A Secret to Die For

by Lisa Harris

  Kelli cocked her head. “Makes me wonder if people are going to miss me, or just the goodies I bring in.”

  “Without a doubt, it’s you and your superhuman technical skills we’re going to miss the most,” he shot back. “But that’s just ahead of your amazing caramel chocolate-chip cupcakes.”

  Kelli laughed. “Good answer. I’ll keep you both updated on what I find.”

  “Thanks, Kelli.” Nate started to walk away, then paused and turned back to her. “By the way, do you know where Grace Callahan is?”

  “She’s still in the briefing room with Kirkbright. Sergeant Addison is planning to take her official statement as soon as they’re done.”

  “Thanks.” Nate didn’t miss the irony as they headed toward interrogation. He had a feeling Gracie wasn’t going to react well to having to bare her soul to another shrink. Though on the other hand, she might not mind. She’d been through a lot, and he was sure she could use someone to talk to. The department’s counselor would no doubt do a much better job than he’d done this morning.

  He stopped in front of the interrogation room, then pulled the cupcake out of the box. “Do you want half? I have a feeling whatever she left in the break room is already long gone.”

  Paige shook her head. “Thanks, but my morning coffee contained all the sugar I need for the day.”

  “If you’re sure,” he said, taking a bite. His stomach growled, reminding him he’d missed breakfast. One of Kelli’s cupcakes would have to do. “So how do you want to run with this one?”

  “We already told the first suspect we can charge him with kidnapping at a minimum,” Paige said, “which should have been enough to get him to cooperate when we told him he was facing murder charges. Except it wasn’t.”

  The man they’d just questioned had stalled for a couple minutes before invoking his right to counsel. He’d still serve prison time, but they hadn’t ended up with the answers they needed.

  Nate licked off a piece of frosting before it fell. “Here’s what I’m trying to figure out. You don’t just wake up one day and decide to Taser a cop, kidnap a woman, then drag her into a bank to steal the contents of a safe-deposit box. Gracie told me one of them said this was bigger than them. As if it didn’t matter if they were caught. And I got the same impression.”

  “Agreed. Which means we need to find not only who’s behind this but who or what their target is.”

  “Exactly.” Nate took another bite of the cupcake, his mind working to put together what little they had. “What if they’re a part of some . . . some hacking group? Stephen was apparently a computer genius who thought he was working for the FBI, then finds out he’s not. Once tech finds out what’s on that flash drive, we might have some more answers.”

  “You think we’re looking at some kind of cyberattack?”

  “It’s my working theory. I don’t know a lot about how those kinds of things work, but there are always people creating malware and viruses in order to attack businesses and investment and pharmaceutical companies. And that’s what your average computer geeks do. Makes you have to ask why whoever’s behind this needed to hire someone with Stephen’s level of expertise.”

  “Meaning the stakes could be high enough for murder.”

  Nate popped the last bite of cupcake into his mouth. “Exactly.”

  Five minutes later, he dropped the virtually empty file folder onto the interrogation table, hoping his bluff was going to work to get them what they needed. Mark Winters—or whatever the man’s name was—avoided his gaze, giving him a moment to study the man sitting across from him before speaking. Narrow face and tense jawline, plus a tat on his wrist. Interrogating a suspect always worked better the more information they had, but for now what they had was going to have to be enough.

  “Mark Winters, I’m Detective Quinn and this is my partner, Detective Morgan.” Nate set a cup of coffee onto the table in front of the man, then took a step back.

  “I . . . thanks.” The man stared at the offering, clearly thrown off by the gesture.

  Paige pulled back the chair across from the man, then sat down. Nate took another breath, shoved his hand into his pocket, and fingered his watch. He wanted to yell at the man. Insist he tell him who he was and who he was working for, but that approach had already been tried. His gut told him he needed to take the opposite approach. They might not know who these guys were working for yet, but the first interrogation had flopped, and he had no intention of losing this one.

  Nate chose his words carefully. “I’m going to cut to the chase. Right now, you’re looking at a minimum of two to ten years in a state prison for kidnapping. Of course, it’ll only take the DA about thirty seconds to look at the police report and up that to aggravated kidnapping. On top of that, the state of Texas has sharp penalties for assaulting law enforcement.”

  Paige glanced at Nate. “That could easily double his time.”

  “Easily. Which means things are not looking good for you right now. But we want to give you a chance to explain exactly what happened.”

  Winters folded his hands on the table. “I don’t have anything to say.”

  “I’d think twice about not cooperating if I were you.” Paige tapped on the file folder in front of her. “We need to know who is behind this operation and who they’re targeting. You do that and I’ll make sure the DA knows you’re working with us.”

  Sweat beaded across the man’s balding forehead. “I was hired as security. Nothing more. And I didn’t exactly ask questions. I don’t even know who hired me.”

  “Here’s one problem,” Nate said. “We’re not just talking about kidnapping and assaulting a police officer, which is bad enough on their own. A man was murdered this morning. And that man’s death is connected to the kidnapping of Grace Callahan, which means you’re connected to his death.” He nodded at Paige, who slid a photo of Stephen Shaw’s body across the table. “And the other problem—at least for you—is that we have your fingerprints on his phone. So we know you were with him.”

