Look Twice (Ingrid Skyberg Book 8)

by Eva Hudson

  “He insisted he wanted to speak to Skylark. No ‘Agent’ no ‘Miss’—you aren’t a ‘Mrs.’ are you?—just Skylark.”

  Ingrid mumbled that she was a ‘Ms.’ and the tape fell out of her mouth and bounced onto the floor. “I’ve been getting about one call a month for Skylark. Must be a sales call.” She fumbled around in the void to retrieve the ceiling tile and her hand hit something. She pulled it back sharply. “Govno!” Ingrid always swore in Russian.

  “What?”

  “I touched something. I don’t think it was a rat.”

  Zeke’s eyes widened. “You got rats up there?”

  “I’d bet on it. This place is falling apart.”

  Ingrid swallowed. Her heart pounded. Her physiological responses were in overdrive. Deep breath. Whatever it is, it’s not going to kill you. She reached up again and blindly padded around for the tile. She touched the object again and let out a squeal.

  “If you tell anyone I squealed…”

  “Scout’s honor.”

  This time she grasped deliberately for the object. It was light and moved without much force. She gripped it with the tips of her fingers and pulled it toward her, flicking it into the void with a puff of dust. She reached out to catch it and tumbled. The chair went flying in one direction while she vaulted in the other. Ingrid tucked and rolled, clattering into the trash can she had moved to protect Zeke. She righted herself to a seated position and held the object aloft.

  “Huzzah!”

  “You okay?” Zeke asked, his voice a mix of alarm and amazement.

  Ingrid almost laughed. “I do parkour. Usually when I fall, it’s off a roof.”

  “So, you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “No 9-1-1?”

  “Not necessary. And by the way, it’s 9-9-9 in the UK.”

  “Noted. So, what is it?”

  The two of them stared at the rectangular orange box covered in what looked like a decade of dust.

  “I haven’t seen one of those for years,” he said.

  “Not since everyone got a smartphone.”

  Ingrid was holding a disposable camera, the sort that was briefly fashionable to leave on tables at weddings, or that kids were trusted to take to their first summer camp.

  “What do you think is on it?” Zeke asked.

  Ingrid looked up at the square hole in the ceiling. “Something someone didn’t want anyone to see. It didn’t accidentally end up there, did it?”

  “Good point.”

  They fell silent for a few moments. “My bet, judging by the dust,” Ingrid said, “is the 2007 Christmas party.”

  “An elicit office romance, eh?” They locked eyes for slightly longer than was necessary.

  “Something like that.” Ingrid got to her feet and brushed off more dust. “Guess there’s only one way to find out.”

  “The embassy has a processing lab?” Zeke asked.

  “Oh, you need to downgrade your expectations of this embassy’s facilities. But there’s a branch of Snappy Snaps on most main streets. Heaven knows how they’re staying in business in the iPhone era, but I’ll drop it off later.”

  Zeke’s brow furrowed. “You really think you should?”

  “You telling me you’re not curious?”

  “I am deeply curious. But aren’t there, like, privacy issues? Isn’t that someone’s private property?”

  “What course have you just taken?” Ingrid scrunched up her face. “I’m fairly sure I don’t need a warrant for this one.” She picked up the chair and placed it back on the desk.

  “What are you doing?”

  “The ceiling tile isn’t going to replace itself.”

  This time, Ingrid let Zeke hold the legs.

  3

  “Why are we here?” They were standing on a busy highway at the entrance to a mid-century apartment building.

  “River views,” McKittrick said. “Trust me, it’s amazing inside.”

  When Ingrid had told Natasha McKittrick that she was house hunting, her closest friend in London had immediately decided to help. Since her dismissal from the Metropolitan Police two years beforehand, the former Detective Inspector had forged a new career as a presenter on a BBC show called Crimewatch. It evidently earned her a decent paycheck for a part-time job, and the rest of the time McKittrick bought, developed and sold property. She called it ‘flipping’, and every time she flipped, she banked six figures. Ingrid wasn’t quite sure, but she was beginning to suspect that her once matronly friend was spending some of her profits on Botox, filler and personal training sessions.

