Until It's You (11 page)

Tom sighed again. “Yeah, we do, but the user who changed it got hacked. There’s no way that guy actually changed it.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’s hiking in Patagonia. I know Jim pretty well. There’s no way he could have made the change.”

“So then...”

“I don’t know. Whoever is behind this has serious reach. You said the FBI is involved?”

“Somehow, yeah.”

“They could get access easy enough, couldn't they?"

"Sure." Anna's head was spinning. She needed to make sure Kristina found out about all of this as soon as possible. “So what did you do then?”

Tom took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes again, then looked off into the distance. After a while, he gave a short laugh. “Well,” he said, turning to Anna. “Then stuff got weird. When I saw the police database was wrong I went through a national database I’d used in grad school. But I ran into a wall there. Pharm’s classified.”

“Like, by the government?”

He nodded. “All I could tell was it came from Atlas Pharmaceuticals. Fordelli’s company, basically. Kristina said she’d been investigating him. You know anything about that?”

Anna bit her lip. “She was investigating, yeah, but it was pretty minor stuff. Nothing anyone would kill over.”

Tom turned to her with a look that said
don't be so sure
. She shivered.

“Anyway," he said. "About ten minutes of that investigation and my tablet got shut down.”

“You mean turned off?”

“I mean someone shut it down.”

“How can you tell?”

Tom waved his hand, his thick fingers still specked with mustard. “I can tell. That wasn't a normal crash. It freaked me out.”

He licked his lips, a tic his sister also had. It looked so different when he did it, though. Anna fought this thought from her mind and tried to listen carefully.

“Especially because it was so late," he continued.  "You know? I mean I’d only started really investigating after dinner. By the time I got shut down it was coming up on 10 o'clock or so.”

“Of course. So what happened that you ran?”

Another distant look in his eyes, far off past anything she could see. Maybe past any world at all. “Someone came into the building.”

“What do you mean?”

“I saw someone come in on the security camera in the hall.” He shook his head slowly. “I keep it on one screen when I’m working late. Paranoid, I guess.” He gave her a significant look. “Runs in the family, right?”

Anna pursed her lips and nodded. Kristina had told her enough about all that. Most of it came from Kevin, but they all had good reason to be distrustful with the way they'd grown up.

Tom saw her expression, gave a nod himself, then continued. “But when I saw the guy come in it was only a few minutes after the tab I’d been using died and I freaked out.”

“So you ran.”

“I got out of there immediately, yeah. Left my comm in my lab coat but didn’t even realize it for a while. I didn't go back.”

“So do you know if he was coming for you?“

“No idea. I’ve been out since then. Too scared to go to my apartment. Bought a comm at the store but Kevin and Kristina didn’t answer. I spent the rest of the night in the library over at DePaul.”

“I see. Why didn't you call security or the police or someone?”

"Whoever wiped that record...I don't know. I was already in the police building and that wasn't exactly safe, was it?" He rushed his hand through his hair, shook his head. “You need to help me talk to Kristina.”

“I agree.” She pulled out her comm and hovered over Kristina’s ID.

Would she pick up even if she was talking to that bitchy FBI agent?

Anna shrugged. She might. If not, she could just leave a message. She tapped the screen to give her a call and put the comm to her ear.

The institutional gray walls of Carter's office were starting to turn a corner for Kristina. They felt serious in the way the work being done within their walls was serious. They were functional. She was getting somewhere.

Who cared about the walls, anyway? She was
getting somewhere
. That was what was important.

She was locked in a not entirely unfriendly stare down with Agent Carter when her comm buzzed in her jacket. She tapped it and then cocked a brow up at Carter.

“Do you mind if I take this?” she asked.

Carter considered for a moment, gave a toss of her head. “If it’s important. We aren’t done here, though.”

“Of course."

She took the comm out of her pocket and saw who was calling. It was Anna. A mild flash of annoyance rushed through her. It had been nowhere near two hours.

“Hello,” she answered. "What's up?"

“Kristina, it’s me.”

Kristina stood up and walked toward the door to put some space between her and the agent. “I saw. What’s going on?”

“I found Tom.”

Kristina blinked. Little needles erupted all over her skin, and her heart seemed briefly to be beating through sludge before exploding into a hummingbird buzz.

“Where?” she asked, somewhat steadily.

Her mind screamed in a million directions.
Oh my god,
she thought.
Where
.

Carter was staring at her, her green eyes darting around. Kristina turned her back to the agent.

“He was waiting outside our building. You must have just missed him.”

