snakebyte: book 5.0 in the Byte Series (The _byte series)

by Cat Connor

  “Where’s the phone now?”

  “On the ground, I have the speaker on. I kept doing CPR until Park Rangers found us.”

  I knew how long that was. The system logged the call at eleven fifteen, and the first Ranger arrived on scene at midday. Three quarters of an hour, that was a long time to be doing chest compressions all alone. It’s a wonder his arms didn’t give out. I briefly wondered if he hummed ‘Staying Alive’ or ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ to keep his compressions on track. Kurt preferred ‘Another One Bites the Dust,’ because often that was the outcome.

  “Then?”

  “The Ranger took over the chest compressions. He kept going until paramedics arrived and …”

  “And it was obvious it wasn’t going to bring her back?”

  “Yeah, they told me her trachea was crushed. There wasn’t anything I could’ve done.” He looked up at me. “They’re wrong. I could’ve stayed with her.”

  “Thinking like that, using hindsight, and second guessing yourself are not helpful things to be doing now,” I said. “We will do everything in our power to find the person responsible.” The missing cell phone popped up in my mind. I handed Mr. Creswell my notebook and my pen. “Can you write down Jennifer’s cell phone number for me please?”

  He did as I asked and handed it back to me.

  “Am I allowed to go?”

  “Sure, I’ll have Sam here take you over to your car and one of my agents will stay in contact. She can help you with negotiating red tape and so forth, getting personal effects back; she’ll also let you know how the investigation is going.”

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Special Agent Sandra Sinclair.”

  Sam looked up then pointed over to our car. Another black explorer pulled up alongside. “Sandra’s arrived.” His voice carried a new note.

  I struggled to identify it then settled on interest. He was interested in Sandra. I filed the information away for later. Might be that Sandra was the mystery woman I’d heard about from Kurt. Lee and Tara. Sam and Sandra. Yep, Sandra was keeping Sam up.

  “Excellent. If you could take Mr. Creswell over to meet with Sandra I will go see the Rangers Lee wants me to talk to.”

  I shook Creswell’s hand and promised to do my best. As an afterthought, I gave him my card. I didn’t think he had anything to do with his fiancée’s death. There was a chance he’d think of something else later, and I’d sooner he called me direct than waste precious time by having to go through Sandra. She was great. It wasn’t an intention of mine to circumvent anything, simply to remain a consistent contact for our only witness.

  Anyway, she might be otherwise engaged. Lord knows I wouldn’t want to interfere with Sam’s social life. I stopped the thoughts before a smile threatened my face.

  I took a few seconds and added Jennifer Blanchard’s cell phone number to my phone directory. My intention was to discover whether missing cell phones were part of each strangling and get those numbers. People are sometimes stupid. Stupid enough to continue using the phones.

  Chapter Three

  Only In My Dreams

  A Grange song blared from my phone as it vibrated across the coffee table. I didn’t need to check the display. I knew who it was: I helped write the lyrics to the song and my daughter set it as the ringtone for Rowan Grange. Guess she never expected there would come a time when I wouldn’t be so pleased to hear the song. I never expected her life would end so young. Surprises all round.

  “Ellie, got plans?” Rowan’s New Jersey accent punctuated his speech by adding deep warmth to the tone of his voice. Once upon a time, that same warmth spread through my body every time I heard his voice. Now I didn’t know what I felt, maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was a hangover.

  “I do. I’m heading over to Rock Creek Park to check out the last crime scene.” And the other three.

  “You’re tied up all day?” Disappointment resounded in his voice.

  “I’m working Rowan.”

  “It’s a beautiful day …” I sensed something coming. “We could have a picnic?”

  A grimace and a cringe vied for first place on my lips. “What is it you want?”

  “To see you.”

  “I’m working here.”

  “You know what they say … all work and no play ... Give me half an hour Ellie, just half an hour.”

  Half an hour.

  “I’m working.”

  “Please.”

  “Why?”

  “We have things to talk about.” He paused. “You can’t hide forever.”

