Dark Control (DARC Ops Book 4) Read online

  “Put it this way. I’ve never heard your name before. How’s that?”

  Laurel bit her lip. She had to decide how honest he was being. And it was a tougher call than she’d liked.

  “And again,” he said, his face stretching out into a yawn. “I’m only seeing you, as you know, as a favor to Caitlyn.”

  “I understand that, sir. And thank you.”

  “Okay Laurel . . . If you think we’re investigating you, then why come here?”

  “To clear my name. She stared at him hard in the eyes. “I’m not gonna run from you guys.”

  “Then you wouldn’t be opposed to an interview? We could do it today.” He sat up straight and grabbed a tablet off his desk. “I’ll bring in some of my agents that might be more familiar with your case. And then you can tell them all about your side of the story, and, you know, how you’re being framed and all that.”

  He had his head down, flipping through his tablet. Laurel was just glad he couldn’t see her unguarded reaction to his suggestion. It frightened her, the interview sounding more like an interrogation. It sounded just a little menacing.

  “What do you say, Laurel?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t have time for it? It’ll just take . . . maybe an hour.”

  How bad would it look if she backed out now? How guilty would she seem, squirming out of a direct challenge? If she was innocent, then she’d have nothing to hide. Right?

  When Mr. Smedley looked up at her, his expression seemed to convey the same question. He had dropped a challenge, and now he was watching her very closely, studying every miniscule twitch of her face. She could feel his cold analysis, his professional training in body language decoding her and laying her bare right in his office.

  “Laurel? Should I call them?” He waited a moment, staring at her with an almost bored expression. Nice and easy, relaxed, like it was no big deal. Just a little chat with an investigator or two. But he still looked so damned analytical. “Well, should we do this or not?”

  “Fuck it, yeah.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Yes,” she said a little louder. “Let’s do this.”

  Mr. Smedley laughed.

  “I’d love to chat with your investigators,” Laurel said. “I just want to put an end to this.”

  “I’m sure you do.” He rose from his chair, brushing the wrinkles out of his suit pants. “We’ll have to move this downstairs, if you don’t mind.”

  Downstairs?

  Part of her minded that an awful fucking lot.

  The other part, her belief in her own innocence, and the infallibly of her evidence, helped a smile wash over her face when she followed him out of the room.

  “I’m getting in touch with some folks who understand your case a lot better.”

  “My case?” Laurel said. “I thought I didn’t have a case yet.”

  “Gosh,” he said, laughing as he held a door open for her. “You’re a real paranoid one, aren’t ya?”

  “It comes with my line of work.”

  “Suppose I can understand that,” he said, nodding hello to a woman passing by in the hall. “Now, Laurel, we don’t have some secret file on you . . . yet.” He laughed again, seeming to take great joy in her discomfort. “I’m just teasin’.”

  Laurel ignored him, checking her phone and half expecting—and half wanting—Matt’s name to appear as a missed call or text. She didn’t like having to end their previous call that way, basically just hanging up on the guy. But she had to do it. Didn’t she?

  She was mildly excited to find that someone had indeed texted her, but her excitement leveled off when she saw that it had been her uncle. Probably some more warnings from him, more shaming her into returning back to work like the good servant she was supposed to be. A good girl who didn’t rock the boat, especially one built with good connections and family favors.

  But when she started reading, it was like nothing she’d expected.

  Are you okay? Guess you already heard about Pat. Sorry. Be safe. Call me.

  What about Pat?!

  She could only assume that it meant . . .

  “Just straight through here,” Mr. Smedley said. “Your secrets will be safe in here.”

  Had Pat been fucking murdered like Abe Hudson? And just like he’d predicted, last night?

  He wasn’t suicidal.

  Though he was a drunk, and frail, and clumsy.

  But Laurel was neither of those things. So of course she would be safe.

  Be safe.

  She was in downtown Atlanta, in the office of the Attorney General, with the fucking Attorney General himself. How much safer could she possibly be?

  “This is just where we take people like you,” he said as the elevator coasted down through the innards of the giant stone building.

  “People like me?” Laurel pocketed her phone, neglecting to respond to the news about Pat.

  “Yes. Whistleblowers.”

  “Oh.”

  “Especially when it’s concerning state employees. Things can get particularly . . . messy.”

  Laurel wondered how messy it got with Pat. One shot to the head? A hit-and-run, perhaps. Or a slit throat and everything bleeding out of him . . .

  “But you’ve got nothing to worry about, Laurel. You’re in good hands. We’ve been doing this for, oh, twenty years now?”

  She nodded. Yes, yes, nothing to worry about. She tried smiling as she leaned back onto the elevator’s handrail, her hands gripping it tightly as their car suddenly shook like a passenger jet through turbulence.

  “Sorry,” he said. “These elevators have definitely been at it for longer than twenty years.”

  She smiled.

  When they stepped out of the elevator car, the first thing to hit her was the smell. It was like car exhaust. Stale and chemical-like. It got stronger as he walked her through a dim, concrete-lined corridor. Were they headed to a parking garage?

  “So, Laurel, you’re new with Sentry Systems? That your first job out of college?”

