Don't Look Away (Veronica Sloan) (23 page)

She gaped.

Sykes held a hand up, cutting off her argument. “Sorry, Veronica, I’m with Daniels on this one. If Bailey knows about the implant and knows you saw him, he’s going to be embarrassed. If he doesn’t know about the implant, doesn’t know you saw him, he’s going to stick to his story in order to save face with you. Either way, your presence could be a detriment.”

She choked back a growl of frustration. Because they were right, and she knew they were right. Shaking her head, she waved them toward the door. “Go on. I’ll watch from the observation room.” Then, because she knew them well enough to know this temporary truce as they united against her wouldn’t last for long, she admonished them both. “Play nice. If he senses any kind of dissention between you two, he’ll do what he can to exploit it.”

Her partner and the FBI agent stared at each other for a long moment. Then Sykes nodded and Daniels shrugged. That was about as close to a declaration of friendship as they’d ever be likely to express. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. She’d take what she could get.

Skirting the interview room where their witness sat, cooling his heels, Ronnie headed for the room next door. It was small, bare, with just a table and chair and one broad window that overlooked the room next door. The glass would allow Ronnie to see what was happening, and an intercom would enable hear to hear. Bailey was in law enforcement, so he would know someone was observing from the other side. Hell, anybody who’d ever seen a cop show on TV would know that. Hopefully, he wouldn’t realize it was her and decide to be uncooperative.

Things started out well. Daniels took the lead, Sykes content to stand quietly in the corner, his arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the wall. He appeared almost disinterested, but she saw the keenly focused expression on his face and knew the pose was a deliberate one. They wanted Bailey to let his guard down.

Daniels led the young Special Agent through a series of basic questions—stuff they’d already covered in interviews with others out at the Patriot Square site. Then, just as the agent settled back into his chair, looking a little relaxed, as if he’d expected far worse, her partner hit him with the big one.

“So, Special Agent Bailey, we’ve been led to believe you might have had a closer relationship with the victim than you’ve said.”

The man shot straight up in his chair. “What? That’s crazy. Who told you that?”

Daniels, who’d been sitting across from the man, scooted his chair forward, making it squeak on the dingy tile. Bailey flinched, his tension visibly increasing with every second.

Daniels merely smiled. “Is it true?”

“That’s nuts,” he snapped. Again, not answering the question. “I’m a married man and I love my wife. I would never cheat on her.”

Uh, right. Just like he’d never mislead investigators trying to solve a murder.

Ronnie had been in on enough interviews to know how easily some people lied. Bailey was trying not to. As if hedging, throwing out indignant replies and skirting around the issue were going to get Daniels to back off, without Bailey ever having to actually say the words, “No, it’s not true.”

He obviously didn’t know her partner. Or Sykes, who walked over and sat on the edge of the table, looking down at the agent. “Detective Daniels never said anything about you cheating on your wife. He asked if you were closer to the victim than you’d led us to believe. Why would you immediately assume he was talking about a sexual affair?”

Bailey sputtered, looking back and forth between them. “But, he said…I thought he meant…”

Sykes sighed. “Okay, well, since you put it out there, did your wife know you were having sex with Leanne Carr?”

Bailey’s eyes bugged out and his face went bright red. “I resent that accusation!”

“Resent it all you want. You still did it,” Sykes replied, completely unflappable. “Come on, Bailey, we know all about it.”

“How? That’s impossible.” He crossed his arms over his chest, huddling in his chair. Mumbling like a little kid accused of breaking the cookie jar, he added, “Nobody can prove something that didn’t happen.”

Sykes and Daniels exchanged a glance, then both looked toward the two-way mirror, toward her. She knew what they were thinking. Bailey sure wasn’t acting like he knew there could be any kind of photographic evidence. 

He didn’t know about the O.E.P. He had no idea Leanne had a camera in her brain.

Daniels tapped his fingers on the table. “So, you’re saying that wasn’t you who, last Tuesday evening, snuck up behind her, put your hands over her eyes, and tugged her back with you into a storage room, where she proceeded to…”

“Oh, my God! How do you know that?” Bailey looked completely shocked. Though because he’d been caught out having sex with a woman who was later murdered, or because he’d cheated on his wife, she couldn’t say.

