Page 19 of Echo, the Sniper (Men of PSI #2)

You’re Safe with Me

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Echo

I BARELY HAD ENOUGH time to text my boss, Cap Fogelmann that we were about to darken the doorstep of Warrington Coates before Rory and I were in his office.

It was a no-nonsense rectangular room, with semi-open blinds covering windows that looked out onto the parking lot.

The furniture wasn’t fancy but rather functional, with an air of government-issue that reminded me of every military officer’s digs I’d ever been in.

No doubt that had been the appeal for Warrington Coates.

It was entirely possible he didn’t even know business offices could look any other way.

As Rory sat in a simple padded seat facing Coates’s desk with me standing behind her in official bodyguard mode, I regarded the man opposite her.

Warrington Coates was the epitome of a military-based self-made man.

Coming from a lower middle-class background, he entered the military right out of high school.

He then wasted no time taking advantage of all the college-level courses the military offered, and he swiftly rose in rank.

By the time he retired at the age of forty, he’d gotten degrees in nursing and in medical administration.

More to the point, he’d made a name for himself within Veteran’s Administration as a man who knew how to get things done.

Quite a feat, considering the military’s legendary bureaucracy.

Once he’d retired, Coates took out a small business loan to start his medical supply business, and worked like a madman another fifteen years to build it into the national entity it was today. He had a wife and one grown kid who now attended West Point, ready to follow in dear old dad’s footsteps.

The similarities between Coates and my employer, at least from my point of view, were never-ending.

“I assure you, Mr. Coates, I know you’re a busy man, so I have no desire to waste your time.

I promise I’ll be on my way just as soon as I have all the answers I need.

” Rory sat with her jeans-clad legs crossed, her bandaged hand in her lap and her hair spilling around her shoulders like a shawl.

She looked more like a teenager than a grown woman, but I now knew better than to make the mistake of assuming she was nothing more than a child.

She was way too sharp for her own good. Knife-sharp. Razor-sharp.

Scary sharp.

Coates’s stern gaze slipped from her to me and back again. “Mrs. Grant, you have my deepest sympathy—”

“With all due respect, Mr. Coates, I came here looking for answers, not sympathy.”

He made the kind of how-dare-you face that told me he wasn’t used to being interrupted. “I don’t see how I can help you. I barely knew your husband.”

“You can help me by telling me who set up the meeting at the convention center, you or my husband. Then you can give me the names of all the people you told about that meeting. Then you can tell me why you went out that particular door, at that particular time, and where you parked that day. These are not difficult questions.”

“You’d be surprised,” Coates muttered, then shook his graying head. “With all due respect, it was six months ago. I have no idea where I parked, any more than I can remember where I parked in the grocery store parking lot yesterday. There were bigger things on my mind.”

“The grocery store is a place a person visits often, so it’s understandable you wouldn’t remember where you parked on any given day. Do you visit the convention center as many times as you visit the grocery store?”

The exasperation in the man’s sigh filled the room. “No. Mrs. Grant—”

“A man was murdered right in front of you on that particular day, another thing that probably doesn’t happen to you when you visit a grocery store, Mr. Coates, so forgive me if I find it difficult to believe you can’t remember where you parked.

But for the sake of expediency I’ll set that aside for now.

Why did you go out that particular door? ”

This time the glance Coates sent me was a direct plea for help.

I didn’t blink. For fuck’s sake, the man spent twenty years in the military.

I knew for a fact he’d been schooled in at least the basics of interrogation methods, because it was in his CV.

Fielding pointed questions from a woman less than half his age shouldn’t have had his nuts in this much of a twist.

Grow a fucking spine, asshole, and roll with it.

Eventually Coates realized I wasn’t going to ride to his rescue, so he looked back to Rory with tightly compressed lips. “Mrs. Grant, I wasn’t the one who chose to go out that door. Your husband did.”

“No. You were in the lead. You went out first.”

“You’re remembering wrong.”

“You wore an Armani Spring Collection suit in blue, a pale pink button-down shirt with collar stays, a paisley-patterned silk tie, and Magnanni Corey Oxford summer loafers. I’m not remembering wrong. Try again, please.”

