I memorized his IP address so I could remotely log into his computer. Heard footsteps. Grabbed my notepad and pen.
Closed his System Preferences.
Turned.
He was standing in the doorway. “All set?” he asked.
I held up the notepad and pen I’d purposely left on his desk a few minutes earlier. “Mission accomplished.”
After Cheyenne and I were in the car, I promptly started the engine and pulled into the street.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“He was lying.”
“How do you know?”
“The coffee.”
“The coffee?”
“It smelled like Geisha beans from Hacienda la Esmeralda’s farms in Panama, one of the world’s rarest and most expensive coffees.” “You identified the coffee by its smell?”
“Well, that and the fact that I saw the bag while I was on the phone looking around the kitchen, but that’s not the point. The point is: he doesn’t own a thermos.”
She blinked. “He doesn’t own a thermos?”
“Nope. Or a travel mug-or if he does, he’s hiding them really well. And he made twelve cups. OK, now this is just my gut reaction, but I doubt that someone who buys one hundred dollar per pound coffee would brew that many cups at once unless he was expecting someone. A coffee connoisseur brews small pots to keep his cups fresh. And it was percolating when I walked in, so I don’t think he was about to go mountain biking.”
“Did you just say your gut reaction? And here I was, thinking you were the guy who doesn’t trust his instincts.”
“I don’t,” I said. “That’s why we’re circling around the block.”
“So he lied about going mountain biking,” she said. “Do you think that matters?”
“Everything matters.”
Cheyenne cleared her throat, ever so slightly, but I noticed. “You know, this is the seventh case I’ve worked with you, and you’ve said that at some point in every one of those investigations.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Must be a quirk.” I parked behind a minivan near the intersecting street closest to Dr. Adrian Bryant’s house. “Let’s see who he’s meeting.”
A few moments later, Bryant left the house, looked up and down the street, then slipped into his BMW and backed out of the driveway. He didn’t take his mountain bike with him. “Hmm,” I said. “A slight change of plans for the professor. No visitors, and I guess the biking trip can wait.”
“What do you think?” Cheyenne asked. “Follow him or let him go?”
I looked at my watch: 12:32.
In twenty-eight minutes Jake Vanderveld would begin sharing his psychological profile of the killer. “Follow him. That way we’ll have an excuse for missing Jake’s briefing.”
She took a moment to evaluate my comment. “You’re kidding.”
“Yes. Maybe.”
“Well, you’re the one in the driver’s seat this time. You can take me wherever you like.”
Man, this woman loved her double entendres.
And I didn’t mind them so much either.
Maybe if we were lucky, Bryant would do something illegal so we could arrest him and Cheyenne and I would have a good excuse for missing the briefing.
Bryant entered the tangled web of subdivision streets that surrounded his house, and I followed him, staying far enough back so that he wouldn’t see me.
And I memorized the route he took as we drove.
Steven James
The Knight
75
Tessa heard Patrick’s mother return from church and start setting plates on the table for lunch.
The diary didn’t include entries every day, and sometimes Tessa’s mom would skip a week or even a month just like most bloggers do. And often, instead of writing, she would paste in a letter or a photograph, but still, Tessa walked with her mother like a friend, like a sister, through her first year of college and into the beginning of the summer that followed.
Her mother had just started writing about a guy named Brad who was one year ahead of her in school when Tessa heard Martha’s thin, wispy voice float up the stairs. “What can I make you for lunch, dear?”
“I’m not hungry,” she called back.
Tessa liked Martha. Patrick had told her one time that his mother had grown up in Georgia, learning to be a proper Southern lady, so Tessa realized she probably wasn’t too thrilled about her step-granddaughter’s eyebrow ring, black fingernail polish, tattoo, and love of death metal, but still, Tessa had never felt judged by her and had always respected her for that. Despite their differences, they got along surprisingly well.
Tessa heard footsteps on the stairs.
Martha wasn’t exactly spry, and Tessa didn’t like the idea that she was making her come up the stairs just to convince her to eat something, so she left the diary on the bed, walked down the hallway, and plopped on the top stair. “Seriously,” she told her. “I’m good.”
Martha was halfway up the stairs. “Tessa, dear, you need to eat.” Martha was a frail, delicate woman with snow-white hair, yet some one whom Tessa had noticed possessed the kind of strength that’s hard to measure.
And even though Tessa really wanted to get back to the diary to find out what happened between her mother and Brad, she didn’t want to be rude. “OK, sure, just whatever you’re having.”
“Meatloaf all right, then?”
Tessa stared at her, expecting her face to give away that she was kidding, but Martha just looked at her innocently. Finally, Tessa said, “In the Bible, weren’t Adam and Eve vegetarians? Wasn’t that the original plan-that humans wouldn’t kill to live? And Daniel the lion-den-guy too? Wasn’t he-”
A slight finger in the air. “Point taken.” Martha gave her an I’m-proud- of-you look. “So, leafloaf, then?”
“Sure, yeah. Leafloaf,” she said. “Thanks.” Coming from Patrick, “leafloaf” would have sounded like a lame attempt at humor, but from Martha it just seemed sweet.
Then Martha gave her a light smile and descended the steps again, and Tessa returned to the diary to find out if her mother and Brad ever hooked up.
Fifteen minutes after leaving his house, Dr. Bryant pulled into the parking lot of the Denver News building.
“So,” Cheyenne said. “Bryant is an expert on Boccaccio, he owns a sword collection, was unaccounted for yesterday, the head in the pot of basil was sent to this building, he drives over here as soon as we’re done talking to him, and remember? Kurt mentioned that Bryant had Amy Lynn in class.”
“Yes,” I said. “My interest is definitely sparked.”
Clock check-we had twelve minutes before the briefing at HQ, and despite my reluctance to attend, I knew we needed to be there. “We have to go, but let’s get a car over here; have a couple officers keep an eye on the professor.”
Cheyenne pulled out her cell, and I aimed the car toward police headquarters.
76
Jake was connecting his computer to the wall monitor when Cheyenne and I arrived at the conference room. In addition to Jake, I saw three of the officers who’d been helping us with the case, two FBI agents, and Reggie Greer. Kurt hadn’t arrived yet.
A printed copy of Jake’s psychological profile lay on the table in front of each of the twelve chairs. As Cheyenne and I took our seats, Captain Terrell, Kurt’s boss and the fan of profiler TV shows, stepped into the room and sat beside Jake. The captain was a severe-looking man with short, choppy hair. A cloud of Old Spice cologne trailed behind him as he passed.
Cheyenne leaned close to me, nodded toward him, and whispered, “They say it takes more muscles to frown than to smile.”
I kept my voice low. “You’re saying his face likes a good workout?”
She winked. “Good. You’re keeping up with me.”
“Great minds,” I whispered.
Then I overheard Captain Terrell ask Jake if he was ready. Jake nodded. “Good to go.”
The captain cleared his throat, and everyone settled into their chairs. “First, I want to thank you all for coming in on a weekend,” he said. “As you know, the Denver Police Department is always looking for ways to better serve its constituents, so we’re honored and privileged to have two federal agents working closely with us on this case.” He gave me and Jake a slightly forced nod.