The Gender Experiment: (A Thriller) Page 6

  “Please do.” She hadn’t noticed how chilly the room was until he mentioned it.

  Jake sat in the worn padded chair. “Let’s figure out a game plan for tomorrow at the clinic. One of us needs to create a distraction while the other accesses a computer and downloads files. I’m pretty good with data, so I should probably be the one to take that risk.”

  “A distraction?” Oh god. That meant drawing attention to herself in a big, messy way. “I don’t think I can do that.”

  Jake gave her a charming smile. “Sure you can. Just keep it simple. Put on a little show of not feeling well to get their attention, then fall on the floor.”

  Taylor cringed. She’d never participated in a school performance of any kind, and this was completely out of her comfort zone. “Maybe I should access the computer instead.”

  “Have you done any programming or coding?”

  “No.”

  “Then you get to be the distraction.”

  “But I’ve been inside the clinic before. The receptionist might remember me and figure out that it’s staged.”

  Jake stood and grabbed a small pillow. “You could pretend to be pregnant. Plus pull your hair back and wear some fake glasses.”

  It could work. Her hand shook as she reached for the pillow. What in the hell had she signed up for?

  Chapter 9

  Thursday, Oct. 13, 9:05 a.m., Washington D.C.

  Andra Bailey walked into the monitoring room where five agents watched giant screens, scanning the world for trouble. The nearest one looked up at her.

  “Anything happening in Colorado?” she asked. The recent cluster of mass shootings in her home state had triggered a need to watch it closely. She feared a militant group like the Bundys was primed to take over a federal building or seize state-owned lands. As a key member of the Critical Incident Unit, it was her job to be aware of these possibilities so the Federal Bureau of Investigation could get a jump on them—maybe quash them in advance.

  “A missing teenager and a murdered old woman.” The agent, a young man still in training, gave her a devilish grin. “Also, Owen Granger was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon.”

  Bailey smiled back, knowing it was expected. “That’ll keep him out of circulation for a while.” Granger was an anti-government zealot they’d been watching for years. She turned to leave, then changed her mind and spun back. “What do we know about the murdered old woman?” What if she was connected to Granger and he was on a personal vendetta?

  “She worked for a medical clinic and was attacked in her home. Bludgeoned with something heavy.”

  Probably not related. “Give me her name.”

  “Bonnie Yost.”

  Why was that a familiar surname? Bailey nodded and walked to the door, then realized the nod wasn’t enough. She turned back. “Thank you.” Niceties weren’t natural to her, and she had to constantly check her own behavior. She didn’t care what the agent thought about her on a personal level, but she was next in line to head the CIU and would do whatever it took to land the position. Anything short of sabotaging the current leader. Bailey knew exactly how she could set up her boss to fail, but so far, she’d resisted the impulse. Most sociopaths wouldn’t have that much restraint. She was lucky to be on the low end of the spectrum. She didn’t take any pleasure in hurting people, she just didn’t feel guilty if she did.

  Bailey hurried through the maze of corridors to her office near the back of the building. At her desk, she ran the name Bonnie Yost through the database. There was the connection. Bonnie had been married to Roland Granger, Owen’s older brother. Roland had died in prison, while serving a long sentence for illegal firearms possession and assaulting a federal officer. Now Owen had been arrested for aggravated assault and his sister-in-law had been murdered in the same time frame. Bailey needed more information, such as who the militiaman had attacked.

  Two more searches revealed that Owen Granger had assaulted a man named Clay Richmond, who’d once been a member of the Freedom Guardians but had left the group after the incident that sent the older Granger to prison. Richmond had been hospitalized from the attack, and attempted murder charges were being considered against Granger. Why assault Richmond now? Bailey leaned back in her chair, working though the possibilities. It could just have been a drunken brawl. Or maybe Owen Granger blamed Richmond for his brother’s imprisonment and death.

