Internal Threat (11 page)

As he made his way back towards the street, Matt’s chest was tight with anxiety. He had played it cool to John but inside he was a collapsing wreck. He could not predict if there would be a bullet slamming into his back for his insubordination. Yet he forced himself to continue walking, calmly placing one foot in front of the other.

Finally, he heard what he was hoping for. “Wait,” came John’s voice.

Matt swung back around to see the killer reaching into a side pocket. He withdrew a small plastic pill bottle, tossed it across the distance between them. Matt snatched it from the air.

“If you give your son one of those an hour, the symptoms will go away. Do not, for one second, think that it is the cure. But consider it my show of good faith. Now-” he shrugged back his black sleeve to check a digital watch. “You have roughly eighteen minutes to enter into this building and disable the two servers it houses.”

“Consider it done,” Matt said, walking back to the car.

Ashley watched Matt come back around the corner of the building, a grim look of determination etched on his face. She had seen that game-face on him before, across heated conference room tables amid tense negotiations. This time, though, she knew that there was something deeper burning behind his eyes.

He stepped towards the car and pulled the door open. Shaking out a white pill into his hand, he grabbed a bottled water resting in the dashboard cup holder. “Luke, take this right now,” he said, handing his son the medicine. Luke did as instructed, swallowing the pill with a grimace.

Ashley saw Matt’s eyes soften as he reached out to brush the hair back from Luke’s forehead. “That should start making you feel better, buddy.”

“I don’t feel any different yet,” Luke replied.

Ashley watched as Matt slipped into the seat next to him, slinging an arm around Luke’s shoulder. “Did I ever tell you about my first date with your mom?” Luke shook his head, no. “We were on the same flight to a base in Germany and I was across the aisle from her. I had never seen a girl so beautiful, and I knew I would regret it the rest of my life if I never, at least, tried to talk to her. So I said, ‘hello. And she pretended not to hear me. Twice.”

Both Luke and Ashley smiled.

“But the third time, she said ‘hi’ back. She mentioned it was her first time in Germany so to impress her I’d share my expertise about the country. Which was pretty much nothing since it was my first trip there, too. But I convinced her to go out to dinner with me off the base.”

Matt’s eyes softened, the memory washing over him.

“Your mom was smarter than I’ll ever be so she figured out as soon as we started wandering around the town that I didn’t know where I was. We went into the first decent looking restaurant I saw and had this huge meal. By the time it was over, I was completely in love. And I’m pretty sure Katie couldn’t stand me.”

“So she was smart,” Ashley quipped.

Matt grinned at her, turning back to Luke who was absorbed in the story. “I walk your mom back to the base and she’s reaching out to give me a handshake goodnight when she burps.”

“No way,” Luke said.

“Yes way,” answered Matt. “And then she threw up all over my shoes.”

Luke laughed. “What did you do?”

“I did what any gentleman would do. I took her home and held her hair back while she suffered through the worst bout of food poisoning I’ve ever seen. I kept telling her, that it will all be over soon and not to worry.”

“And by the morning she was in love with you, too,” Ashley said, looking at Matt in a way she had never done before. He nodded before looking back to his son.

“So, Luke, I’m telling the same thing to you. This will all be over soon.”

“Thanks, Dad. I think I’m starting to feel better now, actually.”

“Good.” Matt turned his attention back to Ashley.

“Let’s go,” he told her.

“Where?”

“Inside. We’ve got work to do.”

D
etective Larsen stepped outside to take a deep inhale of breath. A decade ago, this was the moment he would have reached into his pocket and shaken out one of his Camel filtered cigarettes. There was something in the simple act of snapping the lighter to life and the first intake of tobacco hitting his lungs that gave him the clear head he needed to think through things. Of course, he had quit smoking several years ago, right after Julie had left. In the end it did not matter; all the vices that had been his curse were eventually abandoned but far too late to make a difference. Yet, he had not gone back to the cigarettes; fresh air was what he worked with now.

Though I’d still prefer a Camel
, he thought to himself.

