Border Lines (Reachers Book 2)

by L E Fitzpatrick

  She was tempted to just go back to bed. Whatever was happening would wait until the morning. Jay may be rude but he didn't look like he was much of a threat. She'd almost made up her mind when Charlie and John piled through the door.

  “Where have you been?” She cringed at the sound of her own nagging voice.

  Like two teenagers, the brothers huddled together sheepishly.

  “We had an opening,” Charlie said.

  “We took out the colonel,” John added.

  “Took him out?” she said.

  “It means killed him,” Jay replied.

  It was hard not to hit him. Instead she scowled at Charlie, until he threw a stained pillowcase at her.

  “What's this?”

  “A bag full of money, don't say we never give you anything. Hey Jay, it's great to see you. What exactly are you doing here?”

  Rachel smirked at his tone.

  “I cracked the dupi,” Jay replied. “You're gonna want to see what I came up with. My words just won't do it justice.”

  The fatigue wore off. Rachel put the spoils to one side as they gathered around the computer screen.

  “Okay, so I checked the work computer you picked up and it was clean. Well there was the usual free porn sites, couple of illicit emails, nothing out of the ordinary. But the personal computer, that was harder to crack.” He started to type. “The whole system had been wiped but I found these archived documents. They were texts from a secure chat room. And I mean really secure. I know the Voice plays about with shit like this, but most of the time they're not so difficult to trace. Whatever these guys were talking about, O'Connor sure as hell didn't want to be connected with the conversation. I only found a fragment, the last of what was said, that he hadn't got around to deleting properly. Here.” He brought up the text.

  You do what I say or it will go public.

  Don't do this. You will regret it.

  Your choice.

  I'm waiting.

  …

  Fine

  Good I knew you'd see sense.

  “So who is talking to who?”

  “That's what I wondered. Then I found this.”

  Jay navigated the system from the keyboard, flashing up windows until he came to a series of photos.

  “I think somebody beat you guys to Harvey O'Connor's big, dark secret.”

  Two dead girls appeared on the screen. The dirt on their bodies looked wet and fresh. The images were snapped from several different angles, concentrating on the exposed neck.

  “There's pictures of live hookers too,” Jay added, calling up other images. “And lots of bondage pornography. It's all encrypted. Very well hidden, easily missed if you weren't really looking for it. I've gone through a lot of computers in my time. In my expert opinion this guy has a problem.”

  “What are we looking at?” Rachel asked, sidling up to John.

  “Harvey O'Connor is a killer.” Charlie clicked his fingers excitedly. “We can use this. This is good.”

  “It is?” she asked. “Dead girls is a good thing?”

  “This is perfect.”

  35

  The flickers of red and blue were as much of a warning to Mark as they were to criminals. The lights made his stomach lurch and suddenly he was a boy again, about to walk into a room full of older, nastier children. It had taken him years to gain the indifferent tolerance of his peers and, in one night, he'd lost it forever. Seeing that familiar circle of cars, the entourage of useless constables waiting for something to happen, the senior officer prancing around the scene like a prize rooster inspecting his coop was unbearable. He realised, as they pulled up at the scene, that he'd always hated these moments, because here the police were shown up for what they really were – garbage men. They cleaned up the mess and usually not very well.

  Adams wasn't impressed with the senior police officers who got to dance over the border, although he had more respect for the grunts stuck in S'aven. He said detectives did nothing but scratch their arses and wait for pay day. Most of S'aven's street cops were corrupt but at least they earned their money somehow. Slowly Mark was beginning to realise what his boss meant. And as they continued with their investigation he saw how far away he had actually been to stopping crime.

  They stepped out of the car and Adams gave him a nod. It was a simple gesture. Mark liked to interpret it as reassurance, but it could easily have been a warning. He let Adams lead the way, forming an overweight unhealthy barricade between himself and impending ridicule.

  The house they were approaching was a typical suburban London home, but as he looked closer at the neighbourhood he got the feeling there was something more going on. He counted six men in five doorways, all of a certain age, watching the proceedings with scrutiny. They nodded at Adams as he passed, but Adams seemed less encouraged with their presence as they were with his.

  When they got to the house the officers started their whisperings. Mark did his best to tune them out. He found a face in the neighbouring house – a scarred man in his late sixties – and concentrated on his stern disapproving eyes. Yes, Mark wanted to say, they're all idiots, but the real investigator is here now, and Agent Adams is the best in London.

  He turned back to their crime scene in time to see Detectives Ruth and Hatfield emerge from the house. It was starting to feel like they were the only two detectives in all of London – or maybe the others just didn't bother with field work.

  “Well, well. If it isn't special forces,” Ruth sneered.

  Adams pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his nose. “Hear you have a body.”

  “Who called you?” Hatfield said. If Mark wasn't mistaken, she sounded defensive.

  Adams checked the contents of his handkerchief before stuffing it back into his pocket. “A concerned citizen.”

  They both snorted at the suggestion.

  “Namely Captain Mortimer, who is the gentleman in the house to your left. So Colonel Mal Moore, are you going to escort us to his body or shall we traipse through your crime scene until we find him?”

