by Dan Ames
Now it was Nora’s turn to pause.
“Are you sure?” she said. “I don’t want to impose.”
“No, it’s no trouble, Nora. Just text me the hospital information and then I’ll be in touch.”
“Thank you, Mack. Really,” she said. It was the first time he heard emotions in her voice.
They disconnected and Mack realized something else.
He was looking forward to seeing her again.
Chapter Fourteen
The home in suburban Washington, D.C. had the same amount of security as its neighbors. Meaning, top-of-the-line.
There was a main home alarm system, with multiple motion detectors inside and out. Additionally, every window and door was hardwired. There were motion detectors outside the house, as well as an extensive collection of security cameras.
The home had no onsite personnel, however, other than its owner and sole occupant, a man who had just celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday. He had done so in the same manner he’d spent most of his previous milestones.
Alone.
Not every night, but occasionally he would fall asleep in his big easy chair in the office, with the news channel on the television, and an empty brandy snifter on the table next to him.
That was the case this evening.
He would doze until the start of a deeper sleep would cause him to emit the first snore of the evening, and then he would wake up and go to bed.
Now, he was in that state between sleep and rest.
There was no way he could have heard the intruder.
Besides, his office was one of the most secluded rooms in the house, with only one window, and the walls were covered by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The bookshelves were loaded with tomes on psychology, physiology, philosophy and history.
Also the television was on, with the volume fairly loud.
Someone could have broken down the front door and the old man wouldn’t have known.
That was not the case with this intruder, however.
His plans had been in the making for quite some time.
For starters, he had contacted a realtor who was selling the home next door. He’d posed as a buyer, and paid particular attention to the home security system, which the realtor claimed had been installed in the past few years, at the same time most homes in the neighborhood had all upgraded.
He then proceeded to do more homework, research and extensive surveillance on his target’s schedule.
Finally, the time had been right.
He’d entered through the second floor, via a lattice the landscapers had installed, not realizing it made a handy ladder. And while the upstairs windows were all hardwired, the intruder knew they would only trigger the alarm if they were opened. Being a grand, old home, the upstairs windows had not been replaced with shatterproof glass. Therefore, it was easy for him to cut out the exterior caulk and lift the glass out of the window entirely.
He was quickly inside the house, and he pulled shut the curtain over the window.
Down the stairs, across the foyer, along the hallway to the office.
He pulled the gun from inside one of the long pockets in his black cargo pants, along with a silencer from another pocket. He screwed the silencer onto the end of the pistol and held the gun with his left hand.
In yet another pocket, he had a long, razor-sharp knife. It was like a scalpel but much larger and sturdier.
That, he would leave in his pocket until he needed it.
With the gun in his left, he used his right hand to turn the doorknob and open the door to the library.
The old man was asleep in his chair.
The intruder walked across the room, picked up the remote and turned off the television.
The old man, startled by the silence, opened his eyes.
The intruder put the muzzle of the pistol against the old man’s forehead.
“We remember,” he whispered.
Chapter Fifteen
Mack hopped onto the freeway, heading south toward Naples. It was one of those classic Florida mornings. Blue sky, already warm, a little muggy, and absolutely beautiful.
When he had made Florida his home, Mack had worried that he would tire of the warm climate, having grown up and lived where the four seasons were a regular occurrence.
People had even warned him.
Wait until summer, they told him.
Well, he’d waited, and found that he enjoyed summer as much as the rest of the year. Yes, it was hot. And yes, the sun was blazingly strong. But you adjusted. You wore light clothes. Did strenuous work in the morning, and hung out by the pool in the shade in the afternoon.
I-75 was a straight shot south until it made a forty-five degree bend and headed directly east. That stretch of the freeway was known as Alligator Alley, and Mack loved every mile of it.
No fast food restaurants, porn outlets or gas stations. Just a straight, flat road with swamp on either side.
He made the drive to Boca Raton in just over two hours and went directly to the hospital.
Nora had sent him the information so he retraced her steps until he found himself at the nurse’s station where they had told her Doug was a stabbing victim.
Technically, he wasn’t family, so he would have to play this one a little bit carefully.
A woman manning the main desk looked up at him as he approached.
“Hi, I wanted to ask about a patient who was here yesterday. His name was Douglas Brooks.”
“Are you family?”
“I was asked by Doug’s wife, Nora, to look into what happened,” Mack said. He pulled out his FBI credentials. “I used to work for the FBI and she thought I might be able to better understand what may or may not have happened.”
She looked at him, took a closer look at his credentials and then with a bit of skepticism, made a decision.
“Okay, wait here,” she said.
Mack did as instructed and it was nearly ten minutes before the woman returned with a doctor. The doctor was a tall man with salt-and-pepper hair and a white goatee. He looked impatient. He had a manila folder in his hand and was flipping through it.