He shook off the regret and turned back to look at Matt Weatherly’s house. It was typical of the Hollywood Hills area, from his experience. A low-slung ranch that had most likely housed a local aerospace engineer’s family half a century ago. Since that time, it had been expanded and remodeled into the modern luxury residence that only a successful person could afford. Stepping back through the arched front doorway, he made his way through the uniformed policemen conversing in the foyer.

“CSI done yet?” he inquired of the nearest one, whose nametag read Galpin.

“Almost, sir.”

“Any response from the LoJack people?”

“Not yet, sir. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear something.”

Larsen nodded, taking a moment to step down to the sunken hardwood floor of the home’s living room. He crossed to a banquet by the television where a group of thank you cards were displayed. Larsen spotted one in the middle and opened it. Inside, a delicate hand had written – “Thank you again for the lovely birthday present. You and Luke are like family to me! Love, Ana”.

Larsen placed it back, spotting a cherry wood shelving system in the corner holding a cluster of framed photographs. Nearly all of them were of Weatherly with his growing son. Just when Larsen was beginning to wonder where the mother might be, he found a picture on the top shelf of Matt with his arms around an attractive brunette with short hair. Both of them wore military uniforms, he noted. He pulled out his small notepad, jotting down a reminder to have one of his team pull any military background on Weatherly.

“Detective Larsen?” a gravelly voice came from the nearby hall. It was Nick Burns, the lead Crime Scene Investigation technician that Larsen had worked with on several cases in the past. Burns was a heavyset man with silver-stubbled cheeks who could tell you all about how a victim’s lifetime of bad eating habits had contributed to an enlarged heart but refused to change his own steady diet of coffee, chips and hamburgers.

“All done?” Larsen asked him.

Burns nodded, “With the preliminary, yeah.” He turned, the detective on his heels.

As they reached the bathroom, Larsen’s stomach tensed. The body of Weatherly’s nanny, Ana, had turned ghost white from the loss of blood. A pool of congealing ruby red spread down her shirt and into the bathtub.

“She’s only been dead for about five hours, maybe four,” Burns said, tilting his head to take a sidelong view of the corpse. “How did you say you found her?”

“There was a shooting across town and the owner of this house, Matt Weatherly, was involved.” Larsen paused. He had learned long ago never to share everything with everybody, even someone he considered a trusted colleague. It was usually best to keep things compartmentalized. “I sent a cruiser over here to check things out and they found the front door left partially open. When they came in, they found our vic here.”

“Well, looks like a professional job to me. Throat cut above the larynx so she couldn’t scream even if she wanted to.”

“Hell of a way to go,” Larsen shook his head. He sighed, lowering himself to Ana’s eye-level. Instinctively, he crossed himself and whispered a quick prayer.

“You know you do that every time?” Burns asked, watching him.

“It’s called respect for the dead, Nick. Maybe if a few of my colleagues did it, we’d have more solved cases instead of open ones.” He rose back up to standing. “Any ideas on the weapon?”

“Probably a KA-BAR but don’t hold me to it.”

Larsen nodded, processing the information. The knife Burns suspected was commonly used by all the branches of the armed forces. “Makes sense,” he mumbled. “Weatherly is ex-military.”

“Sounds like you got a pretty open and shut case then,” Burns offered.

“Maybe.” Larsen had that strange jangly feeling his nerves got when facts refused to add up. Cases often presented their solutions much like an arithmetic problem: obvious motive + opportunity = murder. So far, none of the elements fit into that equation. He thought of the thank you card in the living room.

Larsen spoke his thoughts aloud, “Weatherly gives his longtime nanny a birthday gift, trusts his only son with her every day, then coldly cuts her throat?”

Burns shrugged, “It’s a crazy world.”

“I think something is off here,” Larsen quietly countered.

“That’s why you’re the detective and I just tell you how they died.”

“And yet your pay grade is higher than mine.”

“Like I said,” Burns smiled, “it’s a crazy world.”

Larsen glanced at the floor again, kneeling down for a closer inspection.

“Whatcha looking for?” asked Burns, hovering over the detective’s shoulder.

