Flashbyte (Byte Series - Ellie Conway Book 4)

by Cat Connor

  “He’s linked to something else,” I said. “There is another reason he was here.” I leaned against the hood of Lee’s car and thought about the name.

  “There is another case number attached to this file; it’s classified,” Lee said. “I can get Caine to open it for me.”

  Kurt stopped him. “Let Ellie bring it back. If that case has something to do with Saville and the missing kid, then she should be able to recall details. We’ll contact Caine later if we need to and then you can verify what she remembers.”

  I didn’t even care that Kurt was talking about me like I wasn’t there. I could see the red Corvette and a fat troll of a man, but no one else could. On some level, the whole past coming back thing freaked me out.

  A smattering of honesty fell from my lips, “Kurt. This is getting worse. It’s like I’m living in two worlds. This one where I can see you and Lee, and I know there isn’t a red Corvette parked on the street here.” I was talking too fast. “And another, back in time, when Holly worked here and Mac and I were still net buddies.”

  He was looking at me as if I had sprouted horns. It was conceivable that my head would spin and green vomit would spray across the street. Either I was possessed or insane. Neither option thrilled me. Kurt’s hand took my arm.

  I felt his fingers close around my upper arm, therefore I was still real.

  “This could be what needs to happen. Maybe your mind is going back to fill in the gaps from where it felt most comfortable.”

  I grinned. “Do I look like a rose garden?”

  “You want an answer?”

  “No, but stop piling on the shit – you’ll bury me.” I realized then I was still breathing, and I felt better. Like maybe it would work out. No contradictory comment from Mac’s ghost followed. “Promise you’ll bring me back if the past tries to keep me?”

  “Now that’s a promise I will keep,” Kurt said with his hand on his heart. “I promise I will bring you back.”

  There was no way for me to figure out how he would accomplish that; I just had to trust him. The past was about to swallow me again as everything shimmered like a heat wave on the road.

  The state police were on their way. My phone buzzed. I checked the display and opened the message. A photograph of Robert Saville. Mr. Saville looked much different once. He was thinner and younger. From the photo it looked as though they were a rough seven or so years from then to now. Still, it was the same man.

  I looked at the picture on my phone again and wondered what happened to cause him to become the disheveled blob of a creature on the sidewalk, fumbling for a lighter.

  The man looked over at me.

  I smiled.

  He took that as an opening and shuffled forward. I held up my hand.

  “Stop right there. Go back and wait where I told you.”

  I walked toward him speaking. “Your car was reported as a suspicious vehicle in the vicinity of an indecent assault. Do you know why Lexington Police want to talk to you?”

  “Really?” he replied, his eyes darted toward the car.

  “That’s what I’m asking. Why?”

  Before he realized what was happening I grabbed his wrist, turned him to face my car and pushed him down on the hood.

  “Spread your hands and feet. Do not move. I’m going to frisk you for a weapon. This is for my safety, sir.”

  He started to complain. I reminded him not to move.

  “Do you have any weapons on you, sir? Knives, guns, sharp implements?”

  “I do not.”

  With quick but firm hands, I checked his pockets and searched him. It was unpleasant. No weapon. He enjoyed the process entirely too much.

  Bile rose in my throat.

  I tossed up whether to hook the disposable cuffs from my belt and cuff him. He was still leaning over my car. I asked him to stand up straight. His jeans tented in the front.

  He really was enjoying the process way too much. I indicated that he should walk back toward the building.

  “I’d like you to sit against the wall there,” I said, pointing.

  “Am I under arrest?” he asked, with a glazed look in his eyes.

  “Not yet. I am waiting for a colleague to arrive; until then you will do as I ask.”

  I hoped my tone implied he would do well to not tempt me.

  My decision to wait for backup before searching the car was determined by his reaction to the pat-down search. I didn’t want to be the object of any more of his perverted thoughts.

  Holly attracted my attention by holding up a cup of coffee. I smiled and joined her in the doorway.

  “Who is he?” Holly asked, passing me the cup.

  “Robert Saville,” I replied. “The car was reportedly seen in the vicinity of an indecent assault in Lexington. The person who called it in said the driver had a handgun on the front seat.”

  Holly sipped her coffee. Half a cup disappeared before she spoke.

  Subdued, she said, “I think I know who he is.”

  This was news.

  “You said you didn’t recognize him?”

  “And I don’t. His name, I recognize his name.”

  “This is where you fill me in.”

  “When we lived in Richmond as a kid – I would’ve been twelve – the kid across the road went missing. She was my best friend. Her father’s name was Bob Saville. He disappeared a few months later.”

  “Did the kid ever turn up?”

  She shook her head. “I remember we couldn’t even walk to school by ourselves after that. No one played in the street anymore.”

  “Did they have other children?”

  “An older boy I think. I can’t really remember. Dad moved us out here within the year.”

  “What was your friend’s name?”

  “Leticia. Do you think he’s dangerous?”

  “I don’t know. So Leticia would’ve been born in seventy-eight, like you?”

  Holly nodded. “Now what?” she said.

  “I want the state police here when I search the car.”

