Soundbyte (-byte series Book 5)

by Cat Connor

  She swallowed hard.

  “Tell us,” Sam said. He can be quite persuasive with his controlled voice and LL Cool J meets Mr. T exterior.

  “It’s in the woods,” she stammered.

  “Where?”

  “Behind the cabin, not far from where you were.”

  “You want to tell me why you lied, why you had the phone, and why you didn’t call your brother?” I said.

  “Iain gave it to me right before he went for supplies. He told me to hide it, that there were cameras in the woods and an application on the phone to view the images.” She leaned forward. “He said someone would come and that Brown couldn’t know when that happened.”

  I looked at her. “He told you to write the note in the attic?”

  “Yes. But I couldn’t remember where the cabin was.”

  “Did Brown know who your brother is?”

  “No, he’d met him as my brother, not as anything official.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Because there’s a chance that your brother is a target and this whole god-awful mess was to make him more accessible.”

  She paled. “How?”

  “They may have thought that NCIS would come after you and maybe he’d join the hunt. I don’t know, but so far nothing makes sense.”

  And Noel was pulled back in a big fat hurry. Sure, a SEAL team took out Bin Laden but that wasn’t here, and it wasn’t anything that would involve NCIS.

  Sam stepped back and turned to face me, surprise etched across his face. His phone was in his hand and he was pressing buttons.

  “This isn’t about my brother …” Maria said. “This is insane.”

  No more than everything so far has been.

  The sun broke through the grey. It streamed in the window creating dancing sparkly dust particles. The glittering spiraled and twisted until a butterfly emerged with diamond wings and sprinkled the room with glitter. I turned, following its path; walking toward me from the door was a familiar figure.

  “You again … what this time?” I said.

  Chance grinned, his eyes shone. “Campbell was never the bad guy. You’re right about the CIA. You’re getting warmer with the Director thing.”

  “Warmer?”

  “Where was the bomb?”

  “Crap!”

  “Where are the Directors today?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “They’re together. This is a twofold situation.”

  “Be nice if you were real. I could do with someone to flush out the bastards, Maguire sure as hell wasn’t working alone.”

  “You can do it, Babe.”

  “Babe? Little informal don’t you think?” I watched as his blond hair and blue eyes melted away, replaced by dark hair and hazel eyes. “Mac. What’s with the whole Christopher Chance thing?”

  “It amuses me,” he replied then melded with the wallpaper and disappeared.

  My phone was in my hand and I was scrolling through the directory for Cait O’Hare’s number. She didn’t answer at any of her numbers. I left messages and called Sean. There was a chance he’d know where his sister was.

  “It’s Ellie Conway. I’m looking for Director O’Hare. Do you know where she is?”

  “No, what’s up?”

  “A gut feeling and a set of weird events.” I lowered my voice, but was unable to keep the urgency from it. “Cait could be in danger.”

  “She’s never anywhere without security, you know that,” Sean replied.

  Nothing fazed him. His voice remained devoid of emotion. I knew mine was revealing my apprehension.

  “Doesn’t matter what I know about her security. She could still be in danger. Can you find her?”

  “Yeah,” he said. There was a beat of heavy air. “I can tell this is really worrying you. What the hell is going on, Ellie?”

  “I wish I knew. I’m in Harper’s Ferry. I’ll be in DC tonight. Find Cait, please.”

  “What are you doing in Harper’s Ferry?”

  “Cait asked Delta A to take an abduction case involving the NCIS Director’s sister. We found her out here.”

  “Good chance Cait is with him then. I’ll find her. Do you have a precise threat?”

  “No, just my gut. Could be a bomb or a sniper.” Either or maybe both.

  “I’m on it.”

  I hung up and called Sandra again.

  “What did we find out about visitors capable of leaving the Berretta in the bullpen?”

  “I have a list, six names.”

  And I had a thought. “Whoever did it fucked up. I think it was supposed to be there when O’Hare was in my office, but the timing was screwed up. The gun was left a day early. This means Maria was supposed to be abducted a day earlier than she was.”

