Every wave loses energy in time. Collapses into a truer iteration of time.
~ excerpt from Lectures on the Movement of Time by Dr. Abdul Emir I1–20740413
Tuesday March 18, 2070
Florida District 8
Commonwealth of North America
Iteration 2
“Good morning, Agent Rose!” Edwin said. “You look cheerful this morning.”
Sam froze in the doorway to her office. “I do?” She didn’t feel cheerful.
“Very chipper and alert, if I do say so, Agent Rose.” The junior agent beamed at her with all the enthusiasm of a floodlight. “I take it the case is going well?”
“It’s going.” And so am I . . .
She flashed a smile at Agent Edwin and retreated to the safety of her desk. Waking up to the familiar smell of Mac’s soap, going for a run with a friend, letting Mac talk her into eating donuts . . . those were nice things. But she wasn’t happy about it. Mac was dangerous . . . no, that was unfair, she realized with a sigh. She was the dangerous one. It was her life in a tailspin. It was her future that was filled with torture and death.
The danger was that Mac would insinuate himself into her life, again, and wind up getting hurt. She couldn’t allow that to happen.
She spent a moment doodling stars on a piece of scrap paper, trying not to overthink the case. With a grumble, she finally shrugged off the dark premonitions and focused on the work in front of her. There was nothing major on the agenda today. A paperwork review, time scheduled to handle complaints, and a tentative meeting scheduled with Director Loren, the regional director for CBI in eastern Florida. Nine times out of ten, he told her to skip the meetings. No one needed input from District 8. Today, though, there’d be questions.
The main office phone buzzed. A moment later, Agent Edwin called her on the intercom. “Agent Rose? I have Agent Petrilli on the line. Are you available?”
Ugh. “Put him through.”
Her phone rang, and, with another reluctant sigh, she picked it up. “This is Agent Rose.”
“Agent Rose,” Petrilli’s voice dripped amusement, insincere goodwill, and condescension. “I wanted to talk to you before the meeting this afternoon.”
“Uh-huh.” She pulled up the files for paperwork Edwin was approving, double-checking his work. If she caught the mistakes, she didn’t have to deal with the complaints later on.
“I’m clearing Lawrence Dom to come over for the week.”
She flagged a questionable tax rebate. “Dom? The medical examiner?”
“That’s right,” Petrilli said. “He was doing an assist up here on a car accident, but he’ll be free by noon. That’s soon enough, I hope.” He made it sound like twenty-four hours after she needed an ME was a major favor.
“I don’t need him at all. Thank you, though,” she said, keeping her frustration out of her voice. “Agent Edwin was able to locate another ME for me yesterday. I have him working the case.”
“Really?” Petrilli didn’t sound convinced.
“I think I know an ME with a badge when I meet one, Petrilli.” She flagged another file, circling the space Edwin had missed when checking the taxes.
He chuckled. It was a classic Feo, trying to make a social gaffe a weak joke, so everyone forgot he’d put his foot in his mouth again. “I meant, I thought that everyone was busy this week. There was a conference, and of course that hailstorm down south. District 6 is the only district with multiple examiners. Who’d you get?”
“Agent MacKenzie from Chicago. He had the clearance, and he was available.” There was a baffled silence from the other end of the line. Sam smirked.
“You flew an agent in from Chicago to handle this?”
“Actually, we requisitioned him from the conference in Orlando. Considering the weather at home is calling for a late-season cold front, he was more than happy to extend his vacation.” She finished approving the last tax file and opened the complaints box. “Did you need anything else? I have work to get done.”
“No, no, of course not. I just wanted to let you know that District 6 is here to assist anytime you need. Ah, will this ME be coming to the meeting this afternoon?”
Sam raised an eyebrow at the phone. Oh, right: She’d mentioned that another competent male was in the district. Petrilli wanted to meet his new rival. “It’s a meeting for senior district agents, unless I missed a memo. I know Chicago has a good reputation, but I don’t think we’re going to have the case wrapped by lunchtime. Give me at least twenty-four hours.”
Petrilli laughed again. “Sorry. It’s just my thing. I like to know who’s working in the region.”
“Mmm-hmmm.” Petrilli’s “thing” was his ongoing campaign to win her over. To his credit, it wasn’t about sex. It was just that his ego couldn’t understand the possibility that someone might not like him.
“Do you want to get together around eleven thirty for lunch? We can chat before the meeting, catch up, that sort of thing.”
Sam silently shook her head. “Let me take a rain check on that. I’d like to have all my ducks in a row before I talk to Director Loren. Maybe another time. When I have less on my plate?”
