04 - Shock and Awesome (47 page)

 
   
"We already had Justin, Ken Moody, whatever his name is, under arrest. Your job was to foil a fraud and you did. You did just fine," Solomon assured me.

 
   
"We got the wrong guy."

 
   
"We've got Ben Rafferty now."

 
   
"Not his accomplice."

 
   
Solomon shrugged. "Not yet, not today. Maybe tomorrow. We underestimated Ben. It didn't occur to any of us that the scope of this operation involved a partner. You uncovered that."

 
   
"Who do you think Madeleine is to him anyway? His wife? Girlfriend?" I mused. Ick. I hoped she wasn't either. I'd feel bad about kissing him if that were the case.

 
   
"Could be. Could be a friend or relative, or just someone in it for the money, just like Ben... What is it?"

 
   
I stopped listening the moment Solomon mused on who Madeleine really was and my mind reeled. "You know, we could find out if they are related. When I went to Million Matches, the kitchen wasn’t cleaned. Maybe Madeleine used a mug or something. There might be DNA. Oh my God! At my house too! I mean the Chilton house. Ben sipped a glass of water and I put it in the kitchen to wash, and you know, I never got around to it. We could have his DNA too. That's better than a fingerprint! Oh! We have fingerprints too! Oh shit! The crime scene investigators got to the agency just as I left."

 
   
"How long ago?"

 
   
"Maybe an hour." Solomon was on the phone in a flash. "Who're you texting?" I asked.

 
   
"Your ex. He needs to preserve that evidence, get it bagged and tagged and sent to the lab."

 
   
"Who's the rapper now?"

 
   
The corner of Solomon's mouth edged upwards and his chest heaved — not that I was looking — like he wanted to laugh. "Let me know what happens with the laptop," he said.

 
   
"Where are you going?"

 
   
"I was going to MPD. Now I'm heading to Chilton to get that glass. Fingerprints and DNA could crack Ben Rafferty's real identity. You did good."

 
   
I reached for my lip gloss and pocket mirror. "I know."

 
   
The time it took for Lucas to investigate the computer gave me more time for contemplation, and not one bit of it was about Solomon's broad, strong chest. Well, those few seconds were all about his physique, but mostly I thought about Ben and all the problems he caused. Money, gems, and other things stolen. Financial loss, shattered memories, and sentimental pain.

 
   
I wondered which was worse and concluded the loss of all those stolen items probably meant different things to different people. That got me to thinking about all the other intangible things Ben was messing with. The women he preyed on may have had affection for him, which would have, no doubt, eroded their confidence in themselves, once they knew they had been played. I considered all the emotional fallout from that. Did Ben leave a string of broken hearts across the country? Internationally? Were these women loath to trust another man? I wondered how he slept at night. Considering that he had great skin, no bags under his eyes, and made this his career, I had to conclude, he slept pretty damn well.

 
   
Really, I had to consider myself very lucky I didn't lose a single thing to him. Except I liked him, and that bugged me. He was sweet, funny, and charming. Not all of that could have been an act. He was really handsome too; that definitely was no act.

 
   
One thing was for certain: I would drive myself mad trying to work Ben Rafferty out, and my energies were better served elsewhere. Like catching other criminals and online shopping. I just hoped he confessed now he was in handcuffs.

 
   
All the same, my thoughts drifted back to Ben and the strange familiarity that kept troubling me over and over. I was sure I had seen him somewhere before. Somewhere recently. If only I could figure out where I knew him from, I might get to Madeleine, then we'd get three criminals for the price of one. MPD would love the Solomon Agency for that. Or not... It really depended on their caseload and how much they loved paperwork.

 
   
From my drawer I grabbed my pad of paper and pulled a pen from the mug on my desk. I wrote BEN RAFFERTY at the top and followed his name with a big, fat question mark. Where were all the places I might have seen him before? TV? Newspaper? Magazine? I wrote the three on the pad and sub-headed that list "Not in person". I drew a line down the middle of the pad and added another sub-heading to the right side. "In person." So where could I have seen him? The store? Grocery shopping?

 
   
After I scrawled a few ideas, I tossed my pen on the pad. It was impossible! If it were somewhere public, that would be no help at all. It wouldn't even necessarily pinpoint an area where I could go look. It was not only a waste of time, but a dead end. I thought about the night I saw him outside the Chilton house. I didn't recognize him straight off then. I could have seen Ben anywhere.

 
   
Maybe if I went to MPD and actually looked at him? Something might jog my memory. Only I was stuck, waiting on Lucas...

