Lon was irritated that he had to rest for a little while after giving blood
before he could take off and find out what happened. He wanted to get up
and get moving but he was going to have to be in top form and until the
room stayed perfectly still, he wasn't going anywhere. But finally he was
feeling well enough to get going and start investigating. He knew why
Xander was in New York. The CIA was doing software upgrades on some of
their systems and Xander was in New York with several other members of
management for a training seminar. Daniel lived here, so that explained
his presence. So what in God's name were Cole and Heather doing in this
city?
The detective working the case, Strickman, had left his card with the family liaison. Now Lon called him and told him that he was going to the crime scene and would like him to be there. The detective wanted to know why the FBI was interested in the case and Lon had told him rather curtly that the case was soon to be under federal jurisdiction. That got some attention. He said he would be there. Justin had let Lon borrow Jhondie's car and he took off.
Strickman was waiting when Lon pulled into the motel's parking lot. He raked his fingers through his blondish-brown hair. This was where Cole and Heather had been shot? Jesus Christ. But time to deal with the detective who introduced himself with a handshake. "Detective Nick Strickman," he said, his words sounding more like a challenge.
"Special Agent Lon Bryant," Lon replied in his best "fed" tone, showing him his badge. The tone pissed off the locals, yes, but it was still intimidating even if they didn't want to admit it.
"Care to tell me why in hell the FBI is so concerned with this case?" Strickman asked bluntly.
"The victims were both federal agents," Lon answered. It was just easier to classify them both as feds rather than try to explain what Cole was and admit that he had no idea what he was doing here.
The detective nodded. "It's not going to be anything worthy of your time," he said snidely. "Unless the FBI is into investigating lovers triangles."
Lon froze for a second. A what? "Excuse me?"
The detective pulled down the police tape and opened the motel room door. "We're still looking into the shooter," he said, obviously pleased to have gotten one past the agent, "but there was a chambermaid in the next room and she heard everything that was said."
They stepped into the room. It was the usual cheap motel fair with two stained double beds covered with urine-yellow spreads and the carpet had that old mildew smell lingering. But this room had a body outline on the floor and Lon couldn't help but feel ill at the splash of blood across the back wall.
"Apparently the two victims were in the room," Strickman narrated. "The shooter, Victoria Ashcroft by her drivers license, breaks into the room and screams," he checked a notepad, " 'you cheating bastard' while firing five shots. There's another shot, apparently fired by the female victim that hits Ashcroft in the head. She's dead on the scene and the maid was already dialing 9-1-1 when she heard the first shot."
Either the cop was lying or else the maid was, Lon thought. First, there was no way that Cole would cheat on Janice with one woman, much less two. Second, hello, Heather was his niece. So what if they weren't related by blood. He had been an uncle to her since she was a baby and Lon didn't care how close they were, he had never even gotten a hint of a feeling that Cole thought of Heather as anything but his favorite niece. Something was very, very wrong here.
"Any other witnesses?" Lon asked, trying to figure out a way to refute what he was hearing.
"Front clerk saw Ashcroft come in," Strickman replied. "Look, it's a no- brainer. She was drunk. There's an empty bottle of gin in her car and you could still smell it on the body. She was pissed that her boyfriend was messing around with some other woman, got drunk and decided to go for some blood. She just didn't know that the other woman was a better shot. The hospital said both victims were in surgery, so we have to wait for them to get out before we can confirm the details and case closed."
Lon gave him a piercing look, his hazel eyes practically icing over. "I'll decide when the case is closed," he said coldly. "Where's the clerk?"
The clerk was still on duty from that morning. Technically on duty, at least. Lon doubted if he had checked in a single customer since the shooting. The clerk was a young man in his early twenties that wasn't quite out of the acne stage yet. He was rail thin and very twitchy. His dark eyes darted all over the room, still lit with the excitement of the morning's events.
"So, yeah," I've seen 'em all week," he was explaining. To a fed this time! Dude, this was going to so rock at his next D & D game! "I mean, not the chick that went all psycho, but yeah the other two have been here. No way you don't notice an ass like that chick had, you know?"
Actually, Lon had never checked out his niece's rear end before, but he smiled knowingly and the kid continued. "See, I was thinking that one of those two have got to, you know, got a ball and chain at home, and this was fun on the side, right? I mean, I saw them the other night and dude, all we needed was some guitar music in the background and we had the start of a great porno, you know what I mean?"
Lon swallowed. "They were, ah, being physically affectionate?" he asked, hoping he was hearing wrong.
