Authors: Camille Taylor
“Milo, do you have a radio or your cell on you?” she asked as the yelling became louder, more insistent. She didn’t like to think what could happen to Brian if they left him unattended for much longer. The Russian was losing patience more quickly than the Titanic took on water. That was if he’d had any to begin with.
Milo nodded. “Sure. Have to. It’s procedure.”
“Good, call for help.” She stepped past him, continuing towards the curator’s office. Milo was already speaking on the phone to the other members of security. She heard a loud pop sound and her heart stopped and her blood ran cold, her steps faltering. Milo, a few steps behind, almost ran into the back of her, unprepared for her sudden halt. Salty tears burned her eyes. These were not the type of people to mess around. The pop sound could only mean one thing and deep down she knew what that thing was.
“You’d better call 911 while you’re at it,” she told Milo.
She turned the corner into the main corridor that led to the staircase descending to the lower levels and hurried over to the curator’s office and opened the door, knowing full well what she would find in there. The room was empty, a harsh smell assaulted her nose, and her gaze immediately fell upon the lifeless body of Brian Nichols. Her brain shut down as she tried to deal with the situation. Her body working on autopilot, she took in the redecorating, Russian style. Brian’s brains were splattered against the wall and blood pooled around his head. His fingers were bent at difficult angles and the smell of cordite was overpowering. Death hung in the air and she almost gagged. She forced herself to move across the room, assessing the havoc. The filing cabinets and desk drawers sat open, papers haphazardly strewn about.
Someone was looking for something.
A loud intake of breath told her Milo had joined her in the doorway. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “What the fuck happened here?”
Carey had the sick feeling she knew exactly what happened. She had seen this kind of depravity before, years ago, back in Russia.
Dmitry Ivanov stared
at the computer screen as his nimble fingers input the special characters into the file. He knew the HTML file looked like a bunch of nonsense but the code he was writing made perfect sense and would guard sensitive materials from men like him.
Hire a hacker to keep out a hacker.
Years ago he would’ve laughed had someone told him he would end up working for the CIA in their Cyber Tech Division along with countless other exceptionally brilliant men and women. He had vehemently opposed the government and their Big Brother antics but he’d readily agreed when Special Agent in Charge James Fitzgibbon had made the offer.
Not only did he feel he owed the man who’d put his career on the line by vouching for him, but he liked the idea of being legally able to hack into anything. Or at least under direction by the CIA Director or the President of the United States. He loved to use his skills as a hacker for good, not that he ever voluntarily used them for evil. He liked to see himself as a grey hat, a hacker who skated the line between legal and illegal. But he was proud to say he’d never caused mischief by shutting down sites, nor did he use his abilities to gain money or cause terror. He just wanted to know if he could and set about achieving it and while his skills were legendary in the field, he never bragged or advertised his successes. He understood all too well that others would use it to their advantage and personal gain.
His new career had also allowed him to be near his sister who had also moved to the States to be with her husband and fellow agent Lucas Gates, and to take up a liaison position within the Agency. The offer had been perfectly timed after she’d been fired from the SVR for opposing the Director’s orders. He still felt guilty over that. If it hadn’t been for him she would probably still be working there. Not that Elena blamed him, and she’d used the opportunity it presented to take the plunge she’d been fearful of for so long and throw her lot in with Lucas.
He took a sip from his coffee mug, barely flinching when he found it cold. He was used to drinking it that way, often getting caught up in whatever code he was writing so he’d forget to drink it. It was one of the many reasons why his sister was worried about him. He spent far too much time in Langley’s basement for her liking and before that he’d often been holed up in his apartment with his electronics. She just didn’t—or simply couldn’t—understand his need for technology. It was like a drug in his system. One he could never be weaned from.
“Bye, Dmitry. See you in the morning,” a tech said.
Dmitry grunted his response, not wanting to break the zone. He was often non-responsive when working. He would find his pace and not come up for air until he’d completed whatever it was he’d been working on. He could be extremely single-minded but his attention to detail always showed in the quality of his work.
