Katie stopped dead in the middle of the concourse, halfway to their boarding gate, and Ghoster went on three steps before he noticed. He turned on her, eyes flashing.
"Will you hurry up?" he hissed. "We're going to get stuck in coach!"
She didn't budge. "What was that you said? Earlier?" He only frowned, clearly confused, but she was mainly thinking out loud anyway. "There's software for recording notes locally."
"Yeah," Ghoster said, suddenly interested. "What are you thinking about?"
"LeClerc. He did all his work with voice recordings. Usually he just let Hathor monitor his interviews and went back in HaRRE afterward, but he couldn't have done that at Shadow Mountain."
Ghoster shook his head. "You're dangerous smart, girl. You're going to lose me my commission if you're not careful."
"What did you do?"
He shrugged. "I ghosted LeClerc back in July—just July—but in the process, yeah, I spotted him reviewing local notes. That's part of how I got hired on as a regular consultant. It's possible to prevent all recording on a facility, so that wouldn't work at Shadow Mountain now."
"But it did then," Katie said, moving again. She walked quickly, but as she went she said, "Hathor, connect me to Marshall. Thanks." He took the call immediately, and she wasted no time. "Marshall, I need you to check the victim's handheld for voicenote recordings and get those to me right away. It's probable he—"
"It is," Marshall said, cutting her off. "He probably did, but you're not the first one to think of that. Our tech says the handheld has been scrubbed clean."
"Dammit!" Her curse drew the attention of other travelers, but she didn't care. She didn't slow down, either. "Okay, ship it to my office in DC. Maybe our guys can recover something. I need the information that was on that handheld."
"Will do," Marshall said, sounding concerned. "You okay?"
"Too many dead ends," Katie said. "I'm not looking forward to the rest of my day." She knew he would want to know more, but she didn't want to talk about it. She left the question hanging in the air, and said, "Goodbye, Marshall."
She didn't say anything else as they boarded the plane and found their seats, and Ghoster had the good sense to keep quiet. Her mind raced, considering and rejecting possibilities, and as the plane began to taxi she rounded on Ghoster. He was waiting, a patient smile in his eyes.
"Yes?" he said.
"Could you get me his notes?"
Ghoster shrugged. "Not easily, no. When I erase something, it stays erased. Chances are good I could have recovered something from that handheld, but your boys will do just as a good a job. You're probably better off putting me to use elsewhere."
"Where's that?"
He grinned. "Wherever you are," he said. "Or, more precisely, whatever has your main interest. I know you want to see what was on his handheld, but in all likelihood the missing data is just information related to his investigation. The sort of stuff I was erasing weeks ago. I think you should be much more interested in the information someone has been destroying over the last five days."
Katie nodded. "Which is exactly what I asked you to do for me."
"And I'm congratulating you on your fine sense of priorities," he said smoothly. "You could have asked Marshall to send the handheld to the airport instead of to DC, we could have waited for it and bumped our flight to five tonight, and maybe you'd have gotten the information a couple hours sooner. If that had been a good move, though, I would have spoken up."
"So now his notes are going to DC, and we're going to Atlanta."
"And we're going to figure out what happened to your victim." He sank back in his chair. "You know, we make a pretty good team, you and me. Maybe I should join Ghost Targets."
She barked a laugh at that and shook her head. "I don't think you could handle the pay cut."
He frowned, but he didn't disagree. Instead he pulled out his handheld and searched for location history on LeClerc. Katie watched him work for a few minutes then turned to her own research.
She didn't have a good suspect. She wanted it to have something to do with Velez—every time she thought about that connection, it seemed so perfect—but she had no theory of the crime that connected them. That was why she wanted the notes so bad, she realized. She wanted to see what had passed between the victim and the criminals he'd been investigating.
