“Lieutenant Dallas.”
“I’m sorry, Lieutenant, I’ll swear to you on all I love, you’ll never meet a man more decent and caring than Paul Rogan. If he did what they say he did, it’s as you said. He was coerced. More than even that. I don’t know what the word would be, but more than even that. Please, can I try to reach Cecily and Melly now?”
Eve rose. “Go ahead. If you think of anything else, however insignificant it might seem, contact me or Detective Peabody. Cop Central.”
“You have my word on it. I’ll do anything I can to help find who did this to my family.”
* * *
“December,” Peabody said as they rode down to the lobby.
“Before Christmas, so before the flicks and pushes. They gave it a shot, figured maybe Kelly had the code in her wallet, on her ’link. She didn’t, so they had to start working through the system. Let’s find out when this merger started rolling, who knew as far back as December. And let’s get the incident report on the stolen wallet and ’link.”
Eve stepped out into the brisk air. “We’ll run Kelly’s husband just to cover the bases.”
“She has pictures the kid drew on her kitchen board—and a Valentine’s Day card from the kid, along with one from the husband.”
“It’s not going to be the husband. We run him anyway, cover those bases. He wouldn’t have to lift the ’link and wallet to try to get the code. He’d just check for the code when she wasn’t looking. But maybe somebody he’s done a job for, or there’s someone he works with, hangs out with, who wanted a shortcut to Fat City. Pump him for info, start hacking the layers just like they hacked the security.
“We’ll head to the hospital,” Eve decided. “But let’s see who might’ve been released. If there’s any on the way, we’ll take them as we come to them.”
* * *
By the time they got to the hospital, they had statements from three people who’d been treated and released. All ran along similar lines. Paul Rogan—family and company man, creative team leader, had appeared “off” or “ill” or “not himself,”—had approached Derrick Pearson and Willimina Karson as they’d entered the conference room.
And boom.
Eve hoped to start at the top with Karson, but the severity of the Econo exec’s injuries had her in ICU, in a coma, and off-limits. Switching tacts, Eve badged them into Rogan’s admin’s room.
Against the white sheets of his hospital bed, Rudy’s face shined raw and red under its coating of burn gel. A stabilizer cast covered his right arm from wrist to shoulder. Sutures closed a gash running from the crown of his head to his left ear. Skin exposed by the thin hospital gown showed nicks, punctures, bruises, and burns.
“Mr. Roe, I’m Lieutenant Dallas, and this is Detective Peabody.” She slipped her badge away again as she approached the bed.
The room, the patient, reeked of the sweet, green smell of the gel. Rudy’s blackened eyes welled.
“I don’t know what happened. I don’t know.”
Ease him in, Eve thought. “What time did Mr. Rogan come into the office this morning?”
“Eight-forty-five. I was worried because I expected him by eight-thirty, latest. It was the big day, and we were going to go over the bullet points of the presentation before the meeting. I’d made some more notes—just chat points—over the weekend.”
“Did you send them to him?”
“No, but I texted him yesterday to tell him, and to remind him of a couple of things.”
“Did he answer?”
“He just texted back to relax. Um, ‘Chill, Rudy. We’re locked on.’”
“‘Locked on’?”
“Yeah, I didn’t get it for a minute, then I figured he meant we had the presentation locked down. Sort of.”
“It wasn’t one of his usual expressions?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, I never heard him use it.”
Military, Eve thought. First mistake.
“How did he seem when he came in this morning?”
“Distracted. Tired. I figured he worked all weekend even though he told me not to worry.” A tear leaked out, slid down the slick gel. “I wanted to give him my notes, but he went right into his office, told me no calls. And—and he locked the door. I heard him lock the door. He never locked the door before. I should’ve known something was wrong, really wrong.”
Peabody reached down, took Rudy’s uninjured hand. “You couldn’t know.”
“He wasn’t acting right, he wasn’t, but he came out just before nine and he stopped, and he looked right at me. He told me I did good work, and how I was an asset to him, to the company. It felt good, you know? He always made sure to tell us when we did a good job. He went to the conference room, and I finished up some other work before I went into his office to put a file on his desk. I saw his tablet. He hadn’t taken his tablet to the meeting, and he’d need it. I grabbed it, and I ran because he’d need it. I got to the doors, or maybe I opened the door. I can’t remember. Something exploded and everything was hot and loud, and it felt like I was flying. Then I don’t remember until I heard screaming, and somebody was dragging me. I think. It’s all mixed up after.”
