Until It's You (10 page)

She arrived at Anna's office. The door was shut, so Kristina knocked. Footsteps shuffled on the other side, then the knob turned and door swung open.

The person who had opened the door was Agent Rachel Carter. She wore a black business suit that might as well have been government issued. Her face with its high cheekbones were managing to look both amused and annoyed at the same time.

“I’m loving the hair change Kristina,” she said. “Very trendy.”

“Agent Carter,” Kristina said grudgingly. “This is a surprise.”

“Did you forget about me?” She stepped aside and motioned for Kristina to come into the office. Kristina stayed put. “I feel like you forgot about me.”

Kristina shrugged. “I just have nothing to report to you.”

“You dyed your hair. And did your face up.”

“Thanks for noticing.”

“And you have nothing to report? Just happened to need a change?”

Kristina straightened up as tall as she could, still a few inches shorter than the agent.

“I don’t work for you," she said. "In case that wasn't clear. When I’m able to do the
favor
for you that you asked me to do, I will. Right now I'm working.”

Carter stared at her for a few seconds then smiled. “So we should continue this in my office?” she said. "Since apparently we can't be civil."

“Excuse me?”

“Or I can cuff you. Your call. But my guess is you want to avoid a charade as much as I do.”

Anna shot up from her seat and appeared to Carter's right. “You can’t just waltz in here and arrest this firm’s lead investigator over some trumped up bullshit!”

Carter’s head snapped to her right to address Anna. “You and I know I could have her on obstruction of justice for at least a few hours. If you really want to go through that bullshit, as you said, then I will. But it would be a lot easier if Kristina just played nice.” She turned back to face Kristina, her green eyes flashing. “Wouldn’t it, Kristina?”

Kristina hesitated, then looked around. A dozen secretaries and paralegals were staring at them. They were making a scene.

She closed her eyes. Agent Carter had appeared in her life just twice, but that was enough for her to know that she meant business. At the very least, giving the appearance of cooperation was going to do better for her than trying to take a stand behind the law.

“It’s okay Anna,” she said, making eye contact meaningfully with her friend. “I’ll go.” She turned to Carter. “If you try and lock me up, you had better know this firm will be on your ass like you didn’t know was possible.”

Carter gestured toward the elevator. “I’m quaking in my boots.”

Kristina turned to Anna. "If I don't call you within two hours, you know where to find me."

Anna nodded, her jaw set. Swallowing hard, Kristina turned to Carter and led the way to the elevators.

***

It took Roy an hour to get settled up with a car.

Mark had needed some time to cool down from his lost sale, but once they got talking he was able to come through. It cost Roy a little bit in terms of money and a little bit in terms of time, but he managed to squeeze out an anonymous Chevy Sprint that would look innocent to any cop who ran the plate number. Job done. Now he had the freedom only a car could provide. The side deal he'd had to do had taken a little longer still, but he and Mark both still had a few friends he could count on. 

With that all done, Roy needed to lock down his next steps. He could run away from the problems with the boss and everything else. Take his stack and try again somewhere else. Survive. It would make his contingency unnecessary, which would save him a lot of money.

It wouldn’t be easy, but there were worse things in life than not being easy. Being dead, in fact, was easy. Some people even said dying was usually easy. But not life. Not the people he knew. People like Tatum, maybe, would say shit like that. Though he didn’t know if Tatum had been born rich. And even then. Rich people found shit to worry about eventually. Just needed to watch some streams to see that.

Maybe people hooked on pharms thought life was easy. He wouldn’t know. Alcoholics definitely didn't, he knew that.

So yeah, he could run. Or he could stay and take care of what he’d started. Collect the money that drew him to the job in the first place, even with all the red flags. Hold his head up.

He ran his hand over the stubble on his face. When you put it like that, the decision had just about been made already, hadn’t it?

He was in the parking lot of a Mariano’s Super Market, sitting in the driver’s seat of his car. He would have to pull out pretty soon if he wanted to avoid suspicion. People hated seeing drivers just sitting in their car when they came back to put their groceries away. Always assumed the worst. People tended to assume the worst in this city if they saw anyone who didn't look like they knew exactly what they were going to do next.

