Don't Look Away (Veronica Sloan)

by Leslie A. Kelly

  Once the room had been emptied of half its occupants, leaving just those in law enforcement, plus Tate, his son, and the victim’s boss, the chief of the electronic forensics team began to speak. “In evaluating the data from the identification implant in the victim’s arm, plus preliminary findings at the scene, we are able to extrapolate a good deal of information about the crime. The victim’s heart rate accelerated from its standard rate at eight minutes after two o’clock yesterday afternoon.”

  Shortly after two o’clock. Just when things were gearing up in a frenzy. What would have made the woman come down to the White House when one of the biggest events of the decade would soon be getting underway further up on the square? And what made her nervous—what made her heart beat faster? Had she ventured down into the basement, realized how dark it was, begun to wonder if she’d been lured there for some ruthless purpose?

  “At approximately two-ten, a surge of unidentified energy reverberates through her body.”

  “A stun gun,” Ronnie murmured.

  The officious little forensics guy, who obviously liked the sound of his own voice, spared her an annoyed glance. “The clenching of her muscular tissue could indicate that type of device.”

  Yeah. So could sticking a metal hanger into an electrical socket, but she doubted Leanne had done that.

  Zipping her lips, she nodded a conciliatory go-ahead to the expert.

  “Her heart rate continues its accelerated rate for several minutes, and her blood pressure surges, then suddenly begins to drop at approximately two-twenty-five.”

  She’s bleeding.

  The cutting had begun.

  “Her respirations also follow this pattern, short, quick inhalations of oxygen for several minutes, growing more shallow as time progresses.”

  Gasping in fear. Until her lungs had begun filling with her own blood?

  “The pressure eventually slows to a level barely high enough to sustain life, then the respirations cease. The heart’s final contractions occur at approximately three-twenty with all electrical impulses in the brain ending shortly thereafter.”

  Eighty minutes.

  God in heaven. The woman had survived for nearly an hour and a half of the assault, experiencing every second of it. Initial adrenaline had given way to fear, then terror. Pain, then incoherence and finally death.

  Closing her eyes briefly, Ronnie let her mind suck in the images, and her experience and imagination fill in the blanks. She could almost see the killer watching intently as he split the woman’s flesh apart with his blade. Had he leaned close enough to feel her terrified breaths fall warm upon his skin? Had he delighted in breathing deeply to inhale the unmistakable scent of her blood as it gushed hot and hard out of her wounds?

  Yes. Yes, she believed he had.

  He would have begun slowly, wanting to savor his victim’s terror as an appetizer. When he had consumed every morsel of that, he’d have started in on the main course: Her physical pain, with her continuing fear adding spice to the meal. And the post-mortem mutilation had been his dessert.

  Opening her eyes, she drew in a deep breath, instinctively certain of one thing. Their suspect had not merely caused this woman’s death, he’d made a banquet of it.

  Everyone remained silent, absorbing the details…imagining the implications. Even the smooth, self-assured Philip Tate had grown a little pale during the report.

  It was Tate senior who got back to business first. “Well, it appears in this instance that the implanted microchip was of some assistance in establishing the scene for all of us.”

  The forensics guy leaned forward and finally showed some genuine emotion. He sure hadn’t spared any for the victim. “It’s brilliant, Dr. Tate. If I may, sir, please allow me to thank you. Your invention has enabled those in my profession to leap light-years ahead in crime scene evaluation.”

  Tate didn’t smile, didn’t puff out his chest, he merely nodded once. But a brief flash in his intelligent blue eyes said he was pleased at the compliment.

  He deserved it. That tiny little implant Americans had rioted against several years ago had saved a lot of lives by providing on-the-spot vitals and medical records during emergencies. It had also helped solve a lot of cases. Much as Tate’s latest invention, the Optic Evidence device, would do, if this phase of the testing was a success. The inability to jump into the first genuine investigation had to be frustrating Phineas Tate as much as it was Ronnie.

