Soundbyte (-byte series Book 5)

by Cat Connor

  “I’ll—”

  “No, wait for me here.”

  That felt better. More normal. Less shell-shocked.

  Kurt set the mug on my nightstand and picked up my jacket. I hurried to Carla’s room. She was asleep.

  Satisfied I went back to my room to see what Kurt was doing. He was sitting on the sofa in my room.

  “When did you last sleep?” he asked, pointing to where he’d put the hot chocolate.

  “A while ago, two days, maybe a little longer. You know what it’s like when we’re after someone.”

  He nodded. “You need to sleep.”

  A loud crash came from downstairs. Kurt and I looked at each other for a split second. He jumped to his feet and threw me my gun.

  “Where was it?” he said.

  “Sounded central, living room.” I was already out the door. “You go to the front stairs I’ll take the back.”

  There was no other noise. I watched Kurt as he stepped out into the downstairs passageway. He paused to check the front door and alarm panel. His hand signaled two areas illuminated. I waved him forward. We stood either side of the living room door. All lights were out.

  “On three,” Kurt whispered.

  I counted. I went through the door first, and secured the right side of the room. Kurt was behind me, looking left. There was no one there. In the moonlight, I could see the couch where Mac sat was upended.

  “What the hell …” I muttered. It took both of us to right the couch. Yet something that heavy just tipped itself over?

  “Spooky,” he said.

  “No kidding.” I smiled. “You still think this is some sleep deprived psychosis?”

  Kurt’s hand was flat on the small of my back guiding me back upstairs. “I don’t know what it is. The alarm is on. Everything is working. Let’s get you to bed.”

  A small chuckle popped out. “Bed?”

  “Yeah, I wish.” His whisper was just audible.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Climb those stairs, Conway,” Kurt said louder.

  Biting back a smile, I replied, “That’s not what you said.”

  “You’re awful smart-mouthed for someone who tried to kill a ghost and shot a wall.”

  Three

  Thorn in My Side

  It wasn’t quite five on Friday morning when my cell phone buzzed off the nightstand, hit my boot, and bounced onto the rug beside my bed. My hand followed it. It took a few seconds before I could grasp the phone. My fingers were half-asleep and uncooperative.

  Nothing unusual there.

  My eyes were also half-asleep and uncooperative.

  I answered the call. “SSA Conway.”

  As soon as I heard his voice, I knew I would rue the day I answered the stupid phone.

  “Ellie, its Eddie, I saw Mac.”

  I hung up. He called right back. I let it go to voice mail. Eddie’s the inherited ex-brother-in-law from hell. I have fun little daydreams involving Eddie’s demise at my hand. Most often it’s the knife in my hand that facilitates the demising.

  I fought the tiredness in my brain so I could take counter measures to protect myself against his insanity before I listened to the voice mail he’d left. There should be an Eddie inoculation. Like measles, he had the potential to cause brain damage. He rambled on, his fat lips smacking together as he spoke. Eddie saw Mac in Manassas and wanted me to investigate the sighting. I doubted he’d seen the same guy I’d seen. My guy was in a hospital somewhere with a nasty arm wound.

  I deleted the message before hearing the whole thing and dropped my cell phone on my quilt. Eddie had salad greens for brains and bourbon for blood; I doubted the person he saw even resembled Mac.

  And Mac is dead.

  Rolling over I saw that the telephone on the nightstand was flashing its red message light. Guess I was too tired to notice it the night before. My fingers found the message button. The robotic female voice from the message service said, “You have sixteen new messages. First message received two p.m. Thursday.”

  I pressed one to hurry it up. The first message was from an unknown number and the female voice told me I was playing with fire.

  Good. I like fire. It’s pretty.

  The next twelve messages all sounded like the same woman. I got the impression she didn’t like me very much.

  Friday was shaping up to be vaguely threatening message day.

