“Hang on.” As he spoke, Ellie could hear rustling in the background. “I was leaving anyway, so I’ll stop by his office on the way down.”
Despite his carefree manner, that comment was a stark reminder that Phillips was a good agent and had worked his way literally up the chain of command to hold an office three floors from the top of the building. George was probably another three floors below that.
After hearing a large number of steps, he made a sound and then reported, “He’s not in his office and the lights are off, so I’m assuming he’s not around. You need me to track him down?”
“No.” She felt silly for putting him through that much effort for nothing. “I can put it in the file tonight. I just learned something new and jumped the gun to tell him.”
“All right.” He didn’t seem bothered by the fool’s errand. “Are you at Joe’s?”
“Yes.” Ellie looked around and wondered if Nicole was standing behind the counter, trying to figure out why she hadn’t come in yet. “Why?”
“Just curious if you were home yet and maybe if you were trying to figure out what might make a nice dinner for two, to include your neighbor,” he said.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve!” Ellie pointed out, pleased with how outraged she sounded. “Maybe I’m planning dinner for two that doesn’t include my neighbor.”
“In that case, I hope it includes me,” Joe’s voice spoke from behind her.
Ellie spun around, relieved she managed to not drop the phone from fright. “I didn’t know you were there.”
“Nicole told me you’d been standing outside for a while, so I thought I’d invite you in before you changed your mind,” Joe told her.
“I’m still here,” Phillips yelled through his phone.
“Sorry. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Ellie replied, disconnecting before he could respond.
“My cousin?” Joe asked.
Ellie nodded that it was. Joe seemed exceedingly pleased with how the call ended.
“Do you have time for a drink?” he asked, opening the door behind him.
Not one to refuse one of his specials, she followed him into the shop and drank in the familiar smell of caffeine and comfort.
Several minutes later, they were settled in Joe’s office. “We’ve made it to another weekend,” he commented, automatically preparing a drink without even asking what she wanted. When he walked over, giant mug in hand, he held on to it after Ellie wrapped her fingers around the handle, causing her to look up at him. “Let’s go out tonight.”
She paused for a moment, knowing she was going to say yes. “But how will Phillips get any dinner if I’m not there to feed him?”
Joe continued to hold on to the mug and just stared at her.
“Okay, but if he’s passed out on my doorstep when I get home, it’s going to your responsibility to explain it to Grammy.”
“Trust me… I’m willing to take that on if it happens.” He released her cup and stood back. “I’ve got to help Nicole through the evening rush, and then I can leave her to handle the night crowd and lock up.”
“Should I go home to wait?” Ellie asked, eager to put on something besides the suit Joe always saw her in.
“Enjoy your drink first,” he suggested, taking a bottle of water from the counter and setting next to her. “I’ve got a little time before it will start hopping out there.” There was a knock on the door, and Joe looked at his watch before groaning. “I guess I didn’t have as much time as I thought.”
Just as he was moving forward, the door opened and Phillips walked in.
“Don’t you have a woman of your own to hang out with?” Joe asked.
Phillips smirked and nodded slowly. “Plenty to choose from, but none of them can cook.” He walked in and sat on the love seat opposite Ellie. “Actually, I’ve got a message for Ellie—work stuff.”
Joe touched Ellie’s arm. “Feel free to talk in here. Say good-bye before you leave, and I should be able to estimate what time I can pick you up later.”
She nodded, and Joe left, closing the door behind him to provide more privacy.
“What’s going on?” Ellie asked, ready to get right to it if Phillips had something work-related to discuss.
“I tracked Little Miller down after we spoke,” he began.
“You didn’t need to do that,” Ellie interrupted. “I was a little eager, but it could have waited until I logged into the system again.”
He waved off her comment. “Gut said to do it, and I listened,” he replied, as though that were all the explanation necessary for him going off on his own.
Ellie got that. Her dad used to say his gut kept him alive longer than his training had.
“Found him at RMA. He said he was there to bring in a suspect on a cargo-theft case.”
Ellie nodded, silently agreeing that was the truth, and wondered if that approach would work and Pemberton would disclose how he’d pulled off their heists and explain why he did it.
“Said I was the second person from the Bureau to follow up with him, and he seemed irritated about it, so I asked who else had come by. He said an older agent stopped and asked if you were going to join them, and George explained you didn’t do field work but that he was going to need to follow up with you based on what he’d found in the office upstairs.”
Ellie set the coffee down, assuming she wasn’t going like what came next.
“I went up, and on the suspect’s desk, there was a picture of you, your work and home addresses, but no mention of Miller. If I had to guess, I’d say the perp saw you as the brains of the partnership and didn’t consider Miller much of a threat. Since the man wasn’t there, I couldn’t ask him.”
“Who was the first agent, and why did he know to follow George?” Ellie asked, deciding to focus on the detail in the story that seemed most out of place instead of getting worked up right away about a potential threat.
Phillips smiled, as though he was glad she asked. “George didn’t recognize him but said the badge and credentials looked right, so he showed Agent Garrison upstairs just like he had me. Apparently the agent got worked up about seeing you threatened and said he’d get to work on tracking down Pemberton and that George should make sure you were aware of this development so that you’d be more careful until the threat was over.”
