Lie in the Moment Page 7

“Come on,” Maura half shouted. “He’s not the god everyone seems to think he is.” A bearded man in a thick jacket turned around to look at her. She waved him back to his business.

  “I don’t think he’s a god, but he has plenty of influence. He might be telling you the truth and intend to help you. He might be telling you something like the truth and intend to keep you safely on the sidelines.”

  “Or he could be totally lying to me.”

  “I doubt he’s totally lying. Not his style.”

  “That’s just great.” Damn she needed coffee. And a chocolate doughnut with sprinkles. Maybe two.

  “Well, he helps his family. Nick, Milton, me. He loves us. But last year he bugged my clothes to keep track of me in case Keenan tried something. He’s a big fan of ‘for your own good.’ ”

  Maura didn’t point out that none of the people she mentioned was actually related to Roland. “Okay, thanks, Blake. Take care of yourself. I’ve gotta go,” Maura said suddenly. She was second in line and they were almost out of dark roast. She hung up without giving Blake a chance to respond. She didn’t want to talk about Roland Chandler anymore.

  Still, almost without consciously choosing to do it, she scrolled through her contacts and located his number. She could text him. Tell him she’d meet him somewhere after her shift and go over the files.

  “Next?”

  Maura looked up, saw the open cashier, and darted forward. Roland Chandler could wait until she’d gotten some caffeine in her system. He was the kind of guy a girl wanted to meet armed with caffeine, alcohol, or a straight flush and a pair of fuck-me shoes. She’d meet him when she was damn good and ready and not a moment before. Preferably in a place where she could take her clothes off without witnesses.

  “YOU HAVE THE right to remain silent.”

  The cuffs snapped coldly against Roland Chandler’s wrists as Maura read him his rights. He debated whether or not to escape the bonds.

  “You like that?” she purred, and he realized he was naked. She was stroking the outside of his thigh with what looked like a police baton. Now this was interesting.

  “Yes,” he said, confused but pleased by the development. He thought she might be naked as well. He tried to turn and look, but she shoved him again.

  “Don’t move,” she ordered, and he felt her left hand slide from his waist to his chest, frisking him slowly. “Do you have any weapons?”

  He glanced down at his erection.

  Her hand slid over his hip and gripped him firmly, stroking him once. Very interesting.

  “Do you understand these rights?” She pulled him away from the marble wall of his building¸ an exclusive high-rise in Back Bay where he owned the penthouse, and turned him toward the street.

  Suddenly a wind kicked up, sending a snow flurry against his naked body. He was standing in the street, staring at Keenan Shy.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Roland shouted, not able to believe, not quite, that Keenan had strapped Blake into a bomber’s vest lined with C-4. Why would he do that? He loved Blake. They all loved Blake.

  “What the fuck does it look like, cousin?”

  Roland stared at his cousin’s face, so like his own, at the long, nimble fingers that gripped Blake’s pale cheek, her eyes pleading with Roland to save her.

  Roland fought to get to Blake, but he was paralyzed, he couldn’t move, and Maura O’Halloran was rushing toward Keenan, gun drawn.

  “Shoot him,” he shouted to Maura, and woke himself up.

  Roland opened his eyes, the sheets clenched in his hand as he desperately fought for air. He lay paralyzed, as if Keenan was standing over him, his hand on Roland’s throat.

  Recognizing the dream for a lie, Roland released his grip on the sheets and closed his eyes. He imagined he was underwater, floating in the cool dark stillness, his senses muffled by the glassy wet. Maura was swimming with him—naked, her round freckled breasts floating near his face—her bush a bright and fiery red. He reached out and grasped her leg, pulling her toward him. Her skin, slick and smooth, felt right under his hand. Another lie, but a pleasant one. After a moment, he was able to let out a long breath of air.

  Released from the grip of terror, he opened his eyes. He was sweating, even though his bedroom was icy in the darkness. He remained as he was for a moment, feeling the silkiness of the sheets against his skin, as silky as Maura’s skin beneath the water.

