Fox Hunt (Fox Meridian Book 1) (21 page)

Fox did her best not to scowl at the man. ‘Well, Mister Freedmont, if you respected your clientele enough to monitor their health while they were here, Miss Ross would not have been lying there with her blood soaking into your carpets for forty-odd hours.’

Freedmont sniffed. ‘It’s a matter of choice, as is the matter of who our guests choose to have stay with them. Her male friend was not required to check in and we have no record of who he was.’

‘But you’ve seen him?’

‘I have.’ Freedmont appeared to consider the circumstances and relent a little. ‘In fact, I do not quite understand their reluctance to make the relationship public. He has been meeting her here for over a year. In this day and age of internet relationships, such regular physical meetings almost constitute marriage. I’m afraid a description would be of limited use as so many these days are blonde, blue-eyed, and attractive. The hair has a reddish tint to it, perhaps a little like your companion’s. Aside from that he could be any one of a million men you see in media.’

‘You believe he was in media?’

‘Believe, yes. I have no proof of that. It seemed likely.’

Fox nodded and looked through the door into the room where the two technicians were busy working over the room with sensors and microbots. ‘Hopefully we’ll get DNA out of here we can use to narrow the list of potentials. This was a general-use room?’

‘Miss Ross requested it every time she came here. She enjoyed the view over the lake. It was used by other clients between her visits, however.’

‘Yeah. I’ll need to talk to any staff you have had on duty here for the last two days, especially the one who found the body.’

Freedmont nodded, expecting that. ‘Maureen is in our medical facility. Finding the… Discovering Miss Ross was a shock; she had to be sedated. The other staff are on site. They can all be available as and when required and I have an office you can use in the administrative building.’

‘Very efficient, thank you. Sandoval, you’re with me. You two, I want any DNA run as a rush job.’

One of the techs looked back at her, his face obscured behind the mask of his suit. His voice came over their network comms, ‘We’re getting so much of that it’ll take
days
to get results on all of it.’

‘I’ll have my agent assist. I need that information as soon as possible.’

~~~

Maureen was still looking doped when Fox and Sandoval got to the little cubicle she had been assigned. The medical facility was largely meant for customers and it was clean, tidy, and very plush, with all the latest in medical gadgetry. It was kind of nice to note that Freedmont had decided one of his staff should be treated there: Fox had got the distinct impression that the man had a strong sense of social status.

‘I should’ve found her sooner,’ Maureen said, her tone morose. ‘The suite wasn’t needed yesterday and we had a bunch of them that needed to be cleaned sooner. I left Miss Ross’s until this morning to give me more time on the others.’

‘No one checked that she’d left the site?’ Sandoval asked.

‘Not my place to know, sir, but we don’t generally get people staying longer than they should. Policy is to have a room empty for a day after a guest uses it so that we can get everything perfect for the next guest, so if they’re a little late it’s not a problem. Most use ground transport in and out of here and it’s not regulated.’

‘Miss Ross’s companion? You saw him?’

‘I saw him on Friday, when he arrived. Handsome gentleman. Really beautiful eyes, and he really liked Miss Ross.’

‘He was gone by Sunday night, but she stayed on?’

‘Sometimes he would stay with her the whole time, but he would often leave earlier. I didn’t see him leave this time, so I can’t say when he did. Miss Ross liked to spend at least a few hours getting pampered before she left.’

Fox nodded. Checks had shown that Ross had missed an appointment with the beautician on Sunday afternoon, but the resort’s privacy policy had resulted in no one checking on her. ‘Thank you, Maureen. If you think of anything else, please contact NAPA and you’ll be put through to me.’

‘You don’t think Miss Ross’s friend could have done that, do you, ma’am?’ Maureen said before Fox could turn away.

‘Everyone’s a suspect until we discount them.’

The girl shook her head. ‘No, he was in love, Inspector. They both were. There’s no way he could have done that to her.’

Fox gave her a smile and walked out, Sandoval behind her. ‘She’s right, of course. Ross’s mystery man isn’t the killer.’

‘You sound sure,’ Sandoval commented.

‘I am. No one’s mentioned cybernetic limbs. Doesn’t mean her friend didn’t commission the murder, but he’s not the killer.’ She frowned as she noticed the time in her virtual display. ‘It’s getting late. The techs left already, didn’t they?’

‘Uh-huh. They wrapped the scene and took ground transport into Boston.’

‘I’ll call Jackson and let him know I’ll be late back with his vertol.’

‘Yeah, well, we wouldn’t want him worried.’

Fox rolled her eyes as the call went through, but it was Terri’s picture which appeared in-vision when it connected. ‘Terri? Your dad busy?’

‘Conference call with Europe and Japan,’ Terri replied. ‘You’re in Wolfeboro, right?’

‘Uh-huh. I just wanted to let him know I’d be late back with the vertol I borrowed–’

‘Stay over. Bring it back in the morning.’

‘Uh…’

‘We, as in MarTech, have a corporate suite there and I just checked and it’s free. Stay there tonight and come back tomorrow. Flying after a day interviewing people is not the best of ideas.’

‘I’ve got another detective here, Terri.’

‘I did say it was a suite, right? Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, hot tub, private pool. I’ll send through instructions to the resort. Stop off and see me in the morning when you drop the vertol off. Bye.’ And she was gone before Fox could stop her.

‘Did you have any plans in New York tonight?’ Fox said aloud.

Sandoval raised an eyebrow. ‘On a Tuesday? In the middle of an investigation?’

‘Right. We’re staying here tonight. MarTech have a suite we can use. Terri was insistent.’

He was smirking when he said, ‘Oh well, if she was insistent…’