  “That Maria is quite the problem, isn’t she?”

  “I’m beginning to think so.” How do you solve a problem like Maria? Find out what the root cause of the problem is. “Run the names, see what you turn up.”

  “Will do,” she said, her fingers already tapping on her keyboard.

  If anyone could find a connection between Maria, Brown, Campbell, Sutherland, Bleich, O’Hare, Director Doyle, and the Berretta – Sandra could.

  Sam was on his feet pacing, his phone at his ear. He was alternating between talking fast and listening.

  I waited.

  Maria curled into the chair by the window. Reading her was difficult. It was almost like a thick blanket of snow covered her and obscured her real thoughts. People with nothing to hide don’t pull a blanket over themselves like that. It was reminiscent of the meeting with the Sutherlands; the same obstructive feel.

  Sam’s arm dropped to his side, his phone still in his hand.

  “What’s up?” I said as I detected more weight in the air.

  “Noel Gerrard is missing,” he stated.

  “Nothing unusual there, he’s always missing or wandering off.” I might have been more dismissive than I intended to be, Sam’s brow creased.

  “That’s true, Chicky, but no one knows where he is. None of his team knows where he is.”

  That was a problem. I’d always thought that Noel could look after himself and most others around him right up until a thug disarmed him while we were on a recent case. If his team can’t locate him, then we have a problem.

  “Last known whereabouts?”

  “On his way to meet Director Doyle.”

  “Pack,” I said.

  Sam left the room and I all but ignored Maria while I packed Kurt’s stuff and mine as fast as I could. When I was done I suggested she use the bathroom, as we wouldn’t be stopping at all on our way back into DC.

  Sam and I hauled our gear to the cars, taking Maria with us. Kurt and Lee were nowhere to be seen.

  “River?” Sam said.

  “Yeah, I’ll call them.”

  Kurt answered his cell phone on the second ring.

  “Hey, Conway.”

  “We’re heading back to DC, you coming?”

  “Yes.”

  “Lee?”

  “He’ll come,” Kurt said.

  “How’s it going?”

  “Divers are out, found nothing so far.”

  “I doubt he’s in the river.”

  I hung up. Sam was waiting.

  “I think Campbell was in the river but I don’t think he is now.”

  “Chicky?”

  “Nothing I can explain to anyone or provide any evidence to verify. Just the gut thing going on.”

  Sam smiled.

  There was notable absence of music in my head. The jury was out as to whether that was comforting or not. It kind of felt lonely.

  Twenty-Seven

  Brokenpromiseland

  The emptiness continued all the way back into DC. Emptiness and a distinct lack of conversation. My mind was trying to fathom the twists and turns of the case. Maria attempted conversation on occasion but I just couldn’t go there. Too much was happening
in my head for external things.

  I willed Wednesday to give me something useful.

  No phone calls telling me O’Hare was safe somewhere. No phone calls telling me if the diamonds were missing. Nothing from Noel. I checked my phone several times thinking that maybe the battery was flat. But no, it wasn’t flat. There just weren’t any calls. No news in this case wasn’t good news.

  Kurt pulled into a space under the Hoover building and parked. Lee pulled in next to us. By the looks on their faces they all felt like I did. A mix of cold dread and adrenaline.

  It’s not as much fun as it sounds.

  Sam took Maria to an interview room while Kurt, Lee, and I went to find Sandra. She wasn’t at her desk. The bullpen was buzzing like a hive. Delta B was working on something. Lee and Kurt hung back with Delta B. When it came down to it, we were Delta and we stick together. Delta B needed to be brought up to speed. Information has a way of popping up from odd sources, but it’s only useful if you know what to do with it.

  I opened the door to my office and found Sandra at my desk.

  “Hey, wondered where you were,” I said, dropping my shoulder bag next to the desk.