The kid laughed. "He almost had her shirt off of her before they could get to the door and then she wrapped those legs around him." The clerk shuddered with delight at the memory. "It was hot. I mean the desert in August kind of hot. And see, the TV in 118 was out, so I was swapping it out and those two were in 117. Man, I could hear them banging through the wall. I don't know what he was doing, but she was wailing." He laughed. "I don't know why the guys in 116 weren't complaining, but hey, what kind of guy would tell a show like that to knock it off?"
Lon thanked him and let him go back to work. He had good instincts for when someone was lying and this time, it was telling him that the kid was telling the truth. At least he believed it to be the truth. There was still something very, very wrong with this whole situation and Lon was determined to find out what it was. He went back to the motel room and spent a long minute just taking it in as a whole. It was time to forget he was a brother and an uncle. Erase all suppositions and just let the facts roll in. What did he see?
Open cartons of Chinese food were on the ratty-looking dresser. One of its drawers was half opened. Empty drink cans sat on the end table. One was knocked on its side. There was a suitcase on the floor with some women's clothes in it. They were due to check out the next day. There were a few toiletries on the counter in the bathroom. The beds were unmade. A woman's purse was open on the little table next to the bed.
Now he let what he knew about Heather and Cole color the same scene. It was like one of those "what's different" puzzles where the second picture looked like the first until you noticed the small details. First, he had never known Heather or Cole to pack early. Ever. It was one of those things that Alicia had complained about enough. The room was a mess. Cole hated having a mess around him and especially where he slept was always pin- neat. Food cartons and drink cans would have been in the trash no matter how messy Heather was. Lon zeroed in on the purse. It was a cheap-looking thing, old and beaten with some of the beads missing as if it was pulled from a bargain bin at a thrift shop. The women's clothes in the suitcase also looked like thrift-store caliber. If there was anything that would make Heather seem like a rich brat, it was that she liked to dress in quality clothing at all times. Even her jeans were designer or they weren't covering the rear end that the clerk had been drooling over.
Lon went to the purse and poked through it. On the side lining was a small row of stitches, the same dirty beige as the interior. Lon's fingers ran over the lining around that area and felt something hidden inside. He carefully broke the stitches and a key fell in his hand. On the plastic cap covering the end was inscribed the name and address of a bus station not to far from here and the locker number that it belonged to. Yeah, this was what he had been looking for. There was something wrong with this whole set-up and Lon was willing to bet whatever was in this locker was going to tell an entirely different story.
"We already ran down the ID," Strickman said from behind him. "Came up clean, but we didn't have her listed as a fed. The in-depth background takes a day or so and then we would have known it was Agent Stanton then."
"Who?" Lon asked idly, most of his attention turned on using a pencil to look at the other items in the purse. Some gum, a purple hairbrush with glitter on it, some funky-colored makeup, a purple change purse with three dollars and sixteen cents in it, two purple pens and a CD from the latest boyband filled the small purse. Interesting. Heather's favorite color was turquoise, not purple.
"Agent Donna Stanton," Strickman said slowly. "Your agent? The one that was shot?"
Lon froze for a moment. She had a fake ID? "Was there any other ID in the room?" he asked, ignoring the detective's attitude.
"Yeah, the other victim's wallet was here with a driver's license," came the reply. "Nothing on Luke Mott either, but if we had known he was a federal officer, we wouldn't have wasted the time trying to chase him down."
Lon straightened and turned around so that he was facing Strickman. His eyes burned into Strickman making the detective have to fight from squirming. "Nothing else?" Lon asked urgently. "Your men searched the room and there was no other form of identification found at all?"
Strickman would have been pissed at the inference that his men missed something, but obviously this agent knew something that was at major odds with the way the story appeared to have gone. "Like I said, that's all we found. They were legitimate ID's in all databases, including the DOT."
Lon walked out of the room, grabbing his cell and hitting the speed dial for Xander's phone. Xander picked up on the first ring. "Heather's out, doing good, still waiting on Cole," Xander answered the phone. "What have you got?"
"A whole lot of weird," Lon answered. "I need you to find out if Heather had her badge on her when she was brought in. There's just way too much weird ass shit going on right now to explain, but I need to know where her ID is. They both had fake driver's licenses here but nothing at all real," he added, knowing Strickman was trying to listen.
"I'll check here," Xander said. "But if they were on assignment..."
"When was the last time you went without ID?" Lon interrupted. "On duty, off, on assignment or just to the grocery store?"
Xander had to grant him that. "Perp?"
"Heather got her first."
"Good. Saves us time. Now what happened?"
Lon paused. "Other than they got shot, I'm not sure yet. I'll explain later. Has anyone gotten hold of Ty yet?"
"No," Xander answered. And that was very strange when one of their own didn't call back right away.
Lon's voice lowered as he walked away. "Very quietly get your people on that," he said. "I don't know what the hell was really going on here, but I'm willing to bet that Ty has some answers."
