Chapter 1 #2
“Jesup, Georgia. Frank Adams, forty, husband and father, technician for the Adler Screen Company. They claim to make the best screens for everything, movies, gaming—easy, easy, easy controls and computing. His wife found him with a shotgun between his hands and still in his mouth. No note. But the gun was in his hands. At first accepted as a suicide; case closed. A month later, Cassandra Little and her husband, Hank. Hank shot dead; Cassandra was found with the Smith and Wesson that killed him—and her—in her hands. They were in Palatka, Florida. Obvious. Murder-slash-suicide. Oh, they both worked for Brandon Solutions, another tech company, one that’s huge in online protection apps.
Third instance. Randy Templeton, Montgomery, Alabama, found in his bathtub, electrocuted, his electric shaver in the water with him.
He worked for the local city government, online data.
No note, but neighbors heard him and his wife, Myra, argue frequently, so they thought that his wife had threatened to walk out on him and his depression had caught up with him.
The wife denied she’d ever said that she was leaving.
She said they had fought, yes. All married couples did.
She didn’t accept his death as a suicide.
But the police became suspicious, through their friendly neighbors, that she might look to be as sweet as candy but have evil inside.
Their suspicion—no solid clues, no proof—was that she had murdered him.
Not possible. She can be seen on a security video all day at a symposium on mental health.
The woman is a therapist. Now, she’s the first who came to the Feds when the local police ignored her—and suspected her.
She’d found references to the other events in the news.
Then! And the major ‘then,’ we have what happened in Broward County last week.
A meeting of enlisted personnel and civilians who worked for the military, a party of six.
Five were shot and killed and, you guessed it, as I’m sure you already saw in the news, the sixth person, a young woman, was found with her gun—a six-shooter—in her mouth.
All planned out so well! And every shot straight through the heart.
Was she ever in the military? No, she was a civilian working with the others.
Motive? Jealousy of those higher up, was she maybe a home-grown terrorist?
Her parents denied it fervently, came to us, too, and we were ready since we’d already started looking into the other odd deaths.
Now, we’re pulling legal strategies and exhuming corpses, trying to determine if something had been missed in the autopsies on the deceased that might help us.
As you are aware, only certain drugs are tested in such victims in a customary autopsy.
Oh, yeah, one more interesting fact, the weapons involved were tested for fingerprints.
None whatsoever were there except for those of the person left with the weapon.
Our firearms experts say that—especially since a few of the prints appear to be backwards—the condition they were discovered in is, once again, more than ‘questionable.’”
“I can easily see why these are suspicious occurrences, and yes, it does appear that there is, beyond a doubt, something going on, though on what level, who knows at this point,” Wesley Law said, speaking up. “But. These were all on land. So—”
“Milestones,” Alonzo told them.
“Milestones?” Chloe murmured.
“Oh, come on. I know you are field agents, but you do know how to use computers! Milestones is a huge corporation. The company is the next massive step in user-friendly computing and in computers doing just about everything for you, including, according to one ad—truth or a way to intrigue people—brushing your teeth. At any rate, the company is having an employee gratitude group to celebrate their tenth anniversary on the ship Silver and Sapphire Seas, the newest luxury offering from Surf of the Seven Seas.”
“That’s the company that has luxury restaurants in every state—all offering several different surf-and-turf options, right?” Wesley asked. “In the cruise business, they’re young, only being around about a decade or so.”
Alonzo smiled. “That is true. And if nothing else, you’ll eat well.”
“So, you believe this killer is specifically after those who are exceptionally talented with computing, or those who—”
“Those who have the money or the management skills to keep the right people working, yes,” Alonzo said. “And why this ship? you ask. Not just the fact that it will be hosting so many computer nerds, but then there was this.”
He clicked a key on the computer.
On the screen, they saw two of the bodies from the multi-death incident again, more closely pictured than they had been before.
Near one was a briefcase.
And sticking out of the briefcase was a folder.
Chloe couldn’t see the entire folder, but she could see enough.