  Two messages from Rowan followed. He liked me. He said he was going to be in town for a gig and was hoping we could spend the weekend together. Yeah, me too.

  Then the last message was from the woman again. She didn’t leave her name and sounded a little cross.

  “Leave Rowan alone. He doesn’t need someone like you. You are no good for him.”

  So her messages went from warning me I was playing with fire to telling me to leave Rowan alone.

  I curled up in my bed with a smile on my face.

  Women everywhere hate me and now one of them has my phone number.

  Great.

  It’s not as if my phone numbers are a secret. Plenty of people I’ve come across have my business cards. I smiled some more. If she had my card then I’d come across her in a professional setting. I must have interviewed several Grange fans in the course of my career and not known it.

  Four

  Wuthering Heights

  When Friday started properly, I spent two hours with Sean, listening to how he established the presence of Mac’s fingerprints on the glass and that there was no blood on either round. Good confirmation that I hadn’t shot anyone. They did however find minute traces of an unknown substance on one round. More testing was required. He had the sound bites analyzed by his experts. They cleaned up the recording and ran it through the latest voice comparison software. When nothing came back as a match, he opened the search to deceased federal employees. Snap. It came back as Mac.

  This horrible feeling of relief that I wasn’t nuts melded with the very real fear that I couldn’t control the situation. Mac turning up as he did in our home called into question my ability to protect Carla. I always thought ghosts were incorporeal beings, left over energy. But he was interacting, capable of lifting a glass. That just wasn’t right.

  Poltergeist?

  Time for a priest.

  Music weaseled its way into my head. The Ghost Busters theme song took over. If that wasn’t just a movie I’d be on the phone already.

  “Okay, so is he a ghost, or is he alive?”

  I regretted those words as soon as they left my lips. “Alive? You think that’s possible?” Sean said, pouring me more coffee.

  Coffee is my crack.

  As I tried to shake my head, it nodded. What the hell? My body is betraying me now?

  “I don’t know what to think.”

  “That’s obvious.”

  It sounded just a little wacky. But Sean wasn’t in West Virginia with me and Noel. He didn’t see the guy who was the living image of Mac.

  “I have a blood sample from someone I spoke to, who looked just like Mac,” I said. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “You never mentioned it … who knows about this?”

  “Yeah, well, it just happened and it’s not something I’m going to rock up to everyone and say, ‘hey, guess who I saw in West Virginia the other day?’”

  He smiled. “Fair enough, but who knows?”

  “Noel Gerrard.”

  “I think you better tell me what happened.”

  Funny, I believed the same thing.

  “I wish you could just see into my brain.”

  Sean chuckled. I gave him a run down on the motel happenings.

  “Ellie, who do you think it was that night?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “Not Mac, but beyond that I don’t know. I took the sample to the lab when we got back from West Virginia, but it isn’t urgent and didn’t have a case number attached to it.” Even if it was urgent and did have a case number, it would be months before the lab could process it. Everything
they get is urgent.

  “You want to pull it from the queue and let my lab test it?”

  No. Maybe I don’t really want to know whose blood it is.

  “All right, if you want to run it.”

  He smiled. “We don’t require a case number to process possible evidence, and it’s not evidence from a crime scene so we’re not risking interfering with an actual case. You know it makes sense to let me do this.”

  “Yeah, it makes sense.”

  “Then let’s get it, and get it tested.”

  “Meanwhile … know a priest who can do something about my home?”

  “I don’t think that’ll help. It’s you he’s attached to.”

  Great.

  “Exorcism then?”

  “He’s not possessing you, is he?”

  “No.” Not yet.

  I thanked Sean for confirming that I’m not as wacky as Mac makes me feel.

  “Keep in touch,” Sean said. “Courier that sample direct from your lab to me. I’ll deal with it. We’ll have an answer in the next few days.”

  “Sean?” I chewed my lip.

  “Yup, spit it out.”

  “Tierney was involved with the guy in West Virginia. When he’s involved, anything is possible.”

