Natural Consequences (15 page)

He gave it a little thought. “Yeah, it was already nighttime when shit started with the whole mall thing. An’ the New Years’ party. It was daylight while she was fuckin’ Damon, though.”

“But you didn’t actually see her during those times?”

“I heard her,” asserted Koblitz, “but naw, man, I ain’t bargin’ in on a dude when he’s tappin’ ass.”

“Thank you.” Hauser stood. Keeley rose with him.

“Hey, so what do I get out of this?” Tony asked. “They told me this would get me some good behavior type points!”

“We’ll be in touch,” Hauser said. He knocked on the door to be let out by the guard.
The agents ignored Tony’s demands as they walked away.

“That doesn’t tell us much,” grumbled Keeley.

“It’s more than we had before we walked in. His statements are consistent with what he said after his arrest. We’ll pull all the case files and have Lanier look up this Curtis guy. My bet is there was no autopsy, so there’s no telling how much blood he had in his body when he was found.”

Keeley shrugged, then blinked and looked back at the closed door to the prison conference room. “So you’re taking him seriously?”

“I think he’s a pinhead, but he saw what he saw. Who’d make that shit up? The corpses seduce their victims all the time, and that involves sex often enough. Look, if we see this Lorelei woman out and about in the sunlight, that’ll eliminate the possibility. Until them we keep an open mind about what she really is. I just hope we can pick up on Carlisle’s trail today. Mighty convenient moving out of his mom’s home without changing a single address in any of his files.”

“Well, it usually takes me awhile to get around to it,” Keeley shrugged. “Can’t call it that suspicious.”

“You don’t live with a woman who doesn’t even exist,” snorted Hauser.

“I’ve got faith in our people,” Keeley smiled. “They’ll find him.”

*   *   *

“Someday, all this stuff we’ve done will come out into public light, and we’re all going to look horrible for it.” There had been a time, back when Matt Lanier first joined the FBI, when he looked forward to not sitting at a desk staring at computer screens all day. Now he got to stare at a computer screen while sitting in the back of a car. He wondered if he could call that progress.

“Only to some people,” Colleen shrugged. She sat at the wheel, marveling at how much trouble people here had in driving on wet roads when this was allegedly one of the wettest places in the nation. “We play a lot fairer than the guys going after the terrorists. I figure when it all hits the fan, most people will wonder why we ever bothered to get search warrants.”

“Yeah, all from the same judge,” muttered Matt. “I mean we got this one in less than five minutes.”

“We’re passing the college on the left here,” said Doug Bridger, watching the map on his phone from the shotgun seat. “Pull off the freeway and be ready to make a left.” He leaned back in his seat, tilting his head over his left shoulder. “So what did he check out of the library again?”

“Couple psych books on dreams and dream control, looks like,” Matt answered. He scrolled through Carlisle’s school computer account. “Looks like he downloaded some journal articles on that recently, too. But I’m looking at his transcripts and his schedule and it doesn’t sound relevant to his classes.”

“We’ll be lucky if he’s still on campus by the time we get there,” grumbled Colleen. She honked twice as she exited the freeway and pulled onto the surface street. “God, these fucking drivers…”

They knew it was a longshot when they piled into the car. Carlisle spent most of the day completely off their radar. Only in the late afternoon did he turn up on any of Matt’s open trace programs. He had already logged off before they made it to the campus. Hope of picking up his trail dimmed with each passing minute.

“Colleen, there!” barked Doug, pointing to the road up ahead. “Coming toward us, black motorcycle, leather jacket.”

“Does it match the—shit, does it match the plates? Dammit!” Colleen didn’t wait for a reply. She cut off the driver on her left to shoot into the turn lane.

Matt sat up in his seat and looked as the bike cruised past. “ZTN-123, that’s our boy,” he announced. “Doesn’t look—ulp!” Matt threw his arm out as Colleen executed a sharp U-turn. Horns honked all around her, but she ignored them all. “Jesus, you don’t fuck around.”

