by Kylie Brant
“Here, too.” Macy opened the closet doors wider and he saw the empty hangers inside. She crouched down to dig in the corners of the space, and her coat pulled up, revealing a very fine ass rounding out her black pants. Which was a purely objective observation, and not the reason he headed in her direction.
“A duffel bag is in here, but the marks on the carpet look like something heavier had sat next to it. A bigger suitcase maybe?” She rose and put her hands on her hips, eyeing the overhead shelf. It was filled with some cardboard boxes, but it was the mini filing cabinet in the opposite corner of the closet floor that caught his attention.
Kell squatted before it and tugged on the top drawer. Locked, but these things wouldn’t challenge an eight-year-old. He amused himself by pulling out the tools he’d placed in his coat pocket and picking it with his left hand before looking up to check on Macy’s progress. She was on tiptoe, stretching as far as her five-foot-five or so height would allow, which had her sweater under her unfastened coat creeping up to show a band of creamy skin on her abdomen. Because he was male, he sat back on his heels and watched, mentally calculating how much farther she’d have to stretch to show anything even more interesting.
Her gaze dropped, caught him staring. He grinned, unabashed. She settled back on her feet and glared at him, yanking at the hem of her sweater. “You ass.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d leveled the words at him, he recalled. And he had to admit, he got a kick out of the way she said them, all clipped and prissy, with that faint British accent she always denied. “Need some help there, Duchess?”
Ignoring him, she turned to the CBI agent, who was lifting the bed’s mattress for a look under it. “Dan. Can you reach this?”
Dan? Kell searched his memory, tried to recall if he’d heard the agent’s first name before. When had she? Mentally shrugging, he pulled open the cabinet drawers as the agent came over like a well-trained lapdog and fetched the boxes off the top shelf for her.
Both drawers of the file cabinet were stuffed full of the sort of things people put away for safekeeping and then promptly forgot about. Old bills and receipts, the warranty on the TV, which had run out several months earlier. The deed to the house, property tax stubs, and—his brows skimmed upward when he pulled out the next folder—a birth certificate.
“So where’s our guy plan to go after this if he leaves his birth certificate behind?”
Travi—Dan—was pawing through one of the boxes he’d retrieved. “Maybe somewhere he plans to use a new identity.”
“You have some known talent in the vicinity that dabble in that? New IDs?” He went back to the drawers. “ ’Cuz that’d give us an avenue to explore.” If they leaned on the lowlife hard enough, maybe they’d discover he had an idea where Hubbard was heading. But more important, they’d find out whether he’d supplied the man with a single set of false identification or two. One for a girl, too.
“Local cops will probably know better. We can check.” Travis started replacing items in the box he’d emptied. “This just looks like junk from high school. Yearbooks and stuff.” He shifted his attention to Macy. “What do you have?”
“Photo albums. Some loose old pictures.” She held up a handful. They’d seen the man’s photo in the employee file Mulder kept. A much more youthful Nick Hubbard grinned from a photo with an older woman, whom he had his arm around. “Some look like they date back to his childhood, others are more recent.”
He switched his attention to the bottom drawer. It appeared to be old tax information. Randomly drawing out a folder, he flipped through several years of Hubbard’s old returns without finding anything remarkable. Like a good American, the man filed regularly, reporting income that seemed in keeping with his current job and the one he’d held earlier for the prison. The thought abruptly dissipated when he found a record that differed significantly from the others.
Looking up, he asked, “You run across any old wedding pictures in there?”
Macy glanced over at him. “Hubbard was married? When? Is he still?”
“Not according to these files. The last time he filed jointly was eight years ago. His wife’s name was”—he squinted slightly at the man’s cramped writing—“Sophie Hubbard.”
Several moments went by as Macy flipped rapidly through the photos remaining in the box. She shook her head. “Nothing in here. Maybe there’s a wedding album in the stack Dan’s looking at.”