"I'm on it."
"Can Heather be questioned yet?"
"No, she's still..." Xander's voice broke off and there was a pause.
"Xan?"
"Oh, shit," his normally strong, confident brother whispered. "Alicia's here."
The detective working the case, Strickman, had left his card with the family liaison. Now Lon called him and told him that he was going to the crime scene and would like him to be there. The detective wanted to know why the FBI was interested in the case and Lon had told him rather curtly that the case was soon to be under federal jurisdiction. That got some attention. He said he would be there. Justin had let Lon borrow Jhondie's car and he took off.
Strickman was waiting when Lon pulled into the motel's parking lot. He raked his fingers through his blondish-brown hair. This was where Cole and Heather had been shot? Jesus Christ. But time to deal with the detective who introduced himself with a handshake. "Detective Nick Strickman," he said, his words sounding more like a challenge.
"Special Agent Lon Bryant," Lon replied in his best "fed" tone, showing him his badge. The tone pissed off the locals, yes, but it was still intimidating even if they didn't want to admit it.
"Care to tell me why in hell the FBI is so concerned with this case?" Strickman asked bluntly.
"The victims were both federal agents," Lon answered. It was just easier to classify them both as feds rather than try to explain what Cole was and admit that he had no idea what he was doing here.
The detective nodded. "It's not going to be anything worthy of your time," he said snidely. "Unless the FBI is into investigating lovers triangles."
Lon froze for a second. A what? "Excuse me?"
The detective pulled down the police tape and opened the motel room door. "We're still looking into the shooter," he said, obviously pleased to have gotten one past the agent, "but there was a chambermaid in the next room and she heard everything that was said."
They stepped into the room. It was the usual cheap motel fair with two stained double beds covered with urine-yellow spreads and the carpet had that old mildew smell lingering. But this room had a body outline on the floor and Lon couldn't help but feel ill at the splash of blood across the back wall.
"Apparently the two victims were in the room," Strickman narrated. "The shooter, Victoria Ashcroft by her drivers license, breaks into the room and screams," he checked a notepad, " 'you cheating bastard' while firing five shots. There's another shot, apparently fired by the female victim that hits Ashcroft in the head. She's dead on the scene and the maid was already dialing 9-1-1 when she heard the first shot."
Either the cop was lying or else the maid was, Lon thought. First, there was no way that Cole would cheat on Janice with one woman, much less two. Second, hello, Heather was his niece. So what if they weren't related by blood. He had been an uncle to her since she was a baby and Lon didn't care how close they were, he had never even gotten a hint of a feeling that Cole thought of Heather as anything but his favorite niece. Something was very, very wrong here.
"Any other witnesses?" Lon asked, trying to figure out a way to refute what he was hearing.
"Front clerk saw Ashcroft come in," Strickman replied. "Look, it's a no- brainer. She was drunk. There's an empty bottle of gin in her car and you could still smell it on the body. She was pissed that her boyfriend was messing around with some other woman, got drunk and decided to go for some blood. She just didn't know that the other woman was a better shot. The hospital said both victims were in surgery, so we have to wait for them to get out before we can confirm the details and case closed."
Lon gave him a piercing look, his hazel eyes practically icing over. "I'll decide when the case is closed," he said coldly. "Where's the clerk?"
The clerk was still on duty from that morning. Technically on duty, at least. Lon doubted if he had checked in a single customer since the shooting. The clerk was a young man in his early twenties that wasn't quite out of the acne stage yet. He was rail thin and very twitchy. His dark eyes darted all over the room, still lit with the excitement of the morning's events.
"So, yeah," I've seen 'em all week," he was explaining. To a fed this time! Dude, this was going to so rock at his next D & D game! "I mean, not the chick that went all psycho, but yeah the other two have been here. No way you don't notice an ass like that chick had, you know?"
Actually, Lon had never checked out his niece's rear end before, but he smiled knowingly and the kid continued. "See, I was thinking that one of those two have got to, you know, got a ball and chain at home, and this was fun on the side, right? I mean, I saw them the other night and dude, all we needed was some guitar music in the background and we had the start of a great porno, you know what I mean?"
Lon swallowed. "They were, ah, being physically affectionate?" he asked, hoping he was hearing wrong.
The kid laughed. "He almost had her shirt off of her before they could get to the door and then she wrapped those legs around him." The clerk shuddered with delight at the memory. "It was hot. I mean the desert in August kind of hot. And see, the TV in 118 was out, so I was swapping it out and those two were in 117. Man, I could hear them banging through the wall. I don't know what he was doing, but she was wailing." He laughed. "I don't know why the guys in 116 weren't complaining, but hey, what kind of guy would tell a show like that to knock it off?"
