The Widow File (2 page)

Todd Hickman ignored her. He slouched into his chair and sighed, picking nonexistent lint off of a blue cashmere sweater that Dani knew cost more than Fay’s shoes. (She’d run some background on a previous client’s shopping preferences last year.)

Evelyn Carr had slithered into her seat beside him, followed by her ever-present cloud of Chanel No. 5 perfume. Dani didn’t know how the bony redhead managed to saturate herself so thoroughly with the fragrance but the result was an eye-watering funk that lingered long after the
Face had left the room. Between that and Evelyn’s permanent sneer, it was a wonder to Dani that Hickman could stand working with her. When Fay had learned that Evelyn’s birth name was actually Twyla Dawn Cruickshank, Dani had sworn her to secrecy. That was the sort of tasty morsel that could come in handy should the arrogant team member need a touch of mortifying.

“Anyone else coming in?” Hickman asked.

Choo-Choo said, “Phelps is supposed to be on the golf course with a couple of Swan’s VPs. I sent out the call. Don’t know if he’ll make it. Eddie’s transfer came through. I don’t want to say he was anxious to get out of here but his office was cleaned out when I got here.”

“Wow, tough gig for both of them,” Fay said. “Golfing at the Greenbrier or picking your office in Miami. They’ll miss all the excitement of going through another megaton of intercepted e-mail that says absolutely nothing. Does anyone else think this job is weird?”

“You mean sitting in a dark room and listening in on half a dozen conversations you don’t care about?” Choo-Choo asked.

“No, I mean this job. The Swan job. Nothing seems to be adding up to any kind of tech leak or industrial espionage. And now that that guy is dead.…”

“Marcher,” Hickman said, twirling his gold signet ring. “His name was Eduard Marcher. He was my contact. He was a good man.”

Evelyn made a show of examining her nails. “That remains up for debate.”

“He’s dead, Ev. How about a little respect?”

Dani sat still in her chair, watching the two teammates. This wasn’t the easy bickering she enjoyed with Fay. Todd’s and Evelyn’s body language spoke of a long-running argument even while their well-modulated tones sounded casual. At Rasmund, few people worked together long. Faces paired up and switched out job by job, the nature of their tasks requiring them to be fluid and adaptable. Paints tended to work alone—Fay and Dani being a notable exception.

“There’s definitely something going on in that lab.” Hickman kept spinning that ring. Dani knew that gesture. It was as close to fretting as
the man ever got in public. “We don’t know any more than you guys do. Swan’s convinced someone in his organization is leaking information, maybe selling their tech, and I’m inclined to agree.”

“Well you’d know,” Ev said. “You’ve spent enough time in that lab.”

This wasn’t the first case with an uncertain directive. Despite Rasmund’s reputation for complete discretion, many clients’ operations were so covert in nature that the teams often worked with a minimum of information. This served not only to protect the privacy of the clients but also to minimize the legal implications for Rasmund itself. Mrs. O’Donnell and her superiors held plausible deniability at a premium. But Dani agreed with Fay and could tell the rest of the team did as well. Something about the Swan case felt off.

“We know they’re gearing up for a big announcement on some new tech,” Fay said, twisting the end of her hot pink scarf through her fingers. “Standard R&D gag order is in place. It doesn’t appear that Marcher’s death has slowed anything down.” This last bit of information seemed to irk Dani’s partner. “All communications suggest that the lab is operating at situation normal.”

“Hmm,” Ev said, crossing her legs, “maybe Marcher’s death brought everything back to situation normal.”

When Hickman spoke, the edges of his lips whitened. “I thought you were the one who kept insisting the police were correct, that the wreck was an accident. Completely coincidental.”

She shrugged. “There are coincidences and there are coincidences. I’m just saying there was suspicion that someone was stealing research from Swan and selling it. Swan has several defense contracts. It would be safe to assume whoever wanted to steal from them would be dealing with dangerous people—people who would know how to fake a car accident. Maybe the situation straightened itself out without our interference.”

