Afternoon turned into evening. I danced with James and with Wil and, to my shocked surprise, with John Tremaine. Every time I got more than ten feet away from James, the redhead appeared.
“You’re being stalked,” I told him when he came back from the buffet table and handed me another flute of champagne. It was about the twentieth drink he’d given me, but I was using them to water the plants. I was becoming convinced Grenier planned to skip the festivities, but if he showed up I wanted to be sober enough to operate.
James looked across the yard at the redhead, who was watching us. “Oh, you mean Shelly?”
“Yeah. James, one of my clients is here, and he wants me to take a look at a system I installed for him. Do you mind terribly if I leave you to make your own way home?”
“He wants you to look at a system tonight?”
“Yes. He said he called my work number this morning, and I guess my answering service didn’t log the call.”
A few more white lies, and soon James and Shelly were headed out the front gate.
“Did you get dumped, or are you playing cupid?” Wil’s voice sounded so close behind me I almost jumped.
“I’m working, so I sent him on his way. I think her car broke down, or at least that’s her story, so he’s giving her a ride.”
At that moment, shots sounded from the street beyond the wall. A woman screamed and I heard people shouting. Wil’s head jerked around, and he started running toward the gate, drawing his pistol from under his jacket.
“Oh, crap.” I kicked off my shoes and took off at a run after him, pulling my pistol and my security identification from my handbag.
I kept up with Wil most of the way to the gate, then Pong intercepted me.
“What’s going on?”
“I’ve no idea. Tell your people to lock things down in here. It could be a diversion.”
He nodded and turned, shouting orders, while I took off toward the gate again.
Wil raced through the gate, but I stopped. A lot of cops and security guards were milling around. I wondered who, besides me, was looking for a slight blur coming through the gate. As far as I could tell, nobody.
“Shut the damned gate!” I screamed.
A guard whipped his head around and stared at me.
“Shut the gate, you damned fool! People are getting shot out there!”
Some common sense seemed to penetrate someone’s thinking, because the wrought-iron gates began to swing closed. I walked over to the wall, and sighted down it in both directions. Not seeing any unusual or blurry bumps, I walked toward the gate with my left hand on the wall.
“How many shots?” I asked as I held up my ID and stepped into the gatehouse.
“A bunch, from different guns,” the older guard said.
I could hear sirens coming closer. Just then, Wil showed up at the gate.
“Did you see a tall blonde—” he stopped as he saw me.
“What happened?” I asked.
“One cop’s dead, Donofrio’s wounded. Our boy was here, but he got away.”
I went out the personnel gate and found a constable lying in a pool of blood in the street. Donofrio was on the sidewalk with another constable putting pressure on one of his legs. I knelt down beside him.
“You’re supposed to duck, Inspector.”
“I did,” he said through gritted teeth. “Did he get away?”
“Wil said yeah. What happened?”
“Same as with you. I heard something behind me, but when I turned and saw nothing, I ducked. I think he tried to shoot me in the head. We exchanged fire, and he hit me in the chest and the leg.”
In a panic, I tore open his shirt and saw a slug buried in his bulletproof vest.
“The constable?” Donofrio asked trying to crane his neck toward the man lying in the street.
With a shake of my head, I said, “He didn’t make it. You are damned lucky.”
“Don’t feel lucky.”
An ambulance screeched to a stop, and the paramedics jumped out. I backed away to let them do their thing.
Detective Sergeant Spencer, Donofrio’s partner, was talking to Wil so I wandered over. I hadn’t interacted with Don Spencer very much, but he seemed like a competent cop. Just shy of six feet with light brown hair and eyes, he was solidly built and Donofrio seemed comfortable with him.
“…not exactly sure,” Spencer was saying as I drew closer. “Joe was sitting in the car with me, and suddenly he jumped out and headed toward the gate. Then he seemed to stumble and fall, and at the same time I heard the first shot. Joe drew his weapon and fired, then everyone was shooting, and I was scared to death some fool was going to shoot Joe.”
