A random thought slipped into his head again, as it was doing more and more these days. Did he have a brother? And had his brother done the same thing? But right now there was no room for musings in the abstract. He turned his focus back to Kate, back to a murder that was still slightly less than twenty-four hours old.
“The house is swarming with officers,” Kate told them as she picked up a cracker with brie that Eleri had expertly plated. After taking a small bite, she held it to one side and continued. “However, they did only a cursory check of the bulk of the house and are mostly concentrating their efforts on the upstairs bedroom, the staircase, and the front door.”
That was exactly why Donovan had chosen the kitchen as his hiding spot for the notebooks. He'd known Kate might be able to come in the back door and grab them without being noticed. "Do you know what they found?"
"Oh, yes," Kate said. She'd sat down at the table with them, not helping, but watching as they continued to open or set aside all the food. "I don't have all the exact details and I don't quite speak crime scene tech, but I do know this: They didn't find any signs of forced entry."
"Typical," Eleri murmured, as Kate told them more, and Donovan agreed. This seemed to be the way that the break-ins had been going—not as actual break-ins at all.
"There are no other notable fingerprints around the home. There are plenty in the living room and in the main room. They want to print you two so they can rule out any prints that are yours."
"Of course," Eleri said.
The two of them were obvious choices for stray fingerprints around the house. The PD knew what a crime scene should look like when found by an amateur, so he and Eleri had left a few stray prints in the place. The techs would not only be ruling out the fingerprints they’d left, but also looking at the locations of their prints. Those would be checked against their stories. Anything else might blow their cover.
Donovan knew he’d have to call Westerfield to tell him their prints were going into the system. He wanted to double check that they would be rerouted to false histories. Otherwise, the national database would tell the Curie PD they had two FBI agents in town. Even having their cover blown to the PD and the crime scene techs would be too many people.
He pulled his focus back to the table, as Kate was still talking. "There doesn't seem to be any sign of forced anything, according to the officers."
"Did they use a blacklight?" Donovan asked, wondering if they'd managed to get that far ahead.
Kate merely shrugged. "They didn't say anything about it, and I didn't know to ask."
"Understood. We'll use our own."
"Okay. Anything else?" she asked, starting to stand from her seat, and Eleri merely offered her a very kind, "Thank you. Thank you for taking time out of your day to do this. I'm hopeful the notebooks will give us a big break on this case."
Kate merely smiled and said, "Don't worry about it. This is my job. I do whatever Curie needs me to do."
But the moment Kate was out the door, Eleri opened the notebook closest to her and picked up a cracker from her delicately arranged plate. Her stomach had started to not-so-delicately growl. It had been hours since they’d left the house, and they hadn’t had lunch.
Donovan, chewing on his meat sticks, opened the second notebook and was looking up at Eleri as she looked at him a smile on her face. "It's the same code. Different handwriting."
He was shaking his head at her. "Mine's in Marat’s hand. You've got one from. . . someone else. I don’t want to assume it’s Jivika’s."
"I don't know. I don't really know her handwriting.” Eleri frowned as she looked down at the code marching across the page.
“Wait." He dashed upstairs to where he'd filed away the list he'd made the bio-mimicry specialist write for them. Though that had not been their intention, it would certainly serve as a handwriting sample. He came back down the stairs, thinking that it looked like a match.
By the time they laid his list out side by side with the notebook in question, Eleri was agreeing. "So we have three notebooks with Marat Rychenkov’s handwriting—one of which Jivika Das got her hands on somehow. And we have another, which is in her own writing, but in the same code."
Donovan began thinking out loud. "This means several things: Either Marat gave her the one notebook or she somehow managed to get her hands on it after the fact.”
“Do you think she got into the house before the time we caught her?”
The question hung for a moment while Donovan considered that possibility. “It's entirely plausible. We didn't have video surveillance until after we talked to Johanna.”
“So Jivika lied to us about that being the first time breaking into the house. It’s possible that she was one of the early visitors and that she stole this notebook, then."
"But she didn't get all three," Eleri interjected.
"No. Maybe she didn't find the others. Maybe she only needed this one."
"So hopefully, once we translate it," Eleri added, "we'll know what it says, and whether it was enough to let Jivika finish the project."
"Also," he added, "the false-bottom drawer was the same as the one we found in Rychenkov's house. That's how we knew to look for it."
"True. There’s a lot of information here suggesting the two of them were conspiring on this."
"And, of course," Donovan added, "that she lied to us when she said she didn't know."
"Yeah. She knew. I knew she knew. She wasn’t telling us enough. I just thought we'd have more time to figure it out.”
Not wanting to dwell on the failure of keeping Jivika safe, he changed the subject back. “It also means they made the code together, or at least shared it."
With those puzzle pieces now firmly in place, they turned back to the new information. An hour later, Eleri gasped.
She looked up at Donovan with big eyes. "We have to get the kids in custody."
51
It was only thirty minutes later that Eleri found herself sitting at the large dining room table in the Mazur house. The four members of the Mazur family were all in her immediate sight. She was counting this much as a success.