  No surprise what that was about. With a curse, he tossed the covers aside and sat up, swinging his legs over the bed and putting his head in his hands. Night terrors. He’d had them for a long time, longer than he could remember, and he never knew when they would hit.

  He’d gone to bed late—as usual—his mind filled with thoughts of Maura O’Halloran beneath him interspersed with fear of what Keenan might be planning.

  Roland reached out blindly with his right hand and touched a thick folder filled with information about Maura and her family that sat on his nightstand. Last night, before he’d finally surrendered to sleep, he’d read through it yet again. The pictures of the bodies had been copied from the case files, the witnesses’ testimony naming Keenan as the killer.

  Scrubbing his hands over his face, he stood abruptly and stalked naked to the large window of his bedroom. Throwing open the blackout curtains, he was stunned to see that the sun was shining brightly overhead. He hadn’t slept this late in years.

  He sat back down on the bed and put his head in his hands, thinking about Maura. Would she meet with him as she’d promised? Show him the letters?

  He had her phone number, both the one at the station and her cell, though she hadn’t given the second one to him. She’d said she would be working today, but he didn’t want to meet her surrounded by all the other detectives. He would call her captain on Monday, convince the man that she should be allowed to continue to work the case, and see if she would have dinner with him at his house. Or maybe he’d invite her and her niece out to do something. Maybe if he included the girl, Maura’d be more inclined to trust him.

  He didn’t know much about kids. He ran the risk of looking like a fool, especially if she saw through the ploy. But Roland knew people well, and most mothers had trouble refusing something their children really wanted. And for all intents and purposes, Maura was a mother. He couldn’t forget that. She wasn’t like the women he was used to having in his bed.

  Maura seemed like a woman who would enjoy watching the snowfall with her man by her side, a roaring fire in the fireplace, a dog resting comfortably on a bed nearby. He looked around at the empty richness of his room, at the perfection and order, and tried to imagine her sleeping in his bed, her bright hair tumbling over his pillows, her gray eyes watching him in the night. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t fool himself as easily as he did others. He had to get the letters, and any other information she had on Keenan’s case before his cousin struck again. He was going to catch the bastard this time.

  He picked up his watch off the nightstand and put it on absently. He could convince himself that using her for information was justified, even practical, but Roland only believed in illusions for other people. For himself, he could afford only the unvarnished truth. And the truth was, he deserved the condemnation he saw in her eyes when she looked at him. He accepted that, and the guilt that he was going to feel when she realized she’d been used.

  He would pay the price of that guilt to catch Keenan; in fact, he would pay anything.

  MAURA DUG INTO the Dunkin’ Donuts bag on the way to the station, taking a huge bite of her doughnut as she entered the building. By the time she reached the squad room, she’d eaten half of it and her coffee was mostly gone.

  “Here ya go,” she said with her mouth full, dropping a greasy pink-and-white bag on the corner of Bert’s desk. The healthy egg-white-and-spinach burrito his wife had made him sat untouched on a plate on the corner of his desk. Not a good sign.

  He picked it up immediately, holding it above his desk with a thumb and forefinger. “Dam
n it, Maura. You’re getting grease on everything.”

  Ignoring him, she set her coffee down and plopped into her chair, which squeaked in protest.

  “And for the love of God, take some WD-40 to that fucking thing. That sound is making me crazy.”

  Maura finished chewing, wiped her hands on a napkin, and leaned forward to strip off her jacket, shoving it behind her on the chair as usual. “What crawled up your ass?”

  He’d pulled a plate out from one of his desk drawers and was meticulously arranging the bacon, egg, and cheese croissant that she’d gotten for him. “Aria has me on a diet, again,” he mumbled.

  Hiding her dismay, Maura quickly finished the doughnut. “Oh yeah?” Bert on a diet was like taking a bear that had been hibernating all winter and setting him in front of a pastry shop. He went a little nuts.