“Secret Service defensive driving school, buddy,” Colleen grinned, quickly bringing the car to a smooth pace in pursuit of Carlisle. “Counterintel division puts you through all kinds of fun training.”

“Ssssooo,” Doug ventured, “won’t we catch his attention by driving this aggressively behind him?”

“Nah, I’m slowing down already, see?” Colleen assured him. She did not, in fact, slow down by any measure that either of her companions could notice. “This is a bland car. It’s getting close to rush hour and everyone else in this town drives like an asshole, too. We’ll be fine. Still can’t figure out why everyone acts like the speed limit means something around here, though,” she grumbled.

Doug stole a glance over his shoulder at Matt, who gave a little shrug. “She’s from LA,” he explained.

Minutes later, their quarry arrived at his destination. Colleen passed him by as he pulled into the garage of a motorcycle repair shop, cursing her luck. “Dammit, he might be putting the bike in for repairs,” she muttered. “Doug, jump out here at the curb and pull out your phone.”

“Huh?” Doug asked.

“Jump! Call me and I’ll explain! Go!” She hit the brakes at the corner. The agent scrambled out of the car as instructed, and an instant later Colleen pulled away again and turned up the block.

Without looking, she pulled her phone from her jacket and tossed it back to Matt. He’d still been looking back toward Doug; the phone thumped against his chest, bounced off his laptop and fell onto the floor. “Grab it, he’s gonna call,” she said.

“What—Colleen, what the hell—?”

“I’m not gonna talk on my phone and drive at the same time,” Colleen said. “Seriously, don’t you know how dangerous that is?” She glanced in the mirror, allowing herself an amused smile once she saw Matt busily fishing for her phone as it rang.

Finally getting hold of the thing, Matt sat upright again and answered the call. “Doug, you’re on speakerphone,” he announced, holding it toward Colleen.

“Colleen, can you hear me?” Doug’s voice asked. “What the hell?”

“Doug, are you watching the shop?”

“Uh—yeah.”

“Okay. Can you see Carlisle inside the building?”

“Um… no?”

“Fine. Doug, I want you to take off your jacket and your tie, right now.”

“Why?”

“Hold on. Matt, see if you can find a list of bus stops nearby.”

“Colleen,” Doug pressed, “where the hell are you going?”

“Right now I’m looking for a parking spot. There weren’t any on that street. Doug, take off your jacket and tie. Watch the motorcycle shop to see if Carlisle leaves on his bike or if anyone picks him up. Otherwise you might have to follow him on foot and tell us what bus stop he goes to.”

“…’kay, why am I taking my jacket and tie off?”

“So you can put them back on later if you have to tail him on a bus or on foot. Right now he’ll just see a guy in a blue shirt. This way you can be a guy in a full suit later. And put your sunglasses on.”

“What sunglasses?”

“What kind of FBI guy doesn’t always have sunglasses?” Colleen asked. She saw Matt’s head bowed in his task. Again, she allowed herself a smile.

“What am I supposed to do about my weapon and my holster?”

“
Wrap ‘em up in your jacket, silly!”

The phone let out a plaintive tone. “It’s Hauser,” said Matt.

“Speakerphone, conference call it,” Colleen instructed She found a parking spot half a block back from where she’d left Doug.

“Joe, can you hear us?” asked Matt.

“What’s going on?” Hauser asked.

“Carlisle came up on Matt’s radar,” Colleen explained. “I’m teaching the boys how to run a tail.”

“How’s it going?”

She sat up in her seat, looking out over the other cars. Doug held his phone up, pretending to be lost and looking for directions. “They’ve got some p
romise.”

“Colleen,” Matt murmured, “we can see everything from here, we could pick him up—“

“Ssssshhh,” she replied. “Let him learn.”

“Shit,” Doug grunted, “he’s out of there already, coming my way. He doesn’t have his helmet, so I think he’s—“

“Doug, shut up and play dumb!” Colleen hissed. The line went silent. She watched as Alex jogged across the street, walked straight past Doug and ducked into another storefront. “What is that?”