  Her mind was racing. All this for a simple interview? She’d expected it to take place in an area of the building that was less stately than Mr. Smedley’s floor, but this? The increasingly bare and dingy décor made her feel faintly similar to a cow on its last walk to the killing floor.

  “What did you take in college anyways? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  The air was cool and dry. Dusty. The shivers started up, the cold, achy, twitchy feeling at the small of her back radiating up and round her chest. She was so cold.

  “I’m guessing Computer Science? I have a niece who took that. Couldn’t land a job for the life of her. So I got her working here now. Someone’s secretary.”

  Laurel smiled and nodded her way down the corridor, but finally had to ask, “Are we in shipping and receiving?”

  “No,” he said, before going quiet.

  The sound of their footsteps echoed hard off the bare, gray concrete. It seemed to grow louder, throbbing into her head. Her heartbeat, too.

  26

  Laurel

  When they approached a ninety-degree bend at the end of the hall, Laurel slowed her pace.

  Mr. Smedley turned to her with a look of surprise on his face. “How did you know?” he asked, stopping her in the hallway.

  She didn’t know how to respond. Her hands had been clutching onto her bag, readying for it to be used as a weapon at any minute.

  “How did you know this was the door?” he said, pointing to a set of double swing doors with scuffed metal panels on the front. “We go through here.”

  She was guided through the doors and into an even darker parking garage, where she finally stood her ground, halting her progress altogether. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Oh, sorry.” He walked back to her. “I forgot to mention it. But we want to take you off-site, if that’s okay with you.”

  “It’s not.”

  He smiled with the warmth of an underst
anding, sympathetic father. It was so fucking creepy. “Why is it not okay, Laurel?”

  “Because we can talk here just fine.”

  “In the parking garage?”

  “No, upstairs.” She took a few backward steps into the swinging doors. “Can’t we? Why can’t we do it here in one of the hundreds of rooms ya’ll have here? What the heck, Smedley?”

  “I know,” he said. “It’s ridiculous. But we’re not equipped with polygraph machines here.”

  “What?”

  “Now, take it easy, Laurel.”

  “A lie-detector test?”

  A large white moving van revved up around the corner and sped toward them.

  “That’s part of our procedure,” Smedley said. “Part of your testimony. And we do it for your benefit, so now come on.” He chuckled and pointed to the van. “Come on, Laurel, this way. This van here will take us right up to the Office of Special Investigations. It’s just across the way, there.”

  The van came to a stop and she could see the driver. He turned his head and grinned at her. He was young, handsome. Dark sunglasses and good strong chin. Smedley made his way to the van’s side door and slid it open.

  “Come on now,” he said. “Come on, Laurel. Hop in.” Smedley turned to his driver and said, “Jimmy got everything set up over there already?”

  The driver said something while Smedley looked back at Laurel, his eyebrows arched. Eyes widened. “Eh? You ready? Come on.”

  When Laurel walked forward she felt the blood rushing out of her body. She was cold and empty, her movements twitchy and awkward. Her own legs, foreign. She brought the whole mess of herself, this uncertain, scared wreck of a human being, and schlepped it into the van without a thought. She couldn’t think. She wouldn’t let herself.

  “That a girl,” said Smedley. “Just a quick drive across town.”

  “Wait,” she said, her brain firing up again with anxieties and questions. “I thought you said it was across the road near the courthouse?”

  He hopped into the van after her, holding his tie to his chest as he hunched in and sat in a bucket seat. “Oh? I said that?”

  “All set?” the driver asked about two seconds before the van lurched forward and began speeding up the exit ramp, a long spiral that wrapped around several times before spitting them out into the harsh morning glare of Atlanta.

  Laurel turned to Mr. Smedley, her lips feeling stuck together, her mouth dry. “Shouldn’t I have a lawyer for this?”

  “For what?” Smedley chuckled. “For coming to us voluntarily and delivering information about a crime that someone else committed?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She hadn’t thought it through.

  She hadn’t expected the location change, the lie detector, the creepiness of her supposed protector.

  “Laurel,” he said softly. “We’ll take care of you.”

  Laurel settled into her seat, unsettled, one hand gripping her seatbelt and the other clawing into the side of her thigh. She glanced at the lock latch of the door, half expecting the knob to be missing and inoperable. And then she looked at Smedley, who had been smiling at her the whole time, his facial muscles flexed weakly and unnaturally.

  “Nice day, huh? After all that rain.”

  “Yeah,” she said softly. She looked away from him and out the window. They’d just taken a right hand turn away from the administration buildings. “Wait . . . I thought we were just skipping across to another building.”

  “We are,” he said.

  They pulled onto a quick and busy road, a feeder for one of Atlanta’s freeways. The hair rose on the back of her neck.

  The smile was gone from Mr. Smedley. “Of course if you feel uncomfortable for any reason . . .”

  “What?”

  “If you feel uncomfortable about this, we can just pull over. I mean, turn around and drop you off.”

  “Oh, uh . . .”

  “I just get the sense that you’re feeling . . . apprehensive . . .”

  It was an understatement. She was scared as hell and she wanted out. But as much as she wanted it, Laurel couldn’t say anything. She just couldn’t do anything but sit there.

