by Lee, Rachel
Gil emerged an hour later looking only slightly the worse for wear. They’d had to take a stitch in his eyelid.
“It’s as annoying as hell,” he remarked. “I feel it every time I blink. But I’m okay. Do you want to go back to the museum?”
Anna shook her head. “I’d rather go home. I feel like a fifth wheel there. At least at home I have things I can do while I’m being watched.”
“Fair enough. I imagine the surveillance team is still there.”
“I think so.”
“Let’s go then. I’ll stay with you for a while. Tebbins knows how to reach me.”
For some reason the idea frightened her. “That’s not necessary. I’m sure you want to go back and see what Tebbins is up to.”
Gil shrugged. “Like I said, he knows where to find me.”
The two patrol cars were still parked in front of Anna’s house. The officers were busy chatting, but they vetted both Gil and Anna before allowing them to approach her house. In turn, the Tampa cop vetted the two Temple Terrace officers before he returned to his other duties.
“See?” she said. “I’m safe. You don’t have to baby-sit me.”
Standing in the middle of her living room, he looked at her. His dark eyes caught her green ones, holding them. As if by some magic the air around them seemed to thicken. Anna wondered if she had ever felt like this before, as if the very air were pregnant with earthshaking possibilities. She couldn’t even move, for fear she would destroy the moment.
He spoke, almost gently. “What are you afraid of, Anna?”
Under the circumstances, it should have been an absurd question. But she wasn’t thinking of those circumstances, and neither was he.
He slipped off his suit jacket and tossed it on the couch. His tie had vanished while he was in the hospital. Anna felt her breath catch, and some part of her recognized that she was being offered something wonderful by a universe that wasn’t entirely heartless.
Gil stepped toward her. “I shouldn’t feel this way.”
She didn’t know how to respond. Couldn’t have responded even if she did. Because blossoming deep within her was an acute awareness that she wanted him more than anything else in the world at that instant.
“You’re a suspect. This could kill my career.”
She did speak then, a throaty whisper that seemed to come from elsewhere. “I won’t tell.”
The smile he gave her sent warmth rushing right to her toes.
Tebbins sat in the conference room, looking across the table at the technician. At the far end sat Dinah Hudson, observing. She had already told the man to cooperate.
But Arnold LaCombe was not someone Tebbins would have hired to shine his shoes. The man might be as good a programmer as Turk said, but he also had an attitude problem and all the signs of a man on marijuana.
Tebbins was a realist, however. He personally didn’t much care if someone smoked pot, any more than he cared if someone had an occasional drink. He himself liked a glass of wine from time to time.
The problem, however, with people who smoked pot, the problem that made them worse than weekend beer drinkers, was that they were doing something illegal. That, to Tebbins’s way of thinking, said something about their characters.
At that moment, Arnold LaCombe looked like a man who’d been through a lost weekend and was just waking up enough to turn resentful and obstreperous. But Tebbins was perfectly willing to turn the screws.
“I want to know,” he said, “if anyone showed unusual interest in the security system while you were working on it.”
“What’s unusual?” LaCombe said. He slouched back in his chair, wearing a T-shirt and shorts that looked as if he’d slept in them more than once. No, Tebbins thought, I definitely wouldn’t hire this man to clean dog droppings from my yard. He must present a very different attitude and appearance to his employers during the week. Turk and Boomer were weird, but they were helpful and earnest.
“Asking questions,” Tebbins said.
“Everybody asked questions. This place was crawling with people who asked questions.”
Tebbins doubted it. “I mean people who asked specific questions about the functioning. About the test procedures.”
LaCombe shrugged. “I guess. Probably a few. Doesn’t mean I answered. I’m not supposed to answer those questions.”
“But I still need to know who asked.”
“How the hell am I supposed to know? There were a hundred people crawling around this place. You think I cared who they were?”
“But somebody asked you these specific questions.”
“I didn’t say that. They could have.”
