In all her years of dealing with Whitford, she’d never been given a brush-off message before.
“Yeah,” the man in front of her was saying. “Someone killed him.”
“Do the police know?” she asked.
“I thought it was more important to reach you,” he said. “It might be related.”
Related? She wasn’t sure what he meant. Related to what?
Still, before she got too deeply into this interview, she sent a message to her assistant. Get Roshdi Whitford for me. It’s an emergency. I need him and only him. If he doesn’t respond, send someone to find him.
“You thought what might be related?” she asked the man.
“His death and Ki Bowles’s death.”
Van Alen leaned against her desk. “Ki Bowles is dead?”
“It’s not on the news yet?” The man let out a gusty sigh that sounded like relief. “Then I am here quick enough.”
“I don’t know if it’s on the news,” Van Alen said. “I don’t monitor the news while I’m working.”
She rounded her desk, touched the top, and activated a search for the latest news stories on Ki Bowles. She got a written listing—something that the system defaulted to whenever someone was with her in the office—of all the current stories on Ki Bowles.
All of them were about the WSX piece that had run the day before.
“It’s not on the news,” Van Alen said slowly. “You’d better tell me first exactly who you are and what’s going on.”
He clasped his hands in front of him. He did seem to have a lot of muscles under those cheap dark clothes. Maybe she had underestimated him. Maybe he did have enhancements and maybe they were all for strength and agility instead of looks and grooming.
“My name is Pelham Monteith,” he said. “I’ve worked for Whitford Securities for almost twelve years. You can check.”
“I will,” she said, and ran his name through one of her internal links. “Go on.”
“I was assigned to Ki Bowles,” he said. “I was with her today.”
“Yet you say she got killed?” Van Alen wasn’t quite following this. She wasn’t certain whether or not she was being conned—and if she was, why? How did this man know that she had professional ties with Bowles, unless he worked with Whitford Securities?
“It was such mess.” Monteith looked almost green. Would a professional security man become queasy when talking about a death?
“What do you mean?” Van Alen asked.
Her assistant appeared in the lower corner of her left eye again. “I’m sorry to bother you,” he said, “but no one seems able to find Roshdi Whitford.”
“What?” Monteith had to have realized she was getting a message through her links—she probably had that glazed expression most people got when they were concentrating on the link instead of the person in front of them. “What’s happening?”
“That’s what I want you to tell me,” she said as she sent a silent Just a minute to her assistant. “Where did you see Roshdi Whitford?”
“At his house. He’s inside his house.” Monteith’s voice was shaking again.
Have someone check his house, she sent silently to her assistant. Now!
He vanished from her vision.
“You said Bowles’s death was a mess? I don’t understand.” Van Alen almost reminded him that today was the most important day of their contract, but if he was a fake, then she didn’t want to give him too much additional information.
Which reminded her to check the identity confirmation through her links. The first layer of confirmation had been completed. On the surface, it seemed, he was Pelham Monteith and he had been a stellar employee at Whitford Security since his hire twelve years ago.
“Since that piece ran,” Monteith said, “we’ve had large teams guarding her. We’d have some check out the places she was heading and clear them, others going with her to wherever she was supposed to be, and some trailing to make sure no one else was.”
Van Alen crossed her arms. She stopped herself from nodding because that would confirm what he was saying, and she didn’t want to seem like she was agreeing with him, not yet.
“She went to InterDome Media this morning, and when she left—”
“InterDome?” Van Alen felt cold. Bowles wasn’t double-crossing them, was she? They had a deal, a legal contract that was as ironclad as entertainment and business contracts got.
Van Alen knew that for certain. She’d drawn up the document herself.
“I don’t know what she was doing there,” Monteith said, “but she seemed happy when she left.”
Van Alen frowned. Just then the search program ended. She got another confirmation, this one from more secure sources, that Monteith was exactly who he said he was.
“What happened next?” Van Alen asked.
“She wanted to have lunch at the Hunting Club. She wanted to show off, I think. That’s what she said when she let us know that was the next destination.”
“How did she let you know?” Van Alen asked. “Via link?”
“We have a secure link. She used that.”
Van Alen knew about the secure links. She also had the most tech-savvy person she knew, Miles Flint, try to break into Whitford Security’s secure links. He couldn’t, at least not on his first try.
“So you went to the Hunting Club,” Van Alen said.
“We sent a team ahead,” Monteith said. “I wasn’t on the team that was with her. I was trailing.”
“And?”
“She and one of the guards got slaughtered in the forest.”
“What?” Van Alen couldn’t stop herself from blurting out the word. “How is that possible?”
“I don’t know.” He swallowed. “I really don’t. But she couldn’t send to us for help because the Hunting Club shuts down all link access.”
“Not emergency,” Van Alen said. “That’s illegal.”
“Even emergency.” His voice was soft.
She felt the color leave her face. How many times had she eaten there? Dozens? A hundred? She never would have gone if she knew that she didn’t have emergency link access.
