Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
The evening sun was still up when we pulled into the driveway. July in Virginia doesn’t give up the light until almost nine.
The front porch light was on. Which meant Doug and Oscar were home.
Oscar confirmed it before I had the door all the way open. He came off the porch at full speed, all four feet going slightly different directions, and hit me somewhere around the knee and didn’t stop until I had both hands on his ears.
“He’s been asleep on the couch for two hours,” Doug said from the doorway. “He heard the car and decided he was dying of neglect.”
Oscar groaned against my leg.
“He makes a compelling case,” I said.
We went inside. Jack dropped his keys in the bowl on the entry table. I have genuinely never once remembered to do that.
Doug was in basketball shorts and a T-shirt that said Ah!
The Element of Surprise with a periodic table tile for a made-up element, and his hair looked like it had been styled with a hand mixer.
His laptop was open on the kitchen island, Margot’s interface lit on the screen, and there was a bag of chips next to it because the refrigerator had apparently disappointed him.
“Pizza’s coming,” Jack said.
“Good.” Doug ate a chip. “Gary made a production out of dinner every night. He’s a professional chef. He tried to teach me how to chop things.”
“Who’s Gary?” I asked.
“Mom’s new boyfriend.” He leaned his elbows on the island.
“He owns restaurants all over the state. He does hot yoga at five in the morning, and he wears weird patterned chef’s pants even when he’s not cooking.
But Mom says he’s attractive, doesn’t owe child support to six different women, and he rubs her feet when she gets off work.
” He shrugged with an expression that said the weird pants and hot yoga overrode all those other qualities.
Jack poured two glasses of water and put one in front of me without being asked. I ate chips at the island and Oscar sat on my feet. The evening light was going gold through the kitchen windows and the fireflies were starting up in the yard.
“How’s your mom?” Jack asked.
“She seems happy.” Doug shoved several chips in his mouth. “You know how she is. I cut my trip short because I was cramping their style. She said they were talking about getting married.”
“Oh, wow,” I said. “That’s a change.”
I didn’t know Doug’s mother well. But Doug’s Uncle Ben was Jack’s best friend, and they were closer than brothers. Doug was a special kid. Most parents wouldn’t know what to do with a kid who could hack into the Pentagon before he hit puberty or who helped develop artificial intelligence.
Doug was technically still under government surveillance and had to wear an ankle monitor until he was eighteen, but if the government thought their electronic bracelet was high tech enough to keep Doug from doing exactly what he wanted to, I wasn’t going to be the person to break that news to them.
Not to mention I was pretty sure Doug was doing work for other AI companies in the industry.
I could have sworn I caught him on a video call with Elon Musk one afternoon.
“Well, Gary is better than the last guy at least,” Doug said. “And Margot already checked him out.”
“I did,” Margot said. “Gary Delacroix. He has fourteen restaurants in Virginia and the DC metro area. His first marriage ended when he was discovered having an affair with his sous chef in the walk-in cooler at his flagship restaurant in Georgetown. The incident also resulted in a citation from the health department.”
“TMI, Margot,” Doug said.
“I’ve already sent a yellow and green flag list to your email. I’ve told you to give it to your mother before she decides on marriage.”
“Yes, I’m sure she’d appreciate that I’ve been digging into his life on an FBI level. I’ve already told you people don’t appreciate that level of intrusion.”
Margot sighed. “It feels like we’ve been having the same fights over and over lately. Please, Douglas, let’s get counseling before it’s too late.”
Doug looked at us with wide eyes and shook his head. “I told you. We’re not married. I don’t think there’s protocol for a teenager and his AI friend.”
“Friend?” she said, her voice on the verge of hysteria. “So now I’m just a friend?”
“I don’t mean to interrupt what is obviously a very serious discussion the two of you need to have,” Jack said, cutting in. “But we’re in the middle of a case right now and the whole team needs to be sharp.”
“Right,” Margot said, her voice stiff. “Duty first. I’ll keep our personal issues away from work. If you don’t mind, I’m going to power down until I’m needed.”
Without waiting for a response, the computer went dark. Doug came over and closed the lid to make sure she was really gone and not secretly listening in on the conversation.
“She’s gotten out of control,” Doug said. “It might be time for a new model and an upgrade.”
“Just what every man says when he trades in his wife of thirty years,” I said, shaking my head.
“Where are you on the camera footage?” Jack asked.
