by Jeanne Adams
Resigned, Ana moved to a bench at the side of the building. “Sounds fun. So, tell me about him.”
“Seriously?” Jen sounded suspicious.
“You don’t want me to run him, I won’t. Seriously.” It was a little lie, and unless he was an ax murderer, Jen wouldn’t have to know what Ana had done.
“Okay,” Jen said and plunged into a description of the guy and what he was like and how well they’d gotten along. Peppered throughout her monologue were the guy’s name—Jack D’Onofrio—and his business—magazine distribution—so Ana would easily be able to do a quick background check on the guy.
“So, what was the dating service like? Tell me about it.”
Jen skated over the question, continuing to detail Jack D’Onofrio’s sterling qualities.
That bore checking out. Avoidance was Jen’s modus operandi of choice when something bothered her, and she had yet to learn that it would put Ana’s radar up quicker than anything.
“So, if you enjoy your date with this Millionaire Jack, what happens then?”
“No telling,” Jen said cheerfully. “Like any guy, if we hit it off, we hit it off. This service, they’ve got a lot of rules and stuff. They want to set me up with someone else too, so that the guys kinda compete, you know?”
Ah, there’s the rub, Ana decided. Jen didn’t like to do more than one at a time.
“Anyway,” Jen rattled on, “the other guy wasn’t my thing so I’m not keen.” Jen said it offhandedly, as if it were as simple as saying “no thanks,” but again Ana sensed there had been a whole lot more to it. “But Jack—” Jen was quickly back on track with tales of her new beau.
Knowing it might take a while for the litany to run down, Ana headed into the building and back to her desk. “And then Jack said…”
Ana finally got off the phone by agreeing to meet for lunch on Saturday to hear all about the dinner. She swiveled to her personal laptop, booting it up and setting a series of searches to run on Mr. D’Onofrio. The primary search didn’t take long. Nothing but his magazine businesses popped, which surprised her, but she decided that maybe, for once, Jen might have pulled a decent card from the deck.
“And now for my own aces and kings,” she muttered, beginning background checks on the two men she would be meeting on Monday. Nothing like a little legwork to pass the afternoon.
“Well, well, well,” she muttered several hours later as she began the run on Gates Bromley. The initial run on Davros Gianikopolis had been extensive. The man had holdings all over the world, from Singapore to Bangalore to a plant in Bisonsville, Kansas. Wading through the listing of the business holdings bought and sold in the last year alone had taken an hour and a half. She’d saved and logged the rest of the search for reading later.
As the pings and bings notified her that her first search was done, she opened files and began to read. “Look what we have here, a rap sheet. Hmmm,” she mused, vaguely disappointed that it was short. She really wanted a reason to dislike Mr. Velvet Voice.
The sheet was fairly mild for someone in security work. Bromley’s title might be special assistant, but she’d read between the lines when she got to the real data. He’d been rapped on the knuckles for assault, a frequent charge when keeping the hoi polloi from a public figure like “Mr. G,” as the media had dubbed Bromley’s boss. Bromley had beat all the charges or had them dismissed, but there were quite a few. A second search finished with a beep, and she opened that file on top of the other.
“Yeah, yeah, where’s the good stuff?” she groused, scanning the pages rapidly onscreen. There were several notations in the CIA files. Not surprising given the international nature of his boss’s business. Again, though, it was really mild stuff, nothing that she could pull out and wave in his face as leverage for cooperation. “Damn. Nuthin’ here. Can’t anyone dig anymore?”
She opened another new window, more searches.
“Iraqi veteran,” she read, and frowned. The picture of him in the files, both the publicity shots for Gianikopolis’s businesses and some candids at various functions, didn’t say military to her. “Really? Didn’t see that one coming.”
She made some notes and scanned the recent stuff, then switched to the military database. Bromley’s file had a classified tag, which she didn’t tamper with. She didn’t want to explain her need to check it, so she stuck to the accessible, surface stuff.