In a way, it seemed almost appropriate that he'd ended up dead. Velez was a monster, but that place was full of them. The worst of the worst, the most dangerous people in the country, and LeClerc had walked right into the middle of them. He was a college professor with a knack for finding the truth, not a prison guard. From some of the stuff she'd read about Shadow Mountain, its staff spent months every year in training—survival and combat fitness as much as policy and procedure, and for a private firm to spend the money on that meant it was necessary. What had LeClerc stumbled into?
She shook her head and thought about the question she hadn't answered when she was talking to Marshall. She was on her way to Atlanta, to Shadow Mountain. There was no way that would go easy. She closed her eyes and called Phillips.
He answered on the second ring. "What up?"
"Phillips, I'm on my way back. I need to get into the facility. How are things going with our court order?"
He laughed at her. After a moment, he said, "What, you're serious? Katie, it's been like nine hours. Give it more like nine days. Stay home. I'll call you when I've got something."
"No good," she said. "I'm already in the air."
"Why? Nothing's changed."
A grim smile tugged at her lips. "That's where you're wrong. Our little interview with Velez is now a full-blown murder investigation."
He whistled softly. "When did that happen?"
"Half past midnight, give or take," she said. "Our victim was a private researcher hired to investigate Shadow Mountain back in June. Now he's dead on a pier in the Bronx, and every instinct I've got says it has something to do with that place."
"Oh, I'd be surprised if you're wrong," Phillips said, "but those instincts aren't going to get us past the front door. I've kept an ear to the ground, Katie, and Brandeis doesn't like anyone else messing with his business. Word's out, and he's no fan of ours."
"There's no way I'm letting his opinion get in the way of my investigation," she said. "When we were just fishing for information, sure. He had a claim, trying to protect the security of his facility. Now he's obstructing justice."
"You're right, Katie. Of course you're right. But I don't know how much good that'll do you."
"I'll take my chances," she said. "Meanwhile, I need you to try to track down that judge. Be the squeaky wheel, Phillips. You've had plenty of time to party—I need you to work for me now."
He laughed darkly, and she knew he was ready to defend the work he'd been doing, but she wasn't interested. "Let me know what you can get," she said. "I'm touching down in about an hour and heading straight to the facility. If you get something before then, send it my way."
She expected another objection. Instead he sighed. "I'm already at the courthouse," he said. "I'll set up camp here and send my car for you. See you soon."
She felt a smile tug at her lips even as Phillips cut the connection. It lasted three full heartbeats, then she rounded on Ghoster. "Can you get me in?"
"I don't think you realize the profit potential that company represents to me, Katie. I'm not going to do anything to jeopardize that." She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off with a finger on her lips. "I don't work for Ghost Targets yet."
She batted his hand down, but she didn't answer him. She sulked for ten minutes, but when he didn't come around she realized she had no real way to persuade him, either. She gave up on that, realizing her only option was to knock on the front door and hope for the best. When the plane landed in Atlanta, she still didn't have a better plan than that.
She and Ghoster walked in silence through the airport. She turned on him just as they got to the front doors, but he forestalled her renewed plea with a sad shake of his head. "I'm sorry, Katie. It wouldn't work. You and I are pursuing different objectives with regard to Shadow Mountain. I promise not to stand in your way, but I can't open any doors for you, either." He stepped out the door, and separate cars at the curb called both of their names. He nodded at that. "Same as Phillips, I'll let you know if I find anything you can use. Meantime, good luck."
With that, he left. Frozen in her frustration, she watched his car as it sped away, then finally followed him to the curb and sank into the luxurious interior of Phillips's private car. It had a route mapped to the courthouse on the far side of town. She sat for a moment in silence, ignoring the driver's inquisitive beeps, then finally said, "No. Driver, take me to the Shadow Mountain facility. Thanks."
She didn't try to work on the drive, didn't black the windows. She just watched the city roll by, watched the scenery flow. She felt frustrated, betrayed, and bitter, and she couldn't concentrate well enough to be productive. Instead she waited, anticipating the angry rejection she was about to receive.
