What Are You Afraid Of? (The Agency #2)(14)

He was a computer genius. The golden boy of every government agency, including Interpol, who she’d discovered had offered him a very large fortune to head up their cybercrime division.

His office should be the latest in high tech, right?

Instead, the room looked like it belonged to an English country squire.

There were no metal shelves filled with servers and blinking modems. No rolled-up cords that connected twenty computers into one seamless machine. No sleek chrome-and-glass furnishings. In fact, the only computer was a laptop that was set on a heavy walnut desk situated near the French doors.

“Give me the pictures,” Griff commanded, waiting for her to hand him the envelope before taking a seat in the leather swivel chair.

She was vaguely aware of him opening a drawer of the desk to pull out a small scanner, but her gaze was traveling over the built-in bookshelves and collection of baseball cards that were framed and displayed in a glass case. The floors were covered by vintage rugs that looked like they’d come from a Turkish market, and the walls were paneled with glossy wood.

It was a manly sort of office, but with the same shabby comfort as the living room.

Her feet were carrying her toward the framed plaque on the wall. It had two small medals hung on ribbons mounted next to it and a folded American flag. Was it some sort of military award? Before she could get close enough to read what was stamped on the silver medal, Griff made a small sound of satisfaction.

Pivoting on her heel, she hurried to stand beside his chair.

“Did you find something?”

He turned the laptop so she could see the screen. She flinched. He’d scanned the Polaroids into his computer, enlarging them so that they could make out every detail.

It only made it all the more gruesome.

The white faces frozen in horror. The weird hint of blue around the lips. The blond hair splayed outward like a tarnished halo. And the bloody wound that provided the only splash of color.

Griff used the mouse to click on one of the images, allowing it to fill the screen. Then he zoomed in on the stacked boxes visible in the background.

“A label,” he murmured, continuing to zoom in.

Carmen felt a stirring of hope as she leaned forward. If the women were killed in the back of a freezer trailer as she suspected, the contents of the boxes might give them a real clue.

The image went fuzzy, then cleared as he did something else with the mouse. Carmen grimaced, releasing a disappointed sigh.

“There’s nothing that says what’s inside or where they came from.”

“Actually, there is.”

He used the tip of his finger to touch the screen. She leaned even closer, tiny shocks of pleasure racing through her as the side of her breast brushed against his shoulder.

She shifted an inch away, hoping he didn’t notice the sudden heat that stained her cheeks.

“A bar code,” she said, her eyes at last focused on the black smudge he was pointing at. “You can use that?”

“We’ll soon find out,” he told her, his slender fingers flying over the keyboard.

She blinked as the screen was suddenly filled with files that flickered by so fast she could barely see them before they were gone. Like a strobe light going full speed.

Did he always work like this? It was a wonder he didn’t have a seizure.

At last he slowed and then stopped the files, enlarging what looked to be an order form.

“Did you get a hit?” she asked.

He sent her an amused gaze. “A hit?”

She rolled her eyes. Okay. She wasn’t a tech guru. She could turn her phone off and on. What more did she need?

“Whatever you call it,” she said.

He returned his attention to the file on the computer screen.

“The box is packed with containers of frozen pasta,” he told her. “It left a warehouse in Denver, Colorado, on December sixth and arrived in St. Louis on the eighth.”

“Of this year?”

“Yep.”

Around two weeks ago, she silently calculated. “So these aren’t from Neal Scott,” she said out loud.

“Not unless he’s returned from the grave,” he agreed.

“Can you tell anything else?”

He clicked through more files. “I can give you the name of the truck line. Kirkwood Freight Carriers.”

She reached into her purse to pull out an old-fashioned pen and small notebook. She scribbled down Kirkwood.

“What about the driver?”

“Lee Williams,” he said, clicking onto another file.

Putting the name in her notebook, Carmen heard Griff make a small sound. As if he was startled by something he’d just discovered.

“What is it?”

“There was a police report filed,” he said.

“On the driver?”

He shook his head. “No. Williams reported the truck missing.”

Her gut tightened with dread. Abruptly she realized just how much she wanted to believe she was overreacting. It would solve everything if Griff told her this was all some sort of bad joke. She could fly back to her cabin and crawl beneath the covers until the holidays were over.

Maybe until the snow melted.

“It was stolen?” she asked.

He paused, reading through the file before he answered.

“The report says that the driver stayed the night at the Fairview Hotel in Kansas,” he told her. “After he ate breakfast he went to the parking lot and discovered his truck was gone.”