Lynne Connolly

by The Chemistry Of Evil (Triskelion) (lit)

  The driver opened the door for them, letting in all the sounds Sofie had missed, and the fresh air. Sofie and Elaine had lived close to a deli. She would miss the delicious scent of fresh baked bread and spiced sausage, not to mention the garlic. The street was relatively quiet, but the muted sound of traffic kept her company in her bed at night, bringing her a kind of comfort. Sofie didn’t like to be alone. Cities had always been her favorite places.

  A police officer stood outside the building, and he stepped forward to greet them. “I live here,” Sofie told him, and produced her ID. The officer glanced at her sharply and Cristos broke in. “She knows. I brought her here to see what she could do.”

  Not at all put off by the limo, the Armani suit a different one today and the air of authority, not to mention the tall, younger man in black, the officer found his radio and contacted whoever was inside. “Dr. Adams has arrived.”

  Through the static the words “Send her up,” could just be discerned. The officer turned to Sofie. “You can go up, Dr. Adams.”

  Cristos took a step forward. “We come with her,” he said, and showed the only thing likely to impress the officer – his CIA ID card. That did the trick. After Evan flashed his, the officer reluctantly allowed them through and picked up his radio again. Sofie heard the hiss of static as they walked through.

  Inside was a mess. The usually tidy entrance hall had chalk lines and fingerprint powder everywhere. Two officers, both uniformed, sat in the uncomfortable hard chairs, usually there for show only, and watched impassively as Sofie went up the stairs, followed closely by Evan and Cristos.

  A sharp-eyed, balding detective met them on the landing. He glanced at Cristos and Evan briefly before turning his attention to Sofie. “Dr. Adams, I’m sorry for your loss.” His words were perfunctory, but Sofie discerned an edge of care in them. Perhaps he had a daughter of his own.

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m told you know what happened.”

  “I’m a forensic archaeologist with the FBI. What can you tell me?”

  He shot her an assessing glance, dark eyes shrewd. “Not a great deal.”

  “I can probably tell you more.”

  All eyes turned to the newcomer. A tall man stepped out of the front door of the apartment. He was dressed in a nondescript brown suit and overcoat, tie untidily knotted just below the top button of his off-the-rack shirt. “Cristos.”

  “Bent.”

  Sofie had no idea her boss knew Cristos. “Sir.”

  “Dr. Adams. I’m sorry for your loss.” He sounded more genuine than the police officer, although you could never tell with Harry Bent.

  “Thank you sir. To be truthful I didn’t know Elaine very well. We just shared the apartment.”

  Fear clutched her stomach. She could trust no one. No one.

  The nearest she had to a trustworthy confidant was Bent. He was on the side of the good guys. At least, she thought he was. He spoke to Cristos. “I might have known you’d show up. Smell it, did you?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Come in.”

  It felt strange to be invited into her own apartment. Inside it was in a complete mess. Chalk marks and powder covered surfaces, and one bedroom was sealed off with yellow tape. Two officers were inside, but at a nod from Bent they left, closing the outer door behind them. “You know you can’t be attached to this case now,” Bent said, almost conversationally.

  “Yes sir, I know. I’ll tell you what I can.”

  “Please do. How well did you know Miss Cartwright?”

  “I didn’t know Elaine very well at all. She needed a roomie, and I applied. This apartment is rent protected, but she can’t afford it on her own. It was her mother’s before her.”

  “So you’ll be homeless.”

  “Not quite.”

  “She can stay with me.”

  Bent stared at Evan. “Who are you?”

  Cristos answered, before either Sofie or Evan could speak. “One of my operatives, a security expert. His name’s Evan Howell. You may have heard of him?”

  Bent looked from one to the other of them. “Yes, I’ve heard of him. Your convict pet.”

  If he’d hoped to surprise Cristos by his knowledge he was to be disappointed. “That’s the one. He met Sofie in England on leave. They’re an item.”