  It hadn’t been Ingrid’s plan to stay in London, but the notoriety Ingrid had gained in the US for saving the life of the former First Lady meant she wasn’t able to return home and remain a case agent. Even in the UK, her higher profile had encouraged her to spend the first five months of the year as a Supervisory Special Agent. Ostensibly, the temporary promotion had been to fill the position made vacant by the death of Marshall, her former fiancé and boss, but the reality was that desk duties had kept her out of public view long enough for people to forget what she looked like.

  In February, Ingrid had learned to her astonishment that she was the main beneficiary of Marshall’s will. She had broken off their engagement two years before his murder, but he had never updated it, and so she had inherited his apartment in DC and his 401k and investments. Quite how he had saved so much by the age of 35 having reached the rank of Supervisory Special Agent, she couldn’t comprehend; he had certainly never flipped a property. Even after death taxes and conversion to sterling had taken their cuts, Ingrid was left with enough for a deposit to buy a property for the first time in her life.

  While her feelings about Marshall would forever be filed under ‘complicated’, Ingrid had always considered Marshall’s younger sister Carolyn to be her own flesh and blood. Ingrid had known her since she was a tot, and as a consequence the girl brought out Ingrid’s protective side. When Carolyn announced she was returning to London to complete her studies, Ingrid insisted that they move in together. It felt appropriate to use Marshall’s money to buy a home for his baby sister.

  Not only did the property have to be in a safe neighborhood and be the sort of place that Marshall would have wanted his sister to live in, it also needed a third bedroom so Marshall’s parents could visit and check up on their only surviving child. Ingrid was more than a little flabbergasted she was contemplating having Meredith and Preston Claybourne as houseguests, but they hadn’t challenged Marshall’s will, so she figured that maybe, perhaps, they felt a little more warmly toward her than they had ever let on.

  “Natasha, hi!” The realtor waved as he marched down the pavement, a zipped leather document file under one arm. A trim, eager twenty-something, he wore a pale blue suit that screamed the kind of confidence that only came from attending a school like Eton, Harrow or Winchester. They shook hands vigorously.

  “Hi, Harry. This is my friend, Ingrid.”

  “Lovely to meet you. Shall we?” He produced a bunch of keys and gestured to the door.

  The building smelled stale and the vinyl tiles on the hallway floor were warped and split. Harry pushed a switch. The lights did not come on.

  “What’s the service charge?” McKittrick asked.

  “Very reasonable. For the area. About two thousand pounds a year.”

  “And how much would it be if they actually replaced the light bulbs?” Ingrid inquired.

  The elevator doors slid open, releasing a sour aroma that probably emanated from the discarded McDonald’s bag in the corner. “I thought you said this was an upmarket neighborhood.”

  “It is,” Harry said. “Someone told me there are more blue plaques in Pimlico than anywhere else in London.”

  “Blue plaques,” McKittrick explained, “are put on houses where famous and brilliant people lived. Something to do with English Heritage.”

  “I know,” Ingrid said, as the car lurched upwards. “I’ve lived in Lo
ndon for over five years.”

  “Of course you do. Sorry.” McKittrick made a zipper gesture in front of her lips.

  The doors opened onto a long corridor. A skylight that hadn’t been cleaned in decades let in enough light for the temperature to have reached triple figures.

  “It’s like Kew Gardens,” McKittrick said. “You know, where the hothouses are.”

  “I do know.”

  McKittrick grimaced apologetically, revealing lipstick on her teeth. “Shall I stop telling you how to suck your London eggs?”

  “That’d be great.”

  Harry tried several keys before one opened a door that would once have been white but was now the color of neglected teeth. It was even hotter than the hallway. “Let’s open a window, shall we?”

  A short corridor opened out into a large, empty room with windows on two sides. The décor was dated and the carpet was even worse than those at the embassy, but the apartment wasn’t as awful as Ingrid had feared.

  “Well, you haven’t completely turned your nose up, so that’s better than last week.”

  “Last week was Kilburn. At least we’re in Central London here.”