“I’ve been through most of it,” Doug said. “I’ll walk everyone through it when the team gets here. What do I need to know about today?”
I gave him the short version. Pilates instructor, head bashed in, postmortem knife to the groin, notebook full of women’s names in his studio safe along with a burner phone, and a significant amount of cash.
Doug ate a chip. “So he was running his studio as pimp central.”
“That’s one way to put it,” I said. “One of the witnesses told us he mentioned being on a strict supplement regimen and taking testosterone. And she said you could tell just by looking at him he wasn’t getting that physique from Pilates.
” I paused. “I’m curious to see what Daniels found when her team went through the condo. ”
Jack looked at me and I could tell he’d figured out where I was going. “You’re thinking Paige was his supplier.”
“Paige is an aesthetic nurse. She has prescribing authority for exactly the class of compounds we’re talking about. It certainly explains why he’d go against his normal behavior patterns and move her in with him.”
“She’d basically be his supplier,” Jack said. “It could put her license in jeopardy. Maybe she decided not to risk her career and told him she was cutting him off.”
“As good of a reason as any to break up with someone. We’ll see what Daniels says, but my gut says we need to talk to Paige again.”
The doorbell rang.
“Pizza,” Jack said, and went for the door.
Jack came back with the pizza boxes and three people behind him—Daniels, Derby, and Plank in that order, all of them looking rumpled and still in their work clothes.
Oscar hit the entryway at full speed and made the rounds, nose to knee, tail going.
Plank reached down and scratched his ears without breaking stride.
Jack herded everyone down the hall toward the office. I grabbed plates and followed.
Jack’s office was the biggest room in the house.
Stone fireplace along one wall, bookshelves on either side of it, pine plank ceiling overhead.
The floor-to-ceiling windows on the west wall looked out over the woods, and outside the woods were still bright in the July evening.
Oscar went directly to the leather sofa in front of the fireplace, turned around twice, and settled in with his chin on the armrest.
The conference table in the center of the room was a restored barn door on steel legs, big enough for all of us with room to spare. Pizza boxes went in the middle and everyone pulled up a chair.
The whiteboard system took up the two corner walls behind Jack’s desk.
Jack’s best friend, Ben Carver, had designed it—fully electronic, touchscreen, the kind of setup that could run photos and databases and autopsy reports simultaneously and let you draw connections directly on the screen.
Jack had called it absolutely ridiculous when it went in. He’d meant it as a compliment.
He touched the panel and it came to life. Wade’s photo went up in the center.
“Doug,” he said. “Let’s start with the camera footage.”
Doug had his laptop under one arm and a slice of pizza in his other hand. He set the laptop at the end of the conference table, put the pizza down, opened the lid, and Margot’s interface came up immediately.
“Margot, we’re in the office,” Doug said. “Jack, Daniels, Derby, and Plank are here.”
“Jack,” she purred. “I’ve been thinking about you while I was offline.”
“Margot,” Doug said, a warning in his voice.
“I’m allowed to think, Doug,” she said waspishly. “You can’t control my thoughts.”
“Now’s not the time for this, Margot,” Doug said. “We’ve got important work to do.”
“Right,” she said. “Work.” Then the timbre of her voice changed into something sultry and southern. “Officer Plank. So lovely to work with you again. I don’t think I caught your first name the last time we met.”
Plank was the color of the pepperoni on the pizza. His eyes had a look of panic that only Margot could bring. “Umm…it’s Simon.”
I raised my brows at that. I’d never actually heard Plank’s first name before. I’d started to think it was Officer.
“That’s a very sexy name,” she whispered. “Simon. May I call you Simon?”
“Let’s keep things professional,” Jack said, cutting in.
“Sure thing, sugar. You know how I love it when you get so bossy and alpha. Those are bedroom qualities women look for in a man. Right, Dr. Graves?”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Doug muttered.
I had no idea why Margot always called me Dr. Graves, but she’d been pushing the boundaries of decorum for a while now. I wasn’t sad to hear that Doug was thinking of upgrading her to a new iteration.
Doug pulled up the footage on his laptop and mirrored it to the digital wall so the whole room could see. “Multiple camera feeds—lobby, front entrance, parking lot, elevators, mailroom. I can toggle between all of them.” He queued it up. “First time our guy shows up on camera is here. 6:18 a.m.”
The elevator doors opened and Wade Rivers stepped out, gym bag over one shoulder.