Dinah stirred and sighed. “I told you to cooperate, Arnie. I meant it.”
“I am cooperating. People asked questions. I don’t know who they were. I didn’t answer any questions I wasn’t supposed to.”
“That better be true,” Tebbins said. “Because if it isn’t, you might be charged as an accessory.”
That jolted the guy. His already dilated pupils dilated even more. “I’ll think about it,” he said finally. “Maybe I’ll remember something.”
“You do that.”
LaCombe left the room. Dinah slapped her hand on the table. “Would you believe we do random drug tests? I wonder how he’s missed detection.”
“Maybe you ought to find out.”
She nodded. “Trust me, I’m going to. I swear one thing to you, though. If I’d ever suspected he could be like this, he’d’ve been long gone. He’s gone now.”
“Not yet,” Tebbins said. “I don’t want to discourage him from remembering.”
She sighed. “Fair enough. But I’m not keeping him forever. He’s a threat to the company.”
“What about the next guy?”
“Akeem Wilson. I’m almost afraid to say anything about him after LaCombe.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Smart, responsible, reliable. If Turk left, he’d get the promotion.”
Wilson was a small man with a big smile that lit up his dark face. In a soft voice, he greeted Tebbins and shook his hand. Unlike the others, he appeared to favor khaki slacks and polo shirts.
“Yes,” he said in answer to Tebbins, “a lot of people were interested. Arnie’s right about that. But I see what you mean about specific questions. I did get those. It was one day early on when we were testing one of the areas we’d just installed. Several people asked how we could do that without setting off the alarms. I told them it was a trade secret.”
That caught Tebbins’s attention. “So people around the museum knew you could shut down the alarms without turning off the system.”
“Well, several seemed to.” He rubbed his chin. “One was Mr. Gregor. The managing director, I believe he is. He quite naturally was concerned. At the time they had a number of valuable pieces on the loading dock, and he was concerned that while we ran tests the items might be unprotected. I reassured him, of course. It only seemed proper.”
Dinah nodded. “I’d have done the same thing, Akeem.”
He smiled at her.
“What about others?” Tebbins asked.
“There were a few.” He thought about it. “I seem to remember one of them was a friend of the curator’s. A man. He was around a lot, but I don’t think she liked him much. I’m also under the impression that he’s a teacher, not a museum staffer. Anyway, he was curious about a lot of things. And there was one of the young volunteers. A very helpful type. I think he even helped Boomer with some of the wiring. At any rate, he reminded me of a groupie.”
“How much did these people learn?”
“Nothing useful,” Akeem said. “Not from me, anyway. The company has a strict policy about that, and I happen to like my job.”
Dinah smiled at him.
Tebbins was following another train of thought. “What about LaCombe,” he asked. “Would he have told them anything?”
Akeem Wilson visibly hesitated.
“Go on,” D
inah said. “You can’t make things any worse for him.”
“Well,” said Akeem after a few seconds, “Arnie does like to show off. I don’t know if he said anything he shouldn’t have, but sometimes, when I was around, he came awfully close.”
When his cell phone rang, Gil was buried deep inside Anna. He ignored the call. In fact, he resented the hell out of it.
What had happened between them had been explosive. One minute they had been in the living room talking, the next they had been naked in bed together. The impatience between them had been overwhelming, leaving little time for finesse or tenderness. As if they had no time. And maybe they didn’t.
All he knew was that he was having a few of the most incredible minutes of his life, and nothing else mattered.
Plunging even deeper, he felt the shudder of release pass through her, heard a soft cry that was almost a groan. Deep inside he let go himself, rushing headlong over the precipice.
The phone rang again.
“Damn it,” he muttered. He sagged onto her, feeling their sweat-slick skin meet.
“You’d better get that,” she said.
Lifting his head, he looked down into her eyes and saw fear. “It’s okay,” he said, his voice gritty and breathless. “It’s okay. I promise. I…”
“Just get the phone,” she said, and turned her head away.
