Authors: Iris Johansen
I think you’re an honorable man.
Those were practically the last words she had said to him.
And that honorable man had suffered and given his life.
No, it had been taken from him. He hadn’t even believed that there was any reason for him to die.
“What are you doing here?”
She turned to see Detective Ketchum coming toward her from across the rooftop. The former belligerence was absent, but it had been replaced by bitterness.
“The same thing you are. Trying to find a way to catch Stokes’s killer.” She met his gaze. “I’m sorry for your loss, Ketchum. I know this must be rough on you.”
“Do you? I went through police academy with him. We came up through the ranks together. I was best man at his wedding. Yeah, you could say it’s rough.” His eyes were glittering with moisture. “And he’d still be alive if he hadn’t met you.”
“Knock it off, Ketchum.” Detective Starger was suddenly beside him. “You know it wasn’t her fault. At least you should if you were thinking straight. Colby is insane, and Stokes just got caught up in his craziness. She told us over and over that Colby was alive, and we should help her catch him.”
“Colby killed him as a gift to her. You heard him say it.”
“And you heard her try to talk him out of it. We all did.” His voice was suddenly hoarse with pain. “I’m hurting, too, buddy. But we’ve got to focus on the right target.”
“Thank you, Detective,” Kendra said. “And I’ll try to clarify that focus if I can. That’s why I’m here.”
He nodded jerkily. “I’m grateful for your help. Ketchum will be, too, once he gets a chance to think this through. Stokes always said how smart you were. He admired you, but he was kind of wary of that talent. Let’s see if you can make it work for all of us. If you need me, call.” He gave Ketchum a nudge away from Kendra. “Come on, we’ve got work to do.”
Ketchum gave her a last glance and let Starger lead him away.
“Not a comfortable encounter.” Griffin was behind her. “I thought Ketchum was going to get violent.”
“It was possible.” She was looking after the two detectives. “Who could really blame him? Colby set me up as a heavy in this kill. Ketchum loved his friend.”
“You’re being generous.”
“No, I’m just trying to understand. I understand Ketchum’s anger and hurt far better than your response to Stokes’s death.” She turned away from him. “Now let me look around and see if I can notice anything on the roof that would make it worth my while to be here.” She braced herself and moved across the roof. They hadn’t removed Stokes yet, and she wasn’t qualified to examine the wounds, but she had to look at his body. And she forced herself to look at that poor, bloody face.
I’m coming to you, Stokes.
With regret and respect and the hope of justice for you.
Bear with me and realize that I know you died an honorable man.
Kendra was standing next to him now.
And she froze. “He was posed.”
“I see that.”
She crouched beside Stokes for a better look. His bloody fingers were glued together, elbows bent and flat palms facing backward.
Griffin pulled out his phone. “I’ll look up the Army field-manual hand-signal guide.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Kendra said. She stood and turned to look down at the city. “I know this one. I expected it. It means ‘prepare for another strike.’”
Lynch House
3:15
A
.
M
.
DAMN, IT WAS GOOD TO
be home.
Adam Lynch smiled as he turned onto Chester Court and headed toward the end of the street. The mere sight of his house eased a bit of the tension from his neck and back. It had been an intense week in Luxembourg, made all the more harrowing by the rapidly developing Eric Colby case back home. It drove him crazy that he was stuck almost six thousand miles away at the exact same time that Colby appeared to be making a grotesque comeback.
There had been some loose ends to tie up in Luxembourg, but with Colby’s reemergence, he’d tossed the responsibility to someone else and headed home. Kendra had been the one to bring the beast down originally, and it was anybody’s guess what shape his sick revenge would take now.
But at least Kendra was safe at this moment. She was in the house that he’d built to keep himself safe, and he knew that as long as she was there there, Colby couldn’t reach her. He was eager to see her. Only a few more minutes and he—
No, it was late and he wouldn’t wake her tonight but wait until they’d both had something resembling a good night’s sleep.
The tall gates opened, and he sped up the driveway to the garage. He parked and pressed his thumb against his phone’s fingerprint sensor to throw open the lock to his house. He stepped inside and dropped his bags inside the door.
Home. Maybe a few minutes of
Sports Center
, a quick shower, then …
He heard something.