  Sofie hoped her surprise didn’t show, and worked hard to hide it. Bent didn’t hide his, hooting with laughter. “I don’t believe in coincidences,” he said, his laughter magically disappearing.

  Evan put his arm around Sofie’s shoulders. It felt comforting. “I wanted to find Sofie for my own purposes. She can come to my place. I live in Tribeca, in a loft,” he said. “There’s only one way in and out, and no one can enter without my say so. The security is state of the art.”

  “Do you want that?” Bent stared at her, eyes narrowed. His gaze abruptly switched to Evan. “How secure?

  “I have a lot of sensitive information stored on my computer system. My apartment has to be secure. The Agency has approved it.”

  “I need to inspect it.”

  “Of course.”

  Bent turned his attention to Cristos. “You’re sending your men into honey traps now?”

  The implication was so bad Sofie felt instant sympathy for Evan, but he squeezed her shoulder briefly. “No honey trap, and Cristos had to work hard to find me. I didn’t want to be found.”

  “What’s your interest?” Bent asked Cristos.

  “She knew about those cases you wouldn’t let us in on.”

  Bent’s gaze sharpened. “And has she told you?”

  Evan removed his arm, but gently took her hand instead. “No. So if it was a honey trap it was the other way around.”

  “I thought you went over to England to be married?”

  Sofie knew all she had to do was tell the truth. Or something near to it. “I found out Archie was cheating on me. I broke it off. Then I met Evan. He came to ask me about the murders, but things went a bit further than that”

  Bent nodded, and then continued. “It’s out of the question. You have to go to a safe house, Dr. Adams. You must realize this is too close for us to ignore.” Sofie thought Harry Bent just wanted to have her secure, instead of the other side. Before today her involvement in this case had been peripheral, but this was like two dogs worrying over a bone, and she was the bone.

  “If you can break into my apartment, you can take her,” Evan said.

  “And how many girlfriends have you taken home before this?” Bent’s tone had definitely turned into a sneer. “You’re not telling me Dr. Adams is the first?”

  “The first woman I’ve taken to my apartment,” Evan said. Listening to his deep, reassuring voice, Sofie believed him. “She’s the first with enough security clearance.”

  Bent chuckled. “Well God knows how you managed, then. I don’t think I’ll ask.”

  Evan shrugged. “I was good press for a while, is all.”

  “We all know why that was,” Bent commented. He moved over to a small table and indicated a box lying on it. “I’d like your opinion on this apartment, Dr. Adams. We’ve left everything as we found it, except for the body of your roomie and the bedclothes she was lying on.”

  “Could you tell me what happened?” Sofie’s voice came out annoyingly small and still. She could admit to herself that she was frightened, but it wasn’t something she wanted to show anyone else. Vulnerability was dangerous, especially in this city, and with these people, trained to observe and take advantage of weaknesses, if they needed to. She had rarely felt so alone. Rarely been so alone.

  The next couple of hours passed quickly. Sofie tried to think of this as just another case, another problem to be solved, but then she would see a book, her dressing gown on the back of the bathroom door, or something else that reminded her this was her apartment, her roomie who had been killed.

  She took as much time as she could packing, watched carefully by two officers. She never wanted to come bac
k to this place. A home, now violated and despoiled, as though it had been raped.

  The large trunk and a suitcase filled, the two detectives took them downstairs for her, and stowed them in the limo. It was the most luxurious removal van Sofie had ever come across. She had no furniture in this apartment, apart from her bed, but she left that, not mentioning she had bought it herself. She didn’t want it, and couldn’t ever imagine sleeping in it again. The books were mostly hers, but not all of them were here. Some were in storage, awaiting dispatch to the new apartment she was to share with Archie. An apartment she would never live in.

  Archie was due to travel to New York at the end of next week. They would be in the same city again. Mentally, Sofie probed the wound left by her separation from Archie. It didn’t hurt at all.

  Bent was saying something to her. She had to force herself to recall it. “What did Elaine do for a living?”

  “She worked at one of those swanky art galleries. Bull’s, I think.”