Just missed him
. “Is he okay?”

“Yes, he's fine."

Relief echoed through her body. Her shoulders and she realized how tense they had been just seconds earlier.

"But he needs to talk to you.”

“Well I need to talk to him!”

“I know. So how do you want to do it?”

Kristina turned around to Carter, who was still watching her curiously from her desk. 

She needed to get away pronto and without being followed if this was going to work.

“Where are you now?” Kristina asked finally.

“A park on Dearborn.”

“North of the river?”

“Yeah.”

She formulated a plan quickly. “Okay, I think I know which one. Tell him to walk around and meet me there in an hour.”

“You okay? I’m still mad about what happened.”

Kristina smiled slightly to herself, still under Carter’s watchful eye. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just tell him to meet me, okay?”

“Okay. Talk to you.”

The call ended, and Kristina put the comm back into her jacket pocket with her heart still pounding. She walked back to the chair she'd been sitting in before the call.

Agent Carter leaned back in her own chair as Kristina approached. The expression flittering across her face was unreadable. Something professional, like she had stopped controlling it for a moment while her mind worried about other things.

Then she regained composure, and it was all fake smiles and cheek bones. “Happy call?” she asked pleasantly.

Kristina shrugged and walked back to her chair. “Sorry about that,” she said as she sat down. “It was important.”

“I’m sure.”

“We were talking about a security problem at Landon’s company.”

“We were talking about helping each other.”

“Okay," Kristina said, her mind turning. "We were talking about that too. You want me to get Landon to talk to you. What are you going to do for me?”

Carter’s brows arched up. “Was that nugget I just gave you about the bureau’s investigation not enough?”

Kristina nodded, though she had to fight her jaw from clenching. This was the delicate bit. She couldn't let the power dynamic shift so that she was the only one who owed something. Her mind scrambled for favors to ask.

“It was good," she said carefully. "Thank you for the heads up. I’m just wondering if you could look into a couple of other things for me?”

A long pause. “Perhaps,” Carter said finally.

Kristina blinked. Of course there were things she could use help with. 

“Good. One: a stripper named Rose got murdered in a drive-by last night at The Velvet. You might remember her as the one with pink hair.”

Carter maintained a neutral expression, her face a calm sea.

“You might be aware of that,” Kristina prompted.

“I am.”

"Has there been any progress?"

“That’s a Chicago Police Department investigation. Not my jurisdiction.”

“But you could look into it. Maybe talk to a contact in the CPD.”

"You don't have those?"

"Not like you do, I'm sure."

“Perhaps. I would note that Tatum—or Landon, as you insist on calling him—was seen talking to her the night before.”

“He was.”

“Now he's disappeared. That's a potential motive.”

Kristina narrowed her eyes and looked at Carter skeptically. "Are you telling me the CPD is looking for him too?"

Carter shook her head. "No. I was just stating facts."

Kristina breathed in deeply. Carter knew the game being played.

“Okay," she said. "Well if you could look into that and see if they’ve made any progress into who killed her, that would help. If you could also look into my brother Kevin’s security company getting shot up last night, that would also be really terrific.”

Carter's dark blue eyes opened wide. That one had hit. “I’m sorry?”

“Andersen Security. Down in Bridgeport. It got shot up last night.”

Carter shook her head. It looked like she was genuinely surprised.

“I hadn’t heard about that,” she said.

Kristina bristled. “Well, it did."

"Does CPD know?"

"I have no idea. Kevin went underground right after it happened because he got a crazy idea in his head that someone was trying to kill him."

Carter's nostrils flared. "I'll see if it's even been reported," she said diplomatically. "With the gunfire it's very likely."

"Thanks," Kristina said. She hadn't decided on whether she would share this final point until the last moment, but she decided to go with it.

"And lastly," she said. "If you could get a line on a couple of psychos in a black car who chased me down Lakeshore Drive yesterday evening before coming after me with a tranq gun, I would appreciate it. Because that was scary.”

Carter sat up straighter in her chair. “I’m sorry, did you say you were chased?”

“Yes.”

"Down Lakeshore Drive?"

"Going north, yes. I take it you hadn't heard about it."

“Did you report this to the police?”

Kristina shook her head. “I did not.”

“Why not?”

“To be honest, I was knocked out by one of those tranq darts. That’s how I know it was a tranq gun.”

“Well, how did you get to safety?”

Kristina shook her head. “My secret, sorry. If I get you some more ID on the car, can you take a look?”