The agent made an amused sound. “Doubtful. What guy is going to hang on to old pictures of the woman who dumped him and probably took half of his belongings with her?”
“A sentimental one,” Macy suggested.
Kell’s mind was heading in a completely different direction. “We need to track her down. Where does she live? Maybe she’s heard from her ex lately. Could be he felt her out about the care and feeding of an eleven-year-old.”
“Or maybe she’s in on this thing with him somehow.” Travis looked quickly through the remaining albums before shaking his head. “No wedding pictures in here. Nothing of him with any woman except one who might be his mother.”
Kell went through the rest of the tax reports before going on to the next set of folders in the file. No doubt Raiker already knew about the man’s marital history. It would have been in the dossier Mulder collected on all prospective employees. He wondered then if the man kept the records of those prospective candidates he turned down for jobs. He made a mental note to mention it to Raiker. They’d naturally look at anyone Mulder had fired in the last few years, but they should look as carefully at the ones he’d never offered a job to in the first place. If Mulder was the target, rather than the girl herself, revenge might be a primary motivation for hatching this plot.
“That’s it for the boxes.” Travis eyed Kell. “You about done with the files?”
“Almost.” The last few folders contained the survey and property assessment for the house and meticulous records of maintenance on the man’s vehicle. The final one was thick and contained records of investments Hubbard had with a well-known company. Kell skimmed it quickly, finding little to quibble about in the man’s holdings. There was a fair balance between assets, if a little on the conservative side. His own investment counselor would approve. The most current record showed Hubbard’s portfolio worth around eighty thousand. He shoved them back inside the drawer and did a perfunctory search beneath and behind it. His fingers slowed when they came in contact with what felt like a plastic bag attached behind the metal backing of the drawer.
He wrestled it out of its tracks and eased it out of the cabinet so he could see what was secreted there. A clear ziplock bag was duct taped to the back metal plate. “I’ve got something here.” He was aware of the immediate interest his words elicited from his companions even as he gently worked the bag free of its attachment.
Macy and Travis crowded closer as he opened the bag and extracted the large folded paper inside it. He handed the bag to Macy and unfolded the pages. The three of them stared at what appeared to be a blueprint of the security schematics of the Mulder estate.
“Jackpot,” muttered Kell. There was no legal way for Hubbard to have acquired copies of the specs of Mulder’s security. Either he’d somehow gotten them from the security company that had sold the billionaire the system or he’d stolen them from Mulder. Either way, their presence was incriminating.
“Let’s start bagging and tagging evidence,” suggested Travis. “We’re about done here, aren’t we?”
“Why don’t you check out the garage first?” Kell rose, folding the sheets and handing them to Macy to be replaced in the bag. “That’s listed on the warrant, right? This place should have a basement. I’ll look through that. Macy, get pictures of every room, and especially on every piece of evidence we’re going to be collecting. Oh, go through the garbage first. We need to . . . what?” Belatedly, he noted the looks he was getting from the other two.
“Nothing,” she said with that snippy little tone that dripped with t
he King’s English. “Perhaps we could run out and get you coffee, too.”
The suggestion had him trying, and failing, to recall when he’d last eaten. “Not a bad idea, but we really don’t have time. We can grab a sandwich on our way back, though.”
“You’re not running this op, Burke.” Travis’s dry tone succeeded in distracting him from his stomach. “I think that’s what your partner’s trying to point out, with more subtlety than I’d use.”
“Well, Jesus.” Mystified, he put his hands up in surrender. “You want to check for a basement while I go outside, I’m fine with that. And you”—he shot Macy a look—“go ahead and do whatever the hell it is that you want to.”
“If I did,” she informed him as she swept by, “you’d be bleeding.”
He made a what’d-I-do gesture to the agent, who just gave him a smug smile as he followed her into the hallway.
“I’ll take the garage.”
