Chapter 35
“What do you mean, all the footage is gone?” Marcus demanded.
They were huddled in a small office, and the man who Alex suspected was some sort of computer tech with the FBI was seated behind a computer.
“I don’t know what to tell you, but there’s no footage from yesterday at all. It’s been erased.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Marcus cursed.
“Was the footage deleted or were the cameras turned off?” Alex asked softly.
Marcus scowled and Alex explained herself.
“I was just thinking that Martin might have shut them off deliberately for the party. But if that’s not the case and someone deleted the footage later, it might mean something else entirely.”
Marcus nudged the man in the chair, whom Alex hadn’t met yesterday during the orientation that Con had set up.
“Let me check.” The man clicked some keys, frowned, and then pulled up a live camera feed.
Alex suddenly felt her throat go dry.
If the videos had been recorded and subsequently erased, whoever was responsible might still have a copy.
And one of those tapes would show her impromptu make-out session with Con.
If Marcus got her hands on that, Con was done.
As for her, she’d get a label. It wouldn’t matter that Con would take all the blame; the video would speak for itself.
She’d grabbed his head. She’d initiated the kiss.
This would follow her around for her entire career.
Alex forced these thoughts from her mind. If the video was out there, and that was a big if , she would deal with the blowback when it came.
There was nothing she could do about it now.
On-screen, she saw a live feed of the main living area, which still held evidence of last night’s party.
Cops milled about, trying to sort out what, if anything, might be relevant and what was just left over from the bender.
“Looks like they’re active now,” the tech said. “Unless one of the maids turned them back on this morning before we arrived, then I’m leaning towards the videos having been deleted.”
Great. Just fucking great.
“Julia Yeo is upset, but when I mentioned that Martin overdosed, she replied with something along the lines of, ‘just one of his vices’.”
Everyone cranked their heads around.
Con looked even worse now; Alex’s efforts were for not. It was amazing to think that this was the same dapper man who had taken her to the party.
No , she corrected herself. That wasn’t Con. That was Peter O’Toole.
Beside her partner was a burly man with a white mustache in an LAPD uniform.
“Who the hell are you?” Marcus asked the newcomer.
“This is Chief AA—sorry, Art Abner—from the LAPD.”
Art held out his hand, but Marcus just sneered at it.
“What the hell you’re doing at my crime scene?”
Art frowned.
“I called him in as a special consultant. He’s been helping us out with the pirated videos,” Con lied.
“You called in a special consultant without even asking me?” Marcus was incensed. “And he’s from the LAPD?”
The chief’s mustache bristled. The man wasn’t used to being spoken this way and Alex didn’t blame him.
“We’re pretty sure that the video footage from last night was deleted,” Alex offered in an attempt to change the subject.
She thought she saw relief wash over Con and wondered if he’d been thinking the same thing about their kiss.
“Perhaps—can’t know for sure, though. I checked the recycling folder, nothing there,” the FBI tech said, not pleased about her stealing the spotlight. “It could be that the cameras were just turned off and then back on again. I’ll keep digging.”
“Where was Martin found?” Con asked.
“In his bedroom,” Marcus replied.
“Take me there. I want to see the body.”
***
Martin Yeo wasn’t the first dead body that Alex had seen—she’d come across a handful of them when she’d been a beat cop. Mostly drug overdoses.
Mostly junkies.
Their circumstances were all different, but there had been similarities between the scenes. Usually dark alleys, shadowed underpasses.
Trash lying on the ground. Dirty clothes.
Dirty needles.
This was different. Martin Yeo was lying face down on his bed, arms spread, still wearing the white dress shirt from the night prior. It wasn’t just the fact that the setting was considerably more upscale— impossibly more upscale—than Alex’s previous encounters with death. It was the fact that she’d never seen any of the other victims before being called to the scene. They were strangers. And while she wasn’t about to pretend that she knew Martin personally, she had seen him alive and well mere hours ago.
But like Con’s physical change, Martin Yeo looked very different now from how he did then. The man’s tanned skin was white, and his lips were covered in a thick paste. The sheet around his head was darker than the rest of the material, probably from sweat. Alex could see the orange plunger of a syringe sticking out from beneath the crook of his right arm.
On a side table was the paraphernalia that had been used to claim his life. A blackened spoon, a lighter. A piece of rubber tubing.
In addition to the four of them—the computer specialist had elected to stay behind—two CSU technicians were also in the room.
Marcus Allen turned to the one nearest him.
“I want the syringe, the spoon, everything tested for prints.”
This was a fool’s game. During the party, Alex had seen dozens of people come and go down the hallway leading here—there would be prints everywhere in the room.
As the tech began collecting evidence in clear plastic bags, Alex inspected the body more closely.
Something was off.
But what?
She wasn’t nearly as tired as Con, but she was feeling the effects of the travel, the stress of her new job.
Her back hurt.
Her brain was fuzzy from the champagne.
But there was something… missing.
It clicked.
Last night, Alex had seen Martin sporting a fancy silver watch.
With both sleeves rolled up past his elbows, she could see that the man’s wrists were bare now.
“His watch,” Alex said softly.
The big police chief was talking to Con in a hushed tone, and Marcus Allen was busy ordering the other tech around.
“His watch,” she repeated a little louder. Con and the police chief took notice.
“What do you mean?” her partner asked.
“Last night, Martin was wearing this big silver watch. He’s not wearing it now.”
“You sure?” Con asked.
“I’m sure. Look, you can even see the lack of a tan on his wrist.”
Pale as the corpse was, a clear band devoid of hair and about two inches wide was visible on Martin’s left wrist.
Con moved close to the body, careful not to make contact, then nodded as he confirmed this fact.
He craned his head.
“I don’t see any other needle holes in his arm,” the man said almost absently. “If shooting heroin indeed one of Martin’s vices, then he did a great job of hiding it.”
Alex didn’t hear her partner; she was still stuck on the missing watch.
“The watch was on his left wrist,” she said forcefully.
Now everyone’s eyes were on her, awaiting an explanation.
“Martin was right-handed.” Her eyes widened as the implications of what she was saying became obvious. “And the needle is sticking out of his right arm.”
Alex paused, allowing this to sink in, and then added what they were all thinking. “Martin Yeo didn’t overdose. He was murdered.”