Some Gave All (7 page)

“I’m listening.” Something to do. Yay.

“Cat and Vincent got a phone number this morning that we think may have belonged to a Muirfield whistle-blower. Private X. Apparently he was in Afghanistan and he wants to talk. Our IT is coming up empty but I know you can go where no geek has ever gone before.”

“Roger that, Jean-Luc,” he said.

“Now you’re getting obscure.” She gave him the number.

“I’ll run it,” he promised her. “Jean-Luc was on
Star Trek.
He was
Next Gen.
”

“Thanks. There’s too many
Star Trek
shows. I mean, aren’t they all pretty much the same? What has Vincent got?”

Pretty much the same?
A cold wind blew inside the gentlemen’s club.

“He can’t go in yet. The CSUs are still in there.”

“Will the trail go cold for him?” Tess asked with a hint of worry in her voice.

“Not this fast. As I’ve said before, Vincent can track prey across the Sahara for, like, a year. And that’s only a minor exaggeration.”

“I still find that creepy. Okay. Call my cell but only if you get something, okay? Cat and I are going to have coffee.”

“Nice gig,” he said tightly. How long had it been since they had gone out for coffee? Or for anything?

“Not really. We’re having it in my office. I have some groveling to do. It won’t be pretty. Luckily I’m so busy that I have to keep it short.”

He was intrigued. He wondered what was up. “So, will you have time for dinner tonight? I can go back through the history of
Star Trek
with you.” He tried for a light, casual tone.

“It’ll probably be Chinese at my desk. Right now there’s a very large angry crowd in front of the precinct demanding to know why we aren’t doing more to stop these homicides. I have to go out there and make a statement.” She grunted. “I might have to skip coffee with Cat.”

“That’s… too bad?” he guessed.

“No. That would be good. It might give her time to cool off.”

J.T. blinked. “What’s going on? Are you two—”

“Gotta go.” The call ended. J.T. grunted unhappily and switched back over to Vincent. “Tess just told me there’s another demonstration in front of the precinct.”

“That’s bad,” Vincent said. “All these murders. Remember Beth Bowman, Catherine’s friend?”

“The reporter Gabe killed? By ripping out her heart?”

“We spun that one that he was committing vicious murders and trying to pin them on me. But he’s dead and I’ve been exonerated.”

“I follow where you’re going,” J.T. said. “There’s no way to deflect these cases. Someone’s going to figure this out. If you detected a beast presence when you were with Aliyah Patel, there’s going to be evidence at the crime scene.”

“Unless this beast is different and the lab equipment doesn’t have the right markers.”

There was a beat. Then at the exact same time, both of them said, “Or unless someone
else
switches the samples out.”

“New beast, new beast-maker. New conspiracy,” Vincent said. He sounded tired.

“We never seem to run out of them, do we.” J.T. was not posing a question. “Maybe in this day and age we can’t expect this just to stop. Digital files, info clouds… back when Rebecca Reynolds wrote out her journal in longhand, beasts could be kept a secret.”

“Not really. Her beast, Alastair, was burned at the stake,” Vincent reminded him.

“Tess called to put me on the phone number you got this morning,” he said. “A ‘Private X’? ‘Private’ as in ‘for your eyes only’ or ‘private’ as in ‘army’?”

Vincent was silent for a moment. J.T. waited for yet another dire revelation.

“It’s about Lafferty,” he said with guilt and self-loathing in his voice. J.T. would recognize those qualities anywhere. Vincent had been quite the brooder before Cat had come into his life.

“
Lafferty
. What about Lafferty?” J.T. asked cautiously. When his best friend stayed mute, J.T. hunched forward, as if Vincent were sitting on the other side of the desk instead of spying on NYPD CSU. “Vincent, we’ve been over this. You had no way of knowing.”

“J.T., you don’t think… could this
be
Lafferty?”

“
What?
” J.T. was so shocked he rose from his chair. It fell over backwards with a crash.

“I mean, if they did something
else
to her. I thought she died. I thought I saw it. But maybe she survived… and went into hiding like I did but then something happened. Something
more.
Maybe, I don’t know, she’s here looking for me. Because of our past. Because of… what I did.” He sighed. “I mean, what I
didn’t
do.”

“No, Vincent. We’ve been through this.”

“But that was before the letter.”