  Holly leaned over a stand and peered through a window. “He can afford a brand new Corvette but not shoes or decent clothes?”

  “Do you want to talk to him?”

  She shook her head in horror.

  Interesting. This much interesting blew my idea of going home for a break, to re-charge my batteries, right out of the water. I knew I needed a change of scenery and some rest after three weeks working on a horrendous serial rape case, but I couldn’t very well ignore the Saville thing. Even though I wasn’t even sure what the Saville thing was, it felt wrong.

  A police car bearing the state seal cruised past, made a U-turn, and came back. I waved from within the store. Two officers responded in kind. I ducked out the door and closed in on Robert Saville. Still sitting where I left him. The tent receded under the shadow of his stomach. A shudder of revulsion ran through me.

  “Why are you outside this store?”

  He took his time dragging his eyes upward from the spot on the sidewalk he’d fixated on. His gaze lingered on my body unnecessarily.

  “I wanted to see Holly.”

  A shiver ran up my spine. So he did know Holly.

  “Why?”

  “For old time’s sake,” he replied.

  I heard the even footsteps of the police officers as they walked toward me.

  “Agent Conway?”

  “Yes,” I said, looking into the smiling faces of Greg and Chris Mitchell.

  Double trouble. The only identical twins I knew in law enforcement.

  Imagine my surprise finding them partnered together.

  I couldn’t tell them apart, not having spent enough time with either to figure out the quirks.

  “Mr. Saville is passing through and has been parked up in front of Holly’s book store for five hours. During that time he stayed in his vehicle and stared in the window, causing distress to the owner of the store.” One of them scribbled in a notebook. “He’s wanted for questioning
by Lexington PD.”

  I took them both aside, out of earshot. “This guy’s a perv. I was waiting for you to search the vehicle. The pat-down search earlier excited him way too much; I didn’t want him coming up behind me while I was bending over in that car.”

  “Poor choice of words!”

  I stifled the desire to laugh.

  “Just search the car and find out what this person wants here in Mauryville, will ya?” I asked with a grin only they could see. “And how about name tags with your first names on them?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” they replied, grinning back at me.

  The one on the left spoke, “I’m Chris.”

  I shook Chris’s hand.

  “Ellie.”

  I turned to Greg. When I shook his hand I found the point of difference I needed. Greg had a scar across the back of his right hand.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Greg said. “You want to wait with Mr. Saville or in Holly’s store?”

  “Store,” I replied and headed indoors.

  Five minutes later Greg came in and handed me a gun. “A Berretta M9,” he said.

  “Indeedy,” I replied.

  “We’ll hold him here; Lexington can come out and talk to him. By the way, he says it’s not his and he didn’t put it in the car.”

  He could say the earth was flat, but frankly, I wouldn’t believe him.

  “Can you deal with the weapon? We should trace its origin. His being here is no coincidence. Get as much information as you can and include his destination.”

  “Do you want to do this?” Greg asked.

  I shook my head. “I can’t. Holly and I are too close. I don’t want to jeopardize anything that comes from this interview, down the line.”

  And just like that I was back standing on the street with Kurt. No Corvette. No Saville. No haunted past. And yet nothing felt real.

  I was taking so many breaks from reality I doubted it would ever feel real.

  “Home, I need to go home,” I said. The road disappeared in the distance and I knew that down it was my home. The place where I used to live.

  “Okay,” Kurt replied. He ushered me into his car. The road was familiar, yet not. As we drove I realized what I saw may not be what everyone else could see. Then the sense of going home took over.

  Kurt pulled into a long driveway. Trees lined the drive that curved around in front of a house. My house. I climbed from the car and headed around to the backdoor.

  Behind me, I heard Lee asking where I was going. But I felt if I stopped to explain it, everything would disappear. I’d see what they saw, a burned out shell, not what I needed to see. I opened the backdoor and followed my usual path through the house to my bedroom upstairs.

  The radio in my room was on. There was debate about a spate of bombings that cut a slice through Virginia. They were making assumptions that the bombings were linked to appearances by author Michaela Kennedy. I’d heard the buzz about the week’s unexpected explosions before heading home from Richmond.

  I rolled over, tugged the covers over my head, and repeated the words ‘not my problem’ until I fell asleep.

  My phone vibrated on the nightstand, buzzing like a demented blowfly until I flipped it open and read the screen.

  “Withheld number,” I muttered and snapped it shut. I checked the time: Half past ten. The phone vibrated in my fingers. The same withheld number message appeared. A few moments later a message icon popped up. New voicemail.

  Curiosity won out.

  I clicked the icon and waited for the automated voice to finish. “You have one new message. Message received at 10.32 a.m. To hear the new message press one—”

  I pressed one and picked up a pen from the nightstand. No paper.

  “First new message.” A female voice followed the automation. “Agent Conway this is Director O’Hare.”

  I gulped. The director was calling me?

  “I believe you are at your home in Mauryville and would appreciate your help at my country house. Please call me back.”

  I wrote the number on my hand. For a few minutes I stared at the phone.