She and Donovan had called Westerfield as soon as she'd explained her reasoning. It hadn't taken long to persuade their SAC of the need to break cover to these two families—and the importance of getting the kids out of town.
Clearly, the “checking in” the Curie PD was doing was not enough protection. The killer had gotten around them—whether it was easy or not didn’t matter—and the victim had lain dead in her home overnight.
We should have known better, Eleri thought, determined now to not make the same mistake twice.
They had offered Jivika Das a chance to leave town, a chance to get to a safe house. They were not offering the same to the children. Eleri would present the facts to the parents, and she hoped they would readily agree to protection. She hoped they might feel less secure about entrusting their children to a whim of personal safety, than Jivika had felt about herself. But if it came down to it, Eleri decided, she would insist.
Eleri had hung her jacket on a dragon-shaped coat stand just inside the front door and was sitting at the table waiting for Marshawn James and his two daughters to arrive. She’d not yet said anything to the Mazurs about why she and Donovan had called this meeting. But they clearly had their suspicions.
Kaya had met them at the door with a raised eyebrow asking, "Is LeDonRic coming?" But Eleri had simply told her that no, her neighbor was not on the list for tonight.
She’d instructed Kaya to please clear the table and gather everyone. Kaya had to have been wondering for the past fifteen minutes, since Eleri had called and asked to come over, offering a cryptic “Please make sure your whole family will be there…”
Originally standing just behind Kaya, Nate Mazur had merely nodded at Eleri’s suggestion and gone to fetch the children. Kaya had seated herself at the table and commenced staring at Eleri, waiting.
Eleri then told her new friend,
"We've also called Marshawn James and he and his girls are on their way here. I'm sorry. I hope you don't mind that we called this meeting at your house and invited other people.”
"I don’t mind you inviting my friends. I’m concerned that we're having this meeting at all.” Kaya pushed just as Nate and their two children arrived at the table.
"I understand," Eleri replied. “Marshawn should be here any second now and we'll explain everything then in the hopes that we can explain only once.”
It was then she noticed Joule did not look worried like the other family members did. Instead, a small smirk sat on her lips. She nudged her brother who looked at her, the question waiting on his eyebrows. Eleri thought she had a good idea what was passing between them.
She was confident that Joule had the best grasp on what Eleri and Donovan were about to say, and she would give Joule her props. Luckily, just then, a knock came at the door. This time, however, the knob turned and Marshawn appeared, clearly feeling comfortable letting himself in. His daughters appeared in the foyer behind him while they looked at the scene, questions on their eyebrows as well.
Yes, Eleri thought. It was strange that she had called them to come to their friends’ home where she would meet them. The three stood in the entry space, too confused to remove their jackets and come any further. It was Kaya who waved them over to the table.
Kaya and Nate jumped up, gathering extra chairs, and pulling a small bench up to the table. While they motioned for their own kids to move and take the bench, it was Emersyn and Madisyn who quickly sat down together on it. Eleri hoped it helped that the kids were clearly comfortable in this home. It would make this job easier.
Unfortunately, what she and Donovan had to say was anything but comfortable. Now that everyone was present, she let Donovan start.
"You’re probably wondering why we've asked you all to come tonight."
"Not so much," said Joule, and Eleri could no longer fight her own grin.
Donovan, too, smiled. “The short answer is that Joule was right." He reached into his back pocket and as Eleri saw him move, she repeated the gesture herself. Almost simultaneously, they flipped open their badges and laid them out on the table. They slid them across the surface, Eleri aiming hers toward Nate and Kaya Mazur, Donovan pushing his toward Marshawn James.
It was most important that the adults see their credentials first and that they feel they were being spoken to. As much as it was the children who were at issue, the adults would have to legally sign off on FBI custody. Eleri and Donovan had discussed their strategy ahead of time, hoping to aim the most pertinent information toward Nate, Kaya, and Marshawn.
Though this little meeting had happened fast, Eleri had worked hard to coordinate it. It had been important that it happen at the Mazur house. It was the easiest way to begin providing protection for Cage and Joule—even though the family didn’t know that yet.
Eleri was not going to have another Johanna Schmitt or Jivika Das on her hands.
"I knew it!" Joule grinned as she watched the badges slide across the table. Cage held his fist up, offering a bump of congratulations to his sister.
"You nailed it, Joule," Eleri said. "As you can see from the badge, I'm actually Agent Eleri Eames and my partner is Donovan, but he's Donovan Heath. I've been with the FBI for almost a decade now."
While the men sat back to clearly digest the new information, it was Kaya who leaned forward, looking Eleri in the eyes. Eleri knew she owed the woman an apology, but it was more important that she answer their questions first. So she waited to hear what Kaya would say. Luckily, it wasn't an accusation—at least, not yet.
"This is about Marat and Johanna, isn't it?" Kaya pressed, watching Eleri's face as though—having been lied to before—she needed to be sure she was getting good answers.
