by Diana X Dunn
“That was interesting, but not helpful,” Luke sighed.
Sara nodded. “I’m going to go over it again tomorrow, when I’ve had some sleep and some time to think. We can follow each person as they left the zoo, heading back to the bus. What happened next?”
“I assume they sat on the bus until the end of the exercise.”
“We need to find out if anyone left the bus again.”
“Robert and Dr. Freeman were walking around the zoo at least some of the time. I saw them once.”
“I didn’t, but they may well have been tracking everyone from their M-peds. It would have been easy for them avoid me if they were. I need to think.”
“In the meantime, we have Dr. Freeman’s official verdict on Jake’s death,” Luke said.
“Yes, and he’s insistent that it was a heart attack.”
“Is it possible that he simply made a mistake? Could he be that incompetent as a doctor?”
“I don’t know anything about his training. Robert insisted that he was a trained medical doctor, but I don’t know if that makes him qualified to determine a cause of death.”
“And now he’s in charge of Mark’s autopsy, too.”
“Yep. And after the gators finished with him, it’s going to be a difficult job, even if he is qualified.”
Luke sighed. “Maybe we should simply forget all about both deaths and just get on with life.”
“I wish I could,” Sara sighed. “I’m more than a little worried that a murderer is running around the compound, though.”
“I suspect you can defend yourself.”
“Oh, I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about everyone else.”
“I hope you’re a little worried about me,” Luke said in whisper.
“I’m very worried about you,” she laughed. “In many different ways.”
He pulled her close. When the kiss finally ended, she pushed him away. “We’re too old to be rolling around half naked by the side of the road.”
“So let’s go back to my room,” he suggested, pulling her to her feet. “We could get all naked there.”
“And then what?” she teased.
He leaned down and whispered a few suggestions in her ear. She blushed and laughed. “Those are some pretty big promises.”
“I assure you I’m more than capable of living up to them.”
“Really? I may just have to see that for myself.”
“Let’s go,” he said. “But let’s walk. I need to save my strength.”
She laughed again, suddenly not caring about Jake or Mark or even Rex. Luke was gorgeous and they had strong chemistry. Tonight was going to be good, even if it would complicate things tomorrow.
They strolled together in the moonlight, holding hands and talking about nothing much. Luke told her a few stories about his time in the police and with SunInc and she shared a few of her own stories from her time with her agency. Of course she didn’t mention which agency had formerly employed her, or let him know that they’d previously met when she’d been on SunInc.
That was a detail she felt she couldn’t share, no matter how much she wanted him to know. In spite of everything that had been happening, though, Rex was still very much on her mind. While she believed she could trust Luke, she wouldn’t really trust anyone again until Rex was safely behind bars and his entire network was dismantled.
“Here we are,” Luke said when they finally reached his door.
“Here we are,” she echoed.
He kissed her and then unlocked his door.
“Ah, Sara, there you are,” a voice said from the end of the corridor.
Luke lifted his head and then sighed. “Robert, what a surprise.”
Sara winked at him and then turned to face Robert. “Good evening.”
“I need a few minutes of your time, please,” Robert replied.
“Right now?” she asked. “It’s late. We were going to bed.”
“I only need a few minutes,” Robert said. “I am sorry to interrupt. I wouldn’t, if it wasn’t important.”
Sara sighed and looked back at Luke. “Good night,” she said.
He shrugged. “It would have been.” She watched him walk into his room and shut the door before she followed Robert down the corridor.
“What’s so important?” she demanded when they reached her door.
“Ethel isn’t well. She’s gone to the nearest hospital, but I’m not sure they’ll be able to treat her there.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“I think it’s just stress and exhaustion, but that’s more Dr. Freeman’s area of expertise than mine. I checked on her before I got ready for bed and she was hysterical. What Tamara said about her messaging Mark and making him fall out of the tree really upset her. We talked for a while, but I couldn’t get her to calm down, so I ended up giving her a sedative and taking her to the hospital.”
“I’m sorry. She seems like such a tough woman.”
“She’s pretty tough, but as I understand it, she never did much field work. Today’s exercise was a strain for her, even without Mark’s accident. We have to remember that she’s in her eighties, as well. Modern medicine is amazing, but eighty is still, well, let’s just say not young.”
Sara nodded. “Is there anything I can do?”
“For now, just cover her classes, please. I’m going to spend as much time with her as I can. I’m hoping that once the initial shock wears off, she’ll realize that Mark’s accident was just that, a sad accident. Even if she can come to accept that, I’m not sure she’ll be capable of returning here, of course.”
“Robert, I’m trying to be sympathetic, but I’ve already taken over most of Jake’s classes. I can’t take over Ethel’s as well. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day for me to teach everything.”
“I know and I’m doing everything I can to find replacements for both of them, I truly am.” He shook his head. “I should say that Candie is doing everything she can, as I have too many other things to worry about at the moment. As far as Jake’s classes go, I may ask Luke to teach a few of them. He has significant police experience. He even worked homicide. Ethel will be harder to replace, obviously.”
