Flashbyte (Byte Series - Ellie Conway Book 4) Read online

  For Caleb

  Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes

  longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.

  William Faulkner (Light in August, 1932.)

  One

  Gotta Get Away

  “You’re a smarmy piece of shit,” I murmured under my breath. My mouth was dry. I could barely swallow. Every nerve in my body was on edge.

  I took a swig of water from my canteen. The cool liquid fought my tight dry throat until it won and forced its way down my esophagus.

  “Demelza, my dear, you spoke?” Ameer’s voice oozed artificial sweetness as his head turned toward me.

  I shook my head and bit my tongue.

  What was keeping Dion? It was supposed to be as a short recon trip. He was late and it was driving me to distraction. It wouldn’t have been so bad but I was stuck with Ameer, and the greasy sonofabitch turned my gut. He expressed his views on female operatives working inside Iraq with open derision, with no regard for my position or training. It was not possible to like him less.

  My eyes refocused taking my brain with them.

  Heat rose from the shimmering sand. From where I stood within the thick-walled building the outside looked bright and hot.

  Dion emerged from the glare as a dark silhouette against tawny-beige. My ears filled with pleas and shouting. A chill raced up my spine sending cold barbs into my bones. Wind blew grit across the open landscape. Dion blurred.

  It was all wrong. Beads of icy sweat trickled down my face.

  Panic rose on a tidal wave of adrenaline.

  With a jolt I was awake. My damp hair coiled around my neck like a noose. It wasn’t the first time I’d woken like that. I doubted it would be the last. My dreams were trying to kill me. The Freddy Kruger aspect made my skin crawl. A cell phone buzzed, loud and insistent. The display flashed, illuminating the clock on the screen.

  “It’s zero-four-thirty. This better be good.” I shook off the remnants of the nightmarish reenactment of a past life.

  “A woman was found strangled in a parking lot an hour ago.” Lee paused as if collecting his thoughts.

  I waited.

  “She was carrying identification,” he said. His voice sounded a little stressed for so early in the morning.

  “Good, that will make it easier for police,” I said, sitting up and turning on the bedside lamp. “I’m awake. I’ll play your silly game … who is she?”

  “You,” he replied.

  “Nope. Don’t think I’ve been strangled tonight. Try again.”

  How life mocks my waking state.

  Death by dreaming.

  Glad I don’t live on Elm Street.

  “I saw her ID. I saw what she was wearing. Her name is Gabrielle Conway. She’s five foot nine inches tall, blue eyes, long blonde hair, and slim. Ellie – she’s you.”

  “You didn’t really think …” I didn’t finish my sentence. A car door closed on the street outside. I scrambled out of bed and hurried down the stairs. “You’re here?”

  Oh my, he wasn’t sure. How much like me was the other Gabrielle Conway?

  “I’m here. She looks just like you.” His footsteps crunched over the gravel. “Let me in Ellie – I have coffee.”

  “I’m already at the door.” I closed my phone. Sliding back the security bolt and releasing the dead bolt lock were the easy bits. I grasped the door handle, lifted as I turned and pulled. The top of the door moved half an inch.

  Doors that fight back are no fun.

  I could have fixed the door that’s annoyed me so much over the years but instead I was building a new house.

  I gave the handle another twist and yanked it hard. The wood creaked and door stuck fast.

  To an outsider that may seem a little extreme. Trust me, it’s not. I was counting the days until Carla and I moved into our new home. Our new home was off the grid. There was no paper or internet trail leading to it. Everything had been withheld from public record. Too many bad things have happened in this house, not sure why it took me so long to move on. Maybe because it was my home with Mac. Whatever the reason, I was looking forward to a safer home and no more surprises. And a freaking front door that opened without fuss.

  “Going to be long?” Lee asked from the front porch.

  “Almost got it,” I replied, wrenching the handle and lifting again. “Give it a little low kick, will ya?”

  As his foot connected with the wood the door swung inward.