God forbid he was ever interrupted. Few had made that mistake but only ever once. That was all it took. He knew what the other techs whispered behind his back. They called him the
Cold Russian
. They were right. He could be extremely cold when the situation called for it. Interruption was one. A man intent on doing his sister harm another. He still didn’t feel any guilt or sorrow over the life he took to protect Elena. He simply felt nothing. Elena had told him later she’d never seen him so deadly and the look on his face had scared her. Not
of
him but
for
him. She thought she’d lost him but he’d bounced back to his normal self, much to her relief.
He hated knowing she’d been worried for him. Which was why he’d never told her about his feelings—or rather, lack of them—concerning the man’s death. He’d never once looked back. He would do it again in the blink of an eye to protect someone he loved.
The overhead light flicked off, casting him into semi-darkness, the glow of the countless computer screens in the otherwise sterile room his only source of light. He liked the cloud of darkness. It was when he did his best work. For as long as he could remember, he’d always worked through the night.
His mind drifted even as his fingers continued to write the code in his head. Everything in his life revolved around code. He lived and breathed codes and for the few hours he did sleep a night, he dreamt of codes. His sister often accused him of needing a girlfriend and maybe she was right. He missed the feel of soft feminine skin beneath his fingertips, the sweet scent of a woman and the intimacy of being a couple. But one thing was holding him back. He wanted a relationship like his sister and brother-in-law had. It wasn’t so long ago he’d been disgusted by their googly eyes across the kitchen table but he’d been mellowing these past few years and he felt an itch—a itch that told him he was ready to settle down.
Unfortunately, the women he met didn’t interest him. He knew what he wanted and had yet to find a woman who embodied all the qualities he sought. He was picky, he admitted. He didn’t want to settle for just anyone. He wanted a woman who was as intelligent as she was beautiful, had a wry sense of humor and witty repertoire. A woman with a fiery attitude who could match his stubbornness. A woman who would be his equal in every way.
He snorted. He was fooling himself. Where was he going to find a woman like that?
Carey sat at her desk. She had been given permission to take the vase to the vault provided she was accompanied by an officer. She had conceded, although she hadn’t understood why the officer would have believed her stupid enough to make a break for it
after
the police had arrived. She and Milo had waited outside the curator’s office guarding the crime scene while the responding officers had stormed the museum setting off the metal detectors at every entrance.
The whole museum shook with the sound of the siren belting out its shrilling alarm, the sound waves bouncing off the hard wood floors and echoing through the large fifteen-foot high ceiling rooms. It was giving her a headache. She reached up and yanked the clip from her hair. Her tightly wound chignon fell free of its bound. The GHD straightener achieved straight hair hung past her shoulders as she ran her fingers through the red silky mass, combing out any tangles she found.
That was another thing that bothered her. While she had sat in her chair, her every shift in position watched and scrutinized, she’d been thinking. Thoughts bombarded her mind as she tried not to picture Brian’s body being examined only a few feet away. The metal detectors had not gone off when the Russians had arrived. Which raised more questions, none to which she had any answers.
She’d already been on the phone with the chairman of the board and explained to him the situation. It was agreed, as she was Brian’s assistant, she was the best person to fill in for him until another candidate could be found. She was also told to take the next day off. After having been through what she had tonight, it was the least they could do. The board would contact Brian’s family and give them the museum’s collective condolences and would also pay for the service. In other words, the board’s secretary was about to get a rude wakeup call and would be working her ass off for the next few days.
Taking a sip of water from the bottle she kept in her desk drawer, she gazed at the officers around her. While her day had ended, theirs had only just begun. She counted at least ten people crammed in her small outer office. More were most likely searching through Brian’s office, through the connecting door, for clues. Five were collecting evidence, taking photographs, dusting for fingerprints and placing down yellow evidence markers. Another five were standing around talking. She had no idea what the topic of conversation could be, but whatever it was she highly doubted it was about the crime scene or Brian’s murder. Every so often she heard the word
nationals
float across the room to her. She shook her head. How anyone could discuss baseball at a time like this was beyond her, although she had known men who could discuss the subject in depth in a variety of circumstances. Surely the police would be more professional. There was, after all, a murder to solve.
The room went blissfully quiet. Someone had finally switched off the alarm. However, her ears were still ringing and a slight vibration remained. She leaned heavily against the back of her chair and clutched her purse tight, as if she might drop it in a second’s notice. She had rounded up the contents of her purse, under the watchful eye of an officer, which had been scattered throughout her desk drawer. Nothing was missing but it still made her uneasy that the Russians had seen her license and knew her home address.
