to actually think over what I wanted to say on either topic, or whether or not I should say something at all. My tangled emotions wouldn’t serve me well in a verbal complaint, even if he’d been in the mood to listen to one. Clearly, he wasn’t.
That didn’t bother me as much as it would have under other conditions. Sure, I was pissed, but the job came first. Sometimes, when the fit hit the shan, a good detective just had to suck it up because lives were at stake. One look at Scorsone told me this was one of those times. When he wore a drawn expression like that, it usually meant death. Either someone had died, or he was going to make someone dead.
I didn’t feel like I’d messed up on that level, but one look at Hardwicke’s box o’ crap convinced me that I wasn’t sitting as pretty as I’d thought with my superior. So I straightened automatically as he thundered toward me.
“Yes, sir?” I barked, flashing back to my rookie days, when it felt like every other damned word out of my mouth had been “sir.” I’d even sirred Aunt Rose a few times out of sheer reflex. It had taken ages for me to live that down.
Normally, Scorsone would have given me grief about sirring him, but he answered in similar tones. All business. No room for jokes or personal biases. That more than anything convinced me the situation was serious.
“Briefing room,” he ordered. “You and Detective Hardwicke. Five minutes.”
“What’s going on, sir?” I asked, even though I was fairly sure I knew what he was going to say.
“No time to talk it over, Detective.”
I nodded without surprise. “Know where Hardwicke is? I haven’t seen him.”
“No fucking clue, but if you need to go into the men’s room and drag him out with his balls flapping in the wind, you do it. This isn’t a drill, Audrey. I need you both on the case.”
“I’m on it,” I said.
We exchanged the briefest of glances. His softened momentarily, and I knew that whatever had happened to make him force Hardwicke down my throat, it hadn’t changed the trust we had between us. Whatever crisis had struck, he needed me on it, and maybe he needed me to work with Hardwicke. I might not like it, but I would get it done.
#
Ironically, getting it done meant going into the men’s restroom to retrieve Hardwicke after all. At least he had his pants pulled up by the time I entered; he was already washing his hands. The rookie at the urinals zipped up hurriedly and ran out without soaping up, and I shuddered but there wasn’t time to ream him over his lack of hygiene.
“What the hell?” Hardwicke demanded once he caught sight of me.
From his expression, he was sporting for a fight, which was his default emotion whenever I was around these days. I had to admit the guy was good looking as well as terminally pissed. At least by my standards. I didn’t go for pretty boy types. If I’d been looking—which I wasn’t, and especially not in the men’s room—I would have wanted a man who looked like he’d actually gone through puberty and lived to tell the tale. Hardwicke fit the bill. A sickle shaped scar over his right eyebrow gave him just an edge of toughness, and even his scruff had scruff. It was almost enough to make me excuse his pretty eyes and long lashes, but not quite.
I might have disliked his infantile behavior, but at least I could have admired the view if it weren’t for the fact that his mug wore what had become a permanent scowl. Every time I walked into a room, that scowl made an obligatory appearance. It did so now. Under different circumstances, I would have offered to punch it off his face, but I had responsibilities.
“Something’s up,” I said, ignoring the bluster. “Something big. Scorsone wants the two of us in the briefing room in…” I checked my watch. “A minute and a half. And when I was down in the coroner’s office, Bug Murphy got put on full alert for a potential mass casualty event.”
Just like that, the mulish expression vanished, and he nodded. As angry as I was at Hardwicke, and as much as I didn’t understand the abrupt about-face in his behavior toward me, he was every ounce the professional I was. No sooner had I finished my sentence than he snatched a couple of towels from the dispenser and made for the door. Even held it open for me, too, and we jogged toward the briefing room at double time. Our feet fell in unison despite whatever animosity still remained between us, and I hoped it boded well for the partnership. Something told me we were going to need it.
“After you,” he said, pushing the door to the briefing room open.