  There was no imagining why the director of the FBI would call me at all or in what possible way I could help her. Terrible things crawled into my mind, worse things than the senseless explosive attacks across the state. I ran downstairs with the phone in my hand. I filled the coffee maker and switched it on. I was going to need coffee, no matter what happened.

  On the way back to my room I made the call. Noticing, as I pressed the numbers, her phone number spelled her first name, Caitlin. Clever.

  My heart pounded as I waited through shrill ring after shrill ring.

  “O’Hare.”

  “Ma’am, Agent Conway here.”

  “Thank you for your prompt call back, Agent. Sorry to intrude on your personal time like this.”

  I didn’t have a speech prepared for if the director called, so I stumbled over my words and managed, “How can I help?”

  “I’d like you to go out to my home. We have a guest staying. Our guest may be missing.”

  “Ma’am?”

  And she picks me?

  “Ellie, you’re the only agent I know of living out in Mauryville,” she said and gave me her address. Which I already knew. “It’s more of a neighbor thing. Low key.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Less ma’am, more Cait, just like at the summer festival and the town barbecue.”

  We are neighbors. She lived twenty minutes due west of my address and we socialized in town just like normal people. I’d been very careful never to let on that I knew the director in a social context. She rose to where she is today by sheer guts and determination, and I intended to do the same.

  “You will be assisting my brother.”

  That added a different dimension. I’d met Sean O’Hare once before. His reputation went before him. He was ex-CIA and now a security expert. We often used his company to secure crime scenes because his was the best.

  “He knows I’m coming?”

  The last thing I wanted was to walk in on Sean O’Hare under stress and suffer his wrath, which was legendary.

  “He’ll be expecting you.”

  “Good to know. I’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”

  “Thank you, Ellie.” She sounded relieved; I hadn’t expected that.

  I hung up, leaped off the bed, and hurried to my closet picking up discarded clothes as I went. Almost everything I’d gathered ended in the laundry hamper except for my jeans. Amazing. That left my bedroom fairly tidy. I’d promised myself I’d do a few things while I was home this time. I sidestepped a two-foot tall stack of books, waiting for a home in the large bookcase that took up half my bedroom wall, to get to my closet.

  In my closet, I found a long-sleeved dark gray tee shirt, then hooked out underwear from a drawer and spun into the bathroom. Within five minutes, I was wiping condensation from the mirror and wishing I’d turned the fan on before showering.

  The mirror fogged again as I brushed my hair. I didn’t have time to blow it dry, so I slipped a hair tie onto my wrist for later. I could blast the heat in the car and that would dry most of my hair on the trip.

  I choose a tailored jacket and pulled it on. I picked up my hip holster from my dresser and snapped it onto my belt. My gun was still in it. I keep them like that, ready to go. I plunged my badge and keys into one jacket pocket and my cell phone into another.

  The smell of fresh coffee wafted up the stairs.

  I filled a travel mug with coffee and turned off the coffee maker. From the kitchen cabinet I took a large scoop of chicken feed. With the mug in one hand and scoop in the other I negotiated the backdoor, even managing to lock it behind me. On the grass outside the back door I scattered the feed then dropped the scoop on the porch steps.

  Abigail the bantam hen stalked over the grass, clucking and pecking.

  “See ya, Abigail,” I called out as I shut the car door.

  She didn’t hea
r and didn’t care. And she was low maintenance. That’s why I liked having a chicken as a pet.

  I stood in the middle of the burned and broken shell of my home. Charred wood fell around me. I’d disturbed the delicate balance. It took me a few seconds to understand where I was and why. The blackened house I stood in used to be my home. Knowing my home was almost totally destroyed by an explosion didn’t stop me seeing what was once there.

  Kurt was yelling at me.

  “Ellie get out of there!”

  “I’m coming.” I picked my way through the rubble. It still smelled like fire. A large hunk of something fell, just missing me. I moved faster. Dust from falling timber billowed over me.

  I emerged into daylight wiping soot from my hands onto my jeans and found two relieved-looking men.

  “Did you at least make some progress?” Kurt said, brushing dust from my shoulders with his hands.

  “Yes, we need to go to O’Hare’s place.”

  Mouths opened and closed. Lee’s mouth flapped like a goldfish. Kurt found his voice first.

  “O’Hare lives in Washington.”

  I shook my head. “She has a country place down there.” I pointed toward the mountains.

  “You can remember that?”

  “Yes. I helped her with something. It feels like I will find out what when we get there.”

  “All right,” Kurt replied.

  He turned to Lee and maybe thought I couldn’t hear him. “Let her follow this. She’s bringing back her memory piece by piece, and we need her back.”

  “This is stuff before my time. This feels like it’s back just after she did all that secret squirrel stuff with the CIA.”

  “Maybe it is. She says it was five years ago. That puts it midway between then and now.”

  I shut the car door and waited. Kurt slammed his a few seconds later and smiled at me.

  “You feel okay?”

  “Yep.” No. Not at all. Not even near. I looked at a phone number written on my hand and wondered how it got there. I knew it was one I’d called before and then I remembered the phone message. It was the director’s phone number. If it was on my hand now, did that mean I was bringing the past into the present? It seemed smart to keep that little bit of lunacy to myself.