I had to work at stifling a grin. At least she was polite while tearing him a new one.

The widening of his eyes told me Rory had caught him flat-footed—a cardinal sin that would have made Cap’s brain explode had he been there to witness it.

Then Coates eased back in his chair, his head tilting as he clearly took a second to reassess her as a worthy opponent rather than a vague irritation that needed to be dealt with.

Too fucking late on the uptake , I mentally chided him.

Dude should have picked up on the fact that she was a potential threat the moment she began asking uncomfortable questions.

“I was trying to be polite, because you seem like a nice person and I figured after that terrible day, you’ve been through enough,” Warrington Coates said at length, lacing his hands together.

“The fact is, I was trying to get away from your husband because he was the human equivalent of toxic waste. I didn’t pay attention to which door I went out of, Mrs. Grant.

I just wanted to get away before anyone saw us together. ”

She tilted her fair head. “If that’s the case, why did you agree to meet with him in such a public place?”

“It wasn’t a set meeting. We just ran into each other.”

She clicked her tongue, and I almost laughed at how Coates flinched. “Another lie. Even if I hadn’t seen your name written down on my husband’s calendar the day before he died, I still remember the exact words you said when you and Dane met. Do you?”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me.” His voice sounded like doom itself.

“You said, are you fucking serious? You want to do something like this in front of her?” She lifted a shoulder. “Sounds like you had expectations of a meet-up, and that Dane was supposed to meet with you alone.”

“That memory of yours is really something,” Coates muttered, and the unmistakable hostility of it had me stepping closer to Rory, my hands coming to rest on the back of her chair.

Watching him get blown up by her was my idea of fun.

But if he dared to get bitchy about it, we were going to have a problem.

“Look, I don’t know what to tell you, all right?

I didn’t kill your husband, and I didn’t set him up to be killed.

Digging into this is only going to get you into trouble.

That’s not a threat, that’s a genuine concern,” he added hastily, looking again to me as if he wanted me to validate his statement.

No dice, pal . “The plain fact is that your husband was not a good man, Mrs. Grant. The people he did business with... they are not good people, so it’s no surprise he came to a violent end. ”

“I’m well aware of that.” She held up her bandaged hand so he could get a good long look at it.

“I’m not digging into this because I’m a bored housewife, or I’ve been bitten by the armchair sleuthing bug and I want to make a podcast out of it.

Someone’s trying to kill me, and they nearly succeeded when they burned my house down with me in it. ”

“Holy shit.” Wide-eyed, Coates looked to me for confirmation, which he got with a faint nod.

“Look, here’s the truth. You’re right, I made the meeting with your husband before I knew the truth about his many legal problems. I’m embarrassed to admit it, because I didn’t do my due diligence in researching someone I was considering doing business with.

The only reason I honored the meeting was so I could tell him to his face that we wouldn’t be doing business together.

I was shocked he’d brought his wife along, because it was both unprofessional and, in my opinion, cowardly, like he’d hoped he could guilt-trip me into signing a contract with him because he was a hard-working husband, or whatever.

But I didn’t set him up to be killed, and I sure as hell didn’t try to kill you .

You’re barking up the wrong tree, lady.”

She made a sound that could have meant anything. “Who did you tell about the meeting?”

“No one, not even my wife. I have a reputation of being a solid, dependable businessman, so I wasn’t about to broadcast to the world that I was stupid enough to meet with someone who had multiple indictments hanging over his head. If anyone knew about our meeting, it didn’t come from me.”

“If all that is true, why lie so many times? In case you didn’t know, the problem with lies is that I now have no idea if you’re telling me the truth.”

“I am . And since there’s nothing more I can do or say to convince you otherwise, I’m afraid I’m going to have to put an end to this meeting. Once again, you have my condolences.”

“I suppose I should count myself lucky.” Rory shrugged as we headed toward the nondescript lobby, passing closed doors that led to offices with placards quietly announcing things like Medical Waste Solutions and Wholesale Scrubs .

“At least Coates didn’t say that if I wanted to talk to him again, I should do it through his attorney. ”