Watch Your Back

by Karen Rose

  ‘Safety-conscious and cocky as hell,’ Hyatt murmured as the man looked straight up into the camera and gave two gloved thumbs up. ‘Sonofabitch.’

  ‘He didn’t even try to turn the alarms off. He just wanted the sirens silenced.’ Clay changed cameras, following the man through his house, gritting his teeth at the path of destruction he left in his wake. He dumped desk drawers and closet contents, knifed up mattresses, yanked pictures off the walls, breaking the glass and leaving photos strewn. In his bedroom closet, the man easily found Clay’s firebox. He tucked it under his arm and kept searching. ‘Shit,’ Clay hissed.

  ‘What was in it?’ Joseph asked.

  ‘Nothing to tell him where Stevie and Cordelia are hiding.’ Clay blew out a breath, tamping his temper. ‘It’s my baseball card collection from when I was a kid. Which is wrong to get angry about, considering he’s about to kill two cops.’ He hissed another breath when the guy approached the model boat he’d built with his grandfather St James eons ago. ‘Don’t do it. Don’t—’ The guy reduced the model to a pile of splintered balsa. ‘Goddammit.’

  Joseph briefly squeezed his shoulder.

  Clay’s fists clenched at his sides when the man picked up a ceramic vase on his nightstand. He wanted to close his eyes, dreading what was probably coming. He flinched when the vase hit the floor and broke into dozens of pieces. Dammit.

  A warm body moved close to Clay and he didn’t have to look to know who it was. He’d know her scent anywhere. ‘I’m sorry,’ Stevie whispered. ‘Who made the vase?’

  ‘My mom. Right before she died.’

  Stevie exhaled. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  He wondered what she was sorry for, but didn’t ask. Didn’t trust his voice. The bastard was crouching next to the broken pottery, flicking the pieces with his finger. He picked a few items from the rubble and held them up to the light coming through the window.

  Impotent rage rushed through Clay as he watched the man toss his mother’s watch and ring into his toolbox without care.

  ‘You didn’t have them in your safe?’ Brodie asked, sadly.

  ‘It was a twenty-dollar Timex. The ring I gave her when I was a boy. They’re worth nothing, really.’ And yet, everything. Goddamn that cocksucker. If I ever get my hands on you . . .

  The intruder checked his watch and peeked out Clay’s bedroom window at the street. Shrugging, the guy left the bedroom and went to the kitchen where he proceeded to empty every canister in the garbage. He rifled through cookbooks, leaving them on the floor. Then he snatched the picture Cordelia had drawn with crayon from Clay’s refrigerator door.

  Don’t do it. Don’t you even touch it. But the guy was, turning the paper over, examining it closely. His shoulders moved as if he laughed. Carefully he ripped the paper, then reaffixed it to the fridge with more magnets.

  ‘What is it?’ Hyatt asked.

  Brodie patted Clay’s arm. ‘I’ll get it.’ She came back a few seconds later, as the man was rifling through Clay’s coat closet, the very one that held his surveillance equipment. He crouched, checking for a panel, coming perilously close to finding it.

  ‘It’s a threat,’ Brodie said.

  ‘To who?’ Stevie asked.

  Clay looked at the two halves of the drawing Brodie held. ‘To you, Stevie.’

  Stevie gasped. ‘That’s . . . me. And . . .’ She bent closer. ‘And you?’

  Cordelia had drawn her mother in a hospital bed and Clay standing next to the bed, a halo over his head. One knew the participating players because Cordelia had been considerate enough to write their names with bold arrows pointing to the people who were basically stick figures.

  ‘Cordelia made it for me when you were in the hospital,’ Clay said gruffly. At least it was salvageable, once he got it back from BPD’s evidence room. If he ever did.

  Mr Cocksucker had torn the page, neatly severing Stevie’s head from her shoulders.

  Clay forced his mind back to the cameras. The man was in the basement but there was nothing for him to destroy down there. Within a minute, he was back upstairs and leaving – this time through the garage. The front facing exterior camera showed him tossing Clay’s firebox on the passenger seat, getting in, and driving away.

  His whole ‘visit’ had lasted no more than seven minutes.