  But why kill his brother’s widow? Bailey loaded the Denver Post website and keyed in the dead woman’s name. The news report was brief, and she learned only one new detail. Bonnie Yost had retired from the clinic where she’d worked the day before she was murdered. Probably a coincidence, but still odd. Bailey googled Carson Obstetrics and learned that it was an offshoot of Fort Carson Community Hospital. The army angle deepened her interest. Like the bureau and the CIA, the military was a keeper of secrets.

  Other than their connection to Owen Granger, how were Bonnie Yost and Clay Richmond linked? Had they both testified against Roland Granger? If so, Owen might be carrying out his revenge.

  Bailey tried to set the puzzle aside. She had other sites to monitor and should be looking for anti-government militants and young Islamists with bomb-making plans. But the Granger incidents nagged at her. She would do one more brief search before she dropped the idea that the two crimes were connected. Yost’s death right after her retirement bothered Bailey the most. She keyed in the clinic’s name and landed on a news article about the medical center hosting a twenty-year reunion, celebrating the babies that had been delivered by its doctors. Completely unrelated. She skimmed the article and came away with two names. Logan Hurtz, age twenty, had been mentioned as the oldest of the children in attendance, and Dr. David Novak was cited for the most deliveries. Bailey filed the information in her methodical brain, then went back to investigating the murder of the militiaman’s sister-in-law.

  She searched for a morgue in Colorado Springs and came up with the El Paso County Coroner’s office. She made the call. “This is Agent Bailey with the FBI. I’d like to see the report on Bonnie Yost’s death.”

  The woman started to speak, but Bailey cut in. “Yes, I’ll give you my badge number, then you can send the report to me at the bureau.” Bailey rattled off her ID and her long government email address.

  “Can I ask what this is about?”

  “I’m looking into a militant group. Please keep that to yourself.” The information wasn’t classified, but it made people more willing to help if they thought it was.

  “We have our share in Colorado.” The woman’s voice was hushed. “What else do you need?”

  “That’s it for now, but I may call back.” Bailey pressed off the call and realized she’d forgotten to say thanks. Oh well. The woman got paid to do her job. Next she called the Denver Medical Examiner. If Owen Granger, the militia extremist, was on a personal vendetta, he might have put other victims in the Denver hospital or morgue. She gave her name and badge number and asked for a list of all the dead bodies they’d processed in the last few weeks. The receptionist said she would compile the report and email it soon.

  Bailey’s private cell phone beeped. A text from Garrett: Lunch today?

  Garrett was her twenty-five-year-old lover, which technically made her a Cougar. The thought always made her smile. At forty, she might be too young for the term, but maybe not. Most people didn’t seem to notice the age difference because her attractive face and thick ginger-red hair made her look younger than her years. She texted back: Poppy’s at noon?

  He agreed to meet her, then signed off, saying he had to get to class. Garret, who’d lost a foot saving a child, was studying to become a physical therapist. She admired his commitment to a career helping others. She liked to think of her job that way too, but in reality, working at the bureau was self-serving. It challenged her intellectually, gave her an opportunity to seek and use power, and kept her from acting on some of her worst impulses. She’d been questioned by an FBI agent in college—about a boyfri
end’s fraud activity—and had coveted the agent’s authority and investigative focus. A life-changing moment.

  A ping let her know that the email from the Colorado Springs coroner had landed. Bailey opened it, then downloaded and read the autopsy report on Bonnie Yost. The woman had been struck on the head with a heavy instrument that left a crescent-moon shaped wound. Most likely the end of a flashlight. Interesting. Cops carried heavy flashlights. Further reading revealed that a matching flashlight had been found on the premise and belonged to the victim. No fingerprints or signs of trauma to the body and no mention of motive. Had Yost been robbed? That was critical information. If nothing had been taken from the victim’s house, then her murder was probably personal. Bailey called the Colorado Springs Police Department and asked to speak to the detective handling Yost’s death. The desk clerk gave her the name Brad Miller and patched her through. She got an answering machine, a male voice. She used a soft tone with a hint of distress to leave a message asking for a callback.