 
   
"Lucas?" I called as I swiveled in my chair. "How's it going?"

 
   
"Good. I'm done. This Madeleine is not as tech-savvy as she might think, which is good news for us. She's good, but I retrieved all the files. Want to take a look?"

 
   
"You bet."

 
   
Lucas turned the laptop towards me as I rounded his desk. "Here's a list of the deleted files," he told me.

 
   
"You have the files too?" Lucas gave me the “Are you stupid?” look and clicked another button, opening a folder. There were only a dozen files, including Ben's, although that one I knew about. There were several women, with a couple of names I recognized, so I figured the rest must be on the agency's books too. There was a file with my fake name on it. The last file was named "Madeleine."

 
   
"Have you looked through the files?"

 
   
"Yeah." Lucas nodded. "They're all intact even though she tried to load a virus to corrupt everything. It was pretty amateur." Lucas pointed at the screen. "Most of these are agency profiles, including details of dates and follow-up notes entered by Helen
Callery
. That includes yours and Ben's. Madeleine's file is in employment records."

 
   
"Do we have their photos?"

 
   
"No. I figure they didn't scan them."

 
   
"That's probably why Madeleine went through the office files. I wondered why she would start a fire. Maybe it was too risky to take them. I bet when we audit them, we'll find that it's only these files that are missing." I made a circular movement with my hand while pointing at the digital icons.

 
   
"I wouldn't be surprised if Madeleine made copies of every file in this laptop before she tried corrupting it," said Lucas. "It would make sense if they wanted to spend more time targeting clients."

 
   
"That's not good news. She might keep that information to use in the future."

 
   
"I'll be able to tell you soon enough if she copied them."

 
   
"Can you tell me while I'm on the move? I have my cell."

 
   
Lucas glanced up and shrugged. "No problem. Where are you going?"

 
   
"MPD. I want to take another look at Ben. I know him from somewhere, I just don't know where."

 
   
"Are you sure?"

 
   
"Not a hundred percent, but close as."

 
   
"Do Solomon and Detective Maddox know?"

 
   
"Not yet. I've stuffed up enough on this case. When I know something, I'll tell them. Besides, Maddox already has
Ben
in custody, so I'm not sure it's even all that relevant."

 
   
"If you think it's relevant, maybe it is." Lucas turned to the screen, striking keys and losing himself in the familiar “tap
tap
tap
” of his keyboard.

 
   
I smiled at the back of his head. "When did you get so wise?"

 
   
He looked up. "Fooled ya," he said, grinning.

 
   
I pulled up across the street from MPD, turning off the engine just as my cell phone started to ring. I had a mind to ignore it, but good sense told me to answer it. Good sense served me right. Funny, I usually had a good time when I ignored it too.

 
   
"Boss," I said, on answering.

 
   
"Employee," said Solomon. I held the phone away from my ear and stuck my tongue out at it. "I have the glass. I'm going to take it into MPD. The CSI's collected a few items from the dating agency for comparison."

 
   
"It'll take them forever to get DNA and prints."

 
   
"They probably already got them when Rafferty got booked," Solomon replied, sounding like he couldn’t care less. "This is just backup, assuming his accomplice may have the abilities to hack into MPD's systems."

 
   
"You think so? Lucas said the virus Madeleine uploaded was amateur."

 
   
"Lucas thinks so. Plus, your definition of amateur compared to Lucas's are worlds apart," he reminded me.

 
   
"Isn't Lucas reaching?"

 
   
"Maybe, but I'd rather take precautions. I'll take the glass to a friend of mine who works in forensics. I hope Maddox will give me something from the dating agency, a cup or mug, or whatever they find that I can get tested too."

 
   
"You think he'll just give you evidence?"

 
   
"Sure. It means he can skip the over-worked queue for their crime lab and get the results faster. Plus, it's just backup information; we have enough samples from what I can guess. My contact has a
bonafide
lab but whatever Maddox takes to court, he can get from his own lab later. We'll back it up as consulting detectives."

 
   
"I'm at MPD now. You want me to run it by him?"

 
   
"No. Wait for me there. I'll be there in fifteen."

 
   
"Awesome," I said, my voice dry. I really, really didn't enjoy the idea of being stuck in the same room as Maddox and Solomon. Again. The only thing that could make it worse would be stuck in the same room as my ex-boyfriend, ex-lover, and all three of my brothers. The icing on the cake would be if Delgado, my potential future brother-in-law turned up for the floorshow. On that cheery thought, I decided there was no time like the present to hightail it over there and get the whole thing over with.