Exacerbyte (Ellie Conway Book 3)

by Cat Connor

  “Yep.”

  A strange thing happened; I felt it stirring in my gut and then creeping across my face. I was smiling.

  Lee called Sean and Sam called the Embassy. Doc called the hospital to check on Nicola’s mother.

  It was time to pick up my phone and dial Caine. No sense waiting until the middle of the night.

  I took the call to the bedroom. “Caine, this is our case. This situation in New Zealand is an extension of the Butterfly Murder investigation. Looks to me like our Unsub has set up shop here. He may have a new twist to supplement his supply of children. I suspect he’s using rock concerts as a lure. I don’t know yet how he is meeting the kids, but it’s not through my Foundation.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  “Yeah it is. He’s comfortable online, so I think he is using an online persona to groom the kids. It’s just a matter of uncovering where he’s using it.”

  “I’ve spoken to Carla.” He sounded concerned. “She’s certain she’s being followed. But couldn’t give a description; she’s never seen the person, just knows someone’s there.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  “Yes. Police, however, want more than a gut feeling. Her foster mother tried to tell me Carla was prone to flights of fancy,” Caine replied, his voice grating a little more than usual.

  “She isn’t but police will be swayed by the foster mother’s response. I can send you a copy of the photo we found here, if you want to share our evidence with police?”

  “Let’s keep that up our sleeves for now.” He paused. “I’m going to speak to the security at her school, to her teachers and her friends first thing in the morning. I will assign agents to protect her.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate it.”

  “Can’t have mini-you in trouble, can we?”

  “No, we can’t.”

  “My advice – adopt the kid, Ellie. You’d be a good mother and she needs someone like you.” Caine’s tone drifted to fatherly.

  His advice stunned me. Not because he was wrong but because, once again, he knew what I was thinking. The more time I spent with Carla, the harder it was to walk away and the more I saw me in her.

  “I’m giving that serious consideration,” I replied. “One more thing. We have one kid who is a member of the Foundation … Nicola Gallagher.”

  Caine interrupted me with a sigh then said, “I’ll have someone check up on the American address that was used by her, to make sure everyone is accounted for.”

  “You need to call me from a secure line tomorrow. And thanks Caine. For everything.”

  “How bad is it?” he said in his usual brusque manner.

  “Very.”

  “I’m on it.”

  I hung up.

  The second the words ‘secure line’ left my mouth, they started a chain reaction. When you are standing on the edge, don’t look down. Caine would have our offices and the common area we referred to as the bullpen, swept for bugs. He’d also start monitoring communications and the whereabouts of anyone connected to our case.

  Someone knocked on the doorframe. I looked up to see Sean filling the doorway. What was it with the men I knew? They all were larger than life in more ways than one.

  “What’s up?” Sean asked.

  “What did you hear?”

  “Secure line.”

  “We’re in trouble.”

  He nodded. “That much I figured.” Sean changed tack. “You sure about this case being part of an ongoing case?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, because you’ll need to be. I’m about to notify Interpol that we have an international situation. That’s going to put you in the driving seat, until it’s over,” he said.

  A tingle built as the implications of his statement took over. The case was mine. Hawk was mine. I smiled.

  “I take it by that honest-to-god smile that you’re okay with that?”

  “I’m going to get those children back.”

  “That’s what I hoped you’d say. I’m making the call. Do you mind if I use your room? It’s noisy out there with Lee and Sam on their phones and Kurt talking medical mumbo jumbo on his.”

  “Go right ahead. I need to get back out there anyway.”

  I walked past him as he pulled his phone from his pocket.

  It wasn’t an obligatory smile on my face. I was happy. Everything had turned to shit yet I felt I was contributing again. There was purpose in my life. In some ways, I’d floated through the last seventeen months devoid of a real reason, trying to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do next. It felt like I’d been treading water, waiting for Hawk to resurface.

  Other cases came and went but none of them touched me, because nothing could penetrate the emptiness.