“It’s all right. Did Mr. Rogan get any contacts at work—appointments, correspondence, tags, that seemed unusual, that concerned you?”
“No, ma’am, I swear. Paul wouldn’t do what they’re saying. He’d never do this.”
Because he was hurt, and grieving, she let the ma’am go. “Did anyone in the company have an issue with him?”
“No, ma’am. I mean there are disagreements sometimes, debates, and things got tense a few times during the campaign and the negotiations. But nothing harsh. I loved working for him. Is he really dead?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Maybe it wasn’t him,” Rudy mumbled, looking away, looking at the wall. “Maybe it was somebody who looked like him. Like a clone. I’m really tired.”
“If you think of anything else, contact me.” Eve signaled for Peabody to leave a card on the table beside the bed.
“Do you have anyone who can come hang with you?” Peabody asked him.
“My mom’s flying in, and my brother.” The misery in his eyes lessened when a woman came to the door. “Kimmi.”
Though she’d obviously been crying, she carried a cheerful clutch of flowers.
“NYPSD,” Eve told her.
“Oh. I can come back.”
“No need. We’re wrapping up. Relative?”
“No, I work with Rudy.”
“Peabody, why don’t you take the flowers, stay with Rudy. Can we talk outside for a few minutes?” Though she had asked Kimmi, Eve simply took her arm, led her out.
The petite brunette with the sad doe eyes twisted her fingers together. “I wasn’t even there,” she said before Eve could speak. “I mean, I was at my desk when . . . I heard the explosion, only it didn’t sound like I thought an explosion sounds. I guess because I wasn’t close to the conference room. But then I heard shouting and screaming, and people started running, and alarms were going off.”
“Did you see Mr. Rogan this morning?”
“For a second, when he walked by my desk. He didn’t say anything. He always says something, but he didn’t.”
“How much did you interact with him at work?”
“Paul interacted with everybody. It was his leadership style.”
“Personally?”
“I’ve only been with Quantum a little over a year, but I went to the party he has at his house for the holidays. None of this makes sense.”
“What’s your position at Quantum?”
“I’m Lia Berkell’s assistant.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Was. She—she died in the explosion. They told me she died. She was the digital marketing manager. She was in the meeting. Um, she and Rudy and I worked tight with Paul on this campaign. But it wasn’t just work.”
She brushed a tear away. “We were really a team. You had to be there for each other. Like, when my apartment got broken into, Lia let me stay at her house until my roommate got back in town, so I wouldn’t be alone.”
“When did that happen?”
“Last December. My roommate was on a business trip, and I went on a date. I got home and somebody’d broken in.”
“What was taken?”
“My comp, spare ’link, my tablet, my wall screen, the wrist unit my parents got me when I got my MBA, my emergency cash. The police said it was probably somebody looking for a quick score, but they messed up my place, and scared me. It doesn’t matter now.”
“Did you have work on the comp?”
“Sure, but it was passcoded and fail-safed. And I always backed up on disc, and I take the disc with me if I go out. Just habit. So I had everything backed up.”
“You had data on the Econo deal on the comp? Office e-mails regarding it, that sort of thing?”
“Yes. It’s why I had the fail-safe.”
Nothing, Eve thought, was fail-safe.
She filled Peabody in as they went up to ICU to try another check on Karson.
“December again.”
“December eighteen—just after Kelly had her wallet and ’link lifted. We’ll want that incident report.”
“I’ll get both. The best I can get—until I get more—is negotiations between Quantum and Econo started wrapping up the end of November, or close enough they had the deal pretty much nailed down. Rogan’s domestic has her wallet and ’link lifted in December, and now one of Rogan’s team gets her comp and e’s taken in December. Coincidences are bollocks, right?”
“As rain,” Eve agreed. “Though I don’t know what the hell makes rain so right. It’s going to be about the deal, not the people. Blow up the deal—and follow the money. Who benefits, who loses, that’s the first line.”