Wil nodded toward the dead constable. “Was that friendly fire?”
Spencer shook his head. “No, whoever shot Smitty was firing from that direction.” He pointed toward where Donofrio lay. “But Joe never pointed his gun toward Smitty.”
“Our chameleon,” Wil said.
With a disgusted look, Spencer said, “Yeah, the invisible man. His bullets are damned sure visible.”
Dad called me the next morning. “Come by. I have something you might be interested in.
I arrived to crepes with ham and soft cheese, topped with whipped cream. “How did you know I didn’t have breakfast yet?”
“You never eat if you’re coming over here. You think that your mother and I exist to feed you.”
“That’s what parents are for.”
“So I’ve learned. Sit. Eat.”
While we ate, he told me, “I kept thinking of those measurements we took. You know, when we discovered that you’re broadcasting an electromagnetic field.”
“I’ve thought about that, too. It explains how I short out electrical devices.”
“Yes, it does. Anyway, I did some fiddling around. When you finish, I want to try a new device I made.”
“You are the luckiest father in the world.”
He gave me a shocked look and started laughing. “And why would that be?”
“How many mad scientists can experiment on their daughter without getting arrested?”
After throwing the dishes in the washer, I started for the basement, but he stopped me.
“No, I think we should do this in the bedroom,” he said.
“I must warn you, sir, that I’ve been trained in self defense.”
He rolled his eyes and said, “Stand there.” He positioned me in front of a full length mirror with a white screen behind me.
“Now, do that disappearing act.”
I blurred my form, and the mirror showed only the white screen. It had been a while since I watched myself do that in a mirror. When I was younger, I did it all the time. Cheap entertainment.
Dad held up a box about a foot square and flipped a switch on it.
“Wait. What was that?”
He flipped the switch again. “That?”
“Yeah. It was like my image flickered.”
I heard him flip the switch a dozen times very quickly. It was like a strobe light. My image appeared and then disappeared over and over. The appearances were very brief, less than a second, but when it happened over and over, it was very easy to tell where I was.
“Holy crap. What is that thing?”
He opened the box and I saw a circuit board, a capacitor, a coil, a rheostat, and a battery. “That’s pretty simple.”
“Yes, it is, and very weak. I doubt if the range is even ten feet.”
“What does it do?”
“Generates an electromagnetic pulse. I can tune it a bit using the rheostat.”
“So, that’s a flash capacitor?”
“Exactly. It sends out a pulse that interrupts your electromagnetic broadcast. If I tuned it to the same frequency as the one you’re broadcasting, it wouldn’t do anything. But tuning it a little off seems to work.”
“Okay. So what do we do with it?”
He chuckled. “We order stronger capacitors, a pulse switch, and a strong
er battery, combine it with a motion detector, and create a chameleon finder.”
Chapter 21
With Donofrio in the hospital, an Inspector LeClerc took over the investigation. Luckily, Detective Sergeant Spencer stayed on the case. It was Spencer who called me that evening.
“Miss Nelson? I think we have another one.”
The address he gave me was a townhouse two streets over from mine. I was at The Pinnacle when he called, so I drove home and put my bike in the garage, then walked over.
“Myra Wilkinson,” Spencer said. “Age twenty-six. Her father works for Entertaincorp as an electronics technician. The townhouse belongs to William Fisher, and she’s lived here three years.”
William Fisher was a vice president at Entertaincorp. He reported to Francois Renard, as did Richard O’Malley.
I glanced into the bedroom at Myra’s body, just long enough to assure myself of Grenier’s work. I also noted that the preference of the Entertaincorp execs for tall blondes was rather widespread. I wondered if now that he had a vacancy, I’d get the same come-on from Fisher as I got from Tremaine. I believed that O’Malley truly cared about Nellie, but I didn’t fool myself into believing their relationship was common. Even Nellie considered it more of a business deal than a relationship.
“Who found her?” I asked.
“Mr. Fisher. ME says the time of death was probably yesterday.”
