Multiple Exposure A Sophie Medina Mystery (13 page)

He took too long to figure out his answer.

“See?” I said.

“You have to admit, it’s pretty far-fetched.” He sounded defensive. “Especially when you can’t prove anything. You heard what Moses said tonight. That conference room looked like nobody ever set foot in it.”

“My stepfather always says, ‘When in doubt, do nothing.’ I’m not going to do anything, at least not right now.”

Luke gave me another sideways look. “Okay,” he said. “Your call.”

A fresh gust of wind rattled the dry leaves in the corner of the balcony, stirring them into small cyclones and extinguishing our candles. We sat in the darkness in uncomfortable silence.

I’d just taken a giant leap of faith and unburdened myself to Luke because he said he didn’t trust me. Not only did it seem like that hadn’t changed, but I would bet good money he was wondering who the hell he’d gotten mixed up with.

And how soon he could gracefully get rid of me.

8

After that we went back inside to start editing photos. Somewhere through a neighbor’s open window, a clock chimed midnight.

“Should I make a pot of coffee?” I said.

“Sure,” Luke said, though by now neither of us needed it. We were both wound up, the tension in the room as thick as a stew.

He set up his laptop on my dining table so he could watch me as I worked at the desk. I tucked Napoleon Duval’s business card into the top desk drawer since I didn’t need Luke seeing that and moved the pictures of Katya and Scott Hathaway to a different folder on my computer.

“How much longer are you going to keep staring at me? I’m starting to feel like a lab specimen under a microscope,” I finally said without looking up.

“I’m not staring at you. I’m staring at these pictures, at any male who looks remotely Russian, wondering if he’s your guy.” He was frowning at his computer screen.

“Too bad the pictures don’t come with an audio track so I could listen to the voices.” I pushed my chair back and stood up. “The only photos I have of Scott Hathaway with someone from his staff are pictures with women. I know a couple of men walked in with him.”

“All my pictures are group portraits with his wife and the people Moses rounded up. Donors, Friends of the National Gallery,” he said. “I already looked through them.”

I went into the kitchen and got the coffeepot, filling our mugs.

“Did you bring your copy of the guest list?” I said. “We could at least check names.”

He unzipped his backpack and pulled out the list, scanning it. “Only two men, unless Ashley is a guy. Eric Nettle, his chief of staff, and David Epps, deputy chief of staff.”

“I wonder if either of them is deep in debt? The Russian said he knew the American needed cash, so he must have done some homework and figured out who was vulnerable.”

Luke set the list on the table. “Hathaway certainly doesn’t need money. What’s his motive?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“What makes you so sure the Russian works for Vasiliev?”

“I suppose it’s possible he works for Yuri Orlov.” I went back to my desk and sat down.

“Maybe, except a diplomat of Orlov’s stature doesn’t arrange to have a political opponent assassinated on foreign soil.” Luke sipped his coffee, looking thoughtful. “Though, if he did, it wouldn’t be the first time. Remember that crazy Iranian government plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.? It was like something out of a bad movie. They found a used-car salesman and got a Mexican drug gang involved. At first nobody official believed it because it was so weird.”

“I remember. I read about it in England.”

“Though if it was Orlov, he wouldn’t team up with Hathaway, not after that scene tonight,” Luke said. “And you said you’re positive Hathaway’s involved.”

I had to agree with him. “Okay, not Orlov and Hathaway, but I definitely think the target’s Attar.”

“Hathaway and Attar are good friends. He wouldn’t be part of any plan to murder Attar, or turn his back and let someone else do it,” Luke said. “This doesn’t work on any level. In fact, no combination of players we’ve come up with works.”

“So far. If we had more information, maybe we wouldn’t be going around in circles.”

“Fair enough, but not tonight. It’s late, we’re not thinking straight anymore, and I’m starting to screw up editing these pictures.” Luke closed his laptop. “Why don’t we call it quits? It’s nearly two o’clock.”

I put my laptop to sleep. “Fine with me.”

He packed up and at the front door laid his hand on my shoulder.

Here it was. He was going to ask me to e-mail him my pictures after I was through editing them and tell me not to bother coming in tomorrow.