  Bent grimaced. “Currently one of the best. That woman is making money faster than she can spend it.” He paused and shoved his hand in his jacket pocket, bringing it out empty. “Did Elaine have any boyfriends?”

  Sofie sighed. “Yes, many. She rarely kept the same one two nights running. She’d come home with a different man every time. I’d told her not to, that it would end in her being hurt, and I made her promise not to do it while I was away, but I don’t know if she kept her promise.”

  “That was dangerous for you both,” Bent said. Away from the irritation of Cristos, who was currently examining another room, Bent was back to his careful, concerned self. He’d been very good to Sofie when she’d first arrived in New York, helping her find her feet, but never encroaching, never embarrassingly familiar.

  “I never brought sensitive material home, and that was because of Elaine. She was a nice woman, but I think she took the advice to go her own way a bit too literally. I told her she shouldn’t bring them home.”

  Bent leaned back against the chest of drawers and fingered something in his pocket. Sofie guessed that it was his pack of cigarettes. Now there were so few places to smoke, but Bent refused to give it up. “Go ahead,” she suggested. “I don’t imagine the murderer came in here. Nothing was moved, as far as I could see. And yes, I did check my underwear. None of it had been tampered with.”

  Bent grinned and drew out his cigarettes, lighting it with a practiced flick of his Bic. “It was a shock, hearing your address come over the air,” he confessed. He drew the smoke deep into his lungs and breathed out. His whole body seemed to relax. “Then I remembered you had leave, but it wasn’t till I got here I was sure. But you could be a target. It looks like it. You were involved in the last two cases. It’s definitely him again. Or her. No sexual penetration, no traces of semen, or other fluids, just the chest baring and the symbol. The same one, in case you were wondering. I don’t suppose you know what it is?”

  “No. I looked while I was in England, even consulted my old university professor, but no one has any ideas. It’s not a random figure, it’s carefully drawn out every time. It could be a diagram.”

  “I’ve got someone working on that.”

  “I’ll carry on looking for you, if you like. I’m told Evan Howell has a fantastic computer system. I might be able to use that.”

  Bent frowned. “That reminds me.” He took another pull on his cigarette. “I don’t like that. I want you safe, Sofie, one less thing to worry about. I’m coming with you to Howell’s apartment, take a look at the set-up for myself.”

  She shrugged. “If it makes you happy.”

  “I could order you away from him. Are you really an item, or did he just say that?”

  Sofie felt a vague pride in her boss that he saw through things. She kept her answer deliberately vague. “Maybe. It’s early days. He was there when I needed someone.” That made her sound embarrassingly needy, and wasn’t true in the least, but she had to give some explanation, however feeble. She needed to change the subject. “What can you tell me about Cristos? I’ve heard of him, but never met him before, but as Evan’s boss, he’s got an in.”

  Harry looked for somewhere to put his cigarette. Sofie found one of Elaine’s china dishes and shoved it at him. With a grin he accepted it. “Cristos. No one knows how he got to his level in the Agency. Some say he’s got something on the President, others say he’s damn good at his job. You know what he’s trying to do?”

  “Sort of.” Sofie wanted to hear for herself.

  “He’s been investigating telepathy all his life. That, by the way, isn’t generally known. People know he’s spooky, that everything isn’t straight up in his place, but not the specifics. He spent some time in Russia, before the Wall came down, in the labs there. Now he wants to combine telepathy with computer science to develop some kind of communications device. I say he’s nuts.”

  “Why don’t you like him?”

  Bent grimaced. “Is it that obvious? Because when he sees someone he thinks could be useful, he takes them. Usually gets them, too. Howell, for instance. He took him out of jail, set him up. The Bureau was interested. Howell was one of the earliest hackers. They say he can get into anything that has a phone line. Communication, networks. All that.” He looked around and put the dish on a chest of drawers. “Now you say he wants you. Well, think carefully about it, Sofie. You work for me, at least for now, so if you need help, throw it my way. Cristos looks after his people, but there’s things he does you might not like. Can’t think why he wants you. How would forensic archaeology interest him?”