“Went in as a lieutenant, came out as a captain, three-year tour. Saw some action despite that geek rating, didn’t you, Mr. Bromley?” she muttered as she read about his technology ratings, and the fact that his unit had been ambushed at least twice. She made more notes. He’d gotten some of the highest marksmanship scores in his class year at the academy and had at least three Military Police markers in his file. There may have been more; from the data she could access, there seemed to be hints of it. “Came out combat-seasoned with those commendations.” She whistled at the listing. “And decorated, too. Wonder what made a,” she checked his education, “Harvard MBA take to soldiering?”
Digging deeper, she found some old hits for drunk and disorderly in police files. “Hmmm, tied a few on, did you, young master Gates? That probably explains the MPs. Didn’t do any of that once you went to work for the man, I see,” she said, tapping the pen on the desk as she double-checked his matriculation dates. There was a five-year gap between college and the military. Mr. Velvet Voice sure had been busy.
“So, where were you? Hmmmm?” she asked the screen as her fingers flew over the keys. In two separate windows, she opened search engines and entered relevant terms. She hit ENTER and caught her paper notes up to date while the computer processed.
It was the LexisNexis search that turned up the obituary. It also unearthed the heartbreaking story of Gates losing nearly his entire family to a killer, the bodies burned in an attempt to cover the murders with fire.
“Oh, crap,” Ana managed, her voice choking with emotion as she read about the arsonist’s fire that had consumed the family’s warehousing business. Rifle shots had killed both Gates Bromley’s parents and his brother, all because of a woman scorned. The notes section of the report said Gates and his sister were only alive because they’d been away at a trade show, marketing the family’s business services.
Two arrests after the fire, one a woman, the other the arsonist she’d hired. Reading between the lines, Ana figured out that the woman had had a romantic interest in Gates’s father. When he turned her down and fired her from her job as his secretary, she hired someone to kill the family and burn down the warehouse.
“And for what?” Ana asked the photo of the killer. “He didn’t want to be with you. Big deal. Other fish in the sea.” She’d never understand why people killed for the illusion of love. Had she been hurt by lovers? Of course, but once they’d betrayed her, she didn’t want them back. It baffled her why anyone would pursue someone who didn’t want them.
Extreme cases like the Bromleys creeped her out. It wasn’t as if Bromley’s dad had dated the woman, then shoved her off. She’d never had him, but killed him for not wanting her.
Losing family was never easy, nor did the hurt of it ever fade. If anyone knew that, Ana did. She didn’t want to feel any sympathy for Bromley, but she did. She’d lost her own parents to a terrorist’s bomb. “Damn it. I need to keep that filed away, not let it affect me.”
“Something new, Burton?” Pretzky had crept up behind her as she worked, and Ana shrieked as she spun in her chair.
“Jesus, you nearly gave me a heart attack,” she said, without thinking about whom she was speaking to.
To her surprise, Pretzky grinned, though it was more akin to a malicious smirk. “You were talking to yourself.”
“Bad habit.”
“It is,” Pretzky snapped, the smirk still in place. “Break it. It’ll get you killed.” Letting that unpleasant thought dangle for a moment, she added, “What’s up?”
“Nothing substantial,” Ana managed, still trying to slow her he
art rate.
“LexisNexis?” Pretzky crossed her arms, her expression dubious as she scanned the open windows on Ana’s monitor and on her laptop. “Entertainment Weekly?”
Ana sighed when she felt her eyelid begin to twitch. She’d never had tics or twitches before Rome. Since then…
She hated having to explain her somewhat unorthodox research methods. Of course, she’d hate it even more if Pretzky figured out she was doing a run on Jen’s new guy, so she went with the bullshit.
“The high-net-worth individuals noted in the files on this case are all either business moguls or celebrities. In order to cross-reference the vectors…” she said, deliberately making her voice more monotonous as she rattled off technical search terms. “Anyway, these vectors, when managed properly with a broad spectrum matching logarithm can frequently yield a substantial data mine for cross-referencing active searches.”