  “Do you mind?” she said, indicating to the computers in front of her. There were two laptops running plus my desktop.

  “Not at all.”

  “Too noisy out there with Delta B in,” she said with a nod toward the bullpen.

  “You find anything?”

  “Four diamonds are missing.”

  “Only four of five …” I muttered. “Which ones?”

  “The twins, Sigmund’s, and Marika’s.”

  “Do you know where the fifth diamond is?”

  “Yes,” she replied and opened my drawer. Sandra lifted a large jeweler’s case from my drawer and set it on the desk. She opened the lid. “Here.”

  “Wow. Where was it?”

  “In the store. Zachary told us there was a hidden safe under a counter out back. That’s where his was. He expected his father’s to be in the safe with his and doesn’t know why he would have moved it or why a thief would leave this stone behind.”

  Interesting. I remembered every second of the video surveillance footage from the jewelry store. No one went behind the counter.

  “Zachary is quite sure that his father diamond was in the same safe as his?”

  “Yes.”

  “But it wasn’t there, was it?”

  “No. The only stone in that safe was Zachary’s.”

  “So, was the missing forty-eight carat diamond stolen like the others or moved somewhere else,” I said.

  “Maybe Mr. Bleich lent it to a museum or something …”

  Sandra put the stone back in the drawer.

  My eyebrows rose at her museum comment.

  “Is there anything to suggest he may have lent out the diamond? And wouldn’t he be more likely to lend the set, much more impressive that way?”

  Sandra was reading the screen in front of her.

  “Nothing I’ve come across, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t got records somewhere other than on his computer,” she replied. “I’ll look into it.”

  “Something feels hinky,” I said.

  “You’re right. You’ll want to see this,” she said and turned a laptop to face me. “Phone records from the Sutherland woman, with Sigmund’s phone number highlighted. These calls were all made and received over the last four months.”

  I scrolled through the call logs. There were over a hundred calls to and fro.

  “No denying they knew each other then.”

  “No.”

  “The calls end the day he died, there’s nothing to Sigmund from nine that morning,” I said studying the records. “She doesn’t try to contact him again at all.”

  It’s as if she knew he was dead. Was she crying because she thought her husband was dead, when we arrived at her home, or was she already crying because she knew Sigmund was? And how would she know that? How?

  “Someone told her Sigmund was dead, or she knew he was going to die,” I said. “Latest calls?”

  Sandra turned the laptop back toward her and typed. I rolled a spare chair around to her side of the desk. We sat elbow to elbow, peering at the screen in front of us.

  “She’s made a lot of calls to several unknown numbers over the last five days.”

  And there was no overlap. Same person changing phones? A call from the unknown preceded all calls to the unknown. Someone was letting her know which number to call.

  “When did the calls start?”

  “Within an hour of Sigmund’s death,” Sandra said.

  While we were looking for his killer.

  “What do we know about the phones?”

  “Burn phones. We traced the phone numbers to the manufacturers and they told us where they shipped those phones. The first one was bought at Best Buy in Fair Lakes. The second one was bought at Radio Shack on 12th Street NW.”

  “You’ve been busy,” I said.

  “No more than usual,” she replied.

  “Store surveillance?”

  “We may get lucky, the Best Buy manager is searching sales records to find when the phone was sold, and they keep their surveillance tapes for four months. The manager from Radio Shack is looking for sales records, she says the video is monitored and stored off site – she’ll request the data once she knows what day the phone was sold.”

  “Good. Most obliging of them.”

  Some people like to help without making a fuss.

  “They both have warrants requesting the data.”

  I nodded. The covering of everyone’s ass was necessary. I didn’t want to get this mess to court to find some smarmy defender could have everything thrown out because someone made a mistake.

  “I’m heading out to see Mrs. Sutherland.” I had a feeling she had Sigmund’s diamond. I didn’t know why, but my gut was twanging up a storm over the diamond going missing prior to the killings. Given away maybe? Given to her to shut her up for some reason? And then she got greedy and wanted them all?