“We just know. Now, how long was it going on?”

Bailey hesitated, his eyes shifting back and forth, between Daniels and Sykes, and then at the mirror. It was like he was looking right at her.

“Is
she
in there?”

Daniels tilted his head in confusion. “She?”

“Sloan. Detective Sloan. Is she watching this?”

Sykes provided a smooth reply. “You do remember that Detective Sloan was attacked in the basement of the White House the other night, and was badly injured, don’t you?”

Bailey sighed in relief, and Ronnie almost laughed. Two could play at that not-actually-lying game.

“Is she okay?” the young man asked.

“She will be,” said Daniels, sounding both sad and angry. “I’m gonna get the person who did that to her and make him wish he was never born.”

The color fell out of Bailey’s face. “You’re not saying you think I had anything to do with that. I was in your office, talking to you when it happened.”

“You could have hit her, then come up to see where I was and establish an alibi.”

“But I didn’t. I would never have done that, I couldn’t hurt a woman!”

“No, you just cheat on them,” said Sykes.

Bailey glared up at him. “You don’t understand.”

“Infidelity? Oh, I understand that, it’s not terribly complicated.”

His eyes growing luminous, Bailey buried his face in his hands. A small sob emerged from him and Ronnie had to wonder whether he was crying for his wife, for Leanne, or for himself for getting busted.

“You’re not going to have to tell Tanya, my wife, are you?”

Okay. Himself. Little slimeball.

“She’d never understand.”

“Wives usually don’t,” Daniels said, sounding disgusted.

“It’s just, we went to high school together, I’d never had a chance to, I dunno, sow my wild oats or anything. I don’t want to upset her or have her think it meant anything.”

Ronnie was suddenly glad for the mirror that made it impossible for him to see her rolling her eyes in disgust.

“Leanne didn’t know I was married at first,” he admitted. “I never wore my ring at work.”

“When did it start?” Sykes asked, still sitting above Bailey on the table, like a quiet father figure to whom the man could safely confess. Meanwhile, Daniels resembled the angry older brother who might beat the shit out of him at any moment.

They did this good-cop/bad-cop thing pretty well. Better than she and Daniels usually did, considering they both typically fought over who was bad-cop and neither could pull off a convincing
good
one.

“We started messing around about a month and a half ago. Just flirting at first, then one day it went a little farther and next thing you know we’re making it on the floor of the Oval Office.”

Bailey sounded almost pleased with himself for that.
Punk
.

“Ever ‘make it’ on the floor of the sub-basement?” Daniels asked, ice in his voice.

Bailey finally remembered who he’d been proud about having sex with, and blanched. He swallowed visibly, his throat fluttering. “I didn’t know it was her at first. Not until after they found her chip and got her identity. I went into the bathroom and puked until I thought I’d pass out.”

“You seemed to have pulled yourself together by the time my partner and I got there,” Daniels said.

“I guess. But believe me, I went home that night, locked myself in the bathroom and cried like a baby. I told Tanya I was sick.” He shook his head, actually appearing distressed now. “Look, I didn’t love Leanne, but I liked her and we had fun together. What happened to her was brutal, man. Nobody deserves to die like that, and I hope you catch the bastard who did it and fry him.”

Was this guy really so clueless that he had no idea he was a suspect? He was focused on not letting his wife found out about an affair; so far it didn’t appear to have occurred to him that they might like him for the murder.

So they
didn’t
like him for the murder, but he couldn’t know that.

“Agent Bailey, can you account for your whereabouts throughout the afternoon of the 4
th
?” asked Sykes.

Bailey’s hands fisted and he drew them into his stomach. “You don’t think…you can’t…”

Daniels leaned across the table, glaring at the man. “Just answer the question, Bailey.”

“I was on duty the entire time,” Bailey insisted. “I signed in at the security trailer at 9 a.m., and was assigned to different duties throughout the day. I wasn’t out of sight of somebody I work with for more than a ten minutes that whole afternoon!”

Sykes pulled a notebook out of his pocket and dropped it onto the table. “Give us the name of every person you interacted with and everywhere you were from 2:00 p.m. until 4:00p.m.”