“They were attacked in the forest?” Van Alen asked. “How is that possible? Doesn’t the Hunting Club itself have security?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I entered the forest about five minutes after she did.”
He paused. He was even greener than he’d been before. He put a hand on his stomach.
“I’m—I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve never lost anyone before. And now two—”
“You were protecting Roshdi Whitford as well?”
“No,” he said. “I meant Ki Bowles and Enzio.”
“Enzio?” Van Alen asked.
“Enzio Lamfier,” he said. “He’s the guard who was killed.”
“You found them,” she said.
He nodded.
“And what did you do?”
“I backtracked until my emergency links worked, then sent a help message. Some street cops were nearby. They showed up and I said something bad had happened in the forest.”
“You didn’t tell them what it was?”
He shook his head. “I went to tell Roshdi. I figured he had to know because there was a failure in the system somewhere and he would find it. He had to find it before the police even started to work on this.”
She nodded. That was standard for a good security company. They didn’t want to be well known, especially to the authorities. But they also didn’t want to interfere with an investigation.
“But he wasn’t at the office,” Monteith said. “And our system told me he hadn’t shown up yet, which wasn’t unusual. Sometimes he worked from home. So I headed there. I didn’t want to send anything on the links.”
“Even though they were secure,” Van Alen said.
“I don’t know if they are.” He sounded terrified. “I mean, Bowles told us where she’d be and now she’s dead, and that might’ve come through the links, right?”
<
br /> Van Alen didn’t know. She could already think of a dozen ways the system could have been compromised.
Except for one.
“You’ve never lost a client before, right?” Van Alen asked.
“Not to my knowledge,” Monteith said.
“Shouldn’t her guards have kept her alive at all costs?” Van Alen asked.
“That’s the thing,” Monteith said. “We’re missing one guard.”
Van Alen let out a small breath. “Missing?”
“He might be deeper in that forest, but I don’t know. We’d cleared the area before she arrived. At least, that’s what I was told before we even sent her there. No one should have been in that forest with her, except her guards.”
And now, if Van Alen could believe Monteith, one of those guards was dead and the other was missing.
She didn’t like any of this.
Then her assistant appeared in the corner of her left eye.
“They found Roshdi Whitford,” the assistant said.
She sighed. She had been expecting this.
“He’s dead,” the assistant said. “Murdered. The police are on the way.”
She held up a finger, stopping the conversation with Monteith. Then she bent her head so that she could concentrate on the conversation with her assistant.
Where is he? she asked.
“In his house.”
Thanks, she sent as she severed the connection.
She raised her head and looked directly at Monteith.
“So who killed Roshdi Whitford?” she asked.
Monteith shrugged.
“How did you know to come to me?”
“I headed the teams,” he said. “My emergency contacts for this case were Whitford first, which is normal for all cases, and you second, which isn’t normal. Usually the secondary contact is some kind of money manager or something, not an attorney.”
“And that made you assume I’m paying for the contract on Bowles?”
“Aren’t you?” he asked.
Van Alen didn’t answer. Instead she swept her right hand toward the nearest chair.
“I’ve treated you poorly,” she said. “Have a seat. I’ll be right back.”
As she walked out of her office, she linked into her own security system and had barriers placed over her desk and on her computer systems. She also made certain that all of the links inside the office were shut down, so he couldn’t contact anyone.
She waved the opaque doors closed behind her and had them lock.
Then she walked through her waiting room, and down the corridors to her assistant’s desk. He was pacing behind it, a thin dark-haired man who’d always seemed a bit too nervous for her tastes.
He jumped when he saw her. “Ms. Van Alen.”
“Let me use your outside system,” she said as she moved him away from his desk. She didn’t want to use an internal or external personal link in case Monteith had used some high tech way of piggybacking on her system.
She knew such things were possible—she’d learned a lot in the six months she’d known Miles Flint—but she didn’t know if men who worked for security outfits like Whitford’s were capable of it. She wasn’t going to take any chances, either.
She sat behind her assistant’s desk. He hovered over her, making her even more nervous than she was.
“Go to my waiting room,” she said. “Make sure nothing’s happening inside my office.”
“Should I go in?”
“No,” she said. “Monitor it using the waiting room’s systems. And make sure he doesn’t leave.”
“All right.” The assistant walked around the desk, looking at her as he did so. He bobbed his head once, then hurried down the hall.
She tapped the system in front of her, going through several layers until she reached the address she wanted.
Even the Detective Division at the police station had its barriers. She got some sergeant who monitored all the higher ups’ links.
“Maxine Van Alen for Andrea Gumiela,” she said. “It’s an emergency.”
“Chief Gumiela isn’t speaking to anyone right now,” he said. “If it’s a true emergency, I can put you through to the help line.”
“Tell her that I need to talk to her about Ki Bowles and the Hunting Club. Now.”