“I’m Dr. Henshaw,” he said.
Mack shook his hand. “Wallace Mack. Can you tell me more about Douglas Brooks and his wound?”
The doctor glanced up from the folder. “Ordinarily, no. But you’re a friend of the family and with the FBI?”
“Current friend of family. Former FBI,” Mack said. He wasn’t about to break the law by lying about his status. Impersonating a federal officer is not a minor offense.
“Okay, I’m happy to give you general information,” the doctor said. “Nothing confidential about the patient.”
Mack indicated he understood. “Okay. Was the wound life-threatening?”
“No. A few inches over and it would’ve been.”
The doctor was going to give him the briefest answers possible.
“Did Doug say or do anything unusual?”
“Other than his hasty departure, no.”
“Other than that, was there anything unusual you observed.”
To Mack’s surprise, the doctor said, “Yes. The wound. It was probably the cleanest stab wound I’ve ever seen.”
“So the knife was sharp?”
“Razor-sharp, but also not a normal knife. It was a surgical instrument, I’m almost positive. It looked like a medical incision.”
The doctor snapped the folder shut.
“Thank you,” Mack said.
He left the hospital and pointed the car toward Nora’s home.
And wondered what the information he’d gotten actually meant.
Chapter Sixteen
The address Nora had given Mack took him into a Boca Raton neighborhood called Old Floresta. There was an old stone sign at the entrance which bore the area’s name. Mack wasn’t surprised. So much of Florida was new, or relatively new. It seemed like everything had been built starting in about 1985.
So it wasn’t a sh
ocker that Nora, the Nora he knew so well, had found an old neighborhood. She’d always loved architecture. The older and more original, the better.
As he pulled into the neighborhood between two royal palm trees, everything was immediately shaded by luxurious palms and plenty of them. Immediately, Mack could tell these homes had been built much earlier, probably in the 1920s and 1930s, when the area had first started to be developed.
Nora had always been drawn to old, vintage buildings. He was positive she would have looked at all of the generic construction in the area and opted for something unique.
Something real.
He parked in front of a two-story Spanish Colonial. White stucco, terra cotta roof tiles, black wrought iron and a dark wooden front door. The landscaping was immaculate. It was a modest-sized house, but Mack knew the inside would be just like the outside; beautiful and extremely well taken care of.
The neighborhood was quiet, too. The sound of Mack’s door closing seemed to echo in the stillness. At the door, he was about to ring the bell when it opened.
Nora smiled out at him and opened the door.
“Good God you haven’t changed one bit, Wallace Mack,” she said and then she was in his arms.
“Good to see you, too, Nora. You look great,” he said as she leaned back from him and then stepped back. She was smiling, but it seemed like she suddenly remembered why he was there and the smile faltered.
Nora Brooks was still a beautiful woman, with rich, auburn hair, a delicate jaw and a killer smile. In her youth, she could turn heads. Her blue eyes radiated warmth, but her demeanor sent a clear sign. This was a formidable woman. Cross her at your own peril.
“Come in, please,” she said.
He followed her inside and he smelled her perfume. He couldn’t help but sneak a peek at her. She was trim and in shape. Nora had always been athletic. She probably played tennis or swam.
The house was just as he expected, stylish and neat. Original art hung on the walls, the furniture was eclectic but it all held together.
“Coffee?” she asked.
“Please,” he answered.
The kitchen was wide and open, with a separate eating area. Nora brought two cups of coffee to the table and they each took a chair.
“Thank you so much for dropping everything and racing over here,” she said. “At first, I thought I was foolish to call you. But I haven’t seen or heard from Doug since last night. And now I really am worried.”
She pushed the note Doug had left for her across the table to Mack. She’d already told him what it said but he read it again.
“I don’t blame you,” he said.
“Mack, what am I supposed to do?”
“Let me tell you what I found out at the hospital.” He went over the details, including the odd detail of the knife used to stab Doug.
“Like a scalpel?” Nora asked. “What does that mean? He was stabbed by someone with access to medical instruments? Or is it some kind of sicko who thinks he’s doing surgery? You know, like Jack the Ripper.”
“I’m not sure what it means, and it may mean nothing,” Mack admitted. “Why don’t you tell me about Doug’s work.”
It was safer to start there than to start digging into Doug and Nora’s personal lives. It was way too soon for that. Hopefully, the issue would get resolved before he had to go there.
Nora explained that she and Doug had married shortly after college, and her husband had landed a job with a prominent microbiology research firm and that he’d been there ever since.
No enemies.
No problems.
Just a typical American story. The only difference being the lack of children.
Nora must have sensed Mack’s reluctance.