  Tierney is a magician. He’s all smoke and illusions.

  “Even he cannot resurrect the dead, Ellie.”

  “You sure about that?” I smiled. “Standing in front of you is a dead woman, remember?”

  “That wasn’t the same sort of situation. I’m damn sure Tierney can’t resurrect the actual dead, and I will prove it.”

  But wait there’s more.

  “My ex-brother-in-law called me at five this morning. He swore he saw Mac in Manassas last night.”

  “Do you consider him to be a reliable witness?”

  “No. He’s a fucktard. Just making you aware of another sighting is all.”

  Amusement danced in Sean’s grey eyes. “He could have seen someone who looked like Mac. Keep in touch.”

  “I will.”

  It was a relief to be back in the office.

  Waiting for me were the tickets for the special surprise. I crammed all thoughts of ghosts and blood as far down in my mind as I could and sat a big heavy cinder block on the whole lot.

  Five

  All Out of Love

  I busied myself in my office while Delta A helped another team with an arrest. Eddie’s call twisted my craziness. I wanted a photo of the bleeder from West Virginia. Security cameras.

  I called the motel we’d stayed in and asked if there were cameras and if they kept security footage. They did. I requested a copy of all the footage for the last week and list of who checked in, how many people were staying in each unit, and which cars belonged to which rooms. I knew the owner would have a taken note of the cars tags associated with guests.

  With a bit of convincing I managed to get the motel owner to courier me a DVD copy of the security footage, along with photocopies of guest information going back eight days. I was hoping he’d scanned driver’s licenses and Chad’s would be one of them.

  My theory was if I could locate a decent photo then I could run it through our fancy biometric facial recognition program. The program would tell me if it was Mac or just someone who looked a bit like him.

  It’s not like I believed it was Mac. But Chad looked too much like him and knew Tierney. All kinds of twinges and twangs were happening in my gut. Something funky was going on.

  I needed coffee. Hot, strong, black coffee.

  Coffee.

  I headed out of the building. Fresh air would work wonders. On the way over to The Firehook coffee shop, I dodged a horde of schoolchildren coming up out of the Metro. I leaned against a wall and waited until the teachers and parents did a head count and organized the children to walk to wherever they were going. When they were out of my way, I ducked into The Firehook and ordered a quad espresso in a tall cup. I topped my cup up with cold water so I didn’t scald myself, left off the takeout lid to facilitate cooling and I was set to enjoy my coffee.

  I walked up 13th to F Street on my way back to the office on 10th and Pennsylvania. It was a beautiful clear spring day. I love spring: Cherry blossoms, tulips, the smell of fresh mulch in the gardens, and the bright green new growth on what had been barren trees all winter. Washington in the spring was a sight to behold.

  I walked and enjoyed the sights and smells of spring. As I took a sip from my cup, something knocked my left arm. My coffee sloshed but didn’t spill. No harm, no foul. I spun around to apologize to whomever I’d bumped into but no one was there.

  Weird.

  The nearest person was across the street and walking the other direction, a male who seemed to be in a hurry.

  I carried on walking. It wasn't until I lifted my cup to my mouth for another sip of precious black liquid that my arm felt a little sore and reluctant. I switched my coffee to the other hand; no need to run the risk of spilling it.

  My arm complained. It wasn’t a loud boisterous complaint, more of a localized stinging sensation. The voice in my head said, “That’s not right.”

  I kept walking and told myself that a rampant bee stung me. No matter how ridiculous it seemed. But there was another voice, louder, that told me I’d been shot. That couldn’t be right. Why would someone shoot me in the open like that?

  All sorts of notions piled up in the front of my brain. The last one to arrive curled around my tongue. No sense being a drama queen in the middle of the sidewalk, I kept moving and closed my mouth tight to prevent the escape of any loud expressions of horror. I expected to feel a bullet slam into my back at any second.