  Lee wore a grim expression and held two coffee cups. The presence of two cups was an encouraging sign, indicating he thought I was okay and not dead in a parking lot.

  Good to know.

  “Come on in,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” I bounded up the stairs and exchanged my pajamas for jeans. Somehow, bright orange pants emblazoned with fuchsia bunnies seemed inappropriate when discussing my death. I ditched Mac’s comfortable old tee shirt for a warm sweater, pulled on a pair of socks and my sneakers. I wasn’t quite awake enough for my usual cowboy boots.

  Lee was sitting on the living room sofa when I emerged. I took the coffee he pushed across the table toward me.

  “I’m dead?”

  “Sure seemed like it,” he replied. The stress in his voice suggested he’d had a rough start to the day and was pleased I was still breathing.

  “Interesting,” I said. “Show me the ID.”

  Lee passed me his phone. “In the photo folder.”

  “Yep, looks kinda like me.”

  He smiled. “That’s what I thought. Now look at the pictures I took of her at the crime scene.”

  I scrolled through. It was uncanny how much we looked alike. “Who’d have thought there would be two of us?”

  “Obviously that was one too many for the universe,” Lee said.

  I chuckled. “Yep, looks like the universe is cleaning house.”

  Lee began to relax.

  “You should’ve known it wasn’t me. You think I’d die and not tell you?”

  I couldn’t see myself going quietly. Mac might have been haunting me, but I was going to spread it around and haunt the hell out of everyone in Delta A when I went. It was a pretty safe bet that I wasn’t going to live to a ripe ol’ age and rock out my days on a porch.

  “In reality? No. I don’t.”

  I checked my watch. “Can we get to the crime scene and back before Carla wakes up? I want to see the woman.”

  “If we go right now.”

  I scrawled a note on a piece of paper and stuck it on Carla’s door. Just in case she woke up while we were gone. It said I was at a crime scene and would be back before breakfast.

  “Come on,” I said, taking my coffee with me.

  He followed, closing the door and checking it had locked. As I hurried to his car I saw a black SUV parked behind him. It was definitely one of ours.

  “Who is that?” I said, as Lee pressed a button on the key chain in his hand; the car lights flashed once and the doors unlocked.

  “Christian from Delta B,” he replied, opening the passenger door for me.

  “And Christian is here, why?” I waved at him as I climbed into Lee’s car. A hand waved back.

  “I figured you’d want to go. The victim looks like you. He’s here to watch over the house and Carla.”

  Always thinking.

  “Thanks, Lee.”

  Twenty minutes later we were dodging police and reporters to reach the body of the woman in the parking lot. I ducked under crime scene tape which Lee lifted for me and strode across the blacktop toward a gathering of police.

  “Agent Conway?”

  Flicking my eyes left, I saw a police of
ficer, his jaw drooping at the sight of me.

  “Surprise! Seems I’m alive.” Another cop turned around and stepped back, almost tripping when he realized who I was. “Careful,” I said with a small smile. His fumbled step allowed me to get closer to the body. “What do we have?”

  A detective turned to look at me, astonishment etched in lines across his face. I almost didn’t recognize him. Then his face returned to normal. Detective Dave Dixon.

  “You,” he said with a quick smile. “Take a look, Agent Conway.”

  “Thanks, Dave. Don’t mind if I do.”

  The woman lay sprawled on her back, her face turned to the left. Long blonde hair, disheveled. She wore dark blue jeans, a long-sleeved black shirt, and cowboy boots. It’s hard to tell how tall someone is when they’re dead on the ground. I looked at the soles of her cowboy boots. And saw a faint number in the arch. Eight. Same size as I wore. I guesstimated we were about the same height, and that the information on her ID was accurate. She had something around her neck. A pendant maybe.

  “May I?” I said.

  Detective Dixon nodded. I took gloves from my jacket pocket and put them on.

  Kneeling by the body, I loosened a tangled silver chain around her neck and lifted up the pendant so I could see it. A heart-shaped locket. An inch long and an inch wide at the widest point. Inside were two photographs. One was the victim with a man in jeans and a casual shirt, the other of an older man in naval uniform.

