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“Why don’t you head upstairs, Mister Shaut?” Williams announced. “I’ll clean up and lock up down here.”
“Good idea, Brent. I have some things to do in the office,” Shaut replied and headed out the door, as Pro followed him outside. “Detective, would it be possible for you to get some coffee?”
Pro’s jaw flexed as she fought to control herself. “Sir, I—”
There was a scream from inside the workshop. Without a pause, Pro pushed Shaut to the ground, leapt past him, and crouched at the door with her service weapon drawn out in a two-handed grip.
“What is it!” Pro demanded, seeing Brent Williams standing near one of the large pieces of equipment she thought was a lathe. She jumped to her feet and strode over, her weapon pointed at the ceiling.
On top of the machine was a letter-size piece of paper. Printed in bright-red letters was the word:
MURDERER
Pro looked to Williams, who turned to her wild-eyed. “This is the work of Max Marvell! How dare he accuse Mister Shaut of being a murderer! He’s the killer!”
He grabbed the paper and tore it in two before Pro could say anything.
“Wait!” she finally said. “I don’t get it. Forensics went through this room. Why didn’t they find it?”
“It was under a cloth that covered the machine,” Williams whined. “Hidden so that Mister Shaut would find it. Detective, you have to protect him. You have to protect us!”
“I intend to, Mister Williams,” Pro said, holstering her weapon. “Why don’t you accompany us upstairs and lock this room for now?”
He nodded and made his way toward the door with Pro following. But she glanced back to take a final look at the ripped sign as it lay on the floor.
17. Mismade Lady
The early afternoon was spent in sheer boredom for Pro. She sat in the small waiting room between the office of Malcolm Shaut, who made phone calls and clicked away at his computer keyboard, and the opposite office of Brent Williams who worked at his own computer and answered his own phone calls.
She sent Bailey for coffee instead of going herself, as she wanted to make Shaut happy and really needed another cup herself. She even asked Brent Williams if he wanted anything, but he passed.
“I make tea in the kitchenette next to my office,” he explained. “I also make Mister Shaut his coffee, but in the afternoon he likes something special.”
“So I’ve learned,” Pro agreed. When Shaut had put in his order, it had been for a very fancy drink with a long name and an odd arrangement of ingredients.
For herself, she ordered plain black coffee.
Bailey had returned quickly as there was a Starbucks a few short blocks away, and had also bought coffee for himself and his partner.
Now, fueled with fresh caffeine, Pro pulled out her cell phone and tried to see if she could glean anything else from her father’s message of the previous night:
Sorry, had to run.
The answers are in the
coded emails.
Good luck, pumpkin
She wished she had brought them with her so she could continue to translate them.
She still didn’t have any answers. The email she found that had been erased—who erased it? Was it a hacker or was someone in NYPD Cyber trying to ruin her case? And what secrets still lay in the emails she hadn’t rendered into the true message?
And why were people continuing to be killed? Had the murderer gotten the plans from Al Floss? If so, why kill Tanner and Mystique? And what did Max have to do with it, and why was he continuing to pull his disappearing act? If he knew who did it, why couldn’t he just tell Pro and let her and Tom do their jobs? Didn’t he trust her?
Maybe her father truly didn’t trust anyone. She had to admit she had issues with him, but since his arrival, he had not been acting like a rational person. The escape from the holding cell alone was enough to suggest that he was neither responsible nor thinking things through clearly. Sure, he escaped, and now he was the most sought-after fugitive in New York.
She shook her head and went to put her phone away when it rang and the name TOM CHU appeared on the screen.
