The Entity Game: An Aurora Donati Novel

by Lisa Shearin

  “No, sir. Senator Pierce may have been up in years, but he was in good shape. Once a Marine, always a Marine. He stood as smooth as could be and came around his desk to shake my hand, same as he always did.” Baxter paused and stared down at his clenched hands. “The senator had a strong grip. There was nothing wrong with him.

  “If he had looked sickly,” Baxter continued, “I would have noticed and asked him about it. Two years ago, in November, the senator came down with the flu and he was out for five whole days. In my opinion he came back too early and I told him so.” He sat straighter and looked the agent right in the eye. “But that was the senator. Nothing was gonna keep him from serving the people who put him in that office. He didn’t care how much money a man had, or what kind of work he did to make a living and support his family. Honest work was good work and worthy of admiration and respect. Not like some of the others who get the honor to walk these halls. They either came from money or would do anything to get it. That and power. If you can’t help them get or keep either one, then you might as well not exist. That or they treat you with as much consideration as these chairs we’re sitting in. Men and women like that don’t serve the people who voted for them. They serve themselves and those who gave them the money to keep them in their fancy offices. Senator Pierce wasn’t like that. I’ve been here going on forty years. I’ve seen ’em come in here all puffed with pride. And I’ve seen them go with their tails between their legs. Good riddance. The folks of Senator Pierce’s state knew a good one when they found him, and they’ve kept him here. His granddaughter’s just come into the House. This is her first year in office.” Baxter sadly shook his head. “The senator was so proud of his girl. Smart as a whip, she is, and tough, just like her granddaddy. I hope to get a chance to extend my condolences.”

  “How did Alan Coe look?” the agent asked.

  “Just fine. Mr. Coe ran those marathon races. In fact, he’d run one just two weeks ago. He didn’t mention winning, but he seemed pleased when he came in that Monday morning. Said he’d beaten his personal best.”

  “Did Mr. Coe lock the door after you when you left?”

  “No, sir. Not that I heard. Senator Pierce liked to keep his door unlocked. Most of the senators do. They feel safe here, or at least they used to. During the day, Senator Pierce kept it open whenever he could. I guess Mr. Coe could have locked it after I left, I just didn’t hear it.”

  The agent referred to a tablet on the table in front of him. “And you said that you didn’t see anyone else in the area?”

  “No, sir. It was just me. There are three others besides myself who work here at night, but James Knox called in sick tonight and I offered to take care of his floor. That’s why I was earlier than usual stopping by Senator Pierce’s office. I wanted to finish my work first, then take care of Jimmy’s.”

  “And your usual time to reach Senator Pierce’s office is…?”

  “A little before or after eight. At least as of last week. That’s when I got approval to change my hours to come in earlier. This is my night job. I work on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.”

  “Why did you change your schedule?”

  “It’s five blocks from my place to the closest Metro station. My neighbor drives a cab at night. If I started my rounds an hour earlier, he could drop me off at the station.” Baxter smiled a little. “At my age, the less I have to walk, the better.”

  “Who knew about your schedule change?”

  Baxter thought for a moment. “My neighbor and my supervisor, of course. And I’d told Jimmy…I can’t really think of anyone else.”

  “And you didn’t come back to the senator’s office at 9:15?”

  “No, sir. I had no need to.”

  “Where were you at that time?”

  “Down in our break room.”

  “Was anyone else there with you?”

  “No, sir. I wish there had been, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  The video continued for a few more minutes, but I didn’t think Nate Baxter had killed Julian and Alan. He was a sweet, old guy who’d probably regret having to kill a roach in the basement. I didn’t know if the FBI had confronted him about his doppelgänger, or if they’d actually shown him the security video. I doubted it. There would have been a protestation of innocence, and even more shock than I was seeing now.

  If I’d been in the room with him and could have laid a comforting hand on his arm or my hand on top of his in consolation, I don’t think I would have sensed anything different than I did now. I’d be able to say so with certainty after talking to him for a few seconds. For me, as in the business world, a handshake would seal the deal.

  I closed the video and opened the two security footage attachments side by side, so I could compare them.

  Rees was right.

  Since he specifically pointed out the way the second man walked, I initially focused on that. I watched the real Nate Baxter in the first video. His head was up and his features as clear as they could be given the quality of the footage. The cameras in the Russell Building really needed to be upgraded. Baxter moved with purpose, going from one side of the hall to the other, emptying trash cans. At one point, when he was close to the camera’s location, I could see that he was whistling. He knocked on Senator Pierce’s door and Alan Coe answered, smiling when he saw Baxter. Coe handed him two trash cans and Baxter emptied them in the container on his cart. Then he and Coe went into the office and closed the door behind them. Baxter was inside for nearly five minutes, according to the time running in the corner of the screen. When he came out, he was pulling on his right glove. Presumably he’d removed it to shake Senator Pierce’s hand. He resumed his rounds, vanishing out of the range of that particular camera.

  The video that started at 9:14 p.m. showed the person who appeared to be Nate Baxter repeating his rounds. Whoever this was knew Baxter’s old schedule, but not the one he’d changed to this week. He rolled his cart past the trash cans lining the hall, not even looking to see if they were full.