So he had to leave. But where to? Even if he wanted to solve this, there weren’t a lot of obvious answers.

He leaned back in the car seat and watched people filter in and out of the market.

It was amusing to watch how many of them licked their lips as they walked in or came out. Another case of aeros you couldn’t avoid.

The streams claimed the government made grocery stores only able to pump appetite aeros at the doors, so people weren’t conned into buying too many groceries as they walked the aisles. He’d always thought that was ridiculous. Grocery stores weren’t restaurants or bakeries or bars. If people were going to go in, it was because they needed something. There were certain places you just had to go. Like putting laxative aeros around a toilet.

His eyes opened wide. Maybe he had an idea. He bit his lip and pulled out his new, cheap plastic comm and began pecking at the slender device. A quick search brought up Kristina Andersen’s Facebook page. She hadn’t hidden her friends.

A little cross-referencing and he could make a good guess at her closest work pal. The most likely person for her to contact even from hiding. It wasn’t much, but it was a chance. Once he had a visual for that person, he could wait for her.

He leaned back into the park bench and got to work on the comm. Twenty minutes later, he had his guess. He put the comm down, then pulled the car out of its spot and made for River North. Time to stake out the Dunn-Brantley building.

Kristina sat across from Agent Carter at her desk. The office was small, maybe twelve by nine feet. Smaller than her office, even, and with no windows. It was painted a drab, government-building gray, with an American flag by the door providing the only color in the room. The fluorescent lights were nearly white, shining down from the drop ceiling. It felt institutional. So much so, she found herself almost feeling sad for Agent Carter.

Almost.

She clenched and unclenched her fist as she waited. Whenever the federal agent decided to break her silence, it would be the first time she’d spoken since they’d entered the building. No way could Kristina talk first. That would make her seem nervous.

Moments ticked by while she watched Carter organize some papers in a file and seemingly cross-check them against information on her tablet. She hadn’t been cuffed to the chair, of course, but she didn’t dare to move too much. This situation was balanced on a knife’s edge.

“So,” Agent Carter said finally, straightening one last stack of papers and setting them inside. “Here we are.”

Kristina had to keep herself from smiling. That battle, at least, she had won. “I agree," she said, motioning to the walls. "We
are
here.”

Carter smiled indulgently. Something about the movement somehow increased the tension in the air. “You seem upset, Kristina.”

“More like confused. I haven’t even been told why I’m here.”

Carter nodded and shuffled the papers on her desk. Kristina watched patiently. How much did Carter know, anyway?

“Of course,” Carter said finally. “And you ought to know, right?”

“Yes, I have a right to know.”

Carter's green eyed flashed, and she leaned forward on her desk. “Okay. You’re here because you’re a liar, and I’m trying to be nice about it because I really want you to help me.”

Kristina’s spine straightened, her face hot. “A liar?” she snapped. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about you finding Tatum. And not informing him of my request, or letting me know. Now you’re still lying.” Her face screwed up in a sneer. “Stop, so I can help you.”

Kristina did her best to steady herself. If she lost it with a federal agent, she was going to have real issues. “If and when I see Landon," she said slowly, "there’s no guarantee he’ll even want to talk to you unless you charge him. I don't see what you're playing at, acting like I'm the only thing holding you back from whatever it is you're even investigating.”

“I think he might want to talk when you tell him what I want to talk about.”

“Again," Kristina said, trying not to roll her eyes. "What is that?”

“An investigation into recent activities at Atlas Pharmaceuticals.” She smiled. “Ring a bell?”

Kristina resisted the urge to lean forward. Suddenly, this drab office had just gotten a whole lot more lively. “It’s a major competitor of his company. What about it?”

“The FBI is investigating what appears to be more than the usual corporate espionage going on between the two companies.”

Kristina licked her lips. This
was
something Landon would want to know about. “Is that kind of thing usually the FBI’s business?”

“It is when national security is involved. I got an order from higher than you could imagine to look into this on the hush."

"I can imagine pretty high up."