A scraping sound from the kitchen.
Kendra?
Perhaps. But he couldn’t take the chance. It might not be Colby, but any number of old enemies might have their sights on him.
Lynch slowly, quietly turned back, unzipped his large, checked suitcase, and pulled out his Taurus .45 automatic. He checked the magazine. Fully loaded.
Another sound from the kitchen. Louder this time.
Lynch crept through the dark living room with his gun pointed upward.
Footsteps. Coming his way.
A silhouetted form stepped through the doorway.
Not Kendra.
A man, probably five-ten or five-eleven. He was holding something in his hands.
Lynch took aim. “Freeze!”
“Oh, man. Oh, man. Oh, man.”
Lynch cocked his head. His intruder didn’t sound like a trained killer … More like a scared teenager caught raiding his father’s liquor cabinet.
“Whatever is in your hands, drop it.”
Without hesitation, the man let go. Lynch saw one of his favorite dinner plates shatter on the floor.
“What in the hell was that?”
“Cheese sandwich.”
“What?”
“Auricchio provolone on pumpernickel.”
“
My
Auricchio provolone on pumpernickel?”
“That depends,” he said warily. “Are you Adam Lynch?”
“You first. Who are you?”
“Sam Zackoff. I’m helping Kendra Michaels. She thought I might be in danger, so she put me up here.”
“Suppose we go upstairs and wake her and verify that.”
“Upstairs? No one’s in the house but Beth Avery. Would she do?”
“No, she would not.” Lynch’s hand tightened on the gun. “You’re telling me that Kendra’s not here.”
“No, we tried to convince her to come, but she wanted to stay in her own place. She’s so damn stubborn. Could you put that gun down now?”
“Not quite yet. You haven’t proved shit. Do you have a phone on you?”
“In my pocket.”
“Okay, very slowly, take it out and call Kendra. Put the call on speaker.”
“What if she doesn’t answer?”
Lynch turned on the lamp on the table next to him. His gun still pointed at Sam. “Hope that she does.”
Sam slowly reached down and pulled out his phone with his thumb and forefinger. He punched Kendra’s number, then put the phone on speaker.
Kendra answered on the second ring. “Sam, I’d just gotten to sleep. If it’s important, start talking. Otherwise, it had better wait until morning to—”
“I kind of think it’s important. Adam Lynch is here, and he wants to talk to you. Oh, and as a kind of funny aside, he has a big gun aimed at my chest.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Hello, Kendra,” Lynch spoke from across the room.
“Lynch … What are you doing there?”
“Last time I checked, it was still my home. Though I could be mistaken.” He put away the gun. “So I assume you’re vouching for this guy?”
“Of course. That’s Sam Zackoff. He’s a flat-out genius. Sam’s no threat, and you should get along with him. At least, I’d very much appreciate your not shooting him.”
“Thanks, Kendra.” Sam grinned. “I’m sure we’ll get along fine now that I’m no longer in danger of being mortally wounded by him.”
Lynch shrugged. “I wouldn’t say
that
.”
Sam’s grin faded.
“Sorry about this,” Kendra said. “I had no idea you were on your way home, or I would have—” She stopped, and said wearily, “No, I probably wouldn’t. Things have been— Do you want me to come up there?”
“It’s where you should have been to begin with,” Lynch said coolly. “But we’ll discuss that later. Go back to sleep. I’ll deal with it when I finish here.”
He nodded at Sam, who promptly cut the connection.
“I thought you knew,” Sam said. “Sorry.”
“Ordinarily, it wouldn’t be a big deal. I’m just a little wigged out right now.”
“I can imagine, coming home and finding a stranger in your kitchen.”
“No, actually I’m wigged-out that you were about a millisecond away from being dead on the floor with a bullet in your heart. You don’t know how close that came to happening.”
“Oh.” Sam was taken aback. Then he recovered. “Well, you don’t know how close I came to emptying my bowels when I saw you in here with that gun aimed at me. So I guess we’re both a little wigged-out.”
Lynch smiled. “So what kind of genius are you?”
“Computers. Software, hardware, networking … Kendra’s psychopathic buddy, Colby, has suddenly gotten very proficient with this stuff, so she called me to help out.”
