Bex Wynter Box Set 2

by Elleby Harper

  “Gosh, Dad, the yard’s looking great. Nothing’s changed since I moved out of home to go to New York. You and Mom have kept everything in its place. I even saw my old mitt and bat in my bedroom.”

  “That’s nothing. We’ve still kept the bookcase with the dent in it.”

  “You mean where Bram knocked the baseball through the window?”

  He gave her a knowing look.

  “Abraham couldn’t have hit a barn with that swing of his. Your mother and I knew it was your pitching arm that fired that ball through our window like a missile. But we figured it didn’t hurt him to show a little selflessness and take the blame. He was your older brother after all.”

  “Is, Dad,” she corrected him gently.

  His nostrils pinched together and a white line erupted around his tight lips. “It’s better if he has no association with this family.”

  He rose, picking up their plates and moving into the kitchen to signal that this topic of conversation was closed.

  Bex wondered where Bram was now. When he got hooked on drugs after an injury serving in the military, Bram’s personality transformed. He didn’t hesitate to lie or steal from them. The last straw for her father had been when he accosted Ruth, dislocating her shoulder. Steven had threatened him with the police, installed new locks and refused to answer Bram’s calls.

  Despite her dad’s edict, Bex had initially kept in sporadic touch with her brother, fighting to keep him out of a downward spiral that scared her and made her angry at the same time. It had been three years since she’d last set eyes on him and, now she was living in London, she wondered if she ever would again.

  She brushed wetness away from her eyes. She still missed the big brother who had taught her to hold her liquor, how to judge if a guy just wanted to get into her pants or the best way to arm wrestle a bully into submission. She had always counted on him to have her back. She wished she’d been able to return the favor.

  Above the sounds of her father loading the dishwasher, came the insistent, staccato buzzing of the doorbell. Bex rose to answer it.

  “Wait, let me deal with it!” Steven modified his sharp tone with an explanation, “I always check the security monitor before answering the door. You can’t be too careful. We’ve had a number of violent home invasions in Westchester County in the past few years. I don’t want our household to become another statistic.”

  He crossed the kitchen to where a mounted screen split in four showed various camera angles around the house, garage and grounds. Bex moved closer, looking over his shoulder.

  “Is that Candace Pittman?” Candace was one of the founding partners in Steven’s computing company. Like Steven she had originally worked for IBM several decades ago.

  He sighed. “She’ll be here to talk about work. I’ll tell her to come back after I’ve dropped you at the train station.” His voice sounded testy as he punched a button by the security pad to talk into the speaker. “I’m sorry, Candace, but now’s not a good time. I told you I’m working on a project from home.”

  “Steven, I don’t think this can wait. You haven’t answered my calls so I was left with no option but to drop round. Can I come in so we can discuss this in private?” Candace’s voice came through the speaker with a slight lag.

  “I’d rather not. If you’re sure it’s urgent I’ll drop by the office tomorrow.”

  “Steven, wait! I think the company’s been hacked. Some aspects of our cloud storage look like they’ve been compromised. This is important.”

  “Candace, I told you, we’ll talk tomorrow. Put a report together for me if you must and email it.”

  Bex winced at her father’s tone. She had never known Steven to put off important matters with his company, especially something serious enough to get one of his partners haring out to the house to speak with him.

  But if he was being so icy rude because he thought she needed a lift to the station she had to put it right.

  “Dad, if you need to go into the office to deal with this situation, then go for it. I’ll grab a taxi or an uber ride to the station.”

  He whirled on her.

  “I told you I’d deal with it!” he snarled.

  She felt her expression harden at the reprimand. Steven ran a distracted hand through his hair.

  “I’m sorry to sound harsh, Bex, but, honestly, Candace always turns a molehill into a mountain. I know about the issue she’s referring to and I’ll deal with it when I can. Right now I’m under tremendous pressure to get a project finished in the next few days. I’ll just grab your bag from upstairs and then I’ll be ready to drop you off at the station.”