  Sofie didn’t know, but she knew enough about Cristos to realize his motivations weren’t always obvious. It would be good to have someone she trusted to check out the security at Evan’s apartment, though.

  There was little more to be done here. Sofie climbed back into the sleek, black car outside, this time sharing the passenger space with Cristos, Evan, a traveling trunk, a large suitcase and an uncomfortable Assistant Director Bent. They paused to drop Cristos downtown, then went on to Evan’s apartment. Sofie didn’t look at Evan, but she felt the heat of his gaze a couple of times.

  Evan was seething. He would look at Sofie and everything inside him would melt, then he’d remember what a mess she’d gotten herself into and get mad all over again. Archie was a jerk, and he would probably be forced to endure his company when he came to see Sofie on his arrival in New York. He didn’t doubt Archie would come. And if Archie wanted to apologize, would she forgive him? A waste that’s what it would be. He slumped in a corner of the car, watching Bent watch her. That man wanted her, too. Was she blind that she didn’t notice the effect she had on men? Pushing his hand through his hair he stared out the window. They were close, now.

  The car swung around a corner and drew up outside his building. It was a pre-war warehouse converted into apartments, on a relatively quiet street. Leading the way inside, he punched the button for the elevator – then remembered there were things to carry.

  By the time he’d gone back outside Sofie and Bent had managed to haul the trunk out the door, and the chauffeur was pulling out the case. He felt like snarling, but he held up a restraining hand instead. He hated people in his apartment, people he didn’t know. “I’ll get someone to do that. Come inside.” Going to the trunk he found the single holdall that contained his clothes, and electronic equipment. He felt naked without so much as a PDA, though he hadn’t needed it.

  He turned to see Bent staring up at his building. “Your mother buy this for you?”

  Evan told himself he should be used to that by now. No one thought an ex-con could amount to anything. “Just some good investments.”

  “Good move,” Bent murmured.

  Evan led the way inside and asked the concierge to have the luggage brought up. The limo had been hired, so he sent the chauffeur on his way with a tip. Cristos would take care of the rest.

  Upstairs he felt two pairs of eyes on him, one pair curious, the other something sharpe
r. Even if Bent did know the key sequence it wouldn’t help. He put his palm on the pad and stared into the monitor until the door opened with a quiet click. Now that the cop had satisfied himself about the security, would he go?

  No such luck. Bent showed no sign of leaving. He followed them inside.

  For some reason Evan had wanted to show Sofie the apartment on his own. It was his, all his, and he looked at it as his inner sanctum. No woman except his mother had passed over this threshold before. While he’d had girlfriends in the past, he’d never brought them here, using the security excuse. A pity Elaine hadn’t done the same. There’d been a computer desk at the apartment, but the machine was gone. Probably being examined by an FBI man, but there wouldn’t be anything interesting on it, unless Elaine had made her date by email.

  He turned and watched Sofie’s reaction. Bent’s didn’t matter at all.

  Tall windows reached floor to ceiling on one side of the huge, high living room space, and bookcases between them. At the end was an opening leading to the small kitchen. A broad open staircase led to the sleeping platform and the guest bedroom and bathrooms beyond. He preferred the space a loft gave him, the breathing room.

  A long brown leather sofa was incorporated into another run of bookshelves on the short side nearest the door, and on the opposite wall, under the staircase, was his media center, TV and stereo equipment.

  The rest of the space, one long wall, was technology. At the moment it was all dead, all switched off, and it would stay that way until Bent left, but looking at it anew, Evan thought it looked rather impressive. A series of screens, and a couple of laptops over panels containing CD and DVD writers and readers, different types of scanners, printers and other peripherals. The really exciting stuff was hidden away behind the panels. Even Evan was no longer sure exactly what was at the back of it all, since he tended to add rather than take away. He felt his chair calling to him. He badly wanted to boot it all up and get it all up to date. It hurt like an ache.