By the Book, page 14
But he was also a stoic, oblivious asshole at all other times. Fuck him. No, actually, that was exactly the wrong thought.
“Well, this is it.” Marshall’s voice startled Ben out of his musings, thank God. He couldn’t wait to get out of the car and get some distance between himself and Agent Heartthrob.
The safe house wasn’t what he’d expected. First of all, it was actually a house, not an apartment, like on TV. And second of all, it looked like something that had recently been vacated by the Waltons, a tiny house with lots of even tinier bedrooms, and furniture straight from the fifties. The toilet had a chain-pull flush with the tank positioned high on the wall. And the oven was gas and disconnected. The only way to heat anything was a microwave that looked completely out of place in the vintage kitchen.
Marshall politely introduced Gaines, the agent assigned to protective duty, but then immediately asked Ben not to distract the man with small talk, since he’d have to stay vigilant at all times. Fucker. If Ben had felt vulnerable before, he was certainly spooked now.
“And remember: don’t contact anyone, and don’t go online,” Marshall said, driving the point home. “I’ll leave you in Agent Gaines’s capable hands.”
“You’re not staying?” Shit. Had that come out loud? Ben wanted to bite his tongue off.
Something like surprise flicked across Marshall’s face. He opened his mouth, closed it again. “You’ll be safe here,” he finally said, turned on his heel, and left.
Ben wanted to bang his head against the wall, but the mere thought made him nauseous.
* * *
By Friday, Ben was starting to get cabin fever.
Gaines was the only human being he’d seen in three days. If Gaines was human. He didn’t seem to eat. Or sleep. Or even sit down. All he did 24/7 was wander—from door to window to door, first on the ground floor, and then on the upper floor. Once every hour or so he did what he called a perimeter check outside. Rinse and repeat.
And Marshall had disappeared, not to be seen again. Fled. Ben had had time to think about it, and Marshall’s departure had definitely had an air of desperation. Whether in the face of Ben letting that stupid question slip past his half-drugged defenses, or something else, was yet to be determined. Some men didn’t react well to their own needs.
You don’t call, Ben thought, you don’t write... He laughed at his own joke, trying to find entertainment where he could.
The microwave practically exploding and vomiting Ben’s dinner all over the counter and kitchen floor hadn’t been part of that entertainment plan. Jeeezes fuckin’ Christ! Really?
The jury was still out on whether one could call a Velvet Cheesy Bowl dinner. Or even food, but it was what he’d found in the cabinets. And now it was a god-awful mess all over the counter and floor.
The door flew open, and Agent Gaines stood in the frame, gun drawn, scanning the kitchen with it as if it were some kind of evil detector.
Ben, who’d jumped up at the cheese eruption, flung both hands over his head. “For chrissake, don’t shoot me.”
Gaines threw a last look around the kitchen, especially at the microwaved mess, then put his gun away. “Whoa, cheesepocalypse.”
“No shit.” The previously white wall behind the microwave oven had been blackened in an artsy plume of electrical discharge, the microwave’s LED panel was dead.
“I’m not eating cold cereal for dinner,” Ben added with a challenging look at Gaines.
The agent shrugged. “You clean it up, and I’ll radio for a pizza.”
Ben’s stomach growled. “Fate owes me big time.”
With a grin, Gaines turned to resume his rounds, and Ben could hear his radio crackle to life when he called his dispatch or office, or whatever.
“Pepperoni, peppers, and bacon. Double cheese!” he yelled after Gaines. “On balance,” Ben said to the microwave, “you may have done me a favor.”
He found some Windex under the sink, but no rags of any kind, only a roll of paper towels. It worked reasonably well, but by the time his pizza arrived, he’d amassed a sizable mound of wet and greasy paper balls, and the roll was nearly empty. He got up off his knees with a grimace; he still didn’t move too well. His body had looked like a Jackson Pollock painting in the mirror that morning, if Pollock painted with purple, green and a brownish yellow. At least chewing started to slowly work again. Sort of. He wouldn’t try the crust.
