Fire and Ice (Buchanan-Renard #7)

Fire and Ice (Buchanan-Renard #7) Page 3

“I wasn’t planning—” Alec began.

“Agent Buchanan, did you think I was making a suggestion? Let me clear up that misconception right now. You are taking time off. You too, Agent MacAlister. This isn’t a choice. Oh, and you will stay in Chicago during your vacation.”

“Why aren’t you calling this what it is?” Alec asked.

“And what might that be?”

“A suspension.”

She shook her head. “A suspension would indicate that I believe you’ve done something wrong.”

“How long are we on vacation?” Jack asked. He folded his arms across his chest while he waited for a response.

She didn’t answer the question. Instead she said, “While you are enjoying your vacation in Chicago,” she stressed, “you will report in by e-mail or phone every morning. You will avoid talking to the media, and that includes telling them where you think they should put their microphones, Agent MacAlister. You will be ready to go back to work twenty-four hours after you’re notified, which is why you will stay close in case I need you.”

Jack was going to argue, but Alec spoke first. “When does our vacation begin?”

“Now.”

Jack was following Alec out the doorway when Pittman called out, “Agent MacAlister?”

“Ma’am?”

“Good work today.”

What the…He didn’t say what he was thinking. He simply nodded to his superior and continued on, but once he and Alec were in the elevator, he repeated her remark.

“Good work today? What’d she mean by that? You’ve worked for her longer than I have, so tell me, was she being sarcastic, or was that her attempt at humor?”

“Neither,” Alec said. “You did good work today, and she’s acknowledging it. You watched the video. The kid got it all, from the minute those drugged-out bastards walked inside, until it was over. You prevented a bloodbath.”

“One of us should have grabbed the kid’s phone before we ordered the cheeseburgers.”

Alec laughed. “Yeah, that’s what screwed both of us. They weren’t even good cheeseburgers.”

The elevator doors opened on garage level B. Alec headed one way and Jack the other.

“What time tomorrow night?” Jack shouted.

“Try to get there by nine, and bring money, Jack. Lots of it. I want to win back what I lost.”

Jack laughed. “Yeah, like that’s gonna happen.”

JOURNAL ENTRY 8

FAIRBANKS

Arrived in Fairbanks this afternoon. It’s spring, but it’s still chilly.

We’ve all brought extra equipment with us. Brandon has assured us that everything we’ll need is already in our shelter waiting to be unpacked. We’ll fly into Barrow tomorrow, and from there we’ll have quite a trek to our research facility. Brandon has shown us photos. The lab is quite spacious by most standards and connects to two temporary structures where we’ll live.

Besides our scientific work, each of us has other duties. Eric is our designated medic. There will be times in the winter months when it will be impossible to get help, should there be an emergency. He’s stocked the lab with supplies and medicines, but we all know the dangers we’ll be facing, living such an isolated life while we do our work.

Kirk is in charge of weapons. We have no desire to hurt any animal. We are the intruders, after all, not they, but should we run into a grizzly, the sound of our rifle will hopefully chase him away. None of us will leave the safety of our shelter without protection. The arctic fox is known to carry rabies, and we will kill any rabid ones we encounter.

Yes, there will be challenges. We will meet them head on.

THREE

SOPHIE KNEW SHE’D BE CUTTING IT CLOSE, BUT SHE’D spilled salad dressing on her blouse at lunch and needed to go home first to change clothes before she met William Harrington at Cosmo’s. She also needed to grab her recorder.

Times like today, when she was rushing around like a crazy woman, Sophie wished she still owned a car. She would have to run in high heels three blocks—three long blocks—to get to the El, and at this time of day the train was going to be packed with the surly going-home-from-work crowd.

She squeezed into the train just as the doors closed. The air inside was stuffy and smelled of old disinfectant. Sophie slowly made her way to the back of the car. Two teenage boys tried to engage her in conversation, but other than giving them a quick smile, she ignored them and continued on. She passed a middle-aged man who reeked of whiskey and who obviously hadn’t touched a bar of soap in a long time. She thought herself fortunate to find an empty bench behind him and sat down. The drunk turned to face her. His eyelids were at half mast and he began to list to the left, but he jerked himself upright and moved toward her. He held on to the bar above his head and kept trying to get her attention by making weird sounds as he leered at her. He embodied the expression “dirty old man.” Sophie thought he might be a relative of Gary’s: his repellent leer was nearly identical.

