Flashbyte (Byte Series - Ellie Conway Book 4)

by Cat Connor

  “El?”

  I shook my head and watched the paramedics wrap Chad’s arm and help him away.

  “Where are you taking him?” I said.

  “City Hospital, Martinsburg. We’re eighteen minutes out,” a paramedic replied.

  Chad looked back at me with his familiar warm eyes. “Call Tierney.”

  “I will.”

  Noel touched my arm. “You need to clean up.”

  I looked at my hands.

  Blood.

  Blood?

  “Cotton swabs,” I muttered and searched the first aid kit. Pawing through it, I contaminated everything I touched without care. I found a pack of cotton swabs and a paper envelope. I swabbed the blood on my hand and sealed the swab into the envelope. On the outside, I wrote my name and the date. For safekeeping, I stashed the envelope in the first aid kit. My intention was to take it to the lab as soon as we were back in Washington.

  “What’s that for?”

  “DNA.”

  “Is he someone?”

  I shook my head. This was too nuts even for Noel.

  “El?”

  “Let’s just get out of here.”

  Far, far away from the ghost and the mess.

  I walked back into the room, stepping over glass as I did so. I threw my stuff into my backpack. We needed a new room or, my preference, a different motel.

  “You and I need to stop winding up in motels in West Virginia. It never goes well, does it?” Noel said, packing.

  I smiled. “No, it never does. At least this time nothing exploded.”

  “You’re two for two.”

  “And both times you were with me … it’s you. You’re bad luck.” I stopped what I was doing and looked at him for a moment. “What happened out there?”

  “That moron had a universal handcuff key in his back pocket,” Noel said inspecting his torn and bruised knuckles.

  That explained how he escaped the cuffs. Handcuff keys are small and concealable. I didn’t remember Noel patting him down but then I was more concerned with Chad and the wound on his arm.

  “How’d he get your gun off you?”

  “I’m getting too old for this shit, El. That’s how.”

  NCIS Special Agent Noel Gerrard was human after all. Imagine that?

  Noel’s phone rang. A few moments later, his conversational tone changed. He sounded pissed. I pulled on my jacket. My mind wouldn’t shut up. Every inch of me thought I’d come face to face with my dead husband. It didn’t matter that I knew he was dead. Nor did it matter that I saw his cold dead body lying in the coffin. It was of no consequence to my screwed brain.

  My eyes saw Mac. It must be true. I talked to him on MSN. I’d seen him step out of the shower in a room at the Marriott. It must be true. I heard his voice right there in front of me. I saw the scar on his arm. It must be true.

  And the kicker? Tierney was involved. CIA. Anything was possible. The mere thought of Tierney catapulted me back in time. I knew him well: I worked for him once. Deep dark secrets never stay deep dark secrets. They have a habit of creeping back to the light at the worst possible moment.

  Noel was still talking. I think he called my name a few times before I heard him.

  “El?” When I looked up Noel was right in front of me.

  “What’s up?”

  “Car accident. Randall is on his way to hospital, in critical condition.”

  “Convenient.”

  “Very.”

  “What happened?”

  “One of the police cars sent here went to pick up the coroner. On his way back, he attempted to stop an erratic driver. The driver took off, there was a short pursuit.” He smacked his hands together. “Car hits tree.”

  “He pursued with a civilian in the car?” Incredulousness invaded my voice before I could check it. “Where in hell are we?”

  Dark humor filled Noel’s reply, “At the very edge of civilization.”

  I shook my head in astonishment. “Where are we headed now?”

  “Hospital. I’ll make the arrest if shit-for-brains makes it.”

  “It’s that bad?”

  “Wasn’t wearing a seat belt.”

  “Oh.”

  Might have been handy having a coroner in the police car.

  Noel was on the phone again. This time I recognized the tone and the instruction, “Grab your gear.”

  His team would be there in a few hours, just in case our guy required transport.

  As we walked down to our car, I broached the subject of Chad and Tierney. “The other guy, the bleeder. He is one of us. I have to call someone for him.”

  “So the ass-hat was right about him being a cop. Do what you have to do.”

  He climbed into the car. I pulled out my phone and made the call from the parking lot.

  It was a number I knew by heart. Memorized in another chapter of my life. The wait was almost unbearable. Finally, a woman’s voice answered.

  “Shangri La Special Services.”

  “I have a bird problem.”

  “Can you be more specific?” she replied.

  “I keep chickens.”

  There was a click and then silence. Two breaths, and then another voice.

