by Cat Connor
“Seriously?”
“Yep. The sort you have to sign, with a pen,” she replied with utter disbelief. “Bookings can be made via email but they don’t appear to use any computer-based booking system that I can find.”
“Wow. Doesn’t matter, we can find out when we get there. When you see Troy, do not let him leave the building.” I twisted in my chair. “Every time I hear his name my stomach tightens. There is something wrong.”
“Got it, O goddess of all things spooky.”
“He can use Sentinel,” I said with a smile. “In fact, suggest he works from the bullpen. Do not upload any of the video with him in it to Sentinel.”
“Got it.”
“Kurt and I are going.”
I jumped up from my desk, shoved my holster back into my waistband and pulled my jacket on.
From the doorway of the bullpen I whistled. Kurt looked up from whatever he was doing at the other end of the office.
I swirled my index finger in the air. Rally up. It was my belief that we should employ more SWAT hand gestures in the office.
Claude saw it and strode across the floor. “Do you need help?”
“Not at this point. You carry on here. I’ll get local police backup. If I think we need them.”
“Yell out if you need us.”
I smiled. “You know I will.”
Kurt joined me.
“Road trip early?” he said.
“Yeah, we know where they are.”
He smiled. “Let’s go, I’m driving.”
“Only because you know we’re going to need flashers to get out of D.C. this morning.”
“Not just lights, we’re going full noise. Have you seen the chaos out there?”
I laughed. “You are starting to sound like Sam.”
He shrugged. “I feel like having some fun.”
We walked down the corridor and stepped into the elevator.
No sign of Troy.
In the car, I filled Kurt in on the Troy thing and told him I made it look like I was going to brief the Directors at a safe house. He voiced what I thought. “Another person we should be able to trust fucking us over?”
“It’s not looking good.”
“Directors?”
“We’ll do it at Langley. I’ll set it up when we find these women.” Langley was the safest place I could think of and out of D.C. The chances of Langley exploding into a fireball were very slim.
My head rested on the window. It felt good. Cold. Soothing. The last week and the strange way the case unfolded irked me. A strange realization settled over me: something was missing. Something I needed. I missed Chance. I missed Mac. I missed the insight and frustration of their appearances but they were ten times better than the hallucinations I’d seen all week. My honest admission stunned me.
Blocking out the siren and lights, I closed my eyes, still tired.
Thick black outlines appeared, colors dimmed, and the world around me flattened. There was a door in front of me. I waited, barely breathing. Who would open the door? That was the moment I realized that my world became the pages of a comic book.
Familiar.
The page turned revealing an open door. Christopher Chance stepped through the doorway and into my office. He wasn’t a cartoon.
“Long time no see,” he said picking up a piece of paper from my desk and looking at it. He shrugged and put it back. “That’s interesting.” His fingers tapped the piece of paper.
“That’s one way of putting it,” I replied, swishing the paper around to face me. It was a list of names. A list of seventy-four people killed in yesterday’s explosions. Some were colleagues, some were friends, and a lot were children.
His smile drifted away. “Tough day,” he said.
“Where you been, Chance?” I asked, leaning back in my chair and watching him.
“Around.” His pale blue eyes lit with amusement. “You look different.”
“So everyone says.” He didn’t; he looked the same. Blond, chiseled, charming. “You dropping in for a particular reason?”
My fingers crossed. I hoped so. I really hoped this wasn’t just a daydream. I missed my talking interactive hallucinations. As much as I hated to admit it and sure wouldn’t tell him, but I missed Chance a lot. I hadn’t seen him since Carla died.
“What’s his name?”
“What makes you think … never mind. His name is Mitch.”
He grinned. “Lucky man.”
“Thanks.” I leaned one elbow on my desk. “Now why are you here?”
“Everyone thinks you’re nuts, so I figured I’d come push you over the edge …”
Dimples, sparkling pale blue eyes, boyish. Yep, he had all the things that could push me over the edge.
“I appreciate the sentiment,” I said with a smile. “And really?”
“The women are almost what you thought. Tourists but not really, but not terrorists.” He paused. “Scratch that, I’m not convinced about all of them. They’re officially on a research trip. One of them is an author.”
“Of Human Target episodes or comic books?”
He laughed. “No, but she has written a few screenplays along with about twelve novels, all set here on the East Coast.”
“Should I know this?”
“Yes, you should.”
“Why?”
“Because her main character is you.”
“She’s what now?” I smiled indulgently. “In case you missed the memo, I’m a real person.”
Chances displayed his dimples; his eyes danced with amusement.
“Me too.”
“Nah, you’re an actor playing a role. I’m just me.”
“Look into it, Ellie. She writes about you, the name is different but it’s you.”
“Gimme a title …”
“I can rattle off several. I See You, Gemineyes, Satellite. Think there are another couple as well.”
“Great, I’ll look into it. I don’t have time to read books right now though. You know what with shit going down in D.C. an’ all.”
He nodded and perched on the edge of my desk playing with a pen he’d found. “Could be that they’re handy scapegoats. There is something else going on and even I can’t see what it is. I think one of them knows something. But the scapegoat thing means—”
“Someone could be monitoring their communication and movements to make it look like they’re involved, or one or more of them is involved.”
