Chương 8
“It looks terrible,” Mara said.
“It looks visible.”
“That was not the goal.”
“Visibility is usually your thing.”
“Not at home.”
Nathan climbed down. “Maybe that’s the problem.”
She took the ladder from him before he could turn the sentence into a conversation.
They ate takeout noodles in the kitchen. Nathan asked no questions about the investigation. Instead, he complained that his office had replaced the coffee machine with one requiring an app. Mara told him that any device needing an account to produce hot water deserved sabotage.
For several minutes, the checkpoint did not exist.
Then Nathan looked at the bruise emerging beneath the collar of her blouse.
“You should have shown the credential sooner,” he said.
Mara put down her fork.
“You lasted twenty-three minutes.”
“I wasn’t timing it.”
“You were.”
“I watched the video.”
“You watched twelve seconds.”
“I watched every angle.”
“Then you know he moved before I could safely reach inside my blouse.”
“You could have identified yourself verbally.”
“I was observing a procedure.”
“You were pushing him.”
“I told him to preserve a bag with an unresolved alarm.”
“You knew he had a temper.”
“I knew he violated policy.”
“That’s not the same thing?”
“No.”
Nathan rubbed his thumb along the edge of the carton. “You still do this.”
“Do what?”
“Act as if the only choices are surrender or stand exactly where the blow is coming.”
Mara leaned back. Pain traveled across her ribs.
“You left because you wanted a life without my work in it.”
“I left because there was no room in your life where your work wasn’t standing.”
“That sounds rehearsed.”
“It took six years.”
She looked toward the bright porch light beyond the front window.
Nathan gathered the containers. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you caused it.”
“That is generous.”
“I think you saw what he was and decided his choices were more important than your safety.”
“They were.”
“That answer is why I’m here fixing a light you didn’t ask me to fix.”
He left before she found a reply.
At eight forty, Darius called.
“We interviewed Bannon.”
“And?”
“He admits using the old credential.”
“Why?”
“Heller asked him to.”
“What did he access?”
“Scanner calibration settings. Heller told him the current contractor was incompetent and the lane was producing false alarms.”
“Was it?”
“Yes. Bannon says the imaging array needed replacement.”
“So he recalibrated it.”
“He reduced sensitivity.”
Mara stood from the kitchen chair.
“How much?”
“Enough to suppress repeated alarms around dense electronics.”
“Why would Heller want that?”
“Wait times.”
“That’s the explanation?”
“Bannon says Heller paid him four hundred dollars per visit in cash.”
“Six visits.”
“Yes.”
“Where did Heller get the cash?”
“Bannon says he did not ask.”
“He asked. He’s lying.”
“Probably.”
“Did Bannon know property was disappearing?”
“He denies it.”
“Did he see the storage cabinet?”
“He installed it.”
Mara gripped the phone.
“What’s inside?”
“We obtained consent from the airport director to open it. Eighteen laptops, seven cameras, four tablets, jewelry, cash in passenger envelopes, and thirty-one property tags that were never entered into the central system.”
For a moment, Mara heard only the low hum of her refrigerator.
“Chain of custody?”
“Photographed before removal. Airport police present. Federal evidence team present. Counsel present.”
“Serial numbers?”
“Being checked against complaints.”
“Heller’s prints?”
“We’re processing.”
“Dana?”
“Claims she had no knowledge.”
“Bannon?”
“Claims Heller told him the cabinet contained items awaiting transfer.”
“Lila knew.”
“Some of it.”
“And someone knew she knew.”
“Yes.”
“Did Bannon drive a black Lincoln?”
“No.”
“Does Dana?”
“Company car is a black Lincoln.”
Mara closed her eyes.
“Where is she?”
“At home, according to counsel.”
“Verify it.”
“Already doing so.”
“Darius.”
“What?”
“Bring Lila back alive.”
The silence on the line changed.
“I intend to find her,” he said.
“That wasn’t what I said.”
“I heard what you said.”
She pressed her fingers to her chest.
Darius continued, “Dana’s vehicle entered the employee garage at nine forty-three last night and left at ten eleven. Her assigned driver says Dana dismissed him at eight. Traffic cameras lost the car two miles west of the airport.”
“Dana moved Lila.”
“We do not know that.”
“She was reflected at Heller’s press conference today.”
“We know.”
“She’s coordinating.”
“We know she is involved. We do not know how.”
Mara paced to the window. The new porch light illuminated the sidewalk in a hard white circle.
“Dana needs the airport to believe Heller acted alone,” she said. “If Lane Four was kept open under performance pressure, she approved the conditions. If stolen property is found, she gives us Heller. If unauthorized calibration is found, she gives us Bannon. Each man contains one part.”
“And Lila connects them.”
“Yes.”
“Why not harm her?”
The question was blunt because Darius did not decorate fear.
“Because Dana isn’t violent,” Mara said. “She manages people. She persuades them to protect the institution.”
“Where would she take Lila?”
“Somewhere private but respectable. Not a warehouse. Not a motel.”
“Hotel conference room?”
“Too many cameras.”
“Office?”
“Airport is monitored.”
Mara remembered the charity photograph, the oversized check, the green edge of a golf course behind them.
“The airport foundation owns a retreat property,” she said.
“What?”
“Dana mentioned it during our first administrative meeting. A donor lodge near Lake Mercer. They host board sessions there.”
Darius was silent for less than a second.
“I’ll call you.”
The line disconnected.
Mara stood beneath the bright porch light for eleven minutes, watching every vehicle enter the street. She knew she should call Rebecca. She knew Darius would do it. She knew leaving the house would turn concern into disobedience and disobedience into evidence that Frank Bell could use.
She also knew the Lake Mercer property sat nearly forty miles away.
She picked up her car keys.
Then she put them down.
The choice felt less like discipline than cowardice.
She hated it enough to remain where she was.
At nine twenty-seven, Darius called.
May you like
“We have her.”
Mara sat on the stairs.