She wasn't disappointed. Brandeis stood waiting by the gate as her car pulled to a stop, and he waved down the guard to approach her car himself. He made no show of asking for her ID. He waved her away, shooing her as he would a fly, and said, "Do you think I've forgotten you so soon? Or that I've forgotten our arrangement? I know you have no court order, and I know I'm not letting you into my facility."
"Things have changed," she said. "It's time to put our differences behind us. There's been a murder, and one of your inmates is implicated. I have to get in there—"
"No," he said flatly. "I've heard about this. Your murder took place in New York City, five days ago. There's no connection to Shadow Mountain—"
"It was Douglas LeClerc," she said. Brandeis tried to pretend he didn’t recognize the name, and Katie shook her head sharply. "I know all about him, Mr. Brandeis. I know about your arrangement, I know you were dissatisfied with his work, and I know you hired Ghoster to hide all that." He blinked in surprise, and she nodded. "I'm Ghost Targets, Brandeis. This is what we do."
"Regardless," he said, waving it away, "our security audit has identified Velez as an extreme risk, and we've put him in full isolation. That means no one talks to him—no one—even if you had your court order. You know I'd love to cooperate, lady, but even I can't circumvent the recommendations of our security audit."
"Good thing I'm not here to see Velez, then," she said, improvising. It clearly caught him off-guard.
"Huh?"
"I need to talk with Tortino. LeClerc was executed in Tortino's old territory, and in a way that looks exactly like his style. If Tortino's passing orders from within your facility—"
"He's not." The man answered quickly, but he seemed shaken.
Katie pressed her advantage. "That's what we need to know. It may well be your security audit came down hard on the wrong man." She leaned back in her seat and nodded toward the gate. "Open that up."
He was still ready to argue, but one of the gate guards interrupted them, rushing up for a whispered conference with Brandeis. The boss frowned at what he was hearing, then accepted the phone the guard had brought him and barked into it, "Your timing couldn't be any worse." The person on the other end cut him off, though, and after a full minute of silence Brandeis said meekly, "Of course. Of course. I'm sorry."
He glanced down and saw Katie watching, and storm clouds boiled in his eyes. He covered the mouthpiece and barked at the guard by his shoulder, "Let her in. Put Benson on her tail and make sure she doesn't talk to anyone but Tortino. Got it?" The guard nodded, and the wide gate rolled open as Brandeis turned his back on her and got back to his phone call. Before she pulled forward, she heard him apologizing again.
She stopped on the threshold to check her handheld, while she still could, but there was nothing new from Dimms or Phillips, Reed or Ghoster. She was in, though. She had gotten past the gate. Now she just had to figure out how to make the most of her opportunity.
Even as she put away her handheld and stepped forward, Benson came to get her. It was the same guard who'd chased her into Ghoster's conference call and gotten called down for it. The same one who had shown up at her hotel room to ask her for a date. He didn't look shy now, dressed in the bulletproof black uniform of the private prison's warden. He looked as solid and deadly as the gun in his hands. She almost felt like she had imagined the encounter at her hotel.
She searched his eyes. She tucked her hair behind one ear and straightened her shoulders. "I need to see Tortino."
He met her eyes for a heartbeat and ducked his head in a formal nod, but she saw the barest flutter of a wink in one eye. Then he turned away and stalked off as though he wanted nothing to do with her.
She followed close on his heels. The doors opened for them as they went, slamming heavily shut in their wake. They hurried down the long hall, and Katie peeked through transparent doors into the visitation rooms as she passed them. She half expected a repeat of her last visit, with Tortino crammed into the steel mesh cage in the room at the end of the row, but he still wasn't considered as dangerous. She was almost past the room, halfway down the hall, but Benson stopped her just before the door in the far wall swing open and a guard nodded Tortino in.
She looked a question at her escort, and without moving his hands from his grip on the rifle and his waist, he raised one finger. Just a minute. There was no kindness in his expression, no conspiracy anywhere but that one tiny gesture. Katie licked her lips, nodded, and slipped into the interrogation room.