  “Where are we at?” I called across the sea of paperwork and coffee cups. Laptops hummed, cell phones buzzed, the smell of coffee filled the room. It felt like the bullpen had uprooted and flown halfway around the world, landing with a bump in Christchurch.

  Carla edged into my thoughts. Joey too. They needed me to do this. To find out who Hawk really was. I needed to find the real Hawk and the kids. The person feeding him information could wait – I’d set enough activity in motion and I was sure some of it would cause the mole some panic.

  Lee plonked a coffee in front of me.

  With that, the investigation changed. Sean received a call from police in Wellington about a murder. A crime scene awaited us.

  We headed to the airport.

  Ten

  Lie To Me

  An air of foreboding tweaked at my gut as we took off from Christchurch airport on Tuesday afternoon. Lee and I were sitting together; Sam and Doc were across the aisle. It wasn’t ideal. The little old lady in the window seat next to me delved quickly into a book. She obviously wasn’t into small talk.

  Fine by me.

  There were plenty of better ways to spend early Tuesday afternoon but there I sat, with my fingernails digging into the palms of my hands, as the airplane climbed fast to cruising altitude. It’s not that I don’t like flying; in fact, I love it. It was knowing where we were headed that caused my anxiety to climb with the aircraft. My past was tapping on the window of my soul and I didn’t like it.

  “How you doing?” Lee asked, nudging my elbow from the armrest.

  “Good,” I replied. That was my mistake. Big, loud, glaring, good. I don’t do good, I do okay. Or lately, fine.

  “Not buying it Ellie.”

  It was time for damage limitation mode. “I’m okay Lee. I am.”

  He nodded. “So I don’t need to switch with Doc then?”

  “Please don’t.” The last thing, the very last thing, I wanted was a fuss.

  He leaned across the aisle and spoke quietly to Sam.

  I settled into my seat and closed my eyes. There was time for a power nap before our descent to Wellington.

  Walking from the arrival gate at Wellington airport conjured memories I didn’t want to revisit. A long time ago. Another life. I scanned faces looking for the familiar, the now dead. The anxiety from the plane ebbed as I reminded myself it was a lifetime ago. It was a relief to see our police escort and not to recognize anyone at the airport. After brief introductions, we piled into a police car. I watched out the window of the marked police car, not quite listening to the calls over the radio, mostly looking for buildings I remembered. Wispy faces floated, smiling, above the skyline, as if they knew I was back. As we drove through the streets, I noted what I knew once was gone. My memory of the city lay smothered in concrete and part of the new motorway system. Knowing what I knew, it was probably for the best. Nothing worse than an ugly scar in a beautiful city. I silently acknowledged the past and those who perished protecting our future, knowing, in another incarnation, I was supposedly among the dead. My mind rolled over the list of agents lost that day. The only woman on the list was Demelza. She existed for one deep-cover operation and according to the roll, she died serving her country. There
was no one to miss her.

  Part of an old poem slipped into mind, obscuring the dead and the me that once was.

  ‘I am an enigma that doesn’t exist

  A name in the realm of swirling mist

  There’s nothing to say I was even here

  And nothing to remind me that anyone would care.’

  Lee’s voice penetrated my thoughts. “Ellie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Looks like we’re here.” It was easy to see the crime scene. Police cars and crime tape marked the house we were going to at the end of a nice street.

  A female detective met us at the door. “I’m Detective Faye Jones.”

  We introduced ourselves and shook hands.

  “We’ve been having issues with cell phone service the last few days.” Her eyes rolled. “More like weeks actually. I’m sure you probably sent me messages – I haven’t received them yet. And I’ve been unable to send messages.” She handed out bootees and gloves. “I’m in the process of changing phone companies. Ever tried to break an existing contract with a phone company?”

  “Actually, yes. I wish you luck.”

  I needed to say something about the officer who died at the airport but words of condolence always sounded empty.

