by Radclyffe
“Cam, it’s almost 8:00. Do you really think she’ll be able to do anything tonight?”
“The Bureau’s open twenty-four hours a day. We can always ask.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Twenty minutes later, Cam, perched on a stool at the breakfast bar, used the nearby wall phone to call down to the command center and asked for Stark.
“Yes, Commander?”
“I’d like to arrange a meeting with Special Agent Savard this evening. I’d like you to come along.”
“Sure. Absolutely,” Stark said, then added hastily, “yes, ma’am.”
“Would you happen to have the number where she’s staying?”
“Uh—right here, yes,” Stark, who had just finished talking to Renee moments before, responded. “Would you like me to call, or…”
“Best let me do that. But thanks.”
Stark gave her the number and Cam jotted it down. “Fine. Would you get one of the vehicles and wait for us downstairs, please.”
Us, Stark thought. Huh.
“Roger, Commander.”
After Cam hung up from, Blair asked, “Are you sure we should involve them?”
“No, not really.” Cam swiveled around on the stool until her back was to the counter and regarded Blair, who stood a few feet in front of her. Tiredly, Cam rubbed her eyes. The headache was back. “But unfortunately, we need to do some digging and some legwork, and I don’t see that we have much choice. Hopefully, if things go bad, I can keep them out of it.”
“Go bad?” Blair worked to keep her voice casual.
“If I’m wrong, and I really am the primary target of whoever is digging around in D.C., then something may break—or leak—pretty soon. If I go down in a big way, I don’t want anyone else going with me.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Blair said emphatically, eyes blazing.
“We have to be prepared for that event. And if it happens, you’re going to need to get distance, too.”
“No.”
Softly, Cam said, “It will have to be done. I would want it that way even if you weren’t the first daughter. If this turns out to be some junior reporter’s bid for fame, and it becomes an exposition piece on degeneracy in the nation’s capitol or security breaches within the Secret Service or God knows what else—the story will be huge. If that happens, the spin will all be bad, and your name and your father’s name can’t be linked to it.” Before Blair could object, Cam added, “You know I’m right.”
“Define what you mean by distance, Cameron,” Blair said steadily, the edge in her voice so sharp it would have cut glass. “A week, a month—six goddamned years?”
“Please, Blair,” Cam said wearily. “Do you honestly think I’d want that? You can’t think it would be easy for me, can you?”
There was no fire in her voice, only a deep sadness. It was one of the few times Blair had ever seen Cam show even the slightest hint of defeat. It was so unusual, it shocked her free of her anger. Suddenly, she saw with brutal clarity that Cam was facing the potential destruction of her career as well as the threat to their relationship. Immediately, she went to her and slipped her arms around Cam’s shoulders, pressing Cam’s cheek against her breasts. To her surprise, Cam’s arms came around her waist and tightened. Blair could feel her trembling.
Tenderly, she kissed the top of Cam’s head. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure out what this is all about and we’ll find out who’s behind it and we’ll put an end to it. Whatever happens, there’s no way you’re getting rid of me.”
“I’d die for you without even thinking about it,” Cam murmured hoarsely. “But I can’t imagine living without you. Not now.”
Listening to Cam’s words, Blair pulled her lover closer still, a strange peace suffusing her.
“You don’t have to worry, because you won’t have to.”
———
Forty-five minutes later, Stark, Cam, and Blair stood outside the rear entrance of a nondescript six-story stone building in midtown Manhattan. Precisely at the designated time, Savard keyed the security lock and opened the door.
“Commander, she said when she saw Cam, her eyes moving over Starks face with a faint smile, then stopping in surprise when they met Blair’s. “Good evening, Ms. Powell.
“Hi, Blair replied. “How are you feeling, Renee?
“Okay. I’ll be better when I can get out of this damn thing, Savard said, indicating the sling tethering her left arm to her chest. “Come inside. The security cameras are timed back here. We’ve got a few minutes.
Savard led them through a warren of beige hallways that were indistinguishable from one another. All the office doors were closed and the harsh fluorescent lights spaced at intervals overhead cast everything in the same impersonal institutional glare. Opening the door to a stairwell, she said, “The labs on the third floor. There’s a video camera in the main elevators, and I thought we might as well walk.”
“Good idea,” Cam replied. It was doubtful that anyone would actually go through the routine surveillance tapes in the absence of any reason to do so, but the less time their little group was recorded, the better.
The three of them climbed single file and then walked silently through yet another corridor to the last door on the right. Savard pushed it open and they stepped into a large open space divided into work stations by laboratory benches and tables containing high tech analytical equipment.
Since most of the technicians who worked in the lab were regular eight-to-fivers, the vast area was empty save for a lone white-coated figure hunched over a lab bench at the far end of the room. As the group approached him, Savard called out, “Hey, Sammy.”
A pale, bespectacled young man with a thatch of red hair badly in need of a cut and a mildly befuddled expression on his face, glanced in their direction. Then, as if suddenly remembering an appointment, he smiled broadly. “Hey, Renee. You got something for me?”