“It’s a florist shop,” Doug said. He fell silent. One minute stretched into the next. “He’s picking up two bouquets of roses,” Doug observed. “What’s a guy get for buying his girl two bouquets?”

*   *   *

“Such
lovely
breasts,” Amber taunted, revealing them with a flirtatious smile. “Firm. Plump. Healthy.” She tossed the package down onto Jason’s kitchen counter. Then she opened his refrigerator and drew forth a small cardboard carton. “
Huevos
,” she said in her best telenovia pout. “We ladies like a man with
huevos
.”

“That’s a great accent,” smiled Jason. “You took Spanish?”

“Always wanted to move to California,” Amber smiled, rising again and closing his ‘fridge with her foot. “Had to take one language or another. Seemed like the thing to do.”

“Anything else we need?”

“One thing,” she breathed, then threw herself up against the refrigerator as if she loved it, staring at him, sliding one hand up its smooth, solid front, and grabbed the box of corn flakes sitting at its top. “There’s just no way to make corn flakes sexy,” she cooed, managing to stay in character for roughly two seconds more until she couldn’t help but laugh.

Jason shook his head. “I’m impressed.”

“Me, too. I’ve never seen a casserole dish in a bachelor pad. Pretty fancy for a college boy.”

“It came with the set,” he said. “Not like
it’s quality.”

“You’re living on your own. It’s a step up from most guys.” She put the package of chicken on the cutting board, pulled his sole kitchen knife from its holder and slid
them over to him, along with a suspicious grin. “Or is this all just more burdensome college debt?”

“No, tuition and books and all that are college debt. I got some scholarships, but nothing like a full ride. The apartment is, uh…” His words faltered. She said nothing in the silence, waiting quietly as she went about her end of preparations for cooking dinner. Eventually her eyebrows rose, wordlessly encouraging him to finish his sentence. “I guess you could call it inheritance money?”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

He set to trimming the chicken. “Wasn’t anyone close at
all. Kind of a—well. Anyway. Yeah. Less said about it the better.”

“You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to talk about,” Amber assured him with just the right tone.

“Kinda promised I wouldn’t,” Jason said. “I don’t want to give the wrong impression.”

“Don’t trust me, huh?” Amber smirked.

“If you don’t see me keep my word with other people, why would you expect me to keep quiet when you trust me with something?”

She couldn’t fault his logic. “You’ve got me there,” she said. “I mean it, though. I’m not trying to pry. Sorry if it seems that way.” She felt like apologizing for lying about that, too, but that wasn’t exactly in the cards.

Silence crept in between them. Amber ran the chicken through the beaten eggs, then rolled it in crushed cornflakes and set it in the casserole dish.

“Does this feel awkward all of the sudden?” Jason asked after rinsing his hands off.

Yes. Absolutely. You don’t even know.
“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s just…”
He waited for her to look up at him again. Then he leaned in, saw her eyes widen as she realized what was about to happen, and continued on until their lips met.

Her eyes closed. He was gentle. Soft. Sweet. His hand on her shoulder didn’t squeeze or hold firm or do anything except offer a reassuring point of reference when every other sound and sight of the world fell away until there was nothing but a first kiss.

He wasn’t her first. She dated in college and afterward. Yet she hadn’t gotten to a point where first kisses were ever casual. She let his lips linger, and kissed back, and if her lips were timid on his they still didn’t pull away.

Amber’s eyes fluttered open only a breath before his. They stared quietly. She saw a confidence in his smile that hadn’t been there before. “I had to clear that up,” he said.

One corner of her mouth spread out away from the other. “Not the moment I thought you’d pick.”

“I didn’t want you to feel cornered or trapped.” His hand slid down her shoulder, then her side, and finally fell away. “Plus if you run away screaming now all I need to do is put the dish in the oven.”