  Hatfield grunted, reminding Mark of an impatient old nag. She tossed her head back and gestured that they follow her.

  There was a forensic team in the house looking about as busy as the police outside. They snapped a few pictures and started packing up. Hatfield stomped upstairs. Adams followed, taking each step slower, his breath deepening by the time the top step came, but the time wasn't wasted. He gestured to the pictures around them for Mark to inspect more closely. They were mainly of military groups, a few shots of award ceremonies and a picture of the deceased in a laboratory surrounded by scientists. Mark leaned in, at the back of the picture the Institute logo was pasted on the wall. He now understood why they were there.

  Adams was already inspecting the body when Mark reached the colonel's bedroom. That was his thing – bodies. He wandered around, sniffing and looking. Mark preferred to stay back. This corpse was fresh but the dead still unsettled him. Instead he found himself looking at the open bedside cabinet and the empty safe.

  “So, Detective,” Adams said nonchalantly. “How's your investigation going?”

  “It's only been ten minutes,” she snapped.

  “Agent Bellamy?”

  Mark couldn't help the swell of ego he felt at the deliberate emphasis on Agent. He outranked Hatfield and it was nice to remind her of the fact.

  “Robbery, a professional robbery by the looks of it,” he nodded to the safe.

  “So what does PCU have to do with a simple robbery?” Hatfield said, folding her arms.

  “Bellamy?” Adams said again, while he checked the blood spatter on the headboard.

  “The colonel was part of the Institute,” Mark told her. “He was one of us.” Although that didn't sound right, even to Mark.

  “Any hits on the video footage?” Adams said, clapping his hands together.

  “Video footage?” Hatfield looked around her.

  “On the staircase. Bellamy source the footage.”<
br />
  “Yes, sir.”

  Mark hadn't noticed the cameras either, but now he knew they were there he easily spotted one on the stairs and one in the hallway. They were wired through to a cupboard under the stairs. He opened the door and was greeted with a large screen filming two officers helping themselves to the colonel's fridge. He rewound the images, watching the officers disappear. There was nothing for a few minutes and then two shadows. He slowed the image as one face turned to the lens.

  “Shit,” he said to himself and then called for Adams.

  Eventually Adams made it downstairs. He wiped the sweat from his brow and poked his head inside the cupboard. He didn't look even slightly surprised to see Charlie Smith grinning at the camera.

  “Both of them?” he asked.

  Mark nodded.

  “What about the girl?”

  He checked again, watching the three minutes they were actually in the house and felt a sigh of relief trying to escape.

  “She's not here.”

  Adams nodded to himself. “Take the footage. Forensics won't find anything useful.”

  Mark grabbed the tapes and followed Adams through the back of the house. They carefully negotiated the garden, looking for imprints, which was near impossible in the dark. It didn't matter anyway, Adams already knew what had happened. He gestured to an electric box a few feet above them. It was ajar and a cable was noticeably slacker than it should have been.

  “What's that?” Mark asked.

  “The audio alarm. If this baby was wired the whole street would be buzzing like my head in the morning. So they came through the back, dodging the other paranoid jarheads. Took out the audio, but kept the visual alarm and the police alarm. What does that tell you?”

  Mark thought about it. “They're idiots?”

  “No, these brothers are anything but. They don't make mistakes. These wires were cut on purpose and the others were left on purpose. You didn't see the younger brother on camera did you?”

  “Not his face, no.”

  “Never do. But Charlie Smith, well he's got nothing to hide. He knows his picture is out there so he happily turns to the camera, making sure we know exactly who was in that house. The doors have all been blown, a trade mark of his and that execution – well that's all his brother.”

  “They want us to know they killed Colonel Moore.”

  “But why?”

  Adams fumbled with his cigarette packet. He pulled one out with his mouth and slapped his pockets for a lighter. “If I knew that I'd know what they were going to do next. Could be they just want the Institute to know they were responsible. These boys have a lot of history with them after all. A revenge killing wouldn't be unheard of. Or maybe they're trying to divert attention from the dead girls.” He finally lit his cigarette. “One thing that bothers me though.”

  “What?”

  “Where's the girl?”

  It was bothering Mark, too.

  36

  All he had to do was find enough on Harvey O'Connor. If he was killing girls then Charlie would build a case, drop it off with the cops and that was one more obstacle conquered. He licked his lips, already savouring the payoff coming his way. He left John and Jay at the computer, going through it once again for more clues. Maybe the guy Harvey was blackmailing would have an idea where he was. But, if he didn't, Charlie wanted to make sure he had every other base covered and, for once, he was holding a full flush of cards he could use.

  He knocked on Jess' door and waited. Then knocked again. Eventually, she opened it. Her makeup had just been freshly applied. She smiled at Charlie in a dreamy kind of way. He couldn't deny it didn't perk his confidence up a bit.

  “Hey, did I leave a pair of socks here?”

  “What, when you walked out on me?”

  “I tried to wake you, but you were dead to the world.” He was flirting and that wasn't going to work for what he needed to tell her. He straightened his back. “Have you got a minute?” he asked.

