Page 5 of The Grave Artist (Sanchez & Heron #2)

Carmen Sanchez wasn’t accustomed to her boss making leaps in logic, and this was a doozy.

Nobody’s ever seen anything like it before ...

Mouse’s words rang true.

Carmen glanced from Heron to Supervisory Special Agent Eric Williamson. “An international serial murderer called ‘the Honeymoon Killer’?”

She and Heron were seated at a small conference table in Williamson’s office, which offered a stellar view of the Long Beach docks, among the busiest in the world.

You could see a hundred or a thousand or a million of those massive cranes that the longshoremen deftly manipulated to move containers between trucks and ships.

“Apparently so,” said Williamson, a massive man who had the same physique now that he’d had as a star football player in college.

Always in a suit and tie, he’d allowed himself a slight indulgence given the anemic government-issue air-conditioning on this hot June day and rolled up the sleeves of his baby-blue shirt and told his tie knot: At ease.

With a frown, Heron said, “And we’re running it?”

Williamson grunted. “What, you wanted our first assignment to be an enemy-state-actor conspiracy to take over the White House with space lasers and paratroopers? A terrorist cell pumping cyanide into the LA drinking water?”

Carmen didn’t expect that exactly. Newly minted I-squared was meant to investigate alternative threats to national security. Williamson had developed the pilot program for situations that required some creative thinking to unearth them. But a homicidal wedding crasher?

“It was a coin toss, frankly. There’s another situation we’re keeping an eye on, but for now, our mission is HK.”

Carmen got it. “Honeymoon Killer. You come up with the name?”

“That was Declan.”

Figured. Declan could be creative in addition to analytical.

“He made the connection yesterday and I sent a notice to Main Justice. They want us to run this one because of an international connection.”

“Morning,” came a voice from the doorway.

Carmen turned as a solidly built man in a rumpled suit stepped into the office. His dark hair was a week late for a trim. An HSI visitor ID dangled from a lanyard around his neck and an LAPD gold shield decorated his belt.

She gave him a nod. “Hey.”

Frank Tandy was a well-regarded detective in the elite Homicide Special Section of the Robbery Homicide Division. His assignment there gave him free range to investigate cases citywide.

“Carmen.” His face broke into a broad smile as he looked her over. Then: “Eric.”

Williamson motioned Tandy toward an empty chair at the table before turning back to Carmen and Heron. “When I contacted LAPD about Declan’s catch—his possible catch—Frank here volunteered to be liaison.”

No surprise that he’d jump at the chance to work with I-squared, Carmen thought wryly.

She introduced him to Heron, who stood to shake his hand.

Williamson said, “What did the brass tell you, Frank?”

“Just that the fatality at the Hollywood Crest was probably a homicide and HSI was looking into an international angle. If it turns out to be a murder, we’ll run it task-forced with you. You Feds’ll be primary on any foreign stuff.”

After the detective took a seat, Williamson brought him up to speed on the Honeymoon Killer and then resumed his briefing. “Declan spotted two other similar incidents.”

Carmen asked, “Overseas?”

“Right. Now, on the surface they looked like accidents, but taken together, likely not.”

Heron gave his head a small shake. “Declan can be something of an alarmist.”

Carmen agreed.

“Who’s Declan?” Tandy asked, glancing back briefly into the HSI office and seeing no other agents lurking in the background.

As the “assistant” fell within Heron’s realm, he was the one who explained to Tandy.

Declan was not a time clock–punching employee of the federal government. The name was an acronym for Decoder-EnCoder Language-based AI Network. A large language model computer sophisticated enough to border on sentience, or so it, or he, seemed to feel.

She and Heron had worked with Declan to design an analytical tool called the Obscure Major Crimes Relationship Indexing System, which examined data in the US and around the world for anything suggesting incidents that were, or could be, threats to the country.

Declan scavenged data from every imaginable source, including law enforcement databases, traditional and social media, podcasts, online groups and chats and content creators.

“Looks like HK was the first fish he caught,” Heron concluded.