The only divider separating her from Tortino was a table that cut the room in half. He could have stepped up onto it even with his shackles on, but he didn't bother. He sauntered up to the table and took a seat, perfectly at ease. When Katie remained standing, he gestured to the place in front of him.
"Please," he said, the picture of graciousness. "Make yourself comfortable."
"I'm comfortable," she said, reading his face. "What do you know about LeClerc?"
"Le-who?"
"Douglas LeClerc. Yea high, shock of brown hair, came around here a couple months back asking questions?"
"Oh yeah," Tortino said with a big grin. "The little smartass."
"Nice," she said.
He shrugged. "I remember the guy. What of him?"
"He's dead. On a pier in your old stomping grounds. Looks like your work, really."
"I doubt that," Tortino said. "Nobody does a kill the way I do it. You'd hardly recognize the man once I was done."
"That's fascinating," Katie said drily. "But I didn't think it was anything like a face-to-face job. LeClerc was killed two days ago. You were sitting....." She frowned. She nodded. "You were sitting right here, weren't you? You were talking to...."
"Stevie. My mother's nephew," Tortino said. "Good kid."
"And what were you talking about?"
"Oh, this and that. Family business. Who's coming by for Thanksgiving."
Katie didn't smile. "Just how much business can you get done in here? They monitor every word you say. I know that much."
He chortled. "These guys? They're morons." He looked right at the door, at Benson listening in from his place in the hall. "Yeah, I'm talking about you. Ya moron!" He laughed again, shaking his head. "Oh, I'm gonna catch hell for that."
Katie smiled this time, sharing in his fun. "Are they really that bad?" He nodded, still laughing, and she nodded, too. "Huh. I bet you could get away with murder, with guys like that as your keepers."
His eyes narrowed, but after a heartbeat he shrugged. "Yeah, actually. This place, it don't work. Public prison was interesting, being on so many people's handhelds all the damn time, but I couldn't get away with anything. You know the DA back there hired a team to build a special program just to monitor my conversations?" He glowed, proud of himself for meriting such effort. "Hell of a good program, too. Must've had a ton of other little smartasses working night and day. Here?" He laughed. "They let the guards listen in, instead of Hathor, and these guards are all dumb as bricks."
"How much can you do, though? You've got such limited communication—"
"This place wasn't meant to house my kind of criminal. Long as I don't break certain rules, they can't cut me off completely. As long as I've got cousins and nephews dropping by to say hi...." He shrugged. "I can do whatever you want. You need somebody taken care of?"
"You can do that? Just like that, you could have somebody killed?" He didn't say a word, just held her eyes, but that was answer enough. She realized it was a genuine offer, too, not just more bravado.
"What about the smartass?" she said. "Could you get at him?"
"Sure. Yeah. But why would I want to?"
She realized with a shock that she had an answer for that. For the first time since she'd come here, she had a motive. She hid her surprise, though. "He was here to fix the system you're so casually taking advantage of. You knew that, right? Just like the DA's programmers back in the city. Maybe you saw yourself losing your freedom, figured you'd be better off with the status quo."
"Nah," Tortino said, shaking his head. "I see where you're coming from, but that's not how it was. Smartass was a nice guy. Totally out of his depth, let me tell you, but he was no kind of threat to me. I'd do that Brandeis if I could, but I got no reason to kill his pet smartasses."
"Any idea who would?" Katie asked, trying to slip the question in casually. His eyes narrowed. Once again he answered anyway, this time with a slow nod. "Two or three guys in here might feel that way. Like you said. Me, I can get by, but there's fellas in here who had a lot to lose. Ferguson, Hently, maybe Goff—"
"Velez?" Katie said, with some difficulty restraining her emotion. "Is Jesus Velez one of those?"
He laughed. "You're kidding me, right? Little V? He's just another smartass, ain't he? Those two were best friends from day one."