“No one has actually told me about the letter,” J.T. said.

“I have a picture of it. I’ll send it to you. Hold on.”

J.T. held. Vincent’s photo arrived and J.T. opened the letter up on one of his computer monitors. He read it.

“Karl Tiptree,” he said. “I think I’ve come across his name in research somewhere.”

“Cat and Tess are investigating, but if you can make any connections that’d be great,” Vincent said. “I went to that crime scene back when he was murdered. I had no sense at all that he’d been killed by a beast, J.T. None. But today, when I carried Aliyah Patel to the ambulance, I knew she’d been in the proximity of a beast. Maybe that means there are
two
beasts besides me. One I can sense… and one that I can’t.”

“Oh boy.” J.T. rested his hand on his forehead. “After this, can we all, like, go on a sabbatical or something? A cruise? With lots of drinking?”

“It does seem like we can’t catch a break,” Vincent agreed.

“We’ve been involved in more homicide investigations than there are people in the state of Wyoming. I know. I checked.” He clicked his keyboard and zoomed in on a grid of NYC traffic. “I can’t give you camera footage but I can say that the entire block where the attack occurred is completely blocked off. Which sounds redundant. Block and block.”

“It’s like a war zone,” Vincent said. “I went up on a rooftop but the angle was wrong. I can’t get into the abandoned warehouse across from the apartment building, either. Police presence.”

J.T. heard the change in his voice. Vincent had repressed the guilt and remorse and was concentrating on solving the case. That was what Vincent lived for now—justice. And Catherine, of course. J.T. was glad his friend had found love, and a renewed sense of purpose, but he himself was beginning to question his own place in all of this. Tess had once urged him to be “less Robin, more Batman,” but in the meantime, Vincent had fully embraced his inner Caped Crusader and J.T. wasn’t even Robin anymore. He was the guy back at HQ doling out the information. Pretty much all the important superheroes had an IT guy: Professor X, Ron Stoppable on
Kim Possible
…

He ate another gummy worm and stared down at the phone number. Why give someone a bogus number? Two answers came to mind: one, the number hadn’t been bogus when it had been given; two, someone was keeping track of the location of phones used to call the number.

“Or three, it’s a code that they’re expecting someone to crack,” he said aloud. “The wrong phone number.”

“Yeah,” Vincent said slowly. “They had to figure Mr. Riley would go to someone. The army, or the police… But which side are they really on? Are they trying to get justice for Lafferty or dangling a baited hook to see who will bite? Putting Karl Tiptree’s name in, too, and mentioning a
serum
?”

“So they’re upping the ante? Doling out clues?” J.T. picked up another gummy worm, then went for an antacid instead. “Vincent, it sounds to me like they’re trying to draw
you
out.”

“But no one knows about me,” Vincent began, and then he sighed. “Someone always knows.”

“Maybe these guys are an old Muirfield cell, even.” The antacid powdered his mouth. He grabbed another. “I’m getting fond of the ‘trap’ theory. There had to be reports about Lafferty in the infirmary. Cat’s mom probably wrote them. They were observing you guys all the time. They’d know you went to visit Lafferty in the infirmary. They probably overheard her… asking…” He trailed off.

“Asking for my help. Begging me to get her out of there. And I didn’t listen. I sentenced her to death myself.”

“Hel-lo, Vincent, do not go there. You didn’t know.”

“She was Delta Company. One of mine.”

“Exactly. She was a
soldier
.” Suddenly J.T. realized something: Vincent had never left square one, when they had lived in hiding in the old warehouse and he had oozed guilt. They were both still half-in, half-out of their cocoons. Why didn’t that make him feel better?

“I need to go,” J.T. said, more gently. “I have to do my thing here.”

“Yeah, me too. Thanks, J.T.”

“Don’t mention it.” He hesitated. “Wait. Thanks for what, specifically?”

“Everything.”

Vincent disconnected, leaving J.T. feeling warm and fuzzy, if a bit confused. He set up a protocol to dial various combinations of the phone number after accounting for known scam numbers. Once that was up and running, he started applying various decryption algorithms to attempt to break the encoded message, if such existed. He was tempted to start a Karl Tiptree investigation of his own, but he was up to his ass in variables as it was. So on that ass, he sat in his chair and listened to the phone calls his computer attempted. No service, no service, out of order…

“Logan’s Pizzeria,” a voice said.