  “I’m not hiding. I’m working.”

  “Okay, now you’re working but for weeks you’ve been hiding.”

  No, for weeks I’ve been living in a tequila buzz and have grown fond of the worms at the bottom on the bottle. Fond enough that I named two and kept them in glass. Jimmy and Stu, my little wormy friends, were still on the counter in the glass.

  “What do you want?”

  “We have Butterfly Foundation business.”

  “I’m taking a break from the Foundation. Talk to my father.” My finger hovered over the disconnect icon on the screen. The fun parts of being Rowan Grange’s girlfriend swirled around me. My resolve waned. His persistence paid off. “Half an hour, as long as you don’t mind talking while I’m working. Lee will be with me.”

  Sam and Kurt were knee deep in the case files and looking for anything that suggested a bird present at any of the earlier crime scenes. Sam was even re-interviewing the rangers and anyone else present in the park on the days of the killings. They drew the short straws. We actually did draw straws when it came to the more tedious jobs. Looking for bird evidence qualified as one of the least exciting things going at that moment.

  “Where will I meet you?”

  “At the park, that would be easiest.” I gave him directions and a few ideas for lunch. If he’s going to come and talk to me, he’d best bring lunch. Once I’d escaped from Rowan’s phone call I called Lee and let him know when to pick me up and that Rowan was bringing us lunch.

  He hid his surprise quite well.

  A few months ago, I would’ve flat out said no to allowing him meet me in the vicinity of a crime scene. No matter whether anything gruesome could or would be lurking. His life was not littered with Unsubs, victims, violent crime, and death. Mine was. Used to be that I wanted his life to stay that way and yet I was in it. I uncovered an oxymoron. Me the harbinger of death was hanging out with an innocent. I learned when Carla died that I sucked at protecting those I loved so I gave up trying. My life is what it is, if he wants to see me for any reason he can deal with it.

  And Lee would be there.

  I brushed my hair, grabbed a jacket, clipped my holster to my belt, and checked my cell phone. No messages, no voice mail, and zero unanswered calls. That was good and yet odd. I knew it was probably a prelude to absolute mayhem but was happy to revel in the silence and wait.

  Today’s an okay day to be me. I stared into the mirror in the hallway. Dark blue eyes swallowed life.

  “Today is an okay day to be me,” I whispered at my reflection. I didn’t look convinced.

  I set the alarm and locked the front door behind me. While I waited for Lee, I walked down the path and stood at the corner of the house looking out into the backyard. There were so many more trees than there used to be. I could barely see the security fencing that circled my property through it. I must’ve lost nearly one third of the garden and grass to the overgrown shrubs and wooded thicket I’d planted to remind me of our home in Oakton. At this rate, it wouldn’t be long until my house was in the woods. A voice cheered in my head. Way to go green, Ellie.

  I sighed.

  One day the Dogwoods will take over like Triffids. My brain pulled out sequences of the 1962 movie, The Day of the Triffids, in which carnivorous plants attacked the population. It didn’t matter that they looked nothing like the straggly Dogwoods planted in front of the security fencing. Their branches flapped wildly as the
trees loomed ever closer. Tendrils spiraled toward the house.

  A bird dove from the sky and swooped across the yard. I jumped. Where was Bill Masen to save us from the Triffids growing in my backyard?

  Never mind the Triffids, the large bird whirled in the sky throwing up another horror movie. Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds seemed more threatening than plants.

  A car horn honked from the road. The large gates swung open and Lee pulled into the driveway. He didn’t look anything like Howard Keel who saved the planet in The Day of the Triffids, nor did he look like Rod Taylor who saved Tippi Hedren in The Birds. I smiled at Lee and waved. Nothing like them at all. But he sure looked like the hero type and he would have to do.

  I climbed into the car. “Okay?” Lee asked, before taking the road toward Washington DC.

  “Sure.” I watched traffic for ten minutes then decided to tell Lee about a phone call I’d received from my ex-brother-in-law the day before. It’d taken me a while to process the call. Eddie ringing me at all didn’t seem right. I figured it was a tequila-induced hallucination. It was still there when I sobered up. His name was in the recent call log on my phone.