  “Exactly,” McKittrick said. “That’s what I learned. No further out than Zone 2, Zone 1 if at all poss.” Ingrid had noted how often realtors’ particulars mentioned these zones, which referred to the Tube map. Ingrid very rarely got public transport—her motorbike was way more convenient—but by the time Carolyn finished her studies, Ingrid would have spent the best part of a decade in a city she didn’t much care for. She didn’t want to look back and think she had spent her days in somewhere called Brent. Or Erith. Or Penge. When people back home asked where she was living, she wanted to say Kensington, or Chelsea or Covent Garden, not somewhere that sounded like a fungal infection. She was aware that getting a three bedroomed home in such pricey locations was going to involve compromise, but this place was stretching her imagination.

  Ingrid stuck her nose into the other rooms. A bathroom with a rose-pink suite and a kitchen with the sort of melamine cabinets that could generously be called ‘vintage’. The sale was a probate instruction, code for ‘an old person died here and the kids want their inheritance as quickly as possible’.

  “Am I missing something?” Ingrid said. “Like a third bedroom?”

  “Ah! You could be a detective.”

  “Funny.”

  “Well, see, what you can do is turn the kitchen into a box room, which is fine for guests, and then have an open plan living-kitchen arrangement. The living room is huge, so that’s not a problem. You haven’t even seen the view yet. Come on. It’s better from the living room.”

  Harry had opened all the windows and was pacing around, happy for McKittrick to do the sales job for him.

  “See. Look at that,” McKittrick pointed. “You’re on the sixth floor so you don’t really hear the road and—ta-dah—you have a river view.”

  Ingrid stood next to her friend and looked out. Natasha was right. The building was opposite a handkerchief-sized garden square, and beyond it was the Thames.

  “So, the compromise is that you’re buying an ex-council flat, but you’re getting great square footage for the price and the opportunity to add value. What’s not to like?” McKittrick asked.

  Ingrid pointed. “That.”

  “That? Really? I thought that was the pièce de résistance, the deal-sealer. You can walk to work.”

  “I usually run to the office. I’m not going to get many miles under my belt from here, am I?” The two friends looked out at the new US embassy, a modernist cube nearing completion on the south side of the Thames. “I’m not sure I want to come home and look at work.”

  McKittrick wilted, either with disappointment or the heat. “I was sure this was the one. Harry, have you got the details?”

  He handed her the particulars. “All in there. I should say that we’re going to get a heap of interest in this place. The river view is going to attract a lot of people, so if you do want to put an offer in before it officially goes on the market, you’ll have to let me know tomorrow.”

  McKittrick let out a sigh. “Really? You’re not going to bite?”

  “I’m thinking about it,” Ingrid protested. “I’m allowed to think, aren’t I?”

  “If my money wasn’t tied up in my current development, I’d be buying this place. The chance to turn a semi-derelict two bed flat into a three-bed riverside penthouse in one of the best neighborhoods in Central London? You’re not going to turn that down, are you?”

  She had a point. “Okay, let’s grab a coffee,” Ingrid said.

  “Or a nice cold glass of Sauvignon Blanc. You weren’t going back to work, were you?”

  Half an hour later, they were outside a recently renovated pub. It hadn’t been where McKittrick had intended to take Ingrid, but a branch of Snappy Snaps had altered their plan. Ingrid could get the photos back in an hour, so they counted down the minutes in the Queen’s Arms opposite.

  A cold glass of wine—small for Ingrid, large for Natasha—in the sunshine before everyone else clocked off for the day made London feel momentarily glorious. Ingrid really didn’t want to go back to the office, but she had a call scheduled with an agent in the Pittsburgh FO at 19:00.

  The chat about property didn’t last long, primarily because Ingrid just couldn’t get over the fact that, for the price of two bedroomed apartment in London, she could buy a ranch in Minnesota. What London offered in square feet, she could have in acres back home. Home. An image of Jones on the stand reared up, making her shudder.

  “So,” McKittrick said, “I hear you’re working with wee Ralphie Mills at the moment.” She raised her eyebrows. “How’s that going?” The lipstick was still on Natasha’s teeth, but it felt weird to say something after so long.