“You haven’t asked about our personal lives,” she said, with a small smile. “Mack, you’re so sensitive for an FBI guy, considering what you’ve been through. But you yourself have always been private.”
“True,” he admitted.
“Well, our personal lives were boring. We couldn’t have children, and Doug didn’t want to adopt. We had a dog, but he died five years ago and we never got another one. No affairs. No alcohol or drug addiction. Doug works a lot, and I stay busy.”
Mack nodded. He looked around the kitchen, glanced at the ceiling.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“From what you told me, and from what I remember about Doug, he is a highly organized person.”
“To call Doug organized is a huge understatement.”
“He also likes his routine,” Mack said.
“More than life itself, sometimes,” Nora admitted with a shrug.
“So an errand that becomes an emergency would be very unusual, right?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Especially if it wasn’t involved with his work. If it had been a work emergency, he probably would have included that in the note. Like, letting you know something had come up at work and he’d be at the office.”
“That’s right,” Nora agreed. “It wasn’t work related.”
The flow of it made sense to Mack.
“So it’s a normal day in Doug’s world until he gets stabbed. He goes to the ER, slips out suddenly, comes home, leaves you a note and disappears.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I hate jumping to conclusions, but I could draw two theories from that timeline. One, the stabbing wasn’t random.”
“What’s the second?”
“He recognized the attacker.”
Chapter Seventeen
After agreeing to meet later, Mack left Nora and headed for the Boca Raton Police Department. It wasn’t more than a half-mile from Nora’s house, off of Palmetto Park Road. Like just about everything else in Florida, the building was a pale stucco with a Spanish-style red terra cotta roof.
Mack parked in a visitor spot and went inside.
After showing his FBI credentials, he found himself sitting across from a detective in an interview room.
The cop’s name was Seever and he was an older guy, like Mack, with a gray brush cut and a black porn mustache. Very fit and chewing gum.
He showed Mack his phone, and it was open to an entry on the Internet about Mack and some of his cases.
“I read up on you when the front desk told me you were here,” Seever said. “Very impressive. What are you doing in Boca Raton?”
“Helping out an old friend,” Mack said. “This is about as unofficial as you can get. And I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me.”
“No problem, what can I do?”
Mack filled Seever in on Doug’s strange story and consequent disappearance.
“I guess I was just wondering if you’ve had any similar crimes in the area. Maybe this isn’t isolated,” Mack said.
Seever shook his head. “Not offhand,” he said. “We had a stabbing last week but it was a homeless woman who buried a fork in her boyfriend’s butt cheek after she found out he was cheating on her. There was a body on the train tracks, or what was left of it, that’s still under investigation.”
Seever drummed his fingers on the table.
“Are you sure your friend is telling you everything?” Seever asked.
“Pretty sure,” Mack said.
“I can run the vic’s name through our system just to make sure,” he said. “People aren’t always as forthcoming as they should be, especially wives and husbands. You see some crazy shit down here in South Florida.”
“Absolutely,” Mack said. “I appreciate it. I’m working on a couple of theories so any light you could shed would be great.”
“I can ask around about the stabbing, too,” Seever said. “I was on vacation last week so maybe something else popped up. Do you have a card or something?”
After he left the FBI, Mack had some business cards printed up for his consulting business. The minimum order was five hundred. He figured he had about 490 cards left.
He handed one to Seever.
Make that
489 left.
The cop glanced at it, and then slid his own card across the desk to Mack.
They shook hands and Mack left, walking back out into the Florida sunshine.
It was going to be a hot one, and Mack saw a Jeep drive by with four young people in swimming suits, headed for the beach.
He thought about Nora and what he would tell her later today.
He had nothing.
Mack didn’t want to show up empty-handed.
Chapter Eighteen
The more he thought about it, the more intrigued he became by the possibility that Doug knew his attacker.
What also drove his interest in the angle was that he believed Nora when she said there was nothing unusual or different about their personal lives.
All of which pointed Mack in the direction of Doug’s employment situation.
Other than a person’s home, the next place they spend the most time is their job.
Nora had given Mack the name of Doug’s company and now, he pulled into the Boca Raton Public Library, grabbed his laptop and went inside.
He’d always loved the smell of libraries, and this one was no different. It was the smell of books, the source of so much pleasure during Mack’s life.
He found a table where his back would be to the wall. Years of privacy had become habit, and he didn’t want anyone seeing his computer screen.
The Wi-Fi was free, after he agreed to follow the library’s rules, and he launched his browser.
Doug’s company was called Advanced Biologies and it was located in West Boca. Mack first looked for the company’s corporate site, and found it. But when he went to click on more information, he realized there wasn’t any. Their website was a static page with very little information.
From the company’s site, Mack then searched Google, as well as several local newspaper sites, looking for information on Advanced Biologies.