“We don’t have an Agent Garrison, do we?” Ellie asked, even though she felt that she knew the answer. “And I’m just guessing his description matched that of Dr. Garrison.”
“Exactly,” Phillips answered. “I pulled it up, and there are some Garrisons in the Bureau, but they’re mostly young, and none of them are out of our office. “My mind went exactly where yours did.”
“Did you tell Phil?” Ellie asked, knowing he’d have to be notified.
“Called him on the way over.”
“Do I want to know what he said?” Ellie wondered.
Phillips grimaced slightly. “I’d rather not repeat it. Even I don’t use that many of the words on Grammy’s no-no list.”
“You guys really fear that little woman, don’t you?” Ellie teased.
“You saw the punch she can pack with a wooden spoon, but you haven’t seen her with a ruler or a metal spatula yet.”
There was silence for a moment before Ellie asked, “What did Phil want me to do?”
“Actually, he was hoping you were here,” Phillips reported. “He told me to hightail it over here and wait for instructions after he had a chance to call around.”
“So, I’m on lockdown?”
“Think of it more as you’re supposed to stay in one of your favorite places with an unlimited supply of coffee surrounded by a top-notch field agent and an Army sniper until we figure out just what this means as far as a threat to you goes.”
“You sold me at unlimited supply of coffee,” she answered, trying to sound more comfortable with the situation than she actually was.
Fortunately, Ellie and Phillips were comfortable with each other’s company, so
they were able to pass an hour relatively easily. By the time Phillips’s cell phone rang, Ellie had been sufficiently distracted enough to have not been expecting it. After answering with his name, there was a series of affirmative sounds, but he didn’t say anything that Ellie could interpret to know the status. When he returned his phone to the case at his hip, Ellie was surprised and wondered if he’d learned anything at all that would prove helpful.
“We’ve got to head back in,” he said, standing up and waiting for her to do the same.
“Why?”
“Apparently it’s too much to convey over the phone and there’s something we need to see to believe,” Phillips answered. Then he looked down before glancing back to Ellie. “You should probably tell Joe that whatever he had in mind for tonight might need to be started a little later.”
“Sometimes I think Garrison’s big plan of revenge is really just to keep me from having a single uninterrupted date.”
****
When they got to the office, Ellie followed Phillips to the first-floor intake room at the back. Despite all the questions she’d asked on the drive over, Phillips had maintained he had no idea what to expect. By the time they arrived in the hall outside one of the interrogation rooms, she felt it was a little anticlimactic to see Pemberton sitting in a chair across from Miller upstairs.
Moving over to Phil’s side, she asked, “Why is Miller doing this questioning instead of George?”
“The moment Pemberton threatened a federal agent, it went way above George’s pay grade to handle.” Then he handed her a piece of paper sealed in a clear evidence bag. “Plus, when he was dumped outside, he had this penned to him.”
The classic script was unmistakably Dr. Garrison’s.
Investigators, please allow me to make a presentation of one Mr. John Pemberton to you. According to information on his office desk, he had threatened to take out Agent Ellie Michaels, which I believe would be an action we would both agree cannot occur at this time. Therefore, I took the liberty of apprehending him and believe if you begin questioning him, you will find him most cooperative—and perhaps a little drowsy, which cannot be helped—for the next two hours. Please pass along my greetings to Miss Michaels and my hope that she accepts the gift I am making as a token of my appreciation for the work she has done on this case and my hope that she will believe when I say I do not wish any harm to come to her by any means. Respectfully, Dr. G~
“What does he mean, Pemberton will be cooperative and drowsy?” Ellie wondered, finding that to be the safest portion of the letter to concentrate on.
“Don’t know,” Phil answered, tapping his cane on the floor instead of leaning on it. “But the medical techs drew some blood with his consent, so they’re trying to process it in case he’s been given one of the wacky doctor’s strange brews. Either way, everything he says now is completely admissible because he said he understood his rights and signed a waiver to an attorney before Miller ever entered that room.”
“Is he being cooperative?” Phillips asked.
“Singing like the fat lady at the closing curtain,” Phil answered with a bit of a smile. “It doesn’t hurt that Miller’s the one in there either. He’s a son of a bitch, but he’s the kind of interrogator textbooks were written about. They’ve been at it for about thirty minutes already, and he’s admitted to hiring people to pull off the thefts, but he was present at every one to coordinate the selection of the target and the security-camera feeds. He’s even told agents where to find the contacts he used for each heist. When Miller moved on to why he did it, he said he needed to make an example of the security guy from Stop and Go. Stewart got the girl, but he wanted her to see that she gave up someone smarter, more successful, and better able to control everything around him. I guess Stop and Go was ready to can Stewart over this. The loss alone was bad press, plus he hadn’t been able to find any proof of what had happened, and then the company was losing money having to pay out claims from the truckers because of some good-will policy he put in place. He’d created the perfect crime, except that you wouldn’t leave him alone. He tried cooperating, but he got the impression that you’d made him, and even though he didn’t think you knew about his wife and Stewart, he was going to have you threatened to back off.”
