Legacy (Sociopath Series Book 2)(28)
Now he pulls a memory stick from the same pocket. “You can email me the files, but I’d like them on here as well, if you don’t mind.”
I have to force my fingers to move across the keyboard. First, the database has to load. There are three separate passcodes required for each folder, and then—
“You keep this shit locked down pretty tight, huh?” Agent Chen observes loudly.
“We have to. Half of it isn’t exactly family-friendly.”
“Worried your employees are having home-made porn binges on their lunch breaks?”
I press my lips together. “Probably the least of my worries, to be honest.”
“Guess so. With a serial killer on the loose.” He sits back, eyes fixed on me with the kind of focus that could make a girl feel uncomfortable. You know, if she wasn’t trying to dismantle him right back. “I assume you’ll be busy here today, given the new developments on the case.”
“Is it your case?”
“It’s the FBI’s case.”
“Case of a lifetime. I bet you don’t get many like this.” I finally find the correct folder and start skimming through, trying to look more interested in the screen than his expression. “We’ve never had so much to report.”
“I’m used to wackadoodles. Got me some lifetime membership right there.” He gives a reticent sigh.
“I hope this helps you to find him.”
“Miss Reeves, I appreciate your professional interest in the matter, but you know I’m not able to disclose anything.”
Listen to him, how he’s playing this. One moment he’s a friendly, authentic homeboy, and the next, a cool and reserved enforcer. A fine balance. He governs it well.
Too well. I’m getting absolutely nowhere. If I don’t calm down, my hands will start to shake again and I’ll give everything away.
I pull the USB stick from my computer and hold it out to him with a smile. “I’m just glad to be of assistance.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“A pleasure.”
He hauls himself out of the chair, and I go to follow, striding ahead in my heels so I can pull the door open for him.
“So you think he was at the airport?” I ask.
The agent pauses mid-rise, brown eyes peering over his thick shoulder. He’s very handsome—disarmingly so—and yet there’s the tiniest hint of a nervous boy in moves like this. “Did I not make myself clear?”
“Has he left the country?” I’m babbling now. I want the tiniest hint that they’re not seriously looking into Aeron; not that I can see what they’d want with the airport footage in particular. Unless there’s something I don’t know. “Or was he coming back in?” It can’t be the NFL player on our clip; he was out of state when the murders took place.
“And here was me thinking we were getting on just fine.” The agent pulls his mouth into a blank, straight line. The corner of his eye begins to twitch.
“I just want to know what will happen with my footage, is all.”
“Maybe nothing. It’s a line of enquiry. That’s all.”
“Fair enough.”
Great. No screws loose enough to rattle. I could flirt a little, maybe, but he doesn’t seem like the type to indulge. Not without a couple of drinks in him.
I step aside to let him through the door.
“If you need anything else at all,” I say quietly, “you know where I am.”
“I do.” Said with all the confidence of someone who knows they definitely won’t.
He moves down the hall like a chunk of ocean, tired but rolling on. And I’m empty-handed. I’ve got zilch.
After I shot Aeron, I was interviewed by the police for hours, but I wasn’t afraid then. I was resigned. This is different. I don’t know what the hell to be resigned to.
I have to drop this paranoia. It’s just a “line of enquiry.” Nothing more. We’re safe, safer than we’ve ever been.
I’m going to eat breakfast, take the Blood Honey reports on the chin like a big girl, and then I’ll get back to doing what I do best: work. Fuck feeling powerless. I didn’t end up in prison all those months ago.
I don’t know why I’m acting like I did.
EIGHT YEARS AGO
Aeron
Aged 24
Emily Lore’s NYC apartment
Mom’s parlor hums gently with some cake-decorating show on the TV she has lodged in the corner. It sits amid a tangled knot of potted plants? their leaf-tongues stretching toward the screen at all angles.
“Oh, look at that. My little boy brought me flowers.” Mom steps up from the dining table—a strangely sculpted affair in bottle green glass—and beams at me, which only makes her look weirder. She has a way of looking asleep when her eyes are still open; big, glassy pupils staring over my shoulder, absorbed in lights dancing over nothing.
None of this deflects from the fact that there’s an honest to God planet under her tunic. When was the last time she wore a f*cking tunic? With stripes?
All the mock-delight seeps from her voice, leaving only scorn. “It’s rude to stare.” She puts a hand back to support her spine, curved by the weight she appears to be carrying. “Scrape your jaw off the floor and come help me with a vase.”