  “Did I tell you about Eddie’s latest madness?”

  Lee shook his head. “Is it good? By good I mean, of high entertainment value for us?”

  “Only for him. He called me the other morning to tell me he saw Mac in DC.”

  Lee’s eyes creased, a smile caught hold. “I see,” he said exhibiting great control. I heard the shake in his voice. “What was Mac doing?”

  “No idea.”

  Floating about, spooking people maybe.

  “Eddie didn’t elaborate?”

  “I know! Astounding isn’t it?”

  Eddie was the undisputed king of hyperbole. I was stunned that he hadn’t concocted some bullshit story surrounding his sighting of Mac.

  “You want me to break his nose again?”

  I smiled at the recollection of the shrieking from Eddie when Lee punched him in the nose at a family dinner about a year after Mac’s death.

  Good times.

  He should’ve hit him harder.

  “Nah. Tempted to get hold of our favorite spook and ask him to do a bit more terrorizing of Eddie.” Of course it could have been the other ghostly brother, Jay, who was a contractor in Manassas. Eddie had no clue what a tangled web his family was.

  Lee’s shoulder shook with amusement.

  “You going too?”

  “No. I can’t ask him to compromise himself like that, however much fun it would be to watch Eddie’s head implode.”

  There was so much Eddie would never know. One of those things was whom he thought he saw. He didn’t see Mac. He saw Chad or Jay. It’s a long story about deceit and families. The story of Chad rivaled any plot in Dallas, or indeed Days of Our Lives, and involved the CIA. Chad was a spook, just not the sort Eddie thought.

  We slowly drove into the car park where Rowan was to meet us. I scanned for Rowan’s car. It took a few minutes before it occurred to me that I didn’t know what he was driving. I didn’t ask him when he called, but assumed he was probably down on business. He didn’t sound like he was in New York. Not that I could qualify that thought. I had no clue what New York would sound like over the phone. He could’ve easily been in New York or New Jersey or Timbuktu for that matter. He could’ve been in DC all week for all I knew.

  “Problem?”

  “Not sure what Rowan’s driving.”

  We passed around fifteen cars. Several groups of people were heading toward park trails, wearing daypacks, carrying water bottles and with baseball caps wedged on their heads.

  I didn’t see anyone who looked like Rowan. I pointed across the parking lot. “Park over there, he’ll find us.”

  Lee backed into a parking space so we had a better view of the park comings and goings. I registered surprise as he reached out and picked up my left hand.

  I pulled my hand away. “What are you doing?”

  “Jumpy.” He smiled. “You’ve got a cut on your hand.”

  I inspected my hand, nothing on the back. I turned my hand over and saw what he meant.

  “So I do.” An inch long cut on my palm, it was healing.

  “How’d you get it?”

  “I don’t know. Glass maybe.”

  “Show me your arms.”

  Lee twisted in his seat to see me properly.

  “Why?”

  A slow dawning occurred when I saw concern etched into his face.

  “I’m not a cutter,” I said, pulling my sleeves up. “See.”

  My old battle scars were clearly visible. There was nothing fresh.

  “That’s not what I thought,” Lee said. “Your palm looks like a defensive wound … I was worried.”

  I slumped back into my seat and pulled my sleeves back down. I pored over tequila memories trying to determine if I’d been in a fight. There was nothing in the haze that suggested a fight but also nothing that didn’t. I couldn’t remember how I cut my hand.

  “I don’t know how it happened, Lee. I can’t remember a lot of the last month.”

  “You don’t have any other healing wounds?”

  “Only old physical scars and fresh emotional ones.”

  “You and Rowan okay?”

  I shrugged. “Not really.” I scanned the parking lot in front of us. “He’s trying to make it okay.”

  At least I could see that.

  But we weren’t okay. Not now.

