The Collective (4 page)

FBI agents and state police investigators combed the yard with flashlights. In the open garage, gloved techs were going over a red Mustang like it had just crash-landed in Area 51. Half a dozen grim-looking men and women clustered in the driveway, engaged in a conversation that might have been an argument or just speculation about the case. Yellow crime-scene tape had been run along the white picket fence in the front yard, across the driveway to a palm tree, then along into the backyard.

“What’s with the tape?” Josh asked. “Kind of overkill, right? Why not just do the front and back doors?”

“Maybe they found decent footprints and are going to make casts,” Voss said.

They got out of the car and walked to the driveway, stepping over the yellow tape. A slender, attractive Asian woman in an FBI shirt noticed them first. She wore her hair pulled back in a severe ponytail and, despite her beauty, her expression—even in the moment she caught her first glimpse of them—was equally severe. She tapped another FBI agent, drawing his attention to them, and as the man turned around, Voss stiffened.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Josh muttered.

Voss felt her lips curve in a feral smile. “This should be interesting.”

They had worked with Supervisory Special Agent Ed Turcotte once before, on the strangest and most terrifying case of their lives. She and Josh had been FBI agents themselves back then, doing ocean interdiction, dealing with gun
smugglers and drug runners, mostly. Turcotte headed one of the FBI’s counterterrorist squads and had tried stealing cases out from under them any number of times.

The last time, they had all nearly died.

But Voss and Josh didn’t work for the FBI anymore. Turcotte probably knew that, which would have explained the confusion on his face as they strode up the driveway toward him. The man had gone bald enough that he’d shaved what remained of his hair down to a half inch of gray-brown stubble, and he looked about a decade older.

Turcotte and the female FBI agent stepped away from the group to greet them.

“Agent Turcotte,” Voss said.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Turcotte replied with a scowl.

Voss produced her identification and Josh followed suit.

“Homeland Security ICD,” she said as she flashed the ID. “Didn’t anybody tell you we were coming?”

Turcotte gave a sardonic laugh. “I knew someone was coming, but nobody mentioned names. So you’re Homeland’s new Troubleshooters, huh?”

“Troubleshooters?” Josh asked.

The woman at Turcotte’s side cocked her head, studying them. “That’s what they’re calling you at the Bureau. To be honest, there might be some sarcasm involved. Some people are wondering if you’re going to ease troubles or cause them.”

Josh glanced at Voss. “I like her.”

“Me, too,” Voss said, before focusing on the woman again. “And probably a little bit of both, since you’re wondering.”

The woman raised her hands. “Hey, I said ‘some people.’ ”

“You did,” Josh admitted, his blue eyes glinting with mischief.

“Special Agent Nala Chang,” Turcotte broke in, “meet Agents Rachael Voss and Josh Hart, formerly FBI. Now, apparently, interagency cooperation coordinators for Homeland Security. Officially, our babysitters.”

“Though
Troubleshooters
is growing on me,” Josh said. “We’ll have to bring that up at the next meeting.”

“Good to meet you,” Chang said.

They shook hands all around.

“So, what’ve you got?” Voss asked.

Turcotte frowned. “Weren’t you briefed?”

“Only on the players involved and the general stuff—home invasion, four DOA, possible terrorist connections. They stuck us on a plane too fast to give us the details. Anyway, our job isn’t to solve the case, it’s to offer whatever help we can and to make sure all of you don’t get in one another’s way while
you’re
trying to,” Voss explained.

“And if we do? Get in one another’s way, I mean?” Chang asked, with what seemed like genuine curiosity.

Josh and Voss exchanged a glance, but it was Turcotte who answered.

“Then they have the power to assume command of the investigation.”

Chang stared at him. “You’re fucking kidding!”

Turcotte glared at her, clearly not liking the profanity from a subordinate agent.

“I’m liking her even more,” Josh said.

But Voss kept her gaze fixed on Turcotte. “Ironic, isn’t it, Ed?”

“That’s one word for it,” he sniffed, then glanced at Chang. “Nala, run them through it, will you? Take them into the house and show them around. Then they can meet the rest of the folks they’ll be babysitting.”

“You’re the boss,” Chang said, turning and starting up a brick path toward the house. She glanced back at Voss and Josh. “You two coming?”

The sequence of events was off. Turcotte ought to have introduced them first and then sent Chang to give them the tour. Obviously, he wanted to warn the other lead investigators that the ICD Troubleshooters had arrived and to be on their best behavior—which in Turcotte’s terms might mean not sharing all the information. Voss knew this, and it pissed her off, but she had expected as much the moment she’d spotted him. In the end, it wouldn’t matter. She doubted the others would be foolish enough to go along with him when they knew it might cost them control of the case.

Josh headed up the walk after Chang, but Voss took a
moment to scan the property and the front of the house, trying to look like she was taking in the whole scene when in fact she just wanted a better look at the other investigators talking to Turcotte. Two of them—an attractive young Latino and a graying white guy—wore radios and guns on their hips, marking them as state police. She figured the tall black guy in the tailored shirt must be the officer from U.S. Special Operations Command that she’d been told would be in attendance—though why U.S. SOCOM had anyone at all responding to a murder case on U.S. soil, she had no idea. Each branch of the armed forces had its own special operations command, handling counterterrorism, special recon, unconventional warfare, and psych-ops, among other, similarly sneaky, badass tasks. U.S. SOCOM was the unified command, giving orders all across the top, so nobody stepped on one another’s toes, but all of their operations took place on foreign soil.

The last guy was the one that bothered her most, though. He wore dark trousers and a red tie, hair perfectly in place despite the humidity, and looked like he never broke a sweat. His sleeves were turned up and she imagined he had left the jacket that went with his pants in the car, but he still looked like he would have been more at home in a corporate boardroom than at the site of a quadruple murder. He hung back from the others, listening to the conversation without contributing.