  She was just being paranoid.

  The van shuddered over a row of potholes and then gained speed up the freeway’s on-ramp, the scenery beginning to whip by, the engine roaring.

  Shit.

  They were going so fast now.

  Everything had been going so fast, the situation speeding up and spiraling out of her control.

  She finally forced herself to say the words. “What’s going on?”

  Music suddenly filled the van, the driver reaching over and turning the knob. He turned the volume even higher as the van sped faster down the freeway.

  “Smedley,” she said, almost pleading.

  “It’s okay. We’re almost there.”

  “Almost where?”

  Over the music she heard the faint droning sound of a motorcycle. She instantly thought of Matthias, hoping it was him racing up alongside their van.

  Please be him. Please be Matt.

  Laurel looked across to the next lane, wanting so badly to see the Matthias’ signature black matte helmet floating by, maybe him turning his head and nodding to her. She waited for it, staring, hoping, until finally giving up and looking to the opposite lane, past the face of Mr. Smedley, to the floating fucking red helmet of someone she’d never fucking seen before.

  And then Smedley turned to her, grinning as if he knew, as if he’d just felt her little crushing defeat.

  “Where are we going?” she said over the music, over the stranger’s motorcycle. “What’s going on?!”

  The van began slowing down.

  “Sorry about this,” Smedley said, shrugging as if kidnapping was no big deal. “Tommy just wanted to avoid some construction. Figured we’d hop on the freeway for a second.”

  She stared at him, studying his weak, watery eyes. His power seemed to have diminished since leaving his fortress downtown. Could he have been telling the truth? The story seemed to change with every turn, every lane change.

  “I know it seems kinda strange,” he said. “Just getting on and off so quick and all.”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “You seem so rushed, Laurel. Did you have plans right after this? Will someone be missing you?”

  Images ran through her mind. Phone calls to a bloodstained phone, a full voice mail box of concerned friends and family. Matthias.

  “Laurel? Is the rest of your day clear for this? I guess I should have warned you.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “Not long. Depending on what you have to say.”

  “What if I say nothing?”

  Smedley sighed. “You came here to say nothing?”

  “What if I say pull over?” She glanced at the driver who continued driving as usual. And then Smedley, the greenish tinge to his face turning a little red. “Pull over and let me out,” she said.

  No response from either of them.

  “Do it.”

  Still no response. Smedley finally raised his hand to his chin, rubbing there, him looking deep in thought. What the fuck was he thinking about?

  Laurel shoved him. “Do it! Pull over!”

  Smedley looked surprised, his eyes glaring at her. “Now you play nice,” he said. “You calm down and play nice and we’ll—”

  “I said do it!” And then she shouted to the driver, telling him, for God’s sake, to pull the fuck over or she’d come up there and do it herself.

  “Okay,” Smedley said, waving his hands at her. “Okay little miss. Now you just calm down before someone gets hurt.”

  “You’ll get hurt.” She felt a growing nastiness inside her, the need to lash out and hurt someone. Smedley first.

  “I don’t want anyone getting hurt,” he said. “If you just calm down and listen to us, then everything will be fine.”

  She looked him hard in the eye. “Where are we going?
”

  “We were going to our field office. But since you’re acting so crazy—”

  “I want out now. Don’t drive me anywhere. Just stop and let me out.” Then she turned to the driver again, shouting for him even louder. “Stop, and let me out!”

  “Don’t stop,” Smedley told him. “Not here.”

  “Um,” said the driver. “Sir, we’ve got a problem.’

  “I know we do.”

  “Um . . .”

  “What?”

  “I think I have to stop.”

  “Why?”

  The van lurched to a sudden hard stop.

  A motorcycle stopped in front of the van, its rider flicking out the kickstand and walking toward the hood, and then around. The rider was wearing a black matte helmet. Before Laurel could even think about what that meant, the front passenger door opened. She craned her neck to look around the headrest, but still couldn’t see who had opened the door. But she knew right away from his voice.

  “Hi there.” It was Matthias, his voice sounding so wonderful and chipper and bright. “You wouldn’t happen to be transporting my client, would you?”

  “Sir? Should I drive on?”

  “No,” Smedley said. “No, you shouldn’t.”

  “What you should do is pull over,” Matthias said.

  “Sir?”

  “Who the hell are you?” Smedley asked.

  “I’m Laurel’s legal counsel.”

  “We’re her legal counsel. She came to us.”

  “She came to me first. Isn’t that right, Laurel?” Matthias stuck his head inside, his concerned yet confident expression having an immediate calming effect on her. Matt was here. She’d survive this.

  “Yes,” she said. “Thank you.” A wave of relief crashed over her, along with thankfulness. She no longer had to make the choice between paranoia and blind trust. She could just follow Matthias. She still wasn’t sure what his role in all this was, but he wasn’t going to kill her. At that moment, she’d follow him anywhere. Especially on the back of his bike, holding onto him.

  Was this really happening?

  Before anyone could say another word, she unstrapped her seat belt and swung out the side sliding door.

  Back in the van she heard the driver again ask, “Sir?”