“Yep.” Savard pointed to the manila envelope in Cam’s hand. “I need you to take a look at whatever’s inside. I don’t need to tell you the routine. Anything you can give us will be helpful.”
His hands were covered in thin latex gloves, which he stripped off and replaced with a new pair from a cardboard box by his right elbow. Despite the fact that he must have realized that dozens of people had already handled the envelope, he took it from Cam with stainless steel tongs and laid it on a nearby glass surface. With a magnifying glass, he bent down to examine the surface, pausing for a few seconds over the hand-printed address.
Mumbling to himself, he remarked, “Standard magic marker, no postmark, nothing distinctive about the packaging.”
He straightened and picked up the envelope. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll see what I can turn up. I’ll scan it for hand-writing analysis if you need that done later.”
“Okay, great. We’ll be in the conference room,” Savard said, indicating a door in the far corner of the room.
“Uh-huh,” he said distractedly, his mind clearly somewhere else already.
The four of them settled into chairs around the small table in the unadorned windowless room in the rear of the forensic analysis lab. The silence as they regarded one another speculatively was broken when Blair said, “How do you know he’s not going to make a record of all of this?”
Her tone held no censure, merely curiosity.
“I’ve known him since we were cadets,” Savard replied. “He’s a genius with anything that’s quantifiable, but he’s a lousy marksman and not particularly agile in the physical department either. Somehow, we ended up being workout partners and I spent a lot of extra time helping him prepare for the things that didn’t come easily. We’re friends, and he’s loyal.”
“What about the content? It could be sensitive,” Cam pointed out.
“He doesn’t care what’s in there; he only cares what’s on it. Fingerprints, fiber, bodily fluids. That’s what makes an impression on him. If it’s a photograph like the first one you gave me
yesterday, he won’t even notice the subject matter.”
“Did he find anything on that one?” Cam inquired, this being the first opportunity she’d had to ask.
Savard should her head. “No, that’s why I didn’t bother calling you when I found out the results. You’d already left for DC at that point, and I figured it could wait. It was a copy, probably scanned, of the original—computer generated. It wasn’t made from the negative.”
“Which means,” Cam mused, “that it may have been made by someone who didn’t have physical access to the original file.”
“Or by someone who was pressed for time,” Stark noted. “If you’re looking through material that you don’t have clearance for, you don’t bother doing anything except making quick copies.”
“Could be.”
“Are you saying we weren’t really supposed to get it?” Blair queried.
“Maybe we’ve been looking at this the wrong way,” Cam theorized. “Maybe these packages aren’t threats, but warnings.”
“Warnings? You mean someone is trying to tell us that we’re being…looked at?”
Cam nodded. “Maybe these are friendly messages.”
“Why don’t I feel reassured?” Blair said sarcastically.
“You have a point,” Cam agreed with a sigh. “Maybe once we see what’s in this one, it will make a little more sense.”
Thirty minutes later, Sammy returned. He handed Savard the envelope, the contents presumably inside.
“I didn’t bother with everything this time. The preliminary run through shows exactly what the other one did—nothing. Whoever sent it knew what they were doing. There are no prints; nothing distinguishing about the paper—standard commercial brand; its printed on an inkjet printer. Computer-generated. Just like the other one.”
“Can you narrow down the printer?” Stark asked.
He glanced at her, then at Blair, who sat beside her. Quickly, he averted his gaze. If he recognized her, he gave no sign of it, but he kept his eyes fixed on Savard, the person he was clearly most comfortable addressing. “I analyzed the pixel register on the first print. It’s an Epson high-end printer. We’ve got one down the hall. Standard government issue, as well as the one used by most desktop publishers or almost any other business doing high quality photo reproductions.”
“If you had a sample from the precise printer, could you match them?” Cam persisted.
“Possible. I’m not sure it would hold up in court, though.”
“It doesn’t have to,” she said flatly.
Since it was evident that they weren’t going to get any more information, Savard held out her hand. “Thanks, Sammy.”
“No problem,” he said, blushing as he shook her hand. “Anytime.”
Without looking at them, he sketched a small wave in the air, turned, and hurried back to his bench.
“Well,” Blair said on a long exhalation. “I guess we can see what it is now.”
“Let’s get out of here first,” Cam suggested. “Before we wear out our welcome.”
Cautiously, Savard offered, “I’ve got my sisters apartment to myself. She’s working tonight. We could do it there…unless you’re headed back to command central?”
“No,” Cam said. “I’d like you and Stark to see this. Your sister’s apartment sounds fine.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The four of them had barely settled into the Suburban with Stark behind the wheel, when Cam’s cell phone rang.
“Roberts.”
She listened for a moment, then handed the phone to Savard. “It’s Mac. Can you give him directions to your sisters? He’s got some information for us and I want him to be there when we take a look at our latest present.”
Nodding, Savard quickly gave Mac the information.
Fifteen minutes later, they were settling into the small but comfortable living room of an apartment in Chelsea. The furnishings were worn but had once been expensive, and the space beneath the windows and most other available niches were filled with plants of all description, adding a sense of warm welcome that was distinctly different than the impersonal apartments and hotel rooms most of them were used to spending their time in.