  ‘Okay,’ Joseph said slowly. ‘He just left? I mean, just like that?’

  ‘He’s gotta come back,’ Stevie said. ‘Hollinsworth and Locklear didn’t kill themselves.’

  Clay fast-forwarded the video, slowing when a sand-colored Chevy Tahoe stopped on the curb. A different man got out, also dressed in workman’s coveralls. This one had a backpack slung over one shoulder. He, too, wore a ball cap pulled low over his face.

  Mr Backpack walked up to Clay’s house, knocked on the front door. When there was no answer, he jogged around to the side, where he opened the door the first guy had left unlocked.

  ‘What the hell?’ Clay muttered.

  Mr Backpack waltzed in through the laundry room, taking a moment to do a turn, taking the place in. He pulled the brim of the ball cap down to cover his face while he reached under the cap to tug a ski mask over his face, the movement fluid. Like he’d done it many times before.

  Beside him, Stevie flinched.

  ‘What?’ Clay asked and she shrugged fitfully.

  ‘It’s just . . . There’s something about that guy creeps me out.’

  Mr Backpack followed the same path Cocksucker had, checking through the debris. In Clay’s bedroom, the man sifted through the photos that Cocksucker had left on the floor, brushed off the glass, and put them in his pack.

  ‘Sonofabitch,’ Clay bit out.

  ‘He took your photos,’ Brodie said. ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Other than the pictures of my mother, I don’t even really remember all the ones I had out. They become kind of background noise.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Stevie murmured again. ‘They’re irreplaceable.’

  ‘Not really. I’ve got the photos scanned to a flashdrive which is stored in my safe deposit box, along with anything else that he might have actually been interested in.’

  ‘Well, what do you know about that?’ Hyatt murmured. ‘Look.’

  The man had paused, pulling a shadowbox-style frame from the debris. ‘My medals,’ Clay said. ‘My mother had them framed for me, years ago.’

  Then the guy stunned him by carefully setting the frame against the dresser. ‘We found them there,’ Brodie said. ‘I wouldn’t have even considered that one of these guys would do that.’

  ‘Most definitely former military,’ Clay said. ‘The way he was careful with the medals? This guy saw combat. He may have even been wounded.’

  ‘Why?’ Stevie asked, leaning closer to the TV, trying to see the medals up close.

  ‘One’s a Purple Heart,’ Hyatt said. ‘The other’s a Silver Star.’

  ‘Purple Heart is for wounded in the line of duty,’ Stevie said. ‘The Silver Star for valor.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Clay said, suddenly uncomfortable.

  Mr Backpack was jogging down the hall, checking the kitchen. Then he stopped. Cocked his head as if listening for something.

  ‘It’s twelve twenty-four,’ Hyatt said, dread in his voice.

  On the video, Mr Backpack stood at the side of the sliding glass door, waiting for the cop who came in through the slider. Twist.

  A few seconds later the second cop came in through the garage. Twist.

  Everyone gathered around the TV cringed, silently watching.

  Backpack unsheathed a knife, slit the two cops’ throats, took their radios, then waltzed back out through the garage. Clay switched the camera to street view and they watched him get in the Chevy Tahoe and drive away.

  ‘Pause it,’ Joseph commanded. ‘Can you catch his back plate?’

  Clay had already frozen the frame, and, heart suddenly racing, tapped Brodie’s keyboard to zoom in. ‘How’s that?’ he asked with satisfaction. Unlike the fron
t plate, the number on the back was as clear as day.

  ‘Perfect,’ Joseph said grimly. He stepped away from the group to call it in.

  Clay hit ‘play’ again, watching as the Tahoe drove away. And then something unexpected happened. ‘Joseph.’ Clay motioned him back over to the TV. ‘Look at this.’

  Joseph frowned. ‘What the hell?’

  The black Toyota Sequoia was back in the picture – literally. The SUV had come from the opposite direction, almost as if it had been waiting. Mr Cocksucker ran around Clay’s house, up the stairs to the deck. He skidded to a halt outside the sliding glass doors, upset, but still enough in control that he kept his head down, his face hidden.

