Likely Suspects (9 page)

“Yeah, Mark said that
, too.” He slurred the s badly. “Mark’s a good guy. Did he ever tell you about Panama?”

“No.”
I was getting curious now. “What happened in Panama?”

“It’s
been almost ten years now. I was just starting out.” He stared off into nothingness, but it seemed he was watching something which occurred in a different time and place. “I had just inherited the company from my father and decided I was going to change the world. I was in South America, trying to bring clean water and food to the smaller communities there.” He took another sip. “I was working my way back up through Central America. I had some transport issues and ended up buying my own boating company.” He paused, smiling devilishly. “Do you like boats?”

“Sure.”

“We should go out on my boat.
It’s a yacht. It’s got cruise control.” I rolled my eyes. He was making no sense. “And some really nice suites, king-sized beds.” He waggled an eyebrow suggestively.

“A boating company in Panama.
” I was trying to get him back on track.

“Yeah, so as I was saying,
” the s’s were getting worse, “Jabber was tracking some stolen art, and the dude was apparently not only an art collector but some cartel bigwig. Needless to say, the Federalis were all in on it, and no one would help get him or hissteam out.” Hissteam? I was deciphering in my head. Oh, his team. I nodded for him to go on. “They were trapped, but I had the boats.” He raised his finger in the air to emphasize his point, looking incredibly self-satisfied.

“You rescued them from the cartel,” I concluded for him.
“You brought them all back to the States. You did save Mark’s ass.” Despite everything, I couldn’t help having a slight fondness for Martin.

“Guns going off, pe
ople screaming, so many bullets.” He was lost in his memory. “So many bullets.”

“Come on.”
I got up and took him by the arm. “Let’s get you to bed. You need to sleep this off.” He focused on me and stood up, somewhat wobbly.

“I shot him
. I didn’t have a choice.”

“Shot who?”
I draped his arm around my shoulders, and we headed for the stairs.

“The guy who was going to kill Jabber.”
I was completely shocked and turned to him. “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt because of me. I’m sorry I put you in the middle of my problems.” His story seemed to have temporarily sobered him.

“I know what I signed on for
.”

“It doesn’
t make it right. You were doing Jabber a favor, and he was doing me a favor.” He touched my bandaged arm. “You should go before anything else happens.”

I swallowed, uncomfortable with the entire exchange.
He was still leaning against me. He rubbed his thumb across my cheek and gently tucked my hair behind my ear, like he had the first day in his office.

“I’m not going anywhere,
” I tried to reassure him. He leaned in and kissed me gently. I could taste the liquor on his mouth. I shut my eyes. Don’t do this, Parker, the voice in my head warned. I slowly pulled away. “You need to get some sleep.”

“That I do.
” He half-crawled, half-stumbled up the two flights of stairs. I was glad when we finally made it to his room, and he flopped onto the bed.

“Join me,” he mumbled
, seconds away from unconsciousness.

“In your dreams,” I retorted
, making a mental note to check on him in a while just to make sure he didn’t aspirate in his sleep.

I check
ed on Martin twice during the course of the night. On my first trip, I brought him a glass of water and left it on his nightstand, along with a bottle of aspirin. I was relieved to find him still alive and breathing. The second time was during a routine walkthrough of the house. I was antsy and had started walking the interior of his compound as I pondered the best way to find the answers I was so desperately seeking. Having spent a good portion of the evening napping in my own apartment, I took advantage of the quiet and continued to work on those few fleeting thoughts from earlier.

I
settled into Martin’s office on the second floor and used his concept board to start listing suspects, motives, and opportunity – the holy trinity of crime. However, there were obvious gaps in the information, and I had no suspects at all. The only thing I could do was use broad categories to describe potential suspects. Ex-employees, co-workers, board members, personal relations, and random individuals seemed the most likely.

I knew whoever was behind this had
to have a reason, so I went once more for the typical motives: money, revenge, passion. Whoever was behind it either figured the best way to destroy Martin was to destroy his business or they only had access to him through MT. This made limiting the suspects and motives much more difficult.

Under opportunity
, I realized I needed a list of employees who were out of the office during the time of the explosion and those who had the ability or the means to compensate someone to create a bomb. I would need a breakdown of the chemical composition and the difficulty of ascertaining such materials. O’Connell might already have access to this information, so either Mark or I could potentially weasel it out of him. I batted my eyelashes as practice for that prospect.

T
he brilliant thoughts from earlier were starting to unravel back into a mesh of uncertainties. The problem was there were still too many possibilities. Work backward, I told myself, but I couldn’t think clearly. A fog was settling in over the lightning storm of perceived progress. I glanced at the clock; it was almost six a.m. No wonder things were quickly coming undone.