Hickman’s voice rose, control abandoned. “So you’re saying that his death convicts him of industrial espionage?”

“There really isn’t any sign,” Dani spoke up, making everyone in the room turn to look at her. Dani rarely jumped into conversations but she liked Hickman. She did more jobs with him than with any other Face at
Rasmund. More important, she trusted his instincts. “Nothing in the materials suggests there was any information leak from the lab, much less from Marcher. He spearheaded the team; they seemed to really like him.”

“Like he’s going to leave a receipt of sale,” Ev said. “Maybe you should look in his garbage disposal, Dani. Maybe he chewed up the evidence.”

“There are signs,” Dani said, ignoring Ev’s dig at her unconventional analysis style. “People who are trying to cover something up leave trails; they make mistakes. That’s what Fay and I look for. That’s what we get paid to do.”

“You have to excuse Ev,” Fay said. “It’s hard for her to imagine actually working, not spending all day dashing around in designer clothes hobnobbing with the elite.”

Choo-Choo let out a long, exaggerated sigh. Nobody could express exhaustion quite like Choo-Choo. “Why don’t we save the class warfare until our reigning monarch has held forth? She called us in for a reason. Let’s save the bloodletting until we know how long we’ll be on the killing field, all right?” He draped himself across the silk chaise like a cat.

The room they occupied looked more like an aristocratic drawing room than the conference room for an information retrieval company. Sprawling across the second floor of a graceful antebellum estate in Falls Church, Virginia, nothing about the room or even the building itself suggested any security measures were in place, much less the state-of-the-art shielding and monitoring that secured the perimeter. The gates that opened onto the long, curving driveway in the front and the narrow, rutted service road in the back only looked antique. The closed-circuit monitors and electronic keypads hidden among the filigree ensured that nobody wandered onto the premises. A helicopter pad took up the southern edge of the roof and a tunnel ran from beneath the four-car carriage-style garage to a private airstrip two miles down the river. Rasmund’s clientele expected efficiency and discretion, all wrapped in an elegant facade of luxury. Rasmund delivered.

Choo-Choo and several other audio analysts had a bank of rooms on the third floor beneath a squat turret lined with listening equipment of every variety. Fay, Dani, and other Paints in data analysis sequestered themselves in suites of rooms across from Audio. Some Paints preferred
desks, some rooms with long tables and file cabinets. Dani and Fay had furnished their room in a combination of styles that included dorm room, head shop, and rabbit warren. Mrs. O’Donnell and the powers of Rasmund didn’t care how the Paints chose to work. All that mattered were results, and Fay and Dani had an impeccable track record.

Unscheduled team meetings like this one meant one of two things: either the client had information that had to be disseminated immediately and in one go or, as was more often the case, the job was being terminated. Dani hoped it was the former. Even though she could find no signs of the suspected thievery, something about the materials gathered from Swan niggled at her. She’d been infected by Hickman’s determination to stay on the job. Dani didn’t know what she thought she might find but she hoped she’d have a chance to keep looking.

The hope died a quick death when Mrs. O’Donnell strode through the door from the front hallway. All Rasmund employees, even Faces, used the back hallways and rear entrances at all times. Only Mrs. O’Donnell and the very top brass at Rasmund used the front. Clients used the front and the less they saw of the teams that would be infiltrating them, the better. Mrs. O’Donnell was dressed in her customary palette of black and gray, the gray streaks in her swept-back hair making her look to Dani exactly like Anne Bancroft. She even had the same low voice and wry smile.

“I hope no one was expecting a champagne party.” She wrapped the edges of her long gray cardigan around her slender waist. Dani could see, even from the back of the room, that the cashmere in Mrs. O’Donnell’s sweater made Hickman’s look like low-thread-count sheets.

Choo-Choo put his headphones on as if to block out the news he knew was coming. Hickman and Fay sighed at the same time and Evelyn made a
tsk
noise before she spoke. “Do we even know why—”

“No, we do not.” Mrs. O’Donnell folded her arms as Hickman looked up at her.