Cam noted with satisfaction a work area in a small alcove adjoining the living room that contained a desk, high end video equipment, and a state of the art computer system.
“You think we can use that to look at the tapes Mac has?” she asked, indicating the electronic array with a tilt of her head.
“Sure,” Savard said, “as long as it’s your paycheck guaranteeing against any damage.”
Cam smiled. “I’ll put it in writing.”
Rene walked through to a tiny kitchen and called over her shoulder, “What does everyone want to drink?”
As they were chorusing their answers, the buzzer rang and Stark crossed to the door and pushed the intercom. “Hello?”
“Phillips, here.”
“Three C,” Stark reminded him as she held down the button, releasing the security lock on the front door.
A moment later, she opened the door for Mac and, after greetings all around, they found seats on the sofa facing the small coffee table and a grouping of nearby chairs.
“I guess I’ll go first,” Cam said grimly from where she sat on the sofa next to Blair.
Savard had cleared a space in the center of the coffee table and as everyone leaned nearer, she reached into the manila envelope. There were two glossy sheets which Cam separated and placed on the table for all to see. Everyone shifted so they could look at the images from the proper perspective.
The first required little in the way of comment. Both had again been taken from a distance, but the first, shot in broad daylight, was of good quality and both her face and Blair’s were clearly recognizable. So was the fact that their hands were linked as they leaned into one another in what could only be interpreted as an intimate moment.
“How the hell—” Stark exploded.
“That’s the deck at the rear of my mother’s house,” Cam said, for Savard’s elucidation. “The rest of you recognize the location, I presume. It was taken at approximately 0800 hours the last day of Ms. Powell’s stay in San Francisco.”
“I wonder where they were?” Blair murmured, a cold chill making her shiver. It wasn’t so much that someone had been watching; it wasn’t even that she and Cam had been captured in a private moment—a moment that she remembered very well.
“I’ll be sorry to leave here,” Blair said quietly.
Cam moved her left hand along the rail until it covered Blair’s right. Their shoulders were nearly touching, but only someone on the deck with them could have seen the movement. Automatically, their fingers entwined, thumbs brushing over the tops of each other’s hand.
“Yes, so will I. I’ve been here before, but it takes being here with you to make me realize how beautiful it is. Being with you makes the entire world look different.”
For a moment, Blair was speechless. It was one of those times when Cam took her completely by surprise, and it was just the way she had always imagined that being in love would feel. She had just never imagined she would ever feel it herself. “We don’t have to leave that feeling here, do we?”
Cam met her gaze again, marveling at the myriad shades of blue that moved in the depths of her lover’s eyes. “No. We don’t. Let’s make sure we don’t.”
It was a moment that she would never want to forget. What bothered her was that someone else has been silent witness to something that was beautiful and now they were trying to turn into something ugly.
“Anywhere,” Cam side flatly. “A nearby rooftop, an apartment on an adjoining street, up a goddamned tree—anywhere with the sightline. If I’d known then what we know now, I would have paid more attention to that avenue of access to you. I didn’t anticipate a photographer stalking us.” Unconsciously, she rubbed her temple, annoyed at the pain which was surging again.
Blair regarded her with concern. When this is over, Ca
m is taking a vacation.
“What about the other one?” Savard asked quietly. “Do you know her?”
Savard’s eyes were on Blair, who was staring at the photo. It was grainy, and of poorer quality than the one taken in San Francisco, but the faces of the two women who stood in the circle of light cast by a street lamp in front of Cam’s apartment building in Washington, D.C. were quite clear.
“No, not precisely,” Blair said evenly.
No one spoke, nor asked for further explanation. Despite the unusual circumstances, their training ruled. Federal agents did not question the private life of the first daughter.
“I think Ms. Powell and I need to speak alone for a few minutes,” Cam said into the silence.
As everyone began to rise, Blair said, “No, stay.” Glancing at Cam, she smiled wryly. “They’re all in it now, and I have nothing to hide.”
Cam sighed and studied the faces of the three agents sitting shoulder to shoulder across from her.
“I don’t know where all this is going. Maybe nowhere.” She lifted the photos and let them fall back to the table. “Maybe straight to the AP hotline and the front page of every newspaper in the country.”
She had everyone’s attention.
“I know this woman,” Cam said, pointing to Claire in the photograph. “She’s an escort with a highly exclusive service in D.C. She and Ms. Powell have no relationship whatsoever.”
“That might be difficult to disprove after this,” Stark pointed out in as non-accusatory a tone as she could manage.
Blair laughed shortly. “I’m certain that’s precisely what this is meant to imply.”
“Well,” Cam said bitterly. “It seems that someone is tightening the noose. First we have a leak to the press about Blair’s secret relationship. Then, obviously, we have documentation of the two of us together in a position that would be hard to explain away.” She glanced quickly at Blair. “Even if we wanted to. And now,” she finished, pointing to the photo of Blair and Claire, “we have the connection between myself, Ms. Powell, and an escort service. All highly inflammatory business in DC.”