“May I speak to Private X?” J.T. asked calmly.

“Say what? We’re a pizzeria.” The man sounded genuinely puzzled.

“Sorry, wrong number.” J.T. ended the call.

The computer dialed another number. A phone rang.

“Fix-You-Fast Mufflers.”

J.T. cleared his throat. “May I speak to Private X?”

“What?”

“Sorry. Wrong number.”

It was going to be a long day.

* * *

“Look, Cat, I’m really sorry,” Tess said, handing Cat a coffee laden with sugar and cream. “I was going to tell you about partnering with Wilson but he wasn’t supposed to be here until next week.”

“But why is he here
ever
?” Cat demanded. “I thought we had a hiring freeze. Why are we hiring Surfer Joe from California and
why
did you assign me to be his partner without even asking me?”

“Because I’m your captain now, okay?” Tess flared, but Cat didn’t back down. They’d blown past the chain of command two years ago. Tess and Cat had both thought in black-and-white terms before Vincent had arrived on the scene, but that was then and this was now. The world was complex and gray and in the current case with Cat, bright red.

“Okay.” Tess deflated. She picked up her coffee stirrer and tapped it randomly on her open palm. Cat gave her the moment she so obviously needed.

“Joe,” she blurted out. She wrinkled her nose. “And it’s corny and underhanded and I’m sorry, but he was… important to me. And I still care about him.” She peered up through her lashes at Catherine, awaiting her reaction.

Cat didn’t follow. Tess made a face and shut her eyes.

“You and I know the captain at the Malibu Police Department. Janice McAllister? She went to the police academy with us. She went out there and tore it up, zoomed right up the ladder with a ton of cleared cases. She heard about my promotion. We got to talking, trading emails, you know, work stuff. And then she said she’d heard Joe was interviewing around, trying to get back into police work. She said she would give him a job if we would take Sky in trade.”

Cat’s mouth dropped open. “
Tess.
Why didn’t you talk to me about this?”

Tess shook her head. “The deal was sealed and then at the last minute he asked if you two could partner until he settled in. I was going to ask you, I swear. He got here early.”

“Why do we have him?” Meaning
why don’t they want him?

“A female officer was about to file a big sexual harassment suit that bore no merit. Janice swore to me that it was going to be messy and expensive and would lead nowhere. The officer in question is the daughter of a film producer and her father has come in
every week
to see how his baby is doing.”

“So no due process if he was charged and it moved forward,” Cat said.

“You know I believe that sisterhood is powerful but this would not end in justice for anyone. And, Cat, it was for Joe.”

Cat humphed. Tess tapped her stirrer against the plastic lid of her coffee cup. “Wilson said you were the best detective in the precinct. I told him it would only be temporary, maybe a month at most. And I
was
going—”

“You’re my pimp,” Cat cut in, furious. “My cop pimp. I don’t even know you!”

“Temp-o-rary,” Tess pleaded. “Hey, I put my job on the line a million times for you when you were covering for Vincent. You know I did.”

“So now what? I owe you?” Cat asked indignantly. And then she calmed down a little. Because she did owe Tess.

“Argh, Tess. Now I’ve got him glued to my hip while we try to investigate a rash of beast killings?”

“Timing sucks,” Tess agreed remorsefully.

“The timing on this would suck if the one-twenty-fifth never had another case, ever. Not even shoplifting.”

“Don’t hate me,” Tess said.

“Does Joe know? Does this mean you’re getting back together?”
J.T. will be heartbroken
, she thought.

“No, oh, god, no.” Tess buried her face in her hands. “In fact, I made that a condition of the deal. That Joe would never know.”

“How can you even make this happen?” Cat asked. “There’s human resources and all kinds of hoops, right? I mean, I had to fill out three dozen forms to requisition a dictionary.”

Tess shrugged. “It’s different when you’re a captain. And what do you want a dictionary for? Just go online.”

“That’s what every single person in every single department told me.” Cat rolled her eyes. “There’s nothing like a good, decent dictionary at your elbow…” She trailed off. “It became a thing. I was typing up a report and I went to the online dictionary and it stalled. And I got frustrated and decided to get a regular dictionary and when everyone started acting like I wanted the Crown Jewels I got stubborn… and this is not the point.”