by Janet Dailey
Locking her car, she took the key to the apartment from her purse. She hadn’t had to ask Mrs. Corelli for it. Since forever, Kenzie had had Christine’s key and Christine had hers. There were no secrets between them. But she felt a little funny about rummaging through her friend’s papers. It had to be done, though.
She squared her shoulders and marched up the exterior stairs to the second floor.
The key turned soundlessly and the apartment door swung inward. Kenzie hesitated on the threshold.
It was as if the place had never been lived in. At least not by Christine. It was immaculate, not how her far-from-organized best friend kept it.
She told herself not to be silly.
It probably looked like that because Mrs. Corelli had put things away and tidied up when she was here. Christine’s mother was as neat as her daughter was messy.
Kenzie smiled to herself. She owed it to her best buddy to disorganize it again. Closing the door and setting down her purse, she took another look around, trying to remember where Christine kept bills and documents. Her gaze stopped on a tall, modern-style hutch that held family photos on its top shelves, with two roomy cabinets behind closed doors below.
She walked over and kneeled in front of it, pulling the doors open as slowly as she could. Despite her carefulness, a heap of miscellaneous papers slithered out, tilting the laptop they’d been stacked on. Kenzie steadied it with one hand and gathered up the papers with the other. Some of the bills had the logo of a health insurance company. Christine had even scrawled “paid” across a few.
Kenzie repositioned the laptop, a slim model with a pearly cover and kittycat decals. She smiled. Christine liked girly stuff and decorated her laptop like an old-fashioned diary.
The laptop was warm to the touch. It must be plugged in somewhere—she’d figure that out in a minute. First she checked the dates on the bills. They were current. Excellent. Christine wasn’t so disorganized that she didn’t take care of the copays for her health insurance.
She set those aside and sat cross-legged on the floor, going through more paperwork. Looked like everything they might need was here, though not, of course, in order.
That wouldn’t take long.
Taking out the laptop to get to the box beneath it, she followed its cord to an outlet strip snaked through an opening in the back of the hutch. Christine had probably left it there to recharge the afternoon she’d borrowed the sports car. Kenzie lost her hold on the smooth cover and the laptop slid from her fingers, landing on the floor and partly opening.
She set it flat and put the screen at a right angle. A pink-purple screen flickered into life. If Kenzie spotted any unicorns on it, she was going to give Christine a hard time, for sure.
There weren’t any, just vibrant colors that swirled. She set the open laptop to one side, clicking the menu to shut it down. She just didn’t feel like leaving it here, and the Corellis might need something on it.
Kenzie got up to stretch and wandered over to the window, peeking out through one side of the closed curtains. The street was quiet, lined with parked vehicles underneath trees that were beginning to let go of their leaves.
A black car with tinted windows cruised by slowly and disappeared. She let the curtain fall and went back to the laptop, seeing the same colors. A whirling-wheel icon in the middle was still going.
Okay, it was slow, she thought absently. Christine liked to download stuff and there were tons of videos on her hard drive. Kenzie had time. She settled down on the couch, not minding the few extra minutes to think.
About Linc.
He’d stood by her. After all his support, she didn’t feel like being so damn skittish anymore. She’d kept him at arm’s length for months, for reasons she wasn’t ready to explain to him.
He maintained his own distance, but somehow, every time they got together, he seemed to be just a little closer. Patient guy. It was kind of funny the way he dodged questions about what he did. Obviously he was Special Ops. She just wasn’t sure exactly what kind. They came in a lot of interesting flavors.
A few had gone through the giant base in Europe where she’d trained war dogs and their handlers. Not for SO, though. The super-secret elite of the armed services trained their own. Human and animal, they were a breed apart. Linc seemed more down-to-earth than that. Though he definitely looked like he could scale an enemy wall in full kit with a grenade in his teeth and live to tell the tale.
No, not tell. He would neither confirm nor deny. That was the phrase.
Still, he looked more like a thinker than a fighter. The army wasn’t going to throw him into the maw of a faraway conflict to get chewed up. They needed brains just as much as brawn—and they must want him stateside if he was working out of Fort Meade and getting loaned to the agency in Langley.
Which meant he wasn’t going to be deployed any time soon. If ever.
Restless, Kenzie got up again when the screen flickered, then glowed more brightly than before. She sat down in front of it and tapped the touch pad. She’d use the cursor and pulldown menu to force quit. She didn’t have all day.
The screen changed in an instant from pink-purple to white. Then nothing happened. The empty white screen faded away and a few icons popped up. The small whirling wheel disappeared.
Kenzie knew better than to tap impatient commands that would confuse a slow hard drive. She set the laptop aside again and concentrated on sorting papers.
A faint but familiar bar of music interrupted her. Not her cell— her ringtone was completely different. Christine must have forgotten her phone, in a hurry to get to the mall.
Kenzie scrambled to her feet, trying to locate it by the sound. The ringtone repeated several times. At the last second, she glanced toward the top shelf of the hutch and saw the small phone half-concealed by a framed picture.
It went silent and the screen flashed a number. She looked to see who’d just called. Someone who didn’t know about Christine’s accident, obviously. Or—
Kenzie saw three initials come up. SKC. Christine’s employer.