The two teenage boys turned out to be quite chivalrous. Like everyone else on the train, they noticed the man’s behavior. Jumping to their feet, they squeezed their way around him and blocked him from getting closer to Sophie. They also blocked him from getting off the El when she did.

She gave the boys an appreciative smile, though their sweet gesture hadn’t really been necessary. She was quite capable of taking care of herself. The husband of her best friend was an FBI agent, and he’d taught Sophie all the moves she needed to protect herself. She also carried pepper spray. And as she stepped off the train, she released the grip she had around the canister.

She had a half hour before her appointment. Fortunately, her one-bedroom Lincoln Park condominium was just a couple of blocks from Cosmo’s, a fact she deliberately hadn’t mentioned to Harrington. Few people outside of law enforcement knew where she lived, or so she liked to believe, and she was determined to keep her private life just that: private.

Her father had given her the condo for her sixteenth birthday, and as soon as she was of age, he had transferred the title to her. With conditions. She couldn’t sell it, which to her meant she didn’t really own it. Still, there wasn’t a mortgage, and she was thankful for that. Her father had paid cash for it, and back when she was a teen, Sophie didn’t ask or care where his money came from. She had been too busy worrying about Social Services taking her away after his arrest, which she had thought was inevitable. At the time, there simply had not been room in her mind to think about cash problems or how her father, without any noticeable job, was able to live such an extravagant life. Back then, extravagant seemed ordinary. Sophie had never known anything different.

The morality of her situation didn’t register until after she had graduated from the university. Due to the prodding of her two closest friends, she finally stopped taking money from her father, and that meant drastically modifying her lifestyle. When her car was in need of costly repairs, she sold it and began to walk or take the El to get around the city. Her life had become more strenuous, but it was definitely simpler now, and she liked that. She was proud that she had become a strong, independent woman who could succeed on her own.

Today was her personal best, she decided. She had a history of being late, but she was making a real effort to change that bad habit. After a quick stop home, she reached the bar and grill five minutes early.

Cosmo’s drew a diverse crowd. There were always the junior executives networking while they sipped white wine or martinis, construction workers unwinding after a hard day’s work while they snacked on appetizers and drank icy cold beer, and couples and singles from the neighborhood stopping by for a cold one and catching up on the latest news.

The bar was known for its bottled beer served just two degrees above freezing. Cosmo, like his father before him, was a fanatic about the temperature. There was also a small but adequate selection of wine from the vineyards of California, and draft beer that was brewed right there in Chicago. The grill was popular for its jalapeño hamburgers that seemed to get hotter every year. There wasn’t anything pretentious about Cosmo’s, which was probably why Sophie liked it so much. It was comfortable and inviting, a place where all the locals could come dressed in evening attire or jeans and feel right at home.

The decor was as eclectic as the owner. The furniture was sleek and contemporary with polished chrome tables and chairs with thick, black, padded cushions. Booths with plush, tufted benches lined two walls. The ceiling was the eye-catcher, though. Cosmo loved astronomy, and since he tended the bar nearly every night, he had decided to bring the sky inside. He had painted the arched ceiling a deep blue, dappled it with yellow circles that were supposed to look like planets, and strung tiny white Christmas lights along the beams. When the lights were on, the ceiling became his own dazzling, star-filled night.

Cosmo spotted Sophie the second she stepped through the door. He shouted her name to get her attention, blew her a kiss, then patted his chest a couple of times to indicate a heart beating wildly for her. He had developed a special fondness for her after she had written a rave review about his bar. Cosmo had been so pleased he’d had it blown up and framed. He kept it propped behind the bar where everyone could see it. She noticed a sign leaning next to her article tonight. In big bold letters Cosmo had printed “No more Kelly’s Root Beer.”

Sophie wound her way through the crowd looking for William Harrington. She found him in the back, sitting in a booth. He looked anxious.

“Mr. Harrington?”

He jumped to his feet and thrust his hand out. “You’re Sophie Summerfield?” he asked. He sounded shocked and looked astonished.