When he opened the pizza carton, it was pepperoni. No extra cheese. After everything that had happened, everything Ma had told him, it was such a tiny little thing. But it was the famous straw that suddenly made him feel absolutely and entirely alone. No one cared. Certainly not Marshall. “Trust no one,” he growled, staring at the pizza treason.
It took him almost an hour to eat his dinner, which had as much to do with his broken cheek as with a throat too tight with unshed tears over a blue bike.
Afterwards he set his laptop up on the kitchen table and started the Bilanz program with Venture’s accounts. Since he was on his own, he’d better not wait for the FBI to find enough evidence to get him out of here. If you want something done, do it yourself.
The Feds might have info Ben couldn’t touch, though. Maybe they’d be willing to let him work with them again. Ben would have to share whatever he found, anyway, if it was to make it to court.
He stared at his phone. Nick had said Ben could call his office. That included the forensic accountants Ben had worked with that night, didn’t it? He pulled Nick’s card out and called the landline on it, rather than the cell number he’d used before. It might be late enough that Marshall had left for the day. It would be less complicated if Ben didn’t have to explain things to him. Greg, on the other hand, had said he liked to stay late rather than come in early.
Ben was lucky and got a reception desk of some kind. He gave his name and asked for Greg, crossing his fingers they would know the man and not need a last name, because Agent Asshole hadn’t done proper introductions.
“Elston?”
Ben had no idea. “Yes. Is he still working?”
“Let me check.”
The crossed fingers got an extra squeeze for good measure. And sure enough, Greg was still at his desk, just like the night Ben had been there. He was surprised that Ben was calling, but not alarmed. “Hey, Coyne, how’s it going? Got any new account magic for me?”
Ben grinned. It felt good to be talking to someone normal. “Nah, just touching base. I’m mainly bored.”
“Man, you’re not still in the office, are you?”
“I almost wish. Your boss has squirreled me away in a place with no internet.”
“That’s harsh, man. At least he left you your phone?”
“Yeah, but I can’t call anyone but you guys. Hey, no offense.”
“None taken.”
“Listen, have you gotten any further?”
“C’mon, Coyne. You know I can’t tell you that.”
“I guess.” It had been stupid to hope that Greg would let him work with the team again. Letting Ben in on a controlled situation was very different from discussing an ongoing investigation on the phone with him. Still, it was disappointing.
They chatted for a bit, mutually complaining about the weather, the price of decent coffee, the loss of the game.
“Good thing you at least have TV,” Greg said.
“Yeah. I’d much rather have a working microwave, though. Ours died a spectacular death. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m starting to get tired of pizza.”
Greg laughed. “I’ll talk to Nick. He needs to treat you better than this.”
“He’s got enough on his plate,” Ben said. A microwave was the last thing he wanted from Marshall. “No need to pile on more.” He paused, not wanting to end the call. But it would get weird if he didn’t. “Well, let me know if I can be of any help. Hey, I’ll gladly run bill processing all day if it helps.”
“Sure thing. Keep your chin up.”
With a sigh, Ben put his phone down when the call disconnected.
* * *
By Sunday, he was bored out of his skull. The city was an oven, and the ancient little house had no AC, not even a window unit. Gaines didn’t seem to notice, and Ben was beginning to wonder if FBI agents were picked for their stoicism.
It wasn’t all bad; his body was slowly healing, and every day the exercises he’d been given by the hospital’s physiotherapist were a little less painful. But he was still a far cry from his usual activity level. And he had no internet, no one to talk to, no work to do.
He could call Marshall, but he didn’t have a reason to, other than boredom. And things he couldn’t say. Like, I wonder what that hyper-expensive suit would look like on the floor. He grinned. Strip, sweetheart. It would be such a turn-on to see Marshall’s chin drop at that. To hear that cool, cultured voice derail into something way less cool, something totally incoherent. Shit, he was riling himself up just thinking about it.
