While Justice Sleeps(55)
Tucking the binder into the satchel, he shifted and scooped up the purse lying beside Avery. A single page had been stuffed inside, and he took out his phone to snap a photo, recording the codes for the alarm, the safe, and the cryptic VGC.
Checking his watch, he calculated that the girl would rouse soon. He reached inside the purse again and removed her phone. “Seven minutes, then I want us out of here,” he said to Phillips as he closed the safe, stuffing the crib sheet into the sack. “She’s going to wonder what happened. Make it look like a robbery, and I’ll meet you back at the site.”
“We’ll take care of it.”
He passed over her cell phone. “While she’s down, clone this. They want to know everything she does, where she goes, who she talks to.”
“Yes, sir.”
He left the team, certain his directions would be followed. His car waited in an adjacent parking lot. As he drove away, he made his encrypted call.
A voice answered promptly. “What do you have for me?”
“A full binder and files on the matter. He had the right river.”
“How much do they know?”
“More than we thought. But he is not going to tell anyone, sir. By the end of the day, we’ll know what she knows. We should have the ability to bring this to a close shortly.”
“You’d better. Time is running out.”
TWENTY-TWO
Avery came to abruptly. She jackknifed up, her hand reaching for her throbbing skull. The room spun dizzily around her as she struggled to regain her bearings. Where am I?
Panic surged, but she forced the twist of angst and terror aside. In panting breaths, she sucked in oxygen and willed her heartbeat to slow and her memory to return. Focus, she demanded. Remember where you are.
Fragments of memory scattered, refusing proper arrangement. Meeting with the attorney. Watching the news. Opening the safe. Standing in the Chief’s office. Then a disturbance of the air and a loud, deafening crack. Her fingertips probed the knot swelling on the back of her skull.
Someone had hit her. Hard. Avery drew her knees up and rested her chin on them. The thought that she should run flashed through her mind, but she remained still. At this point, she reasoned, if anyone wanted to do more harm, they’d have already done it. No, she decided, better to sit still and figure out what happened.
Books surrounded her. Justice Wynn’s study. They’d had cocktails in this room twice, at the start of each term. On the floor, various biographies lay scattered across the carpet. She’d stacked them before she opened the safe.
Swiftly, Avery scrambled to her feet, ignoring the rise of nausea that accompanied her motions. She crossed to the safe, the door now firmly shut. With trembling fingers, she typed in the code again. The chamber was empty. Avery’s stomach sank. The cash, the jeweler’s box, gone. Worse, the binder and the clues to her mission had vanished too.
Justice Wynn had been robbed.
Moving fast, she snatched up her purse and fumbled for the codes. The paper was missing. Burglars had tracked her into Justice Wynn’s home and stolen from him, from her. It was her fault, she thought, sinking down to the carpet again, her hand still inside her purse.
If she’d locked the door, rearmed the alarm, they wouldn’t have come in, wouldn’t have taken everything. Her battered head dipped low, eyes closed in remorse as much as pain. Day two of failure. Another day without knowing what he wanted and why she was there.
If she had any sense, she’d take her one credit card and hop a flight to Antigua. Lie low until the session ended. Her fingers caressed her wallet longingly. She could be wearing a bikini on a beach in seven hours.
Her wallet!
Avery clenched her fingers around the nubby leather and jerked it free. Inside, her credit card, debit card, and painfully small collection of bills were exactly where she’d left them. What kind of thief stole a piece of paper filled with numbers but left the wallet?
She looked at the room again, more carefully. The contents of the safe were gone, but the antique clock on Justice Wynn’s desk was untouched. Just like the expensive-looking oil painting on the far wall. The burglar had done a good job of staging the scene, but the missing paper didn’t fit. Not unless the burglar was the kind not looking to make money on the job.
Avery clambered to her feet, grabbed her phone, and dialed.
“Jared, I need to see you right away.” She slung her purse over her shoulder and rushed to the front door, where she reset the alarm and engaged the lock. Whoever had the codes might return before she reprogrammed the system, but she’d bet the contents of the house that they had what they came for.
“Meet me at the Starbucks on Wisconsin and Thirty-Fourth.” Without waiting for an answer, she disconnected the phone as she jogged down the street, oblivious to the high-heeled shoes and the constricting skirt.
Before someone had struck her, she had scanned several of the binder’s pages. Not for terribly long, but sufficient time to recall what she’d seen. Companies from around the world. Usernames on an email account: [email protected] and [email protected]. And a jumbled code that she’d burned.
As she raced along the busy street, she dialed a second number. “Noah, this is Avery Keene. Are you busy?”
“Avery, is everything all right? What do you need?”