“So, three incidents,” Williamson said. “The groom who died this past Saturday on his wedding night at the Hollywood Crest Inn, just after the reception. A bride died in Verona, Italy, three weeks ago, and a groom in Florence four days after that. All three victims were knocked unconscious and drowned after they were married and about to begin their honeymoon.”

Carmen said, “With that MO, are we thinking our unsub is a man? Unless we find otherwise.”

They agreed a male was more likely.

Heron tapped the info into his ubiquitous tablet. It was like an iPad but had no brand name. He’d made it himself. He started a case board, like the one in the Garage, the wall monitor that described the Tristan Kane investigation.

“Are we sure they’re murders?” Carmen asked. “Couldn’t they be real slip and falls? Coincidences? Declan’s had some false positives.”

Williamson pursed his lips. “I wouldn’t have called you all in without good reason.”

And she regretted her comment, which, in truth, she hadn’t thought through. There was a secret lottery in the halls of HSI about who would be the first to catch Williamson making a mistake. The unclaimed year-old pot was over $500.

He continued, “After spotting the incidents, Declan ran a statistical analysis. He concluded there was a 96.5 percent chance they were intentional and related. I ordered a copy of the Italian police reports, but nothing’s come in yet.”

Tandy asked, “How did Declan learn about the deaths overseas?”

“Not from Europol or Interpol databases,” Williamson said. “Nothing there. He found stories in the news, social media.”

The same sources, Carmen knew, where agencies like the CIA and MI6 got the vast majority of their intelligence. Spies had a lot of subscriptions.

Williamson continued, “If this turns out to be part of the 3.5 percent chance that it’s a coincidence, you can get back to your hunt for Tristan Kane.

And, Frank, you get back to serving and protecting LA.

But if it’s a serial actor I want all hands on deck.

This’ll be a perfect chance to test-drive I-squared. ”

After hearing his assessment, Carmen agreed.

Williamson turned to Tandy. “Do you have any preliminary info on the incident?”

Whether a death is intentional or not, local cops have to run the scene.

“Afraid to report the ME treated the death as accidental,” Tandy said. “Just another selfie casualty. They happen more than you’d think. She released the body, which was immediately cremated.”

Carmen stifled a groan. There went that evidence. She could guess what had happened. “And since no one was aware a crime had been committed, nobody cordoned off the area where he died.”

“Nope,” Williamson confirmed.

Tandy was quick to reply. “I’ll declare it a crime scene and secure the perimeter.” He called his supervisor to request some uniforms to tape it off.

After four days, though, Carmen knew the scene would be contaminated to the point where it would produce no helpful trace or impression evidence. But this investigation was vital, and she would check all the boxes.

“Most of the guests are long gone,” Williamson went on. “But the widow is still in town. There’s a memorial this afternoon. You can interview her and anybody else who was at the hotel around the time of the death.”

Carmen’s heart went out to her. Imagine ... a bride and a widow. On the same day.

She said, “Security vids?”

“They’re being sent to Heron,” Williamson said, turning to him. “Maybe you can get a decent facial image.”

Heron said, “I’ll take a look as soon as I get them.”

Williamson looked thoughtful. “I don’t know what HK’s agenda is. But the fact he’s hit three times in under a month tells me he might be in an escalation phase.”

Then the big man fell silent and absently glanced at a cluster of family pictures on his desk: his handsome wife, a US attorney, and four sons, ranging from four to fifteen years old.

He sighed and addressed the group again.

“There’s something I haven’t mentioned yet.

A glitch. Detective Tandy, cover your ears.

I mean that figuratively, of course. You should hear this—but don’t repeat it. ”

The detective lifted a brow. “Ah, we’re treading through the minefield of politics, I have a feeling.”

Carmen didn’t like the sound of her boss’s comment, or the annoyed expression that went with it. She could guess the source of the irritation. “I’m assuming you mean Reynolds.”

Eric Williamson was well regarded, and usually didn’t have any issues running the Long Beach branch of the National Security Division on his own authority, with the singular exception of someone near the top.