  It was my fault. Doors and windows slammed shut at an alarming rate. I didn’t know how to stop them. Every time it looked like there was a way out, a door closed. There seemed no way to dissipate the anger inside or the pain. Every time I saw Rowan, he reminded me of the day Carla died. It wasn’t his intention. He rarely even said her name.

  What I couldn’t figure out was why I didn’t react the same way to Lee, Sam, or Kurt.

  I heard a rap on my window. Turning my head I found Rowan was looking at me, grinning. He pulled the car door open.

  “Got lunch,” Rowan said by way of a greeting. I climbed out and stretched, hoping that act alone would release the anger into the atmosphere and somehow make things all right again. I noted Rowan was wearing an olive green daypack over a light blue three-quarter sleeved baseball tee shirt and blue jeans with black hiking boots. A navy blue baseball cap sat on his head and aviator sunglasses hid his eyes. The pack looked full. He swooped in and kissed me quickly. The peak of his cap bumped my head. Lee made the customary barfing noises as he locked the car.

  We walked quietly to the first of the areas I wanted to see again. Focusing on why we were there helped me feel normal. I needed to view the areas from every possible angle without the presence of bodies, police officers, and general mayhem. It wasn’t an easy walk to the place where the first two victims were discovered. What I found strange was that the Unsub killed in the same place twice, he must’ve felt comfortable there. Made me wonder why he changed sites for the subsequent kills.

  The entire time we walked, I kept a look out for large black birds. Noises in the bush and woods along the trail spooked me. I had a feeling that if a seagull swooped from anywhere I’d probably scream. It was an urge that grew with every swish of wings above me.

  Voices whispered, they could be internal or maybe it was the trees whispering in the breeze.

  Rowan and Lee were talking about something as they walked behind me. Their voices broke into my thoughts at seemingly random intervals, causing more confusion against the woody backdrop and strange forest noises.

  “This is it,” I said, turning back to the guys behind me. “You two be the hikers. They were found to the east of this clearing.”

  “Okay,” they replied. The men obliged by walking over to the eastern edge.

  “Try to look like young women.” I suggested helpfully while looking at Lee standing next to Rowan. “I don’t think either victim was over five feet four.”

  “Then we have a problem,” Lee rep
lied. “I’m six-six and Rowan here is just over six. We don’t do five-four.”

  A chuckle slipped from my mouth. “Do your best.”

  That could’ve gone horribly wrong. The part of me that retained some smartassedness was tempted to spout, “One of you used to do five-nine that’s close enough.” Inappropriate? You betcha.

  I pulled my camera from my jacket pocket and began taking pictures. The farther away I moved the harder it was to see them. Trees, rocks, rises in the natural landscape, all got in the way. No matter what direction or angle I approached from, Rowan and Lee were hidden and if I couldn’t see them no one would’ve been able to see anyone smaller.

  The Unsub could not have seen anyone in the clearing, unless he followed the women in from the parking area. Or paralleled them on the trail somehow. I scanned for signs of bird life. Photographed some feathers lying off to the side, under a tree and not near the trail. I picked up several black feathers and placed them into a Ziploc baggie; with my pen I wrote the date, time, and location. I folded the bag carefully around the contents and pushed it into my back pocket.

  It took perseverance to peer through the trees, bushes, and ferns to see anything of Lee or Rowan at all. After wandering the area and gazing through any lighter areas of wood, I was quite sure the hikers weren’t spotted by chance. They found the first body next to a picnic basket. Food was missing, apparently not eaten by the victim (according to her stomach contents she didn’t have time to eat her lunch) but something or someone ate it. Containers were open, the food gone. Crumbs and such scattered all over the picnic rug by the body. I walked around the immediate area again.

  The Unsub followed and killed her before she had a chance to eat lunch, then what? Sat down and picnicked with the dead body?

  Yuck!

  A twig snapped behind me. I spun around but couldn’t see anyone. I waited, frozen and listening. Another twig, then scuffling noises. Lazy footsteps or tired footsteps? An animal?

  Lee called out. I let out the breath I’d been holding.

  “Over here,” I replied, hoping I didn’t sound as spooked as I felt.