  Maura left him alone and logged on to her computer. She started to pull up her files on Keenan and hesitated. Bugged. By whom?

  “Bert, who do I call if I think someone’s bugged our system?”

  “Bugged it how?”

  Maura honestly didn’t know. Maybe Roland had been fucking with her. “Listening to our conversation, maybe hacking into our computers. I think the computers, but I’m not sure.”

  “What gave you that idea?”

  She didn’t want to tell him that she’d seen Roland Chandler, but he was her partner. “Roland Chandler.”

  Bert paused with the breakfast sandwich lifted halfway to his mouth. “Roland Chandler told you that our computers were bugged.”

  “Yeah, more or less.”

  He put down the sandwich. “Since he’s a computer expert, I think he may have some insight, don’t you? At least he’s more expensive than our government IT department.”

  “Probably,” she conceded. “But then there’s the question of why he’s poking around in our system in the first place.”

  “There is that,” he agreed.

  “I know. So who do I call?”

  “Beats the shit out of me. We’ll have to ask the captain.”

  Maura thought that the only thing stopping Roland from breaking into the BPD network was his own conscience. She doubted he would care whether or not it was illegal, so if he had hacked into the police database and files, why had he needed her? He should have found copies of the letters long ago. Unless . . . She pulled up the official police file on Keenan Shy from the database. She scanned through it quickly, flipping through the digital pages and opening files to scan the contents. The PDF copies of the letters weren’t in the file. Every year since she’d been allowed to take on the cold case despite her family connection to the crime, she’d scanned each one in herself, logging them as evidence. Someone had removed them.

  Shock made her breath go. Removed them completely. Who could do that? Why would they do that unless the letters were important somehow?

  Suddenly terrified that the actual paper letters were gone as well, she stood up and hurried over to the records room, knocking on the thick wooden door.

  A prim, quiet voice told her to come in.

  “Laura,” Maura began immediately, spotting the pale brunette in front of an industrial scanner. “Can you get me the case file for my brother’s murder?”

  Laura looked at her above reading glasses that would have looked just right on a ninety-year-old woman. “I’m a little busy.”

  “We’re all busy, Laura. Would you mind? It’s important.” Maura rattled off the case number, which she knew by heart.

  Sniffing, her narrow face held in haughty disapproval, Laura tapped the papers in her hands three times on a nearby table before setting them aside. Slowly, so slowly that Maura wanted to shake her, she went to the tall filing cabinets where the case files were stored.

  Maura waited impatiently, but knew better than to say anything else. Laura was a bitch, but no one wanted her to quit. Before her, finding anything in the paper files had been a damn nightmare.

  Ten minutes later, which was five minutes longer than it should have taken, Maura signed for the fat file folder filled with eleven years’ worth of documents that had been collected on Shy. Hugging it to her chest, she carried it back to the squad room and set it down on the corner of her desk.

  She heard Bert sigh. “Cap’n’s not going to like seeing that. He told you to let it go.”

  Maura didn’t bother to mention Roland’s promise to get the captain off her back about her hunt for Keenan. She’d believe that when it happened. “Don’t worry about it.” She unwrapped the tie holding the large expanding file closed and started pulling out file folders.

  Bert’s phone rang as she was sorting them out on her desk, breathing in the familiar scent of old paper, sweat, and sadness. She had spent so many nights—sorrowful nights, clear-eyed nights, frustrated nights—reviewing all the documents on her brother’s murder.

  “Yes, Captain.” The note of resignation in Bert’s voice caught Maura’s attention. She looked at him curiously.

  “Yes, sir. We’ll head over there now.” He hung up and stood, sliding his phone into the holder on his belt. “We caught one. Some kid’s been hacking into corporations all around the city.” With surprising quickness for such a large man, he removed his jacket from the back of his plain black office chair and shrugged it on over his holster.

  Maura stood, tossing the papers carelessly on the desk and donning her own holster and weapon. “So? We’re homicide, what does that have to do with—”

  “Kid witnessed a murder on a video camera while he was hacking into this big chemical company. He wants to make a deal.”

