Fucking loony-ass motherfucker.
Motherfucking loony-ass bitch.
It took him no time at all to get back to HQ, and he blasted up that front stairwell, gunning for his computer. As he blew into the Homicide department, all he got for a greeting was a lot of ringing phones—everyone was out to lunch or working a case somewhere in town. Which was good news for his colleagues.
Sitting down at his desk, he got the number of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s local field office, and dialed in.
“Yeah, hello—this is Detective DelVecchio over at Caldwell Homicide. I want to speak with Personnel. Yup. Thanks.” He picked up a pen and began twirling it in and out of his fingertips. “Yeah, DelVecchio at the CPD—I want to see if you have an Agent Jim Heron anywhere in your system, including out of state. I have my badge number if you want it.” He recited the numbers. “Uh-huh, that’s right. The guy I’m looking for is Agent Jim Heron. Yeah, that’s how you spell it, like the bird. A man approached me yesterday with what looked like bona fide credentials, identified himself as an agent working on a missing persons case, and came with me to interview the family. I just met with him again and I want to verify who he is. Yup. Just call me, I’m at my desk.”
He hung up.
One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi. Four Miss—
His phone rang. “DelVecchio. Hey, thanks—really. Go fig, no one at all by that name. Yup, he’s six-four, maybe -five. Blondish hair. Blue eyed. Looks like soldier. He had two other men with him, one with a braid, another with a lot of metal on his face. The credentials were legit, though, right down to the hologram. Thanks—yeah, please, I’d like to know if you find anything—and I’ll let you know if he shows up again.”
As he hung up the phone, he thought he should have known. He should have fucking known—and he should have apprehended the guy right there by the river. That talk about shadows, though, had thrown him—
“Are you okay?”
He glanced up. Reilly was standing next to his desk, a little McDonald’s bag in one hand and a short soda in the other.
“No, I’m really fucking not.” He shifted his eyes to the computer screen, because he knew he was glaring. “Remember that FBI agent from yesterday?”
“Heron?”
“He’s a fake.”
“A fake?” She sat down beside him. “What do you mean—”
“Someone broke into my house last night.” As she gasped, he kept going. “It was him. Probably his two buddies, too—”
“Why didn’t you tell me? And why the hell didn’t you report it?”
He started rubbing his temples, and thought, Well, at least this headache was the normal stress kind. Nothing but tension—
Abruptly, he jacked around.
Except there was nothing behind him, no one staring at the back of his head or lining up a gun muzzle with his skull. It was just an empty room cut up by cubicles that were filled with computers and phones and empty office chairs.
Unfortunately, his instincts told him there was another layer to it all, one that, although his eyes couldn’t measure it, was as real as anything he could touch and feel.
Just like last night in his kitchen. Just as it had been down by the river ten minutes ago.
Just as it had been his whole life.
“What is it?” Reilly asked.
“Nothing.”
“Your head hurts?”
“No, it’s fine.”
Veck casually got up and walked all the way across the department to the banks of windows that looked out over the street below. Making like he was just glancing outside at the sky, he focused his eyes on the glass and braced himself.
No shadows in it.
Thank fuck. Mirrors were usually the surest way to see what was lurking, but windowpanes could do the trick.
Goddamn it, he was losing his mind.
Turning back around, he passed through what seemed like a warm draft as he returned to his chair.
Reilly put her hand on his arm. “Talk to me. I can help.”
He rubbed his hair and didn’t bother to smooth it back into place. “Last night, when I got home, I knew there was someone in my house. There was no obvious break-in, but it was just . . .” Okay, now he was starting to feel crazy as he heard himself talk. “I wasn’t sure until I went to meet with Heron. Something about the way he was looking at me . . . I knew it was him, and he didn’t deny it. Fucking hell, I should have expected something like this so close to my father’s execution.”
“What . . . I’m sorry, what does your father have—”
“Like I said before, he has fans.” More with the hair scrubbing. “And they’ve done scary shit. They can’t get close to him, but I’m out in the general public and they find me. You can’t fucking imagine what it’s like to discover your new roommate is a devil worshiper, or that chick who hit on you at the bar is covered with tattoos of your old man’s face. Especially my old man.” He cursed low and hard. “And believe me, those are only the less creative examples. I should have known something like this was going to happen right now, but I don’t believe in paranoia. Maybe I damn well should, though.”
“You can’t blame yourself about Heron. I saw his ID. It absolutely looked legitimate.”
His eyes shot to hers. “I took that man into a victim’s home. To meet her goddamn mother. Oh, for fuck’s sake . . .”
Veck shoved his chair back on a sharp push and got up. As he paced down the row of empty cubicles, he wanted to hit a wall.
And naturally, at that moment, his cell phone rang.
Reilly stayed in her seat as Veck accepted a call.
He looked awful. Stressed. Exhausted. And it dawned on her that he hadn’t had anything to eat at her place last night, and probably, given how “lunch” had gone, hadn’t done himself any favors at noontime, either.
“Really? Yeah, she’s with me. Uh-huh . . .”
As twelve kinds of noncommittals floated over, he walked around in a tight circle, free hand on his hip, head down, brows tight. He was wearing his uniform of black trousers and a white shirt with no tie, and through the pocket of his button-down, the red stripe on his pack of Marlboros showed.
The cubicles in the Homicide department, like the ones over in IA, were no taller than chest height, and as with her colleagues, the detectives here decorated their workspaces with pictures of kids and wives and husbands. A couple of the females had small plants. Nearly all had special mugs they used for coffee, and pinned up Dilbert cartoons, and ads with stupid mistakes in them.
DelVecchio’s was utterly bare, the cloth-covered, thumbtack-friendly walls empty of anything but the holes left behind by the last inhabitant’s life display. And she had a feeling it had nothing to do with the fact that he had just started working here. Usually, when someone new came in, putting up their stuff was the first thing they did.
Veck hung up and glanced over. “That was de la Cruz. I also spoke with Bails.”
“As did I.”
“So you know Kroner thought it was an animal that attacked him, and that he ID’d me as the man who came and called nine-one-one.”
“Yeah, I do. And I think you should believe it.”
“Believe what.”
“That you didn’t hurt him.” As he made a dismissive noise, she shook her head. “I mean it, Veck. I don’t understand why you’re so persistent, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.”
“People can be wrong.”
“Not at a face-to-face distance. Unless you think those wounds were somehow created from across the parking lot?” When he didn’t say anything further, she knew better than to beat a dead horse. “Heron needs to be reported.”
“For impersonating a federal agent, yeah. But I doubt I can prove he was in my house.” He sat back down and went through his phone. “At least I have his cell phone number in here.”
“I’ll file the report,” she said. “You need to take the rest of the afternoon off.”
“Nah. I’m good.”