I could af
ford a couple hours of sleep, so I double-checked to make sure the security system was live and then headed up to my room. I didn’t even bother to change out of my clothes as I got into bed. As I began to drift off, my mind wandered back to Martin’s story of Panama and the kiss. I never would have pictured this perfectly manicured, business professional to be the type ballsy enough to open fire in the defense of another. I also wouldn’t have expected to be so turned on by just one simple kiss. I forced the thought out of my mind. You’ve got a job to do, Parker.

I managed to drift in and out of
consciousness for a couple of hours, but by eight thirty, I gave up since sleep was being too elusive. I got out of bed and took a shower, trying to refresh my mind. It was Saturday, so I put on jeans and a t-shirt. No more business attire needed. I went downstairs and made some very strong coffee and some eggs and bacon, figuring Martin needed something to soak up the remaining hangover.

I
retrieved all the employee files and brought them into the kitchen and began crossing off those individuals who could not have been responsible. Unfortunately, there weren’t many names I could mark off. I was almost positive I wasn’t the mastermind behind the threats, but my name wasn’t on the list. Jeffrey had been working the desk, so he couldn’t have been in two places at once to set off the explosion.

My mind seemed to have
gotten the jump-start it needed. I realized I didn’t have the surveillance feed from the lobby. If I could get a hold of it, then I would know who left the building and possibly had time to set the bomb and get across the street. I wondered if O’Connell had gotten the MT surveillance feed or any video footage from the numerous cameras outside on nearby buildings. I made a note at the top of the page to call him and see what he had found. There might just be a break on the horizon.

I grabbed another sheet of paper.
The manufacturing sabotage and corporate espionage had to be an inside job. I hadn’t focused on either of those because they weren’t direct physical threats to Martin, but now I was positive whoever was doing this had to be an MT employee or ex-employee. How long did they keep surveillance tapes of the manufacturing plant? I was getting very excited and tapped my fingers against the table. How could I have missed all of this? I should have started with the manufacturing issues and went from there. I picked up my phone to call Mark and see if he had pursued this avenue, but I stopped myself. It was a Saturday morning, not even ten a.m. yet; Mark would either be asleep or working. I put the phone down, trying to determine if the giddy jitteriness I was currently experiencing was because I was on to something or because I drank too much coffee this morning.

“W
e’re going to figure this out,” I said to what I thought was the empty room.

“Well
, it is why you’re here.” A response came from the next room. Martin walked in with his hair sticking up in a hundred different directions, looking like hell. “Do you think you can speak a little softer?” He stumbled into the kitchen and went straight to the coffeepot, pouring himself a cup. “I feel like I was hit by a train.”

“
Yeah, it was the Macallan express.” I wasn’t being very sympathetic. “I made some eggs and bacon, thought the grease might help with the hangover.” I wasn’t sure if he would be able to eat without getting sick. “There’s toast, too.” I went back to sipping my coffee. He sat down across from me, drinking his own coffee and looking absolutely miserable.

“Strong coffee.
”

“Helps
with hangovers and sleep deprivation.” I glanced up at him, unsure what he remembered about last night, so I was going to act as if nothing happened.

Yesterday had been an emotional rollercoaster with our fight in his office an
d then his confession later that evening. I was just going to pretend I didn’t know his deep dark secrets and we hadn’t kissed. That would be the best course of action, remain professional. He got up, after finishing his cup of coffee, and made a plate with eggs, bacon, and toast. He picked at it while I reread my notes.

“I used your office last
night. It’s a bit of a mess right now. Sorry.” I didn’t sound very sorry, and he simply grunted. Nodding was probably too painful.

“You brought me water and aspirin las
t night?” He watched me flip pages.

“Yeah,
I checked on you to make sure you were still alive and figured might as well, since I was already on my way. Not a big deal.” I put my plate and mug into the dishwasher. Being a bit cold might be the most professional course of action to follow.

“Thanks.
I hope I didn’t make too much of an ass of myself last night.” His eyes were bloodshot, and he reeked of alcohol. But I could tell he was trying to determine what he did or didn’t do. Maybe he thought I was angry.

“Not any
more than you do on a regular basis.” I smirked.

“I’m going to
take a shower.” He got up and headed for the stairs.

I straightened up the kitchen and organized his office, but I le
ft all of my notes on the concept board. I was trying to keep busy until he came back down. I wanted him to be functioning, so we could get to work. Dragging him to the MT building today didn’t seem like a good idea, but I wanted the surveillance footage now.