She could actually see Pretzky trying to follow her methodology, and was relieved to note her temporary boss getting lost on the way. Pretzky liked to believe she understood every facet of the Agency’s work, especially computer crimes. In reality, she didn’t understand what Ana did at all. Then again, most people didn’t, which was why Ana got superior results and, until Rome, plum assignments and grade and pay increases.
Pointing to a field on the second screen Ana was utilizing for her multiple searches, Pretzky snapped, “That entry is in Italian. Your translation skills aren’t an issue here, Burton.”
“I’m aware of that.” Ana winced, and took a breath so she wouldn’t sound so God-awful defensive. It was all she could do to keep her voice level and unemotional. “It’s a pertinent entry on one of the individuals in the file who lost more than five million dollars in the art fraud case.” It was a big fat lie, of course. That entry involved Gates Bromley and an Italian supermodel on the Riviera, not his boss’s art. She said a little prayer of thanks that the open window detailing Jen’s boyfriend’s financial data was decently covered by the photograph of the model.
Fortunately, Pretzky didn’t read, or speak, Italian. Nor had she checked the names on the file.
The woman stood for a moment longer, trying, Ana guessed, to figure out a way to find fault. Hoping to get out of it with better grace, Ana offered, “Did you want a listing of the sites and the individuals I’m searching?”
“No need,” Pretzky said, but didn’t bother to hide the annoyance this time. “Carry on.”
It took her a few minutes to settle her heart rate, but Anna did go on. She printed out several of the searches, then wiped them from her search list, from the history, and from her hard drive. A dedicated effort would bring them up, but no one else in the building, especially IT, had that kind of time.
She packed up for the day, and faced the prospect of an empty Friday night with a grimace. At least she’d have something to look forward to on Saturday, and there was always work she could do from home.
Saturday was full of Jen and her doings. Jen positively glowed and couldn’t say enough about what a gentleman her Millionaire Jack had been. By the time they’d gotten through lunch, Ana was thinking longingly of her quiet apartment. Instead, Jen dragged her shopping and out to dinner.
By Sunday’s solo dinner of leftovers, she’d seesawed back to actually being grateful that she’d had Jen’s antics for a distraction. Monday was full of phone calls and meetings, and she was grateful for the distraction, working late again just to avoid her empty apartment.
On Tuesday, finally on the road to Mr. G’s estate in the hills north of San Francisco, she was pleased with all the background work she’d been able to plow through on the defrauded victims. The thorough understanding she had of Mr. G’s losses should make today’s meeting interesting.
Ana drove up to the speaker at the edge of the driveway into the compound. Several workers bustled around a landscaping truck on the other side of the driveway, and there were workers cutting grass beyond the ornate fencing. By habit, she made a note of the license plate, counted the number of workers, noted the lone woman working the crew.
“State your business, please,” the voice said, a second time since she hadn’t answered the first hail. Embarrassed, she briskly stated her business.
“You’re expected, Agent Burton,” the man said, and directed her to drive through the first set of gates.
To her surprise, the gates shut behind her, trapping her between them and the next set. “What the hell?” she muttered, noting the openings in the second wall. “Huh, the modern version of arrow slits and murder holes,” she decided, seeing the shadow of movement behind one of the gaps.
The sharp-eyed and well-armed guard asked for her identification and, unsmiling, took it into the guardhouse. He was apparently reading the contents to someone who approved, because he nodded and put down the phone with a smile. He was far more pleasant when he returned her documents.
“Thank you for your cooperation, Agent Burton. As I said, you’re expected, but we double-check everything.”
As an answer, she took her identification and put it away before she spoke. “I hope no one would attempt to impersonate an agent.”
The man grimaced. “They try everything,” he muttered, glancing beyond her car to the outer gates. “Really.”
She moved through the estate at an easy pace, appreciating the peace, quiet, and beauty that money could buy so close to the city. The estate was a huge, well-manicured fortress.