“Arterial spray.” The detective knew that if Ana’s throat had been sliced, then her artery would have pumped out a decent-sized burst of blood somewhere.

“Over here,” said Burns, pulling back the shower curtain. A spread of red dots covered its plastic surface.

“So she was killed in the bathtub then,” Larsen said, turning over the thoughts in his head. An idea occurred to him. “When you run the full autopsy, let me know the results of the toxicology test.”

“Sure. Anything in particular I should be looking for?”

“Chloroform or ether. My guess is she was knocked out, dragged in here, then killed.”

Burns nodded, running a hand over his chin. “Sounds like a good theory. I’ll let you know what I find.”

“Thanks, Nick,” Larsen clapped the man on the back and exited the bathroom. He flagged down Officer Galpin again. “Expand the background search on Matt Weatherly to include military service. I want to know everything in his file, not just dates and rank.”

“You got it, detective,” the officer replied before hurrying off.

Larsen headed back out the front door, pausing to look at the small crowd of neighbors that had gathered beyond the bright yellow police tape strung across the foot of the driveway. Curious eyes attempted to catch glimpses of what was going on behind the curtains of the Weatherly house. A couple of bored uniforms kept them behind the line.

Suddenly, there was an out of breath voice at his shoulder. “Sir!”

Larsen turned to see Galpin nearly barrel into him as the officer ran out of the front door.

“What is it?” Larsen asked.

“You were right. Weatherly did have a LoJack installed on his Porsche. They finally activated it.”

“And?” the detective pressed.

“We got a location. Someplace west of Sunset Boulevard. The Wertheimer Building.”

Larsen was already sprinting towards his car. The address was less than fifteen minutes away and, if the rest of tonight was any indication, he had to move fast before things spun any further out of control.

I
t had been many years since Matt had stepped on to a field of battle, but his body had not forgotten the unique rhythms that accompanied it. His breath slowed into shallow increments that matched in time to his heartbeat. The world trickled down to slow motion, allowing his eyes to snatch every detail from the surrounding landscape. Previously, the terrain had been on the scorched sands of Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, it was on this neatly-swept sidewalk in the heart of Hollywood.

Ashley stood next to him, watching with fascination as her competitor narrowed his eyes. Abruptly, he turned to her.

“I don’t want anyone to die.”

“Um…okay, that’s a good start,” she replied, nonplussed.

His eyes swiveled back to the double doors that were the entrance of the building. “I’m capable of it, you know. That’s the scary part. Being aware that you’re only a hair’s breadth away from ending a human being’s life.”

“Matt, I’ll be honest here - you’re completely freaking me out,” Ashley admitted.

He released a breath, following it with a thin smile. “Sorry, forgot where I was for a second.” His gaze found hers again. “We have about eleven minutes to enter this building, get past the multiple guards and disable the servers that my top-notch security system protects. That means I’m going to have to do some things that will probably freak you out even more.”

Ashley nodded. Her own mind was still whirling, playing catch up to the impossible situation she had been plunged into. Time and again, though, she would arrive back at the same conclusion: millions of lives are at stake. “Do what you need to do,” she finally said.

“As I recall, there are two guards at the front desk,” Matt started, his mind’s eye roving over the interior of the building. “They’re both armed, mainly because this place also houses servers for the state’s criminal DNA databases. If we get past them, we’ve still got one more guy who stands directly in front of the cage.”

“Why am I coming with you again?” she asked.
“Because if anything happens to me, you need to keep going. I’m counting on you, Ashley. Luke is counting on you now, too.”

“You can do that,” she assured him.

Matt started walking, calling over his shoulder, “Stay behind me. No matter what happens.”

In a few quick strides, he was at the glass doors and pulling them open. Across the polished tile floor rested a waist-high lobby desk, a lone guard sitting behind it. Facts about the young man scrolled through Matt’s head.

Name: Tim.

Graduated UC Santa Barbara and spent nearly a year fruitlessly searching for a job in marketing.

Has been a security guard for six months.

Was on the rowing team in college.