He blinked at Van Alen; then his image disappeared. Not five seconds later, Gumiela’s image appeared.
Van Alen had worked with Andrea Gumiela dozens of times, sometimes off the record. Gumiela was known as a hard-ass particularly in her department, but she’d also helped half a dozen families Disappear by sending them to Van Alen on their way to the precinct to be booked.
Technically, Gumiela had broken the law she’d been sworn to uphold, but Van Alen never said anything and neither did Gumiela. In fact, Gumiela never asked after the families, either.
Van Alen admired that. She also admired Gumiela in court. The woman was ferocious on the witness stand, one of the few in the Detective Division that Van Alen couldn’t beat on cross.
“What is this?” Gumiela asked.
“Is this link secure?” Van Alen asked.
“Secure enough,” Gumiela said.
“I have a man in my office who claims that he was a bodyguard to Ki Bowles, and that she and another bodyguard were killed in the forest of the Hunting Club today. I assume he’s telling the truth?”
“I can’t comment,” Gumiela said in her flattest tone. But her eyes had widened ever so slightly. That was a confirmation of sorts.
“He also claims to be the one who found her, and let some street officers know. He is the one who originally found Roshdi Whitford dead, but he never called that in, either.”
Gumiela raised her chin. She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t.
“He makes me nervous,” Van Alen said, “and he’s not a client of mine. I have a hunch you’re going to want to question him. If his stories check out, he’s probably an important witness for you. Or a suspect.”
Gumiela was smooth. She didn’t confirm or deny any of this. “Why did he come to you?”
“He knew that Ki Bowles spent some time in this office recently,” Van Alen said, just as smoothly.
“As a client?”
“You know I can’t tell you why most people come here, Andrea,” Van Alen said.
“Yet you’re giving up this man. What’s his name?”
“Pelham Monteith. He says he works for Whitford Securities.”
“What don’t you like?” Gumiela asked. She didn’t finish the question, probably purposefully leaving it open-ended so that Van Alen could choose how she was going to answer.
“If he’s telling me the truth,” Van Alen said, “then he found three dead people and didn’t remain at any of the scenes. As an officer of the court, I’m duty bound to make this information known.”
“It’s interesting how you pick and choose what is your duty, Ms. Van Alen,” Gumiela said.
Van Alen smiled. “I’m not the only one,” she said, and signed off.
Then she leaned back in her chair.
What a mess.
She had expected Bowles to get threats the moment the first story appeared. She even expected Justinian Wagner to try something—and maybe succeed.
Flint and Bowles and Van Alen were under no illusions. They all knew that Bowles was risking her life with this series of stories.
Bowles had found it exciting.
Flint thought the risks could be minimized.
Truth be told, Van Alen thought the same thing or she never would have been connected to it.
She also thought Justinian Wagner was a cautious man who turned to murder as a last resort. He had a lot of legal means of stopping Bowles before he tried something illegal.
And even then, Van Alen expected threats first.
She rubbed a hand across her forehead. Her little finger caught on the half-glasses and she flicked them off her nose in disgust.
She had started to admire Bowles. The woman had
a relentlessness that Van Alen could identify with, and a ruthlessness that Van Alen shared.
Flint had been right when he had chosen Bowles, although Van Alen hadn’t been certain of that in the beginning.
But this whole scheme had backfired too quickly. Van Alen was frightened for the first time in years.
She took a deep breath and got a grip on herself. Fear was counterproductive. It always had been. It caused people to make mistakes instead of solve them.
She needed to solve this one, and she had to act quickly.
She’d done the right thing in contacting Gumiela.
Now Van Alen had to protect herself and her firm.
She stood, accessing one of her secure personal links.
She needed to get a hold of Miles Flint—and she had to do it fast.
Thirteen
Even though he left the door to the viewing room open, Nyquist felt as if he were surrounded by Ki Bowles. The illusion drove him slightly crazy.
She seemed to be sitting at the table inside the main studio, just a few meters from him. Her black, silver, and red hair was perfectly coiffed and she wore some kind of matching outfit that served to accent her tattoos.
Her voice filled the room, but the story she told seemed too vague to be important—at least to him. It was all innuendo and hearsay, nothing that would hold up in court, although she promised hard evidence in future pieces.
Nyquist knew that news had different standards of proof than the law did—witness how many people were found guilty in the press and never made it into a court of law—but he found himself wishing she had shown him more.
Making him wish for more was probably what the story had been designed to do. But he didn’t see anything that would kill her, not even in the tidbits that the story presented. They were too small, and he felt like he’d heard a few of them before.
Maybe something that Bowles hinted at in this story or something that she mentioned in passing had more significance than Nyquist realized.
He leaned back in the small chair that sat in the center of the room and stared at Bowles as she recited the names of the people she had spoken to.
He would have to retrace her steps on all of this, see if these people as well as this so-called deep background that she had had explosive information in it, the kind that would make Justinian Wagner careless, the kind that would get him to kill before he explored other options.
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