Two more days. He’d promised Marshall a week. That had been Wednesday. In two days, he’d call and demand a reassessment of the situation.
In the meantime, he should at least try to keep himself busy. Since he had his laptop out, he might as well do some digging. So far he’d only been looking at the excess money coming in, because that was what he’d first stumbled on. But money laundering wasn’t a charity. Which meant that part of that excess money had to be going somewhere to be paid back out to whoever wanted it laundered. Either back to the country of origin, all nice and fresh, or somewhere in the States, neatly without ever having been mentioned in any customs declaration.
He dug out his headphones, hit play on Wu-Tang Clan’s “C.R.E.A.M.” and set to work.
A faint chime broke through his concentration about an hour later. He pulled the earbuds out and heard Gaines coming down the stairs. The sun was blasting through the kitchen window, and Ben’s shirt was soaked. He fervently hoped that it was Marshall at the door, with an AC unit in tow.
The doorbell rang again. Hadn’t Gaines just gone to answer that? Why didn’t he—Fuck. Marshall wouldn’t ring the bell; he had a key. And no one else was supposed to know that anyone was living here.
Ben turned to scan the window and the curtained upper part of the back door that led to the overgrown backyard. Nothing moved out there. His ears tried to catch any sounds from the hallway, but Gaines was perfectly quiet.
Ben snuck to the kitchen door and opened it just enough to get a peek.
The agent stood in the hallway, still as a statue, gun between his outstretched hands, drawing a bead on the front door.
Suddenly Gaines’s radio crackled to life. It made Ben nearly jump out of his skin. Gaines swore under his breath and quickly ducked into the kitchen, almost running Ben over. He closed the door, then pressed a button on his radio. “One, echo, thirty-four,” he whispered. “Keep it down.”
A loud voice boomed over the radio: “I’ve got a new microwave for you lovebirds, and it ain’t getting any lighter while you two are playing possums in there.”
Gaines visibly relaxed. “Fuck, Danny, you couldn’t have called ahead? You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
Ben, too, felt the relief flood his veins. He sat back down on his chair, because his knees were a tad less trustworthy than they’d been just five minutes ago. Gaines went to answer the door, exchanged a few words with his colleague, then came back into the kitchen with a sizable box in his arms.
“No more pizza delivery by unmarked car,” he said as he set the box on the table, nearly shoving the laptop over the edge.
Ben shot his hand out to save it. “I’m not sure whether to be happy or sorry.”
Gaines cut the box open and scanned the contents. “Well, have fun with it. I’ll do a quick round outside.”
Of course you will. It would be way nicer outside. At least there’d be a breeze.
With a sigh, Ben discarded the box and stripped the new microwave of all packaging. He was about to remove the old one from its nook when it occurred to him that the explosion could have been because of a faulty outlet. The house was certainly old enough. But wouldn’t that have knocked the power out? Or maybe just the breaker. In any case, it was probably safer to use a different outlet.
He set the new microwave up on the other end of the counter and plugged it in. The display came on, blinking with 00:00. Ben set the clock, and threw another longing look outside.
The backyard wasn’t really all that visible, was it? High fence, a few trees, a fuck-ton of brush and weeds.
He went over to the back door and tried the handle. It was locked, but the key stuck in the lock, and with a lot of wiggling and a little brute force, it turned. The fresh air made Ben groan it felt so good.
Without a second thought, he grabbed his laptop and the kitchen chair and stepped down into the knee-high grass. There was a shady spot in the back between the trees that he had his eye on. It would protect him from the sun as well as from curious eyes.
The ground was a little uneven back here, but he shoved the chair down hard enough that it didn’t wobble too much. He took a deep breath of air laden with insect buzz and the lazy peace of long neglect. Despite the odd mosquito, it was perfect. Gaines had better not tell him to stay inside, because there was no way he’d move back into that sauna before sunset.