An hour later
, he re-emerged, looking slightly more human. His hair was brushed and styled. He had shaved, doused himself with cologne, and probably used half a bottle of eye drops to erase the red inkiness from around his green irises.

“Feeling better?” I asked, and h
e made a so-so gesture with his hand.

“G
etting there, slowly.” He retrieved a bottle of water and a couple of aspirin and swallowed. “What’s going on?” He took a seat across from me at the kitchen table, eyeing my notes.

“They have to
be MT employees or ex-employees,” I blurted out. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. The manufacturing sabotage, it’s where we need to start.” The words were spilling out of my mouth, and he put up a hand to halt my verbal onslaught.

“Hang on.
I’m only slightly functional right now.” I sat there quietly, staring at him. He realized this was a losing battle since the dots weren’t connecting for him the way they had for me. “Why?” he finally asked.

“Who has
access to your manufacturing plant and knows what to do to sabotage it?” I wasn’t really asking; I was just pointing out the obvious.

“Anyone coul
d have walked in off the street.” He still seemed confused. “We don’t have much security in manufacturing. It’s a separate building across town from the MT building, and people come and go all the time. Deliveries, exports, imports, repair guys.” This was why I hadn’t started there, because it was the most accessible place to attack.

“True, but they,” I was using the term they because we didn’t know the gender of the assailant or the number of those potentially involved, “also
knew where to find your corporate design secrets. They had to have access to that data or know how to get access, and they also had to know your daily schedule. Whoever is behind this has to work for you.” I realized during my explanation it must be a current employee or else they wouldn’t be aware of our daily lunch dates. Before I began working for Martin and playing the role of doting girlfriend, he rarely went to lunch, like most of the other higher-ups.

He
rubbed his temples and closed his eyes. His head was pounding, but I needed him to focus. The longer we waited, the greater the chance whoever was behind this would either get away with whatever they were after or succeed in eliminating him. Although, in all actuality, the reason I was so anxious was because I just realized I was five steps behind and wanted to play catch up to try to make up for all my blunders. I had been working for almost two weeks, and now it dawned on me what was really going on and who could be behind it.

“I need
the surveillance footage from the manufacturing plant from the day the sabotage occurred. I also need a report of exactly what happened and who in the company possesses the knowledge to know what to sabotage and how to do it, and I need the surveillance from before we tried to leave the office on Thursday. A list of who called in sick would be great too. I don’t know how well you monitor your employee attendance, but you must have records in order to determine paychecks, right?” I was rambling. Way too much caffeine, Parker.

Mar
tin looked a little pale, as if he might pass out or throw-up. Luckily, he didn’t do either. “Okay.” He swallowed unsurely. “Go down to MT. Tell whoever is working security to give you a copy of the surveillance from Thursday. There should be a few extra copies on disk in the security office because the cops and all the other alphabet soup agencies wanted our video footage as part of their investigations. Take my ID with you, just in case you encounter any type of problem. I’ll give them a call and let them know you’re on your way to pick it up.”

“What about you?”
I wasn’t sure if I should leave him.

“I’ll be fine.
I’ll make the call and then probably throw-up a few times.”

I didn’t want to leave him alone, but if I was right, whoever was threatening
him didn’t know where he lived. So it should be safe to leave. “Okay.” I was about to ask about the manufacturing footage, but he read my mind.

“We’ll have to go
to the plant to get the other tapes. Separate systems. Today things are shut down, so that’ll have to wait until Monday.”

“All right.”
I got my keys and picked up our ID cards. “Make the call. I’ll be back soon. If there is any problem, call 911 first, then me or Mark.” I pointed at my handgun sitting on the kitchen counter. I had started keeping it with me at all times. “Worst case, point and shoot, don’t hesitate.”

*       *       *

It took about an hour to get to the MT building. Saturday traffic was never fun to negotiate. I arrived and scanned my ID card as I walked into the building.

“May I help you
, ma’am?” the security guard asked.

“I hope so.
” I gave him my winning smile, even though he called me ma’am. “I’m here to pick up some things for Mr. Martin, surveillance footage and a list of the employees in attendance from Thursday. I believe he called earlier about this.”

The security guy
looked pleased. “Sure did. I’ve got it all right here. Can I see your identification?” I showed him both cards, and he looked from my picture to me. Granted, I did look somewhat different in casual dress, but he seemed to be doing his job very thoroughly. “Oh,” recognition dawned on him, “you’re Mr. Martin’s new girl. I remember seeing you leave with him in the afternoons. Tell him Todd said hi, and we can’t wait for him to be back at work.”

“Thanks, Todd.
I will.” It was better to make friends with the security personnel and continue the ruse than to be enemies or arouse suspicion.