“Is there any word what the job—”

“No there is not. Our client has pulled the line on the job. He made no move to explain to us why and we made no move to inquire. Patrick Swan has no further need of our services and so this is a wrap.” Her dark eyes
showed nothing but their usual icy grace. Mrs. O’Donnell exuded a combination of elegance and iron. Like all members of the team, Dani had every intention of staying on her good side. That anyone wielded authority over her stretched the limits of Dani’s comprehension.

Hickman made a move as if to speak and Mrs. O’Donnell arched her brow, silencing him. “Mr. Swan’s liaison will be on-site in two hours to collect any and all materials. Usual protocols in place. Purge, burn, block, and black out. Choo-Choo, call in the Stringers. Fay, Dani, try to pack your materials in some semblance of adult order. We don’t need a repeat of the Raisinet incident.” Fay and Dani looked away at the mention of their recent blunder, spilling a whole bag of candy into a client’s case box. “Mr. Hickman, you will oversee the sign-off. Ms. Carr, come see me in my office when you’ve finished wrapping up your end. Understood?” Evelyn turned a tight smile her way. Hickman nodded and Dani wondered if his pinkie was sore from the twisting of his ring.

Everyone rose from their seats to begin the standard post-job shutdown. All surveillance data and accumulated information would be boxed and tagged and electronic files loaded onto portable drives and double-erased from Rasmund’s hard drives. These materials would then be turned over to the liaison in person, signed off on, and released as soon as proper payments had been wired into the proper accounts. The absence of any trail or evidence was a Rasmund trademark. Which was exactly the reason Dani felt herself sinking into her chair, hoping to render herself invisible.

Mrs. O’Donnell pushed off from the desk she’d been leaning against and strolled through the room toward the door to Dani’s left. For one beautiful moment, Dani thought she would leave without another word but, like her hope to keep the case open, her optimism was short-lived. The older woman barely paused in her long stride, slowing only long enough to murmur as she passed. “All materials, Dani. Two hours. I suggest you take a pouch.”

“Yes ma’am.” Dani tried not to cringe. She didn’t know why she was surprised that her boss knew everything that went on in the house. It was her business to know everything. And it wasn’t as if Dani had broken any serious rules by taking nonsensitive materials home. Most Paints loaded documents and audio files onto their Rasmund-issued laptops; data files
and bugged phone calls were the starting points for most investigations. But Dani tended to operate differently. It was one of the reasons she had worked so well and so long with Hickman and Fay.

Fay wagged her finger at Dani as the door closed behind the administrator and Choo-Choo covered his mouth in fake shock, whispering. “Dani B. busted again!”

“How was I supposed to know they were going to call it?”

Evelyn didn’t join in on the teasing. Instead, she slithered from her chair and patted her undisturbed hair. “Maybe you should consider being prepared for all eventualities. After all, isn’t scenario prediction supposed to be your specialty? Why don’t you make a note of it and put it on one of your state-of-the-art cork boards?”

“Good idea, Evelyn,” Dani coughed and waved the perfume funk away as the redhead strolled past her. “Maybe I can fasten it to the wall using that stick you’ve got up your ass.”

Hickman let Ev walk out in front of him, pausing by Dani. “I won’t let you get busted for my materials.” He leaned in close so only Dani could hear him. “Get them to me on the side. I’ll make sure they get in the box before it’s sealed, okay?”

“Thanks, Todd. I think I’m running out of good graces with Mrs. O’Donnell.”

Ten minutes later, Dani was gripping the wheel of her ’97 Accord, muttering “Shit shit shit” as she threaded her way through Beltway traffic to her apartment. Even at midday on a Saturday, the Embassy Row neighborhood had no parking spaces available, so Dani parked in a loading zone and fished around under her seat. A sign for Big Wong’s Thai Delivery in the windshield and a flick of her hazards and Dani figured she had at least thirty minutes before anyone decided to ticket her.