“If you don’t find someone quickly, you may have to replace me, as well,” Sara said sharply.
Robert nodded. “I am sorry, truly I am. Please, just give me a little bit of time.”
“I’ll give you time, but while I’m doing that, no more springing things on me, do you understand? If you set up another murder scene without telling me or have Candie plan another exercise somewhere, I’m gone.”
“I’m sorry. Things aren’t going at all the way I’d planned. I’m usually very good at organizing things, you know. I didn’t get to the top of the security field without learning a thing or two.”
Whatever he’d learned, it wasn’t people skills, Sara thought as Robert walked away. She hesitated as she reached for the keypad, wondering what Luke would do if she knocked on his door now. A yawn pushed the idea out of her head. She was tired and tomorrow she had to teach three separate sets of classes. What she needed now was sleep, nothing else. To keep herself from tossing and turning all night in frustration, she took a sleep aid and fell asleep as soon as her head touched her pillow.
“We have a lot to cover today,” she told the students the next morning. “I’d like to talk about everything that happened yesterday.”
“Not everything,” Tamara said sadly. “Please, can we not talk about Mark?”
Sara nodded. “I want to talk about what each of you did to try to hide from me. Mark doesn’t enter into any of that.” She sent the video from the bus to the huge video screen at the front of the room and then split the screen so that she could also show them the video she’d taken as she’d moved around the zoo.
“Here we go,” she said. “The camera I was wearing will help identify where mistakes were made. I’d like you guys to tell me what you see your fellow students doing wrong.”
“Bill looks really nervous,” Donna said. “He doesn’t look like a man enjoying his day at the zoo.”
Bill shook his head. “I truly thought I was being cool,” he said. “I can’t believe how obvious I was. And I can’t believe that I didn’t recognize Sara.”
“She looked very different,” Luke interjected. “I only recognized her when she started sending messages and taking charge of the situation at the gator pond.”
“Why is Lloyd sitting outside of a restaurant that’s closed?” Bill asked a moment later.
“He’s on his M-ped, so it looks almost convincing,” Tamara said. “It looks like he’s just randomly tapping on it, though.”
“You’re right,” Sara told her. “Lloyd, next time, play a game or read the news or something rather than just pretending to be on your device.”
He nodded. “I was trying to read the news, but I was too nervous to focus.”
“If you were nervous yesterday, imagine how you’d feel on a real assignment, maybe where you’re watching a wanted criminal or trying to protect someone who has been receiving threats. No matter how nervous you are, you have to appear totally calm,” Sara replied.
“Have you done both of those things?” Lacey asked.
Sara nodded. “And I’d much rather watch a criminal than try to protect someone. It’s a lot easier.”
Everyone laughed. “Who have you arrested then?” Bill asked.
“That would be telling,” Sara replied. “I can’t talk about my past.”
“I’m hoping to hunt down Rex,” Bill said. “He’s the biggest criminal out there at the moment.”
“Who’s Rex?” Tamara asked.
“He’s only the super criminal mastermind behind some of the biggest crimes that have taken place in the past six months,” Bill said. “I’ve been studying him and his work. He’s the one broke Morris Munroe out of prison and then led an agent all the way across the country on a deadly chase.”
Tamara made a face. “I may have heard something about that.”
“The agent that was chasing him disappeared when Morris got shot and Rex escaped. I think she actually got killed, but the agency doesn’t want anyone to know.”
“Or maybe she ended up teaching in an obscure spy training school in the middle of nowhere,” Jeff said in a low voice.
Sara laughed. “What an idea,” she said. “As I understand it, that agent was an ex-utero baby, one of the almost mythical F agents. My parents would be quite sad to hear that someone thinks I was raised by an agency instead of in a loving family.”
Jeff stared at her for a minute and then shrugged. “It was just a thought.”
“I’m pretty sure the agent involved went underground,” Luke said. “I actually met her once when she was caught up in something on SunInc. She was tough and fearless. I’ve no doubt her agency has her tucked up somewhere, just waiting for Rex’s next move.”
“He’s going to do something else, something even bigger,” Bill predicted. “Things didn’t all go his way with the last chase. He’ll make sure he has things better planned for his next game.”
“You seem to know a lot about Rex,” Donna said.
“I told you, I’ve been studying him. Dr. Freeman and I had a long talk about him, too. He was the one who suggested that everything is a game to Rex. He reckons that Rex will want to get back at the agent. He said Rex’s next targets will probably be the agent’s friends.”
Sara only just managed to keep her face neutral as she looked around the room. “As fascinating as this discussion is, we really should focus on what happened yesterday. I’m going to suggest something, though. I’d like you each to select a criminal from the past or the present and I want you to study him or her in depth, the way Bill has with Rex. You’ll learn a lot about the criminal mind if you study a master. I can give you some suggestions if you don’t know who to study.”
“Do we have to write a paper or something?” Tamara asked.
“Or something. I think it would be best if you each gave a presentation on your subject. I’ll draw up a short list of the sorts of things I want you to talk about, but you can start your research today. I’m sure the WorldNet has tons of articles about the sorts of master criminals I have in mind.”