  Steven had booked Bex into the Crowne Plaza on Broadway, he told her in the car.

  “They wanted to know how many nights,” he said.

  “I don’t know, Dad. I’ve taken leave for a week, but I’m hoping everything will be sorted in the emergency hearing that’s scheduled for Wednesday. I’m not sure I’ll have time to catch up with you again before I head off to London.”

  “That’s fine by me. I don’t want you traipsing back to Armonk when you have a job waiting for you in London. You still keeping away from the social media sites?”

  Steven’s voice was casual but the intonation suggested her answer was important to him.

  “Of course, Dad.”

  Her father had drilled into the family the necessity to be cautious about the world of social media to keep their online identities safe. As an expert in the development of digital viruses he ran the Internet in their home under stringent conditions. Bex and Bram had been forbidden from dabbling in the social media channels most of their friends took for granted. In her freshman year at college Bex had defied his strictures to set up several accounts. After a serial killer used those accounts to spy on her, she had reverted to listening to her father’s advice.

  Steven pulled into the curb at the White Plains station, the engine running. He seemed edgy again and his words came out in earnest. “Promise me you’ll take care while you’re in the city?”

  “I’m a big girl, capable of looking after myself,” she assured him. “Unless you’re worried about something specific?”

  His chuckle was strained.

  “Can’t a father worry over his daughter? New York is a big city and you, better than anyone, should know that it’s also a dangerous city. I’m just asking you to take extra care. Be vigilant, Bex. You have the police skills, so use them to keep yourself safe.”

  Inside her head she heard her mother’s voice offer an interpretation of his actions. Deep down he loves you to pieces. It’s just not in his nature or his upbringing to be demonstrative, so you have to make allowances, Bex. Never doubt his love for you.

  She leaned in, pressing her cheek against his.

  “There’s nothing to worry about, Dad. I’m not involved in an investigation here. I’m going to court over a civil matter and I’m sure everything will be settled tomorrow when the judge tells Karen she doesn’t have a leg to stand on.”

  As she pulled back, he reached out awkwardly to squeeze her arm. His head turned quickly away so she wasn’t positive but she thought she saw a tear glisten on his cheek.

  His voice was gruff when he said, “Get going before you miss your train.”

  Chapter 11

  National Crimes Agency,

  Tuesday, 24 April

  Cole had found two more Passenger Name Records for Ivy Booker. On March 26 she had purchased a ticket for cash from Ostreva to Moscow, a flight that had then connected to Bogota in Columbia. That was where the trail went dead. The other PNR he found linked her on a flight from Madrid to Chicago on April 22. Again, he could find no further travel details under either Ivy Booker or Sophie Dresden.

  Cole rechecked the flight schedules from Heathrow on March 24, discovering that the flight to Ostreva had left the terminal just after noon. It was possible that was the first available flight out of the country that Ivy Booker, alias Bluebird, had been able to buy a ticket for. Inve
stigating the flight schedules for April 22, he found the same pattern with the Madrid flight. If Bluebird had left Shoreditch the minute the bomb detonated, then the first flight leaving Heathrow she could realistically catch was the Madrid flight.

  Chicago was both the beginning and the end destination of her latest flights, but he wasn’t convinced that was her real objective. O’Hare Airport in Chicago was one of the busiest airports in the world and an easy place to get lost. It was also an ideal location if she wanted to stay close to the east coast.

  He had checked the US Transportation Security Administration’s instructions and knew that passengers booking domestic flights had to show only US identification such as a driver’s license. It was possible Bluebird had a fake US ID. Or she might have caught a train or even bought a car to travel onwards if she didn’t have too far to go.

  He looked over his list of medical facilities again.

  Bern.

  Boston.

  Cambridge.

  Dallas.

  Los Angeles.

  Moscow.

  New York.

  Okinawa.

  Seoul.

  Toronto.

