Deadly News: A Thriller (21 page)

“Agent,” Fe said. “You need to tell her.”

Emily turned around in her seat to look at Fe, then toward Abby. She nodded. “We lost Ecks.”

Abby screamed, attempted to control herself, but then she realized she hadn’t made a sound. “How?” was all she said.

“Going into the subway.” Emily faced forward, kinked her neck to the side so the seatbelt slid onto her shoulder. “We do have some footage of him. No one can figure out what he’s doing.”

“Okay…”

“Maybe you could take a look, you know him, see if he acts weird at some point?”

“What?”

Emily turned around in her seat again, this time removing her seatbelt in the process.

“Hey!” the driver said. “Seatbelts.”

“Blow me.” She smiled at Abby. “We were monitoring him, and couldn’t tell if anyone was communicating with him. But if no one was, his travel pattern was odd. He’d go somewhere, wait, then go somewhere else, like he was getting instructions somehow. That’s what we what to know, was he screwing with us, or actually serving a purpose? And that’s what you may be able to tell us.”

“I don’t think he’d be screwing with you. And we were coworkers, not BFFs, I don’t know him
that
well.”

“I meant screwing by proxy.” She smiled. “And you know what BFF can also stand for…”

“Uh, no, I don’t actually, and I don’t care.” She threw up a hand. “Why are you only telling me this now? How long have you known?”

Emily had a stupid look on her face, a single nose hair protruding out of one nostril. Abby could see the wrinkles already forming, the frown lines that would only deepen, the laugh lines and crow’s feet that probably wouldn’t, because she’d never be happy, always be alone, her job her only comfort. She wasn’t wearing makeup, and Abby could tell what an ugly bitch she was without it.

“I’m sorry,” Emily said. “I’m not in charge, I know that doesn’t excuse me, but at least it’s a reason.”

“Whatever,” Abby said, looking away. “If it might help get Ecks, I’ll do it, obviously.”

She didn’t look anywhere but out the window the rest of the drive.

When they reached the station, she was pushed in front of the large agent. Her head was somewhere around his chest, and Abby was fairly tall for a woman. Fe and Emily flanked her. She kind of liked being escorted, she felt like someone famous, Bette Midler, maybe Rihanna.

“Okay,” a man in his late thirties said when they were settled in one of the briefing rooms. There were maybe twenty others in here, sitting behind Abby and Emily, who were in the front. Fe had a spot somewhere near the back, and Abby envied her for it. “We’ve all been briefed, but we have a civilian here who is going to see if she can’t help us figure out what her friend was doing. Then you all can get back to your jobs.”

Wonderful, she thought. They already hated her.

The man motioned for Abby to come forward.

Standing at the front of the room, she wasn’t sure what it was she was meant to do. The guy had just left her up here, was now sitting in her seat. Was he flirting with Emily? “I was under the impression I was going to be watching a video?” she said when the awkwardness got too much to bear.

“Hold your horses,” someone called.

She looked around, and spotted the source. Toward the back of the room, an older man doing something with what looked like a projector.

She stood at the front of the room like an idiot for several minutes while the man tried to get the projector to project what he wanted. Occasional laughter erupted, hushed conversations were conducted. She even saw Emily laugh at something the guy who had taken Abby’s seat said.

The projector finally flickered on. “Lights!” the old man called out.

Someone flicked the switch that was approximately five inches from the man’s back, killing the front lights and plunging Abby into a state of illuminated darkness, and she sighed in relief.

“You’re in the way!”

Abby moved so the projection was on the screen, instead of her body.

“Okay,” the asshole—as Abby decided to call him—said as he sauntered out of
her
seat and back up to the front of the room. “I’ll direct you though this, you just tell me what you notice.” He looked at her. “Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Awesome. Roll it Frankie.”

“My name’s not Frankie you asshole.”

Abby’s smile was concealed by darkness. Then her face was lit up as the bouncing logo of the projector manufacturer was replaced with video footage of Ecks exiting the subway, and it was now a grimace which concealed the smile.

“Here,” the asshole said, gesturing with a laser pointer, “you can see how he waits. Now look here,” the green dot went to Ecks’s ear. “You see?”

“I don’t,” someone said.