"That
would be
impeding a federal investigation—"

"If it becomes a real investigation, I'll talk to you all about how I got to safety. For now, it's my secret."

Carter held her gaze. "This is hard to stomach, Kristina."

"I'm sorry. This whole situation is very sensitive."

Carter shook her head, then sighed. “I can try, but there won’t be much with just a car. What is it with you people and not calling the police?”

“Call it professional skepticism.”  Kristina sat back in her chair. “Now, if you don’t mind, I think we both have a lot to do.”

“So you’ll help me?”

“I’ll do what I can. If I see him.”

“You’ll get him to talk,” Carter said. “And keep me in the loop.”

Kristina rose. “Sure,” she said, desperate to get out of there so she could see Tom. “But don’t sneak up on me again, okay?”

Carter shrugged and stood up herself to walk Kristina to the door. “Don’t make me have to.”

Knowing the FBI would probably be keeping tabs on her anyway, Kristina took a bus and then a train to get back to River North from Carter's office. She had time to kill before Tom was in Washington Square Park anyway, so there was no need to rush and take a cab. The journey also gave her time to think before she saw Tom.

Carter had been a lot more forthcoming than expected. Maybe too much to be genuine. It was tough to be sure. If the federal agent was pulling the strings behind this whole mess, she was a good actress, because the chase down Lakeshore had seemed to shock her. Not out of the question for her to be that good. But unlikely. 

The investigation into this delayed shipment corroborated some of what Landon had said earlier. How much more there was to the story was what she needed to find out from him next.

After she talked to her brother.

The walk from the station north on Dearborn took her about fifteen minutes. By the time she got to the park, she was sweating under her jacket to the point she was tempted to take it off and carry it. There was enough shade in the park that she decided to keep it on and took a seat on a bench under a particularly thick tree branch instead.

She checked her comm. Twelve minutes early. Finishing up with Carter had taken a lot less time than she’d expected.

Breathing in the authentic scent of the sweet flowers around her—she'd never been good with flower names—she leaned back on the bench and scanned the park. There were maybe a dozen people there, scattered across benches, around the fountain, and under the shade of friendly trees. A pair of dogs played fetch, competing for the same tennis ball and bringing it back repeatedly to a smiling owner.

Kristina smiled herself and then did a double-take, eying someone laying on a bench across the fountain from her. He had a white, canvas bucket hat on and appeared to be sleeping.

She gasped. That looked like Tom, and he was unconscious.

She rushed over to him as inconspicuously as she could manage. Once she got there she shook him by the shoulder.

His eyes snapped open and he looked up at her. “What are you doing?” he slurred.

“Tom,” she said, her heart pounding. “Are you alright?”

“What?” He moved himself up violently until he was nearly sitting upright. “I...yeah. Just tired.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “What happened? I told Anna to tell you to walk around and come back in an hour.”

Tom rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, but I was really tired. So after I’d walked around for a bit I decided to just come back and lay down here to wait for you.”

“Didn’t you realize why I asked you to not just hang around here?”

“Not really.”

"You ran away from something, totally disappeared, and yet you have no idea why I would ask you not to stick to one spot?"

"I was really tired, Kristina. Plus I have a disguise."

She stared at him for a moment, then slowly shook her head. If growing up with Kevin hadn't managed to get through to him, she wasn't about to.

“Whatever," she said, her heart still pounding. "I’m glad you’re safe. What happened?”

“I had to run, Kris. I’m sorry. There’s some weird shit going on.”

“Yeah, I know. That's why I asked you to—” She stopped herself. There was no point in dwelling on it. "Were you chased?”

Tom looked up at her with a blank expression, totally unfazed by her outburst. He'd been getting yelled at for this kind of thing his whole life.

“I don’t know," he said. "I was working late at the station and someone came in the building. He just looked off, you know. And my tablet had just gotten shut down. So I got the hell out of there.”

A cold feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. “Did you get a good look at the guy?”

“I mean, I saw the surveillance camera, but I don’t remember it that well.”

“But you could do a Recall.”

“Yeah. I guess. Or maybe we could pull the surveillance stream.”

“Maybe.” She made a mental note to compare this against the guy who Landon had seen. They would both have to do Recalls, but it was doable if they could describe anything at all. “What were you doing working late?”

He shook his head, as if shaking out the last of the sleep he had just been enjoying. “Oh, right. Jesus.”

Her breath caught in her chest. “What?”

“The pharm in your system,” he said, licking his lips. “It’s not Agent Smith.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“It looks like Agent Smith, but it isn’t.”