He should probably tell Gaines he was out here, though. The agent was a little too happy pointing that gun of his at everything that startled him.
With a sigh, Ben got back up and set the laptop on the chair.
A thundering boom sounded behind him, trembled through the earth against the soles of his feet. A bruising blow in his back, like a giant’s fist, thrust him several feet through the air and smashed him into the back fence, before he hit the ground.
He was pain.
More blows rained down on his body. Instinct took over. He pulled his knees up and covered his head with his arms, trying to breathe. Things kept falling and zinging around him like shrapnel, though he couldn’t hear them. He couldn’t hear anything anymore.
Chapter Twelve
Nick
“The hell?” Nick yelled into his phone. It was one of those days where the whole office floor had devolved into mayhem for no good reason. He could barely understand his own words. “Did you say bail?”
Across from him Duncan was yelling into his own phone. “Explosion? Like gas? Or a bomb?”
Nick tried to concentrate on the call from the courthouse. Apparently Havering had made bail. “What the hell were they thinking?”
It would have been so much better if they could have booked Havering on assault or worse, instead of just fraud. Some judges went notoriously easy on white-collar crime.
“No,” Duncan yelled. “I said address. I need the address.”
Nick stuck a finger in his free ear. “Please tell me they didn’t let him go on recognizance.”
“No,” Nick’s contact at the courthouse said. “Turns out our man has an assault prior. Bail was set at a hundred thousand dollars, but some dude just walked in and paid for it.”
“Did they give him any restrictions? Like house arrest?”
“Nothing major. He has to reside at his current address, and stay away from his place of work.”
Shit! “Do you have the name of the guy who posted the bail money?”
“No, but I can find out. I’ll call you back.”
Nick hung up, and was about to get himself coffee to wash down his frustration and get out of the chaos for five minutes, when Duncan grabbed his arm. “With me. Now. I’ll explain in the car.”
Nick’s inner alarm immediately went to red. Duncan was the most placid person in the world. For him to get this terse and pushy, things would have to have hit the fan in a major way. Officer down?
Nick swallowed his questions, followed Duncan at a run down to his car, and got in the passenger seat without an argument.
“There was an explosion at the safe house,” Duncan said as he navigated onto the street, lights flashing, siren blaring.
Ben! Nick’s heart did a weird little cataplectic thing in his chest. No, Ben was safe. Surely. Had to be. “What safe house?” he asked stupidly.
Duncan threw him a surprised look that softened at whatever he saw in Nick’s face. “Ben Coyne’s.”
If there was an appropriate reaction to that, and Nick was sure there must be, it eluded him. He barely managed not to simply shake his head and say no.
“They don’t know yet what caused it,” Duncan went on when Nick didn’t answer. “Gas has been shut off there for years, but I guess it’s not unimaginable that there was a leak, anyway.”
“You said a bomb.” Nick knew he was stalling the one question that was foremost on his mind. “Earlier, on the phone, you were asking about a bomb.”
“It’s a possibility,” Duncan said. “Right now we don’t know anything. It just happened a few minutes ago.”
“Havering made bail.”
“Fuck.”
The silence in the car seemed to spread and gain weight, until it took a conscious effort for Nick to breathe. “Coyne?” he finally got out. “And Gaines?” On some remote level, he acknowledged that a fellow officer should not have been an afterthought.
“I don’t know, Nick. When I got off the phone, they were still securing the site. They’ll be combing through the rubble as we speak.”
“Right. We don’t know. No use indulging in worst-case scenarios.”
Duncan didn’t answer, allowing him to hold on to the hope that Ben would be fine.
And then they rounded the street corner into hell.
The whole street was an anthill of organized chaos. Where there should have been a house, there was nothing but air. All Nick could see was a wall of fire and emergency vehicles, no roof behind them. People in yellow, orange, and white gear milled around between uniforms and fire hoses, all of it awash in pulsing lights of red and blue and orange.
