Soundbyte (-byte series Book 5)

by Cat Connor

  “Please, mom, hurry.”

  My heart thumped harder than ever. “I’m on my way.”

  Kurt raised an eyebrow and reached for my phone. “Carla, we’re all coming with your mom. Warn your Grandpa, we’ll need coffee.”

  He handed me the phone and shook his head.

  I said goodbye to Carla.

  “It’s not like her to be so emotional,” he said. “Wonder what else is going on.”

  I smiled. “See? Not my imagination.”

  “Meet you at home,” Kurt said with a grin. “For the record, I never thought it was your imagination. I just thought it was a teenage hormonal thing to do with Joey.”

  “And now?”

  “I’m not so sure.” His hand rested on my forearm. “I’ll find Lee and Sam, you go home.”

  “And Cait? Where the fuck is Cait O’Hare? I haven’t heard from Sean.” This doesn’t bode well.

  “We’ll find her. Have faith.”

  Misha and I continued down to the garage and my car.

  My phone rang again before we were out of the parking garage. It was Rowan. He’d felt the earth move and was checking in. It must’ve been shallow and strong for it to be felt in New York.

  Getting out of Washington wasn’t the easiest of tasks. Buildings were evacuated while engineers checked for damage. People were everywhere. The energy was familiar. I’d felt it before, this time it was subsiding into a shaky normality as everyone realized it wasn’t a terror attack. A random act of violence from mother earth. There is no way to fight that.

  I started to see why it upset Carla so much.

  Twenty-Eight

  Sweet Virginia

  Carla met me at the door. Her tear-stained face and bloodshot eyes told me all I needed to know about how she felt. I hugged her hard. “It’s going to be okay. It’s just the earth having a tantrum.”

  Mother Nature needs to lay off the caffeine and take a little blue pill of instant calm.

  “Can you stay home now?”

  “Yes.” I regretted my firm reply. Yes, as long as I don’t need to interview anyone. Yes, as long as I can direct the investigation from here without having to do the leg work myself. Aware that Misha was trapped in the front doorway and unable to pass, I stepped aside, taking Carla with me. “Welcome to our new home,” I said.

  My father appeared from the other end of the hallway. “Misha!” he called. “Come, we have fresh coffee.”

  I eased my phone from my pocket while still hugging Carla.

  “I’m home, but I need to work, okay?” I whispered.

  “Okay.” She wasn’t letting go. Together we walked into the living room. I shrugged my shoulder bag to the floor by the sofa. Carla and I sat down. I conference-called Delta B and C’s agents in charge.

  “It’s Ellie Conway. Have either of you seen or spoken to Director O’Hare today?”

  “No,” Claude replied.

  “No,” replied Tina.

  “I am having trouble locating her and Director Doyle from NCIS.” Never mind that Noel went to meet Doyle and his team lost contact with him.

  “What do you need?” Tina said.

  “Help. I need your teams to run down recent contacts. There is a visitor log, ask Sandra for it. Our inability to locate the directors may have something to do with the IED in the bullpen earlier this week.”

  My request met with silence as they digested the information.

  I waited. Carla curled up on the sofa and leaned on me.

  Claude spoke first, “We’ll divide the list.”

  “Thank you. You can reach me on my cell or call my home number. I’ve relocated Delta A for the time being.”

  “Understood.” They said at once.

  I hung up, and leaned my head back on the sofa.

  “Mom, if Ms. O’Hare is missing, where is her son?”

  “I hope he’s with his father,” I replied, opening my phone again and making another call. “Sean, any news?”

  “Nothing. Cait arrived at her office at seven this morning. The building records show her leaving at seven forty-five with her briefcase. She took her car, no driver.”

  “Direction?”

  “I got her on a red light camera. She was heading toward the Navy Yard.”

  “Doyle?”

  “He left his office at five to eight carrying a briefcase. Took his car, no driver.”

  “Let me guess, he headed toward the Hoover Building?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “So they met somewhere?”