She waited nervously for the detective assigned to Brian’s murder so that she could go home. It wasn’t as if she had anything to hide but almost every innocent person didn’t like to be questioned by police. Carey had seen more cops in her life than she cared to.
She shivered. The warm day had become very cold, unusual for this time of year. She was unsure whether it was the temperature outside or just her internal one that was the problem. The forensics team finally finished with their evidence collecting and photo taking of Brian and thankfully covered his body with a plastic sheet. Being inside a room with a dead body was giving her the creeps and slowly driving her insane. If she was a nail bitter, she would have chewed down to the quick by now. She wanted nothing more than to go home, run a boiling hot bath and scrub herself down while drinking a bottle of chilled red wine. The day certainly called for it.
The first responding officer on scene had asked her if she had touched the body and she had looked over at Brian, then back at the officer, giving him an ‘Are you serious?’ look. Did he really believe her to be turned on by the blood and gore that she would want to get closer and
touch
him? Did she really look like one of those people who had morbid curiosity? No, thank you, she had seen more than enough blood to last her several life times.
“No,” she had said to the officer. “You can verify that with the museum head of security, Milo Venucci, he was here with me when we found the body and stayed with me until you arrived.”
A new man entered the room. Her gaze followed him as he spoke with several of the officers before examining the crime scene. This had to be the detective in charge of Brian’s case. He squatted down beside the body and lifted the sheet. He was very thorough, she noted, as the detective’s assessing gaze went over the room again. He finally straightened and locked his gaze with her and began to stride towards her, his long legs eating up the length of room. He sat down beside her and introduced himself as Detective Robert Harrington from the Fourth District Metropolitan Police Department.
She summed him up quickly, a habit of hers that had served her well over the years. Overworked, underpaid, harried, but hadn’t started hitting the bottle yet. His eyes were brown, matching his mussed hair, and spoke volumes of the many horrid sights he had seen in his career. He appeared to be a man in his mid to late fifties but she doubted he’d even hit forty yet. She didn’t begrudge him his job and the man obviously cared about the cases that hit his desk, his tired and haggard appearance due to sleepless nights and countless dead ends.
Still, her patience wearing thin, had her airing her grievances to him in a biting tone. “I don’t appreciate being made to wait with a body, Detective.”
When her husband had died, she’d spent hours staring sightlessly at his body, unable to move from her position hidden away in the storage closet in their Moscow apartment. She tried to push the memory back and focus on the here and now. Her body involuntarily shivered.
“Regrettable, but necessary I’m afraid. I had to contain the crime scene.” Detective Harrington lifted a small notepad and a pen from his jacket pocket. “The responding officer says you were in the room when the men arrived. How many of them were there?”
She sighed. She had already told her account to Milo, the responding officer and his partner, and she figured she’d be telling it several more times to come before the case would be closed. “There were three.”
“Can you describe them?”
She leaned back in her chair and briefly closed her eyes, drumming up the images of the men who had burst into her office and had driven stark terror slicing through her body, down to her bones. “They were large…bulky, not overly tall. Brown hair, strong jawlines. If I had to use a word, I’d say enforcers.”
Detective Harrington’s eyebrow rose. “You come across many enforcers in your field?”
The smile she gave him fell flat. “Not on a normal day.” But nothing about today was normal. She was feeling scared, off-balance and jittery. A knee-jerk reaction told her to run and it was everything she could do to remain seated. Over the years she had learned to listen to her intuition and right now it was screaming at her. “One of the men was clearly in charge, he held an air of power and was the only one who spoke—at least when I was in the room,” she added.
“What can you tell me about him?”
“Tailored suit, hard demeanor, self-assured.” She hesitated for a brief moment before continuing. “He also spoke Russian.”
“Interesting,” the detective murmured, and she shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
She didn’t like the sound of that. She could only imagine where the detective’s mind was going. She wasn’t trained in criminal investigation but even she would think herself guilty with the facts as they were. However coincidental it may be, it gave her pause that only she in the entire museum would’ve been able to understand what Mikhail had said. Only she could fluently read and write Russian Cyrillic. Twice now she had been around murder and twice now a Russian citizen had been involved. She didn’t like to think the trouble she could be in when the detective learned that little morsel. She would permanently move from person of interest to prime suspect in the span of a heartbeat.
