Page 31 of Devil's Due

“Yes, Omar, you could have bravely thrown yourself on the FedEx package and prevented all of this.” She moved past him to the parking garage elevators. “Cheer up. Maybe you can take a bullet for me today instead.”

“Don’t get my hopes up,” he said.

Downstairs, his gleaming black SUV was parked next to her Lexus. Illegally. “I suppose we’re taking your car,” she said.

“You hired me for my vast array of skills,” Omar said. “Of which guarding parking garages is only one.”

“Shut up and get me there.”

“Testy! Not enough coffee?”

There wasn’t enough coffee in the world right now to banish the headache that was pounding in her temples. She dug two aspirins out of her purse and swallowed them with a mouthful of bottled water, taken from the built-in cooler between the seats. Omar’s SUV had all the comforts of first class. She was reasonably sure that should she ask for a hot meal, he’d be able to provide it out of the contents of the secret compartments.

“Headache?” he asked.

“Not enough sleep. And yes, I have antibiotics, and they don’t even know what it was in the envelope yet. I’mfine.” Speaking of that, she dug the antibiotics out and swallowed the next dose. It tasted bitter. She followed it with plenty of water.

He kept silent, wisely. She closed her eyes as the truck weaved through morning traffic to Overland Park. The sun seemed too bright. She checked the air vents and turned the air conditioning up.

Omar refrained from comment.

The meeting was so dull and ordinary that she coasted through it on autopilot. She smiled at appropriate places and delivered the appropriate endorsements of the ability of the private investigative firm of Callender & Garza to find their security leak. Santos was a small company. The leak wouldn’t turn out to be some hard-ass spy; more likely, he or she would be a disgruntled midlevel employee, dissatisfied with his or her prospects and pay.

“The truth is,” she told Erin Santos, the firm’s chief operating officer, “the target is probably so scared of being caught that he or she will confess immediately, if confronted. I’d suggest some blind interviews this week. Half an hour for each of your employees over the course of two or three days. We’ll find your mole.” An easy five thousand. Jazz would be pleased.

“Well …” The Santos team exchanged barely concealed eager looks. “Can you do it now? Get started, anyway?”

“Sure,” she said. It wouldn’t take much. Some guesses, some silence, Omar lounging purposefully in the corner. “Give me the most likely suspects first. We might as well work it as a triage.”

In fact, it was faster than even Lucia had anticipated. She didn’t get any signs on the first two, but the third person in the door had the body language of someone walking to the electric chair. She had a confession within minutes, and was soon giving her report and leaving the board to handle the guilty employee.

Erin Santos was true to her word, and there was indeed a check cut immediately. Lucia accepted it with grave courtesy and just the right touch of distaste. Money changing hands, was never to be savored in public, with a client. No matter how happy one might be later at the bank.

In the SUV again, she called Jazz and gave her the report as Omar deposited the check at a drive-in teller.

Jazz was pleased. “What’re you doing now?”

“Now,” she replied, slipping on her sunglasses against the relentless morning glare, “I think I will go home and get some more sleep.”

“Afraid not,” Jazz said. Her tone was gruesomely cheerful. “How close are you to the office?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“Then swing by, would you? Security has someone there who tried to get in to see us. He seems pretty upset at finding the office shut down. Name’s Leonard Davis … Hey, is Ben with you?”

“With me? Why would he be with me?”

Jazz’s tone turned opaque. “Just asking. I haven’t heard from him yet.”

“No idea,” Lucia said.

Omar was already heading in that direction when she hung up the phone.

She put her head back against the cushions and tried to nap.

There was a gangly young man seated in the lobby of the office building. He was bundled in a big gray sweatshirt and blue jeans, with a baseball cap pulled low. Lucia nodded at the two guards, who were looking tense and unhappy. One of them came to meet her.

“This Leonard Davis guy showed up about thirty minutes ago,” he said. “Wanted to see somebody from your firm. I told him the company was shut down for renovations, but he didn’t want to leave. Acting weird, I gotta tell you. You want I should call the cops?”

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