Wanting to know where she was, no doubt. Kenzie’s stomach tightened. She wasn’t comfortable calling back on Christine’s phone, but she kept it in her hand so she could read the number on its screen. She went to her purse and found her own cell, enduring an irritating voicemail menu that went on forever. SKC was a big company.
Finally Kenzie got fed up and pressed a random number. An actual human being in an unknown department answered.
“SKC. This is Terri Novik. How may I help you?”
“Oh—hello.” Kenzie had been expecting to get another automated message. She had no idea who Terri Novik was. “I need to speak to someone about Christine Corelli.”
“Okay. Just give me a sec.” There was a pause, as if Terri was looking something up. “I think she’s Melvin Brody’s assistant. I’ll transfer you to his extension.”
“Thanks.” Kenzie vaguely remembered Christine telling her the name of her new boss. That was it.
A few seconds later, a man’s loud voice hurt her ear. “Mel Brody here. Who is this? Make it short. I’m busy.”
Brody had a smoker’s rasp and a Maryland way of slurring his words. She knew what he looked like from a company picture Christine had showed her, taken at a motivational meeting.
Paunchy. More than middle-aged. A lump for a nose and a receding hairline. White shirt stained from eating lunch at his desk. You had to wonder how he’d ever gotten the job.
She took a deep breath before she spoke. “Mr. Brody, I’m a friend of Christine Corelli.”
He paused. “That’s nice. Where the hell is she? I got quotas to fill.”
Kenzie frowned but forged on. “Her mother asked me to call. Christine was in an accident.”
“What?” Brody growled. “You mean, like a car crash? What next?”
The unexpected news seemed to make him angry. Kenzie didn’t feel like telling him that Christine had nearly died in a rollover. She certainly wasn�
��t going to mention who she was or that Christine had been driving her car.
“Yes, a crash. A serious one.” She spoke quickly, her tone clipped. “She’s in Guilford Hospital. In the ICU.”
“Bad off, huh?”
No concern. No sympathy.
“She’s critical,” Kenzie snapped. “But that may have changed.”
“I’ll call the hospital.” Brody hung up on her.
No thanks, either. Kenzie realized that the man had to have her number on his phone’s caller ID, even if she hadn’t given him her name. Did it matter? She didn’t think so. When she got the paperwork together, she would be dealing with someone in human resources, not Christine’s obnoxious boss.
No wonder her friend had wanted to quit.
It occurred to Kenzie that Christine had brought project paperwork home now and again. What if Brody wanted stuff like that back? She sat back down and riffled through what she had, then looked at the crammed lower half of the hutch.
The question was where Christine had kept it. Kenzie thought that if she couldn’t find it, she couldn’t return it. Which would prevent an in-person encounter with that loudmouth.
She heard a ping coming from the laptop and turned her attention that way.
The pink-purple screen was gone. It flashed pure white again—and then a stranger’s face filled it. A man. Not all that young, but not middle-aged either. Regular features and oddly colored, staring eyes. He was half in shadow but somehow very real. Kenzie jumped back as if he were actually in the room with her.
“Hey there. Finding everything you need?” he asked softly.
She gasped. “Who are you?”
He moved closer. His eyes filled the screen. Burning. Staring. Filled with hate. “I hear that bitch Christine is still on life support. Too bad.”
Kenzie slammed the laptop shut.
CHAPTER 4
Kenzie kept her hands on the closed laptop, swallowing a scream. After a few seconds she pushed it away from her.
How had the man with the burning eyes known she was there—or that she was about to look into Christine’s laptop? She looked wildly around the room for a discreetly placed camera and saw nothing.
None needed, she thought, feeling like a fool. The laptop’s webcam must have been turned on, though she hadn’t noticed its tiny light at the top of the screen. Kenzie wished to God she’d been able to get a screen grab of that face. The shadowy light had made his features indistinct.
She scrambled to her feet and paced, staying far away from the shut laptop. At least, she hoped desperately, he couldn’t see her now. She tried to remember details of the hack attack.
He’d seemed to be around thirty. Nothing very distinctive about him. His bland voice didn’t sound like he came from anywhere.
It was calm and uninflected. And somehow ... dead. Despite the hate in his eyes.
Whoever he was, he was after Christine and Kenzie was in the way—or a target herself. How in hell had he known she was here?
Without knowing it, she’d been followed and watched. The image of her wrecked car filled her mind. She was alone—she could be the next victim of an accident. Kenzie wasn’t staying in Christine’s apartment a second longer than she had to.
She had to reach Linc.
Was it even safe to leave?
Jumping up, she ran to the door and tested it to make sure it was locked. She pressed her ear to it, listening for the faintest sound in the hall. Footsteps. Breathing. Was the man there?
She heard nothing. Sliding her sweating hands down the door, she stepped back from it. Then she took a chair and wedged it at an angle under the doorknob.
Shaking, she returned to the couch, trying again to remember the man’s face and drawing a blank. The shock of seeing him pop up had obliterated her ability to recall.