"Yes." Eleri nodded and she tacked her apology onto the end of it. "I'm sorry that we lied to you." She looked around the table not attempting to make eye contact with all of them, as that would look forced, but to let them know they were all being spoken to. "Agent Heath and I are under direct orders from our boss. When Joule figured it out, we wanted to tell you, but we were forbidden from doing so. However, new information has come to light and," she looked at Marshawn first, then Kaya and Nate, and she stressed the syllables as the words came out of her mouth. "We would like to put your children into protective custody. You can go with them or not. That's a decision we'll make tonight."
She hoped her next words would push that agenda, even though it was not a blow she could soften for them at all. "We believe your children are in danger."
52
Donovan sat back a little and let Eleri lead the meeting. In part, it was because she was the senior agent. Also, she was better at getting citizens to work with them rather than against them—and she was the one who had had befriended Kaya Mazur under false pretenses. It was up to Eleri to mend that rift and give the two of them the best relationship with these families going forward.
In part, he let Eleri lead the meeting because he was the one who could sniff out fear, concern, and maybe even guilt from these people. He needed to not be talking when he inhaled, in order to best sort the scent information he got.
He had smelled interest initially, then concern from the parents. Now a quick dose of fear had come from the two James girls sitting just to his right.
It was Kaya who spoke up again, the two men letting her take the lead. At least Eleri's apology seemed to have been accepted relatively quickly, though it might be something Kaya would be angry about later, when her children were no longer in danger.
Donovan had trained on this kind of thing at Quantico—as it was always wise to know what your suspect or witness or person of interest wanted and most valued—and, though he didn't have children of his own, protecting one’s own children was the strongest instinct a human knew. Kaya was clear in her fierce protection of the children.
Resting his elbows on the table, he leaned a little bit forward, watching the players carefully. In a moment, he would lean back and resume inhaling slightly to seeing what he could detect. When he didn’t get anything he could identify, he fought down the frustration and joined the conversation.
"Your children were all friends of Marat and Johanna, particularly you two." He turned and looked at Cage and Joule, and they both nodded. “We found information tonight that makes us believe we know what Marat and Johanna were killed for.” He paused, not sure if they knew already. “And it’s the same reason Jivika Das was killed.”
Pausing, he watched as all of their faces transformed, and he smelled the sudden jolts of surprise, anger, or fear that hit them. Those were all appropriate responses, he thought. Though they were physically closer to him, the James family hadn’t taken their jackets off, and he couldn’t smell the information from them quite as precisely.
Now, it was masking some of the response. He should have asked them to take the outerwear off. But now it would seem a little odd, and maybe they needed them for comfort in a rough situation.
"Jivika Das has died?" Nate Mazur leaned toward the two of them as though they could tell him something that would help. They knew far more information about Das than they were allowed to share.
Again, Donovan let the conversation bounce back to Eleri, and she merely replied, "Yes. We found her in her home this morning. We'd been watching her and. . ." He heard Eleri lob the hardball across the table, hoping it hit all the parents square in the chest. "We urged her to take protective custody. She had a police detail, but it was only checking intermittently to see that she arrived at the right place at the right time. She was killed in her home last night."
She paused, letting the information sit, not sure how well the Mazurs or the James family had known Jivika Das. But clearly, they'd known enough to be shocked at her death. Kaya looked back and forth, not to the children but to the adult men.
"But Jivika was a biologist and. . . and Marat was into robots. If Jivika was murdered, that would su
ggest that the two were working on something together. But for the life of me, I can't figure out what that might be."
Smart, Donovan thought. Kaya Mazur had had exactly zero seconds to sort those puzzle pieces and put them into their appropriate places, and she'd done so quickly and accurately.
"Yes," Eleri replied, "that's exactly the issue. And exactly why your children are in danger. They know about the project that has led to these murders."
Nate's hand suddenly came up and rested on the table, as though he’d intended to reach out and hold onto his child's hand. But he had two children and only one hand near them. The gesture, though not useless, struck Donovan as coming close.
Donovan could not imagine the moment a parent was put into a situation of deciding whether they could protect their child, or whether it was something beyond their grasp. The adults all had looks on their faces suggesting they were wrestling with exactly that.
Eleri jumped in again. "Listen, I know this is a lot to take in, but it’s also important that you know Donovan and I are sharing with you information that’s classified. I know that the two of you—" she looked to the Mazurs, "hold national-level security clearances. Consider this that kind of information."
She next turned to Marshawn and said, "We're trusting you as a civilian to keep this confidence." And then she looked at the Mazur kids on one end of the table, and then to the James girls on the other. "And for you, while I'm aware that you are minors and will not be held to the same kind of legal ramifications your parents are if something leaks, I need you to know that it's very important that you not tell this information to anyone. We're expecting that, as soon as we get your questions answered, we will take the children to a safe location."
There was another pause, and Donovan added another nail to the coffin. He was not going to lose another person in this town. “If you speak of this, you won’t just be breaking a clearance, you’ll be letting people know that you know about the project. Three people have already died for this information. Talking about it could be the equivalent of placing a target on your own back.”
The Camelot Gambit Page 29