She couldn’t understand his reaction. “Yes, I am,” she answered. “You did say six-thirty.”

“Yes, yes, I did.” He continued to stand, looking perplexed.

“Shall we sit down and get started?” she suggested.

She slid into the booth, waited until he’d taken his seat across from her, then reached for her digital tape recorder. “This is the first time I’ve used this, so please be patient,” she said. Normally, such a small, sleek recorder would have been horribly expensive, but this particular model had been discontinued, so she had been able to buy it at a huge discount. Since it was a company expense, she was sure Mr. Bitterman would reimburse her. She checked the charge before placing the recorder on the table between them.

Harrington stared at her intently.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“I knew you were young,” he said. “I could tell from your voice over the phone, but I didn’t expect you to be so pretty.”

When she didn’t respond, he asked, “Were you surprised when you saw me?”

Did he expect her to return the compliment? “I saw your photos on your website,” she replied, “so no, I wasn’t surprised. I knew what you looked like. Why don’t we get started?”

“Wouldn’t you like something to drink first?”

He insisted she order, and so she asked for an iced tea. He ordered a sparkling water.

“I make it a rule never to drink alcohol or caffeine the night before a race. You know how long a 5K is, don’t you? It’s over three miles. I can’t be sluggish, or it will affect my time, which is why I stick to water.”

“Why don’t you tell me about your first race?”

She didn’t ask another question or say another word for the next hour. Once he started talking, he didn’t stop. He was agonizingly boring, but whether she liked it or not, he was determined to go through all twenty-four races, from start to finish—and he had them all memorized.

Had her recorder been the old-fashioned kind, she would have gone through at least two cassettes. A good reporter would cut him off and take control of the interview, she thought. Or at least might bother to listen to what he was saying. In her defense, she did try several times to interrupt him. And she also tried to pay attention, but his monotonous voice could put an insomniac to sleep. He was on his tenth race when she completely zoned out and started thinking about all the mundane errands she needed to do over the weekend.

Once she had organized her schedule in her mind, she began to daydream about traveling through Europe again. She’d gone once before, after she’d graduated from the university, but she had missed some of Western Europe. Next time she’d love to see Spain and Portugal. A nice river cruise might be a relaxing way to see the beauty of these countries. She could certainly use a quiet vacation. Or perhaps she could book a stay in the posh spa she had read about in Vogue that had just opened on St. Barts…

Reality was quick to step in. At the moment she didn’t have enough money in her account to buy an airline ticket to anywhere, unless she decided she could go without food for a month or two.

“I’ve made it a tradition to wear bright red socks.”

Her attention bounced back to Harrington. “Yes, you mentioned that. Red socks, white shorts, and a red T-shirt.”

“Did I mention my socks are a special kind? Each one has a tiny white band around the top. Only one store carries them, and I’ve bought over a hundred pairs. I don’t dare run out,” he added. Then with a shrug he said, “I guess I’m superstitious. Are you getting all this?”

“Yes.” Sophie pointed to the recorder.

“Okay, good. Let’s take a minute to talk about blisters. Readers will probably want to know all about them. Some have been real bad. There was this one…”

I hate my job, at least right at this moment I do. And I really hate being poor. But who doesn’t hate being poor? she asked herself. Maybe Gandhi and Mother Teresa hadn’t minded, but they were both considered saints, and Sophie certainly wasn’t a saint.

Harrington ended his dissertation on foot ointments and, without stopping for breath, said, “Let’s get back to the races, shall we? Now the morning of my eleventh race…”

Dear God, just kill me now.

Had she groaned out loud? Harrington either didn’t notice or care that her eyes had glazed over.

She took a deep cleansing breath and pretended that she was in her yoga class. She would remove all negative energy from her thoughts and think only positive thoughts. Tomorrow night she was having dinner with Regan Buchanan and Cordie Kane, her two best friends since kindergarten. She couldn’t wait to see them. Regan had been traveling for business but was returning to Chicago late tonight. Cordie had been working on her thesis for a PhD in chemistry, and Sophie hadn’t seen her in over two weeks. She was wondering where they would eat when she realized that Harrington had stopped talking and was looking at her expectantly.