“Exactafuckingly. Nothing.” He looked at Abby with a wide grin. “Now watch this.” He turned to the back of the room. “That’s your queue to unpause it Frankie.”

Not-Frankie mumbled something, and the video began again.

Everyone stared at the screen while Ecks stood, waiting. Car drives by, light plays across Ecks’s face, he rubs his eye, looks down, shifts his weight, looks up, another car passes, he begins walking.

“There!” the asshole shouted when Ecks moved, as if waiting for that moment. “You see that? Is that how he normally acts?”

Abby shook her head.

“Hallelujah, the woman has spoken—so to speak—now can I get my team Capt?”

“Mason, if you arrested people based on as little information as you pursue them on, you’d have lost your job a long time ago.”

Abby peered into the darkness. She couldn’t tell who was speaking.

“Fine,” Mason said, turning back to the screen and twisting on his laser pointer. He pointed it at Frankie. “Go to the park.”

“Argh, you’re going to blind me,” the old man whose name wasn’t Frankie said. “Get that out of my face.”

“Nah,” Mason, the asshole, said, “it’s not high watt enough. These green lasers. Totally safe.” He smiled at Abby. “I think.”

She made sure not to smile back—because, it was kind of funny.

The video jumped forward, and Abby was now watching Ecks enter a park at night. Ecks stands, waiting. Light plays across his face from the street lamp he stands under, he rubs his eye, looks down, shifts his weight, looks up. Several minutes pass, then, noticeably not looking around, he exits the park.

“Where’d he go now?” Abby asked.

“That’s what we want to know. We lose him after this.”

Abby frowned. “I thought that was, what, at a… um…”

He stared.

“Where you lost him, I thought that was somewhere else.”

He waved this away. “Yeah, yeah, the subway. That’s just him going in, and we don’t have footage of him leaving, and someone”—he looked out at the room, presumably at someone—“couldn’t keep eyes on him.” He flicked the pointer at the screen. “This is the last we have where he is taking instructions—”

“You’re begging the question,” a voice called out; it sounded like the one he’d called Captain.

“The last we have where anything interesting is going on,” he said, facing the room, a smile plastered across his lips. “Better? Good.” He turned to Abby. “So, Abby—can I call you that?—you need to help us out here.”

“Yeah, I know.” Abby was startled by the laughter this provoked from the room.

“The thing here, Abby, is that if we can figure out where he went after leaving the park…” He spread out his hands and raised his eyebrows.

“What, you can catch who he met? Is that what you think, he was trying to lose you?”

“What makes you think he was meeting anyone?”

Abby raised one eyebrow at him. “I don’t know.” She shrugged.

“Hm. Okay, but yeah, that’s the idea.”

“As much as it pains me to disappoint you, I didn’t notice anything.”

Mason twirled his hand above his head. “Again, again.”

The scene played again.

“Watch closely,” he told Abby.

Abby did, and would have regardless of what he said. She didn’t really know Ecks all that well. She’d worked with him for a few years, but—at least until recently—had rebuffed all his advances. Well, not all. She’d gotten lunch with him several times, but that was lunch, she got lunch with several of her coworkers. Hell, she’d had lunch with Becky a few times.

The video played. Ecks enters the park. Stops under a lamp, light plays across his face, he rubs his eye, looks down, shifts his weight, looks up.

Something pulled at her, but she didn’t have it yet. “Play it again, from when he enters.”

There was a mumble, and the video played again. Ecks enters the park. Stops under a lamp, light plays across his face, he rubs his eye, looks down, like he’s nervous—

“There!” His eye, it was something he always did when uncomfortable with a question—like, ‘How many dates have you had recently’, or ‘Did you write this?’—Abby didn’t really want to know, but it was like a car wreck, and she could never help herself, and whenever she’d catching him doing that, she’d press, go for the kill. “See what he did?” she said.

“What? Looking down? Or rubbing his face?”

“His eye. It might not be anything, maybe his eye itched. But he does it when he’s uncomfortable with a question, or something he’s about to say.”

“And he did it earlier…”

Abby nodded. “At the subway.”

Fuck yeah!” Mason shouted, clapping his hands together and biting his lower lip. “What’d I tell you? These psych people always notice the little things.”

Abby tilted her head and frowned at Mason, but he wasn’t looking at her.

