18
Razor was right, of course. Pitfalls and obstacles littered the plan. Foremost: he had no control over his subjects’ access to each other. Unlike suspects in custody, they were free to communicate and straighten out conflicts and misunderstandings he tried to set up. And anything that betrayed his immateriality — running out of steam and evaporating before one of them, letting them try touching him — would shoot him down. Ditto if the original walked in on one of his impersonations. This needed careful planning.
He knew where to start, though. With Irah. He doubted she would crack easily, but coming eyeball to bloody eyeball with her victims ought to shake her up.
He made a trial run to locate Irah and found her working at her computer. Quickly, Cole sent himself to the Embarcadero…and while collecting heat from the vehicles there, kept his fingers crossed that Irah stayed put.
When he returned to her office, to his relief, she had gone no farther than the shelving, where she stood thumbing through a stack of
Quickly, he moved through the desk and arranged himself in the chair with arms dangling limp, head thrown back with jaw gaping slack and eyes fixed blindly on the ceiling. The right eye anyway. Guessing at the bullet trajectory, he visualized the exit wound as a gaping hole taking out his left eye and surrounding bone, with blood covering his face and running down the side of his head to soak the backrest of her chair. Imagining his body like this felt creepy. He hoped it hit her that way, too.
As he drew on the accumulated heat energy, willing materialization of the bloody body, global vision let him watch her without taking his gaze off the ceiling. The feel of weight came just in time. She pulled one magazine out of the stack and turned around. Cole waited with grim glee for her reaction.
Her attention was on the magazine. She flipped pages on her way back to the desk, never looking up.
He gave a long, quavering moan. “Iraaah…”
She turned a page.
He swore. Shades of that parking attendant. “Irah, you bitch, look at me!”
She neither glanced at him nor broke her stride in coming around the desk. Where, as he sat frozen in disbelief, she dropped into the chair.
The static buzz of their contact shattered Cole’s paralysis. “Son of a bitch!” Shuddering with revulsion, he sprang free of her and through the desk.
Behind him, he saw her start, too, then shiver and run her hands down the arms of the chair. After a few moments, though, she shrugged and pulled her chair up to the desk, where she spread the magazine open on her blotter.
Cole swore in dismay. Ghost blind! Damn! That meant he had to work everything through Flaxx and Lamper. Were they going to be enough?
He set his jaw. If they saw him, he would make them enough!
If they saw him.
He needed more energy to check that out. Before zipping down to the Embarcadero, though, he better make sure Flaxx was there, and absorb the feel of the office’s location. And why not take a shortcut there. Considering the suite floor plan, Cole guessed that the wall behind Irah’s shelving separated her from Flaxx’s private washroom and his built-in bar.
Closing his eyes, Cole walked forward into the shelving and kept going until he estimated he had cleared the washroom. A good guess, he found on opening his eyes. He stood in the office. Also nearly two feet above the carpet.
While looking around, adding the office to his internal map, he stepped down to the floor. At the same time, he frowned at Flaxx, who sat reading some papers and looking smug. The expression hit Cole like fingernails scraping a blackboard. What a pleasure it would be to shatter that self-satisfaction. First, though, Flaxx had to know Cole Dunavan was dead.
The question was how to go about it. He doubted he could have “Irah” to come in and announce: “Hey, big brother; guess what I’ve been up to.” Carrying off impersonations these people needed believable behavior.
Flaxx pushed away from the desk headed into the washroom, closing the door behind him.
Cole stared at it, reminded of his fire rescue. The old woman heard him through her own bathroom door before he ever materialized. If Flaxx did, too, then the materializations certainly ought to work on him. And if Flaxx heard him, why not start the show right now? With a psychological flash-bang.
Mind racing, he stepped over to the door and listened. Sweet. He had caught Flaxx with his pants down. He pulled in some room heat to give his voice more substance. “Yo, Donald! How are things moving today?”
Inside, Flaxx called back, “Who’s that?”
He heard! Cole grinned. Let the fun begin. He had no trouble putting acid in his voice. “It’s Specter Dunavan, asshole. I’m hurt that as long as we’ve known each other, you don’t recognize my voice.”
“How the hell did you get in here?” Cole almost heard blood pressure rising. “I’m calling Security.”
Excellent. “Yeah, I guess you would have a phone in there. Got to stay in touch 24/7, right?” He listened to Flaxx pick up the receiver. “Except you’re not as in touch as you think. You need to keep a closer eye on your Asset Manager. Little sister has been up to more than burglary and torching stores in her Kijurian disguise, and more murder than the firefighter’s death.”
The phone banged into its cradle. That meant he had just seconds before Farrell arrived.
“Thank you, Dunavan. I’m taking those accusation to Citizens Complaints…and you’ll be hearing from my lawyers. You’re finished…in such deep shit you’ll never get out!”
Cole grinned. “Oh, I’m finished all right, but you’re the one in deep shit. Irah murdered the bookkeeper, Sara Benay. Suffocated her down in the parking garage. And we can make you an accessory. Have a nice day.”
From inside came a satisfyingly shocked gasp, but before Flaxx could respond further, the door of the office crashed open and Antoine Farrell rushed in, followed by Flaxx’s secretary.
The two plowed to a halt, eyes scanning the office. Farrell’s shaved scalp furrowed. “Where’d he go, Mr. Flaxx?”
Flaxx called back, “What do you mean, where’d he go?”
Farrell came over to the door. “There’s no one here.”
Flaxx barreled out, still buckling his belt. He stared around. “That’s impossible. He was talking to me just a second before I heard you come in.” His eyes narrowed as he eyed the office door. “Dunavan must have heard you coming, too, and stepped behind the door when it opened. Then he left while your attention was on this door.”
Farrell ran from the office.
Flaxx scowled at Katherine Maldonado. “How did he get in here?”
She stiffened at the accusation in his voice. “I don’t know. No one’s come past me.”
His scowl deepened. “He had to. You must have turned your back.”
“Not for more than a moment, not long enough to- ”
Flaxx stalked out of the office and up the hallway.
She followed as far as her desk and dropped into her chair with a hiss of exasperation.
Cole trailed along while Flaxx peered into one office after another, asking, “Did any of you see a tall, lanky guy heading toward my office or running away from it?”
Blank looks and head shakes answered him.
When they reached the reception area, they found Farrell there with Gina…who glanced up anxiously toward the security camera. “Have I seen Inspector Dunavan today?”
Cole kicked himself for that materialization. No one was likely to ask her about seeing him, huh? Now he either had a credible witness saying he seemed alive and well or she lied, as he asked her to, and risked losing her job. He was making trouble for one woman after another.
“It’s a simple question,” Flaxx snapped. “He was in my office. I want to know how he got in.”
Gina stiffened. “Not past me, Mr. Flaxx. I would have called you if he tried that. You can see for yourself on the tape.”
Cole blew her a kiss. “Great answer.” Of course, she thought the tape would show him come in and leave.