  “Doctor Tate, I’m wondering if there is anything else you might be able to do to help us in this investigation if the optic device is not located,” one of the FBI agents said.

  Funny how everyone referred to locating the device. Not Leanne Carr’s head.

  Glancing around the table, Ronnie noticed a confused expression on the faces of a few of the players. Bailey, the female Secret Service agent and another security dude were scrunching their brows in confusion, the addition of the “optic device” element taking them by surprise.

  Kilgore, you jerk. No discussing top secret issues my ass.

  “I’m afraid my expertise is scientific. I’m no criminal expert. You fine people are all far more adept at that than I.” He then glanced at Ronnie. “Of course, having worked closely with Detective Sloan during her training, I can say I think that once the device is found, this investigation will be in excellent hands.”

  A flush of warmth rose in her, like she was some kid who’d been praised by the teacher in front of the class. Probably earned her a few more hate-points from Kilgore and the other higher-ups, but she couldn’t deny she’d appreciated the words of support.

  “Yes, but if that doesn’t happen?” Kilgore pressed, apparently wanting to stage another battle in the turf war.

  Tate held up a hand and shook his head, his withdrawal from the conversation almost visible, though the man never left his chair. And that was that. No more questions. No more discussion. Ronnie would really like to learn that trick.

  The others around the table hesitated for one moment, then began talking, voices raising decibel by decibel as each person strove to be heard above the rest. Kilgore fumed, but Johansen did a pretty good job of keeping a calm, patient expression while the others tried to spout excuses and reasons why they were not at fault for the lapse in security on the site.

  What a waste of time. It was just more of the same bureaucratic garbage that had prevented Ronnie from ever even trying to go after a higher-level job with the department.

  Absolutely the only thing she found interesting was watching Dr. Phineas Tate. He sat quietly, his hands folded on the table in front of him, his eyes cast downward, lashes half-lowered. He almost looked like he was taking a nap. But she knew better. She’d spent enough time with him during her training to recognize when the man was deep in thought.

  One other thing that Ronnie found worth noting was the demeanor of the victim’s supervisor. Williams was obviously successful, well-dressed, well-spoken. Even handsome, in a white-bread, Ivy-league, middle-aged way. But he looked like he was trying to keep a tight reign on his emotions. During the forensic report, she’d seen his hands shake, and now, as the meeting’s velocity grew, he excused himself and left the room, as if wanting to be alone before tears could course from his eyes.

  Of course, anyone would feel that way about a co-worker being brutally murdered. Still, being the skeptical person she was, Ronnie had to wonder exactly what their relationship had been like. Especially since he’d been so insistent about staying in the room.

  Daniels obviously noticed, too. Because while he listened just as intently, he was also busy scribbling notes onto the screen of his pocket computer then turning the thing so Ronnie could read them.

  “Affair?” one of them read.

  She nodded and jotted one back. “Possible. Tho he’s old enuf 2b her father.”

  Her partner drew a large dollar sign on the screen.

  Yeah. Definitely worth checking into the finances of Mr. Jack Williams, though, to be honest, he was pr
obably attractive enough to catch the eye of a young woman Leanne’s age.

  If he had been having any sort of inappropriate relationship with the victim, the downloaded images from her optic chip would certainly reveal it. Ronnie hoped it wasn’t the case. She truly didn’t want to see pictures of the Polo-League dude doing it. Especially not through the eyes of the woman being done. Talk about voyeurism to the extreme.

  Some of the death row inmates she’d trained on had liked to provide extra-special images for the investigators. Frankly, she could have gone her whole life without getting a close-up and personal view of some sick rapist and murderer jacking off. Telling herself it was all part of the job hadn’t made it any less disgusting.

  Williams returned to the meeting a few minutes later. The hair at his temples appeared damp, as if he’d left to splash some bracing water on his face, trying to get himself under control.