  Ingrid took a sip of her wine. “Not nearly as strange as you’d think. It’s not like we dated for very long. And it was eons ago.”

  “But he was very, very sweet on you for a long, long time.”

  Ingrid demurred. “You do know he’s got married since, right? I am no longer on a pedestal.”

  “I was at his wedding, remember? I honestly half expected him to say your name rather than Shelley’s.”

  “Shelbie,” Ingrid corrected.

  McKittrick nodded. “That’s a dog’s name, isn’t it?”

  Ingrid didn’t answer.

  “Well, it should be.”

  Ingrid watched a young couple walk past, both fanning their faces with their phones. “Did you know that Shelbie is going to have a puppy?”

  McKittrick put down her glass. “I had not heard that, but I bet Ralph is delighted.”

  “Every meeting we have he’s either got paint on his forehead or in his hair. I think he’s decorating every surface in their apartment before the baby arrives.”

  The bartender came out of the pub and placed two bowls of fries on their table. “Do you want any sauces?”

  “Ketchup and mayo, please,” McKittrick said.

  “And some salt and pepper?” Ingrid popped one in her mouth and licked her fingers. “Ralph will be a good dad. He’ll love all the early morning cartoons and the late-night feeds.”

  “Boy or a girl?”

  “Boy.”

  “Just as well. He’d absolutely smother a girl. He wouldn’t mean to, but he’d end up with a right princess.”

  It felt to Ingrid that they had veered into bitching, so she buried her discomfort in a fistful of fries.

  “And how is Operation Pinball?” McKittrick asked. “All going to plan?”

  “You know I can’t talk to you about that. You shouldn’t even know the operation name.”

  “But it’s big? I’ve gathered that much.”

  “Several agencies. The Met, NCA, Border Force, us, the coastguard, the Gendarmerie.”

  “Ooh, nice pronunciation. So, it’s drugs then?”

  “Yes, I don’t think it’s too much of confidentiality breach to say it’s drugs.�
�� Ingrid took a sip.

  “Must be the Tilbury bust then?”

  Ingrid avoided eye contact by repeatedly dipping a fry into the ketchup. “I can neither confirm nor deny. Do you miss it?” she added. “The job?”

  McKittrick stared into the middle distance. “Some days. I mean, I don’t miss getting spat at and being called a bitch, but, you know, I wasn’t ready for it to end.” She pressed her lips tightly together.

  “But.” Ingrid formed her words tentatively. “It wasn’t good for your health, was it? You seem much healthier now.”

  McKittrick made eye contact. “You mean because I’m no longer a junkie?”

  Ingrid was a little taken aback by Natasha’s bluntness. “Well, yes, that. But, actually, I’ve been thinking you look happier these days. Flipping property and Botox clearly suit you.”

  McKittrick prodded her forehead. “Is it that obvious?”

  Ingrid didn’t reply.

  “I only had it done two weeks ago. I thought she was sticking a bit too much in. It’ll calm down in a week or two.” She drained her glass and gestured at Ingrid. “Those of us who weren’t born with blonde hair, blue eyes and the physique of a superhero have to work a little harder.”

  Ingrid looked at McKittrick’s empty glass and knew she should offer to buy a round. “Talking of work.”

  “You really are going back to work?”

  Ingrid checked her watch: the photos would be ready. “The bad guys aren’t going to arrest themselves, are they?”

  “Fair point. So, I’ll keep looking then?”

  Ingrid wiped a drop of ketchup off the realtor’s details. “I’ll think about this place. I hear everything you’re saying about it, but––”

  “You’re just not feeling it?”

  “I think it’s more that I don’t want a view of the office.”

  “So, leave the FBI and take the flat!”

  Ingrid smiled at her. “Maybe I just need to imagine it after you’ve renovated it for me.”

  The two friends kissed on the cheek, and Ingrid crossed the street. Snappy Snaps wasn’t air conditioned, and the aroma of the young men who had worked there all day invaded her nostrils.