She realized her jaw was hanging open when he pointed and laughed. She snapped her mouth shut with a startlingly loud click, but she couldn't shake her surprise. She felt like she knew LeClerc. She'd seen him in action, and she just couldn't imagine him buddying up to someone like Velez. Then again, Martin had at one time, hadn't he? She shook her head.
"I'm going to need a list of those names," she said. "Better yet, can I talk to them now?" That last question was for Benson. She turned, craning to see out the door behind her, but the hall was empty. She turned back to Tortino. "When did he leave?"
"Who, your escort? Couple minutes ago." Katie's eyes fell to the table, her mind racing. Her heart started beating faster, and Tortino must have seen it. He grinned. "You scared?"
A smile played across her face. "Not even a little bit." She glanced back one more time, then jumped up onto the table in a quick motion. It was Tortino's chance to stare, jaw hanging open, but Katie ignored it. She jumped down off the table on his side of the room, crossed to the door onto the holding cells, and banged on it loudly. The inside guard—someone she hadn't seen before—pushed off from his place leaning against the wall and looked into the room.
"What?" His voice came clearly through the intercom mounted by the door, and Katie answered him with her most authoritative tone.
"I'm done with this guy," she said, searching her memory for the names Tortino had given her. "I need to talk with Ferguson and Hently, too. See if you can round them up." Then, almost as an afterthought, "Oh, and bring me Velez while I'm waiting."
The guard shook his head. "Velez is special priority. They'd have my ass if I put him in an open interrogation room like this."
"Fine," Katie said, making a show of her frustration. "I can move. Bring him to room one." She pointed down the hall, toward the room where she'd met with Velez the day before, but the guard still seemed uncertain.
"I don't think they want anyone talking with Velez—"
"You know what," she snapped. "I'll have your ass if you don't get him into the interrogation room for me. This is a federal matter, and that man is my collar. Bring him to me."
It almost worked. She had him intimidated, but he had his training. He stepped back from the door and reached up to the modified headset on his ear. "Mr. Brandeis? It's Rico, on the floor." The surprise on his face told Katie the man had gotten a strong response from Mr. Brandeis, and immediately her hopes sank. Before it showed on her face, though, the guard started shaking his head. "Okay. Okay, sir. I'm sorry. I'll handle it. Yes sir. Yes. Right." He was nodding now, frantically, and seconds later he shut off his headset and met Katie's eyes, through the clear door.
"Room one," he said sternly. "And I'm going to be watching you." He raised his voice. "Tortino! On your feet! Your time is up."
Katie turned her back on the door, and was surprised to see a glint of admiration in the mobster's eye as he passed her. "You got lucky, girl," he said softly. "Next time you need something in here, you just ask me. I can take care of you."
She dismissed him with a glance, then cleared the table with two quick steps and left the room as soon as the other door was closed behind her.
The hall was still empty, but she was painfully aware of the cameras staring down at her. She made her way to the far end of the hall, but the door to her interrogation room was locked. Benson had opened it for her before, but there was no hope he'd do that again. Her eyes were fixed on the other end of the hall, where he would come from. She didn't know where he'd gone, but he had been there to see Brandeis's outburst by the gates. Rico apparently hadn't been warned about her, but Benson would come down like a hammer.
She realized she was huddled against the wall, making herself as small as possible, her every muscle tense as she watched for Benson to come back. She grunted at the realization, almost as though she'd been punched in the stomach. She was a federal agent, investigating a serious crime. She shouldn't be reduced to skulking around, hiding from the eyes of the watchmen. There was something seriously wrong with this place.
She pushed herself away from the wall, determined to go have it out with Brandeis, when she heard the tock of the door behind her coming unlocked. In an instant, her resolve evaporated. She pulled the door open just wide enough to slip through, and then disappeared from sight.
Rico was standing outside the other door with Velez already in his steel cage. Rico looked confused as he watched Katie cross the room, and he called to her through the intercom. "What's going on? Where's your escort?"