  ‘He was waiting for something, but not for this,’ Stevie said.

  Clay frowned. ‘He was waiting for you, Stevie. That’s why he didn’t even try to bypass the alarm. He knew the alarm would draw the cops, me, and by extension, you. He probably planned to take a shot at you when you walked from the curb to the front door.’

  ‘God,’ Stevie whispered. Then her chin came up, her jaw squared. ‘But he’s not waiting for me any more now. I wonder where he went.’

  Mr Cocksucker had hightailed it to the black Sequoia, which he drove away quickly.

  Clay forced himself to step away from her, turning his attention to Brodie and Hyatt. ‘Do you need me to do a walk-through? Figure out what’s missing?’

  Hyatt nodded. ‘Go with Agent Brodie. I need to talk to Detective Mazzetti alone.’

  Sunday, March 16, 1.25 P.M.

  Robinette had pulled the Tahoe into a parking lot a half block away from Maynard’s office. There was a cruiser parked in front of the office, a small building that had the look of a bank. It would make sense that a PI would lease an old bank for his place of business. If the building had once been a bank, it would likely have walls of reinforced steel and a vault where the records were kept. No way he was breaking into there.

  Maynard did indeed lease it. Robinette had found that much in the property records when he’d first become aware of Maynard’s existence – back in December when the guy had saved Mazzetti’s life on the courtroom steps.

  He started his engine, then froze. A black Toyota Sequoia was driving by, Westmoreland at the wheel. The SUV pulled into a business a half block from Maynard’s in the other direction.

  Robinette slid down in his seat, hoping Westmoreland hadn’t seen him through the window. His cell phone rang and he contorted himself to get it out of his pocket. It was Westmoreland. How nice of him to call. Finally.

  ‘You were supposed to call me hours ago. Or was I not clear on my expectations when I said I wanted a report every hour?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Robbie. I got tied up, getting into Maynard’s house. It took me longer than I expected. He had layers of alarms.’

  ‘How did you bypass them?’

  ‘I didn’t. I figured I had a few minutes to get in and out. I checked every room looking for deeds, a safe deposit box key, a computer, hell, even an old-fashioned address book. The only thing I took away was an old firebox that a three-year-old could’ve broken into.’

  Robinette thought of his own ‘old-fashioned’ address book. Technology was good, but sometimes it was nice to know you had the only copy of something. That it couldn’t be downloaded, hacked, or copied.

  ‘What did you find inside the fire box?’

  ‘His baseball card collection. He’s got a Cal Ripkin, Jr, rookie card, which, while very impressive, tells us nothing about where he might be hiding Mazzetti.’

  ‘Where are you?’ Robinette asked him, because not asking would have seemed suspicious.

  ‘Sitting in a parking lot about three hundred yards from Maynard’s office. There’s a cruiser parked in front. I imagine the alarm at the house made Maynard send the cops out here to check. I’ve gotta be honest with you, Robbie. Maynard’s office looks pretty damn well-protected.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘It looks like it might have been a bank, back in the day. I could break in, but it would take a while. I don’t want to attempt it with cops sitting out front.’

  ‘Recommendations?’ He couldn’t wait to hear what Westmoreland had to say.

  ‘We hack into his server and check his emails, documents, maybe the bills he’s paid. If he’s paying the electric bill on a place other than his house, that could be where Mazzetti is hiding.’

  That actually made sense, making Robinette feel slightly paranoid for lumping Westmoreland in with Fletcher and Henderson. ‘Can you do that? Hack into his server?’

  ‘Given enough time, yes. And if I can’t get through, he’s got three employees who’ll know access information. There’s Paige Holden, Alec Vaughn – he’s the kid who was with him yesterday, and Alyssa Moore. Alyssa is the secretary. She’d know more about the office finances and computer access passwords than the other two. I’d start with her, make her talk.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan. Will you come back here to the office?’

  ‘I can. Or I can work from home or even a coffee shop. Might be better for me not to work from the office. If Maynard’s got any traps set on his server, he might be able to track my IP address back to my location. I don’t want to lead him back to you.’

  ‘That would suck,’ Robinette agreed. ‘Fine. Try to hack in. In the meantime, I want a trace on Mazzetti’s credit cards. If she leaves town, I want to know about it.’

