Deadly Little Secrets Page 0,124

to get all the data TJ had.”

“He sent most of it to me,” Ana said. “I had fifteen e-mails from him, a sequence of steps. They stop, though, before he can wrap it all up.”

Pretzky sighed. “Which is, of course, what we need.”

There was motion at the door to the second-floor hotel room: a gurney rolled out under the tape and the two Coroner’s assistants lifted it down the stairs. Ana watched it roll to a stop behind the dark van, and saw one of the assistants drop a set of keys. When he bent down, she could see his boxer shorts. When he stood back up, he hitched up his pants, a natural gesture that froze her in place. Boxers. A random visual that kicked the last bit of information loose in her mind.

His pants. “That’s it,” she murmured. “That’s it. Come on,” she ordered Pretzky, running to where the Coroner’s team was preparing to load the body.

“Wait,” she called to the men as Pretzky ran up. “Hang on a sec,” she said. Turning to Pretzky, she gasped out the words, winded from her run and her emotions, “We have to check his pants.”

“What?” Pretzky demanded.

“Ma’am, we checked his pockets. There wasn’t anything—” one of the guys began.

“No, not his pockets, his boxers.” Everyone looked at her as if she was insane.

“You’re kidding, right, Burton?” Pretzky was dumbfounded.

“No. TJ always used to say that the bad guys would check your pockets, your mouth, your ass, and even your ears, but never your shorts.” Ana said it as fact. “When we worked together in Rome, he used to say that all the time. He sewed a pocket in all his boxers. We have to check.”

The techs looked at one another, and the taller one shrugged. “Won’t be the first weird thing we’ve had to do,” he said, unzipping the body bag.

TJ had been shot in the chest at close range. The blast had taken off part of his right arm as well. He’d have never survived his wounds. She prayed that it had been quick.

Her heart clenched at the sight of his face, calm now in death. Tears rolled unheeded down her face as she remembered her friend. So many people dead.

“Pull it together, Burton,” Pretzky murmured for her ears alone. The older woman gripped her arm, but it was more of a reassurance than a warning.

The tech unbuckled TJ’s belt, reached into the pants, and felt around. Surprise lit his features. It snapped Ana back to the moment, kept her from drowning in the grief of yet one more friend gone.

“Hey, I got something,” he said, and they heard a ripping noise. There, in the man’s gloved hand was a scrap of fabric and a small data stick. Specially manufactured for the Agency, the tiny data sticks held an inordinate amount of data in a small package.

“Holy crap,” Pretzky said, stunned. “You were right.”

Wiping at her face, Ana gave a watery laugh. “Yeah, that’s TJ, always a surprise at the end. And smart. They don’t check your shorts,” she said, and her voice broke.

“Hold on,” Pretzky said, recovering faster than Ana. When Ana would have taken the chip, Pretzky blocked her hand. “Hey, hey you!” Pretzky summoned one of the crime scene techs, got photos. “If there’s anyone to take to court, we have to document this.”

Ana nodded, trying in vain to set aside the image of TJ’s damaged body and still features. He’d had such a mobile face, always with a laugh or frown pulling at his mouth. He was always restless, hyperactive. To see him like this was alien, as if who he was, what he was, had been extinguished, and this was some wax doll made up to look like her friend.

“Okay,” Pretzky said, taking the chip. “Let’s go see what we got.”

Ana waited long enough to press a hand on the body bag, say a silent farewell, before she rushed after Pretzky. The only way to help TJ now was to finish what he’d started.

She climbed into the limo with Pretzky, Dav, and one of the NY state cops to get the file, see where D’Onofrio and Hines might go next. They were in the limo, reviewing the data when the phone rang once more.

“Gates,” Dav said, and Ana snatched the phone from his hands.

“Where are you?” she demanded.

“A warehouse,” he whispered. “Halfway between your location in White Plains and New York City, in Port Chester.” He rattled off the address.

“Jesus, Gates, what are you