Ball & Chain (Cut & Run 8)

Ty snorted and cocked his head at Zane. His brow was furrowed and his curly hair was a bit awry from running his fingers through it so many times. He had his tongue stuck between his lips and probably didn’t even realize it. Ty stood, stepping behind Zane to massage his tense shoulders. “I’m sorry, I’m distracting you. Carry on.”

Zane rolled his neck, leaning into Ty’s hands. Ty was silent, letting him work. He still didn’t understand what Zane was doing, but finally Zane sat back and put both hands in the air triumphantly. “Eat that, DOD!”

“You got through?”

Zane nodded and clicked one more button that turned the blue screen of the laptop into the normal desktop screen Ty was used to seeing. Dozens of files littered the screen, most of them labeled in some sort of numerical code.

Ty rested his chin on Zane’s shoulder, dejected. “This is going to take a while, huh?”

Zane nodded. “Might want to take a seat.”

Nick sifted through the bowl of rice with great care, placing each piece of the cell phone on a microfiber towel he had found in a drawer. Kelly watched over Nick’s shoulder. When they had all the pieces, Nick began putting it back together.

He held the reassembled phone in his palm, and he and Kelly both scowled at it.

“Let’s hope it’s charged,” Kelly said.

Nick turned it on and held his breath. The sound was garbled and the screen was a digitized mess as the phone powered on, but they could sort of make out what they were seeing on it. Nick first went to the list of recent calls. Kelly scrambled to get his own phone out and take pictures of the screen. They got partial lists of Milton’s last calls, then moved on to the text messages. Some of them were beyond comprehension, but others were clear enough to make out. Kelly took photos of all of them.

The phone began to make a metallic whirring sound.

“Oh, that’s a bad sound,” Kelly said.

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Just shut up and keep taking pictures.”

“That’s an ‘I’m going to blow up’ sound,” Kelly insisted.

“I know, but we only have one chance to get this shit.”

The phone popped, and they both jumped. The smell of burning electronics accompanied a sizzling sound, and after the first threat of fire, Nick dropped the phone into the bowl of rice. It sparked and fizzled, and the smell of burning rice mingled with the lingering aroma of industrial-strength cleanser in the kitchen.

Kelly huffed and sniffed at the bowl of rice. “Told you.”

Nick glared at his profile. “What did we get?”

Kelly flipped through the photos of the text messages on his phone. “It looks like he was setting up a meeting, maybe. These times are from the other night. How the hell was he getting service to send these texts?”

Nick leaned over and squinted at the photos. They were basically poor copies of a rough original, and some of the words were unintelligible. But reading through the last dozen or so texts painted a pretty clear picture, and it wasn’t hard to fill in the blanks. “He was setting up a buy.”

“A buy? Like, what, he was selling something?”

Nick nodded and pointed at the text message. “It’s shorthand. He was meeting a buyer at eleven last night, and he wanted money wired. Apparently his buyer had cash instead and they were arguing over payment. I can’t tell more, it’s too fuzzy.”

“You think he was selling the defense contract technology Stanton’s company is developing?”

Nick nodded grimly. “Yeah, I do. Odds are he either tried to cheat them, or he changed his mind, so his buyer killed him. I’m guessing they thought he had the information on him, but he didn’t. That’s why they came back for his body.”

“So, what are we talking here? A flash drive? A memory chip? It has to be something small enough to swallow if that’s where they were looking. And his room hadn’t been tossed.”

Nick shrugged. “I’m not a techie. We’ll take it to Garrett, see if he knows. See what they’ve got off that laptop.”

Kelly nodded and stuffed his phone back into his pocket. They left the mess they’d made. There was no one to complain about it now anyway.

Kelly glanced at the freezer as they headed for the steps. “Hey, maybe one of them will donate a liver to your dad.”

Nick looked over his shoulder at Kelly, his eyes wide.

“I’m just saying. Three perfectly good livers sitting in there,” Kelly said, completely deadpan. “Nobody’s using them. I’ll go get one for you.”

Nick gaped at him. “How the hell did you ever pass your psych evals?”

“I cheated off your papers.”

Nick rolled his eyes and started up the stairs.

“The Navy gives bubble tests. When in doubt, go with C.”

“Kelly.”

“Get it? Navy? The sea?”

“Kels, shut up.”

“Oh, come on! You love puns.”

Nick laughed, unable to stop himself.

Kelly plucked at his shirt as they headed up the steps, stopping him. Nick looked back at him, one eyebrow raised, expecting another joke. But Kelly was turning to head into the kitchen again. “You know, the cook hadn’t been dead but for a few minutes when we came down here yesterday.”

Nick nodded, his eyes darting toward the bottom of the steps. It dawned on him where Kelly was going with that. “How’d the killer get out?”

“Yeah.” Kelly glanced up at Nick. “The steps are the only way in or out, we would have seen them leaving from the hall upstairs. Or hell, maybe even passed them on the steps.”

Nick waited a breath, then stepped to stand beside Kelly.

“You think it’s possible they hid well enough for Ty to miss them?”

“No,” Nick said immediately. They descended the stairs again, standing at the bottom to look around the massive kitchen. It was mostly open. The cabinets had glass faces, and the counters and islands all had open shelves beneath. “There’s nowhere to hide down here, not unless you get into one of the ovens.”

Kelly grunted. “And there was definitely no one in the freezer; I went in there.”

Nick paced a few steps into the kitchen, craning his head to seek out impromptu hiding spots. “I mean, you could do it, I guess. There’s . . . I don’t know. You’d have to be really slick.”

“Or small,” Kelly added. “I bet a woman could have hid down here.”