  “I’m going to need help with all the traffic camera footage, Ellie, if we want a shot at finding them before whatever it is that’s going to happen happens.”

  “I’m at home. I have Misha and Dad here, I’m volunteering them.”

  “Computers?”

  “We can cope. Send me links. I’ll get them set up.”

  “Great. Usual email address?”

  “Yes.”

  “To be honest, I’m a little concerned that Cait would disappear without telling her aides,” Sean said. “Not surprised – because she’s always been headstrong, ornery, a pain in the ass, she’s always been Cait – but concerned.”

  I laughed. “I’d hate to hear what you say about me if that’s how you describe your twin.”

  “You two at times are like peas in a pod.”

  Well, that answered my question.

  “Send everything you have.”

  Sean and I hung up.

  Maybe I could conduct this investigation from home after all.

  “You didn’t ask him where Sam was,” Carla said, her quiet voice rimmed with sadness.

  “You’re right. I’ll call him back.”

  I redialed. “Sean, Carla would like to know where your nephew is.”

  “He’s with his father. I spoke to him after the earthquake.”

  “Thank you.”

  I hung up again and told Carla. It seemed to satisfy her.

  “Right, kiddo, I have to go open my main office and fire up those computers.”

  “Here?”

  “Yep, coming?”

  Like she was going to stay behind when I left the room. I had myself a fifteen-year-old shadow.

  My office was down the other end of the house, past the kitchen, down a short hallway and off to the right. I poked my head into the kitchen.

  “I’m going to need you two to check through some traffic cam footage, is that okay?”

  Misha and Dad nodded. “I’ll come get you when I’m ready.”

  Three people could unlock my office door via a retinal scanner. Me, my father, and Carla.

  “You want to?” I said to Carla as we stood in front of the door.

  She nodded, and stretched her neck a fraction to look into the scanner. The door unlocked. I swung it wide open. The room was warm, light, and spacious. There were two doors on the left, one for the library and the other led to a bathroom. To the right was a large leather sofa with a coffee table in front of it. Under the window was a huge desk, which ran the width of the room. On it sat two desktop computers. There were also three desk chairs and enough space for a laptop. When I decided to build, I worked with an architect to design the house, and made sure my office was big enough to accommodate Delta A. The architect also included a panic room, which was accessible from the library. It was underneath the house but not reachable from the basement. My little concrete bunker. It wasn’t so little as to be claustrophobic. The room had its own water supply, power supply, air filtration, and purifying system. No point having a safe room if someone can gas you when you’re in it, or shut off your water or power.

  I turned on the computers.

  Damn, my laptop was in the living room.

  “Carla, can you grab my laptop for me?”

  She frowned. “It’s down the other end of the house,” she said.

  “I know. Will you get it please?”

  Carla shook her head.

  “I’m right here,” I said, as the first of the com
puters displayed the start screen. She shook her head. “Fine, I’ll go. You stay here.”

  She shadowed me as I left and hurried down the hall. I’ve always wanted a shadow behind me that cries. My life is complete. Dad called out to Carla but she ignored him. I even heard the word cookie.

  There was a train-like rumble.

  The floor under us vibrated and jolted. The painting on the wall next to me tipped, I saw it move from the corner of my eye.

  Carla squealed and grabbed me. “Another earthquake!”

  I hugged her back. “Aftershock, Carla, that’s all.”

  Dad called out, “You girls all right?”

  “Yep,” I hollered back. “We’re good.”

  Carla sobbed. “I’m not good.”

  Maybe I needed to call Joey and get him over here. I decided to talk to Dad about it, if I could get two minutes without the shadow child.

  On my way back to the office with my laptop, my cell phone rang. I checked the display and showed Carla. Rowan. She just shrugged.

  “Can I take this?” I said to her. “Which means I want some privacy, Miss. Go into my office, I’ll be out here in the hall.”

  She did as I said with evident reluctance.

  “Hey, did you feel the latest shake?” I said as I answered Rowan’s call.