"He got called away," Katie said. "It's okay. I can take care of it."
Rico nodded slowly. "Something's going on," he said. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Velez scowled. Katie and Rico both saw it, and Rico shut his mouth.
That told Katie how she'd gotten away with it, though. Whomever it was that had called Brandeis out by the gate was apparently tying him up. She remembered his reaction on the phone, and realized he'd passed that humiliation on to the guardsman who had interrupted him earlier. She'd gotten to see it twice. She'd profited from it both times, too.
All that passed through her thoughts without a hint of it showing on her face. She took a step forward, to arm's length from Velez's cage, and nodded to Rico. "I can handle him from here on out. Thanks for your help."
Rico stepped back, then, out of sight, but she remembered his promise to monitor her interrogation. It didn't matter. She had the opportunity she needed right now.
For a moment, that opportunity paralyzed her. She'd come here, in the first place, to ask this man about the datafloods that had threatened Hathor, and she'd been dragged out with that unfinished. Part of her still wanted to pursue those questions, to seize these precious moments and find out whatever she could from Velez. She had a hard time believing Brandeis would ever let her in here again, court order or no.
But now she had another reason to be here, and that was her case. Reed and Ghoster and Dimms all assured her the datafloods were taken care of. That case was closed. Now she was investigating a murder, and she could well be LeClerc's only opportunity to get justice.
She swallowed her curiosity and decided to do her job. She met Velez's eyes. "LeClerc is dead."
Instantly he dropped his gaze, not avoiding her eyes but genuinely upset. He took a breath, and then said, "Oh." She waited, and after a moment he said, "How?"
She hadn't intended to tell him that, but everything in his reaction confirmed what Tortino had said. Hard as it was to believe, it seemed like they'd been friends. "Executed," she said, quietly. "It's been made to look like a mafia hit. I just came here from interrogating Tortino—"
"Tortino didn't do it," Velez said, his eyes fixed on something far away. "I can see why that would seem like a good guess, but it wasn't him. He's too busy with other endeavors."
"And you?" Katie said. "What are you busy with?"
"I'm busy thinking," Velez said, finally meeting her eyes again. "I'm busy considering my past deeds, and imagining a more fruitful future. I'm busy making friends, not killing them."
"If you're half as good at that..." Katie said, unable to restrain herself, and Velez gave her a sarcastic smile in answer.
"You're looking in the wrong places, Katie Pratt. LeClerc may have made enemies here, but it wasn't with the inmates. He was here to help us."
"He was hired by Brandeis to keep this place licensed," she said. "He was here to figure out what had to be done to keep the inmates...inmates. He was here to figure out how to close all the gaps that let them carry on their lives of crime."
"Umm...no," Velez said, with a little shake of his head. "No. Maybe that's why they brought him here. Maybe. But when he met us, when he realized what life was like in here, he felt nothing but compassion. Once they realized he wasn't really working for them anymore, then they brought in somebody to do what you're talking about, and I'd give a small fortune to know who they got."
The corner of Katie's mouth quirked up in a smile. "Why?"
"No reason." He sighed. "That wasn't LeClerc's work, though, and everyone in here would say the same. I hope you don't have all your eggs in that basket." His eyes flicked past her shoulder, and clouded with something that looked like regret. "I'm afraid our time together has come to an end."
She knew better than to let him distract her, but in that moment her fear of Brandeis outweighed her fear of Velez. She turned her back on him and found Benson staring at her through the clear door. The look in his eyes was perfect frustration. He glanced to his right, and she knew someone was barking in his headset.
She felt her heart begin to race, and this time it was fear. She took a step back, closer to Velez, and the villain whispered in her ear, "Be brave, Katie Pratt. You've survived far worse than this."
She felt a flash of gratitude at his comfort, and it took a heartbeat before it flashed into perfect confusion. Then Benson jerked the door open and came to get her.