"You don't know enough about how the government works to imagine this high up."

Kristina blinked. Didn't Landon say he knew a senator? She would have to catch up on that later. There was no point in having a fight about how much she knew about the government. “Okay, so you’re investigating this corporate espionage. I’m listening.”

Carter smiled, revealing bright white teeth. “There was a shipment intended for the Department of Defense that appears to have been delayed a day.”

Kristina took a deep breath. Why was Carter telling her this? “A day? Is that a big deal?”

“For a shipment like this, absolutely.”

“Okay, go on. When was the shipment?”

“It was sent five weeks ago. Arrived, four days later...and it should have been three.”

Of course. “Why do you need to talk to Landon about it?”

Carter paused. “Am I just telling you a story or are you going to ask Tatum about this when you see him?”

Kristina stared Carter down. Seconds ticked by, even without a clock in the room. “You’re telling me a story," she said. "If I see him, I might tell it again."

Carter threw her hands up. "What is it with you and this bullshit?"

"We all have bullshit," Kristina said, her heart pounding. She was bluffing here, but she couldn't let herself get caught in a lie. "Can I go?"

Carter sighed, shook her head. “We have a shipping document signed by Tatum himself.”

“You said it never arrived,” Kristina said, relieved.

“Right. Not at the DoD.”

“So it arrived at Atlas?”

“No. Not that simple. But we have it in our system, confirming shipment. Tatum Pharmaceuticals doesn’t.”

Kristina leaned forward. “I’m not following.”

“We received the records we requested from the company and they don't have a matching entry for the shipping doc we have. Either someone hacked into Tatum’s system and deleted it, or someone at the company deleted it and won't admit to doing so."

“Can't you just talk to whoever handles that kind of thing for them? I'm sure he doesn't do this all by himself."

Carter shook her head. “The people I have talked to his at his company say it requires his authorization to modify shipping records on shipments as sensitive as the one we’re talking about. This is high-up stuff.”

Kristina pressed her lips together. Did Landon know about all this? If he didn't, he would certainly want to. There was no way an FBI agent would concoct a whole story like this just to ring him up on something else.

On the other hand, this could be a little bit of the truth to get at him for something even bigger. Small potatoes and all that. The government was, after all, an option for the question of who was screwing him.

“Who have you been in contact with at Tatum Pharm?” Kristina asked.

Carter bit her lip, then nodded. “So you’re interested,” she said.

"I'm still just gathering information, obviously."

Carter leaned back at her desk, her eyes alive. A smile flashed on her face suddenly, all the way from her large white teeth to those stark Slavic cheekbones. She really could have been a model if she weren't an FBI agent.

“Of course,” Carter said sweetly. “We're just talking here, right?”

***

Anna stormed across the lobby of the Dunn-Brantley building with a scowl. Her pulse pounded in her veins as she walked. How dare Carter disrespect her like that?

She needed to go for a walk to cool down before she bit someone's head off. Someone other than that federal agent. Walk in there like she was above the law. Unbelievable.

She came to the rotating glass door and pushed through to the outside before immediately turning toward the parking garage.

Wait.

Who was that?

He was leaning against a granite pillar, wearing a white canvas hat and huge wraparound sunglasses. But that rotund, squat frame. She knew that frame.

Some of the anger she’d been feeling drained out of her.

It was Tom.

Tom Andersen.

Intelligent as he was, he didn’t have his sister’s talent for disguises. He froze when he saw her and then went back to his pose, motioning her over like some street pharm pusher on a playground. Or a kid acting like a street pharm pusher on a playground, more like. Totally ridiculous.

Still, though, she scanned the area quickly. Seeing nothing suspicious, she walked over.               

“Where have you been?” Anna said, once she was close.

The dark circles under his eyes told her Tom hadn’t slept in a long time. He glanced around furtively.

“Have you seen Kristina?” he asked, his voice hushed. “Where can we talk?”

Anna looked around. If they went back to the office, she might have to explain who he was. If they went on public transportation, they’d be on security camera. Which wasn’t great when she knew the FBI was involved. Even if she didn’t know they were looking for Tom, they might be.