  “Seen this?” I said.

  Dave leaned in to look, he shook his head. “We’ll look into it.”

  “Thanks.” I listened to the body of the woman for a few minutes as Lee talked with the police. A cold shiver ran up my spine. Someone thought she was me. I looked at the photograph again. To me it looked like her and her husband; the lone man in naval whites was perhaps her father.

  We had more in common than just looks.

  I stood up.

  “I’m done. It’s pretty obvious that I am alive.”

  “We’ll keep you posted.” Dave looked at me for a beat then said, “The resemblance is uncanny. Be vigilant, Agent Conway.”

  I smiled. “Thanks for the concern.”

  I turned to walk away and then stopped. From the edge of the parking lot came a voice yelling, “Agent Ellie! Agent Ellie!” Lee tapped my arm and pointed to two police officers attempting to stop a big man from barging into the crime scene. He was hollering my name.

  What the hell?

  Lee and I ran toward the officers just as they took the man to the ground. As I neared I recognized him. It was Tyrone, otherwise known as Caps.

  “Let him up,” I said to the officer who had his knee planted in between Cap’s shoulder blades. “Now.”

  The officer stood. “He was trying to get inside the cordon.”

  “I know,” I replied. “We saw.” Caps dusted himself off in full theatrical mode. Then he and Lee did some fandangle handshake.

  “Good to see you, man,” Lee said. “What’s happening here?”

  A cop started to talk, I silenced him. “We’re talking to Tyrone. Thank you, Officer.”

  Both officers backed away a few feet.

  Caps grinned at me. “Good ta see y’all.”

  “What’s going on?” I said. “Walk with me.” Lee and I steered Caps away from the police and the cordon.

  “I heard y’all waz dead, waz comin’ ta see fo’ myself,” Caps said.

  He’d heard already? I glanced back at the crime scene. Media crawled like vermin spreading their plague. Some held cameras over their heads trying to get a better shot of the body.

  But he’d heard already?

  “Where’d you hear?”

  “Five-Oh scanner, yo. Then we’s heard uh breaking news report, ya’ know what I'm sayin’?”

  “My death was exaggerated.”

  “Y’all need mah help? Me an’ da boys haz got y’alls back.”

  “It’s just some shit, everything’s cool. But I appreciate the offer.” I shook his hand. “Someone screwed up somewhere along the line.”

  “Fo’ shizzle my nizzle,” Caps replied, nodding with wisdom that came from life on the streets.

  I grinned. “You know I don’t get the shizzle-frizzle-frazzle-whatever-speak, Tyrone.”

  He laughed and nodded and the real Tyrone emerged. “I heard you were dead.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “I wanted to see.”

  “Yeah, snap.”

  “You need anything, anytime, Agent Ellie, you know where we are.”

  “Thank you.” I meant it. He’d given me shelter before and I knew, without a shadow of doubt, he’d do it again. It occurred to me then that I couldn’t see Tats anywhere. I was certain those two operated as a single unit. “Where’s Tats?”

  “In the car.” Tyrone’s mouth hardened. “He didn’t want to see your body.”

  “Where’s the car?”

  Tyrone pointed down the street.

  “Go tell him I’m okay,” I said. “If you hear anything … you know where I am, right?”

  Tyrone was Caps again. “Meh haz y’alls number.”

  “Say hello to your aunt for me. She’s well?”

  “She’s well.” Caps walked away and blended into the deep pre-dawn shadows.

  Dawn was fast approaching as we headed home.

  A silent drive.

  Once back at home I dismissed Christian and hurried inside. Carla was still asleep.

  “Now you can see I’m alive, can I go back to bed?” I said to Lee, wrinkling my nose at the rapid approach of morning. Sun crept under the curtains, long spindles of light reached out across the carpet like a piano player’s fingers, or knives.