  “Agent Conway, you have another problem?”

  My words felt sticky in my throat. “No, but you do.”

  “Do I?”

  “I have a message for you. Socrates needs extraction. He is injured.”

  Without hesitation Jonathon replied, “Can you help him?”

  “I already have.”

  There was a pause. “Thank you. We will take care of Socrates. Where is he?”

  “City Hospital, Martinsburg, West Virginia.”

  “I’ll take care of it.” I imagined his beady bird eyes darting across the screen I knew was in front of him, deploying a team to bring in Chad. “How compromised is he?”

  “I don’t know for sure.”

  “Loose ends?”

  “I took care of one, his name was Nicky.” It was inadvertent but he didn’t need to know that. “I don’t know if there are any more.”

  “Thank you. Are you well, Agent Conway?”

  “I am well,” I replied and hung up. As well as can be expected considering whom I thought I saw.

  I slid into the passenger seat and closed the door. My mind was busy pondering the irony that meant Chad turned up outside our motel room.

  Noel started the car. “Everything all right?”

  “Yeah.” Why the hell wouldn’t it be? “Let’s go see Randall.”

  I hoped he wasn’t pulp because justice needed to be served. A part of me considered that if he was pulp, it had been served. Maybe.

  Mac’s voice resounded in my head, “Maybe’s ass.”

  How can his dead voice be in my head and be identical to the voice I’d heard from Chad or Socrates or whoever the hell he was? I knew enough to know it wasn’t either name he’d given me.

  Fifteen minutes later, we found the hospital and were standing in the emergency room. Noel waited to hear back from a doctor regarding Randall’s status. I saw the paramedics who picked up Chad.

  I stopped one and asked after their patient.

  “He’s in surgery.”

  “Any idea how long that will take?”

  The paramedic shook his head. His partner mumbled and they both headed off into the night. I looked around for a nurse and found one.

  With a flash of my badge, I asked about the patient, describing him but not using his name. I had no clue what name he’d told the paramedics or hospital.

  “Let me check for you, ma’am.” She tapped a few computer keys. “That patient is John Smith.”

  I guess that’s a step up from John Doe. I jotted his name down in the notebook in my hand but didn’t believe for one second it was his real name.

  “Got a birthdate there? We need it for our records.”

  “September 26, 1970.”

  The pen fell from my hand, clattered onto the floor a
nd rolled away. I watched. It rolled to Noel’s booted foot. He picked it up and brought it back to me.

  With a grin he said, “Butter fingers.”

  I tried to smile back but my face didn’t move.

  “El?”

  The nurse looked at me. “Ma’am, are you all right?”

  Come on voice. “Of course. Thanks.”

  Noel grabbed my arm just above the elbow and steered me to a quiet corner.

  “What?”

  I went for broke on the insanity plea and voiced the crazy thoughts, “The guy with the cut wrist. He’s using the name John Smith and his birth date is the same as Mac’s.”

  “A lot of people share birthdates, El.”

  “Not too many have the exact same scar on their forearm, the same eyes, the same voice, the same height.” Despite trying to control my internal panic, I could hear it in my voice.

  Noel and I made our way out of the hospital, away from anyone who could overhear the conversation. We stopped not far from the emergency entrance. There was a small raised garden. The solid edge was just high enough for me to sit on.

  “El, Mac is dead.”

  “Then who the hell is John Smith?” I whispered.

  “Didn’t you call someone? Can they tell you?”

  “I’m confessing to you that I have clearly lost the plot. Let’s spread it around.”

  He smiled. “You got blood.” His smile faded. “You really think DNA will come back as Mac?”

  “I don’t know who he is. All I know is that John Smith looks remarkably like my dead husband.”

  “All right. We’ll get the sample to the lab. Meanwhile, go see what else the hospital has on him and let’s get a picture and prints.”

  “Am I insane?”

  “No more than usual, El. No more than usual.”

  “Good to know.”

  “I only met Mac that one time.” His eyes bore traces of disappointment. “I’m no help here at all.”

  That one time he met Mac was part of a scenario that would be stuck in my mind for eternity. No matter how much good we did or how many kids we saved. That memory to me would always be the night my husband died.

  Noel leaned against the wall opposite me. It was still dark and cool. I couldn’t imagine how he thought I was sane after the things I’d told him. It surprised the hell out of me that he hadn’t called my boss, SAC Caine Grafton, and suggested an immediate psychiatric evaluation. At that point, it occurred to me that he may have. I wouldn’t know until the men in white coats showed up.

