Least Wanted (Sam McRae Mystery 2)

Fourth, show Brad pictures of the guys who picked up the package and see if he recognized them.

Last, but certainly not least, figure out Diesel’s part in this. I suspected his role was limited to hired muscle. I hoped that would be revealed after I got the package from Philadelphia.

Setting aside for the moment the question of how a couple of nerdy-looking guys hooked up with someone like Diesel, I focused on what I knew about the Kozmik Games murders. Diesel had been in Philadelphia, looking for Brad’s old boss, Darrell Cooper. Soon after, Cooper was found dead in the water—suggesting that Diesel may have put him there. Making murders appear like accidents didn’t jibe with Diesel’s style, but that didn’t rule him out as Cooper’s killer.

Diesel was in Kozmik’s office building around the time Brad’s new boss, Sondra Jones, was shot. Knowing Diesel’s proclivity for breaking and entering, Diesel probably broke into Brad’s condo and planted the gun that murdered Jones. I hoped the cops could find Diesel and bring him in for questioning on that murder—preferably before he found me.

Meanwhile, I had a discovery dispute to work out in the messy divorce case, and a possible settlement in a simple personal injury matter. I was waiting for a hearing to be set on whether Tina would be tried as an adult. That issue might become moot if I could find her and get her to admit where she had been the night Shanae was murdered.

Once I’d made the list, I did triage. What first? The better question was, what could I do first? Right now, I couldn’t reach Tina. If Little D could find her, I’d deal with her then. I needed Little D to give me copies of the disc before I went to the cops. Hirschbeck, I’d call the next day—get his Monday off to a good start. That left Brad. I phoned him, and we arranged to meet in the morning at his condo in Greenbelt to look at the photos.

That night, I tossed and turned, the next-door TV on until the wee hours. In my fitful, half-dozing state, I had nightmares. In one, Tina and I were running through Bed-Stuy, down filthy alleys, past drug dealers and prostitutes. It was dark. I was trying to get home, but the alleys and streets kept changing. I was lost and frantic. I dragged Tina by the hand. When I finally spotted my building, I realized she was gone. I felt torn between wanting to run for home and searching for her. My mother appeared out of nowhere in her bikini, smiling and laughing. I awoke with a start when a door slammed.

I sat up, heart racing, eyes darting around the room, in the pre-dawn light. The bedside clock glowed 6:35 in red. A door banged again. The door for the adjacent room.

I tried to relax, snuggled under the covers and closed my eyes. Another door slam. Then another. Some idiot, carrying luggage to the car, lacked the sense or consideration to prop the damn door open. By the time the commotion ceased, I was awake for good. I got up, grumbling.

Peeling off my night shirt and tossing it aside, I stumbled to the bathroom and took a hot shower, trying to wash away the memory of the bad dreams. I wiped a section of the fogged-up mirror and reassessed the damages to my face. My lip looked better. The purple spot on my cheek matched my car’s exterior. Thank God for concealer. I combed my short auburn hair, threw on some clothes and called Hirschbeck. I left another voice mail then headed for Brad’s.

On my way, I stopped at Greenway Shopping Center near Brad’s development for a venti high-test brew at Starbucks. If it had been on the menu, I would’ve paid extra to have it administered intravenously.

I’d guzzled most of it by the time Brad ushered me into his place. A short hallway led to the living room, where an old sofa and a scarred wooden coffee table sat across from a gleaming high-def TV.

“Nice,” I said, nodding at the TV.

“I bought it right before all hell broke loose. I thought I’d be able to pay it off quickly. Now . . . . ” For a crazy moment, I wondered if Brad might be in on the embezzlement. Maybe he’d paid his co-worker Jon Fielding to mislead me. Christ, I thought. I’m really getting paranoid. No doubt, Brad liked expensive toys, like a lot of guys his age.

“You said you had some pictures to show me?” Brad asked.

“I do.” I clicked through a few photos on my digital camera to shots of the two men. Brad squinted at the small screen and asked permission to download them to his computer, to enlarge the images. I watched over his shoulder as he plugged the camera into a port and performed technical magic that transferred the images to the hard drive.

As he opened one file, I asked, “Are you using Photoshop?”

“Uh-huh. My parents got it for me. A professional-quality program. Awesome for graphics and video, too.”

I watched him fiddle with apps to enlarge and fine-tune the images. By changing the contrast and tint, he further defined the men’s features.

Brad’s jaw dropped. “Hey, I know them. They work for Kozmik.” He became animated. “Chip Saltzman and Mike LaRue.”

“What do they do for the company?”

“They’re in game development.”

Of course. The game developers who met with Diesel. “Are they computer programmers?” I asked, peering at the photos.

“One’s a game designer, the other’s a programmer.”

Assuming the system was tampered with, who better to do it than a couple of computer geeks? “I think we’ve found our embezzlers,” I said.

“You’re kidding,” he said, eyes wide. “What makes you say that?”

“I found a money trail, and it leads to them. Are they friends of yours?”

“Not like close friends.” He looked away. “But I’ve gotten to know them. I never dreamed they’d do something like this to me.”

“This must be a shock,” I said. Brad nodded. He seemed unable to speak.

What I still didn’t know was “why” and “how”: Why were these guys using the embezzled money to buy kiddie porn? And how had a couple of middle-class white nerds gotten hooked up with a janitor from Suitland?