She was sorry. And now that his head was clearing, so was he. Not because he hadn’t wanted her. Not because it hadn’t been stupendous, but because he had crossed a line he never should have crossed.
The answering service on his phone kicked in, and the ringing stopped.
“Anna…”
“It’s okay. We’re both grown-ups.” She looked at him again, her green eyes veiled, and gave him a wan smile. “Wrong time is all.”
She was right. Next week, next month… “There’ll be a right time,” he swore.
She didn’t answer.
And the damn phone started ringing again. Sitting up, he went to find it. It was on the living-room floor, mixed up with his pants and his socks.
“Garcia.”
“How’s your face?” Tebbins asked. His tone suggested he knew Gil’s face wasn’t the most important thing he could have asked about. The damn cop had probably returned to the museum and reported that he’d left Gil at Anna’s house.
“It’s fine. What’s up?”
“Maybe I should be asking that question. Getting involved with a suspect ranks for stupidity of the year, Garcia.”
“Just get on with it, will you?”
“Certainly.” Tebbins paused, and Gil could easily imagine him stroking his moustache.
“Okay,” Tebbins continued after a pregnant moment, “we have three possibles who were overly interested in the alarm system. Ivar Gregor, Peter Dashay—remember him? Anna’s boyfriend.”
Gil felt a bubble of anger at the description but ignored it. “And?”
“And some volunteer and part-time employee no one can seem to name. I can’t get a hold of either Gregor or Dashay right now, so that’s going to have to wait.”
“Okay. We can get them tomorrow. But this other guy… Listen, we need to interview the guard who relieved Malacek.”
“Because he might be the guy who’s always late?” Tebbins hummed one note. “Well, so what? We saw the videotape. The changeover took place. Malacek was alive.”
“Excuse me,” Gil said, “but the absence of stuff that we ought to see on the tapes has me seriously wondering about the stuff that we do see.”
Tebbins fell silent again, and finally gave a rueful chuckle. “You just made me feel stupid, and I hate that. Unfortunately, you’re right. But the lab still hasn’t been able to find any evidence of tampering.”
“Something was tampered with, and we both know it. I’ve been thinking about it since I talked with the duty guard earlier, and it occurs to me that it would be easier to replace a whole tape than to diddle with one that was made.”
“Good point.” Tebbins grew thoughtful. “I’ll find out who he is and talk to him. And I think I need to do another personal review of the tapes from that night. Maybe Anna can help identify this part-timer in some locale where he shouldn’t be.”
“Are you ruling out Gregor and Dashay?”
“Not yet. But I’m more curious about Mr. Invisible, if you get my drift. Okay, get back to whatever you were doing.” His tone suggested that he knew perfectly well. “I’ll call as soon as I locate the guard.”
“Thanks.” Gil disconnected and turned to see Anna standing in the bedroom doorway. She was fully clothed. His heart sank.
She spoke. “Time to go back to being cop and suspect,” she said coolly.
“Anna…” Once again he stalled on her name. He wasn’t in a position to make wild promises about anything. And he wouldn’t be wise to, just yet.
“It’s okay,” she said again, and smiled slightly. “It’s okay.”
Then his damn phone rang again. This time, however, the call drove everything else out of his mind. This time the call was from his ex.
“Where the hell have you been?” she demanded. “Trina’s run off with Jamie!”
Tebbins spoke to the guard by telephone. His name was Johnny Kews, and he was jovial.
“Sure, I had the shift the morning after the robbery.”
“Right. Well, what I want to know is, was Eddy there when you arrived?”
There was a silence. “You saw the tape. Of course he wasn’t.”
Tebbins felt his ego shrink to the size of a pinprick, and he didn’t at all like it. A moment passed before he could even manage to speak calmly. “Why didn’t you mention that?”