  Ivy Booker had passed through Moscow, but hadn’t stayed there. Instead she had continued onto South America, while this last trip had ended in North America. Consulting a map told him that Toronto, Boston and New York weren’t too far from Chicago. Dallas and Los Angeles were further afield but not impossible. Choosing Chicago could have been a ploy to focus attention in the wrong area.

  He gathered his notes and scooted out of the project room to find Lloyd Fausch. He was sitting behind a tidy desk, reading glasses on as he perused notes. He pushed his glasses onto his forehead and looked at Cole, his eyes smudged with tiredness.

  “What have you got for me?”

  Cole outlined his discoveries, explaining that the date of birth made Ivy Booker around the right age for Dresden. The name had an incorrect phone contact listed and no known records in Britain or a verifiable online presence. All good pointers towards a fake ID being cobbled quickly together.

  Fausch agreed that Ivy Booker looked promising enough as Dresden’s alias to warrant further investigation.

  “In that case, I’d like to make contact with some officials in the US and Canada to see if we can pick up her trail in Chicago. We’ll need help to track down her movements because there are any number of ways out of the city. Does the NCA have contacts with the FBI? And it might be useful to alert someone in Toronto.”

  “You’ll probably want the Royal Canadian Mounted Police there I’d say.” Fausch glanced at his watch. “What’s the time difference with America? Seven hours?”

  “London’s six hours ahead of Chicago,” Cole said quickly.

  “That’s timely. They still have plenty of business hours in play over there. I’ll find those phone numbers for you.”

  Cole nodded gratefully. The time difference was the good news. The bad news was that Bex was in New York and there was a very good chance Dresden was located close to the east coast. That was too close for Cole’s comfort.

  * * *

  Cole was impressed by how quickly Fausch cut through the red tape to allow him to talk to someone at the Chicago Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and an officer at the RCMP headquarters.

  He was hopeful that by late afternoon, Chicago time, he would receive digital copies of surveillance tapes from O’Hare Airport’s exit points, including the “L” train terminals, taxi stands and central bus pick up point where shuttle buses and vans serviced downtown hotels, as well as records from the various car rental agencies at the airport. He would pass these onto their IT section to run through face recognition software overnight to see if they could get a match.

  While he waited to receive that information, he helped Nolan check a map of the area around the courthouse. The bomb disposal squad estimated a three-kilometer radius would be realistic to navigate the trip for the remote control buggy and trigger the detonation. They were searching for somewhere that Dresden could have holed up while controlling the vehicle.

  “There are half a dozen cafés within walking distance that would provide perfect cover for someone staying in one place for half an hour or so,” Cole said.

  “She could’ve just sat in a parked car in the street,” Nolan replied.

  “Good point. A vehicle also gives her an easy getaway. She couldn’t get access to her own car because we’ve impounded that. To hire or buy one she’d need to provide ID, so my guess is she’d probably steal one. Why don’t you check into cars that were stolen in the twenty-fours before the blast? You could cross reference that with any vehicles abandoned at Heathrow. And put in a request for street cam footage within that three kilometer radius.” Issuing orders came easily to Cole, but Nolan didn’t look impressed.

  “I hadn’t heard that Fausch died and left you in charge,” he growled.

  Cole gave a deprecating smile.

  “Sorry, force of habit. I’m happy to take on those tasks if you want to leg it around Shoreditch checking into the cafés?”

  “Ah, I’m not that pissed off at you!” protested Nolan. “Fresh air will do you good.”

  The restaurants were doing a brisk early dinner trade when Cole entered the warren of streets around Shoreditch. At the first three he visited no one had noticed anything out of the ordinary, but he requested their CCTV footage anyway. He got luckier in the fourth café where one of the servers remembered a middle-aged man who had been engrossed in some sort of technology. The man had sat in a secluded booth at the back of the café, lingering over a single cup of coffee. She remembered him brushing away the offer of a refill.