Ellie couldn’t help but smile. Pemberton thought he’d kept things so clean and that the FBI wouldn’t be able to figure out his wife left him for the security director at Stop and Go, but his great master plan was foiled by gossip collected from her mother over drinks. It was almost worth calling Janice other than at the weekly mark to let her know.
“So, I’m good to go?” Ellie asked, not seeing what else she could contribute, given that Pemberton was answering every question Miller asked.
Phil seemed surprised by her question. “You don’t have to stay. We’re getting a warrant based on the case you’d already built against him to search his office, which is where the rest of the proof is according to his answers tonight. By not tying it to his potentially drug-induced confession, it should keep the evidence there admissible too. The case is tight.”
“Can you give me a lift?” Ellie asked, looking at her neighbor.
“You sure you don’t want to stay?” he asked, equally surprised by her desire to leave.
She glanced at the one-way window into the room where Miller was speaking in a calm and controlled voice. Pemberton looked exhausted and was literally pulling on his hair when he started talking. Ellie had no idea how aware he was, but his physical condition gave the appearance that his brain knew he shouldn’t answer the question but his mouth was doing it anyway. She almost felt sorry for him, because she’d once been the victim of one of Garrison’s drug cocktails, and she knew he was capable of blending things together to do whatever he wanted them to do.
“I’m sure,” she finally answered, not needing to see any more to believe this case was closed. If Miller was involved, Ellie was confident he’d keep it aboveboard and by the book to give his nephew a perfect record since going into the field. “There’s nothing for me to add, and I think I may have a date, which it appears it’s safe for me to go on, given the note.”
“You can’t trust a crazy man,” Phil nearly yelled.
“True, but my gut says in this case, it’s okay. That won’t always be true, but for now, I think it’s all right.”
“Guts?” Phil questioned.
“You know… Intuition,” Philips added, as though he was suddenly interested in the conversation. “That perfect place where your training and professional assessment combine to give you a course of action that is ideal under the circumstances.”
“That kind of song and dance might work upstairs, but don’t bullshit me, son,” Phil warned. Then he looked at Ellie and nodded. “Keep one eye open, and don’t completely depend on your detail to keep you safe.”
“I promise,” she answered, turning to leave.
Phillips leaned down to softly whisper, “I think he likes you a lot better than me.”
Ellie laughed. “I think the list of people who feel that way is pretty long.”
Chapter 20
“So he drugged the suspect, dumped him at the FBI, and then drove off, basically leaving him like a present for you?” Joe summed up.
“Looks like it,” Ellie agreed. “Plus, based on the note, he is very committed to my safety, so as strange as it sounds, I think it’s okay for us to try going out tonight.”
“You’ve still got a detail, though, right?” Joe didn’t seem as convinced about her safety as Ellie was. When she said she was still covered, he seemed dramatically more relaxed. “Then how about I cook dinner for you at my place?”
“Wow, that’s a switch. I’m not used to a man from the Phillips family cooking for me.”
“Don’t judge all of us by Garrett’s standards,” Joe warned.
They walked out of Mocha Joe’s and over to his truck. Joe opened the door for her and then lifted her into the truck, seemingly effortlessly.
“What?” he questioned when she smiled at her internal thoughts.
“I’ve got to weigh considerably more than your average cup of coffee, and you don’t seem to have a problem hoisting me up here.”
He looked down, as though sizing her up. “You’re more on par with a couple of sacks of beans.” Wisely, after speaking, he jumped back out of the way before Ellie could decide if she was offended at being compared to the fifty-pound sacks.
“I’m not sure I can compete with the kind of food you cook, but I can handle something simple as long as you keep the expectations realistic,” Joe warned when they pulled into his short driveway.
A black sedan parked at the curb one house down from Joe’s place. Ellie noticed he waited for the car to turn off before he got out and walked around to help her down from the raised cab of his truck. Joe followed Ellie’s eyes to glance back at the detail assigned to her security and then looked back at her.
“I’m kind of high-maintenance, aren’t I?”
Joe laughed and shook his head before taking her hand and lacing their fingers. “You couldn’t be further from the truth.” Then he glanced back at the car with two agents assigned to stay there for the night. “If anything, you’re easy to please and come with some wonderful perks, including security to watch my house. It’s getting close to Halloween, and I’d hate to have someone steal my pumpkin.”
As they stepped in, Ellie noticed a single orange pumpkin on the porch. The light in the hall came on automatically as they entered.
“My mom got the decoration for the outside because she was convinced someone would egg my house for not putting up anything festive.”
Ellie relaxed, able to relate to an overbearing mother easily. Not able to be in the kitchen without being helpful, she found herself volunteering to chop veggies for a salad, which Joe planned to top with some salmon he was poaching on the stove.
“This is a pretty healthy dinner,” she commented, unable to picture Phillips agreeing to eat something like this, especially after Joe began squeezing a lemon and adding olive oil and balsamic vinegar to make a light dressing.
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