Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
brEWSTER
They took my credentials at six forty-three Sunday morning.
Temporarily.
That word had been used four times.
Administrative leave.
That phrase had been used six.
They took my gun because while on temporary administrative leave, I would not need it.
Right.
Neither changed the fact that Assistant Special Agent in Charge Harold Warren held my credentials in his hand while I stood in a borrowed office at Chicago PD headquarters and considered how much trouble I would cause if I simply took them back.
Enough.
Probably.
Warren set the credential case on the desk between us next to my holstered gun.
“You understand this isn't disciplinary action.”
Really? He wanted me to buy that? Well… “Then give them back.”
His expression didn't change. Warren had spent twenty-eight years in the Bureau perfecting the ability to look disappointed without moving a single muscle in his face.
“That's not how this works.”
I didn’t bother to disguise my snort. “I know how it works.”
“Then stop making me explain it.” He didn’t attempt to disguise his impatience with me.
I looked toward the window.
The blinds were open. Dawn had arrived without improving anything.
Behind the glass, Chicago moved through another Sunday morning. Cars passed. People walked dogs. Somewhere, people were waking up with nothing more pressing to consider than breakfast.
Mallory had left eleven minutes earlier with Carter. I was aware because I’d watched them go. Their exit—together—hadn’t improved anything either.
“Elliot.”
I looked back at Warren.
He’d taken a seat across from me, jacket off, shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows. Deputy SAC Martin was patched in by secure video from the field office, his face frozen in one corner of the laptop screen while he listened.
Two supervisors for a temporary administrative reassignment. Yeah. That’s what this was. I didn’t care what they wanted to call it, the packaging said it was so much more.
Overkill. Or preparation. Take your pick.
“Start again,” Warren said.
“I've already given you my statement.”
“You've given me three versions of why you continued questioning McBryan after counsel terminated the line.”
“I was clarifying.”
Warren gave me a bland look. “Her attorney said stop.”
“I stopped.” I refused to defend it.
“Eventually.”
I didn't answer.
Warren’s gaze remained on me. “Why did you ask whether the subject told McBryan you knew why Guy Reardon died?”
“I was assessing the scope of the compromise.” I kept my tone even and my expression bland.
“Whose?”
“The investigation.” I had an answer for each item and I didn’t struggle or appear to need time to come up with the right information. This was just another conversation.
“That's not what I asked.” Warren clasped his hands together on the desk and continued to study me.
Since we were going to be in here for a while, I took the other chair and leaned back.
Warren waited.
People always believed silence belonged to the person who could tolerate it longest. Usually they were right.
“The unsub demonstrated knowledge of protected information,” I said.
“What protected information?” Warren’s brows raised as though he were still seeking answers to his questions. He had these answers, they were in reports. What he wanted was to catch an error.
“The Reardon inquiry.” Despite the hour, despite the lack of sleep, and despite the hideously bad coffee—I kind of liked it that way—I didn’t let fatigue mar my perceptions.
“Specifically.” Warren tapped the desk with one finger for each syllable in the word.
I looked at him. His expression remained bland. I knew this technique. I'd taught it.
“Medical evidence.”
“What medical evidence?” He was going to dissect everything I said, so I’d make him work for it.
“The toxicology.” One would think that was clear when there was a second toxicology report. But I digressed…
Leaning back in his seat, Warren’s posture relaxed by fractions and he folded his hands over his stomach. “Which toxicology?”
The trap wasn't particularly subtle. “The second order.”
“And when did you learn there was a second order?”
“During review.” Yes, if he wanted to parse every action, every word, every definition, then I’d let him ask the questions and I’d only answer what was asked. There were many ways this game could be played.
I knew all of them.
“What review?” The merest hint of impatience slipped into his voice.
“Guy Reardon's medical records.”
“Are these the same records with fourteen pages missing?” You never asked a question during an interrogation if you weren’t certain of the response.
“Yes.”
Warren glanced toward Martin's image on the screen. I disliked that glance.
“What?” When neither answered immediately, I focused on the man opposite me. “Warren.”
“We're trying to establish who knew what and when.”
Really? I wasn’t a suspect scooped up during a sting. “You know when I learned about it.”
“Then explain it to me.”
I clenched my jaw. Three hours earlier, I'd been questioning Mallory.Now I understood why she'd found this so irritating.