“Then what is it?”

“I don’t know. Something happened with the computers at the CPD lab. Someone hacked them to make it look like Agent Smith, but you got hit with something else. Maybe from Atlas.”

Her stomach turned. This was an old wound she thought was closed up. “Holy shit,” she said automatically.

“Yeah.”

“So, its effects—”

“The hallucination is definitely the same, but the delivery method is a two-part system as opposed to the singular system for Agent Smith.”

“Which means?”

“Which means the mechanism is probably designed to elicit reactions one after another, rather than all at once. But I wasn’t able to figure out just what those reactions were.”

She nodded, thinking quickly. She’d been attributing most of what she was feeling—about Landon, about everything—to the pharm she’d been hit with, after reading the description of what it was supposed to do. But now that could be wrong. It could be something else. Something...natural.

Suddenly, the whole world—all of it. Everything was both in her perception and acting on its own, totally absent her presence. The kids playing in the grass, the squirrels running around and amongst the trees, the trees themselves, and their branches, their leaves. She could be sure how she felt about those things, at least relatively, but then the more she thought about it the more she realized that being sure of how she felt seemed so...what did that even mean?

She needed Tom to talk to Landon about what the hell was happening to her. Fighting the adrenaline that had started to rush through her, she pulled at his shoulder. “Get up,” she said automatically, still thinking. “We need to get a cab.”

“Where are we going? I really need to sleep soon, Kris. I’ve been up since yesterday.”

She nodded. “Okay. But I have someone I want you to meet first.”

***

Roy sprinted the short distance back to his car. He’d been watching Kristina and that little shit brother of hers from a distance ever since he’d seen the brother and that friend of Kristina’s walk out of the Dunn-Brantley building together.

This couldn’t be much easier. And now it looked like they were hailing a cab, and by Roy’s best guess they were going to go wherever they’d be hiding out. Once he knew that location, he could strike.

He reached his car door in seconds, swiped the key fob, opened it and started the engine. It hummed quietly to life as the car’s dashboard lit up. An electronic woman’s voice asked him if there was somewhere he wanted to navigate to.

He turned off the auto-navigate and craned his neck to see Kristina and her brother. They were just barely visible, and he couldn’t risk getting any closer or else they would be able to see him too easily. Either one of them might recognize him by this point. No idea how much they knew.

So he sat and waited, watching eagle-eyed and hoping they wouldn't get out of sight. This was his moment. If he messed this up, it was time to bolt from the city. He'd really rather not do that.

A tap came at his window. His heart jumped into his throat and his hand went immediately for his gun as he turned his head.

Cop? Was he about to get into a shootout?

It was a kid. Well, not a kid. Floppy black hair, pale white skin, high cheek bones. His guess was Russian. Early twenties at most and he looked harmless. Relatively.

He pointed down for Roy to lower his window. Roy shook his head, so the kid raised his voice.

“Come on, man,” the kid whined, his voice muffled by the glass. “If you’re going to go, go. This street is all parked up and you’re taking up a spot.” He pointed vaguely behind Roy’s car. “My friend’s right there.”

Roy seethed, and craned his neck again to get a glimpse of the Andersens. He caught the top of the brother’s ridiculous hat.

“Hey man, you some kind of creep? What are you looking at?”

Roy clenched his fist and turned to the kid again, committing the face to memory. If he ever got a chance, he’d put a beating on him. But he couldn’t make a scene here. Not now, not more than he already had.

With one final look, he put the car in gear, checked his blind spot, and sped out of the spot.

He looked out the corner of his eye at the Andersens as he passed them. Kristina seemed to watch him as the car flew by, but he hoped it wasn’t with special interest. He couldn’t be sure, but he’d have to risk it.

There was a No Parking spot intended for buses just after the intersection with Walton. He pulled in, threw his blinkers on, and looked in his rearview mirror.

It was a good place to watch them. They were actually slightly more visible from here than they had been in his previous spot. Just had to hope a bus didn’t come.

He looked in the mirror again and his heart sank. There, hovering over the smaller cars, were the digital letters of a CTA bus. It was coming up Dearborn, one stop away.

Shit. He swiveled his head around to either side to see if he could find a place to keep an eye on them on Walton. But there was nothing.

He looked back to the Andersens. They were gone.

His heart thumped. What the hell? Where?

A yellow auto cab passed him up Dearborn. The bus approached in the rearview mirror. Neither the brother’s hat nor Kristina’s gray hair were visible. 

Roy popped the car into gear and drove. They
had
to be in that cab.