“What is it?” I said.

“I’m just going to bring this up once and then I’ll shut up,” he said. “I’ve been through what you’re going through now. The first year’s pure hell. Some days you don’t think you can even get out of bed.”

It took a moment for it to sink in that he wasn’t talking about letting me go. He was talking about his wife’s death.

“Do you think maybe you’re just so stressed that you could have been mistaken about what you heard tonight?” he asked.

I hated doing this, letting him believe it was true that Nick was gone, but I had no choice. “No. I’m not mistaken. I’m sure about what I heard. And thank you for caring enough to ask.”

“Then are you also sure these guys didn’t know you were in the next room listening to them?”

“Positive.”

“Lock up after I go, all right? Including that balcony door. You’re only on the second floor.”

“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

But he waited in the hall until he heard me slide the dead bolt into the jamb and latch the chain. I leaned against the door and listened to the whir of the elevator as it stopped on my floor. The door slid open and shut, then I heard the quiet hum as it descended.

I locked the sliding door and closed the drapes before turning off all the lights. After that, I stripped off my clothes, went to bed, and fell into a restless, anxious sleep. When the late-night alcohol-and-caffeine-induced crazy dreams came, they were of two faceless men who talked about murder as they slowly melted into puddles like the Wicked Witch of the West in
The Wizard of Oz
. Then Nick called my name as I ran through a fun house of mirrors that led to nothing but dead ends.

*

By six thirty I was up, dark smudges under my eyes, a pot of coffee on, back at my desk. The first thing I did before I resumed editing was check e-mail, my morning ritual. Nick’s CIA bosses were still monitoring his accounts, which had all gone dormant, but I couldn’t let go of the foolish hope that I’d be sitting there one day as an e-mail came in, moments after he’d sent it from wherever in the world he was, a link as fragile and finespun as a cobweb, and the heading would be: I’M OKAY COMING HOME LOVE YOU.

But there was no joyful homecoming message, just the usual overnight barrage of mail, including a short, terse note from Perry, all lowercase, no punctuation—his usual chatty style—asking how I was doing. Baz had written a longer letter, asking the same thing with more finesse. I replied to each of them that I was fine, employed (thanks, Perry), and settling into life back home.

Then I typed in every e-mail address Nick had ever used and, on the subject line, wrote:
Mom’s Birthday Present
. Years ago we had devised a coded way to communicate with each other in case something went wrong, an innocuous-sounding letter involving a family member and some fact the other person knew was patently wrong.

Darling, last night I checked the Internet again for Mom’s birthday gift, looking for that book she wants, the one that’s been so hard to find. I might have located a copy, but someone else wants it very badly and is apparently willing to pay well for it. Not sure what to do next and could use your advice. Love.

If Nick saw this—
if
—I hoped he’d realize someone had approached me about the well logs. My mother’s birthday was in January and the gifts she favored generally involved a pale blue Tiffany’s box or something in a velvet bag. I hit Send and heard the whoosh of an outgoing letter. Then I poured more coffee and went back to editing last night’s pictures.

After an hour, my neck had a crick in it and my joints felt stiff. In London I would have gone for a run on Hampstead Heath to unwind. I got up and went out on the balcony. The early-morning sky was threaded with clouds tinted the mother-of-pearl shades of an oyster shell. A trash truck banged Dumpsters in the Roosevelt parking lot above the escalating noise of rush-hour traffic. Last night’s reception and those two meetings in the conference room had been replaying in a loop in my head, the undercurrents of threat and menace speeding up until they became a dangerous-sounding whine.

I went inside and took a long hot shower, sluicing away the voices and convincing myself it would be all right once I talked to Napoleon Duval.

But when I called the number on his card at precisely nine o’clock, his phone went straight to voice mail. “Leave a message.”

No name, no
you’ve reached
and his number. He sounded tough and uncompromising. I lost my nerve, disconnected, and decided to try again later.

*

At nine thirty I parked the Vespa beside Luke’s Jeep in the postage-stamp space he rented next to our building. A large black SUV with official government plates and shiny enough so I could see my reflection was illegally parked by the bright yellow-and-red Big Wheels Bike mural on the corner of 33rd Street and Cady’s Alley.