  “Yeah, made for an exciting few seconds. I called your place and spoke to Carla right after the first quake.”

  “Me too, you must’ve called right after me.”

  “Yep, she said I had. Is there something I don’t know?”

  “You mean something else as well as the Joey sex scandal?”

  He spluttered into the phone, “Have you confirmed that’s what is going on?”

  “Calm down. I was kidding.” Maybe.

  “Then why is Carla so upset?”

  “I think this is on me. I sort of promised her earlier this week that we wouldn’t have an earthquake here in Virginia and we not only had a decent quake but we just had an aftershock.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yep.”

  “And that conversation came about why?”

  “Because she was freaking out about another earthquake in New Zealand, and was super mad at me for not being home, or hating me for not letting her see Joey. I dunno. I think I have myself a teenager.”

  “Good luck.”

  I could hear him laughing. “Laugh it up, Chuckles, I’ll send her to stay with you again.”

  “Threats now?”

  “Empty ones … she’s not like this with you.”

  He was still laughing when I hung up. So glad I could amuse someone today.

  Carla sat at one of the computers playing solitaire. She looked over at me as I set up my laptop on the coffee table. “Is Rowan okay?”

  “Yes, he is. Think he quite enjoyed the shaking.”

  She shrugged. I could see in her expression that she wanted to ask me to let Joey come over but didn’t want to hear me say no again.

  The power of texting came into play. I sent a message to my father in the kitchen. Oh, how I have scoffed in the past at people who text each other when they’re in the same house. But now I could see a benefit: private conversations you don’t want a kid to overhear.

  Should I let Joey come over?

  Dad replied, It’s up to you.

  Fat lot of help you are.

  Dad replied, She hasn’t seen him for the last few days. We’re all here. It’s not like they’re unsupervised.

  I thought about it for a minute. He was right.

  Okay, I will invite him over, or have Carla do it.

  I pushed my phone into my pocket and sat down next to Carla.

  “Do you want Joey to come over?”

  She reacted with suspicion, as if it were a trick question, then said, “Yes.”

  “Okay, call him and invite him.” I picked up the phone from my desk and handed it to her. “Land line.”

  The phone on my desk was the only one in the house that wasn’t mobile. She was tied to the room by the cord. Therefore I could hear her conversation. I didn’t listen. I busied myself. I dropped the email from Sean containing the links into Dropbox, and then retrieved it on both computers. Now, Misha and Dad could get to work, watching screeds of traffic camera footage to find either Doyle or O’Hare’s car.

  “Mom, he can come,” Carla said with a smile. “His parents aren’t home anyway.”

  “Does he need a ride?”

  “No, he said he’ll get the bus.”

  “Okay.”

  She didn’t ask if she could go meet him at the bus stop. I guess she still wasn’t feeling that brave after today’s events.

  I called out to Dad and Misha. When they appeared, I said, “Pick a computer, the links are in an email in Dropbox, just open Sean’s email and away you go. He also included detailed descriptions of the vehicles and tag numbers. In the drawers on the left of the computers you’ll find pencils and pads.”

  Carla’s face exploded into a huge grin.

  “Problem?” I said to her.

  “You sounded like one of my teachers.”

  “Good or bad?”

  “Bad.”

  “Good to know.”

  Misha chuckled and nudged Dad. “We will have to be careful, my friend. Ellie may smack us with ruler if we misbehave.”

  “Vy umnyy zadnitsy, Misha.” You are a smart ass, Misha.

  “Ya ne tak khorosho kak vy.” I am not as good at it as you.

  “Ochen’ smeshno.” Very funny.

  “That’s really rude, Mom,” Carla said, glaring at me.

  “What is?”

  “Speaking Russian, Grandpa and I don’t know what you are saying.”

  I glanced at my father. He smiled. Carla was wrong. She was the only one who didn’t know what we were talking about. My father spoke five languages and Russian was one of them. He didn’t let on.

  “Raz, kogda vy nauchilis’ govorit’ na russkom,” I replied. Time you learned to speak Russian.