Lon thanked him and let him go back to work. He had good instincts for when someone was lying and this time, it was telling him that the kid was telling the truth. At least he believed it to be the truth. There was still something very, very wrong with this whole situation and Lon was determined to find out what it was. He went back to the motel room and spent a long minute just taking it in as a whole. It was time to forget he was a brother and an uncle. Erase all suppositions and just let the facts roll in. What did he see?
Open cartons of Chinese food were on the ratty-looking dresser. One of its drawers was half opened. Empty drink cans sat on the end table. One was knocked on its side. There was a suitcase on the floor with some women's clothes in it. They were due to check out the next day. There were a few toiletries on the counter in the bathroom. The beds were unmade. A woman's purse was open on the little table next to the bed.
Now he let what he knew about Heather and Cole color the same scene. It was like one of those "what's different" puzzles where the second picture looked like the first until you noticed the small details. First, he had never known Heather or Cole to pack early. Ever. It was one of those things that Alicia had complained about enough. The room was a mess. Cole hated having a mess around him and especially where he slept was always pin- neat. Food cartons and drink cans would have been in the trash no matter how messy Heather was. Lon zeroed in on the purse. It was a cheap-looking thing, old and beaten with some of the beads missing as if it was pulled from a bargain bin at a thrift shop. The women's clothes in the suitcase also looked like thrift-store caliber. If there was anything that would make Heather seem like a rich brat, it was that she liked to dress in quality clothing at all times. Even her jeans were designer or they weren't covering the rear end that the clerk had been drooling over.
Lon went to the purse and poked through it. On the side lining was a small row of stitches, the same dirty beige as the interior. Lon's fingers ran over the lining around that area and felt something hidden inside. He carefully broke the stitches and a key fell in his hand. On the plastic cap covering the end was inscribed the name and address of a bus station not to far from here and the locker number that it belonged to. Yeah, this was what he had been looking for. There was something wrong with this whole set-up and Lon was willing to bet whatever was in this locker was going to tell an entirely different story.
"We already ran down the ID," Strickman said from behind him. "Came up clean, but we didn't have her listed as a fed. The in-depth background takes a day or so and then we would have known it was Agent Stanton then."
"Who?" Lon asked idly, most of his attention turned on using a pencil to look at the other items in the purse. Some gum, a purple hairbrush with glitter on it, some funky-colored makeup, a purple change purse with three dollars and sixteen cents in it, two purple pens and a CD from the latest boyband filled the small purse. Interesting. Heather's favorite color was turquoise, not purple.
"Agent Donna Stanton," Strickman said slowly. "Your agent? The one that was shot?"
Lon froze for a moment. She had a fake ID? "Was there any other ID in the room?" he asked, ignoring the detective's attitude.
"Yeah, the other victim's wallet was here with a driver's license," came the reply. "Nothing on Luke Mott either, but if we had known he was a federal officer, we wouldn't have wasted the time trying to chase him down."
Lon straightened and turned around so that he was facing Strickman. His eyes burned into Strickman making the detective have to fight from squirming. "Nothing else?" Lon asked urgently. "Your men searched the room and there was no other form of identification found at all?"
Strickman would have been pissed at the inference that his men missed something, but obviously this agent knew something that was at major odds with the way the story appeared to have gone. "Like I said, that's all we found. They were legitimate ID's in all databases, including the DOT."
Lon walked out of the room, grabbing his cell and hitting the speed dial for Xander's phone. Xander picked up on the first ring. "Heather's out, doing good, still waiting on Cole," Xander answered the phone. "What have you got?"
"A whole lot of weird," Lon answered. "I need you to find out if Heather had her badge on her when she was brought in. There's just way too much weird ass shit going on right now to explain, but I need to know where her ID is. They both had fake driver's licenses here but nothing at all real," he added, knowing Strickman was trying to listen.
"I'll check here," Xander said. "But if they were on assignment..."
"When was the last time you went without ID?" Lon interrupted. "On duty, off, on assignment or just to the grocery store?"
Xander had to grant him that. "Perp?"
"Heather got her first."
"Good. Saves us time. Now what happened?"
Lon paused. "Other than they got shot, I'm not sure yet. I'll explain later. Has anyone gotten hold of Ty yet?"
"No," Xander answered. And that was very strange when one of their own didn't call back right away.
Lon's voice lowered as he walked away. "Very quietly get your people on that," he said. "I don't know what the hell was really going on here, but I'm willing to bet that Ty has some answers."
"I'm on it."
"Can Heather be questioned yet?"
"No, she's still..." Xander's voice broke off and there was a pause.
"Xan?"
"Oh, shit," his normally strong, confident brother whispered. "Alicia's here."