Even before I walked through the front door I knew this was bad news. The office was empty—no Ali furtively reading fashion magazines at her desk—which meant whoever belonged to that car was in Luke’s office behind closed doors. I heard the sound of a chair scraping, and a moment later, Luke’s door opened.

A good-looking African-American man with the build and attitude of an ex-Marine stepped into the room. He was about three inches shorter than me and probably in his fifties. His gray-flecked hair was military short, he wore gold wire-rim glasses, and the fatigue lining his well-lived-in face and the deep crow’s-feet around his eyes looked permanent. Navy blazer, khakis, white polo shirt with a logo partially obscured by the jacket, and wing tips as shiny as his car.

Luke was right behind him, looking rumpled and tired. His eyes went straight to me.

“Sophie,” he said, “this is Special Agent Napoleon Duval with the National Counterterrorism Task Force. He stopped by to talk to us about that matter we were discussing last night.”

I had been in midstep when Luke uttered the man’s name, and the shock of it nearly froze me right there. Duval’s face gave away nothing—another disciple of face maintenance—so I kept my expression neutral as well, though I knew he’d caught that tiny flinch. Dammit, Luke had called someone—not Duval, I was sure of that—in spite of what we’d agreed last night: that it was my decision how to handle this. And,
poof,
Napoleon Duval, my CIA contact, appeared like he’d been conjured out of thin air, though he’d apparently been secunded to a special task force. No wonder he hadn’t answered his phone when I called; he was probably in the middle of interviewing Luke.

We shook hands and I said, “How do you do, Agent Duval?”

“Very well thanks, Ms. Medina.” He pulled out his wallet and handed me a business card. “As Mr. Santangelo said, I’d like to have a word with you, ask you a few questions. Perhaps we could take a little walk, get some fresh air?”

Duval had a light Texas drawl, more of a twang, actually. It sounded like he was asking me for a date.

“Of course,” I said. “I just need a quick word with Mr. Santangelo about a project we’re working on. Our client is very anxious. If you can give me a minute, I’ll meet you outside.”

So I can strangle him while you’re not looking.

“Take your time,” Duval said. “I’ll be right outside.”

I waited until the door shut behind Duval before I swung around to confront Luke. He held up his hand. “Before you say anything, it’s not what you think.”

“Is that so? And what exactly do I think?”

“That I ambushed you.”

“Damn right.”

“Look, I ran into a neighbor this morning when we were both walking to our cars,” he said. “He works for Homeland Security, something in intelligence, but you know how it is with those guys. They can’t tell you anything.”

No fooling
. “Go on,” I said.

“So I described a hypothetical situation without going into detail, of course, and asked his advice on how to go through proper channels if I wanted to let someone know about it.”

“And?”

“And apparently it’s like calling the fire department and saying you think you smell smoke coming from under your attic door, but maybe you’re wrong,” he said. “They don’t give advice or deal in what-if. They sound the alarm and send fire trucks and guys with axes and hoses to your front door ready to bust into your attic.”

“Great,” I said, “just great.”

Luke ran both hands through his hair. “Look at it this way: At least you’ll get it over with and then we can forget about it.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think it’s going to be that simple. I’ll be back after Duval finishes chewing me up and spitting out what’s left.”

“Relax. He and I had a perfectly civilized talk. It went much better than I expected. He told me I did the right thing, so don’t worry. Nothing’s going to happen. Tell him what you told me and you’ll be fine.”

I opened my mouth to tell Luke precisely how wrong this was going to go, and thought better of it. He really had no idea why I was upset.

“Sure,” I said finally. “Wish me luck.”

*

Duval was leaning against the Batmobile when I got outside, looking at something on his phone. “You got that client matter all straightened out?” he said.

I pulled his CIA business card out of my pocket. “They gave me this at the embassy in London and told me you’re my contact in the U.S.,” I said. “I tried to call you this morning, but I got your voice mail.”

Duval glanced at the card and scrolled through his phone again. “What time was that?”