  “Ya nauchu yeye, Ellie,” Misha replied with a nod at my father. “Simon pomozhet, da?” I shall teach her, Ellie. Simon will help, yes?

  Dad smiled, his head inclined in agreement.

  “Rude!” Carla squawked.

  “Misha just said he will teach you Russian,” I replied, it was best not to say that her Grandpa would help, not just yet.

  She smiled. “Okay then.”

  “Now, relax a bit, kiddo. Joey will be here soon, and I have to work.”

  Panic scrawled across her face like someone had taken a sharpie to it.

  “Work where?”

  “Here. Chill.”

  She exhaled. “Okay.”

  A buzzing sound emanated from the wall behind us. I walked over and pressed the button on the intercom.

  “Yep?”

  “It’s Kurt, Lee, and Sam,” Kurt said.

  I pressed a series of seven numbers into the keypad on the wall.

  “Gates open,” I replied.

  “Thanks.”

  My shadow and I went out to meet them and Bon Jovi launched into ‘We weren’t born to follow.’ A quick look behind me told me the band wasn’t singing at the end of my hallway. They were so loud I was sure I’d see them there. I have to confess to a bit of disappointment at not seeing Bon Jovi behind me. How cool would that be?

  “What is it, Mom?” Carla said, grabbing my hand.

  “Nothing, thought I could hear Bon Jovi, that’s all.”

  She twisted her head around and looked too. How could I be the only one who could hear the song? Because I’m the one who needs to hear it. I shrugged and opened the front door for Delta A.

  Kurt was standing on the porch facing the driveway. Lee and Sam were collecting gear from the car.

  “Hey,” I said. Kurt’s head turned to me.

  “Didn’t hear the door open,” he muttered. “I liked the door at your old house better, you couldn’t sneak up on anyone then.”

  That was true. It was not a
n easy door to open. Sometimes I forgot that this door was easy and applied the same force, only to have the door get away from me, and crash into the doorstop on the wall behind or worse, smash into me. That was pretty embarrassing.

  “Come in,” I said, stepping aside.

  Sam and Lee crossed the distance from the car to the porch and front door.

  “Chicky Babe, just like old times but in a fancier house,” Sam said, handing his laptop bag to Carla. “Thanks, Carla, lead the way.”

  With everyone in the house, I paused at the open door and looked for Joey. No sign of him. I closed the door and caught up.

  Sam, Lee, and Kurt took a few minutes to say hello to Misha and my dad, then settled into setting up their laptops and getting comfortable. Kurt handed me a file.

  I flipped through it and read parts of the interview with Zachary.

  “He had no idea, did he?” I said, as I read the statement he’d made on the last page.

  Kurt shook his head. “No, he’s just a nice guy who was on a buying trip for his father. He knows diamonds. He’s very good and well respected in the circles he moves in, but none of those circles intersect with killers and terrorists.”

  “Then how?” Kurt knew what I was asking.

  “Brown – Maguire – made first contact or the first approach if you like, while Zachary was in Antwerp on a buying trip. They met in a bar.”

  “Accidental or on purpose on Brown’s part?” Yes, it was rhetorical. There was no way all this hell was unleashed on the Bleich family and the initial meeting was accidental.

  “When did they meet?”

  “Two years ago.”

  “Two years. That means over two years of planning.”

  I pulled my phone from my belt and indicated to Kurt to keep Carla with him as I left the room.

  I made what was becoming a familiar call. I waited for Tierney to answer.

  “How can I help, Demelza?”

  “Let’s start with you using my actual name. Could you do that, please?”

  “Old habit, Ellie. Old habit.”

  “One we need to have broken. Now, my issue … Campbell was working an operation?”

  “Yes, you know he was.”

  “Have you heard from him?”

  There was a pause. Damn, he’d heard.

  “No,” Tierney replied.

  He failed to convince me.

  “Yes, you have, he isn’t dead. Can I pull the divers out of the freaking Potomac now?”