“Sure thing. See you this afternoon.”
“Good-bye.” She hung up, dropping the phone like a venomous snake.
Feo Petrilli wasn’t a bad man. He was a good agent—her highest form of praise—but he was too much like her ex-boyfriend from Toronto. The same charismatic charm, the same dark good looks, the same arrogant unthinking nature that had made her fall in love with Joseph. He was even a good Catholic boy, something that would have pleased her mother to no end if she and her mother were still on speaking terms.
That ever-strained relationship had been terminated after her mother suggested her memories of the kidnapping were clouded by stress and the Alabama heat. If she’d simply leave the bureau and get married, there’d be none of this kidnapping nonsense. As if a wedding band could miraculously change the world.
Certainly, there’d be fewer people shooting at her if she gave up her Commonwealth citizenship and moved to Madrid.
She could deal with people shooting at her, though. She’d rather deal with homicidal maniacs than become a trophy wife for her mother’s cronies.
Frustrated, she sent the standard “I’ll look into the matter” e-mail to all the complaints and shut off her computer. Grabbing her purse and the case file, she headed for the door.
Agent Edwin looked up from his desk as she walked out. “Do you need something, Senior Agent?”
“Nope, not unless you can schedule Petrilli for a little trip to the vet. That boy needs to be snipped.” Her junior agent whimpered in sympathy. “I’m kidding. Mostly.”
“I . . . I can, um . . .” Panic suffused his face as he tried to find a way to obey the order.
“Don’t worry about it.” Sam smiled. “I’m going to talk with the ME. If it runs long, I’ll leave from the morgue for my meeting with Director Loren. Do you think you can handle everything while I’m out?”
“Certainly, Agent Rose. Um . . .” His bushy red eyebrows furrowed. “Agent Rose? Do you know where Agent MacKenzie is staying? I don’t have his hotel address, so I can’t arrange for his rental car.”
“Oh.” She fervently hoped she wasn’t blushing. Technically, there was nothing unprofessional about Mac’s staying at her house. They weren’t breaking any rules, and they weren’t in a relationship, but it still felt wrong. Or right. Whichever, it wasn’t the bureau’s business. “I believe he’s staying with a friend. Why don’t you have the car dropped off here before lunch?”
Her junior agent beamed happily. “Excellent advice, ma’am. I’ll have it ready within the hour. I’m glad Agent MacKenzie knows someone in the area. I was worried that pulling him into the case was going to cause problems.”
“He hasn’t registered any complaints with me.” Not unless barely breathing between mouthfuls and telling Sam that he missed her cooking counted as a complaint.
“I know he doesn’t have a wife or family,” Agent Edwin said. “I checked before I pulled him onto the case, but I thought he might have a girlfriend.”
“Not that he’s mentioned to me.” To her own ears, her tone was noticeably cooler, but Edwin missed the change. It wasn’t that she was opposed to the idea of Mac’s dating, of course, she just figured he’d have mentioned if there was anyone significant in his life. That’s the sort of things friends talked about over dinner.
Because that’s what we are . . . friends.
“I’m sure he wouldn’t, ma’am. You have a professional relationship, after all,” he said with another ingratiating smile.
Whether he meant she was married to her work or that being an agent would keep her from stripping Mac naked, she wasn’t sure. And she didn’t bother to ask . . . mostly because she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer. “I’ve got to run, Edwin. Call if you run into trouble.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Some agents insisted on staying single because the future was too uncertain, and they didn’t want to leave someone they loved burying them young. Her situation was quite the opposite. She knew exactly how and when she would die, right down to the six-hour window when she choked on her last breath. It was like living with a terminal disease.
Mac had buried enough friends. Of course, he’d already been to her funeral once, so maybe it wouldn’t be so bad a second time around. But seeing her die wasn’t a stress he needed in his life.
The heels of her navy pumps clicked on the tile floor outside the CBI office door.
Budget cuts meant she shared office space with everyone from the free clinic downstairs to the local drunk tank for the city police department. It was a situation that made her neck itch with paranoia. Any minute now, some madman was going to come charging through the tastefully decorated arboretum foyer and start shooting people because they had a grudge against the Commonwealth Bureau of Investigation. Or the police. Or the free clinic that offered referrals to adoption centers and abortion clinics.
The number of crazies in the world was sickening. Infuriating. A rational human being would take one look at all the head cases and lock themselves in a bunker. Instead, she kept a gun—which she hated—on her at all times and arrested anyone who looked at her funny.
