The Dangerous Edge of Things - By Tina Whittle Page 0,20
security risk assessment and management.”
I studied him. “So you’d take a bullet for me?”
He straightened his tie. “Of course.”
“That was a joke.”
“Oh.”
“But that’s not the kind of trust I’m talking about. I’m talking about the kind where you don’t lie to me, deceive me, withhold information from me. I found a corpse yesterday, and it’s been downhill ever since. I need to know you’re on my side.”
“Is this why you looked in my desk without asking me?”
I suppressed the burn of shame. “I’m sorry about that. It’s an old habit. Won’t happen again.”
“Okay.” He cocked his head. “I’m sorry if I’ve seemed untrustworthy. Garrity explained that part, didn’t he? Because I don’t want you to think that I’m…I’m looking for a word.”
“Devious,” I offered. “Shifty. Underhanded.”
His eyes did this funny little crinkle. “Yes, any of those. I’m not any of those. I’m not good at them anymore.”
Behind him the screen was blank, but I remembered the target. Shot after shot clustered around the heart, kill shot after kill shot, expertly and coolly delivered. I looked up at him. His eyes weren’t empty, just impassive, like the ocean.
“Were you serious about taking a bullet for me?”
“Are you still joking?”
“No.”
A pause. “Yes, I would. It’s part of my job.” Another pause. “Does that make you trust me?”
“Not yet. But we’re getting closer.”
He nodded, then headed for the door. “The conference call begins in eight minutes. Landon’s office is this way.”
Chapter 10
Kent Landon’s office was the epitome of masculinity, like a plush cave. Bigger than Trey’s, it was stuffed with heavy dark furniture, including a library table scattered with official-looking detritus—maps, files, memos.
Landon was already on the phone when we arrived. He waved us in, and I seated myself in front of his half-acre desk. Trey, however, remained standing at my side, arms folded. He checked his watch.
Unlike Trey’s blank walls, Landon’s featured a hodgepodge of portraits and diplomas and certificates, mostly from the Air Force. The photographs were telling: Landon and Ron Reagan, Landon and Colin Powell, Landon and Dubya, all candid shots, not staged grip-and-grins.
Trey took a seat, checked his watch one more time. I leaned his way. “What’s the AFOSI?”
“Air Force Office of Special Investigation. Landon worked there before starting his own agency.”
“Phoenix?”
“No, a smaller one. He sold it when Marisa offered him a partnership here.”
“Oh.”
“Hold on a second,” Landon said into the phone. “I’m putting you on speaker phone.”
And then I heard my brother’s voice. “Are you there, Tai?”
I took a deep breath. “Yeah, Eric, right here.”
“God, it’s good to hear you.” He cleared his throat. “Look, I know you guys have lots of questions. So go ahead, fire them off. I gave Kent here the short version—”
“How did Eliza Compton end up dead in front of your house?” I cut in.
Eric sighed. “I figured you’d start with that.”
***
According to Eric, Eliza met him at the Mardi Gras ball. She told him she was a receptionist at Beau Elan, talked about her psychology class at Georgia State. It was a polite conversation—party chit chat—and he thought nothing more of it until she dropped by his home office Wednesday morning.
Which was very different story. She was nervous, upset, asking if there was a place they could talk. She said it was urgent, but she didn’t want to do it in his office. She insisted they go someplace in public, maybe that evening. She kept repeating the word “urgent.”
“She said it had to be someplace where no one from work would see us,” Eric explained. “She was very specific about that.”
Eliza then quizzed him about the ins and outs of therapist-client confidentiality, especially—and this was the interesting part—whether it applied to criminal wrong-doing. Eric told her privilege was a complicated matter and suggested that if she knew of something illegal, she should talk to the police. She told him she couldn’t go to the police, and that if he would just listen to her story, he would understand why. In the end, he agreed to meet with her that evening at a restaurant several miles out of town in Duluth.
Trey leaned toward the phone. “Did you meet her?”
“No. She never showed, so I went back home. I never saw her again. But here’s something strange. When she pulled out of my driveway on Wednesday morning, this dark blue pick-up truck that had been waiting at the curb pulled right after her.”
I stared at the phone. Why had nobody mentioned this before now?