~~~

‘I think I could get used to this kind of police work,’ Sandoval said as he looked around the large lounge of the MarTech corporate suite.

Fox had to admit that it did look pretty swish. It was supposed to be used by MarTech employees on corporate retreat so there was little in the way of physical decoration, but the viron was set up to a fairly subtle design, nothing garish and no subliminal attempts at brainwashing you into corporate loyalty. Not that she had expected the latter: Jackson preferred his employees to be loyal because they felt they should be or because he paid them well, but there were a few companies who would have dropped a few memetic hints into the scenery.

The lounge had a huge picture window overlooking the lake which could be repurposed into a display. A table behind the seating was circular and large enough for six people, and there was a kitchenette at the back. Off to the sides were the three bedrooms, one of those a little larger than the other two and equipped with an en-suite bathroom. Through a door at the side of the kitchen was a short corridor, with another bathroom off it, leading to the pool room, which had a reasonably sized pool and Jacuzzi in it.

‘Well, don’t get used to it,’ Fox told him. ‘I don’t make a habit of staying the night in over-priced health resorts when working. And we’re leaving first thing. I want to be heading out of here at six.’

‘You need to learn to relax. Unless the DNA search finds something, we are no closer than we were this morning and rushing back to New York is not going to change that.’

‘Thank you for reminding me.’

He flashed her a bright grin and then his eyes narrowed, appraising. ‘Why so driven, Fox? Why so determined to push this forward as fast as you can? Sometimes you just have to wait for the answers to reveal themselves.’

She narrowed her eyes back and then went to the refrigerator in the kitchen. There was going to be a bottle of wine in there, she knew it. She suspected Terri had made sure there was a bottle of wine there. She was not disappointed. ‘Why so driven?’ she replied as she poured two glasses: he was fairly unlikely to say no if asked. ‘My parents.’

‘Pushy parents?’

‘Yes and no. They wanted me to succeed, to make my mark on the world, to do what I
wanted
to do. But
they
never did a damn thing, and when I decided to join the Army they didn’t like it at all. So they pushed me to do things, and set me an example of exactly how
not
to go about doing that.’ She handed over one of the glasses and settled onto the sofa to look out at the darkened lake.

Sandoval settled down beside her, not too close but close enough to be companionable. ‘My dad was in the Army. Died in Syria when I was four so I hardly knew him. Mom always wanted me to go into media, but she encouraged me in anything I felt like doing.’

‘Lucky you. As for why I want this particular case hammered out… There’s something wrong about this. The killer is… too random
and
too good. He’s hit two people associated with the
Murder on My Mind
show, but the second victim was nothing to do with it. All three were involved with the same online club, but not the same virons within it. And Ross was killed too soon after Adamshi. Even if this were a serial and he’s escalating, it’s too fast. There’s something wrong and I want him nailed.’