  It was a relief when I saw the intersection ahead and knew for sure I wasn’t far from the office. I hurried around the corner and down 10th, passed Ford’s theater and kept going, while a dilemma brewed. I needed to make a phone call but I couldn’t hold my coffee and make a phone call at the same time. Left-handed phone user and right-handed shooter.

  One more road to cross and I would be safe. As I approached The Hard Rock Café, I could see two uniformed FBI police talking beside a marked van blocking the FBI underground car park exit on E Street. I crossed the street toward them.

  Instead of attracting their attention, I walked past them and set my cup on one of the large concrete bollards out front of the chained-off stairs on 10th; the bollards are feebly disguised as planters. I pulled my phone off my belt and looked at it for a few seconds, deciding whether to call Kurt or just go on in and surprise him. I didn’t think this was the sort of surprise he’d appreciate. Also I didn’t want to drip on the floors. Blood is slippery on hard floors. Someone could get hurt.

  I glanced down the street toward Pennsylvania Avenue. The employee entrance seemed a long way away.

  Outside the building, standing near the road were another group of FBI police. They weren't taking any notice of me, what with a constant stream of people walking past and mine being a familiar face.

  I leaned on the bollard garden and called Kurt. A pretty red substance dripped off my fingertips. Two possibilities surfaced, it was blood or a random invisible stranger had poured seedless raspberry compôte down my arm.

  It was time to acknowledge the voice that told me I’d been shot. Shot in the middle of the city while drinking coffee. That was quite some feat. I wondered who was pissed at me this time.

  Kurt answered his phone on the second ring. “Conway, how can I help?”

  “I’m outside the building, by the stairs on 10th, and I have a little problem,” I said.

  He went quiet. There was nothing there.

  Moments later, Kurt flew out down the stairs carrying a red backpack with a white cross on it and vaulted over the yellow chain. His eyes scanned the area in front of him. I waved. Blood flew from my hand and cast drippy patterns on the ground. He looked right and hollered at two men in uniform who’d been leaning on the wall by the guardhouse, “Are your eyes painted on?”

 
; One man jumped, the other’s back stiffened.

  “Sir?” they said in unison.

  “You have an injured agent out here,” Kurt growled. He dropped a backpack on the ground by my feet.

  “Hey, Kurt,” I said with a smile. “How’d you know you’d need the first aid kit?”

  Kurt gave me a look. “Seriously?”

  “Never mind.”

  “What happened?” Kurt asked, looking at my arm for a moment before opening the backpack and taking out scissors.

  “I’m not sure,” I replied. “I thought someone bumped into me, but there was no one around.”

  “No one at all?”

  “There was a person walking away on the other side of the street but no one near me.” I was looking at my upper arm as Kurt poked about. He’d cut away my sleeve.

  “It’s not serious,” Kurt muttered. “Looks like you were shot at. You didn’t hear anything?”

  “No. I didn’t hear anything.”

  Good to have confirmation that I was indeed shot.

  “The bullet grazed your upper arm instead of going through.”

  “Looks like a deep graze …” I replied.

  “More like a gouge.” He beckoned to the uniforms. They hurried over. “Conway, where were you when this happened?”

  “Near the intersection of F and 10th.”

  He looked at my coffee cup and spoke to the uniformed officers.

  “Agent Conway was en route by foot from the Firehook Bakery on 13th heading up F to 10th. You’re looking for shell casings and maybe a 9mm round. Count the traffic cams, and check how many stores have video surveillance at street level.”

  “You want us to talk to the stores and procure the footage?” one man asked.

  Kurt read his nametag. “Please, Jeff. That would be helpful.”

  The other man stepped forward. “Time frame for the footage?”

  I saw his nametag. “The last forty minutes, John. Both sides of the street, I saw someone on the opposite side of the street from me. He was walking fast and away from me.”

  They hurried off talking into their radios.

  Kurt delved back into his backpack and took out everything he needed to clean and bandage my arm.