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Liam looked disapproving, and before he left, he set out a tray of chilled finger-food sandwiches—cheese, cucumber, roast beef. “I’ll get the door and send Riley back here. ”
“All right, Mom,” Patrick said. Liam gave him a downright dour look.
“I believe your friend is having a bad influence on you. Sir. ”
“Don’t sir me, Liam, or I’ll dock your pay. ”
“I write the checks, if you recall. Sir. ”
“Game, set, match. ” Patrick’s moment of levity passed, and so did Liam’s. “Careful up there. ”
“Careful in here,” Liam said, and included Bryn in that as well; he’d taken her ruined clothing away without commenting on the blood or smoke and fire damage, but the looks he gave her were worried and reproachful. “Ring if you need me. ”
“I think I can handle Riley Block,” Patrick said.
“One-handed, sir?”
That evoked a smile—a thin one—that showed no lack of confidence. Liam nodded and disappeared from the doorway. He was back a moment later, ushered in Riley, and left again.
Riley was, in fact, not in a polite mood, at least not by the time she arrived in the kitchen. She looked very official, Bryn thought; she was wearing a navy blue suit with a gray blouse that practically shouted FEDERAL AGENT. The only thing missing was the visible shiny badge. She stared at the two of them for a moment, then yanked a chair out from the table and sat down without an invitation. “Don’t even fucking try to tell me you weren’t there,” she said, leveling a finger at Bryn. “What the hell happened? I have seven dead bodies, Bryn! And we’re damn lucky there aren’t more. And I know good and well that this has something to do with Pharmadene. ”
“If it had been anybody else but me, you would have had eight bodies,” Bryn said. She shoved the plate of sandwiches toward her. “Lunch?”
Riley’s glare was hot enough to toast the bread. “What. Happened?”
“How do you know it’s related to Pharmadene?”
“Because I was doing a little digging of my own when the word came in,” Riley said. “Graydon is a contractor doing janitorial work for the company. Your turn. ”
“I did just as Zaragosa asked. I put on a nice suit and went there to ask questions. When I got there, the place was locked up tight. ”
“And you what, broke in?”
Bryn shrugged and ate a finger sandwich. The cucumber was delicious. “Well,” she said, chewing, “it was that or wait around for someone to show up. I kicked in a door. It wasn’t like I stormed the place with a machine gun. ”
“And then?”
“And then I searched. I found seven bodies neatly wrapped up in plastic tarps, bound with duct tape. From the smell, they’d been dead for days. ”
“Where?”
“Break room. ”
“Where, by some weird coincidence, the police found bullet holes around a grate that had fallen off?”
“I’m getting to that. ” Bryn laid it out, one step at a time…the search, the bomb, Joe Fideli’s bullet-related assistance in her escape. The jump. That made Riley flinch a little, imagining the subsequent fall and damage, which Bryn made sure to describe in detail. Through it all, Patrick sat in silence, studying Riley with unsettling intensity.
When she finished, there was a short silence before Riley said, “So you came away from that with nothing. ”
No way in hell was she handing Riley the thumb drive. “Not only did I not find anything; I had to leave my briefcase behind when I spotted the bomb. So if you find any traces of that…”
That earned her a shake of Riley’s head. “Not much chance,” she said. “The place was an inferno. The only reason we know how many dead there were is the floor collapsed in that room before the bodies were completely incinerated. We’ll be weeks figuring anything else out. Damn it. ” Riley’s short fingernails drummed the tabletop, and she reached for a sandwich and bit into it, almost as if she didn’t realize she was taking up the offer of food. “We needed someone alive. Or at least some records to examine. ”
“The place had been sanitized. I’m no professional at that kind of thing, but the computers were missing and the file drawers emptied. ”
“No DVDs? Backups?”
“Nothing like that,” Bryn said. It wasn’t quite a lie. She still didn’t know what, if anything, was on the thumb drive. “What exactly was Graydon into? I’m assuming someone doesn’t go black ops on a company that just cleans toilets, even if they clean them for Pharmadene. ”