  Nodding, Maura pulled her weapon out to check it before holstering it again. “Where’s he at?”

  “The cyber-crimes guys downtown have him; they’re holding him till we can get over there and hear the kid’s story,” he said.

  “They think he’s legit?” Maura grabbed her go-bag from the big drawer in her desk and dug her keys out of the small pocket in front.

  “They didn’t, but then they saw the description of our John Doe. The one we found by the river last week. They think it’s the guy the kid described.”

  “He know the guy’s name?” Maura asked. “Be nice to ID that one.”

  “Didn’t know the name, but was able to describe the guy’s face. Apparently he also has video saved on his computer.”

  “No shit?”

  Bert nodded. “That’s what they said.”

  Maura nodded, taking one last sip of her coffee. She’d intended to tell Bert about the missing files, but it could wait. There wasn’t much he could do anyway, beyond help her figure out the process for getting IT to check the database.

  Leading the way out of the office, her bag slung over one shoulder, Maura felt her agitation over the missing photos fade into the background. She would scan them in again once she found them in the paper files, and she’d get someone who worked in IT or maybe this cyber-crimes unit to check and see if someone had hacked into the network. Someone besides Roland Chandler.

  ROLAND HAD JUST finished making coffee when his phone rang. He checked the screen and was surprised to see that it was Hoover, the private investigator he had tailing Maura O’Halloran. Still, the man rarely called, preferring to text or email him with updates.

  “This is Roland,” he answered, already heading down the hall from his kitchen into his bedroom. He wasn’t going to be able to enjoy a leisurely breakfast this morning. Pity. He’d been looking forward to cooking—one of the few skills he was proud to have learned from his father.

  “They caught your hacker.”

  Roland paused briefly before continuing on to his bedroom; he’d been expecting more information on Maura O’Halloran, but this was equally important. Ever since Keenan and some Russian mobsters had hacked Accendo’s systems a year earlier, Roland had been actively hunting hackers by posting anonymous challenges on the Darknet. So far he’d caught two Chinese operatives that he’d reported to the State Department, four bored college students, and a ma
ilman from Nebraska.

  “Understood. Call you back in a few minutes.”

  Dressing quickly in jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and a thick sweater, he grabbed his keys and headed to the private elevator that took him from his penthouse to the lobby of the building. From there he had access to a private parking garage where he kept the small collection of cars he used in the city. His house in Dover, thirty minutes south of Boston, was filled with an equally impressive collection of expensive vehicles. He enjoyed driving, enjoyed the power and freedom he felt behind the wheel. Power and freedom had been difficult enough to come by in his life that he reveled in it now.

  He slid behind the wheel of a Mercedes AMG G-Class wagon and called Hoover back using the voice controls.

  The man answered as Roland maneuvered the car smoothly out of the parking garage.

  “The hacker: male or female?” Roland asked first.

  “Male. Boy, really. A goddamn teenager. Can you believe that?”

  Roland could. He’d been ten when he and Keenan had started hacking into local businesses.

  “Who caught him?”

  “That nerd squad at the station downtown, the one you funded for reasons I have yet to fathom. I didn’t really think it was going to pay off.”

  Roland ignored the implied criticism for funding a police unit designed to hunt cyber criminals. They may never be as effective as professional hackers, but Roland thought the cops should be armed with some tools for the digital age. He’d also needed them to be responsible for this particular fish. “Who called you about it? The detectives or—”

  “Nah, one of the secretaries. She’s always had a soft spot for me.”

  Hoover had once been a mob snitch for the Boston police. He was officially retired from snitching, but he kept his ear to the ground as a PI. “Any idea where he is now?”

  “Your cyber squad detectives are holding him downtown, but apparently they’ve called in O’Halloran’s girl—that one you’ve got me tailing. She stopped at Dunkin’ and then went into the station. She and her partner are headed over to the downtown building now.”