“While everyone was at the wedding.”
Spencer nodded. “Windows were left open, and it was rather chilly last night. She might have died before Grenier showed at the wedding or afterward. No way to narrow the time better than that.”
“Were there security guards?” I asked as we walked back outside. I thought that all the execs had wised up enough to protect those close to them.
“We’re searching for them now,” Spencer said.
“I’m sorry?”
“There were three of Director Pong’s men assigned to Miss Wilkinson. None of them are here, and their car is missing. Miss Wilkinson’s car is in the garage.”
I heard Wil’s voice and turned to see him speaking with LeClerc. Wandering closer, Isaw that the inspector looked a little pale, but I couldn’t blame him. Seeing pictures wasn’t the same as standing in a room with one of Grenier’s victims. The smell alone turned my stomach, and I’d learned to leave my filter mask on at the crime scenes.
“Director Pong has men out searching for the bodyguards,” Wil said, “and I assigned men to help them. One of the guards was off yesterday, but we haven’t been able to contact him, either.”
“I hope Fisher and his family are taking precautions,” I said.
LeClerc glanced at his chrono. “They should be arriving at the airport right about now. He’s sending his whole family to Atlanta.”
The inspector’s phone rang and he moved off a short distance. A constable caught Spencer’s attention and they went back inside the house.
Wil bent close to me and said, “I always knew you were lethal, but this thing is really bringing it home how much damage you could do if you wanted to.”
“You mean if I was a psychopath? Hell, no one would be safe.” I took a deep breath and turned to look him straight in the face. “If you decided to go on a rampage, you could probably kill thousands before they caught up with you. Don’t go laying this on a mutation. I know trolls and lycans that are good, hard-working people. Mike never fed from a human in his life. Grenier is a sick bastard, and his chameleon talent has nothing to do with it.”
“Aw, damn, Libby. I didn’t mean it that way.” Wil reached out and took me by the shoulders. “Come on. You know I didn’t.”
He was far too sincere to stay mad at him. “I know, but it was a stupid thing to say.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“But you’re not wrong that a lot of people may think that way. If a drunk corporate executive runs over a kid in the street, it’s a terrible accident. If a mutant trips over some lady’s lap dog, it’s because he was trying to kill it and eat it.”
He searched my face, then said, “That’s why you’re so intent on catching this guy, isn’t it?”
“That, and my best friend may be in his crosshairs.” I looked up as LeClerc walked over.
“We found the bodyguards’ car. One of them was in it, shot three times. Still no word on the other two.”
Myra’s other two guards turned up. One had gone fishing for the day. The other was found in the living room of his apartment. The police said it looked as though he was shot in the face when he opened the door.
“From what we can piece together,” Detective Sergeant Spencer told Wil and me, “our perp walked up to the car while it was parked at a market and shot the bodyguard who was driving. Then he kidnapped Miss Wilkinson and drove her back to her townhouse in another vehicle.”
“Only one bodyguard was with her?” I asked.
“There should have been two, from what we were told,” Spencer said, “but one didn’t show up for his shift. He’s the one we found dead at his apartment.”
Inspector LeClerc called a meeting at police headquarters with Pong, Wil, Spencer, and me. We sat in a small conference room.
“Inspector Donofrio is expected to be out for at least six weeks,” LeClerc said, “and since I’m new to this investigation, I want to get everyone on the same page. This latest escapade casts doubts on some of our assumptions. From what I’ve studied in the case files, and discussions I’ve had with DS Spencer, we have been operating on the assumption that Grenier had a plan, but also takes targets of opportunity. This attack cannot be considered a target of opportunity. He obviously took steps to isolate Myra Wilkinson before he kidnapped her.”
“He stalked Victoria Ruiz, also,” I reminded him. “I think that the attack on me was planned as well.”
“One of the things that bothered Inspector Donofrio,” Spencer said, “was the lack of a consistent pattern. Every time we thought we’d figured out what he was doing, he changed.”