“Look at you being a grown-up special agent.”
“Smartass. Don’t suppose you have any joyful insight regarding Troy?”
“Do you trust him?”
“No.”
“There’s your insight. Gotta go, Ellie. Take care.”
Chance pocketed my pen and walked toward the door then paused and looked at me. “You know how sometimes firefighters become arsonists?”
“Yeah, I am familiar with that phenomenon.” The penny dropped. “Thanks, Chance.”
He waved and stepped through the doorway. The ink bubbled then ran. Dripping down the walls and pooling on the floor, the colors mingled before fading away. I smiled. As insane as it probably was I felt happier with the familiar. Chance was familiar. Music was familiar.
It was strangely quiet in the car. Sirens were off. Nothing indicated our lights were still rolling. The view out the window told me we were in Fairfax County. All quiet on the eastern front.
Could Troy be involved because he wants to play hero and make a name for himself? Possible. Stranger things have happened. Except, he failed.
He didn’t make it to hero status: people died. Maybe Chance was wrong.
“Hey?” Kurt said, tapping my knee with his right hand. “You with me?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay?”
“Yes.”
“Do I want to ask what the smile is about?”
I looked at him. He watched the road, his eyes shooting sidelong glances in my direction often enough to concern me.
&n
bsp; “Eyes on the road,” I whispered. “Chance is back.”
His head turned for a moment.
“Did you just say Chance is back?” he asked. “Do I need to pull over so we can have a conversation?”
“No. It’s good. I understand him.”
“You do hear the words coming out of your mouth? Because I’m hearing a reason to schedule an emergency CT.”
“You would. And I heard the words, smartass.” Hard not to hear them when I said them. “The women, one of them is an author. You ever read a book called I See You? No idea which one of them wrote it.”
I knew Kurt read a lot. His house was full of books. His nightstand had so many they were piled on the floor as well. How’d I know that? A little bit of pre-Christmas snooping last year, that’s how. Okay, it might have been a bit of pre-Christmas breaking and entering. Not proud of it.
“Conway, we’re five minutes away from the hotel, we’ve been in the car for an hour and your phone hasn’t rung … this is what? Information from thin air?”
“I told you, Chance is back,” I said quietly. “Have you read that book?”
“I have. The author is Caro Clancy. I’ve read her books. That’s not a name associated with this case. You sure about this?”
I nodded. Chance has never been wrong before. “Let’s say one of them is this Clancy woman, just for fun.”
“I had no idea she was a New Zealander,” Kurt said.
Maybe she isn’t.
“And? Anyone familiar in it?”
He parked at the far end of the hotel parking lot, undid his seat belt and angled toward me.
“Familiar? Yes.”
“And you never mentioned it?”
“Ellie, I read it before I met you. I read it before I was Delta A.”
“And again … you never mentioned it.”
“What was I going to say … hey, Conway, you’re just like this character in a book I read?”
“Yeah, that.”
“We should get in there and find these women,” Kurt said, opening his door.
“Ya think?” I muttered. “Go in the side door, trip the fire alarm, cause an evacuation … everyone will pour forth from the hotel, we’ll be able to get them easily and they won’t have time to destroy anything.”
“Sneaky.”
“Up here for thinking,” I replied tapping my head. “Let’s go.”
Anything that didn’t require knocking on two hundred doors worked for me. I already knew they hadn’t checked in using any of their names. But maybe they were using the name of the author.
I went through the front door into the reception area while Kurt used a side entrance and located the nearest fire alarm.
Attracting the attention of the duty manager, I said, “Excuse me. I think a friend of mine is staying here?”
Polite but firm, he replied, “We don’t give out guest information.”
Damn. He wasn’t going to play. I could see the guest register on his desk. I tried one more time.
“Caro Clancy, does that ring a bell?”
He shrugged apologetically. “We have a lot of guests.”
“Never mind,” I said, changing tack. “What are your rates and do you have a non-smoking room available for a month from early next week?”
Just as he was telling me what he had available the fire alarm almost deafened me. He pointed to the door.
“Please go into the parking lot,” he said as he headed for the stairwell.
Staff came running. I heard them go room to room on the ground floor making sure people were leaving then entered the stairwell.
I left the building and waited near one of the large pillars with a clear line of sight to the doorway. Kurt would stay by the other door. Sirens resounded. I saw the lights in the distance coming closer. Good to know the alarm was connected to the fire department. Panicked people emerged from the hotel. For a minute, I thought I smelled smoke.
Nah? Yeah?
My phone rang.
Kurt.
“Anything yet?”
“Not so far,” I replied as another group of guests filed through the doors.
Kurt disconnected the call. I moved around the pillar a little and spotted the women talking among themselves as they exited the building. One of them I thought might be Trudi went over to the first fire truck that arrived and spoke to the firefighters. She pointed back to the hotel. Interesting. Leadership role. As she turned back to the other two women, I saw an emblem on her tee shirt. A Fire Department tee shirt, but not an American one.