“Good idea,” he muttered, wondering what the hell that had been about. Okay, so he’d been accused of being less than diplomatic before, but someone had to take the lead. Sitting down and negotiating who does what just wasted time, and he hadn’t been kidding about being hungry. He hadn’t eaten since grabbing something from an all-night drive-through on the way to Manassas this morning.
Mood slightly soured, he went to the drawers of the dresser to check them more thoroughly before heading downstairs. Pretty unlikely there’d be any more secret info taped behind or under drawers, but it bore checking out. He’d learned the value of thoroughness through his long years with Raiker.
Diplomacy was a lesson he’d failed to learn from his boss, since Raiker was frequently devoid of the quality himself.
He pulled the dresser out a bit from the wall to peer behind it, found nothing. Certain it was a waste of time, he did the same thing to the bed so he could look behind the head-board.
“Burke.”
The voice was Macy’s, sounding closer than he’d expected. She was still somewhere upstairs. “Yeah.”
“Come look at this.”
“I will.” He moved toward the door and into the hallway. “Without complaint, and without getting all bent out of shape about being told what to do, I’ll willingly follow your order. ’Cuz that’s the kind of guy I am. That’s what teamwork is all about.”
There was no response to his gibe, which should have warned him. But Macy was frequently silent in the face of his remarks because, he figured, she was more used to dull lifeless guys who talked only about stocks and the weather. Her response was often easy to read, though, and he’d be lying if he denied taking a twisted pleasure in making the color flare in her creamy cheeks.
But the expression on her face when he found her, crouched on the bathroom floor, had all thoughts of teasing wiped from his mind.
“I saw this first,” she said without preamble and shifted slightly so he could crouch beside her. Not much bigger than a pinhead, it would be tough to identify the stain on the tile without the magnifying glass she’d taken out of her evidence kit.
“Blood?”
“I thought it could be. But I didn’t see any more spots on the floor. So I started looking inside the tub. Check out the hem of the shower curtain. That’s how I found it. Shut like that.”
Interest sharpening, he pulled the curtain partly open and looked first at the tub. It was clean. Far cleaner than it would have been at his place if he didn’t have a twice-monthly cleaning service, because—although he was handy enough with a vacuum and dust cloth—bathrooms grossed him out. Even his own.
Turning his attention to the inside of the shower curtain, he opened it wider and stepped inside the tub wearing the shoe covers he’d donned after taking off his boots inside the door. With a sweep of his arm he closed the curtain again and began inspecting it. He saw what she’d discovered at its hem, although if he hadn’t known what he was looking for, it would have taken him longer.
Again, it would require testing to be sure, but it looked like blood. Flecks of it on the bottom seam. None on the face of the curtain itself. None on the tile along the three interior walls. Maybe because someone had done some deliberate cleaning. But to get to the hem, they would have had to turn up the bottom edge, and they’d been too careless or in too much of a hurry to bother.
Her earlier mention of the neatness of the place took on new meaning. Dread pooled in his gut. Pulling the curtain open again, he looked at her and saw the trepidation he was feeling mirrored on her face. “We’d better get a call in to Raiker. Tell him to have Whitman send the crime scene evidence recovery unit over here when they’re done at Mulder’s.”
Chapter 3
Macy clicked through the digital pictures she’d taken at Hubbard’s and downloaded onto her laptop once they’d returned to the estate. It was well after midnight and exhaustion was creeping through her system. She wanted to think she was successful at hiding it but wasn’t certain how long she’d remain coherent. Because she knew which ones the men would be most interested in, she started with the photos taken in the bathroom.
“Damn small,” muttered Whitman, squinting at the screen. She flipped to the ones taken of the shower curtain when Kell had turned up the edge for her. “If it does turn out to be blood, we’ll be lucky to have enough for ABO blood typing and a DNA analysis.”