“Miss Nelson pointed out his breaks in pattern to me some time ago,” Pong said. “It makes him a wild card. No one knows what he’s going to do next.”
I stood up and walked to the window, looking out over downtown Toronto. I hoped to see the lake, but we were on the wrong side of the building.
I turned to face the men and asked, “Director Pong, is Vice President Bernard’s mistress tall and blonde?” I knew Francois Renard’s friend Chantelle was a willowy brunette, a bit taller than average, but nowhere close to six feet. Nellie was farthest from the profile, with her dark skin, black hair, and short, petite build.
“Bernard’s girlfriend is Indian, very pretty, but a tiny little thing,” Pong said. “She’s not much over five feet tall, with black hair.”
“Why?” Wil asked me.
I turned to Spencer. “Do you have the pictures handy?”
He nodded and walked over to the wall, pulled a panel aside, and tapped on a keyboard. The images of the dead women projected on the opposite wall.
“The women Grenier tortured,” I said. “Other than Victoria Ruiz and Doctor Adams, who he kidnapped out of desperation, all the women he tortured were blonde. That includes Sigrid Goldberg and her daughter, and Carleton Weeks’s daughters.”
I let that sink in as they looked over the pictures, then nodded to Spencer. “Do you have a picture of Marlene Grenier?”
He must have known where I was heading, because a picture of her appeared on the wall.
“Marlene Grenier,” Spencer said, “age thirty-two, five-eleven, one fifty. Blonde and blue.”
“He didn’t spend much time on Ruiz,” I said. “From the time he kidnapped her and until we found her was less than two hours. According to the ME, he kept the others alive for hours. She and the doctor were also the only victims who weren’t raped.”
LeClerc cleared his throat. “So, we think we understand his motivations. But I don’t see how all this gets us any closer to catching him.”
“M
y guess is that his next target is John Tremaine’s secretary. She fits the profile and I have a feeling she’s taken on Sandra Jorgenson’s duties.” I looked at Pong. “What’s her name?”
“Anna Sigurdsdottir.”
I exchanged a look with Wil and saw the light go on in his eyes.
“Oh, no,” he said. “That’s a lousy idea.”
Everyone looked at him with almost identical quizzical expressions.
“Well, we can certainly increase her security,” LeClerc said.
“He’s already proven an ability to either circumvent our security, or spot it and change his target,” Spencer said.
“Then we need to disguise our security better and suck him in,” I said.
Pong shook his head. “Absolutely not. I can’t approve using a civilian as bait.”
“Libby,” Wil said, “that is a terrible idea. If something goes wrong and he gets his hands on you…” He didn’t finish his sentence, but the whole room went silent. Everyone was staring at me.
“As soon as he gets close, he’ll recognize you,” Spencer said.
“Sergeant, I’m a master of disguise. Believe me, he won’t suspect a thing until I blow his head off.”
LeClerc harrumphed and said, “Now, no talking like that. We want to capture him and bring him to trial.”
I gave him a smirk. “Of course, Inspector.”
Wil argued against it. He even came to my house later and tried to get Nellie and Mike to talk me out of it.
I didn’t feel like playing hero, but I couldn’t figure out a better way of pulling Grenier in. The key would be preparation. We had the best security and prevention on Anna’s apartment and her car, and a team of Wil’s crack operatives instead of Pong’s stumblebums.
After Wil left, I went by Dad’s place and picked up the equipment he’d prepared for me.
“The two boxes are mobile detectors,” Dad said. “Like the prototype I showed you, but I think they should be effective at a longer distance. All the working parts are in the box, and the battery is in the handle.”
Not exactly a box, but a flattened ovoid with a long, round handle at one end. We tried the boxes out, and they disrupted my blurring and my adopting of a different image up to fifty feet away. The whole thing was about eighteen inches long, and the box part barely weighed a pound, but the handle, which contained the battery, was much heavier.
Chameleon's Challenge (Chameleon Assassin Series Book 3) Page 17