  A few minutes later, an email from the Denver morgue came through. Bailey opened the list of deceased names, each accompanied by a date and a cause of death. Heart attacks, stabbings, accidents in the home. One drowning and a fall from a balcony. Logan Hurtz? He’d been named in the article about Carson Obstetrics, where Bonnie Yost had worked. Two people associated with the military medical facility had died in the last three weeks. What if Hurtz had been pushed? Had he and the receptionist been silenced? But why?

  Bailey’s bloodhound neurons were firing at full capacity. Something was going on in Colorado, and the deaths were likely connected to an armed militant group. This was exactly her kind of investigation. Time to take it to her boss, then get on a plane for Denver.

  Special Agent Lennard waved her in but continued her phone call. The woman was tall even sitting down and wore cropped platinum hair that should have worked against her but didn’t.

  The irritation in her supervisor’s voice made Bailey consider waiting for a better time. But she wanted Lennard’s job, so she decided to listen and file away what information she could. The conversation, obviously about money, heated up quickly. Agent Lennard fought to defend her decision to send a team to Florida to stake out a motel in Tampa where a Cuban drug runner was rumored to be keeping teenage girls for company. Bailey had not been involved, thank god, because it had been a waste of time. Her cases were usually more high profile. The drug trade was just not interesting.

  Lennard finally ended the call. “Sorry. The director is on my case about wasting the team’s resources.”

  The director was right. “The drug runner didn’t meet our critical incident standards.”

  Her boss’ mouth tightened. “What do you have for me?” Her tone was curt.

  Oh hell. Bailey realized her mistake in blurting out the truth. Her filter hadn’t caught it, but she couldn’t apologize. “A few incidents in Colorado make me think a militant group might be quietly killing people. Owen Granger, specifically, as the key perpetrator.”

  “Granger isn’t known for quiet tactics.”

  That was a key sticking point in her theory. She also suspected military involvement, but wouldn’t bring that up yet. “I know, but this is worth looking into. Bonnie Yost, Granger’s sister-in-law, was murdered the day before he was arrested for another assault and possibly attempted murder. In addition, a young man connected to the clinic where Yost worked died rather mysteriously a few weeks before.” Now that she’d said them out loud, the connections seemed lame.

  Her boss’ blond eyebrows arched. “That’s it? You’re not going to Colorado on that intel. The director would fire me.”

  That would work out well for her. Bailey felt compelled to argue her points, but forced herself to hold back. She stood. “I’m still waiting for a return call from the Denver police. We’ll see what else I can come up with. Thanks for your time.” She hurried out before her boss gave her a different assignment. Bailey could afford to be choosy about what cases she took because the director loved her work. She’d tracked down a power-mad CEO who’d kidnapped scientists—and a North Korean cryptologist—in his quest to dominate the cell phone market. In doing so, she’d averted another crisis with the North Korean government, and that had moved her to the top of the director’s list of rising stars. Yet Lennard was still her boss, and Bailey had to play every situation to her advantage. She should have tried to show empathy for Lennard, but that emotion wasn’t real to her, and she’d never learned to fake it.

  On her way out to meet Garrett for lunch, her phone rang with a Colorado area code. She turned back to her desk. “Agent Bailey.”

  “Detective Miller with the Colorado Springs Police Department returning your call. Why is the FBI interested in Bonnie Yost’s murder?”

  “She’s the sister-in-law of Owen Granger, leader of the Freedom Guardians, an armed militant group that doesn’t recognize the authority of the federal government.”

  A pause. “I hadn’t learned that yet.” The detective cleared his throat. “On the surface, the homicide looks like a burglary gone bad. But her car was in the driveway, so the perp had to know she was home.”

  “What was stolen?”

  “Her cell phone was missing and there was no computer in the house, but we’re still trying to interview people who knew her. She was mostly a loner.”

  The missing items could have been taken to make the homicide look like a robbery. “Have you run prints?”