Taking the steps two at a time, she headed upstairs to the lowest-budget morgue in the bureau. Mac was there, not bent over the charred remains of Henry Troom but seated at a computer terminal, leaning back in his chair with one foot on the long desk.
“That looks uncomfortable,” she said from the doorway.
Mac pivoted fast enough that he almost fell. He caught himself at the last minute, grinning sheepishly. “My knees kept hitting the desk.”
“What are you looking at?”
He motioned for her to look. “The lab layout. I’m overlaying the original blueprints with the information from the data bots and the fire department.”
“Looking for what?” She walked past the empty examination table to peer at the screen over Mac’s shoulder.
“Here, sit.” He moved out the chair so she could sit down as he pulled up a three-dimensional diagram of the lab. “This is the Tinker Lab. I figured they’d have everything set up for running a variety of experiments: gas, water, electricity, everything you’d see in a normal college lab setup. But they don’t.” Green lines seared across the screen. “See? Basic electric outlets but nothing else.”
“Okay, but I thought we knew that. What’s the problem?”
“According to the original blueprints, this room was meant to be a conference room. They added the electric outlets for the individual workstations later.” Mac leaned over her, pulling up more schematics. He was close enough that she caught the scent of the soap on his heated skin.
Sam focused on the display. “Are you thinking faulty wiring caused an explosion?”
“I played with the idea, but everything was up to code. The readouts from all our scans look clean. A few of the scientists had models in their cubicles, but nothing that should have done this.”
“We know at least one person had a laser near their desk. Maybe they were plugging them in? Or using battery-powered somethings?” Sam asked, turning to look at Mac. He had arms on either side of the chair and was hovering just above her. From the twinkle in his eyes, he was well aware of the fact, and it made her blush.
“Maybe. Has the lab director given you any a list of what everyone was doing yet?”
“No, he hasn’t sent me anything. What are you thinking?”
Mac sat down on the desk next to the keyboard. “Possibly—and this is going to be hard to prove—there was a mixture of gases in the lab that caused the explosion. Remember how the air smelled when we walked in?”
“Anything gaseous or dangerous would need to be kept under a fume hood. No one would be playing with that in the Tinker Lab.”
“Absentminded scientist walks in holding a vial of something, looks for his notes, the gas he’s holding interacts with something else in the room, and things go boom.”
Sam pursed her lips together as she thought. “My chemistry classes weren’t focused on things that went boom. What’s the likelihood of this actually having happened?”
“Low,” he admitted. “We don’t have the air samples all tested yet. Hopefully, that will give us something. My other running theory is that Henry was working with some form of explosive device, the laser that melted the water bottle set fire to the room, and whatever Henry was holding is what dismembered him.”
She leaned back in the chair. “What’s the autopsy say? Do we have a cause of death yet?”
“Not yet. His lungs are fine, he didn’t die of smoke inhalation or superheated air. The tox screen came back clean.”
“Have you looked at his bones yet?” Sam asked.
“For a radial pattern? No. I already told you there was no rapid postmortem cooling.”
“Do it anyway,” Sam said. “I want to rule that out completely.” Henry’s predecessor had killed at least two people with his machine. The radial fracture pattern on the victims’ bones was the first clue they’d had that the cases were linked.
Mac nodded. “Any chance I can get over to see the lab director? The more I know what was in the lab, the better I can work my end of the case.”
She checked the time on the computer. “I can drop you off there, but I have a district meeting. Agent Edwin is ordering you a rental car, so you could wait for that and go by yourself, and I’ll meet you after if you’re still there.”
“I’ll go with you now. There are enough questions here to keep me busy for the afternoon. The cleanup crew is still in there, and I’d like to see what they find.” He stepped back and offered her a hand up.
“You really think you want to be there?”
Mac smiled, cool and confident, a completely different man than the one she’d met the previous year . . . or even last night. “I can handle it, Sam. If I have a problem, you’ll be the first to know.” He stripped out of his lab coat and opened the door for her.
They walked to the parking lot in silence, letting the sounds of the busy building fill in for conversation. An ocean breeze brought the smell of salt and stirred the humid air as they stepped outside.
Mac breathed deep. “I like this better than Chicago. All we get there is muggy smog.” He caught her eye and winked. “Fewer bikinis, too.”
“I don’t have a bikini,” she informed him primly as she hit the auto-unlock on her car keys.
“Does that mean no—” Mac cut himself off. It took her a minute longer to walk around the car and see what made him pause.
Her car was smashed.
The windows were broken, the front end was crumpled.