  “If you want. I’ll just sit here and wait for the next news broadcast,” he said, picking up the television remote and pressing the power button. The television sprang to life, filling the room with unreasonable bright light and horrendously cheerful chatter.

  “Do we have to have that on?”

  “Uh huh,” he replied.

  “I’m guessing there is a reason?”

  “You’ll see,” he said. “Did you miss the hordes of journalists at that crime scene?”

  No, I did not. I shrugged. They’re everywhere all the time. Like a plague of rats. This morning was no different.

  “Move over then …” I told him, kicking his foot. I couldn’t see the television without craning my neck from my chair so sat myself onto the couch next to Lee.

  “You might want to go get your phone,” Lee said.

  I took my cell from my pocket and set it on the table. “Have it already.”

  “I meant the landline.”

  “It’s all the way out in the hall,” I replied. “Everyone knows better than to call me before my morning coffee.”

  The news came on. I listened as the anchorman announced the lead story. His somber voice filled my living room. “Early this morning the body of a woman was discovered in an inner-city parking lot.”

  Lee turned up the volume. “Prepare to answer the phone,” he said. “The little journalist prick who arrived at the scene when I was there earlier refused to hand over the photographs he took and … you’ll see …”

  They went live to a reporter in DC. “Breaking news this morning is the discovery of a body believed to be that of Supervisory Special Agent Gabrielle Conway. FBI has not yet confirmed the identity. It’s believed Agent Conway was strangled.”

  “Hang on – were we not just at the crime scene? Am I a fuc’n ghost?”

  “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi,” Lee counted aloud. As his mouth wrapped around the fourth Mississippi my phone rang, his phone rang, and the phone in the hallway rang. He grinned knowingly. I heard him tell whoever it was on his phone that I was alive and well.

  The display on my cell phone told me it was Dad calling.

  “I’m not dead,” I said.

  “I know that, kid. SAC Caine Grafton would be bashing down my door if yo
u were. Every news service in the metropolitan area is carrying this story. I’ll get Bob and we’ll get onto some serious damage control over at the Foundation.”

  “Thanks, Dad – can you let Aidan know?”

  I didn’t want my brother freaking out. He now accepted my job but I knew if I told him about this situation, he’d remember all the reasons why he’s always hated me being a fed. The conversation would not end well for Aidan.

  “Of course. We’ll need his help as a moderator anyway.”

  “Thanks, keep me posted. Tell the Foundation kids I’ll tweet later, we’ll do a video chat when I get the time and they can see for themselves that I’m alive and well.”

  “All right.” Dad hung up.

  Lee handed me the phone from the hallway. “It’s Gerrard.”

  “Noel. Good of you to call. I’m okay, alive even,” I said. I just brim with charm.

  “Oh, I know. Just seeing if you need coffee.”

  “Lee’s already taken care of it, thanks.”

  “I’ll catch up with you later – lunch. My treat.”

  “Sounds good.” I hung up and leaned back into the cushions and waited for the next call. I didn’t have long to wait. My cell phone buzzed and flashed. Does no one sleep past six in the freaking morning?

  I answered my phone. Part of me was amused by people calling the dead. But how did Rowan hear about it? He shouldn’t even be awake. “Rowan – I’m okay. It wasn’t me.”

  His voice bundled incredulity with relief. “There are two Special Agent Gabrielle Conways?”

  “No, just one. But there is, or was, another Gabrielle Conway.”

  “I don’t need to come home early and prepare for a funeral?”

  “Nope,” I said as I searched my brain, trying to recall the conversation about Rowan going away and to determine where he was. It was hard for me to keep track of his tours, gigs, publicity appearances, not to mention when he was in the studio recording with his band. Such a busy life when you’re a mega rock star. For someone I considered to be an important part of my life, I sucked at knowing where he was and what he was doing. I justified that by reminding myself I’m his girlfriend, not his stalker.

  Another phone rang.

  “I’ll see you guys in a few days. Tell Carla I got her message and I’ll bring her something from Japan.”