Voss caught up with Chang and Josh at the door and followed them inside.

“I assume I don’t have to tell you not to touch anything,” Chang said.

Josh gave her a look that said maybe he didn’t like her so much anymore. “We’ve only been away from the Bureau for five months.”

Chang paused in the foyer and smiled at him. “Yeah? How’s the new job?”

“Better benefits, fewer people to answer to, and vast power to stomp on assholes who put their egos before their jobs,” Josh said.

“Fun,” Chang replied.

Jesus
, Voss thought.
Is she flirting with him?
She wasn’t
jealous—or, at least, only a little. Josh was her best friend. They’d saved each other’s lives more than once and shared an intimacy that had never crossed the line into romance but sometimes danced right on the edge. Still, she was amazed at the effect Josh so often had on women other than his ex-wife. Yes, his eyes were startlingly blue and he had his gorgeous days, but there were better-looking guys.

Okay, maybe a little jealous
.

“Out of curiosity, Agent Chang, who’s the suit out there in the driveway?”

Chang glanced around the foyer as though to orient herself. “Norris. Not sure if that’s his first or last name. He’s a consultant from Black Pine.”

Voss was glad Chang didn’t see the expression on her face. She frowned in distaste and turned to see Josh mirror her reaction. Black Pine Worldwide was a private military security and consulting firm who contracted with the U.S. government, among other clients, to provide everything from standard security to bodyguards to Black Ops, if the whispers were true … and she had no doubt they were.

“Why is he here?” Josh asked.

Chang turned to face them. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and say he’s consulting.”

“For who?” Voss said. “Who hired him?”

Now Chang got it and she frowned as well. “Actually, I’m not sure. You’ll have to ask him.”

“I will.”

Chang shrugged. “Okay, on with the tour. You can go over the whole house yourselves if you want, but there was no sign of forced entry on the first floor. It all went down on the second floor, while they were sleeping. I’ll show you the parents’ room, but if you want to check out the twins’ bedroom, you’re on your own. I’ll give you the lowdown, but I’m not going in there again.”

“Twins?” Josh echoed, his face going slack.

“Three-year-old boys,” Chang said, all of the spark gone from her eyes. “You didn’t know?”

Voss felt sick. Her hands curled into fists as she started up the stairs.

Cait sat on the hood of the police car, legs dangling beneath her, slumped over and feeling petulant. Very few things made her crazier than being made to wait. Doctor’s office, the chair outside the principal’s office back in high school, stuck in traffic, the airport when her flight had been delayed. They were all hell, and this wasn’t much different.

A glance at her cell phone told her eleven o’clock was fast approaching. All over Lansdowne Street, reporters were doing their thing, prepping pre-recorded packages for which they would do live introductions, talking both about the party inside and the violence that had taken place outside. But only her crew, from Channel 7, had the whole thing on video. Already the teasers running during commercial breaks would be pimping the exclusive, and once the clock struck eleven, Cait would turn into a local media star.

She wondered if the station manager would fire her.

Police lights flashed, throwing splashes of ghostly blue across the buildings. EMTs had treated A-Train’s wife at the scene, temporarily immobilizing her hands and wrists and stopping the flow of blood from her mouth and nose before getting her on a gurney and hoisting her into the back of an ambulance with an oxygen mask over her face. The woman would be fine—as long as she could be cured of whatever illness made her want to marry someone like A-Train.

For his part, the washed-up athlete had also been treated by EMTs, but instead of an ambulance, he’d get to ride to the hospital in the back of a police car. He sat there now, twenty feet away, and Cait gave him a cheerful wave as she swung her feet like an impatient teen. A-Train mouthed abusive words through the glass, but she couldn’t hear him. She
hoped that the EMTs hadn’t given him any painkillers and that the police made him wait a long time indeed.

The cop who had been assigned to babysit Cait—a surprisingly cute guy in a uniform so clean he had to be a rookie—had asked her to sit tight while he checked with his superiors to find out how long she would be detained. The rest of the cops were gathering statements from witnesses or talking to EMTs, and her rookie interrupted one of the plain-clothes investigators, who glanced at her, snapped something at the rookie, then came marching over.

“Ms. McCandless, I’m pretty sure one of the other officers asked you to be patient,” the cop said. He was maybe forty, in need of a shave and a new workout regimen, but he still had a kind of brash charm.

She could have made a wisecrack, but thought better of it.

“Somebody did, Detective. But, honestly, it’s been so long I can’t remember which one. I’m starting to forget my own name over here,” she said, trying for wistful and probably just managing bored.

“We’re still going to need to talk to you—”

“I know, but I already gave a statement.” She pointed toward the Channel 7 van. “Over there? Those are my co-workers. Technically, I’m on the job right now, only I’m not doing my job. In maybe twelve minutes, Mike Duffy’s going to go live with this—hell, every station will be live at the top of the hour—and I’m over here, cooling my heels. The truth is, I’m probably in a shitload of trouble already, and I can’t afford to lose this job. So if you’re really thinking about arresting me, okay. But if not, could I please get back to work?”

The guy studied her grimly, sizing her up. He scratched his head, tracing furrows in his bristly salt-and-pepper hair, and she saw that he was not unkind, but also not convinced of her sincerity.

“How’d you get the drop on him?” the detective asked.

Cait blinked. “Huh?”

“Traynor,” the detective said, hooking a thumb toward the next car, where A-Train cradled his broken hand against his
chest. “I mean, I saw the video and I could hardly believe it, little slip of a thing like you. Okay, you can fight. Still, the guy saw you coming, so how did you know you had the drop on him?”