“The ones who were caught, anyway,” Jeff said.
“Exactly,” Sara agreed. “Although Rex hasn’t been caught yet.”
“He won’t be,” Jeff predicted. “He’s the type who would rather die than spend time in prison. If he finds himself surrounded, he’ll take himself out and probably take as many others with him as he can.”
Sara shivered. Jeff’s words had a ring of truth to them. “That’s enough about Rex,” she said firmly. “Who can spot where Lacey went wrong?”
“She looks nervous, too,” Lloyd said. “She keeps looking around all while she’s talking to that zoo employee.”
“I was trying to get directions,” Lacey said. “But I was too nervous to really hear and understand what the woman was saying. I’m sure she thought I was crazy.”
“We can work on that, though. I can teach you a dozen different techniques to help you stay calm,” Sara told her. “Your disguise was excellent so you’re already most of the way there.”
“I don’t know about that,” Lacey said, but she looked pleased with what Sara had told her.
“Next was Tamara,” Sara said. “She did something very clever, actually.”
“You look like part of that family,” Bill exclaimed. “You’re even pushing the stroller. How did you manage that?”
Tamara laughed. “There were tons of men there, on their own with the kids. It was easy enough to start talking to a few of them. His name was Donald and he’s looking to have an affair.”
“He told you that?” Lloyd asked.
“Not in so many words. I told him that I was new to the area and that my former partner had gotten custody of our kids. I practically begged him to let me hang out with him and his kids for an hour. He was happy to agree,” Tamara explained.
“He told them not tell their mother about you as you were walking away,” Sara said.
Tamara shrugged. “He assured me that he and the children’s mother were no longer together. I didn’t believe him, but it didn’t matter. At best, we were going to spend two hours together and not a second longer.”
“I wouldn’t have even been looking at families, if I were you,” Lloyd told Sara. “How did you recognize her?”
“She has a very distinctive laugh. I picked that out before I found her in the crowd.”
“Next time I’ll have to make sure I find a man who isn’t very funny,” Tamara said. “Actually, he wasn’t at all funny, but I kept laughing at his lame jokes anyway. Next time I’ll know better.”
“You can learn to laugh differently,” Sara told her. “We’re going to work on ways to disguise your voice later in the course. There are, of course, drugs that can be used for that purpose and other means as well.”
“I used to have one of those discs that you stick on your neck to change your voice,” Lacey said. “It didn’t work very well, but it was fun.”
“They were a hot toy about twenty years ago,” Sara replied. “The technology has gotten a lot more sophisticated now. The ones that my former agency used were tiny and could do amazing things. Having said that, changing your voice naturally is a useful skill. As I said, we’ll be working on that later.”
“Can you really teach us to change our voices?” Lloyd asked. “I’ve always wanted a deeper voice.”
Sara nodded. “I found Donna next,” she said, dragging everyone’s attention back to the screen at the front of the room.
“We didn’t think you’d spot her,” Bill laughed. “She looked so much like a man that we were sure you’d be fooled.”
“She did a great job with her hair and makeup, but she forgot about her gait. She still walked like a woman,” Sara explained.
“I started out walking like a man,” Do
nna told her. “It was hard work and I got tired of it, though. I probably should have sat down more.”
“Except we were supposed to keep moving,” Lacey sighed. “Every time I sat down, I started to feel guilty about it. Ethel buzzed me every time I got to four minutes without moving, too.”
“She buzzed me once, when I was standing,” Tamara said. “The littlest child was crying and I ended up with the older one, talking about lions for like ten minutes while their father tried to calm the baby down. I’m sure the child thought I was crazy, because halfway through I suddenly began pacing back and forth.”
“We need a group discussion with Robert, Ethel, and Candie,” Sara said. “We need your feedback on how the exercise went and suggestions for where it could have been improved. Maybe you should have been allowed to stop for ten minutes rather than five, for instance.”
She restarted the video, letting them watch as she found Jeff.
“It was my voice,” Jeff said. “I didn’t bother to disguise it.”
“If you had, I never would have spotted you,” Sara admitted. “You looked over a hundred pounds heavier, with tattoos and missing teeth. I can’t believe you managed that much of a transformation on your own in only half an hour.”
“I did a lot of undercover work in a previous job,” Jeff shrugged. “If you put on the same disguise every day for a year or more, you get quite fast at it.”
“Too bad you won’t be able to use the same disguise next time,” Tamara said. “Sara will be looking for that fat balding man every time now.”
“I have plenty of other options,” Jeff told her.
“I thought you were leaving,” Lloyd said. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, his face turned bright red. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just thought you’d said you were dropped out of the school. Of course, I don’t want you to go, or anything.”
Jeff nodded. “I was going to go, but I thought I’d wait for the official ruling on Mark’s death. There won’t ever be anything said publically about it. If I leave, I’ll never know how Robert covered up another murder.”
“That’s a pretty serious accusation,” Sara said.