It seemed like a gentlemanlike gesture, and I was grateful for it until I realized that he’d really tricked me into entering first. Since we were late, I got the brunt of the glares meant for the two of us. The room was packed with first responders, and not just from the police department. A few of my boxing buddies from the SWAT team sat ramrod straight in the first row next to a pair of tight-faced guys in bomb squad uniforms. I also saw a lady I recognized from the fire department, someone from the local ambulance company, and a couple guys in military uniform. Air Force, I thought, but I wasn’t completely sure. Only one thing reassured me—if the Unknown Crisis had already happened, we wouldn’t be sitting in this conference room with its rows of uncomfortably molded plastic chairs and permanently stained white board. We would be in our cars, speeding toward the chaos while dispatchers desperately tried to inform us about what to expect when we got there.
The crisis hadn’t happened yet, but we didn’t mobilize like this for shits and giggles either. Someone felt this threat was serious enough to warrant some kind of response, and they were trying to cover all the bases. Which meant the threat was still unknown to some extent.
Even though I’d thought all this through, it still surprised me when the Commissioner herself stepped up to the podium. Our previous Commissioner had suffered a heart attack shortly after my supposed alien run-in, so Commissioner Gordon—his replacement—was still relatively new. On the surface, she looked petite and delicate, but I’d heard she had the instincts of a shark. This woman went for blood. I was willing to bet she wouldn’t appreciate all the Batman jokes I’d been telling about her, especially under the circumstances. But really—Commissioner Gordon? I’d seen too many superhero movies with my son to resist the reference.
The podium dwarfed her, leaving only the top of her head visible to the personnel assembled to hear her speak. She turned to an assistant standing by and barked an angry order under her breath. I didn’t catch the words, but the gist was clear. The assistant went as white as his button down. It took him a moment to find something for her to stand on so we could see more than just her forehead. I could see the exasperation on her face when she finally got situated, but not a single person in the room blinked an eye. Among the bullpen, on a normal day, a bunch of the guys would be ragging on her. Sotto voce of course, because they didn’t want to lose their jobs. But here and now was not the time, and we all knew it.
She cleared her throat. “Thank you,” she said, but she sounded more irritated than appreciative. Her voice was husky and low, and the microphone carried it easily throughout the room. At least one piece of machinery in the place hadn’t malfunctioned.
“I’ll be as brief as possible,” she said. “As you’re all aware, preparations are underway for the Toledo Air Show this weekend. This department and the Air National Guard have been providing joint security to the grounds as aircraft are brought in from around the country to participate in this extraordinary event. Plans are also in place for joint coverage of the grounds during the event itself, as is standard operating procedure.”
I wished she’d get to th
e point. We didn’t need all the rah-rah talk about how great the various public services worked together, and we certainly didn’t need lecturing on SOP. She needed to save that bull pucky for the media, and I was willing to bet my responsible, middle aged woman underwear that everyone in the room wished she would tell us what the hell was going on already. But, as professional as we were, not one of us moved a muscle as she paused to look around the room as if she wanted to increase the drama.
Finally, she continued, “Approximately an hour and a half ago, one of the personnel on site discovered a suspicious device on the grounds of the airfield. Per protocol, he notified the appropriate authorities immediately, and a bomb squad unit was dispatched to the scene. They are unable to identify the object, and at first we were running on the assumption that it was some kind of incendiary device. But if it is, it’s the kind of bomb we’ve never seen before. We can’t identify it.”
Thoughts of alien devices tried to surface in my head, but I firmly squashed them. This wasn’t the time for my paranoia. There were a million reasons why they might not have been able to identify this device, and extraterrestrials were only one of them. I had to stop jumping to that conclusion without any supporting data, or I’d end up making some stupid mistake based on shoddy data and get someone else killed.
She raked us with piercing eyes. “Let me reiterate that, ladies and gentlemen. Someone got into our secure site and left us a present that might be designed to blow a bunch of our people up. It’s a material and structure we’ve never seen before, and if that doesn’t concern you, you need to get your head examined. I want to find that person, and I want to bury them. I also want to know how the hell they got in and make sure that when I bring this matter to the press, I can also assure our public that these lowlifes aren’t going to do it again during the air show. Which means time is of the essence. I can stall on making an official statement for a while, but not for long.
Unidentified Flying Suspect (Illegal Alien Book 2) Page 3