  That was Nate Baxter’s job, not his.

  If his job was to kill Julian and Alan, I could see where he wouldn’t want to stick around any longer than he had to. The disguise was amazing in its detail, movie quality.

  At 9:15, he didn’t knock on the door, instead pulling out a key and quickly opening it to slip inside, closing it behind him. The timer in the corner of the screen said he was inside for less than a minute. Thirty-seven seconds, to be exact. He then came out, closed the door behind him, locked it, and smoothly turned away from the camera and rolled his cart back the way he had come.

  Two men, dead of apparent heart attacks in thirty-seven seconds.

  I agreed with Samuel Rees.

  Curiouser and curiouser.

  CHAPTER 7

  Soon after I’d finished watching the video, the bagel, tea, and the blanket I was curled under did their collective work. I woke up nearly two hours later in a warm and happy little ball. Yes, I had a lot on my mind, but exhaustion would not be denied indefinitely.

  I checked my phone. Grandad still hadn’t returned my call.

  I glanced over at my messenger bag on the coffee table. Julian’s watch was still inside. I’d promised myself that I wasn’t going to touch it until I’d at least tried to sleep. Sleep and sinister didn’t go together very well.

  Now that the impressions I’d gotten standing in front of that wall had had a chance to sink in, “sinister” was the best description for what I’d felt.

  Since I’d slept, I really had no reason to put it off any longer.

  Just get it over with.

  I put on a glove and took the watch out of my bag.

  In the conference room, I’d picked up the watch while wearing my altered nitrile gloves, but to get all that it could tell me, I needed to put it on with the clasp and the band on either side touching the pulse point on my wrist, as it had on Julian’s just before his heart had stopped. His wr
ist was larger than mine, and even if I adjusted the band, it still wouldn’t fit me. However, I could slide the watch over my hand, and use my gloved right hand to pull the band tight against the underside of my wrist. Sounded like a plan. I slid it on and pulled it tight.

  Startled. Julian hadn’t heard the man come into his office, and initially hadn’t seen him very well. I wasn’t seeing through Julian’s eyes, rather I sensed his confusion at who he expected to be there versus who he actually saw. Then came the doubt I had sensed before, followed by confusion and pain. Interspersed with the pain were the same fear and the denial that this wasn’t possible, and David tried to warn me. Then darkness.

  I slid the watch off my wrist onto the sofa cushion beside me.

  I leaned back to let what I’d experienced settle in, waiting for the inconsistencies to surface along with the questions.

  The first one was something I hadn’t considered.

  There had been no struggle or even physical contact between Julian and whoever had been in the office with him. He hadn’t been attacked. The autopsy could confirm whether there were any defensive bruises or abrasions on his body, but from what I sensed just now, the killer never laid a hand on him.

  Nate Baxter had been in his office just an hour before and Julian had welcomed him in. However, he had heard Baxter’s voice in the outer office first and had recognized him that way. So, had he not seen the intruder clearly, or did he think he initially recognized him as Nate Baxter, then realized he couldn’t be Baxter, hence the confusion? Julian wore glasses. I didn’t notice them either on his desk or on the floor by his body.

  Who had he seen? And who was David, and what—or who—had he warned Julian about?

  I reached for the watch again. I preferred to do at least three links with an object if I could. I wanted to learn everything I could from it and get her grandfather’s watch into Elaine Pierce’s hands as soon as possible.

  I pulled the band tight.

  Startled, doubt, confusion, pain, fear, denial, then darkness. Nothing new.

  I put the watch back in my messenger bag and went to the kitchen, taking my phone with me. I rummaged through the fridge and found some yogurt. It was a little after five o’clock. The city would be waking up soon and checking the news. I suspected my two-hour nap would have to last me for a while. Time for some caffeine. I was going to need all the help staying awake I could get.

  I glanced out the kitchen window as I filled the tank on my Keurig. The sky would begin to lighten in about an hour, but for now the only illumination between my apartment and the town house were the path lights leading from the garage to the town house’s kitchen door.

  They should be the only lights, but they weren’t.

  Grandad’s desk lamp was on in his study, which we also used as the office for the Donati Detective Agency. The desk lamp was touch-activated and wasn’t attached to the timer system. Pablo could’ve turned it on, but the office door was closed, as were other rooms Grandad didn’t want Pablo visiting while we were gone. However, Mrs. Hogan might have left it open if she’d had to go looking for him. Pablo liked to rub up against the lamp and turn it on and off. It was a game with him.

  A shadow passed between the light and window that sure as hell wasn’t a cat. Almost immediately, the light went out and stayed out.

  I put the pot down. I was awake now, no caffeine needed.

  CHAPTER 8

  Ambrose Donati wasn’t a silent-alarm kind of guy. If one of his Old Masters or Picassos so much as shifted on the wall, he wanted to know about it. Grandad had a lot of art. Some he had bought for himself. The rest had been payment from incredibly grateful clients. He treasured each and every piece.