“What are you accusing me of? You guys had the videotape. You saw what happened. I figured if you needed to know more, you’d ask.”
Tebbins had the urge to act like a two-year-old and kick something. He refrained; after all, Hercule Poirot didn’t behave like an ass. Of course, Poirot never made a mistake this stupid.
“The videotape shows you arriving ten minutes late and getting the keys from Malacek.”
“Oh, boy.” Kews whistled. “The truth of the matter is I was twenty minutes late. Got hung up in traffic. Eddy was gone when I got there. I figured he had to go to class or something and couldn’t wait. But everything was fine when I got there. I checked it out. So there didn’t seem to be any point telling on the kid. He mighta got fired.”
Tebbins suspected Kews was less concerned about Eddy than himself. “So no one else was in the building?”
“Not a living soul.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Positive. I checked, Detective. Carefully. I didn’t want to have to be explaining myself. I guess I have to explain anyway.” He sighed. “I don’t know what the tape shows, but I was late, Eddy was gone, and I just about busted a gut checking things out. I have to do that every time I take over anyway, but that morning I was hustling.”
“Did anyone arrive between the time you did and eight-thirty?”
“No. Most of the early birds don’t start showing up until a few minutes before nine. That morning I didn’t see anybody until oh, I guess it was ten till nine.”
Which didn’t explain how anybody could have gotten into the equipment room to change out videotapes at eight-thirty. Unless he was already there. Which meant Malacek might have been long gone.
We’ve learned a lot today, Tebbins thought as he hung up. Including the fact that he could miss what was right under his own nose. He was not going to enjoy telling Garcia about it.
But as much as they had learned, it wasn’t enough. He still needed to review the videotapes.
An hour later Tebbins was back at his desk. He’d had the lab make him duplicates of the tapes he was most interested in: those covering the main lobby during the party, during the night, and the following morning. There were twelve of them in a neatly bundled stack waiting for him. He sighed, imagining the hours of boredom that lay ahead of him.
&
nbsp; But there was a file folder on his desk, too, flagged for his immediate attention. He opened it and found the phone records he’d subpoenaed from the phone company: Anna’s calls from her home phone and her office for the last month. The secretary, Joyce, had left a Post-it note stuck to the first page.
Take a look at the ones I checked. They’re all to museums and antiquities dealers abroad.
Tebbins felt his breath quicken. God, he loved Joyce. Being a secretary hadn’t kept her from turning into a wonderful detective in some ways. And what’s more, she always took a research job past what was required. Like this one. All he’d requested were the records. She hadn’t needed to check out the numbers.
He scanned the numbers, noting that the calls to dealers had been made from Anna’s home. She would probably need to call museums from time to time, but dealers? From home?
Picking up the phone, he called Gil again, and was a little startled by the snap from the other end of the line.
“What?”
Tebbins held the phone back from his ear, looked at it with distaste, then brought it back. “Tebbins,” he barked right back. “We need to talk. Can you get away from Anna?” He had visions of having interrupted Garcia in a delicate position.
“I’m away from Anna. In fact, I’m chasing my runaway daughter. This had better be good.”
“Keep chasing. I just wanted you to know that I have Anna’s phone records here. She’s made more than a dozen calls to foreign antiquities dealers. From her home.”
Gil disconnected and tossed his cell phone onto the seat beside him. Antiquities dealers? His stomach, which was already sinking like lead, sank another forty feet. Christ. Oh, Christ.
So the guy he’d chased to the golf course might have been her accomplice, coming to meet her—or just a prowler. The dagger in her bed could have been nothing but misdirection. The mess in the shipping room could have been nothing but a cat and a poorly balanced crate. He could already feel the egg on his face.
Fuck it, he told himself. Just find your daughter. You can take care of Anna later.
Rina said the two kids had planned to go to the beach, but she’d told Trina that she forbid her to go to the beach with Jamie. The girl had left that morning before her mother woke up. Her bathing suit was missing.