  “I've got an hour if you've got it in you.” She chewed on her lower lip as she let him in. “You're here for something else though aren't you? You look all serious. Sexy, but serious.”

  She'd been watching TV in the lounge. Half a bottle of wine sat open on the coffee table. He was feeling optimistic and assumed it had been opened the night before.

  “I wasn't sure you'd be coming back.”

  “You think I could just leave you after last night? I had to rush off, I had business I had to attend to, but I came back as soon as I could.”

  “You want to join me?” She gestured to the bottle.

  He could see Rachel on his shoulder, wagging a warning finger at him. “Actually no. I probably should have said something last night. I'm in recovery, I've got to watch my consumption.”

  Jess looked like he'd just blasphemed. “Recovery?”

  “Pain relief problem. It's under control as long as I am.”

  She shrugged indifferently and picked up her wine glass. “I'll drink to that. Have a seat.”

  She sat beside him on the sofa but, before she could sidle up to him, he broke away. There were ways to inform someone they were married to a psychopath and it wasn't in the middle of foreplay.

  “So is this the end of our budding affair? Is that why you're looking at me so sternly?”

  “No, it's not that. It's about Harvey.”

  The seduction was over. “What about him?”

  “We hacked his computer,” he told her, taking each step with caution.

  “Why?”

  “Mainly to look for information.”

  He let her knock back a mouthful of wine before he continued. She was going to need it.

  “We found pictures.”

  “What kind of pictures?”

  He tried to think about how to phrase it. Should it be blunt? Sympathetic? Should he condemn her ex–husband while offering her a comforting shoulder to cry on?

  “Pictures of the dead girls.”

  “Well he was investigating the murders, which makes sense.”

  “Jess, the pictures, they weren't like research photos in his apartment. Some of them looked like they were taken right after the girls had died.”

  “He found two of the girls,” she offered, as though finding dead girls and snapping pictures of them was the most normal thing in the world.

  “He found them?”

  “He was investigating and he stumbled across two of the bodies.”

  Charlie looked into her bright blue eyes and wondered if she had already reached this conclusion and was just in denial.

  “Jess.”

  “You think he killed them?”

  “There was more on the computer. Not just the dead girls. Other stuff too. Jess he killed your friend, I'm sorry.”

  “No, he couldn't have. I asked him Charlie. You think I didn't! I know it's weird that he found two bodies. Of course I asked him.” She leapt from the sofa and ran to her files. When she returned she shoved the pictures at him. “The police reports all say they died of asphyxiation. They were strangled Charlie. Now you look at their necks. Do you see any marks?”

  She was right. There wasn't a bruise anywhere.

  “Harvey said a Reacher was doing this.”

  Charlie examined the pictures in more detail. If Harvey O'Connor was a Reacher… But this wasn't the same as stumbling across Rachel. Harvey was a killer.

  “How long were you married to him?”

  “What's that got to do with anything?”

  “How do you know he wasn't a Reacher?”

  She snorted at the suggestion. “I would know, okay.”

  “Really? How?”

  “Well to start with he didn't try to kill me.” She pushed the strands of blonde hair from her face and then put her head in her hands. “I don't know. The TV says look for signs of telepathy and Harvey never knew what I was thinking. Is there another way to tell?”

  “I know of a Reacher who lived with someone for four years and they never
even realised what she was. It's possible, in fact it's common. I'm looking at a man with mother issues, separated from his wife who he used to pay for sex, suddenly missing, with a computer full of pictures he could only get by being at the crime scenes when they happened. The least likely outcome of this is that he's not a Reacher.”

  “I think I'm going to be sick,” she said and he tried not to be offended.

  Trying to convince her of the virtues of Reachers would have to wait for another day. He watched as she drank the remainder of her wine and composed herself. Suddenly she was elegant again, despite smearing some of her eye makeup. She stared at him, as though his words were only now making sense and everything he said was as crystal clear as her blue eyes.

  “He hated women,” she told him. “I always knew that, even before I married him. His mother was crazy. She used to do messed up shit to him. Like really weird stuff. I thought having me around would change that but I think he got worse. You know I was so surprised when he got involved in the case. He really shocked me.” She put her head in her hands again. “God, it all makes sense now.”

  He put his arm around her and she used the closeness as an excuse to embrace him. It wasn't as though he minded, he just wasn't sure it was a good idea to take advantage of her when her head was clearly somewhere else.

  “Jesus, this is messed up,” she said and he had to agree with her. “So what happens now?”

  “You need to give the evidence to the police.”

  “Me?”

  “I can't go in and tell them I hacked his computer, they'd lock me up.” He squeezed her hand. “Jess, more girls are going to die unless he is stopped.”

  She nodded her head, but he knew she would need more convincing.

  He reached for her face. “Jess, you can do it. You can save them,” he whispered.

  Her eyes fluttered closed and he felt broken from her spell. He wasn't like Roxy, he couldn't just jump from bed to bed whenever it suited him. Being there when she was so vulnerable felt wrong. Her murdering, estranged husband was out there killing her friends and he was caressing her to get his own way. He removed his hand and she opened her eyes. Those sparkling blue sapphires were enough to stop his thoughts dead.