“Let’s go for a walk,” she said. “In the park.”

“Lincoln Park?” he asked, his eyes wide behind his wireframe glasses.

“That direction anyway. Is that a problem?”

"It's pretty far and I'm tired."

Anna rolled her eyes. “I just got a visit from an FBI agent,” she said. “Like twenty minutes ago. So we should go somewhere without too many cameras, and my office could be difficult to explain. Okay?”

His jaw dropped. She grabbed him by the arm and led him away before any of the people buzzing around on the street noticed him looking strange.

“Come on,” she said. “Before we look even more suspicious.”

They began walking, Anna leading the way. She wasn't a pro at this like Kristina, but she tried to keep an eye out.

She took the first turn she saw and led them up State, toward the park.

“So what happened?” she asked, once they’d been walking for a moment.

Tom shook his head. “I need to see Kristina,” he said, his voice half-crazed and caffeinated fast. “Where is she?”

“Last I saw her, she was talking to an FBI agent.”

His face fell. “What?”

“An FBI agent named Rachel Carter. She hung out in my office until Kristina dropped by. Probably tried Kristina’s first, but she wasn’t in there.”

“Why? What the hell is going on?”

“I thought you might know. Kristina said you disappeared yesterday.”

He took a deep breath and looked around. Anna followed his gaze. They were at the corner of State and Oak. He turned onto Oak.

“There’s a fountain over this way,” he said, walking them toward Dearborn. “And I need to sit down soon.”

“Are you okay?” Anna asked.

“Just tired,” he said, breathing hard. “And probably dehydrated. I haven’t eaten much since yesterday.”

She grimaced sympathetically. Tom wasn't one to deal with hunger very well. “Well let’s get you a bite then.”

They turned north when they got to Dearborn and found an old-fashioned hot dog stand at the edge of the public square. Anna bought Tom a hot dog and Coke. In the middle of the square was an old, marble fountain. Homeless people littered the park, along with a couple of people walking their dogs. No kids, but the pigeons flitting around meant you watched your step anyway.

The two of them found a park bench and sat down. Tom ate the hot dog—Chicago style, with all the fixings—in five bites. Anna counted.

Finally, he washed it down with a long sip of Coke and was ready to talk. “I think Kristina’s wrapped up in something pretty big,” he said.

Anna gave him a quizzical look. “No shit. I just told you the FBI visited.”

But Tom was staring off, seemingly not hearing her or maybe anyone. “I did some research on that pharm in Kristina’s system.”

“The Agent Smith? I thought you had a positive ID.”

He grimaced, and his beady eyes looked around the park before he spoke. Anna watched him curiously.

“That’s the thing," he said finally. "It’s not Agent Smith. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm positive it's not Agent Smith.”

“What? But the text you sent—”

“I know. That’s what’s weird. The computer matched it up as Agent Smith, but when I did some more digging I realized it was wrong.”

“Is that possible?”

“It appears to be, yeah. I was doing some analysis on the pharm in her system and realized it was a double-release dispersal system. Which was wrong, because Agent Smith is just a sustained dispersal pharm.”

“In English please, Tom.”

“It means that the thing they gave Kristina gets released in two stages. The first one takes its course and then the second. But Agent Smith is all at once. So the first stage of whatever they gave Kristina looks close to Agent Smith but who knows what the second stage is.”

“So it could be anything?”

“I guess, but the thing is it looks really close to Agent Smith. The compound used on the inner dispersal unit—”

“Can you keep this to things I don’t need a PhD to understand?”

Tom studied her, nodded and rubbed his eyes. He started again. “Someone messed with the police database to cover up whatever Kristina has. They merged the entry with the entry for Agent Smith and those two should not be merged. They did it that way because anyone who didn't do a lot of checking wouldn't notice. It happened yesterday morning.”

A shiver went down Anna’s spine. “Just before Kristina went to see you.”

“Pretty much.”

“Holy shit.” Anna shook her head, reeling. “Doesn't the department have logs for stuff like that? Changes, I mean.”