“What did the man say?” the detective asked.
“He wasn’t pleased, and he wanted to talk to Brian.”
“About?”
She shook her head wearily. “I couldn’t say. He stopped talking when he noticed me. Although Brian did call the man Mikhail.”
“Had you met them before?”
“No, and it wasn’t a habit of Brian’s to entertain in his office.”
Harrington frowned. “Why not?”
“Brian played the few cards he had close to his vest. I was, in a manner of speaking, his competition. He didn’t want me near his contacts in fear I’d poach them.”
Harrington absorbed what she said. “Was his fear justified?”
“No. I have my own contacts whose contributions to our displays far outweigh any that Brian’s could give. But Brian was always wary of me because I’m more qualified for his position. I have the experience and the reputation.”
“So why was he the curator and you only the assistant?”
It was a valid question. Many had asked her the same in the past when they had learned of her résumé. “Titles aren’t important to me, Detective. I do the job for the love of it, the passion. Hamilton’s has the largest and the most comprehensive collection of Russian artifacts outside the Russian Federation.”
“Still, he had cause for concern?”
“Brian was lazy and self-centered. Frankly, he would have perished career wise long ago if I’d not taken the assistant position.”
A moment of true sorrow overtook her and squeezed at her heart. No matter how horrible a boss and a human being he had been, Brian had truly redeemed himself at the end and she owed him her life. If he hadn’t been so adamant that she leave, despite his reasons whatever they may have been, the detective could’ve easily walked into a double homicide.
“How so?”
“I was the one to secure high profile exhibits, items that the owners wouldn’t have trusted with anyone else. I doubt Brian even knew how to go about arranging an opening. There’s more to it than just a quick speech and a few smiles to the media.”
“Were you sleeping with him?”
An amused laugh escaped her lips. “No, Detective, I wasn’t and that can be verified by every single Hamilton employee. I didn’t like Brian but I tolerated him.”
“Surely you must feel cheated? You did the hard work and he got all the glory.”
“I love the work and I can do without the fame,” she replied. Her brief infamy had been enough to sour her forever. There wasn’t a newspaper across both the U.S. or Russia that hadn’t reported Alan’s death. Her grieving face splashed all over the front pages, her pain clear for all to see.
“Yes, I can understand that, Ms. Madigan. Or should I call you Mrs. Thomas?” Detective Harrington asked.
She sucked in her breath, as if she’d just taken a blow to the stomach. He’d certainly done his homework. She assumed the museum had no idea who she was or rather she wished they didn’t. She always liked to believe she was her own person, at least worked herself to the bone to prove she was worthy of her position and not just because she was some great man’s wife—or widow. She hated to think all people saw in her was her husband’s career and not her own talent.
How she must look to him? She had feared what might happen should he know the truth, and now it appeared he had known about her secret the entire interview.
She glared at him as he studied her intensely, trying to look beneath her stony expression for a flicker of the emotion she kept buried beneath the surface. “You can call me whatever you like, Detective.”
“Tell me, do you also find it interesting that two men close to you have died? The first being your husband, the second, your boss? Both whose passing seemed to benefit you?”
Outrage burned inside her. He was painting her as some sort of career black widow. Never mind she had been traumatized and lost the man she loved. She tried to remind herself that Detective Harrington was only doing his job and didn’t know her, didn’t know how her heart had been shattered into a thousand pieces when she had said goodbye to Alan, and the guilt she had felt over playing an indirect part in her husband’s murder. He hadn’t been there the nights she had awoken, crying out in agony, her bed sheets drenched in her sweat. He only saw the cold facts that she was linked to yet another murder. Knowing that, she still resented him. Alan’s death had been the worst thing that had happened to her and to suggest she had wanted—sought out—his death made her sick to her stomach.
She shouldn't have been surprised with the detective’s assumption. She had heard many whispers after Alan’s death that she had been involved. Alan had been fourteen years her senior and she had taken over his job after he’d died, completing what they had planned to do together. To her it had been about keeping busy, doing something she loved and keeping a part of Alan alive and with her. After the news had reported his murder, she had been thrust into the limelight, her every move reported and had either been condemned or praised for continuing on.