‘Not fond of mysteries?’

‘Not fond of waiting for answers. Yes, we have to. Sometimes the information can’t be rushed. Doesn’t mean I have to like it. Doesn’t mean I can’t want to know the answer sooner. Knowing things too late can get a lot of people killed.’

‘Somehow I don’t think you’re talking about this case there.’

‘You heard about the Dallas hostage incident, right? Dillan said you were down that way before joining NAPA.’

‘She did? Huh. I know about Dallas, sure. You were pretty famous for a while.’

‘I still get recognised. I could do without it. There were things going on around that op that I didn’t know about.’

Sandoval gave a grunt. ‘Corporate secrets. Big corporations are–’

‘Jackson told me everything I needed to know as soon as I got there. No, someone pushed to get Marshall put in as leader of the insertion team. Someone told the terrorists we were coming, what we would have, where we would insert. Someone wanted that mission to fail.’

‘I assume you told your superiors this when you got out?’ He was frowning, concerned, and she almost smiled at his naiveté.

‘Marshall was put in place by the UNTPP brass, even if someone pushed them to do it. They knew what was going on and they let themselves be suckered into almost blowing the whole thing. I saved their collective butts by getting Terri Martins out of there alive and they told me they were considering disciplinary action over the destruction of the facility.’

‘Huh?’

‘They wanted a lever to keep my mouth shut about Marshall. I saved them the trouble and quit. They didn’t like that much either, but Jackson was doing his best to make sure nothing happened to me. I saved his daughter
and
protected something he did not want getting into UA’s hands.’

‘By blowing it up.’

‘Oh yeah. It and what was left of the UA cell.’

‘None of them survived?’

Fox paused and sipped her wine. ‘They never recovered all the bodies. Between the explosion, the fire, and the fallen masonry… They never found everyone, but they were fairly sure that no one could have escaped.
I
almost didn’t make it out.’

‘Can’t be easy to live with.’

‘I did what needed to be done. I only get nightmares once or twice a month.’

There was a second or two of silence and then, ‘Right, well that was kind of depressing. And my fault. Let’s see if that kitchen’s worth a damn.’

Fox let out a bark of laughter as he got to his feet. ‘You cook, Sandoval?’

He flashed her a grin. ‘Don’t let this suave, attractive, man-who-wouldn’t-know-a-saucepan-if-it-bit-him exterior fool you. I happen to be an excellent cook. Many a girl, surprised at the mere suggestion of my culinary skill, has fallen to the taste of my carbonara.’

‘Okay then, surprise me.’

~~~

Fox watched as Sandoval took the plates and cutlery to the kitchen for recycling. The meal had, indeed, been quite good. Not a carbonara but something pasta-based with a creamy sauce and a hint of something a little spicy in with the meat. Cayenne? Whatever, it had added a little touch of heat which had been nice.

‘I need to make a call up to New York,’ he said, closing the hatch on the recycler.

Fox drained her wine glass. ‘Fine.’ Maybe the spice had been hotter than she had thought. Getting to her feet, she slipped her jacket off, dropping it onto the back of the chair, and then wandered off to the pool room to give him some privacy.

And, she realised as she saw the water, to take a swim. Not something she had planned, but it would be nice. A little light exercise after the meal would not kill her and she had been neglecting her fitness for a couple of days. Sitting down on a lounger, she began stripping off her jeans and shoes. No costume… She glanced at the doorway to the lounge where Sandoval was busy with his call. Well… he could just deal with it. A few seconds later she was diving, naked, into the small pool and setting off for the other side at a brisk pace.

As she came back for her twelfth turn, she switched strokes, catching the side, swinging her legs up, and pushing off on her back. As she had more or less expected, Sandoval was standing at the side of the pool watching her. He did not avert his gaze for the change of view and… The heat was still there, but it was focusing. She wanted him to look. The thought that this was just a little outside her normal behaviour hit her and was pushed aside: it had been a long time since she had indulged herself that way and, thinking about it, he had been looking at her as though he wanted to eat her for half the meal.