Stone’s eyes grew huge and displeased. ‘What the hell?’
Jill’s eyes grew even larger. ‘Me?’
‘Yeah, you. You said you wanted to be trusted. Do you still?’
Her eyes narrowed. Smart girl. ‘I don’t know.’
Marcus pointed at the door. ‘Go get us some breakfast while you’re thinking about it. When you come back, Stone can bring you up to speed.’
Jill skirted around Stone, who looked stunned and annoyed. ‘I’ll be back,’ she promised.
‘I figured you would,’ Marcus said pleasantly. When she was gone, he lowered his voice to Stone. ‘Watch to make sure she actually leaves, then lock the door. We need to talk.’
Cincinnati, Ohio
Tuesday 4 August, 5.50 A.M.
The ringing of the phone pulled Kenneth Sweeney out of a very nice dream. Scowling at the abrupt loss of the quiet beach and the beautiful, faceless woman who’d been servicing him quite nicely, he patted the nightstand, searching for his cell phone. He squinted at the caller ID, then sat upright in bed, fully awake now. The security office was only to contact the CEO directly when there was an emergency. Since an emergency usually involved a police raid of some kind, he braced himself for the worst. ‘Yes? What is it?’
A hesitation on the other end. ‘Mr Sweeney? This is Gene Decker.’
Ken blinked hard, recognizing the voice. Gene had been one of his bodyguards until the younger man had been injured on the job the month before. He’d performed admirably in the line of duty, taking a bullet in the leg while saving Ken’s ass from a trigger-happy wannabe competitor – a small-time hood who’d wanted a slice of Ken’s OxyContin clientele. It turned out that Decker had studied to be an accountant in college, so they’d placed him in the business office while he recuperated.
Gene Decker had proven himself a damn fine accountant in the interim, but that didn’t come close to explaining why he was calling now – and from security’s command central.
‘Why are you calling, Decker?’ Ken asked harshly.
‘There’s some kind of alarm going off on the computer here in the security office.’
‘Where’s the security man on duty?’
A slight hesitation. ‘He appears to be asleep, sir.’
Ken’s temper blew, sending his blood pressure skyrocketing until he could feel the pulse in the top of his skull. ‘Asleep?’ he asked, very quietly.
‘There appears to be alcohol on his breath.’
Ken counted backward from ten. ‘All right. First, where is Reuben Blackwell?’
‘I already called him at home, sir. I got his voicemail, so I left a message for him to call back, that it was an emergency. I hope that was okay.’
No, it was not okay. His chief of security was supposed to be on call 24/7. So where the fuck is he? ‘Tell me what happened, Decker, starting with why you are in the office before normal business hours.’
‘It’s fiscal year close, sir. We submit our financials on the fifteenth. I’ve been working through the night for the last week.’
‘Where is your boss?’
‘I assume Joel’s at home, asleep.’
Leaving the junior guy to crunch numbers, Ken thought, which made sense. But Joel Whipple was responsible for all of Ken’s accounts, most of which Gene Decker had not been authorized to see. Ken knew that Joel was most likely not home asleep, but crunching numbers himself. ‘So what about this alarm?’ he asked.
‘I took a break, took a walk through the hallways to clear my head. I heard the alarm through the door to the security office. I knocked hard, but nobody answered, so I went in.’
‘The door was unlocked?’ Holy shit, Reuben was going to have hell to pay for this.
‘Uh . . . well, yes, sir. I found the man on duty on the floor. I shook him, asked him what I should do, who I should call. He woke up and seemed like he was lucid for a few seconds. He told me to dial “one”, then went back to sleep. “One” was Reuben Blackwell’s voicemail. When he didn’t answer, I decided to take a chance and dial “two”. That was you, sir.’
‘All right. But I don’t hear any alarm.’
‘I muted the computer so I could hear what the security man on the floor was trying to tell me. Do you want to hear it? It was just a klaxon. The screen says “501 in progress”.’
Shit. One of the trackers had been tampered with. This was definitely not anything that Gene Decker needed to know about. ‘I’ll take care of it, Decker. Leave the man you found on the floor. Go back to your area and do whatever that thing was that you were doing before.’
‘Fiscal year close, sir.’
‘Yeah, that. And, Decker? I expect discretion on your part.’
‘Lips are sealed, sir.’
Ken hung up, then dialed Reuben’s cell. His security chief answered on the first ring. ‘Ken, what’s wrong?’
Ken had known Reuben for fifteen years – ever since the former Knoxville cop had caught him with a trunk full of Oxy that he’d been moving up I-75 from Florida. Ken had thought his goose was cooked that day, but Reuben had let him go, wanting only a piece of the action. After gaining their trust, Reuben had become the fourth partner in the business, eventually moving his wife up from Tennessee to Cincinnati.
Ken had known his other two partners – accountant Joel and purchasing manager Demetrius – since their freshman year in college, thirty very long years ago. Only Reuben had a wife anymore, the rest of them divorced at least once. Wives were a distraction at best. A vulnerability at worst, especially if they got too curious about the business side of things.
Which Ken’s second wife had done. She’d actually tried to blackmail him with what her curious self had learned. Now Ken was a widower, sleeping alone in his big bed, having shown his late wife the error of her ways by taking a knife to her throat.
It had been Reuben’s quick eye that had caught Ken’s ex-wife hatching her plot, Reuben who’d regretfully shown him the proof. Reuben who’d helped Ken get rid of her body after they’d eliminated her as a problem. Ken trusted Reuben as much as he trusted anyone – which wasn’t a hell of a lot.
‘Where are you, Reuben?’ he asked evenly. He used his CEO voice and not his let’s-grab-a-beer voice so that Reuben would know this wasn’t a social call.
Reuben’s answer was cautious. ‘On my way into the office. What do you need?’
‘Did you get a call from the security office?’
‘Yes, but I was in the shower at the time, and when I tried calling back, no one answered. Which is why I’m headed in. Why?’
‘I also got a call.’ As Ken explained the situation, Reuben swore under his breath.
‘Jackson isn’t a drinker. I don’t know what happened, but I’ll get to the bottom of this.’
‘See that you do. I’ll be in the office at my normal time. I want a full report when I arrive. On both your staff and the tracker alarm.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Four
Cincinnati, Ohio
Tuesday 4 August, 6.10 A.M.
Scarlett sat down at her desk and fired up her computer, grateful that the squad room was relatively deserted. She’d showered and even put on makeup, but her eyes were still puffy from her crying jag. She needed another cup of coffee. Hell, she needed a whole pot. But what she really needed was never to have heard that Michelle’s killer had scored a job with the most successful defense firm in the city. No, she told herself firmly, you need to do your job. Michelle’s killer had escaped justice. Tala’s killer could not be allowed to do the same.
Footsteps behind her had her tensing. ‘Morning, Scar,’ a male voice said.
Scarlett fought the urge to hide her swollen eyes as Detective Adam Kimble dropped into his desk chair, right next to hers. ‘Good morning, Adam.’ The detective had recently returned from personal leave after a particularly difficult case had emotionally wiped him out.