  Winters turned away, eyes boring into the opposite wall as he drummed his fingers against the table.

  “We found his body at a carnival. The coroner just confirmed it was not a suicide, but that Stephen Shaw was murdered, which makes kidnapping look insignificant in comparison. You’re connected to the crime. That alone could get you life in prison.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “But we know you were there. At the carnival. With Shaw.”

  He ran his finger around the cup. “I was there, but I didn’t kill anyone.”

  Nate buried a smile. If he could get Winters to defend himself, he might be able to turn him.

  “Then what did you do there?” Nate asked, taking the chair next to Paige.

  Winters leaned forward. “I was hired as muscle. To scare the guy—Stephen. That was it.”

  “Now you’re making sense,” Paige said. “You’re a big guy. Six three . . . four?”

  Winters shrugged.

  “And let me guess,” Nate continued. “Two twenty . . . no, I’d say closer to two fifty. Yeah, I could see why someone might hire you as their muscle.”

  “What does it matter?”

  “I know what guys like you who are hired to do odd jobs do,” Nate said. “Security, if that’s what you want to call it. Muscle the clients a bit. Your boss wants someone bumped off, but doesn’t want his hands dirty, so he pays you to do the dirty work.”

  “I didn’t kill him. When I left, Shaw was alive. I do the job they ask me to do, get paid, and I don’t ask questions. I don’t know what happened to him.”

  “Maybe,” Nate said. “But here’s what I know. The medical examiner is going over Stephen Shaw’s body right now. You’d be amazed at what they can discover.” He glanced at the clock on the wall, then back at Winters. “In a few hours, we’ll know exactly what happened. I know a lot about the process because my father was a coroner. He used to tell me that his job was to communicate the story of the per
son he was working on. And discovering the cause of death is often the first thing he’d do. It’s like a puzzle, interpreting body tissues and fluids in order to discover the series of events that led to their death. It’s pretty amazing what they can learn about a body, the moments leading up to their death, and not only how they died, but who did it.”

  Winters squirmed in his seat. Nate hoped the man had watched his share of crime shows on television. On every TV crime show, every murder is solved in forty minutes with a handful of high-tech forensic clues. In reality, things never happen that swiftly, but if he could spin the truth and use it against their suspect, it’d be worth a shot.

  Winters shoved away the photo. “I told you I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “But you know who did,” Paige said.

  “No.”

  He was lying. Nate could see it in his eyes. Who was he covering for?

  Kelli’s voice came through the wireless earpiece he’d slipped on before starting the interrogation. “His real name is Edwin Perkins. His record shows a few misdemeanors, including possession of a forged license three years ago.”

  Which made the second offense a felony.

  Nate studied the man’s face. So Winters—Perkins—really was way over his head this time around. And from the way he was sweating, he knew it. “Like it or not, you’ve just landed in a place I’m going to assume you didn’t think you’d be.

  “Because here’s the thing, Edwin.” Nate leaned forward. “We know you were at the crime scene. How long do you think it will take for the ME to connect the murder to you? We’ve got your fingerprints on the victim’s phone. They’ve already tested you for gun powder residue. All it’s going to take is putting two and two together.”

  Winters rubbed the back of his neck. “It . . . it wasn’t supposed to end this way. They promised me we wouldn’t get caught. That they’d thought of everything.”

  “That’s a pretty hard thing to promise.” Nate sat back in his chair, patient for the moment to let the conversation play out. Push too hard and he’d lose any ground they’d gained. “Just tell us what happened.”

  “I was hired by a man named Jenkins.”

  “Do you know his first name?”

  “No. Just Jenkins. But I heard him mention something called Rogue a couple times.”

  “What is that?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. As far as I know, though, Jenkins is behind everything. The meeting with Shaw at the carnival, the break-in at that woman’s house, her office, and the bank fiasco.”

  “And you were supposed to do what?”

  “Make sure everyone . . . cooperated.”

  “The Taser was a nice touch,” Paige said, glancing at Nate.

  “It was never supposed to end this way.”

  “Yet it did. And now this Jenkins—who is supposedly behind all of this—is free, letting you take the rap.” Nate leaned forward again. “What is he planning?”

  “I don’t know, except that it’s bigger than you are. Bigger than any of us.”

  Nate paused. Stephen had said pretty much the same thing. What was this guy Jenkins planning?

  “What do you mean, ‘it’s bigger than you are’?” Nate tapped on the photo of Stephen’s dead body.

  “He . . . he wouldn’t tell me, and I didn’t ask. All I know is that it has something to do with computers. Probably some kind of malware to steal government data. Something damaging. That would be my guess anyway. I was just in it for the money.”

  “We’re going to bring in a sketch artist. And we’re going to want a full statement from you.”

  “Fine.”

  “Good job.” This time Sarge’s voice boomed in Nate’s earpiece. “But I need you both out here now.”

  Nate nodded at Perkins. “We’ll be back.”