“I’m no genius, but I’m pretty handy in that area myself.”
“I figured, with all the gear you have around here. You know how to use all the things I saw in your office?”
“I actually designed some of them. I recently wrote a custom application that lets me crack into anyone’s phone within thirty feet or so. I can access their address book, call logs, and personal information.” Lynch held up his phone. “As a matter of fact, I’ve used it to tap into your phone since we’ve been standing here.”
“Really?”
“Yes, it comes in handy. I can even—” Lynch froze as he glanced down at his phone screen. Puzzled, he turned it around to show Sam. In large letters, a warning message read:
STAY OUT OF MY PHONE, ASSHOLE
.”
Sam smiled. “I’ve written a custom app of my own. It keeps assholes from hacking into my phone.”
“And it’s obviously very effective.”
“I even have a setting that takes the snooper’s phone and wipes it clean. Turns it into a brick.”
Lynch went still. His face remained almost impassive, but there was the barest flicker of expression. “Indeed?”
“Don’t worry, the setting isn’t turned on at the moment.”
Lynch pocketed his phone. “Small favors, I guess.”
“You’re welcome.”
Lynch suddenly chuckled. “Kendra’s right. I think you and I will have a lot to talk about.”
“Whew.” Sam let out a relieved sign. “I wasn’t sure you weren’t going to pull out that gun again.”
“Suppose we go on to less explosive subjects. How can you get in and out of here without Kendra swiping her finger across her phone screen?”
“I cloned the app and had her swipe her finger on my phone. I modified the software so that her fingerprint registers every time I use it to come or go.”
“Hmm. I might have to rethink the security system here.”
“It’s actually pretty incredible, but of course,
I’m
pretty incredible.” Sam paced around the living room. “Kendra called it the Suburban Fortress, but I had no idea how right she was. I don’t think even Kendra knows.” His eyes were bright with eagerness. “If my calculations are right, this place could withstand an assault of an entire battery of forty-millimeter grenade launchers.”
“That’s correct. Of course, my neighbors wouldn’t be too thrilled about it.”
“Expecting an army?”
“Well, I’ve upset some people who do have small armies at their disposal.”
“Two questions. First of all, what people? And second, upset them how? This has to be good.”
“I work freelance, so it depends on my employer of the moment.”
“I was under the impression that you did government work.”
“That’s true. But I work for various agencies with different agendas. I’ve helped bring down crime families here in the U.S., warlords in Africa, and even a corrupt dictatorship.”
“Hey, cool. How exactly do you do that?”
Lynch was silent, gazing at him. Zackoff didn’t even realize that the questions he was asking could prove both offensive and dangerous. He was like a curious kid probing an intriguing new puzzle. But the answers weren’t anything confidential or top secret, and that eagerness was somehow appealing. It wouldn’t hurt to go a little further. “How do I do it? Persuasion, mostly. I’m pretty good at convincing people that my goals should be theirs.”
“Ah, the Puppetmaster at work.”
“Kendra must have told you that. I’m not fond of that name.”
“But it sounds like an accurate assessment of your skill set.”
“Still, it doesn’t make me like it,” he said flatly.
Sam held up his hands. “Sorry. See, I’m backing off. But sometimes we have to live with the nicknames we earn.”
“And what do people call you?”
Sam rolled his eyes. “My last name is Zackoff. One guess what people have called me my entire life.”
“Hmm. That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.”
“I never needed schoolyard bullies to make me strong.” Sam shrugged. “I entered arrest warrants for them in the local police databases. By the time it all got sorted out, most them spent at least a night in juvie.”
Lynch smiled. “Well played. I’ll remember to stay on your good side.”
“You’re already there. Any friend of Kendra’s…”
Lynch grabbed his suitcase and carry-on bag. “Speaking of whom, I think I’m going to go and get her now.”
“Now?”
“You have an objection?”
“It’s almost four in the morning. Didn’t you just tell her to go back to sleep?”
“I did. I just changed my mind. I’m a tad upset. Why should she sleep when I’m not going to be able to do it? I’ll take my bags up to my room, then head over to Kendra’s place.” He gestured up the stairs. “I assume you didn’t take my master bedroom?”