Eleven (Brandon Fisher FBI Series)

Chapter 25 & 26

Chapter 25

I HATED LEAVING DEB IN the condo alone even though she'd be safe there. The unsub didn't know anything about Nadia's existence, and if they had attempted to follow us, I had made more than the necessary turns to weed out any suspicious vehicles.

Back at the house Jack and a few CSIs were combing the ceilings, through pieces of furniture and the bookshelves. We had a collection of Agatha Christie books on the one and I hurried over to the guy. "Please be careful."

He looked at me as if to say, it's not my first day on the job. The man was old enough to be my father.

"Where's Special Agent Harper?"

A rubber-gloved finger pointed to the ceiling.

I bounded up the staircase two steps at a time. Jack was in the bedroom, a haze of smoke around him. I waved a hand in front of my face. "Put that thing out."

He went over to one of the windows, lifted the old pane and flicked the butt outside. "You should really put in a screen."

A small device was on the quilt. "What did you find?"

"That is a camera."

I picked up the bag and examined the contents. It was small enough to fit on the flat part of my thumb. "This."

"That."

"What about audio?" The unsub needed to have some sort of ears on the place to know about Deb's sister Karen. I ran a hand along the base of my neck and paused to rub it for a few seconds. "We need to get someone on them too."

"Already handled. Called in Chantilly PD."

"So obviously, this creep was in my home, in my bedroom, defiled Deb's privacy."

"Obviously."

"You're going to be like that now. At a time like this?"

"You really need to harness your emotions Kid, or they're going to kill ya."

"When? How?" My thoughts were on the unsub.

"Questions that need answers."

"Okay, one thing at a time." I drew a deep breath and looked at the bagged evidence in my hand. The unsub had held this and had put it in place. "When would he have come here? How could he have known?"

"Obviously," Jack mocked my use of the word. "Bingham is still in contact with him. We know it's not Twitter. By the way, Nadia called and she's almost finished getting the backgrounds on all the Twitter followers. She also has the evidence files from Sarasota."

I nodded. My mind dwelled more on the home invasion than the cold cases. "The unsub must have a means of affording transportation."

"And their communication is current. It was only three days ago that we found the bodies." Jack patted his shirt pocket for another cigarette.

"Don't even think about it. As it is Deb's gonna kill me when she gets home." I waved a hand in front of my nose. "We'll need to get that smell out."

He smiled and pulled his hand back. "If your windows had screens we could leave them open."

Jack's cell phone rang, saving him from my two hands that wanted to encase his throat. At least I had only imagined it and hadn't acted on the growing compulsion to do just that. See, Jack, I have control.

"Harper here...I'm putting you on speaker." He pushed a button on his cell to increase the volume. "It's just me, and the kid."

"Hey, Brandon."