“Sam?” Mac moved closer, hand hovering over the car reverently. “Did you go to run errands after you dropped me at the morgue?”
“Nope.” Her hands tightened around the strap of her purse. “Parking lot hit-and-run, maybe?”
“A hit-and-run that went through the shrubs and the electric hookup without leaving a mark? I don’t think so.” He bent down. “There’s a note on the windshield.”
“Don’t touch it.”
“I wasn’t going to.” He stood up. “Call the police.”
“I am the police.”
“You know what I mean.”
“On it.” The phone was already ringing. “Hi, this Agent Sam Rose from the CBI. I need a patrol car at the corner of Canal and Riverside at the city clerk’s office. One of the cars in the parking lot was vandalized. Yes. Understood.” She pressed her lips together as dispatch contacted a car. “Thank you, I’ll wait.”
Mac watched her expectantly.
“It’ll be at least ten minutes, but probably more like forty. The county only has two cars, and they’re on the wrong end of town.”
“And vandalism isn’t a high priority.” Nor was it bureau jurisdiction.
“Facts of life,” Sam said with a shrug, her hands itching to work. “There are a few dozen cars out here and no way of proving I was targeted. It’s not like I get a special parking spot or have a ‘Commonwealth’s Best Bureau Agent’ bumper sticker.”
“At least I know what to get you for your birthday,” Mac teased.
The note stuck under her windshield wiper waved in the ocean breeze. “Is it bad that I want to process this scene myself?”
“No, it just means you’re you.” Mac smiled. “Then again, I want to read the note.”
“So do I. Then I want to dust it for prints, run the words by analysis, then do a microscan for DNA.”
“I’d start with the microscan.”
By the time the patrol car pulled up, Mac had the letter in the microscan and Sam was dusting the car for prints.
“Um, are you Agent Rose?” the officer asked as he stepped out of his car, his partner following.
“Yes.”
Their name badges declared them to be Officers Ranct and Hadley. And while Hadley was abundantly female, it seemed she patronized the same barber as Ranct, one that specialized in a short, shaggy cut.
“Ma’am, what are you doing?” Ranct asked.
“Processing the scene before we lose evidence,” Sam said. “What are you going to do?”
“Well, we can take your statement and maybe take some pictures,” Ranct said with a note of uncertainty in his voice. He shared a pained look with Hadley.
“Do you want us to help with the car?”
“Sure.” Sam brushed a sweat-dampened curl of black hair from her face. The building had security cameras, most of the shops across the lane had them, too. There were trees between the cameras and the parking lot, but she might catch something. “I need to call the insurance company about the rental they ordered for me.”
“Late for a big date?” Hadley joked.
“Late for a meeting with my boss.” She grimaced, but the police didn’t echo her expression. So much for fraternal sympathy. Stripping her gloves off, she handed her data pad to Ranct. “Here are my notes. Have fun. Let me know if you find anything.”
“Of course, you’re a citizen of the Commonwealth and the county. We’re here to protect you.” Ranct beamed like he expected a camera flash to go off.
“And threatening a federal agent is a very serious crime. It’s going to be hard to solve a murder if the only person trained for that in this district gets killed.” Sam retreated to the welcoming cool of the office as her stomach growled for lunch.
“Yes, ma’am . . .”
A few people in the downstairs office watched through tinted windows as Ranct and Hadley walked around the car, taking pictures. But for the most part, the halls and offices were empty, victims of budget cuts and consolidation. There was some sort of logic behind the consolidation, streamlining all government functions so that welfare and health care weren’t separate offices made sense. Firing 70 percent of the government workers in every district and relying on “aptitude awareness testing” made less sense.
Hopefully, they won’t think to replace me with those two out there.
“Sam?” Mac was waiting outside her office.
“Any good news?”
“Whoever left the note was smart enough not to touch the paper. I found cow DNA from leather gloves, but it was vat-grown and mass-produced.”
“So our vandal shops on a budget? Not super useful.” She pushed the door to the CBI office open, and Agent Edwin bounced to his feet.
“Agent Rose!” If Edwin had a tail, it would have wagged.
Down, boy!
“Agent Edwin, this is Agent Linsey MacKenzie, the doctor you requisitioned from the conference.”
“You can call me Eric,” Mac said. “Everyone but my grandma does.”
Sam rolled her eyes. He was never going to let her live down the fact that she told him he had a girly name when they first met.
“It’s Linsey Eric MacKenzie on my birth certificate.” He smirked, knowing he’d won the skirmish.