  “There were none on the murder weapon, and those we took from the house didn’t match anyone in our database.”

  “Any witnesses or leads?”

  “We have a suspect we’re hoping to pick up soon.”

  “Who?”

  “We don’t know her name yet, but we’re watching for her.”

  A woman? That surprised Bailey. “What’s her connection to the case?”

  “We don’t know that either, but she was seen outside the victim’s house at the time of the murder.” A pause, as though he hesitated to give her too much information. “The suspect was seen at the clinic right before as well.”

  “What’s the description?”

  “Young, slender, maybe still a teenager. Straight dark hair and attractive.”

  A teenager? Odder still. “Will you update me if you find her?”

  “Sure.”

  Bailey gave him her cell number but didn’t expect to hear anything. She’d had to drag every nugget of intel out of him. After she clicked off the call, the young ages of the two accident victims in Denver came to mind. Particularly, Logan Hurtz, who was connected to the clinic. This was all related somehow, and she felt an urgent need to figure it out. But was it a federal matter that could justify the attention of the Critical Incident Unit? Her boss didn’t think so. Yet.

  Bailey called the Denver police again. Maybe they could tell her something about Hurtz’s death that would connect him to Owen Granger, who was someone of interest to the CIU. The transfer took a few minutes, but she finally reached Detective Pat Delphy’s phone and was asked to leave a message. The voice wasn’t distinctively male or female and neither was the name. Bailey didn’t particularly care, but it would be nice to know before they talked.

  Her cell phone rang, and she looked at the ID. Garrett! She’d been on her way out to meet him for lunch and had gotten sidetracked. Oh hell. Garrett understood the nature of her job, but this kind of thing bothered him. He would also be upset to learn she might be leaving town again soon. The thought of his distress caused a tug on her heart. Not guilt. She never felt that. But some level of empathy. A new experience since she’d met him. He was the one person she’d ever really connected to—besides her father. Yet she didn’t empathize with her father because he didn’t feel much pain. Garrett was a kind soul who felt everything, and she loved him more than she expected to. Their deep connection was a first for her, but she knew their relationship probably wouldn’t last. They never did. Men always wanted more from her than she could give.


  Chapter 10

  Bailey hurried into the restaurant, found Garrett near a window, and kissed him before she sat down. “I’m sorry. Thanks for waiting.” Her boyfriend was the only person she apologized to and only when she was blatantly at fault.

  “Something important came up?” The tension in his face was obvious, but he was still handsome with bright blue eyes, great cheekbones, and a strong chin.

  Bailey nodded. “Several deaths in Colorado seem to be connected to an anti-government group, and I may have to fly out there soon.”

  His jaw tightened. “How long will you be gone?”

  “I don’t have any idea.” She gave him a sly smile. “But you know how fast I work.” Garrett was the son of a kidnapped scientist she’d located and rescued six months earlier. They’d fallen for each other during the investigation, and he’d moved to Washington D.C. to be with her.

  “I knew your job was demanding, but I didn’t realize you traveled this much.”

  His discontent had started. He would break off with her before the year was over. A sadness overcame her. Bailey would miss him, particularly the sex, but she wouldn’t fight for the relationship. Her ego wouldn’t allow it. “Don’t be upset. I haven’t left yet, and we should make the most of our time together.” She picked up the menu. “Let’s order.”

  While they waited for their food, she asked Garrett about his classes, and he seemed to relax as he updated her on his academic progress. Then he abruptly switched back to her impending travel. “Hey, you said ‘Colorado.’ That’s where you grew up, right?”

  “Yes, Denver. Why?”

  “Isn’t your dad in jail there? You should go see him.”

  The thought had briefly crossed her mind. “I won’t have time, and it doesn’t sound like fun.” Her father was also a sociopath. He’d instilled a code of ethics in her from a young age but had less control than she did, at least for violent tendencies.

  Garrett shook his head. “Sometimes family isn’t fun, but you make the effort anyway.”