  “I’m very sorry about your colleague. That was one of the voice messages I left for you.”

  She nodded sagely. “Thank you. She was a good person. I hear no one’s too keen on working with you now.” She smiled a little. “As for the message, no doubt I’ll get it at some stage,” she replied, without a trace of hope in her voice. “Probably get fifty text messages three o’clock in the damn morning like last time.”

  Suitably attired we followed her into the house.

  Never did I think I would be walking into something so familiar again. The walls slowly closed in, sucking my breath from my lungs as memories jumbled about. Dark, oppressive and terrifying, with eyes watching.

  Entering the kitchen, I was instantly aware of a big difference. Bright, clean, spacious, bathed in warm sunshine. I saw the body of a woman.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Alysia Talbot. Aged thirty-two. One child, Melanie. She’s missing.”

  This time her body lay as she’d fallen, not posed. She was fully clothed, which was a nice change. She lay in a puddle of her own blood. The metallic smell irritated my nerves. I bent down near her head. Her damp blonde hair was fanned across her face; I moved it out of the way. She could’ve been sleeping; her expression was peaceful. I breathed in: chlorine. She’d been swimming.

  At least I knew what was next.

  I looked up at the detective. “You need to check her blood for Thorazine and get a list of all the meds she takes. Stomach contents too, please. I’d bet money on the last thing she had being a cup of coffee laced with Thorazine. I can smell chlorine and her hair is damp. I think she went swimming, sometime in the last few hours. Public pools, would be a good place to start a line of inquiry. She may have been swimming with the killer, or even met him at the pool for coffee.” He really liked swimming, or maybe he didn’t; maybe he liked watching people swim.

  Doc crouched on the other side of the body but said nothing. Even so, I could feel his smart-assed comments surfacing.

  There was no empty bottle of booze. No gold ribbon. No scrawled poem. The same but different. It was Hawk. There was no doubt in my mind. I went looking for a note. The relief at not finding one was audible and short-lived.

  “We found this on the fridge,” Detective Jones said, holding out a paper evidence bag. “Is that you?” I took it and removed a photograph from inside. A nighttime photo of Lee and me crouched on wet ground next to paramedics working on someone. The only color in the picture was the flashing lights from ambulances and police cars.

  “It’s us,” Lee said. He moved closer to me.

  I turned the picture over and read the inscription written in what looked like black Sharpie: Problem solved, Conway.

  “Where was the picture taken?” Detective Jones asked.

  “Virginia,” I replied. My heart raced. I wanted to say the man on the ground was an agent I didn’t know. I needed to distance myself from the image, but the scene grabbed me and squeezed the air from my lungs. “That’s Special Agent Mac Connelly on the ground.” I swallowed hard. “Lee, photograph both sides of the picture.”

  All of a sudden, air was in short supply. I handed him the photograph and left the house.

  If the murder of Alysia Talbot had been loaded into ViCAP, it wouldn’t generate a match to our Butterfly Murders but I knew it was Hawk’s work. The prickling on the back of my neck told me it was him, even without the photograph and the note on the back.

  I jumped when Doc spoke. “You all right?”

  “I’m fine Doc, just needed some air.”

  “What’s with the chlorine?”

  “Hawk and his partner liked to take previous victims swimming before adding Thorazine to their coffee. That was something we never understood about the earlier murders. Why the swimming?”

  A few deep breaths and I hurried back into the house and located the detective talking to Sam. “Can I see the child’s bedroom?” She nodded and showed me the way.

  “Anything in particular you’re looking for?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I said with an apologetic shrug.

  “This is it,” she said leaving me by the door. Glancing down the hallway, I saw Doc with Sam and hoped he’d stay there.

  Grange posters covered the walls of Melanie Talbot’s bedroom. I swallowed hard. Grange stickers were all over the dressing tables. Posters even covered the ceiling. A laptop sat on a beat-up old desk. I opened it and turned it on. A picture of Rowan smiled at me from the desktop.