  ‘Done. I’ll keep you up to speed.’

  ‘One more thing.’ Robinette ensured his voice sounded only mildly curious, holding none of his residual concern about Westmoreland’s loyalty. ‘I had to ask you where you were because the vehicle you took from the fleet no longer shows up on my tracking software.’

  A short, pregnant pause. ‘You’re checking up on me, too, Robbie?’

  ‘Of course. A, I check up on everyone. B, you didn’t call when you were supposed to. Henderson’s still out there and – as you brought up – presents a potential danger to all of us. I needed to be certain you were unharmed.’ And uncompromised.

  ‘Okay,’ Westmoreland said grudgingly. ‘I can accept that, because that’s why I disabled the tracker. Henderson has the passwords to the system, too. I didn’t want to be sneaked up on, especially while I was breaking into Maynard’s house. Think about what would have happened had Henderson found me there and popped me off. The cops would have found my body and where would that have led them back to?’

  ‘Me,’ Robinette said grimly. ‘I should have changed those passwords already. You should have reminded me.’

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t think about it until this afternoon.’

  ‘I’ll change the passwords now. Call me when you get into Maynard’s server.’

  Robinette waited until Westmoreland had pulled out of his lot and driven away before sitting up straight. Of all of his team, Wes was the best with computers. Hacking into Maynard’s office server seemed like a long shot, but if any of them could do it, Wes could.

  Although Westmoreland’s idea made sense, Robinette had been surprised that he hadn’t suggested lying in wait at Maynard’s house and office until he showed up. The cops were bound to call Maynard, especially now that there were two dead bodies on the PI’s living room carpet.

  But Wes hadn’t known about the bodies. Let him fool with the computers. You wait for Maynard. Eventually he’d return to Mazzetti and when he did, Robinette would follow him.

  Law enforcement would probably have swarmed by now. That ‘going to lunch’ report he’d made to Dispatch using the dead cop’s radio had only bought him enough time to get away.

  Maynard’s neighborhood was sparsely populated – lots of acreage to each house. It meant that no one had likely seen him before, but also meant that he’d stick out like a sore thumb if he drove up to the house. It would be safer to wait at the end of Maynard’s street. He’d see everyone coming and going and he might just get lucky.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Baltimore, Maryland, Sunday, March 16, 1
.45 P.M.

  Stevie kept her eyes on the two dead cops. Because of me. They were dead. The female officer who’d stood in for her last night was also dead. Two innocents in the restaurant, dead.

  Clay’s home destroyed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured, but Hyatt shook his head.

  ‘This is not your fault. The undercover officer killed last night was not your fault. She knew the risk she was taking. Do you understand me? Believe me? Stevie, do you even hear me?’

  She nodded, clinging to his words as her gaze clung to Clay’s wide back. ‘I hear you. I understand you. I . . .’ She couldn’t say she believed him. ‘I needed to hear that.’

  He frowned, following the direction of her stare. ‘Maynard’s telling you differently?’

  She laughed hollowly. ‘No. But he’s not exactly unbiased when it comes to me.’ At least he hadn’t been. He hadn’t looked at her once since they’d walked into his house.

  And can you blame him? You broke his heart – and now all this? That stricken look he’d worn when that bastard broke his mother’s vase . . . And that drawing from Cordelia. She’d heard about it from Izzy, knew Cordelia had made it for him. Knew her daughter considered the man a cross between a guardian angel and Captain America, but . . .

  He’d kept it. On his refrigerator. And he’d growled low in his throat when the bastard had touched it. She didn’t think he was even aware he’d made the sound.

  He was a truly good man. And you’ve thrown him away how many times now? Somehow she’d known he’d come back all the other times. But no more. She’d seen the resignation in his eyes when he’d pushed himself off her and left her in that bed alone.

  I’m just a foolish man who wanted something so much that he heard what he wanted to hear.

  God. She wanted to scream. To yank out her hair and cry.

  ‘JD called me,’ Hyatt said quietly, ‘to tell me that Scott Culp from IA might have leaked the safe house location to Rossi.’