“You might get more after the crime techs get done with the shower drain and trap,” she said, her voice tight. There was still the possibility that the spots might not be blood at all. That they would end up belonging to the owner of the house. Or even a woman friend, who’d cut herself shaving and left behind evidence of the wound. But that wasn’t the scenario that was playing out in her head, and she knew it wasn’t the one any of the others in the room were worrying about either.
“We found a smear of blood on a bedsheet in the girl’s room, too,” Whitman announced tersely. Macy’s gaze met Raiker’s and he gave a small nod. So he’d known about it. Hopefully he’d been kept fully in the loop in their absence. The knot in her stomach drew tighter.
As if recognizing that, Raiker said, “Ellie keeps a pair of scissors on her nightstand. She’s been doing a lot of paper cutting and folding artwork. Her mother said she found it calming. The scissors are the only item her parents can determine that are missing from her room. She may have wounded her assailant, which would be a break for us. Techs didn’t find any other blood, but if the scissors were dropped afterward, before being collected and taken away with her, that would account for the stain on the sheet.”
“Or he might have used them to subdue her.” Agent Travis spoke the words that everyone else was thinking.
“As well as this was planned out, no way he intended to attack her in her own bed,” Kell stated. The stubble that was beginning to shadow his jaw was a shade darker than his hair. The seemingly random observation had Macy giving herself a mental shake. She was more tired than she’d thought if she was noticing anything about Kellan Burke other than his annoying habits, which were legion. “He’d have come prepared, maybe with tape or a gag, some way to bind her, but he had a specific method in mind to get her out of here quickly and silently. If he was smart—and so far we have no reason to believe otherwise—he’d have drugged her. Instant submission, no battle. He wouldn’t have needed the scissors. Likely he took them away from her.”
But not, Macy thought darkly, before blood had been drawn. From Ellie or her attacker?
“That’s how we figure it, too.” Whitman loosened his tie. The top button of his shirt had already been unfastened.
She clicked through the pictures until she came to the thermal coffee mug on the counter in Hubbard’s kitchen. “We bagged this to get a sample of Hubbard’s DNA. We also brought the toothbrush from his bathroom. Seminal stains showed up on the bed in the master bedroom in the house.” And she refused to read too much into that. Would Hubbard really have brought the girl back to a familiar location to rape her when there was an imminent threat of exposure?
/> The neighbors had seen nothing. But pedophiliac offenders often exhibited poor impulse control, taking chances that seemed too risky to contemplate. The danger increased their pleasure. She forced herself to calculate the timeline, pushing aside assumptions and dread to concentrate on possibilities. He would have had plenty of time to get the girl off the estate, back to his house, attack, and kill her, she realized sickly. If that had been his intention.
But it begged the still unanswered question of who the real target of this crime was—Ellie or her father.
She was wandering too far abroad from the evidence at hand, always a shaky proposition. It led to erroneous assumptions. How many times had she heard Raiker preach that?
“Mr. Mulder has complete files on all his employees. Background checks, DNA profiles, and fingerprints,” Whitman put in tersely.
Concentrating on the pictures, she flipped through to ones showing Hubbard’s living room. “You can see from the floor that the carpet had been recently vacuumed. But the bag in the vacuum cleaner was new. The garbage cans were all empty.”
“Someone took pains to clean up. Or cover something up.” Kell worked his shoulders tiredly. “We bagged his bankbooks and investment information. No record in either of a sudden infusion of cash.”
“That would be too easy,” Travis muttered.
“Any keys that might lead us to a safe-deposit box?”
“Nothing like that,” Agent Travis said. “I figure he’d have taken that with him when he took off. Looked like he packed and left in a hurry.”
“Leaving his birth certificate and account information behind.” She looked at her boss, who showed no signs of weariness. She’d often wondered if the man slept at all. “How long will it take to access his phone records and financial accounts?”
“We should have the warrants for the banks and for cell phone and landline LUDs by noon tomorrow.”
“What about triangulation?” she asked.
“Tried it but struck out. His cell phone is shut off, so there’s no way of pinpointing his location that way.”