  “So are we going under the assumption that this was terrorist related?” the FBI agent asked. “Because of the location, the timing, the, uh, dismembering?”

  That wasn’t a bad conclusion, and Ronnie imagined every one of them had at least considered it. But there was one big flaw in the theory.

  Phineas Tate cleared his throat and tipped his index fingers up, tapping them together. Everyone fell silent, brought to attention as easily as if a shot had been fired. He was apparently going to mention the flaw. She’d expect nothing less.

  “Your suggestions has merit,” Tate said with kind, intelligent approval that probably made the agent’s day. “However, there is one more piece of the puzzle regarding these events. If the person who perpetrated his atrocity did, indeed, attempt to hide the evidence of his crime by removing part of the victim’s remains, we must make an obvious assumption.”

  The room was deadly still, quiet enough to hear the hum of the wireless fax machine silently spitting out papers on the desk and the sound of Daniels cracking his knuckles. Then Tate continued. “The perpetrator must have known Miss Carr was part of the Optic Evidence Program.”

  So far so good.

  “And therefore must have been someone who knew her.”

  “Not necessarily,” Ronnie murmured before she could think better of it.

  Tate continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “I suspect Miss Carr violated her security clearance and told someone the truth of her situation and was subsequently killed by him. The brutality hints at a personal rage, so I would assume you should be looking at an angry lover or boyfriend.”

  Ronnie was about to shoot holes in the theory, despite how much she admired Tate. There was another possibility—a viable one. Someone with high security clearance, or someone involved in the O.E.P. itself, could easily have known about Leanne Carr’s involvement. Why that person would have killed her she couldn’t say, but it was possible. And it was much too early in the game to rule anything out.

  She didn’t have the chance to speak. Before she could even open her mouth, Jack Williams launched back in his chair and rose to his feet. His voice shaking and his eyes bright, he exclaimed, “Leanne was a professional to her very core. A loyal, honest, hard-working young woman who would never have violated her security responsibilities. I simply will not allow you to disparage her character in such a way.”

  Everyone in the room fell silent, staring at the man whose face practically glowed with passionate indignation. Without another word, Williams thrust his chair out of the way and stalked out of the room, not sparing a look at any of them.

  Daniels scratched something on his hand-held. “Think he doth protest too much?”

  Yes, he did. Either Mr. Williams was one great, understanding and sentimental boss. Or he had a personal connection with his secretary.

  Either way, when she finally began to dig through Leanne Carr’s visual memories, Ronnie was going to find out.

  Chapter 5

  Taking the head had been a mistake. A definite misfire.

  Foolish.

  It had seemed such a smart idea during the planning stages of this whole thing. And those planning stages had been so thorough, precisely timed, ingeniously designed. The location—perfect. The scheduling—impeccable. The brutality—well, disturbing. But necessary.

  Everything was supposed to point to one of two things: a vicious psychopath, or a terrorist. Someone mad with rage and mental disease who had brutalized a victim as so many killers had done throughout history. Or a ruthless, driven fanatic committing the ultimate crime in order to “show” America that no matter how complacent they became, how confident they were in their security, no one was safe. No one immune. Even the president of the United States, just a few hundred yards away, could be gotten to.

  Apparently the message hadn’t been clear enough.

  How could the authorities be so damned tunnel-visioned? The dismemberment should have been something a blind person could see. The viciousness should have indicated insanity. A headless victim should have instantly brought to mind the public executions of kidnapped foreigners in acts dating back more than a decade.

  This was supposed to look like a terrorist act or, at the very least, the work of an angry, deranged, disgruntled person who’d wanted to make a brutal statement about his hatred of America.

  But it sounded as though law enforcement, in their infinite wisdom, had focused on the one thing he’d hoped they wouldn’t even be seriously considering yet: that the killer had known about the O.E.P. device. And therefore known the victim.

  “Damn.”