Bailey nodded quickly, grabbed the pen and pad and began writing. As he did so, he continued to mumble excuses for the affair, and to explain why he hadn’t told them about it. “If I’d thought I could help with the investigation, I would totally have told you. But the truth is, I hadn’t even seen Leanne for two days before she died. I knew absolutely nothing.”

“You still didn’t think it mattered?” Daniels slammed a hand flat down on the table, making the suspect flinch. “Come on, Bailey, you’re supposed to be in law enforcement. You know there’s no such thing as an unimportant detail in a murder investigation!”

Tears rose to the young man’s eyes. “I know. I’m sorry. I was…ashamed.”

Good. He should be.

“Plus, it would have made me look really bad. Kilgore’s a stick-in-the-mud. If he’d found out, he probably would have fired me, even after Leanne died.”

Kilgore
had
known, at least if they were right about him being the person caught so briefly on the O.E.P. chip watching Bailey and Leanne. If he were really such a stick-in-the-mud, why hadn’t he done anything about it? She’d have thought he would have confronted the young lovers and warned them to stop their behavior.

Maybe he did. But maybe it wasn’t Bailey he confronted.

Hmm. She had to wonder if Kilgore had sought-out Leanne, and made a mental note to look for him in the rest of the downloaded files.

Bailey babbled on. “If I lost my job, Tanya would want to know why. I mean, what would I say to her? I couldn’t tell her I was messing around.”

“Start thinking, dude. If you’re a murder suspect, she’s gonna find out,” Daniels snarled.

“But you can’t suspect me! I didn’t do it, check these names, these people will tell you I couldn’t possibly have done that. It would have been physically impossible for me to be in two places at once.”

Sykes took the pad, glanced it over, folded it closed and put it back in his pocket. Rising from the table, he walked over toward the mirror, looking through it as if he could see her, though she knew he could not. He winked. Then turned around.

“So, Bailey, now that we know you were a lot friendlier with Ms. Carr than you’ve let on, why don’t we start from the beginning. You tell us every single thing you know about her…and then we’ll decide whether or not we believe you.”

-#-

Although Ronnie very much wanted to confront Special Agent in Charge Kilgore with her suspicion that he’d been the one spying on the sexual encounter between Bailey and Leanne Carr, she knew she needed more evidence. She and Daniels had gotten through a few days of Leanne’s backups at her apartment last night, mostly by fast-forwarding through anything that looked unimportant and only watching physical interactions with other people. So far, she hadn’t found anything else involving Kilgore, but she wasn’t finished looking yet.

Sykes had some looking of his own to do. Dr. Cavanaugh had finished working on Brian Underwood’s chip. Plus, he’d barely made a dent in that man’s backups from his home computer. So after they’d finished with the Bailey interrogation—all of them agreeing it was doubtful he was their man—Ronnie agreed to ride with Sykes up to Bethesda, to Phineas Tate’s research facility. Daniels had planned to go back to talk to the lead architect, Frank, as well as Williams and Kilgore, to try to find out more about that tunnel and who could have known about it. He also promised to try to find out what he could about the six dead O.E.P. test subjects.

Upon arriving at Dr. Tate’s building, they were greeted by Dr. Cavanaugh, who showed them to the same lab they’d used yesterday. Ronnie hadn’t been able to help holding her breath, wondering if the woman would comment about some unusual activity on these work stations yesterday—when somebody had been poking around the Tate network—but she said nothing of the sort. Apparently, she and Sykes were better hackers than Daniels gave them credit for.

Or maybe the pretty scientist was just distracted. As she had yesterday, Cavanaugh paid more attention to Sykes than she did to Ronnie, which was fine by her. Let him be the charming FBI agent who everybody liked, she was content being the hard-ass bitch who didn’t make friends but sure got results.

“So, we going to start with Underwood’s death?” Sykes asked as soon as they were alone.

She hated the prospect of it, after what they’d witnessed in this room yesterday, but knew it had to be done. “Okay.”

He hesitated. “You’re sure?”

“We made a deal. You watched mine, I’ll watch yours.”