Generation 18 (Spook Squad 2)

He rose and left, but not before she’d caught the amused glint in his eyes. “Damn you to hell,” she muttered, and kicked the door. Easy to do when she was so damn close to it. It slammed shut with wall-shaking force.

“Hey, careful!” yelled the guy in the neighboring shoe box.

She snorted. She’d probably woken the old bastard up. Her office was in an area the SIU called the vaults, but was more commonly known as the black hole. Once in, never out—or so the saying went. It was a cataloging area and generally reserved for those

close to retirement or no longer able to cope with the pressures of the SIU. Gabriel’s excuse for putting her here was lack of office space elsewhere.

Of course, his office was large enough for four desks.

He was obviously trying to piss her off enough to quit, and, in part, he was succeeding. But she wouldn’t quit, and she wouldn’t ask for a transfer, if that was what he was after. She’d ride it out, if only because being his partner gave her access to a whole new range of computer systems. And one of them surely held some clue to her past—although it wasn’t as if she’d actually made use of the SIU’s system yet. She hadn’t dared to risk it, given her initial three-month probationary period. But with that now almost ended, she had to take the chance—just in case Gabriel succeeded in getting rid of her.

She leaned forward and picked up the folder. Inside she found photos and the crime scene report. She thumbed past the photos, barely bothering to look at them, and then scanned the autopsy results.

Interestingly enough, no traces of Jadrone had been found in Harry’s system. Which meant he couldn’t have had a fix for at least a week. But Harry was a junkie. If he’d been off Jadrone for any longer than three days, he would have been a mess. Frowning, she sorted through the papers and found the follow-up report. He’d showed up for work, on time, every single day.

She’d seen Jadrone junkies being weaned off the drug. Harry shouldn’t have been able to piss on his own, let alone get up and go to work.

Maybe she should head down to Maximum and find old Max, the owner and chief supplier. “Izzy, I need two more searches.”

The pink fuzz-ball reappeared on the screen. “I’m stressing out here, darlin’.”

“You’ll live. I want a complete list of everyone who’s bought Heat in the last month.”

The purple boa became a blur. “Why don’t you ask for the moon to turn blue? Hell of a lot easier.”

“Tell me about it,” she muttered. “The other search I want done is for all available information on the following names.” She hesitated and dug the birth certificate out of her drawer. After unfolding it, she added, “Meg More, Mike Shean, David Wright, Jeremy Park, Alice Armstrong, Rae Messner, Mark Allars and Fay Reilly. That’s a priority-one search. All channels.”

The purple boa stilled. “By what authority?”

“Gabriel Stern, Assistant Director, badge number 5019.”

“The director has a note online to be informed if you request information on these eight names.”

The only way Gabriel could have known about the birth certificate was if he’d been snooping through her desk. She certainly hadn’t mentioned it. “Then inform him and get on with the search.”

“Search underway. It may take the whole day, sweetie.”

And she wasn’t about to hang around waiting. “Save all the results to my personal folder and scan a copy onto disk.” Working with Jack for so many years had taught her to be careful. Computers could be hacked into, and data erased or changed. But if you made a hard copy of everything, you at least had a backup.

“Consider it done. Have a nice day.”

“Yeah, right.” She rose and stretched. A shower and a few hours’ sleep were her first priority. Then she’d head to Maximum and have a cozy little chat with Max. Harry had been a reliable customer for at least three years. And if Max didn’t know how Harry had come off the drug with no side effects, no one would.

She grabbed her bag and headed out the door.

—

Gabriel entered his office, yanked off his tie and tossed it across the arm of the nearest chair. Then he loosened the top two buttons on his shirt and walked across to the autocook. “Coffee, black, two sugars.”

He whistled tunelessly until the coffee was ready, then walked across to his desk and sat down.

“Computer on.”

The com-unit hummed softly. “Good afternoon, Assistant Director.”

“I want a complete background check on Harry Maxwell. Priority one.”

“Proceeding. The search results for Anna Jakes and Raylea Burns have also been completed.”