  Leaving it would have been the wise course of action. Better to have let them find the thing and try to make something of it. They would not have succeeded. Having been so careful, so patient, so methodical…no, the authorities would have found nothing they could use to figure out who had been responsible for what had happened in the basement of the White House on Independence Day.

  If there had been something, better to have taken the chance of a random, miniscule bit of information being discovered on the chip than to have the entire investigation focused on the stupid, cursed device implanted in Leanne Carr’s brain. And on who might have known about it. He’d wanted to cast a wide net of suspicion. Instead, that net might have landed on a much smaller school of fish—those who knew about the O.E.P. So their suspect pool would be greatly minimized…and he would be on it.

  The situation wasn’t completely unsalvageable, however. Not at all. There could be a way to fix this, to redirect attention to its proper place. The authorities could be directed back toward random terrorism and violence if they believed the chip hadn’t been intentionally taken. That should move the focus away from a personal connection between victim and predator.

  Away from the truth.

  Leanne’s pretty head would simply have to be found.

  -#-

  Though a lot of things had changed since Ronnie had joined the D.C.P.D. nearly a decade ago, some things about police work remained the same. Witness interviews were one of them. Sure, the ultimate witness would be Leanne Carr—when the O.E.P. device was found. But in the meantime, there were, oh, about fifty-five thousand people who could have seen something important yesterday.

  Needle, meet haystack.

  She and Daniels were tasked with winnowing down the list and heading up that part of the investigation…probably so they’d get out of Kilgore’s hair and he didn’t have to be reminded that the minute the victim’s head turned up, a lowly D.C. detective would be calling the shots. Ronnie didn’t mind—getting away from the bigwigs and their pissing match was just fine by her.

  First up on her to-interview list was Jack Williams, head of the Phoenix Group. He seemed like the person who’d been closest to the victim and she wanted to talk to him now, before he was able to learn even more inside information about the investigation. She still couldn’t believe Kilgore had let him stay for the briefing.

  Politely asking the man for a few minutes of his time, she wasn’t at all surprised when he insisted he was too busy right now and asked that t
hey talk later this afternoon, over at his own office. Although it was a pain in the ass, and meant she and Daniels would have to leave the site and go through security again when they returned, she wanted to play nice with this guy for now, so she and her partner agreed.

  They took the intervening few hours to start talking to witnesses on-site. They certainly didn’t manage to talk to fifty-five thousand people. Or even fifty-five. But they did hit about a half-dozen, which, in a case this major, wasn’t too bad. And from those six—the ones who interacted most often with Leanne Carr—they’d gotten some decent information about their victim.

  The young woman had been pretty, well-liked, prompt and hard-working. Though she worked at the Phoenix Group’s offices a few blocks further up on Pennsylvania Avenue, she visited the site almost daily. Apparently her boss was an eyes-on kind of guy and she was his looking glass. She’d delivered messages, met with suppliers, interacted with the project managers and carried reports back and forth. A couple of the younger men commented that, though she didn’t wear a ring, she must have been involved with someone, since she never responded to any of their come-ons.

  Ronnie wasn’t too concerned about that, knowing that if Leanne were seeing anyone, she’d find out as soon as she examined the downloads in the woman’s computer—hopefully tonight. She’d gotten word that the victim’s hard drive had been taken to a special lab back at the precinct, and Ronnie would be heading over later. She wouldn’t be able to see Leanne’s murder, and thereby identify her killer—not without that damned elusive chip in her head—but she could definitely learn more about the life Leanne had led before that final day.

  Finally, as it drew closer to their appointment time with Williams, they left Patriot Square and drove the short distance down Pennsylvania Avenue. They could easily have walked it, however, swarms of people still milled about. They were even hotter and crankier than they had been this morning, and Ronnie didn’t want to march through them in uniform and on a mission. Still, she was glad to see them. Obviously, if rumors of the atrocity committed in the basement of the White House had gotten out, they would have scattered in the wind by now. So somebody was doing a pretty good job of keeping a lid on the story.