“Well come on,” he said to the room. “Let’s get this bastard. Unless someone thinks it’s not enough PC?” he asked mockingly.

“I don’t get it,” Abby said.

Mason smiled at her as he put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, you did good. I knew you could do it.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

He rubbed her shoulder once, then slapped it. “That’s the spirit.”

What the fuck? she thought.

“Aw, all right. Let me guess, you didn’t notice that other guy in the frame?”

“There was no other—” she stopped herself, once more thinking of the invisible gorilla. “There was another person?” Abby returned her attention to the screen.

“Yep.” He snapped his fingers rapidly. A young man got up from his seat and handed Mason a folder. The guy’s face glistened in the reflected light from the projection screen. “Not there,” he said to Abby, “here.” He handed her a large photo from the folder.

It looked like a frame capture from the video, with the gain and brightness jacked all the way up to 11. Sitting on a bench, at the literal edge of the frame—only part of his body was visible—was what appeared to be a man, in black clothing. Despite the brightness of everything else, the face remained black.

“What’s with the face?”

Mason pressed his lips together and gave a small shake of the head. “Makeup, probably, doesn’t really matter.”

“Why not?”

“If I told you,” he leaned in very close, right next to Abby’s ear, whispered, “I’d have to…” he let it trail off, and slowly leaned back from her, grinning.

She didn’t know if she was afraid, paranoid, turned on, or all three.

“All right people, let’s do this,” he shouted, despite the fact that everyone was already doing just that, and the room was partly emptied.

Emily stood as the projector flicked out, and she waved at Abby to follow, then led her and Fe to her office.

The asshole smiled at Abby when she turned back to look at him. She did not smile back.

“Wow,” Fe said, once they got to the office, looking around the room. “You have an office?”

“Yeah, I got lucky.”

“Luck doesn’t get you three degrees,” Abby said, getting closer to inspect the diplomas on the wall. “Berkley, Stanford
and
Harvard?” She faced Emily. “Jesus, I was wrong about you.”

“Thanks.”

“No I mean you just… Yeah, you wear glasses but…”

“But you’re a sexy little minx,” Fe said.

“And I know that was probably a compliment, and thanks, but it just makes my job that much harder.”

“Is that why they told you I was dead?”

“Who?” Fe asked, sinking in to a cracked leather couch shoved against the wall.

“Yeah.” To Fe, “The little boys I work with. A practical joke.” She looked up, out through the door. “Speaking of…”

The door opened, and Mason peaked his head in. “Hey guys, having a little break?” He looked at Abby. “Vasquez, you should be in on this.”

“Me? I have pretty specific instructions.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. I convinced him I needed you.” Sill looking at Abby.

“Me? Why?”

“Modesty doesn’t suit you.” Finally looking at Emily. “Briefing in ten, be there.” He shut the door.

“That’s good, right?”

“That they want me in on it? I suppose. The last mission didn’t go so well.”

“Yeah, so tell me about this. I think I missed something.”

Emily sat in the chair, not the one behind her desk, but opposite the couch on which Fe sat and onto which Abby now lowered herself. “Okay, all I can say is we know, not who,” she bit the inside of her lip. “We know where it’s likely this suspect will be. And if we can spot him at one place we can follow him—”

“And find out where Ecks is.”

“Uh, well, sure okay. I was going for his base of operations, his coconspirators, but yeah. It also might give us an idea of what kind of sinister job they put your friend up to.”

Abby tilted her head. “Hey, he’s not— Because anything he’s doing, it’s, you know— He was put up to it.”

“Don’t worry, unless he actually hurts somebody, he should be fine.”

“Should?”

Fe put her arm around Abby. “It’s okay, nothing bad’ll happen.”

“So you say.”

Emily stood.

“Where are you going?”

“Briefing. I need to use the bathroom first and I don’t want to be late.”

“You’re just going to leave us here?”

She put out her hands in a
What am I supposed to do?
gesture. “I can’t think of any place that would be much safer. Just chill out here.” She looked at Fe, “You’ve been here, right?”

Fe nods. “The Rincon case.”

“Yeah, the hostages. All right, well kitchen is in the same place if you get hungry, I’ll be back soon,” she said, then shut the door behind her, and it was just Abby and Fe.