  “The manager’s not very keen on freeloaders.” Janet McIntosh was a down to earth woman in her middle fifties.

  “I can understand that. A business has to make money to stay afloat.” Cole gave her his lopsided smile, causing her eyelashes to bat like a bird about to take flight. “What else do you remember, Janet?”

  “He wasn’t very masculine looking. I noticed his hands in particular were well manicured. Not what you’d expect if you know what I mean. Of course he could’ve been one of those sorts who hadn’t started life with the regular sausage and two veg but had acquired it, if you know what I mean,” she said.

  “You’re saying the man could have been transgender?” Cole put her phrasing into politically correct words.

  “Yes, ducks, that’s exactly what I mean. How clever of you to know the right words! I only wish me own nails were as nice as that bloke’s. Working here doesn’t keep my hands pretty.”

  Was it possible Dresden had disguised herself as a man? he wondered. He showed Janet a headshot of Dresden. “Did the man you serve bear any resemblance to this face?”

  Janet squinted at his phone. “They could be related. I can see a similarity in the nose and the shape of the eyes. But the hair color and style is totally different and his eyes were darker and had bushy brows. In this picture the face looks fuller. His cheeks were definitely gaunt. Like he’d lost weight. Was this him, you know, before he became a man?”

  Cole ignored her curiosity. “Any cameras inside the café?” he asked, peering around the ceiling.

  “We’ve got one near the till that takes in the front door. I don’t think the view reaches this section though,” she said doubtfully.

  Cole requested the footage, but he wasn’t hopeful.

  “Did you notice what type of electronic equipment your customer was using?” he asked.

  “Had the whole table filled with gadgets,” she said. “Let me see. He definitely had a laptop open. And I remember he had at least two phones because I wondered why he’d want more than one. He might’ve also had another screen, one of those little ones.”

  “You mean a tablet?”

  “Probably. Oh, and a briefcase beside him. A big, black one almost like an old-fashioned doctor’s bag.”

  “Thanks, Janet, that’s very helpful. Were you aware of t
he explosion at the courthouse when it happened?”

  “Heard the blast all the way back here!” she agreed.

  “Did you happen to notice what the man did when everyone heard the blast?”

  Her face fell. “Sorry, ducks, but I was busy delivering morning tea to another table. I didn’t notice him leave or nothing. He was a generous tipper though. Left a fiver on the table, so he must’ve been happy with the service!”

  Chapter 12

  Manhattan Club Restaurant, New York

  Tuesday, 24 April

  Marlin Schroeder, Esquire, attorney-at-law, had an office on Manhattan Avenue above Tammie’s second hand bookstore and opposite a 7-11 store. Schroeder’s upstairs premises was shared between a dentist and an accountant, three professions designed to fleece an unsuspecting public according to Walt. Bex had asked Walt to find her a reasonably priced alternative to Joachim Weiss’s services and he had delivered.

  Traffic noise filled the air in a continuous hum as she walked the four blocks from the lawyer’s office to the Manhattan Club Restaurant where she was meeting Walt and Neil. The restaurant got its name from the avenue not the borough.

  The red-brick building had squatted solidly on the corner of Manhattan and Norwood since the 1970s. Back in the 80s it had been a hangout for aspiring artists from movies to writing to art to photography. It had fitted right into Zane’s lifestyle and he had kept the habit of eating there regularly even after he moved away from Greenpoint.

  Bex paused in the narrow doorway, fighting to take a deep breath. Her memories were too close to the surface to suppress.

  The day of the accident, she had stopped by the Manhattan Club to pick up Zane. They were leaving the city to spend a few days with her parents at Armonk before Christmas. After her shift she had swung by their apartment to load their luggage while Zane met Walt at the restaurant.

  When she had arrived, the men were finishing their meal so Bex ordered a coffee. Just as the waitress brought it, Bex spied a uniformed officer hovering near her car, ticketbook in hand, through the window.