  Mac’s voice was crystal clear in my mind. ‘It’s all about the music.’

  A quick look through recent Messenger conversations revealed she’d been talking to a friend, Emma; they’d made plans to go into the city. Somewhere called Capital E. There was one offline message from her friend; they were meeting at four thirty. I turned off the laptop and unplugged the cord. It was coming with us.

  A swift search through Melanie’s room netted Emma’s name and a cell phone number on a school folder. I looked around again. There was no cell phone charger. A pile of exercise books on the dressing table drew my attention. I flipped through them. She was a good student judging by the comments from her teacher. A few drawers were slightly open. I couldn’t tell if clothes were missing but it seemed likely.

  I paused to admire the view from the bedroom window. The house sat on a high hill overlooking the harbor. Across the expanse of water, green hills gave way to narrow golden sandy beaches and deep blue water, dotted with sails from small yachts. A jet plane climbed steeply from a narrow band between two sets of hills, leaving behind a white rip in an otherwise pristine sky.

  The rip widened and frayed at the edges.

  Turning away from the window I called down the hallway, “Lee, Sam, you need to see this room.”

  “Hell of a view,” Lee commented nodding to the large window.

  “I want to find this Emma girl,” I said. “She might know something.”

  Outside the house, I briefed the police and called the cell phone number hoping to get Emma. It went to voicemail. I left a message saying I was a family friend looking for Melanie.

  My watch said it was just after four. “Where and what is Capital E?” I asked Detective Jones.

  “It’s part of the Museum Trust; Capital E has programs for kids. Plays, filmmaking, all sorts of things. It’s in Civic Square.”

  “Can we get a car?”

  “I’ll drive – we’ll use mine. It’s unmarked.”

  She called out to another detective, letting him know she was leaving the scene. Kurt, Sam and Lee crammed themselves into the back of her Holden sedan. It looked like a big car until they all squashed in.

  “Your husband was Agent Mac Connelly?” Jones asked as she drove.


  “Yeah.”

  “I met him once.”

  “Really? Where?”

  “Here in Wellington, about six years ago.”

  Well there was the mistake. Mac wasn’t FBI six years ago. He was a stock trader. To my knowledge, Mac had never traveled to New Zealand. I played it cool.

  “Some kind of stock trading conference was it?”

  “No, no. He was here working out of the embassy on a case,” she said brightly.

  A sudden onerous hush from the backseat overwhelmed me. I didn’t know what to say. It couldn’t have been Mac.

  “We’re here,” Jones said, absolving me from comment.

  I pushed everything she said about Mac to the back of my mind. She was obviously confused and it was another Mac Connelly or she had the name wrong.

  She parked in a multistory car park and pointed across the road to a large building. “That’s the Michael Fowler centre, our town hall. Next door is the library. We’re going to walk around the road there,” she said. “And enter Civic Square.”

  The five of us started walking. The square was interesting. The library was on the right and National art gallery on the left. Large paving stones covered the entire area; there were sculptures and seats and it smelled of coffee.

  “Any idea what the kid looks like?” Sam asked.

  “I saw her Messenger picture,” I replied. She looked quite a bit like Carla but paler. “She’s blonde, has brown eyes, not much color in her face. But it could’ve been a winter picture.”

  Many young people milled about in the middle of the square; they all seemed to be young teens or tweens.

  “How many do you think are here?” Lee asked.

  Jones replied, “A hundred and fifty or so. It’s the holidays; there has probably been some outdoor entertainment, bands and stuff.”

  I pointed to a stage and tech-type people running cables. “Or maybe it hasn’t started yet.”

  The stage gave me an idea. All the children looked similar. Finding one from a Messenger photo was not going to be easy. I stepped up onto the stage and looked out. The view was better but still not great.

  Jones climbed up next to me. “Good idea but it’s not helping much,” she commented, hands on hips. She peered out at the youngsters below.