“So…what? I don’t see what the big deal is.”
Collin was starting to wear on my nerves.
“I kissed her, Collin. Don’t you get how bad this situation is?”
“Because you had too much garlic in the meal and her breath was sour?” he asked me with a smirk.
“No! The kiss was amazing.”
“I don’t really see the problem with this. Consider it a fringe benefit of the job.”
That did it.
“This is why I don’t talk to you about anything. I refuse to use her and justify it by saying that it was for the good of the case. I’m not one of those guys.”
“But you have no problem making a bet of her? You’re a hypocrite, Caldwell.”
“That’s different.”
“I don’t see how.”
It just is. That was…before.”
He appeared thoughtful for a moment. “Do you have any feelings for her?”
I hated admitting it aloud. “Yeah. I keep trying not to like her, but she’s growing on me.”
“If she had no involvement with the case, would you still pursue her?”
“The timing is awful.”
“Fuck the timing, Jackson. Would you still want her?”
“I don’t know. Probably. Yeah.”
“Then you don’t have to worry. If you were using her for the case, you wouldn’t give a shit about her outside of it and we would certainly not be having this discussion.”
“I’ll just hurt her; we both know that.”
Collin shook his head. “It doesn’t have to go down that way.”
I paused to think about that. It would be a perfect scenario. After last night’s kiss, it was obvious she was open to more than friendship. Since I wasn’t exactly ready for anything serious, it was perfect I’d be going back to D.C. when the case was closed. Things could stay casual with us – or at least, for me because I had no intention of telling her about it.
I would have to think about it later. Collin was staring at me, waiting for a response. “It may not have to go down that way, but it will if I take things too far.”
“Not necessarily. She doesn’t have to find out the truth, you know.”
“You’re insane. My life is in D.C., not here. She would eventually find out I’m with the Bureau and that would be the end of that.”
“You don’t have to stay with the FBI. You could always get a job, hmm, as a management consultant. I’m sure you’re well qualified for it after the number of times you’ve pretended to do it.”
“I may have to if we don’t stop talking about my love life and get to work.”
“Point taken. The surveillance tapes should be queued up and ready to go in the viewing room.”
Grateful for the change of subject, I followed Collin into a small room with a few chairs, a dust-covered table, a VCR and a monitor. I sat and waited for one of the Audio-Visual technicians to join us. He explained that the tape was of a pretty low quality, so he would be limited in enhancement options. Finally, he started the tape.
For the most part, it was as we had been told. Alex entered the building with his cap pulled down enough to cover his face. That gave credibility to the company’s theory. If he was high, he wouldn’t want his face to give him away on tape. He went into a room which I assumed to be the lab and stayed inside for several minutes.
Collin was getting impatient and was asking the technician to fast-forward when the door to the lab opened and Alex emerged. Less than ten feet down the corridor, he spoke to a guard who took off towards the lab. Alex continued walking the other way. The guard opened the door and within minutes, the narrow hallway was engulfed in flames.
Once the tape ended I turned to Collin and asked, “How did Alex die in the explosion if he wasn’t there?” To the technician I asked, “Can you zoom in on the face of the guy with the baseball cap right after the guard runs off?”
“As I explained, I’m limited in what I can do, but let me give it a shot.”
He was able to zoom in, but the face was too fuzzy to make out.
“Can you clean that up any?” Collin asked.
The technician typed a few quick commands on his keyboard.
“Dammit! It isn’t working. The concentration of colored pixels is messing things up. I can try in black and white, if that would help.”
“Do it.”
A moment later I knew I was right as we looked at the somewhat fuzzy face of the man I had met seventy-two hours prior. Collin looked at me as if to ask if that was him and I nodded. I never forgot a face.
“Has the company already reviewed the tapes?” I asked Collin after the technician left to get pictures printed off for us.
“No. They had it sent directly from their central monitoring center. What do you want me to tell them?”
“We can’t let them see this until our case is closed, that’s for sure. Tell them that it was ruined. Get the audio-visual guys to make up a dummy tape that shows their hallway with lots of snow over it. Have them make sure to take out any evidence that Blackstone was there. We can’t afford for them to jump the gun and try to prosecute him until we know he’s no longer a threat.”
“Consider it done,” Collin said as he headed out of the room.
I knew I had seen murder in his eyes when I’d met him. That thought sat heavily on my mind for the rest of the day. A murderer was in love with Jenna. If he was willing to murder two people in cold blood, one a close friend, and blow up a building; how would he react when Jenna told him she thought their pact was a joke?
I may not want to like her, but I would have to protect her from him.
© 2009, Sydney Katt. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use of content will result in dragon attacks.
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