“The initial discrepancy surfaced during a federal records comparison.”
“Date?”
I gave it to him and he wrote it down—in pencil—on the outside of the folder in front of him.
“Who was present?”
“Ruiz.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
“Did you document it?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Case notes.”
“Those notes aren't in the shared file.” He studied me as though weighing whether he’d caught he in a slip or not.
Not. “They're in my working file.”
Warren’s expression changed by perhaps half a degree. It was enough. “Why?”
“Because we hadn't authenticated the discrepancy.” Which was SOP, I had questions. I needed what information I had authenticated.
“So you withheld it from CPD.”
“I didn't withhold anything. I don’t disseminate unverified information.”
Martin finally spoke from the screen. “You disseminated it to McBryan.”
My attention shifted to him as I owned this particular mistake. “Inadvertently.”
“Yes?” Challenge resonated in that single syllable courtesy of Martin whose unreadable gaze seemed fixed on me.
A muscle tightened in my jaw. There was no winning this by rushing to defend or deny, so I just let it sit there. Inadvertently said I made a mistake I wasn’t proud of. I wouldn’t defend it or try to deny it.
Warren tapped one finger against the folder. “That's the problem, Elliot.” His tone took a step back from superior to fellow agent. Not all the way, but close.
“No,” I said in an agreeable tone. This was my wheelhouse and he’d opened the door, so I put a hand back on the wheel.
“The problem is someone compromised federal surveillance, constructed synthetic audio and video in real time or near enough to make no difference, routed it into an operational feed, and lured a journalist into a building without triggering a single security measure we put in place.”
“And we're investigating all of that,” Martin stated in cool tones that would have been distant without the help of the computer.
“Without me.” It was a correction worth mentioning. I’d been the lead profiler on this case for years.
“Yes.” Warren didn’t avoid my gaze or the subject. That burned. Burned because it was being delivered as a fait accompli.
I stood.
Warren’s eyes followed me. “Sit down.”
“I've been sitting for six hours.”
“Then stand there.”
I walked to the window instead. Probably a bad choice, but I needed the illusion of being ready to go. The parking area below remained visible through a narrow angle between buildings.
There was no sign of Carter’s vehicle or the van he’d been in. Chances were, they either had been driven home by their attorney or taken to his car or the van. Maybe both.
No doubt, Mallory was still with him, her hand tucked firmly into his. Was she resting her head against his shoulder?
I had no reason to think otherwise. It hardly kept the image from forming. Carter resting a hand on the small of her back. Her leaning toward him. Him stepping between us to keep me at a distance.
I shut the thought down.
“Elliot.”
“What?” My impatience escaped on the growled syllable. I closed my eyes and steadied my breathing. Let him try to figure out what was annoying me at the moment. I wouldn’t apologize for it.
Warren said nothing for several seconds, but I could feel the weight of his stare on my back. “When did this become about Mallory McBryan?”
“It isn't.”
“No?” Pure, unadulterated challenge.
I shifted my stance, hands clasped behind my back to glance over my shoulder at him. I waited until our gazes locked. “No.”
“Then why did you follow her last night?”
I’d already returned my gaze to the window. These were the questions you anticipated even when you would prefer no one would ask them. “That was an operational decision.”
“You were ordered, Agent Brewster, to not follow either journalist.”
Perhaps. I wouldn’t argue the order or who gave it since I didn’t think it was relavent “I was advised that Carter had arranged surveillance.”
The click of his tongue against his teeth was one of Warren’s more irritating habits. “You were ordered not to conduct independent surveillance on McBryan.”
Turning slowly, I met Warren’s gaze. “I wasn't conducting surveillance on McBryan.”
He stared at me, consternation written all over his face. “Then who were you surveilling?”
“The unsub.” The lack of hesitation in my delivery seemed to startle Warren so I waited him out as he shared a look with Martin on the screen before focusing on me again.
“You didn't know where the meeting was until you followed McBryan,” Martin argued.
“Perhaps, but I knew she had received an invitation.”
“You didn't know the address,” Martin pressed.
“No.”
“You didn't know the time.”
“No.”
“But you assembled a team?” Warren retook the lead.
“I had personnel available.”
“Without authorization.” Warren’s fingers struck the folder on the desktop in a slow cadence.
“Agreed, however, I do have operational authority if I also have probable cause. I didn’t deploy them until cause had been proven.”