  If someone was trying to steal his art, he wanted to make it impossible for them to stay in the house long enough to finish the job. He didn’t mind the noise. He called it the “clarion call of avenging angels.” I called it screaming demons.

  Someone was in the house and the demons weren’t screaming.

  A quick check of the security system’s phone app told me why. The intruder hadn’t bypassed the system, they’d used the freaking password. The new one. The one Grandad had implemented the day we’d left for Zurich. I’d been in the office with him when he’d called the security company to change it to Rembrandt’s birthday. Gerald had the new password, as did the security company. That was it. We’d provided Mrs. Hughes with a guest password and had notified the security company that she would be in the house twice a day.

  The intruder had used the new owner password.

  I pulled on my boots, quickly laced them over my yoga pants, and grabbed a jacket I wore while running. It was close-fitting and wouldn’t impede any movements I needed to make, either offensive or defensive. I hoped I wouldn’t need either one, but my gut told me Gerald hadn’t come home early from Boston.

  I wasn’t going to do anything stupid. I had an idea, and the more I thought about it, the more I liked it.

  But before I called the security company, I wanted a better idea of who we were dealing with. To get an impression of someone’s thoughts, I needed direct contact with them or an object they’d recently touched. I could sense strong emotions from a distance, such as fear or anger, but I was too far away for that. I needed to get closer. Right now, all I could tell was that the intruder was still in the office. According to the app, the system hadn’t been rearmed. I could get next to the window without being seen or setting off the alarm.

  There was no moon and the backyard was dark. Still, I clung to the even darker shadows next to the house. I stopped a few feet to the right of the window, tried to tell myself I wasn’t freezing, stilled my mind, and reached out to learn whatever I could.

  It didn’t take long, because it was the same presence I’d felt in the Russell Building’s rotunda only a few hours ago.

  Now that I was closer, I could tell it was a man.

  I didn’t sense any strong emotions coming from him. He was cool and calm, cocky even, as he searched the office, but I couldn’t get any sense of what he was looking for—only that it had nothing to do with Grandad’s Rembrandts and Renoirs.

  That was all I needed for now.

  I backtracked, slipped into the garage, and called the security company. It was run by former NSA operatives. They were fast and they were good, if good meant being a little heavy-handed with anyone they found inside one of their clients’ properties. I had no problem with that. Julian and Alan were dead, and this guy was somehow involved.

  “This is Aurora Donati, 2613 Thirty-fifth Street. The account holder is my grandfather, Ambrose Donati. We’ve had a break-in. One man, and he used the new owner password to get in.” I kept my voice down, but my tone said loud and clear that the leak wasn’t our doing, and I wasn’t happy.

  There was an uncomfortable silence on the other end. “May I have your identification word, please?”

  “Caravaggio.” Grandad loved the bad boys of art. “My grandfather’s out of the country at a conference. I came back early and saw a lamp on in the office that’s not connected to the network. I saw the guy when he moved between the lamp and the window.” They didn’t need to know that I’d recognized him and how.

  “Ms. Donati, we’ve dispatched a team to your location.”

  I flashed a cold, little smile in the shadows as I imagined the unpleasant surprise our intruder was about to get. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

  “Please do not attempt to enter the house until our representatives have secured the premises.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. Oh, by the way, he didn’t rearm the system once he was inside. Would you change the password for me, lock down the house, and turn the alarms back on until your people arrive?”

  “It would be our pleasure, Ms. Donati. What password would you like to use?”

  “Pablo, as in Picasso.”

  I heard keys clicking. “Done. Though if the intruder attempts to leave, it will get noisy.
”

  “That’s what I wanted. I don’t mind, though the neighbors might. I’ll just consider it the clarion call of avenging angels.”

  I settled down to wait for the show to start.

  It didn’t take long.

  If I had blinked, I would have missed their arrival. Our security company called them representatives. Any of our neighbors who were awake and sharp-eyed enough to spot them in the shadows would’ve described them as commandos.

  I thought of them as Grandad getting his money’s worth—and the intruder about to get what he deserved. Once they caught him, I was going to get some answers.

  The guards turned off the alarm to enter the house, and must have armed it again, because about ten seconds after they went in, the intruder ran out to the accompaniment of Grandad’s avenging angels.

  The man was all in black and wearing a balaclava, so I couldn’t see his face or hair color. He was fast, Olympic-sprinter fast, his long legs taking him across the yard to the brick wall in record time. There was no sign of the guards.

  He was going to get away.

  Oh, hell no.

  I did some sprinting of my own.

  The wall was an eight-footer, but he grabbed the top with both gloved hands and easily hoisted himself to the top.

  All I could get was an ankle, but I held on for all I was worth, and my words blistered the air blue.

  I expected a kick from his other combat-booted foot.

  What I got felt like I was picked up and thrown, but the man’s hands never left the wall.

  He smoothly vaulted to the other side as I lay flat on my back trying to remember how to breathe.

  CHAPTER 9

  “He kicked me.”

  That was the story I was going with, at least to the security company and police. I grabbed his ankle, and he kicked me with his other boot. It wasn’t the truth, but the truth would make me sound crazy, so I kept it to myself, at least until Rees and Berta arrived.