  And with that, I shuffled sideways into a Men in Black scene. The theme song filled me to the point I was singing along. We all know I can’t sing. It wasn’t going to go well for anyone who valued his or her hearing.

  “El, Men In Black?” Noel blew out a long sigh. “Really?”

  “Sorry.”

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Never better. My dead husband is having surgery on his wrist and I thought his ashes were buried in Fairfax.”

  “They are. There is no way that guy is Mac. Think someone might have noticed if he’d come back to life?”

  “I’d like to think so. Doctors, nurses, someone in the morgue.”

  “We’ll find out what’s going on here, that much I can promise you.”

  I nodded. “It’s the uncanny resemblance that’s screwing my head up here.”

  “They say we all have doppelgangers.”

  “I know.” I should know. It wasn’t that long ago that Lee thought I was lying strangled in a parking lot in DC. The woman not only looked just like me but her driver’s license identified her as Gabrielle Conway. Discovering her body caused all manner of shit to spray forth and meant I needed to contact Tierney for help.

  I stopped and stared up at the stars. A helicopter circled the building then disappeared from sight. By the noise, I’d say it landed on the roof. Someone’s night ended badly and required an airlift to hospital.

  I was exhausted and empty. I consoled myself with the thought that my life was so normal it should be a season of Days of Our Lives. There was way too much going on for it to be a single episode. I was sure I should be clutching the back of a chaise longue, dramatically looking into space, while wearing four-inch heels and a designer gown. Any minute the camera would pan out then fade to another scene, with a handsome man looking desperately worried and staring into the flames in a fireplace of some alpine ski lodge.

  Sometimes it sucked to have my imagination. This was one of those times. Noel was watching me with curiosity. For a second I could’ve believed he’d never seen Days of Our Lives. But he looked too much like the guy in front of the fire.

  A nurse emerged from within the hospital. She looked over at us and beckoned.

  “We have an update on Randall,” she said, holding the door open for us. I read her name badge. Tamsin.

  “Thank you, Tamsin,” I said.

  She smiled. “The doctor is waiting for you – down the hall, second on your left.”

  Noel nodded.

  Moments later, we learned Randall died from his injuries.

  Closure of sorts. For my case, there was a certain amount of relief. The victims would no longer be required to go through the third degree in a courtroom. His DNA was on file. We knew he committed the rapes, but it remained ‘alleged’ until proven guilty in a court of law. As far as I was concerned, he was a dead serial rapist. Seemed to me it was the best possible outcome.

  Down the hallway, the dark night waited. From the darkness, I heard the whine of the engines and the unmistakable thump of helicopter rotors.

  Tamsin waved us down as we headed to the door.

  “Ma’am, I have some news regarding the other man you were asking about. John Smith?”

  “That’s him.”

  “He was airlifted to another hospital.”

  “I didn’t know his arm injury was that severe?”

  “Special circumstances, ma’am. They’ve transferred him to another hospital.”

  “Do you know where?”

  “No, ma’am, only the pilot would know that.” She dropped her voice to a whisper, “All his records were taken as well, and his treatment paid for in cash.”

  I nodded.

  Gone.

  Once our lab processed the blood sample, I would know more. It seemed so simple: Take the blood to the lab. Reality was different. It could be months before I got an answer. Being nosy isn’t a priority. A blood sample with no case number meant I would have to wait until there was nothing else in the queue even with the favors various people owe me. What was I going to do? Push out someone’s time sensitive blood work and run the risk of letting a rapist or murderer go free for longer? I couldn’t do that.

  The voice in my head muttered, ‘Good luck ever getting an answer from the blood.’

  There was no point hanging around. Randall was dead and Smith was gone.

  “Home,” I said as Noel held the door open.

  “Yeah, I’ll send my team back – they should be halfway here by now.” He pulled out his cell phone and made a call.

  We swung back to the motel, my idea. Our short stay at the miserable motel was over but I couldn’t just leave the motel owner out of pocket. I paid for the broken window. It just seemed easier than the owner trying to squeeze cash out of the deadbeat the police arrested.

  Dawn broke with slow deliberation.

  In silence, we headed into the daylight.

  All names, characters, places, and incidents in this publication are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  © 2012 by Cat Connor

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or store
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  ISBN: 978-0981425610

  First published by Rebel ePublishers 2012

  Cover design by Littera Design

  Interior design by Caryatid Design

  Butterfly graphic © CanStockPhoto/Evgeniia Hulinska