  Jonas Addison, the sergeant in charge of their unit, was waiting for them on the other side of the door, wearing one of his signature ties. Today’s was covered in gold handcuffs.

  “What have you got?” Paige asked.

  “I’ll arrange for the sketch artist, but I just got a call from Stephen’s workplace. I want the two of you to go down there. His boss says she knows who killed him.”

  12

  Thirty minutes later Nate pulled into an empty parking spot in front of a multistory office complex, then exited the car with Paige. He fingered the watch in his pocket as they headed toward the glass doors at the entrance. He’d passed Gracie on the way out of the precinct. She’d finished talking to the victim counselor and was headed to give her statement. He shouldn’t worry about her, but he did. He’d caught the fatigue in her eyes, along with the sadness. She’d lost so much, and he hated that they were having to drag her into all of this today.

  “There’s always this . . . this deep, black hole inside me. Like something’s missing.”

  “. . . this deep, black hole inside me . . .”

  He stopped replaying their conversation. He might not talk about it, but he felt the same thing. It wasn’t up to him to fill in the holes of her heart. So why did a part of him want to?

  “Nate?”

  He glanced at Paige as they headed up the long sidewalk.

  “Your phone’s going off.”

  “Sorry.” He pulled it out of his pocket and scanned the message. “Kelli just sent a text with a more detailed background check on Stephen Shaw.”

  “And?”

  “She came up with something interesting. Apparently, Stephen really was brilliant. No run-ins with the law, but it looks like while he was in college he got involved in hacking. He was able to analyze and deactivate a piece of malware that had been written to steal credit card numbers from the payment system of a department store chain.”

  “If he started off as a white hacker, it would explain his focus on security.”

  “But I’m not sure his motives have always been pure. At least not lately,” he said, reading through the rest of the message.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk.

  “Kelli checked his financial records. There’ve been a number of recent, large deposits into his bank account.”

  “That could go along with the job on the side. What we don’t know is who was paying him.”

  “That’s the question. She’s looking into that. Gracie said he thought he was working for good guys,” Nate said.

  “I know, but I’m finding that hard to buy,” Paige said as they started back down the sidewalk. “If the guy was a genius, you’d think he’d know exactly what he was doing.”

  “Maybe, but head knowledge doesn’t always compute to an abundance of common sense. Besides that, a lot of security research is done by bypassing security and showing that a system can be breached. I’m assuming the ethical line isn’t always easy to see.”

  “So Stephen thinks he’s working for the FBI—or at the least claims that’s what he’s doing—but he’s really involved in working for the bad guys, building some kind of malware?”

  “All that fits.”

  Thirty seconds later, they stepped out of the perfect Texas fall temperature into the sterile, air-conditioned high-tech lobby. Following directions from Stephen’s boss, they walked past white walls, a red-and-gray seating area, and rows of modern art, and headed straight for the elevator.

  Inside, Nate pushed the button for the thirteenth floor.

  “You know Gracie,” Paige said, as the elevator started up. “Do you think she’s holding up okay? She’s gone through a lot today.”

  “She’s always been strong.” He started to share what Gracie told him at her office, then stopped. That wasn’t for him to share. “If she can help us in this investigation, we’ll be that much closer to finding out what’s going on.”

  “The two of you used to be friends?”

  Nate frowned. More than likely this was the real reason Paige had brought up the subject. “We were. A long time ago.”

  “There just seemed to be this . . . thi
s chemistry between the two of you,” Paige said. “Made me think she’d be perfect for you. You need a good woman in your life.”

  “Please don’t tell me you’re one of those partners who’s going to try to set me up with all your single friends.” His frown deepened. “Besides, she’s just an old friend. Nothing more.”

  The elevator lights flickered for a few seconds.

  “Whatever you say,” Paige said, staring at the ceiling. “I just think it’s a bit coincidental that you’re the officer who covered Stephen Shaw’s murder, and that led you to her. A bit of fate involved, maybe?”

  Nate shook his head. “I don’t believe in fate.”

  “Call it what you want. But I think it’s romantic.”

  Romantic?

  He dismissed her implications. Ashley had always been trying to set him up with one of her friends until he finally told her to back off. If Paige was going to turn out to have a similar agenda, he was going to put his foot down. His last relationship had ended when he found out that the woman he thought he might one day marry suddenly started trying to control every aspect of his life. In the end, it had shown him not only what he didn’t want, but what he did want as well. Which meant that until the right person came along, he was content to focus on his career. The bottom line was that there was something unsettling about the thought of getting involved with an old friend’s wife, even if the guy had been a jerk and walked out on her.

  The elevator jolted to a stop, pulling him out of his thoughts. He glanced at the floor number. Nine. He waited for the doors to open, but they didn’t. Strange. Paige stared at the metal doors, her face a shade or two paler than when they’d gotten on.

  The elevator started moving again.

  “Must have been some kind of hiccup,” he said.

  “This is why I always take the stairs.”

  Two floors later, the elevator stopped again. Nate pressed the open button. Nothing.

  “Nate . . .”

  He stared at the lit panel. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  “This doesn’t seem like nothing to me.”