Deputy Secretary Stan Reynolds, second-in-command of the Department of Homeland Security, made it a point to question nearly every decision Williamson made and seemed to look for opportunities to countermand him.

He nodded. “Reynolds read the memo on the three incidents I sent to Main Justice. He emailed me about it yesterday.”

“Hold on a sec,” Heron said. “When the servers were down?”

HSI’s Long Beach headquarters computer servers had been experiencing random shutdowns over the past two weeks.

They might have been typical glitches that occur in all large networks, or they might have been attacks, which were common against federal government systems. Heron—admittedly given to paranoia about such things—told Carmen he thought it was the latter but hadn’t found any proof.

“Afraid so,” Williamson muttered.

Heron closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “So he used the unsecured server.”

The one that HSI employees used to share recipes, jokes and reels about cats befriending turtles.

Eyes still closed, Heron asked, “Did it have your original copied?”

“Yep.”

“Shit.” Heron dropped his hand, lifted his tablet and began typing.

Seeing Tandy’s confused expression, Carmen explained: “The bottom line is, thanks to Reynolds, a good hacker could backdoor their way into HSI’s system. All of it.”

To Heron, Carmen knew, external emails were a serious PPI, or Point of Potential Intrusion, to be avoided at all costs. He called them “Ebola.”

He looked up. “I’ve just sent a bot to scour all our systems to check for incursions.”

“How soon will we know?” she asked.

“If nobody exploited the breach, hours. If they did and cloaked the script? Days. Or we may never find it.”

“What did Reynolds want?” she asked Williamson.

“To ride herd. Or shotgun. Or at least be kept in the loop. Or whatever other irritating bureaucratic cliché you want to use. Apparently, the groom who died Saturday, Anthony Brock, worked for the Government Accountability Office in Washington. Reynolds thinks he was killed because he had access to sensitive information.”

Tandy said, “GAO? Ninety-nine percent of what they do is public.”

Carmen added, “And Brock was young, so he probably wouldn’t be handling anything requiring a high level of clearance, not top secret, definitely.”

“I hear you,” Williamson told her. “I made some calls and you’re one hundred percent right.

He was a minion. Parks Department auditing.

But Reynolds loves his grand conspiracies.

And he also wants to know if the victims in Florence or Verona were connected to a government agency.

He said we should concentrate on the spy angle. ”

Carmen muttered, “You mean concentrate on the helping-my-career angle.” She said to Tandy, “Reynolds is the deputy director of Homeland, but he wants the number one slot. A while back, he filled in as acting director, but the Senate wouldn’t make it permanent and gave the top job to someone else.

He’s still licking his wounds.” She glanced back at Williamson.

“I have another cliché, sir: ‘feather in his cap’ if he catches that Russian spy he’s been after. ”

“He’s got one in particular?” Tandy asked.

“He does indeed. Sergei Ivanov. Has businesses around the world, but he’s based in DC. Mini oligarch.”

“And he’s a suspected Russian asset?” Tandy asked.

“Zero evidence,” Williamson said. “But that won’t stop Reynolds.” Then he addressed all three. “And before you ask, yes, he expects regular briefings.”

She cut her boss a look. “Peachy.”

Heron was more to the point, reprising his earlier sentiment. “Shit.”

“Navigate as best you can,” Williamson said. “I’ll run interference ... as best I can. That’s all I have for now.” His abrupt turn to his computer keyboard signified that the meeting had concluded.

The three left the office, walking down the hallway leading to the Garage.

Tandy had been to HSI—he and Carmen had run a few cases together—but not to the Garage, so Carmen showed him around, pointing out a workstation he could use.

He sat down and placed a call to Robbery Homicide to give his people an update.

She returned to her own desk and glanced at her computer screen, scrolling through messages.

She froze. And gasped.

Heron asked, “Sanchez? You okay?”

She continued to stare. “They sent it.”

He asked, “The file?”

“That’s right. Dios mío. ”

A file she’d gone to great lengths to find.

A file she half hoped would remain hidden forever.

A file whose contents would force Carmen Sanchez to relive the worst day of her life.