Except for the way he’d stared at her out of the shadows. The hot intensity of his gaze was totally creepy. He must have leaned in toward the camera lens, as if he knew exactly which angle was the most frightening.
She got up and paced. If only she’d had the presence of mind to hit the right key for a screen grab and get him. Linc might even be able to match that face on some database—stop it, she told herself. Wishing and hoping weren’t going to cut it. She’d screwed up.
Kenzie stopped and slammed her open hand against a wall and didn’t even wince. The hutch rattled. She looked down and scooped up the insurance papers and records, stuffing them into her purse. She had to get out of here. The cops couldn’t do anything about an online call she had no record of. She had no proof of anything.
But she knew without a doubt the car crash that had left Christine fighting for life was intentional. Her best friend was being stalked by a psycho who meant to hurt or kill her—and Kenzie had just seen his face. Somehow he’d found out that Christine was alive and hacked into her laptop. Waiting for her? Why, when he’d known she was in the hospital?
What was he looking for? The laptop was Christine’s, a personal thing, hidden away. It didn’t matter. Kenzie had opened it. As good as invited him in.
Kenzie was afraid to open the door, but she wasn’t about to stay and wait for a sicko to pounce.
Hell no. Not here and not at her apartment either.
She was moving out of there as of tonight.
As to where she could go, she’d have to hurry up and find temporary accommodations online—oh no. Absolutely not. She wasn’t opening her own laptop either.
She heard giggling in the hallway and several pairs of high-heeled shoes clicking by. When the group of young women had passed, Kenzie turned the door latch and looked. All clear in the hallway. The exterior stairs were too open to hide anyone. She ran for it.
Kenzie checked the rearview mirror again and again. Rattled as she was, she’d pulled over to phone Linc on her cell before she merged into traffic. He hadn’t picked up.
She’d left a message. No details. Just that something strange had happened at Christine’s apartment and would he meet her at her place or call back, pronto.
Over and out.
What she’d wanted to do was wail like an ambulance siren and beg him to take out the invisible bad guy with a top-secret weapon, but that would have hurt her pride. However, it didn’t seem too much to expect that Mr. Super Crypto Classified Tech Wizard would remember to charge his cell phone and keep it with him. Evidently not.
Linc didn’t love bunking down in a two-bit motel, but for right now it was home base. Speaking of home, he’d made a mad dash to Clearston to trade the red pickup for the black car in his garage. Before he’d left, he’d checked the steel tool case back of the cab for anything he might need—nothing much in it but his tacklebox and a battered, wide-brimmed hat. Linc had slammed down the heavy lid without removing either. He wasn’t going to have a chance to go fishing for a good long while.
He drove back a little too fast. Good thing he hadn’t gotten a speeding ticket. He was hungry as hell and the bag in his hand held the fix for that problem.
He pulled up a chair to a small table whose varnish had worn off at the angles, and tore the bag down one side, removing a takeout container that held his lunch: a split roll heaped with pulled pork barbecue, with sides of coleslaw and mac-n-cheese. The ramshackle roadside joint it came from didn’t look like much from the outside, but the crowded parking lot and lines of customers were his idea of a recommendation.
He didn’t like to eat alone either. Linc reached for the remote he’d left on the table and switched on the TV, keeping the volume low. A news announcer nattered on about this and that. He wasn’t really listening. The sloppy but delicious sandwich got most of his attention.
Linc devoured it, then used up about five napkins to wipe his hands. He picked up a plastic fork to get started on the sides when a photo appeared onscreen. He’d seen it before. On Kenzie’s laptop.
“Next up,” the announcer intoned, “a local hero will be remembered today. We’ll be right back with the story of Frank Branigan.�
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The soldier’s face filled the screen for a few seconds before several commercials played. Linc finished his lunch and cleaned up before the anchor started off with that faked business of stacking papers and laying them down without even looking at them.
Linc listened. He wondered if Kenzie was too. She might have switched on the TV to keep her company over at Christine’s empty apartment. He could call her there, but he’d taken the hint about her needing downtime. Besides, she might be at the hospital or keeping one of the Corellis company.
The screen insets showed Frank Branigan in uniform, then a few family snapshots. Then a photomontage.
His coffin, arriving at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, carried down the ramp of a C-17 by a team of soldiers in white gloves. A waiting mortuary van. The family, standing at a distance on the tarmac near the huge plane, too far away for their faces to be identifiable.
The process of a dignified transfer—the official term—had begun. No newshounds allowed close in, no live footage of the transfer permitted at all. The privacy of the grieving relatives was well-protected, Linc knew.
The army mortuary would prepare and dress the body for burial. Then Branigan’s remains would be taken by hearse to a private funeral home. Kenzie would go to the funeral, he expected. He didn’t know if she’d want him there.
He clicked off the TV to observe five minutes of silence for a man he’d never known.
It wasn’t enough to show the respect that Frank Branigan deserved.
It was some time later when he turned on CNN. They were featuring new developments in the ongoing conflict, explaining the terms of unconventional warfare, including rapid deployments of smaller units, improved equipment, and so on.
Different talking head, same war. Soldiers got shot no matter who was talking. Linc wasn’t cynical about it. The dangers the armed services faced weren’t abstract.