It advertised the free computer sessions that would be held on board, offering classes to other passengers for those who were newbies to more experienced nerds.
Proof. Proof was what they needed.
How many people were supposed to die in this—and yes, the big question, why?
“The conference room is empty. You may take your computers and read everything we have in the police reports, from witnesses, and from Myra Templeton—we have her on video when she first came into the local field office. You have a couple of hours. There’s a blue sedan out there for you to take to the cruise port—no official drop-offs or the like.
You’re on the cruise as Chloe and Wesley Douglas.
You’re on vacation from your specialized tutoring jobs in NYC—the bigger the city, the harder for anyone to discover you’re not who you say you are. ”
“And two hours to remember our names and our histories,” Wesley said.
“Sorry, this all came up quickly,” Alonzo said.
“And you’ll be given ‘ghost’ guns, no metal so that they’ll pass through any metal-detecting security, though there are bureau members and offices where your purpose is known—as you know, Wes, there are sixty-two legal attaché offices around the world with another thirty-six sub offices.
There are those in each port that you can contact, numbers are in your burner phone under assumed names, but the names won’t matter—emergency only.
Got it? No, not yet—you’ve only got a few hours.
Go study your identities—as always, info was kept as close to what’s real so that you’re natural in any conversation—and study up on what you’re looking for. ”
Study up?
People were dead. They were all involved in computer and Internet expertise in one way or another.
But they all had been made to appear to be the work of suicide, murder-suicide, or someone having just gone lethally crazy.
Chloe looked at her just-met new partner, Wesley Law. He looked at her in turn, grimacing and arching a brow in question.
She nodded. “Oh, hell, yeah. We should go study up.”
“Well, once we know about ourselves and what has been discovered regarding the victims, we should be fine. I know how to make contact if needed, though it’s easy.
Then I’ll follow you. You’ll know what we should and shouldn’t do as just folks out on a cruise having a good time, where we should hang out.
You are the cruise expert,” he reminded her.
She wasn’t sure why she needed to defend the fact that she was as familiar as she was with cruising—she just did.
“I grew up here—there were always specials out of Miami or Ft. Lauderdale. My parents loved the water, my dad was once a Navy Seal. He loved any place where one could go diving and he made sure that his kids could swim—Florida, water everywhere.”
“And alligators.”
“Yeah, well, he taught us not to swim in canals and to always watch out—waterways connect, and the creatures can run faster than most humans, too. But I don’t think that the abilities of alligators are going to be our problem.
The ‘creatures’ we’re looking for will be of the human variety.
But! Cruises offer cool cities, history, and lots of great dives and snorkel trips—though whether we’ll be following anyone suspicious around such places or events remains to be seen, I imagine.
Then again,” she said, and paused, looking at Alonzo, “I still don’t even know where we’re going. I’ve never been on this ship.”
“Go find out about your ports of call—but don’t forget that you’re pleased as can be you’ve chosen a cruise with computer classes,” Alonzo said, indicating that they should head on to work with the few hours they had to get up to speed on the case.
As they headed out of Alonzo’s office and into their workroom, Wesley murmured, “So, we’re undercover but almost as ourselves. I had a number of cases as different people, but it’s been a while now since I’ve worked undercover. I looked you up—I know you’ve done a lot of really good work.”
She smiled. “Only undercover once, so I’ll know cruising—and you can help me out with the undercover.”
“Keep it easy and natural and—”
“And just remember my background,” Chloe finished. “I worked with our local experts, some who went under for a few years! Of course, we need to study all the events Alonzo has just told us about. The people—”
“Yeah, honestly, I wish we had been able to be in from the start, but it is what it is. You do know you are free to refuse this kind of a case, right?” he asked her.
She nodded. “Doesn’t do much for your career.”
“Now, that’s true, but then again, if you’re worried that it may not do much for your life . . .”
She shrugged. “I have been in a few back alleys that might not have done much for my chances of a life. It’s just that . . .”
“On shipboard, backup isn’t a few minutes away.” He paused and looked away for a moment.
“You’ve been in a situation where a few minutes was a few too many?” she asked softly.