  “Who are you taking?”

  “Kurt. Sam and Lee have two interviews to do.”

  She smiled. “Maria and Zachary.”

  “Yep. Where’s Misha?”

  A light knock sounded on the doorframe. I looked up and there was Misha Praskovya, looking every bit as if he’d stepped off the cover of a Mills and Boon novel. He strode into my office, his long strides covered the distance from the door to me as a smile played upon his lips.

  “Ellie,” he said.

  “Privet, Misha. Are you well?” I indicated a chair. “Have a seat.”

  “Ya khorosho.Vy vyglyadite ustalym you. Mozhet byt’, segodnya na uzhin?” I am well. You look tired. Perhaps dinner tonight?

  “Mozhet byt’!” Perhaps!

  “Zachary is in interview room four,” he said. “Your Russian is improving.”

  “You give me plenty of practice,” I replied. “Lee and Sam will do the interview.”

  My chair rolled. The desk wobbled. The room swayed. Sandra jumped to her feet. Misha was on his feet; his hand reached out and took mine.

  “Come,” he said.

  Unbalanced by the moving floor I missed a step and almost fell on him. His arm encircled my waist. The fire alarm sounded. I looked at Sandra clutching the moving desk. “Go.”

  She hurried past us.

  “What the hell?” I said. I’d heard no explosions or crashing noises. Didn’t seem like an act of terrorism. What was left? Earthquake? What were the odds? Fire alarms sounded. At the door to my office I saw the bullpen empty as everyone filed down the corridor and the stairs. “Carla!”

  I shrugged Misha’s arm away and hurried back to my desk. I picked up my phone and called Carla.

  It took her a while to answer.

  “Mom!”

  “Honey, everything okay there?”

  “What was it?”

  “An earthquake, I think it was an earthquake.” There were no columns o
f smoke visible from my window, so I doubted it was a terrorist attack although part of me couldn’t quite grasp that it wasn’t. I flicked up a browser on my computer and looked at the USGS website. “It was an earthquake. It’s showing on the USGS website. Centered in Virginia, about forty miles North West of Richmond. It was a five point nine.” Maybe I should’ve kept that to myself but it was too late, the words were out there and already hitting home.

  “Will there be any more?”

  I willed my words to evaporate before they flowed, but they wouldn’t. “We might get some aftershocks,” I said then added, “they’re smaller, Carla.” My fingers crossed. “You probably won’t even notice them.” Just shut up.

  She dissolved into tears. Sobbing accusations down the phone. “I told you it would happen. The house would fall down and you wouldn’t be here.”

  “The house fell down?”

  “No,” she sobbed. “But it ...”

  Sometimes being a parent sucks. I silenced her. “Shush now. I’m on my way.” Another sob let loose. “Carla, I’m coming home.”

  I was puzzled, unable to figure out when or why my stoic child became a drama queen of such enormous proportions. Misha held my bag and waited by the door.

  “Mommy, I’m scared.”

  “I know. I’m coming. Stay with Grandpa.”

  I hung up, pocketed my phone, and looked at Misha.

  “Go to her, I will come. Delta, they can take care of this case,” Misha said.

  So much to do. No answers. No closer to solving the riddles. And now an earthquake. Days of Our Lives would kill for a script like this. I nodded at Misha.

  “Let’s go.”

  On the way out of the building I saw Kurt and told him that I needed to go home for a little while. Lee was nowhere to be seen.

  “You want to relocate the whole thing into Virginia?”

  Could I do that? Would bringing Delta home make her feel safer? Maybe.

  “Good plan. Deal with Zachary and Maria first. I don’t want potential suspects in this whatever-the-fuck-it-is in my home.”

  “I’ll take Maria to the Navy Yard. NCIS can handle her debrief.”

  “Good. Make sure they know I’m not happy with her level of involvement.” I was not even sure what her precise level of involvement was, but there was something there.

  My phone rang. It was Carla.