“Whatever. Mac, this is my junior agent, Dan Edwin. Don’t scare him.”
“Do I look scary?” It was a redundant question.
Mac didn’t look scary until he switched from fluff-minded coworker to Death Squad, archenemy of Captain United in all the comic books. She’d seen Mac handle a gun, and not just the splat gun like she carried, with liquid bullets that delivered tranquilizers that were absorbed through the skin. No, Mac knew how to handle the kind of guns that came with lead bullets and killed people. His skills had saved her life, but she still found them intimidating. But she wasn’t worried about Edwin.
That’s because he looked scary all the time. He was a towering paragon of mixed Irish-Viking heritage who could crush a man’s skull with his bare hands. But he was still more puppy than wolfhound. And, to Sam’s amusement, he was deathly terrified of bugs. Anything with more than four legs wigged him out.
“Did you call Director Loren to let him know I wasn’t going to make the meeting?” Sam asked, glossing past Mac’s question.
“Yes, ma’am,” Edwin said. “He asked you to send a report and call in this afternoon if you could.”
“Shouldn’t be hard, my schedule’s pretty free.” Especially if the rental agency didn’t get her a car soon. “Edwin, what are your plans this afternoon?”
“Monthly inspections down at the boatyard of Braddock Creek and, at some point this week, I need to drive down to check on our pirates.”
“You have pirates?” Mac looked at her with interest.
What was it with boys and pirates? “They’re not real pirates, they’re smugglers,” Sam said dryly. “They smell bad and have the common sense of a concussed swamp mouse.”
“We confirmed it was a salt marsh vole they had,” Edwin said. “Not a swamp mouse.”
Mac’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “You’re telling me this story.”
“It’s not a story.” Sam sighed in exasperation. “District 8 covers part of the National Seashore: several inlets, a lot of rivers, and more back roads than anyone wants to count. So we have seed smugglers. Anti-GMO protestors meet ships off the coast before they head to a major port, then try to bring them through the national parks. Most the time the seeds they bring are nonnative, and contaminated.”
“They’re crazy,” Edwin added with a happy smile. “They’ll show you buckets of moldy corn and tell you about how the revolution is going to take everyone by surprise.”
“Drug addicts?” Mac asked.
Sam nodded. “For the most part. They’re considered nonhostile, but since they’re squatting on national land, it’s still the bureau’s job to keep an eye on them. It’s easy enough work.”
“They’ll do anything for marshmallows,” Edwin said. “I bring a bag with me and check in to see what they’re up to every few weeks. It’s never led to any arrests or anything, but you never know.”
Sam’s phone rang, and she stepped into her office to answer it—leaving Mac and Edwin talking animatedly about pirates.
Boys.
“Agent Rose, how can I help you?” she asked, as the door clicked shut behind her.
“Ma’am, this is Rachel with the car-rental service. We have your vehicle ready to deliver to your address.”
“Great—thanks.”
Just as she hung up, Mac leaned into her office as he knocked on the door—he hadn’t waited for her to tell him to come in. “Hey, what’s the play here?”
“First off, you learn that you have to wait to be invited in after you knock.” Mac grinned, and Sam just rolled her eyes. “Second, the car’s on its way over.” She stepped back into the main office. “Edwin, if you’re not going to be back to the office by four, you can go home, but check in by phone or e-mail.”
“Will do, ma’am.”
“Drive safe,” Sam said as she shooed Mac out of the office.
“Cute kid.”
“He makes me feel old.”
“He’s, what, three years younger than you?”
“Two. And it feels like decades. I’m a bitter old woman.”
“You’ll survive.” He held out a folded piece of paper. “The note from your car.”
Sam unfolded it and frowned at the two words printed in all capitals:
NEEDS MUST
“This mean anything to you?”
“Not yet, but it will in time I’m sure. Still want to go to the lab?”
“Yes.”
Days like this she missed Detective Altin from Alabama. The burly old man had been a reliable source and helper even in her rookie days when she was trying to bounce back from a series of bad life choices.
To be fair, they hadn’t been my bad life choices, but I was the one who handled the fallout all the same. Someone like Altin had been such a rock to lean on.
District 8 was underfunded—at least in her mind—and understaffed. The way things were, she had exactly enough resources to handle a minor problem, singular. If she ever needed to handle a major murder investigation, she’d either need to beg them off the neighboring districts or rely on the police. Maybe she should bake Ranct and Hadley some cookies, see if she couldn’t buy some favors with chocolate chips. She had a feeling she was going to need backup sooner rather than later.