I called Kurt and told him all three were out. Content to watch the interactions, I waited for him to arrive. The women were together again, still talking, animated. They each carried cell phones and purses.
Kurt appeared next to me.
“How do you want to handle this?” he asked, leaning close to my ear.
“I don’t like our chances of getting them back into D.C. in a timely fashion. We need a venue, and if they are being watched we need to appear innocuous.” That might be a big ask. Kurt screamed FBI in his dark blue suit, white shirt, and blue striped tie. I opted for more casual, as usual, cowboy boots, boot-leg jeans, a button-down long-sleeved blue shirt and a lightweight tailored jacket.
“There’s a bar over in the mall,” Kurt replied. “Champps.” He checked his watch. “Almost lunchtime. Well, after ten-thirty. Invite them for a drink. They probably need one after yesterday.”
I smiled. “So we invite them for a drink?”
“Why not,” he said.
“Let’s try that then.” I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “Did you light a fire in there?” I could still smell smoke. Images from the day before wound around a smoky haze in my head. Not good. The little boy’s eyes stared up at me. I blinked him away.
Focus.
Kurt smiled and winked.
“All about authenticity.”
“Delta A better not be getting a bill for fire damage, our budget is probably shot to shit after the hummingbird got caught in that explosion.”
“It survived didn’t it?”
“Kinda. I’m making a point here. Don’t need a bill from a hotel!”
Kurt’s smile grew.
Fourteen
Cold Shoulder
“Hi, this is exciting, isn’t it?” I said with a wave at the fire engines as I approached the group of women.
“Not after yesterday,” the blonde woman I’d seen talking to the firefighters replied. She watched the goings on near the fire trucks.
Another blonde woman spoke. “There are people in the stairwell, just standing there. Bloody ridiculous.”
The first blonde nodded. “I had a word with a firefighter about that.”
“Oh?”
The second woman said, “We’re Fire Service from New Zealand.”
I nodded, smiled and rolled back to her earlier comment. “What happened yesterday?”
The first blonde shook her head as she spoke, “We went to visit the Navy Museum at the Navy Yard. Luckily, we stopped at a bus stop for lunch. There was an explosion.”
I nodded. “Oh, wow. You were there? All over the news last night and today. Must’ve been terrifying.”
“We’d just been talking to an NCIS agent. Very scary,” she replied still distracted by the firefighters.
“Apart from that how are you finding it here?”
“Magic,” the other blonde woman, replied. “Everyone is really friendly.”
“I’m Ellie. This might take a while.” I turned to look at the third engine that rolled into the parking lot and wondered if Kurt had set fire to the hotel. “Buy you all a coffee over at Champps?”
“Sounds good,” the first blonde said. “I’m Trudi, this is Susan and that’s …” The dark haired woman flashed her eyes at Trudi. A warning? Fascinating. Trudi carried on, “That’s Ca … Danni.”
I heard her change her mind. What was she going to say? Caro? That’s where my money lay.
The wom
en said hello. Two blondes and a brunette. I matched their live faces to the photos I had in my head. Trudi and Susan looked similar. I figured Danni was the writer, just needed confirmation.
Then from nowhere a question from Danni. “Which agency are you with?”
“Excuse me?”
“Which agency?” she repeated with a smile.
“FBI,” I replied.
“And you just happened to be staying here?”
I detected something in her tone.
“No, just making inquiries for a colleague.”
“I see.”
Okay, now I was curious. “Why?”
“I thought the FBI used a hotel in D.C. for out of town feds, a Marriott.”
Yeah, we do. Big fan of the Marriott at Metro; stayed there a few times over the years. Chances of someone from New Zealand knowing we used the Marriott? Not high, I wouldn’t have thought. My gut said if any of them was a writer, it was her. Danielle Lane, Danni also known as Caro Clancy.
I shrugged and didn’t comment. Kurt sauntered over and nudged me.
“Introduce me, can’t leave you alone for two minutes before you start mingling and looking for drinking buddies?”
Implying I have a drinking problem. Nice touch. Might have been almost true once. A tequila bottle rolled into view. I stifled a chuckle. It wasn’t easy for a rectangular bottle to roll. Looked like it was drunk. Been there, done that, made friends with the worms.
“I suggested coffee, smartass. Ladies, this is Kurt Henderson.”
They introduced themselves while I pretended to have forgotten their names.
“Where did Ellie suggest?” Kurt asked, charming the group with his smile.
“Champps,” Susan replied. “Today was a recharge day for us, Champps sounds good.”
I noticed a few looks between the three of them. Questioning maybe? Secretive looks. My phone buzzed. I fished it out of my pocket and glanced at the screen. Mitch. I bit my lip trying to contain my smile.
“Champps it is then,” Kurt said, he homed in on Danni and fell into step with her. He was chatting. Mostly small talk. I noted she asked a lot of questions.
My mind actively sifted and sorted information. I wanted to hurry things along but that wasn’t the smart approach. The BOLO needed rescinding. Having a police officer try to pick up the women while I was with them wouldn’t help us get information. I had a feeling I’d get more from them by being friendly, than I would back at the Hoover Building in a sterile interview room.