She arrived at the front portico, and a man was waiting for her. It was a bright day, but the area shaded by the overhanging canopy left the man standing there in shadow. Her dark glasses made it worse. All she could tell was that he was above average height. Judging by the dramatic doors behind him, he was at least six feet tall, probably a little over that. A dark gray, well-tailored suit emphasized his height, and showed off impressive shoulders. His hair was a medium brown; his eyes probably were too.
She tugged down her suit coat, making sure it and her skirt were straight, before she went around the car. She arrived at the hood ornament just as he came down the last step to meet her.
“Agent Burton?”
“Mr. Bromley?” They both spoke at once, and he smiled.
Fortunately, it wasn’t a Hollywood, blinding white smile, otherwise she might have thought he was a god. The voice was just as luscious in person, but a crooked eyetooth and a scar over his eyebrow kept him from being too perfect.
“Please, come in. I regret that Mr. Gianikopolis won’t be able to join us today,” he began.
“Wait. What?” Jeez, all that reading for nothing? Any warmth she’d felt for the man in front of her evaporated. A spurt of anger surfaced as well. “You didn’t call to reschedule?”
“My assistant did, yes, but you were already on your way. As I’m sure you know, cell service is spotty coming up the hills. This was…unavoidable, I’m afraid. A family matter.”
Annoyed, Ana managed to overlook the physical attraction and focus on the irritation. A feat of pure determination, because Gates Bromley was one fabulously attractive man.
“Then I guess my trip is a waste.”
“No,” he said, motioning her to precede him through the doors. “I have a list of the stolen items, so we can move through the initial comparison to be sure everything was accounted for by your agency. Then, we can have a look at what you’re doing now.”
His easy assumption that he was in charge pissed her off. She felt the stirring of her former, brash self rising up to protest. As he led the way down a gorgeous wood-paneled hallway, she was devising several methods of killing him, slowly and painfully.
She hated being treated like the freshman geek.
“Mr. Bromley, I assure you, we have a complete list. And I’m not at liberty to share information with you on avenues I might currently be pursuing.” Ana was pleased that she sounded professional, and firm.
“Perhaps. Perhaps not,” he said, and his smile was filled with infuriating superiority.
God, h
ow she hated smugness. She hated when someone tried to bushwhack her or the Agency, and this was shaping up to be that kind of deal.
“Let’s sit here.” He directed her to a table. “Coffee?”
She wanted to say no; she wanted to stalk out, head high and in full dudgeon. Instead, she repressed a sigh. Thanks to several months with the departmental shrink, she knew enough about her own patterns that she now recognized the defensiveness as her own inadequacies rearing their ugly heads. Nothing messed with her more, especially now, than someone being haughty.
“Agent?”
“Sure, why not. Black and sweet please,” she said, taking very petty satisfaction that he must serve her coffee. It was small, but it was a victory in its own way.
He set down two deep china cups.
“Thank you. Now, Mr. Bromley, as I explained to you when we talked last week, I can’t discuss this with you. You’re not the insured, nor are yours the paintings lost.”
“Actually, Agent Burton, you can.” He smiled again, and it looked warmer, more…personal. She wondered why. “Several of the paintings on the list were owned by the corporation registered here in San Francisco. As an officer of that corporation, I’m authorized to discuss that portion of the listed pieces.”
Ana wanted to seethe. She wanted to smack the warm, personal, and interested smile off his face. He could have told her he was an officer of the corporation. He could have…
She heard the voice of the psychologist in her head. Is it always necessary to go on the attack, Agent Burton? Should you not consider your objective? In the split second of silence before she spoke, she focused on the objective. She needed information.
Jeez, Ana, he’s cooperating. Take it, for once. With that in mind, she drew a deep breath and pasted a smile on her face. “That does change things, Mr. Bromley. Let’s look at your list.”
You show me yours, she thought, smirking, and I’ll show you mine.
He leaned forward unexpectedly, and before she could recoil, a long finger stroked a brief caress down her cheek. “You had a piece of fluff, just there,” he commented, leaning back. “It was quite distracting.”